The hurling season is over and as the football odyssey is about to draw to a close, we prepare for a winter beside the fire. Aside from the rugby world cup and our last-ditch qualification bid for the European cup, there is little left to stir the passions.

Except, of course, there’s the awful prospect of a general election, the thoughts of which would cause one to contemplate emigration or to develop an interest in the Eircom League.

For the next six months or so, we’ll all be bamboozled with promises, pledges and palaver. You can expect anything from proposals to increase the old age pension for all those over 105, to plans for the eradication of homelessness by putting a roof on Dublin.

We’ll be fed reams of statistics and ass-loads of projections about growth and expansion, while post offices, shops and petrol pumps are closing in every town and village that’s misfortunate enough to be more than a spit from the Pale.

And, of course, the laundry lists of achievements will be intoned like litanies as we are called on to “look at what we did that they couldn’t do”. Claim will be met with counter claim as one crowd tells us we’re in heaven and others tell us we’re in hell. The truth will be lost somewhere in between as the people of wet Ireland struggle to survive in limbo or purgatory.

I was telling you a few weeks ago about The Larch Kennedy, a local windbag who considers himself to be God’s gift to the nation. The full title he gives himself is Lawrence Chesterfield Kennedy, a concoction that’s only partly accurate.

He was once known as Lar Kennedy, but of course his mother called him Lawrence. He added the Chesterfield bit to give himself a bit of substance and the locals amalgamated the various versions of his handle, so he is now known as The Larch.

The hoor has me pestered for advice, support and endorsement, but it would do me more harm than good to be in any way associated with him. He hasn’t a clue.

As I told you already, he arrived one morning and, aside from his self-importance and his capacity for eating boiled eggs, I saw nothing to recommend him to the people. In fact, he is the sort of politician we could do without, the kind we have too many of – the kind who want to get elected simply to be elected.

In fairness to The Larch, if he was sent off to Dáil Eireann his consumption of boiled eggs would bring a lift to egg producers in or near the capital.

I have gone to extraordinary lengths to avoid the auld windbag since he last ate his way through my supply of eggs, but I hear he’s been dropping my name around the place and claiming that he has my full support.

That wasn’t too bad until he went on De Sticks FM, our local radio station, with Willy De Wig Ryan, who is our pale version of Joe Duffy, Miriam O’Callaghan and Marian Finnucane.

On the programme, The Larch rambled on about the refugee crisis in Greece, the election of Jeremy Corbyn in the UK and the “wonderful” campaign being run by Donald Trump in America.

De Wig tried and tried again to get him to talk about local issues, but he insisted on flying off around the world. Eventually, De Wig asked him what he had to say to the people of Teerawadra whose main road linking them to Clonmel was washed away in the recent rains and is only passable by tractor or jeep.

“This is a minor local issue that I shall bring to the attention of my councillor, Maurice Hickey. He’s good at little jobs like this, I’ll get him to attend to it immediately.”

I was listening at home and nearly lost my reason. I tried and tried to phone the station, but when I eventually got through the show was nearly over.

“I’ll pass on your message,” the lady on reception promised me.

As the show finished, De Wig said: “I see there’s a message in from Councillor Maurice Hickey. I’m sure he’s promising he’ll be on the job in Teerawadra as soon as he can. In the meantime, the best of luck to his colleague, mentor and Dáil candidate, Lawrence Chesterfield Kennedy.”

I had no choice but to publicly disassociate myself from the windbag. I went on radio with De Wig the following morning to make sure there was no confusion. Using the pretext of calling for repairs to the road in Teerwaradra, I put clear distance between the Larch and myself.

“Well,” says De Wig. “I suppose that clarifies things, indeed we can now say we have The Larch in the clear air.”