Me and my children

Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams is well known for keeping his private life, well, private

Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams is well known for keeping his private life, well, private. But last Monday in the Guardian he made an amazing revelation - "all of my children have been conceived in cars".

Adams was the subject in the Me and My Motor column. He doesn't have a car, he says, adding that the bugged one was a Mondeo, but he is mostly in a Vectra. Rather tongue-in-cheek, he talks about being driven around by a man called Eamon and how he sits in the front while his adviser, Richard McAuley, is always braking and accelerating on imaginary pedals in the back. "I just sit there petrified." "Who would you ideally like to have in the car with you?" "Colette, or Oscar, or Cara. One of those is my wife, the other two are my dogs."