Osama living it up with smugglers

An illegal worldwide trade in falcon eggs that was the domain of crooked biologists from rabidly capitalist new Russia is now run by countries and officials, said Parrot. The break-up of the USSR led to cartels running Russian birds of prey and eggs to Arab countries. The Arctic birds, with no immunity to desert pathogens, die, panting, within weeks.

Parrot and his cohort now recruit poachers to turn gamekeeper and felon-set the smugglers, sometimes hunting with them and setting up deals to buy from them.

"Bin Laden has not been living in Pakistan as claimed," Parrot told Moncrieff. "Our guy has had multiple meetings with him in Iran, and he's actually going falconry hunting with him since November 2004."

This isn't what the secret services of the West want to hear. When told, "they did pay attention, but it wasn't the kind of attention anybody would want. We had some very nasty threats."

> Gerry Ryan's life and death were picked over again all week, with phone-in hosts gingerly handling callers keen to gossip, while Ryan Tubridy pleaded for closure.

Gerry had to be helped to the shower in the morning. Living in terror as his finances crumbled and his personal life dissolved, while he sniffed cocaine cut with animal fluke medicine.

All those who loved Ryan are left holding the pieces of his broken life. That's drugs, in the end -- not the false joy, not the parties.

> FM104 Phoneshow got a flood of callers when they asked who hated their mothers-in-law. And oh, the jokes: "What do you do if you miss your mother-in-law? Load up and aim again."

Caller Darren said mother-in-law was an anagram of 'woman Hitler'.

Ken rang in. "Do you like your mother-in-law?" asked presenters Adrian Kennedy and Jeremy Dixon.

"Yeah, I love her."

"You see -- that's the kind of sap we don't want on the show."

And more: "I haven't spoken to my mother-in-law in 15 years -- I didn't dare interrupt her."

Honest, it was like an anthropological study. But you had to laugh.

Moncrieff, Newstalk, weekdays; FM104 Phoneshow, FM104, weekdays; The Tubridy Show, 2FM, weekdays