The Last Straw/Frank McNally: Reading a report about drug scandals in pigeon racing the other day, I couldn't but feel grateful that the sport is not yet part of the Olympics. Otherwise - nothing surer - we'd have won the gold medal in Athens.
And no sooner would we have had we had the triumphant homecoming ceremony at Dublin Airport, with the winner arriving on a special flight (followed by an aircraft carrying his handler), than the doping rumours would start. Later, a grave-faced Charlie Bird would announce the positive test result on the Six One News, and the nation would try to console itself with humorous reflections on the aptness of the RTÉ reporter's surname. But another little piece of our innocence would be gone forever.
Luckily, as I say, the Olympics have still not embraced this sport, because according to the Wall Street Journal Europe (WSJE), pigeon racing in these parts is now taking place "under a cloud". Where else would it take place, you ask. But the cloud referred to is of course drugs.
In Belgium, where the sport is popular, scores of birds have tested positive since a crackdown in 1995. And this summer, Britain's Royal Pigeon Racing Association - which has members on this island - had to introduce random testing after a series of suspiciously improved performances.
In one incident in May, the WSJE reports, a top pigeon went missing during a race from France to England. Even world-class long-distance pigeons tend to have a maximum range of 800 km. So when the bird turned up in Canada - 5,000 km away - eyebrows were raised.
His owner protested that the pigeon could not have made such a trip, even on drugs. An alternative explanation was that, after hitting bad weather over the English Channel, the bird had taken refuge on a passing ship. But this and other incidents have provoked suspicion that the sport is about as clean as the head of a statue in Trafalgar Square. And with big money at stake both in prizes and breeding - a leading stud pigeon can sell for more than €200,000 - the temptations are obvious.
Unlike show-jumping, there is no such phenomenon as a "hot" pigeon (except in restaurants, obviously), so the use of sedatives is not the problem. Drugs range from muscle-building anabolic steroids to corticosteroids, which delay moulting and allow pigeons to train harder and longer into the season. Another difference between pigeon racing and show-jumping is that, for technical reasons, it's difficult to collect urine samples. Droppings are tested instead and, interestingly, sent to an equine laboratory in South Africa.
You can just imagine the shenanigans that would have gone on had an Irish pigeon won in Athens. If anything, given the nature of the samples, the story would be even messier than the Waterford Crystal affair. Not even the prospect of some entertaining headlines - "Bird Refuses to Identify Source of Droppings Leak" etc. - would compensate. All in all, I think we had a lucky escape.
LIKE MOST IRISH people, I was proud this week to learn that Ireland is the best country in the world to live in. This would surely have been an excuse for a triumphant home-coming ceremony, if we weren't already here. But as well as feeling proud, I was uneasy.
The Economist survey was essentially a happiness index, and drew at least in some small part from opinion polls and life-satisfaction surveys. Already there are rumours that the Irish people were on something when they claimed to be happy. Next week, a grave-faced Charlie Bird will probably announce that Ireland was found to have high levels of a sedative (named unofficially as "drink") in its system at the time the surveys were compiled. Then we'll be stripped of the top ranking, Switzerland will be promoted to the gold medal position, and we'll be the laughing stock of the world again.
Finally, more bad news from Britain this week, with the Star reporting that a shopping chain has withdrawn thousands of copies of a Christmas DVD by the Irish Tenor Trio after one of the disks was found to contain a porno movie.
A customer who bought a copy of A Classic Irish Christmas, was understandably surprised to find X-rated sex scenes instead. Even at the dizzying speed with which Ireland is changing, the customer suspected something was wrong, and took it back to the shop.
Accidental contamination or a mix-up of disks and disk-holders is suspected, and no doubt the chain in question will have replacement copies of the DVD on sale in time for Christmas.
I'm sure I speak for everyone when I say that I just hope the B-sample will not test positive.