Is it me?

What a laugh to hear that 6 Govt ministers were stuck in a lift at Government Buildings for about 40 minutes yesterday. Those involved were Mary Harney, Mary Coughlan, Mary Hanafin, Brian Cowan, Noel Dempsey and Dermot Ahern.

Messrs Hanafin, Dempsey and Ahern are all fairly slim, Mary Coughlan is fairly large and Mary Harney and Biffo Cowan could both be described as Heavyweights - perhaps even qualifying for the super-heavyweight division.

Being overweight (ok, fat) myself and having been caught in lift situations - either it refuses to leave the level you boarded at or gets stuck between floors - I know what goes through the mind of the heavier occupants in those circumstances. A sneaky look at the wall plate, installed in every lift, which details the maximum occupancy - expressed both in number of people and total weight e.g. 12 people, 1,000 Kg.

You then do a quick, silent count of the number of bodies with you in the lift and whether they look light, average or heavy. Then your mind forms the question that you don’t want to consider: “is it me?”

Poor Mary Harney must have had an embarrassing time in that lift yesterday. For she certainly wasn’t the only one in there wondering if it was her.