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So what a week it's been. The government finally delivered the emergency budget it had only recently said it would never need. And the people of Ireland spent the following two days sending spreadsheets to each other to calculate the impact of the budget on their wallets. British politicians turn to porn videos to 'stimulate' the economy. And football got just a little bit crazier.

Before the 'Budget from Hell', as it's become known, the masses cried for Brainbox Brian to tax the fat cats, redress the imbalance in our tax base, remove the mindless incentives for development that created the property bubble and at the same time be fair. But as the eyes of the world watched on at the outcome in the Dail, our politicians were more interested in bickering about the procedural formalities of who is and isn't allowed to leave the building with the details of the budget before Brian Number Two is finished delivering it. Brainbox himself did indeed deliver a tough budget squeezing every demographic until the pips shot out. The masses cried foul as he chased down families like Munster players chase down a drop goal - axing benefits on children and relief on mortgages with gusto. And with whopping 9 per cent tax increases, the fat cats will be left driving their Chevies to the Levy till the Levy runs dry. Well, though levies might not be running dry here any time soon, they will be turning to stone, with the Special One announcing that he will crystalise them as permanent tax increases in the next budget. The other exciting news is that we're going to set up a bad bank (as if we don't have enough of them already!), to take toxic assets off the books of really bad banks. Sorry, not toxic assets - the government was at pains to describe them as 'distressed assets' - as they aren't quite that bad. Well, maybe it would be better if they were toxic. Then we could throw at them all of those useless out-of-date iodine tables the government sent us a few years ago and kill two birds with one stone! On the plus side, our dedication to shopping up North meant that the government couldn't increase tax on alcohol south of the border. Three cheers for inflation busting grog! Though there might not be much left to celebrate...

But it could be worse. Over in England, ministers are too busy spending taxpayers' money on porn videos to actually prevent a slide into depression. When they're not all gathered around the Adult channel watching Emmanuelle VII, they're sleeping on a couch over at their friends gaff in central London; all the time claiming it back in expenses at the end of every month. What a life! We should all get into politics! But it isn't all fun and games. Gordon Brown found out that despite his draconian 'terror' laws, all it takes is one careless moment for one of your top security officials to publicly flash the top secret details to country's most sensitive sting operations to make you look incompetent. And then hire a spin doctoring blogger to let the cat out of the bag that your party is dedicating its energy to digging up dirt on its political opponents as the country goes down the tubes.

But enough of the bad news and freakenomics, let's turn to sport. It's been a thoroughly entertaining week of Champions League action first leg matches - as long as you're not a Liverpool fan. Raffa Benitiz learned that telling your best players to tightly mark blades of grass isn't always the best idea at set pieces. Steven Gerrard wasn't amused by this. He was dreaming about what song he'd request in his local nightclub that night whilst some unheard of Chelsea player ghosted in to stick on in the Liverpool net. Twice! Raffa must have almost choked on his paella at the sight of it! Meanwhile Newcastle continued to sink lower and lower into the brutal quagmire that is the bottom three of the Premier League. As the fans looked forward to their 140th new manager this season, Alan Shearer's men looked on helplessly as Chelsea waltzed through their defence. Kevin Keegan has often been criticized for building a back line that is as permeable as his hair but he did splash out 10 million on a defender before exiting St. James earlier this season. Unfortunately that went on Fabricio Coloccini - a player who makes Titus Bramble look as composed as the pilot who landed on the Hudson River. Oh well, things can't be any harder in the next division down...

• OpinionPiece
• sport
• Ireland
• soccer
• politics
• budget