Browned off at a delusional delay
Sunday November 04 2007
All is not well in Vincent Browne's world, or indeed his own head. The veteran crank's new TV3 show -- which had been due to start this week -- has been delayed until spring, and in his newspaper column he seems to be losing his grasp on recent history.
It only seems like a few weeks ago that the boys at Ballymount proudly announced that Browne was to have his own late-night show, a TV version of his long-standing but sadly no more radio show. The Ballymount boys declared that his acquisition illustrated the station's commitment to hard-hitting current affairs.
Amid rumour and speculation that he was heading to Newstalk -- after being axed by RTE 1 -- at the launch of its autumn schedule, we were told that from November 5 , Nightly News with Vincent Browne would be on the air.
It was smiles all round, backslaps galore at the swanky launch as the budding station toasted its new arrival.
Then, a few weeks later, came Vincent in training with a stint on bland breakfast show Ireland AM, where he had to familiarise himself with tales of yoga for the middle- aged and cranky, and topless barmaids in rural Ireland. The bemused look on his face when fielding such questions as, "So, what time does the bra come off?" was a sight to behold.
But now, the VB show won't be on our airwaves until January at the earliest. A TV3 spokeswoman couldn't provide Fifth Column with a definite start date. We understand that TV3 has been looking to hire two correspondents to work exclusively on the show, but delays have been experienced in filling the roles.
A number of the station's full and part-time reporters are known to be interested in the gig, but the appointment process to date has not gone smoothly, we believe.
So, it might be January or it might not. We'll wait and see.
Elsewhere, Fifth Column was taken aback by VB's weekly column in the Irish Times in which he appeared to have a massive lapse in memory.
His piece was written in support of the paper's publication of Taoiseach Bertie Ahern's finances last September and the subsequent destruction of those documents by Madam Editor Geraldine Kennedy and reporter Colm Keena.
But, Browne went on to say that "little was made of Bertie Ahern's finances" during the election. Sorry, what? Say that again. Bertie's finances had little to do with the election?
Er, did the issue not dominate the first week of the campaign, with several newspapers making much of Bertie's version of events? Don't we all remember Bertie's six seconds of silence when asked a question about his finances while out on the hustings on Mary Street in Dublin? Didn't Vincent Browne, yes the same Vincent Browne, grill the Taoiseach about his personal finances for 15 minutes at the Mansion House, with the entire country watching?
Maybe the pressures of the new TV gig have been getting to him.
Daniel McConnell
