Yesterday, RTEs John Murray Show, hosted by Kathryn Thomas, began with the following skit at the expense of former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi.
Lads, what do you make of the former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, he’s some buck. I nearly fell off my chair watching the news last night listening to it.
He’s lost his appeal against a four year conviction for fraudulent accounting at a media firm and apparently the 77 year old is too old to go to jail in Italy so he’s been banned from leaving the region of Lombardy.
He has an eleven pm curfew (laughter) and he has to do four hours community service a week in an old folks home. So I suppose he’ll be finally hanging out with people his own age.
Let me know what you think.
Clearly, RTE sees the Italian way of dealing with political corruption as hilarious.
Curioiusly, the station’s listeners don’t seem to share the same sense of humour. I listened to the show while doing something else but I’m pretty sure not a single response was read out in support of the skit.
In fact the item seems to have been dropped completely.
This is very unusual as there is almost always a big response to such invitations for humourous comment from the Irish public.
I suspect this was because the overwhelming reaction was similar to the email I sent in – which, of course, was not read out.
On Berlusconi:
Italy is generally seen as the most corrupt country in Europe and yet they have put a corrupt former Prime Minister through their court system showing that at least they are acting against even the most powerful.
The people of Ireland can only look on with envy and wonder if they will ever see their justice system make a Prime Minister or former Prime Minister accountable.
They would not be advised to hold their breadths
Anthony Sheridan
Cobh
Copy to:
John Murray Show
Have you heard about S. Berlusconi,
It turns out he’s a bit of a phoney.
If in Ireland he was,
He would earn big applause,
But he’s not, now he’s minding the lonely.
Lol:-)