Ireland has 18 MEPs, 15 in the Republic and three in the North. Right? Wrong. There is a 19th. He lives in Abbey Street, Howth and is Danish Eurosceptic Jens Okking. An actor and writer, he has lived in Ireland for four years. "I was in love with an Irish girl but I was a Protestant and in the Royal Danish navy, so I wasn't very popular in Wexford. I lost the girl but found Ireland."
Okking realises his election means less time in Howth as his constituents in Denmark must be kept informed. His interests are journalism, writing, gastromony, fishing, arts and the concerns of the elderly, so travelling around suits him.
A member of the Anti-EU Movement, he admitted recently that when he got to Strasbourg he might find that it wasn't so bad after all. This week he told Quidnunc it was worse than he expected. "It is so big; power is frightening; and there's the chaos. We have not made a perfect democracy with five million people. How can you do better with 380 million?"