Racing certainty Leo will score a big political duck egg some day

You know the type.

He's an impressionable teenager overly keen to impress his more worldly-wise friends.

The one who always goes a little too far, who oversteps the boundaries and is always looking back at his friends to ensure they are noticing and fully embracing his antics. 
The one who is easily egged on.

And he’s likely to spin yarns that are clearly, at the very least, wildly exaggerated, or, at worst, plain untrue.

Or he's identifiable by the fawning behaviour, the over-enthusiastic attempts to please and to curry favour.

You know the type. You recognise the signs.

Imagine, now that he's in a position of power. Recently-installed (I nearly said recently-elected – but of course, that hasn't actually happened). We dispatch him to represent us to the richer neighbours next door who live in a famous old home. We have a bit of a complex about them really. A sort of love/hate relationship.

During his visit he gushes over a fictional character depicted as living in this famous old home in a movie that's remembered mostly for its kitsch awfulness.
In fact, he's Taoiseach Leo Varadkar and he's in Downing Street telling British Prime Minister Teresa May and the assembled media, with a childish excitement, of how he is "reminded of that famous scene in Love Actually where Hugh Grant was dancing down the stairs". 

It's all a bit squirmingly embarrassing, a sort of Fr Dougal Mcguire moment but we shrug our shoulders and move on. We're all entitled to a slip or two along the way. You can't make an omelette without breaking a few eggs.

We reckon, however, that it might, all things considered, be safer to keep him at home for a while and have others visit instead.

Imagine that we invite one of the coolest kids on the political block around. One who's managed to marry political sharpness with a modern feel. A world leader who seems uber-confident in his own skin and can carry off little fashion quirks whilst retaining his gravitas. Maybe, it'll rub off on our chap at home, we reckon

Now he's Leo Varadkar attempting to outflank Justin Trudeau with a pair of novelty Canadian maple leaf socks.

There's a laugh and a joke. But are we laughing at him or with him?

We begin to despair. But, look, sometimes in life you find yourself walking on egg shells.

Maybe, we should leave the travel and meetings to the older, more self-assured gentleman in the big house in the park. He seems to have patented the knack of combining earnestness with dignity when he's abroad.

But there's a big one coming up. 

Imagine, if you will, that’s it's the nation's birthday and we managed to score invites from some of the most powerful teens on the planet.

Strangely, we present the gifts on our own birthday; but it's just a little symbol of home really. That's all there is to it. Keep the head down, utter the usual birthday inanities, smile for the cameras. Get the name in lights for a while. And back home tout suite.

Now he's Leo Varadkar in America boasting of how eager he was to pull rank as a minister and attempt to sort out a bothersome planning issue that threatens to thwart Donald Trump.
He's telling a gathering of the great and good and the world's media that: “My assistant John Carroll said: 'There's a call. Donald Trump wants to speak to you. And I just thought this can't be the case. This is a piss-take by one of my staff members.

“Surely a business man like Donald Trump would write a letter first and we organise a meeting. But as well all know Donald Trump doesn't work like that. He's a very direct man. He likes to get things done.

“So at the other end of the phone was Donald Trump saying to me that he'd bought this resort in Ireland, in Co. Clare. This beautiful golf resort called Doonbeg. But there was a problem nearby. Somebody was trying to build a windfarm and that of course could have a real impact on tourism and the beauty of the landscape. So I endeavoured to do what I could do about it so I rang the county council and I enquired about the planning permission and subsequently the planning permission was declined.”

However, like all such tall tales, it doesn't stand up to even the most cursory of examinations, particularly when Clare County Council reported it had no record of any such ministerial call.

The story was reined in. Prevarications were issued. Details were confused. You know yourself. It could happen a bishop.

And we all just about moved on. Just about. Although you wonder if he has scrambled egg for brains.

Imagine now that the impressionable teenager has racked up a couple of more years' experience.

There's a bruising argument with the members of the local club. And they side with our increasingly assertive man over that richer neighbour next store. The one we have a love/hate relationship with.

He's more confident now, less nervously over-excited. There's no keeping him on the leash now.

And imagine he's back with one of the most powerful men on the planet. At a time when this other man's stock is at an all-time low. 

As is his wont, the other man is lashing out left, right and centre. At the most vulnerable, the marginalised and also those who ask questions, refuse to parrot the message.

Now he is Leo Varadkar. Telling a private gathering of top business people in the US that he sympathises with the other man and the troublesome media who refuse to row into line – just days after five journalists are murdered at work in a Maryland newsroom.

Imagine that all of these incidents are part of a trend. Imagine that one day our impressionable teenager simply has made one faux pas too many. Imagine that our fictional character finds himself increasingly isolated from his peers who, having rolled their eyes at his idiosyncratic ways for so long, realise that there's a line in the sand that can't be crossed.

Now, he's Leo Varadkar again. 

And unless he cops on to himself soon, somewhere along the line he'll find his political colleagues are no longer happy to wipe the egg from his face.