CurrentAccount: RTÉ has just seen the rights to televise Formula 1 racing depart at tyre-burning speed to the pit of its smaller rival, Setanta Sports.
In a story that didn't get much coverage outside the sports pages, Setanta announced this week that it had won the Irish rights to screen Formula 1 for three years, beginning with the Melbourne Grand Prix on March 6th next.
Formula 1 is one of the most keenly followed sports globally, and the Republic's audiences are no exception. It has been a staple of RTÉ's sports coverage at weekends during spring and summer.
A further advantage to the State broadcaster is the time races took place at, which mean transmissions frequently slot in neatly before key football and hurling championship games, virtually guaranteeing the station a strong, mainly young, sports audience for a large part of the day.
Having won the F1 rights, however, Setanta may not have it all its own way. The station is a free bonus channel on the basic NTL package, but is a subscription option on both Sky Digital and Chorus Digital. Formula 1 coverage is also available on ITV, which is a free carry on most services.
This may not be a major drawback for the young pretender, as the Scottish Premier League has given it the backbone of a decent sports portfolio. Like the original Setanta, the TV channel is beginning shape up as something of a giant killer.
It can't be often that Socialist Party TD, Mr Joe Higgins, finds himself in agreement with the group he might describe as the nation's fat cats, but it seems this was the week for surprises.
Hot on the heels of Mr Higgins expressing disbelief at the Taoiseach's "embrace of socialism", the State's top 500 business names did exactly the same thing.
When asked to vote at Wednesday's CEO Forum on whether Mr Ahern was, in fact, a socialist, a cool 65.2 per cent of chief executives said "No". It was a verdict of landslide proportions.
Unfortunately, the anonymous vote made it difficult to work out which of the attendees disagreed with the majority by believing in the Taoiseach's socialist stance.
One voter whose view would have been of particular interest was Aer Lingus chief executive, Mr Willie Walsh, who allowed himself a little knowing smile as he exercised his franchise.
Mr Donal Flinn, one of the State's foremost accountants, died this week. He was the first managing partner of Coopers & Lybrand in the Republic when Peterson Morrison, Kean & Company and Kevans merged and joined the C&L family to become the second-largest practice in the State.
Mr Flinn was a former president of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in Ireland and, post-C&L, moved on to directorships. He was chairman of Smurfit DelaRue and of the Irish Press plc when it was flourishing. He was also a long-time director of Aer Lingus.
As part owner of a garage chain, he was also keen on cars and maintained in pristine condition a sky-blue Mercedes coupé which recently passed its 30th birthday; registration number 2200 ZH.
Mr Flinn's death notice, published last Wednesday, slipped an advertisement in at the end: '2200 ZH now available, suitable applicants only'.
E-mail users inundated with "spam" messages have reason to hope Microsoft will develop better tools for tackling the problem. Apparently Bill Gates is suffering more than anyone.
Gates, chairman of Microsoft, gets four million emails a day and is probably the most "spammed" person in the world - at least that's the opinion of chief executive Steve Ballmer.
The disclosure is likely to bring a wry smile to the faces of countless internet users fighting their way through a daily diet of emails touting everything from aphrodisiacs to home loans, which are estimated to account for more than 80 per cent of the traffic over the internet.
However, only a few junk emails gets through to Gates's inbox thanks to anti-spam technology that filters his messages, Ballmer said at a Microsoft event in Singapore. If only the same were true of Microsoft's other customers.
