A glance at the week that was
Golden boy
There were some strange goings on at the Olympics this week. The Spanish basketball team came in for some heavy criticism after the players posed with "slitty eyes" for an ad campaign. And Irish swimmer Melanie Nocher had to stop during her 200m freestyle heat and adjust her goggles. What next? An Irish swimmer has his trunks ripped off by bullies during a semi-final? But the big news remained Michael Phelps (right). The US swimmer has now won more gold medals than any previous Olympian. And one of them came while wearing leaky goggles. "Eat, sleep and swim, that's all I do," said Phelps, who consumes 12,000 calories a day. It must seem worth it now.
Living proof
Let's all move to Roscommon, where people live longer than anywhere else in the country. Institute of Public Health in Ireland research shows that life expectancy at birth for Co Roscommon men is almost 77 years and just over 82 years for women.
Co Leitrim has the lowest life expectancy for men, and Co Limerick the lowest for women. But what about Roscommon women who have moved to Limerick? What about those who live on the Roscommon-Leitrim border?
And those of you who joke that it only feels as if the years go by slower in Roscommon are not funny.
We now know
• Bertie Ahernis to present RTÉ's The Road to Croker with Des Cahill.
• Personal spendingby Irish consumers increased by 9.4 per cent to €91.58 billion in 2007, according to CSO figures.
• Facebookhas overtaken MySpace to become the world's most popular social networking site.
The numbers
$8,000
The amount an Ohio man paid for a truck, all of it in coins. It took staff 90 minutes to count them.
€205m
The amount the Irish spent on bottled water in 2007.
9
The number of A1 grades achieved by Killarney Leaving Cert student Orla Houlihan.