MINISTER Simon Coveney was chatting to Juan-Carlos Cappelli, head of marketing for Longines, at this week’s launch of Irish Champions Weekend in Dublin.

The Minister was intrigued to hear that Juan-Carlos learned to speak English in Cork. It wasn’t easy, explained the visitor: “Nobody could pronounce my name and when I tried to order Guinness they said they only had the local beer, so they used to call me John Murphy!”