Happy New Year. Hopefully you’ve all settled back to work. The excesses of Christmas a fleeting memory until you try to get into that little black number. Oh dear. That’s one view.

Another is that the excesses of Christmas came to a shuddering stop when you were hit with the worst wheezing chest this side of Bethlehem. The bad news is I found myself in the latter. As I write, today is my first drug-free day since god knows when…

So how do you cope?

You watch box sets. In my case, I brushed up on my chemistry and am somewhere in the midst of series four of Breaking Bad. Like a good journalist I did have one eye on what was going on in the real world too. Foremost amongst the headlines was the funny Friday launch of #RebootingLucinda. I’ve got the name right, haven’t I?

As it was at the same time that the anti-biotics I was on were spinning out of control, so I didn’t really take much heed but I think the main points were:

• A fancy new hash-tag to get down with the kids;
• A catchy phrase;
• Lucinda pretending to do something, at last;
• Some minor county councillor so we could go ‘who’?;
• And last but by no means least Mr Eddie Hobbs

Sometime late on Friday night it came to me in a blinding flash of light. Eddie was playing the role of Breaking Bad’s Saul to Lucinda’s bemused client. Any tricky questions? Let Eddie handle it. He has the patter. He’ll bring us back to the heady noughties when he was our saviour. When in doubt, cry ‘CARTEL’. We can all feel intelligent in using a faintly technical word and ward off evil at the same time. You'll know what I mean if you listen to Eddie’s chat with Ivan on Breakfast this morning.

I hear people say ‘politics is about substance not personality’. The thing is I don’t see much, if any, substance. There was a vague promise that they’ll be back in three weeks with a big gang and, and, then our da will chase your da and then we’ll have something resembling a policy.

The one vague piece of political thought Lucinda shared was that she wanted an end to left-right politics in Ireland. Really? Now who was the last Marxist Taoiseach or right-wing President? Go on Lucinda, tell us, for a laugh.

The thing is we probably do need a traditional left-right re-alignment in Ireland. We need honesty. We don’t need a euphemism like ‘people before profit.’. If people want to stand as Marxists, let them. If people want to put forward more right-wing ideas, let them. Pretending we’ve been there and worn the T-shirt is a cop-out.

Show us the colour of your money Lucinda. Are you in the game? Is your product real good or will I be looking for a new cook in 2016?

I won’t be holding my breath.