Sunday, November 2, 2008

Mind your language

My favourite news story this weekend.. Those automatic 'out of office' replies aren't worth the effort!

Broadcast News

Back on the radio yesterday after a 2 week break. We've had a pretty good run of shows since I came on-board permanently in June but I've been away for the last 2 weeks and Alf's been 'driving the desk' (if you'll excuse a bit of radio-speak!) on her own. I missed it. I made a comment yesterday about how I had been experiencing the same withdrawl symptoms that rocks stars do when they're not on tour and have nowhere to go at 9pm every night. I suppose I was joking but there was a little bit of truth in it. At noon for the last two weeks I've found myself driving down country roads wondering how Alf was getting on and hoping there was plenty of news in the paper for her to talk about..

Yesterday there was tonnes of news to pour over. In fact we only had one guest to talk to and still we only played 3 songs in the whole show.. That's a good sign. The shows when we play 5 or 6 songs are the ones where you know we've struggled. Between the news in the papers and the news during the week we got a good 30 minutes out of it all. Of course the big story up for discussion was the Brand/Ross fiasco which conveniently Alf and I had differing opinions on. My view is that if Russell Brand and the head of Radio 2 Lesley Douglas resigned then there was only one course of action that Jonathan Ross could have taken. Alf disagreed so we had a little bit of a ding-dong. All very light-hearted of course but it got us over the half hour mark..

The rest of the show was an interview with Damian Smith who's co-written a book about the Beatles' Irish connections. It makes such a difference when you've got a guest on the show who is: a) actually in the studio and not on the phone; and b) able to string a few sentences together. This chap met all our criteria and it meant we were able to have a pretty good chat that zipped along pleasantly. And play some Beatles music along the way.

It's always surprising when we come out of the studio having done a pretty good show. It's like we're afraid to congratulate each other for fear of jinxing ourselves. Next week will probably be a dog but for now, I think we're getting better..

Now if I could just get David who's on air before us to stop telling listeners that 'the girls' are on after him . He's a lovely chap but I've been doing the show for almost 5 months and I wish he'd stop it! Still - we wouldn't mind his listeners. Actually we wouldn't mind some listeners. God knows where they go but i don't think they're listening to us. Maybe we should start playing more Tony Bennett and Rosemary Clooney.

You'll find us at 103.2 FM every Saturday at noon.

Friday, October 31, 2008

Tuesday, October 28, 2008

Word of the day.

I was talking to my mother earlier. She went to the horse races at Leopardstown yesterday and was telling me about her day. At one point she was talking about the cold weather and, having attemptd to describe the wind, she corrected herself by saying: 'if that's not a moxy-oron'.

I think moxy-oron is my new favourite word.

Perhaps when I call her again next month she'll have another new word for me!

I had no idea

All this technology and information is all well and good but how come I can't remember my phone number or the PIN code for my Laser card? Will all of this make us any smarter? I'm saying probably not.

What's in Al Green's bag?

I went to see Al Green in Vicar Street on Sunday night. I'd never seen him before and I've got to say that it was a very surreal experience. He's great, of course, but there's so much showbiz onstage that sometimes you just wish he'd just sing the damn songs.. And he has a really strange habit of smiling and waving during the songs. So he's singing something heartbreaking like 'How Can You Mend a Broken Heart' and stopping mid verse to wave and flash his pearly-white gnashers. Bizarre. Although in fairness everyone was lapping it up so Al clearly knows what he's doing. Wish he'd done more from his new album though. I'm thinking it's one of the year's best records.

Anyway at the end of the gig (no encore from Al, by the way, and no Take Me to the River either) Al threw out the last of his roses to the ladies in the audience, smiled his dazzling smile one more time and picked up a black shoulder bag and left the stage. My question: what's in Al green's shoulder bag? Is he one of those old guys who insists on being paid for cash before going on stage or was he going straight to the gym afterwards? Maybe he'd come to the venue straight from the airport and hadn't been to the hotel.. I'd love to know..

I hate old people

Went down to the Science Gallery in Trinity College on Friday night to take part in their 'PAY ATTENTION' event. The Gallery is one of my favourite new places to go at the moment. They had a brilliant Robots exhibition a few weeks ago and now they're running a series of events where members of the public call in and take part in Brain research.. There's a series of tests to determine why we think the way we do, why we forget things as soon as we've been told them, whether we're morning or evening people and lots of other stuff..

Anyway, I took a test to determine my attitudes towards old people and it turns out that I have a strong bias against them! The tests involved placing words into various categories. So I started out with words like mature & teen and categories like 'old' & 'young'. Easy enough, right? Then it got a bit more complicated as words like ugly, peace, love and anger were introduced and needed to be categorised as well. It's all fairly rapid so you don't really have time to think about what you're doing. I guess that's how they tap into our subconscious. I'm not sure it wasn't entrapment!

At the end they added up my results and told me that I have a strong bias towards old people. The chap doing the tests reminded me that I'm not a bad person (thanks!) but I've been conditioned to think that old is worse than young. He said that it's not necessarily my fault (tv, advertisers etc etc) and there's nothing I could do about it. But then he told me that in future I should bear it in mind. I'm not sure how I'm supposed to do that.. Saying that, given that I recently moved into the 35-54 category whenever I'm ticking my age in application forms, it's probably likely that my bias against old people will correct itself naturally!

Friday, October 24, 2008

A literally literary evening

To the Button Factory on Monday night for a poetry reading. That’s right - a poetry reading. Felix Dennis, publishing millionaire, raconteur, establishment riler, the first person to use the rudest word in the English language on tv, reformed(ish) hell-raiser and, in recent years, critically lauded poet was in town for a date on his ‘Did I Mention the Free Food and Wine’ tour.

I’ve never been too sure about poetry. I’ve got some of Roger McGough’s books at home. He’s good. And Paul Durcan too, although that’s a little harder to get my head around. And I’ve always enjoyed Ian McMillan whenever he’s guested on Mark Radcliffe’s radio show. I even bought one of his books (Ideas Have Legs) once but that was because of the pictures as much as the words. I suppose the idea of a poetry reading has always conjured up images of men in tweed jackets, stroking their beards and nodding in agreement with whatever pearl of wisdom was being rhymed out in front of them. Exactly my kind of scene, in other words!

Felix Dennis
first came to my attention in one of the first issues of The Word magazine. Possibly the very first actually. Anyway, he was interviewed for one of their ‘Word to the Wise’ features and I thought he sounded like a great old punter. Opinionated, boozy, outrageous and not afraid to show off a more sensitive or introspective side to his character. Not afraid of ridicule either which, I think, is one of the better personality traits to have.. I remember visiting his website and reading some of his poetry at the time and liking them. They were a bit salty and lusty and used big words and swear words. Racy stuff. Never bought any of his books though.

So on Monday night he was in town for his gig in the spruced up Button Factory. Here’s how his poetry readings go: you get inside and there’s loads of fine French wines laid out for your pleasure. Large glasses filled not quite to the brim - but close enough.. Waiter types roam around the place with tasty canapes. The usual stuff - things on cocktails sticks, little salmon nibbly things. Lovely stuff. So for an hour or so we stood around eating and drinking and stroking our beards waiting for the show to begin. And then we took our seats. And then, after a ridiculous, over the top intro from one of Felix' little runners, it began.

What was it like? Well, good - I think. What makes poetry good or bad? Several glasses of red wine make everything good so that helps, I suppose. What else though? Are we supposed to appreciate the meter (metre?) of the poems? He talked a lot about free verse and structured verse but I don’t know what all that means. Are we supposed to appreciate the ones that rhyme more than the others? Or is poetry that rhymes inferior to the other kind? I’ve got no idea. In the end it came down to just liking the subjects he was reading about, I suppose. So I really liked the ones about his family, himself, his relationships etc, and the ones about business, politicans and war I didn’t enjoy as much. I laughed at the funny ones and pondered the reflective ones and the rest of the time I just let it wash over me.

I loved the performance though. For some poems he stood at a lectern and, as he read, plasma screens displayed images and movies with the words of the poem at the top. Actually the words were usually displayed a line after he spoke it. So you couldn’t read along I suppose. Anyway when he wasn’t standing at the lectern, he came out and read the poems as he walked along the stage. I guess he was a bit more physical and theatrical for these ones. A short hairy bear of a man with a large belly and a bright yellow waistcoat. I don’t really know what the motivation for the different presentation styles was but I suppose it broke things up a bit.

If I was to criticise the event though I’d say that the interval knocked a bit of momentum out of the occasion (that’s if you can have momentum at a poetry reading). By the time the second half began, it’s probably true to say that some of the audience had had a little too much free wine. Quite often, as Felix would begin to introduce a poem, various audience members started to heckle him. Seriously, who heckles at a poetry reading? Maybe it happens all the time. This was my first one though and I was a little shocked to think that people could behave that way. Ok - so he was talking about legalising drugs and other ‘shocking’ things like that but still.. I mean the event was ticketed - you couldn’t just walk in off the street so presumably most people there knew what he was like. Either way, all of the shouting was a little cringey. His response to most heckles was to ignore them. It worked most of the time apart from one chap in the front row who seemed to bear some kind of grudge. In the end he got up and walked out shouting about something or other being disgraceful. Perhaps he didn’t get enough of the canapes.

In the end I’d almost say that he almost outstayed his welcome. Harsh perhaps, given his hospitality, but I guess there’s such a thing as too much poetry. Although he finished his encore (an encore at a poetry reading!) with a nice little poem about how, despite what a lot of newspapers and tv shows tell us, everything will be better again. Easy for him to say I suppose but a nice sentiment to end on. And then he jumped in his Bentley which drove him to his helicopter which flew him back to his mansion in Warwickshire. I daresay he was in bed before we got to the pub. But that's ok - if I was a millionaire with a fondness for publishing my own poetry, I'd like to think I'd be doing the same sort of thing. Spend a bit of money to get an audience in and then make them listen to your work.

I bought his latest book, Homeless in my Heart for 15 quid. All the proceeds go to his charity and I thought it was a decent night’s entertainment for 15 bob. And it's a good book - I've looked at it a bit since Monday and am enjoying it very much.

Here's my current favourite Felix Dennis poem. I pinched it from his site and I'm posting it here because, as he said the other night, there's nothing he can do to stop me. And because it's great.

Snakeskin Boots

I remember the hill and the sun in her hair,
I remember the moss on a tombstone seat,
With the grass as tall as a mad march hare.
I remember she kicked the shoes off her feet.

I remember her calling me 'daft as a brush',
And the taste of the orange she helped to peel.
I remember she mocked my feeble moustache
And my snakeskin boots with their Cuban heel.

I remember the lids of her eyes as we kissed,
I remember the shock of a gentle slap
As she hissed 'Not here!' and circled my wrist
When I fumbled the catch of her brassiere strap.

I remember it rained as we raced for a fuck
To my room. I remember we tore off our clothes -
Except for my boot where the zip had stuck!
And her poached-egg breasts, I remember those.

I remember we tumbled both half insane
On the bed, and the arch of her back as I came.
I remember we did it again and again,
And we screamed...
...but I cannot remember her name.

What's wrong with this picture?

Not much, actually.

I popped down to the local multiplex the other night to see Burn After Reading, the Coen Brothers' latest, and much anticipated, film. Despite all the praise they get, I've never really been able to love a lot of their films - particularly their recent work. I really liked Fargo and No Country For Old Men, obviously, which was great and deserved all the awards and acclaim that it received earlier this year. Of course, No Country was an adaptation of a novel so perhaps that explains why it had a narrative that managed to stay the course without disappearing up the sort of blind alleys that were so evident in the likes of Intolerable Cruelty, O Brother Where Art Thou and The Man Who Wasn't There. And I know everybody loves The Big Lebowski but I just found it a bit tedious after a while.

Anyway, it's been odd reading the reviews of Burn after Reading. Apart from one or two that suggested that the Coens are treading water at the moment, the reviews have been mostly negative. I don't get it. I suppose there's a certain smugness about the film. Everyone involved seem rather pleased with themselves. George Clooney and Brad Pitt both get to act like a pair of idiots and Frances McDormand and John Malkovich are given the chance to play unlikeable characters and swear a lot. There's a lot of swearing in Burn After Reading but swearing's ok, isn't it?

The plot? Well this may be the problem.. Essentially it's a good old-fashioned espionage/blackmail/revenge thriller. It's got spies behaving like fools and fools trying to behave like spies. There's lots of infidelity and casual sex. There's lots of loneliness and pathos too as everything spirals out of control. It starts with John Malkovich's character, Osbourne Cox, getting fired by the CIA. He feels he (literally) has an axe to grind so he decides to write a tell-all memoir about the Agency. However, the disc he's saved it onto falls into the hands of a pair of gym trainers, Brad Pitt and Frances McDormand, who cluelessly attempt to blackmail him. When that fails, they decide to take it to the Russians. And then it all kicks off. George Clooney gurns and mumbles away humorously (or annoyingly, depending on your mood) as an adulterous, paranoid Treasury Agent who's having an affair with Tilda Swinton. She's married to Malkovich's character but not for much longer.. You'll also find Richard Jenkins in there as the owner of the gym, Hardbodies, that Brad and Frances work in.

I suppose it's all very slight, yet quite complicated at the same time but it's funny. And shocking. And a little violent too. And it zips along and is done in a little over 90 minutes. So what's not to love? Even if it doesn't make sense to you there's a couple of great cameos from JK Simmons (him out of Spiderman) and David Rasche (him out of Sledgehammer) as clueless CIA bosses trying to figure out all the chaos that's going on round them. They pop up once or twice to explain to themselves (and the audience) what's going on. The film ends with the two of them summarising what's just happened and I reckon it's probably the funniest couple of minutes I'll see in the cinema this year. Funnier than anything in Tropic Thunder anyway

So, it's funny, exciting, violent (but not too violent) and has a great cast. So why have the critics almost unanimously taken a shovel to it? Perhaps because it's not Fargo or No Country For Old Men. Fair enough but what else is? It's still very good and, make no mistake, if this was directed by anyone else it would be hailed as one of the year's best..

And I haven't even mentioned what George Clooney spends most of the film building in his basement!

Friday, October 17, 2008

Seemed like a good idea at the time


This is possibly the worst product-celebrity tie-in I've ever come across. Spotted on this thread over at The Word..Hindsight is everything I suppose..

Breaking up is easy to do

I spotted this fantastic business card for a divorce lawyer on The Serif.. It's such a simple, funny idea that I'm pinching it and putting it here. I love a nice perforation!

Tuesday, October 14, 2008

This is a low.

More great work from Montrose..

I was watching RTE's Nine News last night but didn't want to post until I could find the clip. I think it's probably fair to say that RTE news has been lowering the bar gradually over the last few years. If it's not Charlie Bird doing everything he can to make himself bigger than whatever story he's covering, it's George Lee standing outside Dail Éireann repeating what the newsreader has just told us and adding nothing to the story. I'm not saying these guys aren't talented journalists (I'm not saying they are either) but someone in the RTE News Department seems to have mistaken having someone talking outside an important building with actual news.

And then there's the gimmicks. They love a good gimmick. Which leads us to last night's fiasco. David Murphy, RTE's Business Correspondent was reporting on the weekend's meeting in Paris of EU leaders trying to get to grips with the financial crisis. The report was fine - essentially Murphy was speaking over footage of leaders
announcing various rescue solutions and the markets taking a turn in the right direction. Then we cut to Murphy in a dark room holding a wad of notes and a wallet. He told us that with oil prices falling and interest rates going down, there might be good news for all of us. However as he speculated that today's budget might see us lose out again, a mysterious hand appeared from nowhere and took 50 quid from his wallet. Murphy finished the report by with a comical glance in the direction of the thieving hand.. And went home and cried. Possibly.

You can watch it here. It's the third item on the list and comes right at the end of the report.

Really, can they not just give us the news and leave the fun stuff for the kids? I'm sure we can all take it.

Monday, October 13, 2008

Raw. What is it good for?

..Absolutely nothing.

I'm watching the last episode of Raw, RTE's big-budget, big-balled series set in a Dublin restaurant. I've dipped in and out of it and while it's rather watchable, it's completely forgettable and just plain unbelievable. I've known a few chef types in my time and although the cliched image of stressed out boys and girls boozing and snorting seems to have more than a sliver of truth to it, these guys are off the scale.

Here's a quick review of Raw:

Sex! Pills! Egos! Lesbians! Booze! Shouting! Coke! Cheating! Gays! FULL FRONTAL GAYS!! More sex!. Oh - and lots of shots of people chopping veg and shouting orders. Because someone's seen that on Hells Kitchen.

And there's been some really bizarre music choices. I don't know how they come up with it. It's not that the music's bad - it's just that it doesn't work. This week's episode which was all about a wedding in the restaurant. There's just been a scene on the dancefloor with the guests slow-dancing to Leonard Cohen's 'A Thousand Kisses Deep'. It's a great song (listen to it here and try to dance to it) but I can't imagine any song less likely to be played at a wedding.. Before it ended, the DJ interrupted it to play Beyonce's Crazy in Love, which is obviously a huge improvement for a dancefloor but, again, can you imagine any 2 songs less likely to sit side by side in any DJ's imagination? Such a bizarre choice.

Oh - and there's a character in the show called 'Tiny'. He's played by a huge bouncer/comedian/actor character that works the door at the Dice Bar. Anyway, Tiny doesn't speak in the show, It's a funny quirk the writer's have given him. Except it's not very funny is it? And now he's just spoken. So the conceit really serves no purpose. He won a bet with a colleague which gave the writers a chance to let him speak. And what are his only words in the entire series? "I told you so". You see it's really funny cos, in fact, he never told anyone anything. Ooh - they must've been pleased with that one. That's not very good really is it? I mean they're trying to be clever and all but, well..

Look - Raw hasn't been rubbish. It looked great and the Dublin exteriors were great. Most of it was shot around Camden Street and it's nice to see that neighbourhood all scrubbed up for tht tv. But it they're going to go to all that trouble, wouldn't you think they'd spend a bit more time on the old scripts? And a little less time cooking up a few old cliches for us to swallow.

RTE have probably already commissioned a second series.

Don't ask..

I walked in to the door again..

Tuesday, September 23, 2008

Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young. And Streep

So I finally got the chance to see Mamma Mia the other night. It turned out to be the first part of a musical double header because as soon as it ended (not soon enough), I ran down to the new, fantastic Lighthouse cinema in Smithfield to see CSNY:Deja Vu, Neil Young's documentary on his 2006 Living with War tour with his old muckers, Crosby, Stills and Nash.

Mamma Mia.. Let's begin by saying that it's every bit as bad as you've heard. Badly written, barely directed, terrible sets - sure, the Greek island exteriors look amazing but anytime we're indoors, the lighting (to quote Antony Lane) would disgrace a bathroom and behind the actors, out the windows, you could see perfect blue skies that could only have been painted cardboard.

You probably know the story - 20 year old girl lives on the island with her mother (Meryl Streep) and is getting married. She wants to invite the father she never knew to her wedding but she's not sure who it might be so she takes a chance (chance-takea-chance-takea-takea- chance-chance) on 3 blokes that Meryl shacked up with 20 years ago. In 1988, presumably. The fact that the photos of each of the guys back then portray them as hippies and punk rockers goes unnoticed. The 3 lads arrive on the island not realising why they're there. Pierce Brosnan is a frustrated artist/architec type (I think he's an artist - he works in an office with men in suits but he wears jeans so he's definitely not a typical suit type. And he talks about 'drawing the whole island that summer' at one point), Colin Firth is an uptight city banker and Stellan Skarsgård is a sailor free-spirit type. They fumble around, meet their possible daughter and it all kicks off..

And boy does it kick off. No opportunity is missed to throw an ABBA song at every scene.. Which is fine - I love ABBA. So, when our bride-to-be is telling her 2 annoying, shrill, you really wouldn't want to be sitting anywhere near them on the bus best friends about inviting her possible fathers, they run around singing Honey Honey. When Meryl is complaining to her 2 annoying, shrill, you wouldn't want to be sitting anywhere near them on the bus best friends about her money worries, she runs around singsing Money Money Money. Are you getting it? When Colin Firth is telling the boys about that summer he spent with Meryl, he sings Our Last Summer. And on and on. And on. Oh - and on some more... All the way to Meryl singing The Winner Takes It All at Pierce Brosnan. At him, not to him. Meryl slips into some kind of method-acting madness as she delivers it - I'm guessing it's supposed to be the emotional highpoint of the piece. That's one way of putting it. Pierce looks at her with the tortured expression of a man who knows he's done a bad thing but if he stands still and says nothing, maybe nobody will notice.. Of course at that stage Pierce has already taken a shovel to SOS and the damage has all been done..

In fairness I like Pierce Brosnan and I enjoyed his doomed attempts at singing/shouting/grunting. At the best of times he can't really talk so expecting him to sing 'When All is Said and Done' is a bit much. I suppose it's predictable that I'd say the men come out of it far better than the women. They do, but that's not saying much. Colin Firth is Colin Firth except, I think, his character is gay. The film ends with him dancing in a rain shower with another man and they've both taken off their shirts. Definitely gay, so. Stellan Skarsgård tries his best to stay out of trouble until right at the end when Julie Walters decides she wants a bit of him and chases him around the room singing Take a Chance on Me. In the end Stellan gives in to Julie. But you get the impression that he's only doing it for a quiet life and he'll be on his boat and sailing as far away as possible come first light. We've all been there.

The woman, on the other hand, are just a shrieking mess.. Julie Walters is one of Meryl's mates and she does that annoying Julie Walters thing. You know the one.. I like Julie Walters but, God, she's annoying when she's on auto-pilot. And then there's Christine Baranski who, in fairness, can sing and can dance. The reason you know this is because while everyone else's song and dance scenes usually rapidly descend into some kind of schmozzle where everyone is falling on top of each other, with lots of cutaways to allow the actors to draw breath, Christine gets her own showpiece in the middle where she dances around the beach with a handsome, much younger chap who wants to 'carry on where they left off last night' Because she's so foxy, you see? He's dying for some more.. Seriously, have you seen Christine Baranski? She's a lovely woman, I'm sure and not unattractive in her day, but talk about an unlikely couple.. Anyway, she's very good at the old dancing and as they flew around the beach singing Does Your Mother Woman Know, I had to concede that at least she could sing so I could take my hands off my ears and enjoy her performance. Safe in the knowledge that Pierce and the girls would be back soon murder a few more classics..

Look, it's Mamma Mia. If you haven't seen it you probably don't want to.. If you have, you probably loved it. I didn't love it but I can't bring myself to say that I hated it either. As someone said, it's like going to your child's school play and realising that Meryl Streep and Pierce Brosnan are in your kid's class. And that nobody's in charge of anyone. It's cringey and hammy and really annoying at times but you know, it's not too long, the island looks nice and, most importantly, ABBA's songs are just indestructible. I mean, they've been subjected to some awful treatment at the hands of the cast but still they come out ok. A little bruised perhaps but they'll be fine!

Here's the best bits. You don't need anymore.



And then there was Deja Vu. So in 2006, Neil Young decides he's sick of the war, sick of George Bush and sick of waiting for someone younger to come along and write some protest songs and cause a bit of trouble. So he goes into the studio, knocks out a record of (it has to be said) fairly average songs including Living with War and Let's Impeach the President, and decides to tour with David Crosby, Graham Nash and Steven Stills to y'know promote peace or some shit..

They invite veteran reporter Mike Cerne, who served in Vietnam and reported from Iraq, along for the ride so that he can show us both sides of the argument as the band leave the comfort of the more liberal east coast and head towards the heartlands where the folks are quite happy with Bush and have no problem living with war. To its credit, the documentary doesn't shy away from showing the reaction of the crowd when CSNY start singing 'Let's Impeach The President' and encourage the audience to sing along. Needless to say there wasn't much peace, love or understanding in the room. It's all in there though and the protesters are given their opportunity to say what they think.. A nice bit of balance I suppose. Even if they're all a bunch of crazy gun-loving lunatics. Whoops - they're goes the balance!

It's a fascinating film. There's so much history between the band that their drama alone makes for a great story. Throw in the war footage and the accounts from various servicemen and women who've been in Iraq and it all adds up to a potent mixture. Sure, it loses its way in the second half but there's lots of ideas and opinions to take in and it's worth seeing if only for the moment when Steven Stills, who like David Crosby really isn't bearing up very well after 40 years of rock and roll, falls over on stage. He doesn't see the cables in all the light and tumbles over while the band play on. He just sits there playing - a bemused womble-like creature in a garish Hawaiian shirt.

Of course, being rock stars there's plenty of opportunity for them to muse on war and peace and generally spout hippie idealism.. At one point somebody talks about how once upon a time you expected to hear protest songs on the radio but now it's frowned upon to criticise governments. Would a song like Ohio get on the radio in 2008? Probably not. A good point for sure, and Neil Young's thoughts on whether a song can change anything suggest a bit of critical self-analysis. It turns out they can't but he's going to carry on anyway. Oh.

The only major clanger is when one of them (not sure which but I don't think it was Neil Young and Graham Nash hasn't lost his Manchester accent so let's assume it was Crosby or Stills) talks about how the band got together back when other guys their age were being sent to Vietnam. He says something along the lines of: "Y'know - it's crazy - we started at about the same time they were starting out and now 40 years later, we're all still going". Well maybe so lads, but I'm guessing the fellas in Vietnam have had a tougher time of getting through the last 40 years than CSNY ever did..

Still - it's a small complaint I suppose. There's nothing new in the film really and it doesn't come up with any new insights. It all boils down to - "War is hell, George Bush is bad but a lot of people are ok with it so what are you going to do?"

Sing and dance, I suppose.. It's what Meryl & Pierce would want..

Monday, September 22, 2008

Confused Men Today

Last week, The Irish Times were making a lot of hay out of their 'Men Today Poll', according to them, the most in-depth look into the health, wealth and sex lives of Irish men today.. Indeed.. I skipped most of it on the basis that I don't really care about the health and wealth of my fellow countrymen and I'm not really sure that you can get much out of these kinds of polls anyway apart from filling a lot of space in a broadsheet..

Anyway, I was killing time on Friday night and picked up a copy of the paper to read while I waited.. And the results of the poll were a little confusing.

Here's the first question about sex and morality:
Compared to 20 years ago, do you think that attitudes towards sex have changed?
Much more liberal 73%
A little more liberal 19%
Have not changed much 5%
A little more conservative 0%
Much more conservative 1% (wouldn't you love to know what this chap was getting up to in the '80s?!


Anyway, that's all fair enough and probably not very surprising. But the next question blew the whole thing wide open:

Do you personally think that it is:
A good thing: 51%
A bad thing: 25%
Neither: 25%


My question here is who are we talking to? Is that question directed at the 73% who thing things are a lot more liberal or the 1% who think that things are a lot more conservative? Surely this questions is redundant and tells us nothing.. As do the next handful of questions that all stem from the answer to the question that precedes it: If it's a good thing it's better for men or women; if it's a bad thing do you think it's worse for men or women etc..

So know we're 4 of 5 questions in to the most in-depth poll on what men think ever conducted in Ireland and we can only take information from one of the questions. And, let's be honest we already know the answer to that one.

Later on it asks whether or not people polled agreed that the political system in Ireland is better at supporting men.
17% agreed
50% disagreed
32% didn't know.


On its own, that's good information.. Then things got confusing with the next question which asked whether they agreed that the political system in Ireland is better at supporting women. I would've thought that the first question answered the second too. In other words, if 17% think the system is better for men and 32% don't know, doesn't that mean 51% think the system is better for woman? Nope it doesn't..

In actual fact the response to the comment that the political system in Ireland is better at supporting women got this response.
35% agreed
31% disagreed
34% didn't know.


How can that be? How could more people not know the answer to the second question that the first? What's the matter with these people? Am I missing something obvious here? And how come nobody asked me?

I know it seems like I'm nitpicking (hey - I never even mentioned the amount of percentages that don't add up to 100%) but if something is being heralded as lifting the lid on what modern Irishmen do and think then don't you agree that the information it reveals should be a little clearer?

Agree
Disagree
Don't Know
Other

Boring

We had the pleasure of babysitting a couple of youngsters at the weekend and in an attempt to provide them with some distraction from SpongeBob, X Factor, eating and generally knocking lumps out of each other, we took them to the fantastic ArtBots exhibition in the Science Gallery..

As you'd imagine, there was lots of cool stuff there to entertain/bore all the adults/children but I'm saying the highlights were: a little contraption that demonstrated how to transform light into sound using eggshells; a Jackson Pollock-inspired 'live painting' that splattered different colours on a canvas depending on the noise in the room - a high pitched squeal led to purple paint being tossed onto the artwork, a low murmur was orange, and so on; A hand held oval thing about the size of a teapot that tilted in your hands to tell you what direction you should walk in. You could instruct it from your laptop where you wanted to go and it would tilt you all the way there. That's what they said anyway. It's not like we could really test it.

But for sheer amusement and relatability (because, as interesting as most of the stuff was, some of it just didn't make practical sense to a lot of punters - or to this punter anyway) the best thing at ArtBots was a robot that could solve a Rubek's Cube in less than a half minute or so. You'd take the cube, mix it up as much as you want and hand it to the robot. The robot picked it up, looked at each side and then solved it. The longest it took was 31 seconds. The fastest was about 10.

We stood and watched it with the kids for about 5 minutes during which time it must have done the puzzle 4 or 5 times. At the end, we asked one of them what she thought of it. Her only comment? "I thought the cube was going to bigger".

Seriously, who'd have them?!

Thursday, September 18, 2008

Sunday, September 14, 2008

Exposures

More Fringe activity yesterday.. We went into town to take part in Exposures, a sort of photographic treasure hunt around the streets of Temple Bar..

It started at 1.30 at the Box Office where we were given an orange envelope and told to go around the corner where we'd receive more information. When we got there we were met by a woman dressed in old clothes and covered in sparkling, silver body paint. She spoke to Helen for a moment about the old days and the crazy things they got up to in the past. It seemed that we were playing a character who used to rule Dublin but had been chased out of the city. We were given a bunch of photographs with writing on them and a disposable camera and we were told we'd 2 hours to complete the task. Our job was to go around the city taking photographs to match the words on the pictures. So one picture said something like:'Tonight's the night, let's take a walk on the wild side'. Another said: 'Be careful - he's in disguise. He could be anyone'. So we had to imagine things around town that we could photograph which might match up to the text. And all of it is some attempt to put together the pieces of who we were in a former life.

I know it all sounds a bit odd but it was terrific. Once you accepted that there was no right or wrong answer and the whole thing was really just an excuse to take some pictures and get creative, it all fell made more sense. Part of the instructions were written on letterheads and business cards. The idea was you'd go to a business where someone would give yo a clue as to what your past was. So for instance, there was a card for a barbers shop that said we had to go there to meet Terrence. We got there and the barber sat Helen sat in the chair and went off to find Terrence. Suddenly a guy who was sitting in the salon reading a newspaper jumped up, ran over to us and told us that we needed to go before they found us. He gave us a clue (which said 'show us where you hid the body') and ran us out of the shop. All of this happened while other punters sat there waiting to have their hair cut. So then we had to go and take a picture of where we might have hid a body in Temple Bar. Ridiculous and a bit strange but, again, if you let yourself fall into it, it was a great laugh. They're were more instructions like that. We went into the ifi where a girl came over to us, told su we shouldn't have come and led us out through a back door. She stuck another piece of paper in our hand that said 'Show us a childhood memory' so off we went to take a picture of some kind of imagined memory from the city.

I don't know if I'm making Exposures sound good or not. But it was. I should say that the reason we were taking photos is that lots of people will be doing the same thing and at the end of the Festival there'll be an exhibition of all the photographs. So basically, there'll be lots of different versions of the same story. Dozens of photographic interpretations of instructions like 'We're at the point of no return' and 'show us where you lost your mind'.

When we finished the task, we brought our camera to another silvery chap in Meeting House Square. He told us to open our orange envelope which contained a jigsaw piece with writing on it and to take it to local pub where everything would become clear. So off we went to the pub where we found a bunch of people with the jigsaw on the table. We added our piece to the puzzle and read what we could of all the pieces but of course, none of it made sense. It was more stuff about how 'once we ruled the streets but after that fateful night we were chased through the park and nobody could tell if the sounds we made were screams or laughter'.

Now I know it all sounds a bit arty and a bit amateur drama and, I suppose in a sense, it was. But as I've said before, it's the Fringe Festival. It's where people with a bit of an idea and some silver paint can get out on the street and make something happen. You might think it's a bit strange and it certainly isn't theatre as we know it but everyday, normal punters are getting out on the streets, being shouted at in hair salons and cinema foyers, imagining a different world and taking pictures of what they've seen. And if that isn't theatre or art I don't know what is.

The exhibition is next weekend and I'm looking forward to seeing what everyone else has done. Maybe we'll find out what it all means but I'm guessing that's not going to happen.

No pressure, Theo

I couldn't sleep this morning so I cane downstairs and found myself watching BBC's repeat of last night's Match of the Day. When I was a kid I was a big football fan but I don't ever get to watch much football anymore so it was a bit of a treat to catch some highlights. One of the featured games was Arsenal victory against Blackburn.

In the aftermath of Theo Walcott's 3 goals for England during the week, Hansen and Linekar were assessing the teenager's performance. He didn't score yesterday and he didn't score in his previous game against Newcastle (I just checked - he was on the bench and came on after 72 minutes). Anyway, Hansen was banging on about how spectacular Walcott is and what a great talent and hope for England and blah blah blah...

At one point he said something like 'We talked about him after the Fulham game (I checked - Arsenal lost to Fulham on August 23rd) and questioned whether or not he was good enough for this level but since then he's gone from strength to strength'

Strength to strength? He's played 2 and a bit games since Alan Hansen was saying he wasn't good enough and now he's England's saviour? I assume if he doesn't score for a couple of games he'll be rubbish again. It's tough at the top.

What ever happened to lying and cheating?

There's an ad on the radio at the moment for an insurance company or a bank that promises great rates or dividends to whoever takes up their latest offer. At the end of the ad, the voiceover tell us: 'Trust me, you don't want to miss this offer'.

Trust you? A stranger's voice on a radio ad selling insurance? Sure - where do I sign?

Has you noticed that suddenly everybody wants to be trusted? In an attempt to display some kind of authority, we've all started adding 'Trust Me' to the beginning of sentences/ Some recent examples I've heard..

'Trust me - you'll love the new Batman film'
'Trust me - I know what funny is'
'Trust me - you can totally get away with that shirt'

It's not what they're saying that annoys me - if someone wants to recommend a film, that's fine. But this trust thing is getting out of hand.. You're giving me an opinion but don't start thinking that sticking 'Trust Me' at the start of a sentence makes me feel any more or less inclined to believe you. It's come right on the back of everybody's need for full transparency and honesty with all things. There was a time people were happy to take others at face value. Now, most of us can't get through a sentence without reminding us that they're not telling any porkies. And it's not as if they're revealing anything interesting about themselves:

'Well, I was going to go to Batman tonight, but to be honest, I went to Mamma Mia instead'

'To be honest, I'm going to drink vodka tonight'

'I'm just not sure what I want to order, to be honest'

Sometimes people get it right though. Here's something that a colleague said to me the other day: 'I told my husband I'd visit his parents at the weekend but, to be honest, I can't stand his mother's cooking so I'm going to pretend to be sick.'

There you go - that's more like it. There's a scenario with an expected outcome but I was being let in on a lie that others aren't aware of. So there's a need for a bit of honesty there. Well done her.. Although, at the same time, she should be ashamed of herself! I mean how ban can his mother's cooking be?

I dunno really what my point is. Except that I'd like everybody to give up all the pointless trusting and honesty. Cos it's driving me crazy. To be honest.

Friday, September 12, 2008

Round She Goes

As I said earlier, I went to see Round She Goes, featuring the delightful Amy G and her equally delightful double bass player John, tonight in the Bosco Theatre. And what an odd thing it was.

Amy spent most of the show skating around the stage singing and playing a ukelele while her deadpan bassist watched from the side adding occasional vocals and frequent nods and gestures to proceedings. I've read that she was one of the highlights of La Clique at last year's Festival so she came back this year with her own show in a much smaller venue literally in the shadow of the more glamourous Spiegeltent. So while she was performing her show, the audience could hear all the noise and whooping from the show she used to be in 50 yards away. To say it was distracting is a bit of an understatement. At times it was hard to hear what was going on in fornt of us with all the noise from next door. Still, as she told us, she's not bitter.. Better to be a big fish in a small pond and all that.

But here's the problem with small theatre spaces. When you're seeing someone performing a show at such close quarters, it's hard not to cringe for them. It's the same feeling people sometimes get at the theatre. You're reminded of the ludicrousness of what you're watching. Sure - at the big shows like La Clique, the crowd are pumped up and ready to applaud pretty much anything but in a smaller venue, the audience is a lot more reserved and the performer has to work extra hard to get a reaction. I'm not complaining about the audience - after all I was in it so I'm as much to blame as anyone else, but it seems the closer you are to the act the more distant you become. And that must be dispiriting for someone trying to sing and tell jokes and generally engage a crowd.

Saying that, there comes a point that you've got to put away your cringe factor and just enjoy the performance for what it is. I mean, the songs weren't great, and the comedy wasn't anything special but she had talent, energy and she showed a lot of determination in front of a pretty quiet bunch of punters.. Sometimes a little charm goes a long way. On the plus side, she has a a fantastic voice, could dance pretty well on skates and was prepared to let us see how unpolished it all was. I like shows where it's not obvious where the laughs are. That's not to say it wasn't funny. It often was but she was confident enough to just let the comedy find us slowly. And sometimes it didn't find us at all which is where all the tension lay. I love to see a performer working in those greyish areas. It's a lot more interesting that watching an established stand-up in Vicar Street where the's no need for the performer to work very hard at all. Tonight, there was a lot of talk about how our imperfections make us perfect and while it'd be easy to dismiss that as the performer's lame attempt to justify a poor show, I'm not sure there isn't something to it. This isn't the Theatre Festival after all - it's the Fringe. If artists can't stage a half-baked musical show wearing rollerskates at the Fringe Festival, where can they do it? And surely it's important that they do it.

By the end, the crowd had, I think, let go of themselves and opened up to what she was trying to do and while we weren't exactly screaming for more, I've got to say that I'd go and see her again if she had a new show.

And yes, she played (or maybe she didn't) America the Beautiful on a kazoo. That's all I'm saying. Look it up on youtube. In a way I wish she hadn't. The act she had just done was so energetic and pleasing that an encore performance really wasn't necessary. Still - well done Amy G and John the bass player. They'll probably be off now to another festival and another small room full of people confused and bewildered by what they're doing..

What a strange life it must be..

Thursday, September 11, 2008

Fringe

I'm off to see Round She Goes in The Secret Garden tonight. It's our second thing we're going to after the fabulous La Clique last Friday night. Hoping to see another few before it all ends next week.

La Clique was terrific. It's kind of a camp acrobatic freak show of a circus type affair with a little bit or eroticism (naked lady!) and a few hula-hoops thrown in for good measure. Not to mention Captain Frodo the double-jointed rubber man who can squeeze, bend and snap his body through a 10inch tennis racket.. A sight to see. And then there's the hunky guy in Levis jeans and a bath tub who flies around the room. You should go..

Anyway, I'm told that Amy G does unspeakable things with a kazoo in Round She Goes. I hope it's as entertaining as I've been told. I'll report back tomorrow.

Morning in America

I've recently discovered this fantastic website. It's an archive of every US presidential election tv commercial from 1952 - 2004. I'm a nut for this kind of thing. The one above which attempts to discredit Spiro Agnew's nomination is at times funny, shocking and, in a way, frustrating. Agnew ran as VP on the Nixon ticket in 68 & 72. He ended up resigning in 73, a year before Nixon's ignominious departure and the two of them never spoke again. You could run the same ad today about one of the current VP candidates.

I've watched a bunch of them and it's hard to pick a favourite but I've got a soft spot for this one. It's probably one of the most famous ads too although I'd never seen it until recently. I'd heard the expression 'Morning in America' used witheringly in episodes of the West Wing and never really got it. Watching this and knowing what was really happening at the time, it all starts to make sense.. Still - what a great clip - as a romantic ideal it's hard to beat. You can see why it worked. When I was 12 this is what I thought America was like. Paperboys, station wagons, white picket fences and smiling faces everywhere.. It's not really like that, is it?

Friday, August 29, 2008

He's here to save us!

I think the AP are pushing the 'Obama as saviour' thing a bit much with this image from last night's Convention speech. That's a grand healthy glow coming off of him.

Incidentally isn't all this talk of the 'rapturous reception' he got last night a bit redundant? I mean, he was standing in front of 70,000 Democrats at the end of a week in which they'd constantly been talking him up. What kind of reception did the press expect him to get? Put him in front of a football field of Republicans in Texas and let's see how he gets on.

Still - his speech was terrific. Apparently his head speechwriter, Jon Favreau, is only 26. Impressive. I could've done that when I was 26 too.. It's just that nobody asked me.

Thursday, August 28, 2008

How was the film?

A couple of nights ago, with some spare time to kill and a bottle of wine to enjoy, we settled down to watch a dvd. Our options were one of the free 'Days That Shook The World' DVDs that the Sunday Times have been giving away over the last few weeks (possibly the only free DVD in a newspaper that I've even felt compelled to watch) or Amelie.

Helen had never seen Amelie before, so given the choice of watching 2 documentaries about the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand and the last days of the Second World War or Amelie, which tells the story of a shy waitress who decides to change the lives of those around her for the better, while struggling with her own isolation.

We managed about 75 minutes of it before Helen's fidgeting and sighing led me to ask her if she was enjoying the film, which, let's not forget is one of the most popular films of the last 10 years.. Surprisingly she wasn't. In fact after telling me that she found her annoying, vindictive and for all her do-gooding, an annoying little wagon, she uttered the following line: "I'd rather watch Hitler than Amelie".

I don't think I've ever heard a criticism of a film that was so far removed from the general consenus.

On reflection, I think she could well be right.

Breaking News

What?! Since when? First I've heard of it.. Who's this Obama character?

Saturday, August 23, 2008

They play the full 90 minutes in Stoke!

I was checking the news on the Independent's website a few minutes ago and spotted this report from Stoke City's first home premiership game since 1985..

A draw against Villa isn't a bad result I suppose..

Of course a win would be much better which, according to the bbc who presumably waited until the final whistle to file copy, is what they got..


Good work, lads.. And well done to Stoke who aren't really given much chance of staying the Premier League this year. I bet they didn't have anyone playing for them in 1985 with a name like Mamady Sidibe!

Friday, August 22, 2008

These amateur colours are making me crazy!

In this industry (and others, probably) it's always tough when the main contact you've been dealing with leaves your client's organisation and is replaced by an outsider keen to put their own stamp on things and impress everyone. It usually leads to a lot of unnecessary alterations that are insisted upon by the new person just to make themselves seem very important..

We've spent a lot of time over the last 2 years working on a suite of documents for a client in the hospitality business. They've just replaced their operations manager who's insisting on orchestrating changes to the material. Her rationale? The colours don't look very professional.

Professional? We're at a loss here. Does anybody know what distingushes a colour as professional? I'm certain he doesn't know what it means but maybe he thought it would sound good in a boardroom somewhere.. We're considering telling him to hold on a little while because the existing colours are going to go professional after the Olympics.

Professional colours.. I ask you..

Grace in defeat

So Ireland's brave Paddy Barnes has been beaten comprehensively (I think we can call 15-0 comprehensive, can't we?)in his Flyweight Semi-final in Beijing this morning.

After the fight he branded the standard of judging in his bout and the tournament overall as "a disgrace". RTE, in their online coverage, take a similar line, claiming that "If ever there was an example of the questionability of Olympic boxing scoring, this tie was it." They then offered a blow-by blow (literally) account of the bout which if the judges had corrected the scoring to match RTE's opinion, would have led to a score of 15-2. So there's a miscarriage if ever I saw one.

After the fight Barnes was asked if he was proud of his achievement in winning a Bronze. His response? "They can keep the bronze medal, I don't care. It's for losers."

That's the spirit!

Thursday, August 21, 2008

For real men only

Confession time. I've like Brian McFadden. I'm not really sure why but he always seemed a decent sort. A chancer, for sure, but an ok punter underneath it all. His attempts to be Westlife's own Robbie Williams were a little desperate and there's no question that most of his solo work has been awful but still he always struck me as a likable sort..

I went to see him doing a showcase gig in Whelans a few years ago for his first (his only?) post-Westlife solo album and I think that's what swung it for me. The audience was full of two kinds of people - on one side was his family and the other was a crowd of people (including me) who got in on the promise of free booze and who spent most of the gig laughing at him. One song was some sort of apology to his kids for leaving their mother (possibly the only smart thing he ever did) and I still crack up at the memory of him emoting to an audience of laughing cynics. In the middle of all my derision though I started to think that maybe he really believed all the stuff he was singing and that, while we were laughing at him, he was up there giving it a go and trying to stick it to the begrudgers.. And being the kind of chap who loves an underdog, I started to warm to him a bit..

Now it turns out he's a homophobe. Except I don't think he is really. On a radio show he was co-hosting in New Zealand, he was having a conversation about whether it was acceptable for men to wear pink. In a moment of real madness, in a response to a caller who claimed that pink is really just a variation on red, he said the following:

"Saying pink is a form of red is the same as saying that homosexual is a form of male"

What?! Seriously, I heard that today in the office and laughed. What on earth does it even mean? I really don't think he knew what he was saying and I certainly don't think it marks him down as a homophobe. I've listened to the clip online (and you can here) and his point (in as much as he had a point - it sounds like he's just jibber-jabbering really) is that it's unacceptable for real men to wear pink. That if you wear pink you are possibly telling the world that you might be homosexual. He isn't saying he hates gays or that homosexuals are going to hell. In fairness, he does say that in ye olden days it was frowned upon to be gay and that the church would burn you at the stake. But he doesn't say that he's ok with it or any such thing, not that stopped the papers from jumping up and down and calling him names..

Anyway, here's a thing. I know people who react to seeing men wearing pink by making a joke about him being gay. There - I've said it. I don't know where it came from but it's a concept that's been around for years. Is it an Irish thing? I know people who think they can tell by the way a man walks whether he's gay or not. I have friends (girls actually) who swear they know by how a man slices bread. I even know one very intelligent woman who claims you can tell a man is gay by the shape of his head. I almost believe her! My point is that people make comments like that all the time. Does it offend gay people? It can't, can it? I work with a gay man who makes far more offensive comments every day about being gay than McFadden could imagine but nobody is offended. He says some choice things about straight people too but that's by the by. And if a gay man (let's say Graham Norton or Elton John for example) made the comments that Brian McFadden did, nobody would say a word. Why? Because it would be knowing and self-aware and, sure aren't the gayers great lads for making jokes about themselves, and all that etc..

Of course he did say that thing about homosexuality not being 'a form of male' but really, it was barely a fully constructed sentence, never mind the madness of a gay-hater. It suggest to me that rather than having hatred in his heart he just has a bit of foot in his mouth. And believe me, when you're co-hosting on the radio that's a very easy thing to do..

I could get behind (fannarrr) the gay community over that Heinz gay ad nonsense in June but if they're going to get offended by this they're on their own. Them and their pink shirt wearing, funny walking, round-faced, bread-slicing friends!

And oh, look at this!

Friday, August 15, 2008

Thursday, August 14, 2008

Not 46 but not 26 either.

As of today, I'm 36. This is me before I left for work this morning. I added the hat and badge later

I don’t know what 36 is supposed to feel like but I don’t think I feel like I’m 36. Anymore than I felt like I was 35 yesterday. In my head I’m somewhere around 28 or thereabouts. There’s not much to say about being 36, is there? 40 is still a ways away (still - it's coming) but 30 is even further away, disappearing rapidly from my rear view mirror. It’s kinda like the Tuesday of thirtysomething birthdays.

If I’m honest I don’t think I ever had any great goals for my 36th year. Maybe I thought I’d have kids by now but I’m not too bothered about that today. Not since I have a new watch to play with. It’s got 3 winders and lots of other dials on the face. I’ve no idea what they’re for but I’m sure it’s very important. Scuba diving and running around burning buildings - that kind of thing. Besides if I had kids I probably wouldn’t have been able to have my breakfast in bed this morning. Which I did. And it was delicous. I’m not even aware of any great artistic achievements by 36 year-olds. Dylan did nothing the year he was 36. John Lennon was baking bread (supposedly) in the Dakota. Springsteen had finished a huge tour just before his 36th birthday and spent most of that year doing very little. So, hey - if sitting on laurels was good enough for them, it’s good enough for me.. If only I had some laurels. Not to worry, the book can wait another year. Although it’d be good if I had a better idea by then.

Let’s look back at the last year though. This time last year I hadn't done any of the following:
> donated blood;
> driven in France;
> seen Leo Burnham for the first time;
> fallen down the stairs (twice);
> had a pedicure;
> seen Bruce and the band 4 times;
> wangled myself a co-presenting gig on the radio;
> erected scaffolding;
> been targetted (accurately) by vicous egg terrorists;
> sanded the floors;
> met Daniel Day Lewis;
> read a bunch of great books including Moondust, Gene Kerrigan's The Midnight Choir and Robert Harris’ Ghost writer;
> read some not very good at all books like Douglas Kennedy’s State of the Union;
> been to Steve and Dara’s wedding;
> skanked my way into itunes american site and bought a bunch of things you can’t buy anywhere else;
> watched in horror as I realised itunes american site was on to me and had cancelled my balance!;
> plastered the ceilings;
> plucked up the nerve to get my media wanker glasses;
> had a massage (fnaarr!);
> accidentally killed my laptop (not my fault, guv);
> seen No Country for Old Men, Man on Wire, Enchanted or Elegy;
> visited Michael in Prague;
> picked a lock;
> Bought new cds by Elbow, Fleet Foxes, Vampire Weekend, Al Green, Bruce, Paul Weller, Shelby Lynne, Robert Plant, Aimee Mann, Coldplay, Cathy Davey, in an attempt to find something new and exciting to listen to;
> Listened to all of the above and arrived at the conclusion that there's nothing new anymore;
> shook tins outside shops for Heart Kids (well done Finglas, thanks for nothing Blanchardstown);
> sat through the entire third series of Greys Anatomy on dvd and managed to almost enjoy it by the end. Almost.

And of course most of these things wouldn’t have happened if I hadn’t met Helen last September. Apart from being pelted in eggs walking home from work.

All in all not a bad year really. I don’t know what this year is going to bring to Connolly Towers, but more of the same would be fine with me. Apart from the egg attack and the falling down the stairs thing. I’m so over that lark.

So happy birthday to me.

Oh, and even though she hasn’t called me all year, I hope Ana Matronic is having a lovely day. I bet my year was more interesting.

Tuesday, August 12, 2008

Who'll Stop The Rain?

Another horrible, rainy night in Dublin. More flooding, more delays and more opportunities for met eireann to tell us that it's going to get worse before it gets worse. I swear they're loving it..

Anyway, I just read an article on the irish times website about the weather conditions and I was taken by this particular sentence:

"The rain will ease on Thursday and Friday before returning with a vengeance at the weekend."

A vengeance? For what? Seems a little harsh, doesn't it? Have we disrespected the rain? Could we have insulted it somehow? Maybe it doesn't like to see people in flooded areas getting around in canoes and those feelgood pictures you always see in papers of men carrying kids around on their shoulders with their trousers rolled up. Maybe we just didn't take last weeks floods as seriously as we should have. Clearly, cancelling the Tullamore show in Offaly wasn't enough. Now the rain is fighting back. It's coming back with sticks and baseball bats and this time it means business.

I don't know much about the Bible but I watched enough West Wing to remember “‘Vengeance is mine’ saith the Lord” They never mentioned the weather though. Perhaps it's God's will. Perhaps the Irish Times just got a bit carried away. Either way I'm not leaving the house this weekend.. After everything I said about not being made of sugar when I went outside during last weekend's downpour I'm taking no chances!

People are so easily offended


Whatever about me wondering if it was still August (After the Deluge, below), now I'm starting to wonder if it's even 2008..

It's been a great news day for insults, racism and all-round bad behaviour.

1. The Spanish basketball team, currently world champions, posed for a promotional photograph advertising their Olympic sponsor. In it they have all pulled their eyes back in a hilarious slit-eyed manner. And this from a country whose reputation on race matters is hardly at an all-time high. Nice one, Spain.

2. Meanwhile, closer to home, an English pipe fitter earns a payout of €20,000 at an Equality Tribunal after they heard how he was abused by his Irish colleagues after starting work on a building site in 2006. Rebel songs, negative comments and general insulting.. Good work - lets put the filthy Tan in his place. 800 years of oppression and all that.. Although I'm sure there's lots of Irish men who've worked building sites in London and Manchester and Birmingham who could tell similar tales. But of course that's the past. And the past is another country. Still, fortunately, the days of No Blacks, No Irish and No Dogs are a thing of the past, right?

3. A house is listed for renting in Belfast with a sign that says "This property is not available for any foreigners." Ah. You're not allowed do that anymore are you? Unless he just meant that he didn't want anybody from 80s rock legend Foreigner to rent his house. Which would be fine. Still at least most foreigners have soap which brings us back again to the Olympics.

4. The head of Australia's Olympic Committee, John Coates responds to Rebecca Adlington's 400m freestyle gold for Britain by saying "It's not bad for a country that has no swimming pools and very little soap."Actually I'm not sure if that's offensive or just funny. Although perhaps by saying that I'm just showing myself to be no better than anyone else.

5. And finally there's the story of that lovely cute Chinese girl who sang at the Olympics opening ceremony on Friday. Turns out that the cute girl, Lin Miaoke, wasn't actually singing but was, in fact, miming to a song which was originally sung by the very talented but not quite so cute, Yang Peiyi. She was replaced by the organisers because her teeth are crooked and therefore didn't fit the required profile. I'm surprised anyone really noticed. I thought all Chinese people were supposed to look the same.*

So that's a good day's work. Let's see who's been insulted: The Spanish insulted the Chinese, the Irish insulted the English, The Northern Irish insulted the rest of the world, the Australians insulted the British and the Chinese insulted 9-year olds everywhere with crooked teeth.

It's political incorrectness gone mad!

*Obviously that's a joke, China.

Don't know, don't care

Spotted this fantastic poll on breakingnews.ie earlier. It seems that 59% of people who responded to the 'News Poll' don't care whether or not Lindsay Lohan courts publicity. In fact they don't care so much that they were compelled to cast a vote to say as much.. I know it doesn't take a great deal of effort to cast an online vote but why would you bother?

Afer the Deluge

This was what the streets around Connolly Towers looked like on Sunday after Saturday's rain. It is still August, isn't it?

Incidentally, isn't that an enormous Jesus outside the Church? Looks like he's hailing a cab or something.

Monday, August 11, 2008

Barack Astley

Some people have too much time on their hands. The rest of us can only admire them.

It's nature, innit?


This is a chilli plant made from actual chilli seeds.. Two weeks ago we took a handful of seeds from a chilli we were using for dinner and chucked them in a pot of muck. Nothing happened for about a week until we put it in the gas storage box thing in the living room. The following day we saw little green leaves. So that tells us that it likes heat. It's been a week now and this is what she looks like. Supposedly, you're meant to name plants so this one is called Matilda. I though David was a better name but I was outvoted. Which is to say that my vote didn't count at all.. Probably for the best..

Anyway, my point is, isn't nature amazing? Who knew that chucking a few seeds in a pot would yield all these leaves and might yet yield a load of chillis. Actually everyone knows that, don't they?

Still - expect regular updates. Or none at all, if she dies over the next few days. We'll see..

Wednesday, August 6, 2008

Spell it out


The papers today have all been leading with Madeline McCann stories. Obviously it's a story that continues to provoke great interest and it's no surprise that all the papers and news sites have been covering the latest revelations. What's more surprising is that there doesn't seem to be any consensus on how to spell her abbreviated name. I mean, for over a year we've been bombarded with information and speculation about her disappearance and yet at least half of the news outlets in the UK and Ireland are spelling her name incorrectly.

Perhaps they should ask her parents.

Sunday, August 3, 2008

Missing

Every week on the radio show, we go through Saturday's newspapers and pick out interesting things to talk about. While we were browsing through them yesterday, I noticed that the Mirror had a story about Gerard McDonnell, the Limerick man who, on Friday, became the first Irishman to reach the peak of K2. As far as I can tell, the Mirror was the only paper that carried story but we picked up on it as a good news story and talked about it briefly. According to the article, K2 is supposed to be harder than Everest to climb and that more people have died on the descent than any other mountain. We casually chatted about how awful it would be to reach the peak but not make it back down..

Yesterday evening before I went out I noticed on the irish times website that McDonnell and his team of Dutch climber have, in fact, gone missing after falling ice hit them at 8,000m. This morning when I went for the papers, I found that most of them are now covering his disappearance. Whether he's alive or dead, and at the momet it seems unlikely that he'll be found alive, isn't it a shame that the papers seemed less interested to talk about his achievement on Friday morning than his disappearance on Friday evening?

Wednesday, July 30, 2008

Be careful what you wish for..

This has been doing the rounds for the last few days but it took until yesterday for me to figure out what it all means.. It supposedly happened in a WalMart store in America but it could've happened anywhere..

Customer: "Hello, I'd like to order a personalised cake for a going away party next week"

Cakeman: "Of course sir, what would you like us to write on it?"

Customer: "I'd like it to say 'Best Wishes Suzanne'.

Cakeman: That should be fine. Anything else?

Customer: Underneath that 'We Will Miss You'.

Cakeman: "No problem at all"

But that doesn't explain how they managed to spell 'underneath' incorrectly, does it?

Still, I'm sure it was delicious.

6 wheeler

Saw this at the end of Helen's road last night. Now I'm sure the bloke who owns the scooter won't have been impressed when he came out this morning but there's a quality to this, isn't there? I mean, if somebody wanted to vandalise it, they could just have kicked it over. This, however took a bit of mischief and a drop of wit. And probably an extra pair of hands to get it up there.

In fact, if it was an installation in IMMA I wouldn't blink an eye..

Well done those vandals!

Thursday, July 10, 2008

Is this harsh?

A local wag hs been busy with glue and paper.

Ok - so it might be juvenile and rudimentary but it made me laugh when I saw it. Which is more than I can say for the film itself..

Tough day at the office, dear?

Helen went into The Gap the other day to ask if they had something that she couldn't see on display. She was confidently told that the didn't. Of course nobody actually checked to see. Isn't it funny how shop assistants can barely form a sentence yet have a complete inventory of the stockroom in their heads? Anyway, undeterred she asked if perhaps it could be ordered in from one of their shops in the UK but that wasn't an option either..

As she finished the exchange, the assistant told her that they were the hardest questions she'd ever been asked in the shop. Which is fine, I suppose, but you have to wonder prior to then what were the toughest questions she's ever been asked. "Do you have this in a large "What time are you clocking off?" "What's your name?"

If it wasn't for those darned customers, it'd probably be a good place to work.

Headline of the day..

Zoo sightseers left dangling 30m above baboon pit in cable car

It's all in there isn't it? You don't even need to read the article.. Quality work.

Wednesday, July 9, 2008

But we did a spellcheck..

So the Irish Times website tells us that 4 premiers will be visiting the Abbey next year. Who could it be? Sarkozy? Obama or McCain? Angela Merkel? Gordon Brown?

Oh, I see - they meant premieres..

This is what happens when you start giving your news away for free. The first thing that goes is the quality control.. Sorry - I know pointing out typos is a pedantic affair but I've been doing a bit of research on them lately - I just can't help myself now..

Beside, the Irish Times should know better..

That's the Point

This is the new O2 venue in Dublin's Docklands, formerly known as The Point Theatre, which was formerly known as the Point Depot. So let me rephrase that: This is the new Point Depot in Dublin's Docklands. It was announced at the weekend that O2 were throwing something like €25 million at the Point's developers to have their name plastered all over it.

In fairness it's been a tough time for concertgoers and promoters since the Point closed down last year. Promoters have had to get inventive with their choices of venues - a huge tent in the Phoenix Park, gigs in Kilmaninham, and, of course, just sending the acts up the road to the Odyssey in Belfast. And giggers have had to put up with schlepping off the beaten track to watch gigs in fields and courtyards where the sound was so-so at best. At least in the old Point the sound was adequate. Barely adequate I suppose, but preferable to the muffled rumblings that was the sounds in the Phoenix Park lark Autumn. So, I guess it'll be good to have an enormous all-singing, all-dancing venue in the capital city again.

But how enormous will it be? In an interview with the Irish Times at the weekend, Harry Crosbie, the Property Developer who owns the Point and most of the Docklands said:

"I think that the experience of seeing a show in the new arena is going to up the ante for all the punters. The experience of going to a show is going to be vastly improved because the sightlines are perfect, because of its massive intimacy and because of the choice of catering, you can eat and drink around the venue.

I fail to understand why you want to stand in a wet field in broad daylight and you can’t see the light shows. I really believe that people will be stunned when they see the Point.”

Massive Intimacy. What's that then? He might as well have said "because of it's big littleness".

Also, perfect sightlines? Does that mean I won't have to put up with people behind me constantly complaining about my height? This is very good news indeed..

Interesting to see that Harry is still calling it the Point despite pocketing a hefty cheque from the sponsors. Hey - if Harry says it's the Point, that's good enough for me.

I wonder who they'll have in to open it when it launches later this year. Huey Lewis & The News were the first act to play in the old venue. I'm sure they'd be available.