There was no end to the biographical detail supplied by Carr Communications this week in a press release marking the publication of a new book, How To Get What You Want, an informal guide to good negotiation, by one of its directors, Tom Savage.

Among the notes was one relating to Mr Savage's period as a Catholic priest when, according to Carr, he never toed the line and at a time when the Church disapproved absolutely of cremation, scattered the ashes of a woman on Slieve Gullion.

Unfortunately, however, he failed to check which way the wind was blowing and ended up with the ashes all over him and in the turn-ups of his trousers. "You can't really brush a man's mother off you like dandruff while he's watching," Mr Savage recalls.