Cringe de Burgh

I caught about 5 minutes of the Late Late Show the other night but it was worth it! Chris De Burgh was sitting at a piano being interviewed by Pat. It was a strange one - Chris sat while Pat stood above him possibly trying to mask just how short he is. Chris talked about how popular he is overseas (Beirut, Moscow and Iran to name just 3 cultural hotspots) and how his daughter is eclipsing his popularity (he seems a little put-out by that).

Anyway, it was the usual flim-flam you'd expect from Pat but when it ended, Chris stood up and said something from the heart. Actually, he said it was unscripted which makes you wonder if the rest of it is scripted.So Chris stood up, took Pat by the hand and told the audience that he's known Pat for 30 years and he gets a huge amount of flak. He said that we've no idea how tough it us to do Pat's job and he's a helluva professional and a great fellow.

All very nice and probably quite heartfelt (I'm being a bit generous) but you have to wonder how big Chris de Burgh's ego is that he thought: 'Pat's been getting a rough ride from the public and the media lately. What he really needs is someone to stand up publicly and defend him. Someone the people will listen to. Someone whose every word the media clings to. Someone... someone... someone like me!!'

It takes a lot to embarrass Pat Kenny. Week in, week out he has to sit through some terrible panels and monosyllabic guests. To say nothing of the Toy Show. But this was genuine, cover your eyes & ears and hide under the couch material..

You can see it here.. Unfortunately, you have to sit through the whole 8 or 9 minutes of the interview. He sang Borderline at the start which begs the question, what do you do when your song stays the same but your voice can't cut it anymore. In Chris' case you just close your eyes and go for it!

But in fairness, in the spirit of decency and credit-where-it's-due-ness, Chris de Burgh did write Lonely Sky which is a fantastic song. I suppose I can't take that away from him.. And in the 80s his father lived in Wexford and Chris was always terribly nice to my friend Monica when she called down to see him. But that was then and I can't help thinking that Beirut and Iran's gain is Ireland's gain too!

Once more for Danny..

This is the video tribute that Bruce Springsteen has been showing as the band's taken to the stage since Danny Federici's death last week. There's no question that Bruce is a sentimental old goat at the best of times but if you care about these things, it's very touching.

Always leave them wanting more

I don't know much about live music (obviously newspapers is more my thing!) but even I know that the first rule of showbiz is to get off stage before the audience gets tired of you. Somebody needs to tell King Creosote. We went to his rescheduled concert in Crawdaddy and by the time he left the stage 2 hours after he started there was nobody in the room still listening to him.

He's a lovely bloke and he had a great band with him but seriously, whatever happened to quitting while you're ahead? He began the show with a nice touch - by giving out free cds as a way of apologising for cancelling his show in January. Once he got started though it turned into a strange stop/start affair. He's got a lovely expressive smiley face and a nice line in self-deprecating humour but someone needs to sit him down and talk to him about pacing a show. It was all starting to sound a bit samey as he reached the encore.

He prefaced the last song by saying that they were going to do one more and then 2 encores. I think he'd been on about 75 minutes at this stage and that was plenty. After the encore, as the audience were beginning to do the post gig shuffle towards the door, he stuck his head out from behind a speaker and came out to do another encore to a response that could best be described as underwhelming. Now I can fake whelm as much as the next fella but I wasn't really up for much more. When he'd eventually found his guitar lead he started to take requests from a bunch of diehards in the front row. At one point he asked what time the curfew was set to only to be told that in face, there as no curfew. So he played. And he played. And when you thought he might be done, he played some more. And then did a big finish with lots of jumping up and down and noodly noodles with his lead guitarist. And then he played and he played some more.. At one point I'm sure tumbleweeds blew across the floor of the venue but, undeterred, he kept going..

By the end, the diehards in the front row were taking pictures of themselves and paying little or no attention to the man rocking out needlessly onstage.. He finished to very polite applause and left the stage, rocked out and unloved..

It's possible I'm being harsh but judging from the number of people talking as he played and all the mobile phone beeps and buzzes that were going off, everybody seemed to have better places to be. I did - by the time I got to O'Connells I'd missed last orders. I hope he's learnt an important lesson!

Still it's hard not to like him. He recently sold one of songs to Coca Cola for an advertisement. Inevitably, he got a lot of abuse from his fans who accused him of selling out to the man etc etc. In his defence he said that at least he was taking money from Coke while everybody else is giving it to them. Enough said. Besides -it's a good ad.

Tomorrow the world!

So phase 3 of my plan for world domination is complete.. After the radio and web stuff, I'm in today's Irish Independent (page 16 - above the fold!) and on their website talking about Home Insurance. Because obviously I'm the guy you go to if you want to know anything about home insurance! I'm even on the front page. My mother will be so proud.. They've got my picture captioned as "Deal Hunter" which the guys in the office are getting great mileage out of. I expect a picture of my head superimposed on Steve Irwin's will pop up on the notice board any minute..

It's a funny thing - last week I had to talk to Charlie Weston, the journalist, who wrote the piece for about 10 minutes. And it took about a half hour for the photgrapher to do his stuff on Wednesday evening too. Which makes me wonder how on earth newspapers get published everyday. I mean it was a 10 minute conversation that barely filled 4 very small columns.. How much work does it tale to get the rest of the paper ready. And then there's the supplements.

It's not a bad picture though. From now on, all photos of me have to be taken from a height - you can get way with all sorts!

So long, Danny

Danny Federici, long-time organist in the E Street Band, died yesterday in New York.. Last November he quit Springsteen's current tour to receive treatment for melanoma. It was thought at the time that he'd return to the band for this summer's tour but it wasn't to be. When Springsteen changed his onstage announcement about Danny from 'we hope we'll be seeing him soon' to 'keep him in your prayers and thoughts' it was clear that something wasn't right. I've said it before but there's something about the unique brotherhood (and sisterhood) that the E Street Band have that lifts the music they play to a different place. Really it doesn't matter what you think of the songs, I don't think many people could watch an E Street Band show and not get a sense of the history and joy they've shared for so long. Up until last year it was a great source of pride for Springsteen that his band had stayed healthy and well for so long. That landscape has changed forever now..

About a month ago in Indianapolis, He had dinner with some of the E Streeters who cajoled him into coming on stage that night for a few songs. The clip above is from a rare performance of Sandy, one of the band's earliest songs. It's structured around Danny's accordion and manages to conjure up feelings of youthful desire and warm, endless summers. Even in cold, windy Dublin..

It was fitting that when Danny left the band in November, the audience was able to give him the send off he deserved. And with that performance last month it's only tight that he got to take one last bow before leaving. Saying he'll be missed really is understating things.

Now I'm off to listen to Kitty's Back and wipe the dust from my eye.

The really low fare airline

So aer lingus mistakenly sold 100 business class seats on flights to the US for €5 instead of €1,775 and are now refusing to honour the flights..

It's hard to see how they're going to get out of this one. Particularly if the Consumers' Association get involved, as the surely will. Clearly it's a sickener for Aer Lingus and selling €177,500 worth of seats for €500 is enough to put a dent in anyone's mood but as I understand it once you've booked a flight onlne with Aer Lingus or Ryanair, you can't change it, can you? So how can the provider?

What I'd really like to know is who bought the tickets. I mean is it one of those situations where somebody saw a bargain and told all their friends who, in turn logged on to book the same flight? If that's the case it could be an uncomfortable 8 hours for the punters who usually travel in business class.. Perhaps the flight attendants will be instructed to water down the drinks for those in the (very) cheap seats. Or hide their life jackets..

Also, doesn't it seem incredible that a one way ticket on business class costs €1,775? I've travelled in business class (although not lately so perhaps it's changed) but I can't see why anyone would pay that much. And this is from the bloke who had no feeling in his legs after Monday night's fiasco..

Although, if I won the Lotto I might need to review that policy.. And there'd better not be any freeloaders up there with me!

What KT did

I spent the morning listening to the fantastic soundtrack to Todd Hayne's I'm Not There, his 'sort-of but not really' Dylan biopic.. Anyway, Wilco's Jeff Teedy covers Simple Twist of Fate on the cd and it's terrific. Simple Twist of Fate is, for me, one of Dylan's very best songs and Tweedy makes a decent stab of it..

But it sent me back searching for this..


This is KT Tunstall and her band performing the same song at a BBC Bob Dylan tribute show a couple of years ago. It's fantastic. I mean it's really great. I kinda like her stuff anyway but this is surely the best thing she's done. And I don't know if it's intentional or if she did it to suit herself but at critical points in the song she's changed the lyrics.


This is Dylan singing the same song in 1975 with Scarlett Riviera on violin. At the end when the girl has left, KT's version has the male character telling himself that he doesn't care that she's gone. Bob has him in the room looking at a note and not understanding what's happened..

Of course it's entirely possible that Bob has written two versions himself. He's just that good. I could check but in a way I don't think I want to know.. Both versions work.

Incidentally on the topic of the soundtrack, there's lots of great stuff on there (and lots of rubbish too - I'm looking at you Antony Hegarty) but by far the best thing is Cat Power's take of Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again. She's mad as a box of frogs but then so is the song. You can still hear it here. It's flippin' marvelous!

A Tall Tale

So there I was yesterday evening walking on to an Aer Lingus flight to Dublin after a very enjoyable weekend in Prague. I'm a tall man and it irks me that whenever I fly, I have to sit cramped into my seat with my legs jammed into the seat in front for several hours. But I'm a nice guy and I don't like to complain..

With that in mind, here's a three-part conversation I had with the woman sitting in front of me. I've done my best not to embellish. Although if you want to imagine me as some kind of George Clooneyesque hero standing up for the rights of the tall man, please be my guest.

It started the moment I sat down on the flight before I'd even fastened my seatbelt.. actually she had been barking at me for a while before I realised she was talking to me. When I finally realised I'd upset her she had already started..

Woman: Now listen here. I don't want your legs sticking in to my back on this flight.
Me: Excuse me?
Woman: I said I do not want your knees sticking in to my seat on this flight.
Me: Well, I'm 6ft 5 and I don't really have anywhere else to put them.
Woman:I don't care what you are - but I won't have your legs sticking in to my seat.
Me: Well short of chopping off my legs I don't know what I can do to help.
Woman: How rude! I don't care what you do but I won't put up with it. If you don't do what I say I'm calling the nurse.
Me: You mean the flight attendant.
Woman: Don't you tell me what I mean. Such rudeness! Just do what I say and stop being so bloody disrespectful...

She then turned to the people sitting beside her and tut-tut-tutted about me. The girl beside me smiled sympathetically and I, like a bloody fool, kept my knees to myself.

About an hour into the flight, this lovely old lady pushed her seat back and, not surprisingly, it went into my knees..

Woman: I thought I told you not to put your knees into my back.
Me: I didn't - you reclined your seat into my knees..
Woman: How dare you speak this way. Such a rude man. Move your knees or I'm calling for help..

The man sitting opposite me looked up from his laptop and did one of those blokeish shrug things that men do to show solidarity.. I sat out the rest of the flight with my legs caught under the seat in front, fuming..

When the flight ended I stood up and got my bag and coat out from the overhead compartment. The woman stood up, tugged my shirt and with the kind of cheek I almost find admirable, said:

Woman: Well the least you can do now take my bag down for me.
Me: No.
Woman: How dare you? How can you be so inconsiderate?
Me: I'm sorry - I've just sat for 2 and a half hours with my legs stuck behind your seat. Despite your rudeness, I've been respectful and considerate but now I don't have to be. Get your own bag and have a good evening
Woman: Whinge, noise, whingey noise rude rude blah...

Anybody think I was too harsh. On reflection I can't help feeling that I should've got the bag. But she was so rude and my flight was so uncomfortable that I just didn't have niceness in me.. Besides she was a wagon..

Either way I wasn't too worried - I'm fairly sure I could've taken her in a fight. Just not on a flight..

Conlee Towers

I'm a big fan of the sleeveface phenomeneon. People take record covers and combine the image on the cover with a real live human person! Fantastic stuff and there's examples on the sleeveface website that are really very impressive..

Yesterday I was in a second-hand record shop in Prague with Michael and we discovered a record that we just had to use. I've never heard of John Conlee and it's a terrible cover but what a great sleeveface opportunity.. We had to rush it and it's not great but hey - for a first effort it's not bad. I'm sorry to say that I didn't buy the record though cos I had a handful of albums already under my arm and didn't fancy chucking in a novelty purchase. Not when I already had the Rocky Horror and Oklahoma soundtracks and a Gilbert O'Sullivan LP!

Hearing? Shearing?

I'm saying that 'You're Hearing George Shearing' is perhaps the worst album title I've ever read..

Bored waiting to board

I'm killing time in Dublin Airport waiting for my flight to Prague.. Going to see if i get this done before my 50c runs out! I was just in Hughes & Hughes bookstore buying a magazine and generally loitering about the place. I picked up State - Ireland's new music magazine. I don't recognise any of the bands in it which means I'm either really out of touch or State is really a niche publication. I suspect the 'out of touch' option may be the reality. Nice layout though.

Anyway an American woman was going crazy because the shop didn't have Patricia Cornwall's new book in stock. She just threw her hands up in the air and shouted 'I mean - what kind of bookstore is this?' It's an airport book store. You're only supposed to buy magazines and chocolatnes.. You have to wonder how badly someone needs to read a book. And if she really needs to read it, why couldn't she have bought it in a proper book shop. Such a rude women.

In other airport news, there's a really loud alarm going off that's been ringing (or beeping) for several minutes. DAA keep making this announcement: 'DAA wish to advise that the alarm you can hear is currently being investigated'. I hope they tell us what it is before I get on the plane.. Although I fear it's the kind of noise that I'll be hearing for some time after it stops..

Beep beep beep beep beep beep.....

Annoying, isn't it?

Right - I'm off to look at aftershaves and wristwatches..

Shut up and dance

Good old Madonna - she really does talk some trash, doesn't she? I thought her rants about the London congestion charges and her request that musicians travel for free was daft enough but she's outdone herself with this rubbish about Britney Spears. I'm often a bit reluctant to quote breaking news, particularly when it comes to showbiz gossip but this seems to have come from MSNBC so perhaps she really did say all this...

I'm lifting this directly from the report:

Madonna has compared Britney Spears' plight to the suffering people of Africa, calling the press coverage of her problems a "terrible infliction of cruelty".

She tells MSNBC.com: "It's very painful (seeing pictures of Spears). When you think about the way people treat each other in Africa, about witchcraft and people inflicting cruelty and pain on each other, then come back here and, you know, people taking pictures of people when they're in their homes, being taken to hospitals, or suffering, and selling them, getting energy from them, that's a terrible infliction of cruelty.

"So who's worse off? You know what I mean?"

It's all further evidence supporting my theory that pop stars shouldn't be allowed to talk about anything other than their new record. Footballers should pipe down too. But that's because most of them can't string a couple of words together. Pop stars, on the other hand, can string several words together and think that this makes them very interesting and worth us paying attention to. They're very wrong.

I, however, should be allowed say whatever I want.

You've jumped over the fence baby!!

It's no secret that RTE's Champions League football coverage is the best in these islands. I never watch live foorball any more but I always try to catch a look at the post-match ding-dongs on RTE's site. It really is terrific stuff. Last night's show was a case in the point. After Liverpool had beaten Arsenal in (depending on whether or not you support Liverpool) dubious circumstances, Eamon Dunphy, Graeme Souness and Liam Brady (an Arsenal employee, of course) took apart the evening's events. And Eamon and Graeme took an ever-increasingly sulky Liam apart at the same time. Brady's hissy fit after RTE showed footage of Wenger's animated touchline behaviour was priceless.

And Bill O'Herlihy's gentle chastisement of Liam when he accidently announced the result of the Chelsea game before RTE showed the highlights shows why, even when the panelists are this entertaining, you still need a strong host to hold it altogether. Bill's the man.

The clip above is just a small sample. The whole thing is available in the Video Highlights at the bottom right of this page. I'm saying it's the funniest thing RTE has produced this year.

Shoe's sorry now..

Walking to work this morning I saw an attractive girl walking in the opposite direction. She was like most city girl types you see walking to work in the morning. Dressed for business with her immaculate blazer and skirt, she was flying down Camden Street listening to her ipod, carrying her moccachoccafrappalatte and with her long hair just so.. But something was slightly amiss. It's not unusual to see city girls (and some city boys) walking to work wearing trainers with their suits. With their heels in their handbag they can glide along with pace and purpose and change when they get to the office. Some wear trainers while the more committed ones bounce along in their MBTs. The girl I saw this morning was wearing a big white NIKE trainer thing on her right foot and a big Black NIKE trainer thing on her left. It looked ridiculous. She can't have meant to do this, can she? I mean I know The Kids sometimes wear odd shoes but this was no kid.. But how would you make this mistake. The trainers couldn't have looked more different. How could you confuse them?

I dunno - maybe it's a new look for girls this season. When it comes to fashion, nothing surprises me anymore.

Although I must admit I never saw those city shorts coming along.

Don't Look Down

This is similar to a clip that I tried to pinch from David Hepworth's blog.. It's called Caminito del Rey and should you fancy a go, you'll find it in Malaga. Considering the kind of consent froms you have to sign for things like the Inca trail or adventure activivites such as bungee jumps and skydiving, I wonder how many "If I die, it's my own stupid fault" forms would these guys have to sign to be allowed on it. Several, one would hope.

The Price of Victory

So we rushed down to the bookies yesterday at about 4.10 yesterday to chuck some money at the Grand National.. We picked 3 nags at random, hotfooted it back to The Shelbourne where there was a big screen showing the race. One of our random choices, Comply Or Die came home first (I believe the technical term is romped). Anyway there's something funny that happens when I win a few quid on the horses. The money won is used to pay for about 7 different things - even if it only covers the cost of one. So far the windfall has supposedly paid for:
1. A couple of rounds of drinks in the Shelbourne (that pretty much took care of the jackpot right there).
2. Another round of drinks in the bar of Jurys in Ballsbridge.
3. Breakfast this morning in the Woodstock Cafe in Phibsborough.

It's Sunday lunchtime and we're heading in to town soon. I have my eye on some new phones fr the huouse. I imagine by tonight the money will be spent 3 or 4 times over..

Thank God I'm not a serious gambler - I don't think I could afford to win very often!

In a tight spot

Saw this car yesterday in Drury Street.. Whoever parked somehow managed to get the side of their car right up against the column.. And they'd about 2 feet on the other side.. Would love to have seen them trying to get out without scraping it..

Be coreful what you wish for..

I found myself meeting friends of Helen in The Shelbourne yesterday.. I'm not a man who finds himself in the bar of a 5 star hotel often and whenever I do I imagine it as some kind of act of Class War.. I don't want to seem harsh, and I'm sure they're all lovely people, but there's something about the flashiness, the fake tan and the even faker designer bags that makes me want to puncture a few egos.. And that's just the men..

Anyway, needless to say the people I was meeting aren't like that at all (well, not all of them) and buoyed by a great result in the Grand National I wasn't having a bad time at all.. One of the girls in our group bumped into an old friend at the bar. I won't say his name but he's the guitarist in a particularly bland Irish pop/rock band famous for the attractiveness of some of of it's members. After he was introduced to us, he sat down and the first thing he said to us was "Don't mention the band or I'll slap yis". Charming stuff. Of course now he was in a bit of a pickle. Because since we weren't allowed talk about the band (and really, in your wildest dreams you couldn't really think of much to say about them) we didn't really have anything to say to him at all.. So he sat there in silence, drinking his mojito and listened to a bunch of people he'd never met before talking about things that he couldn't contribute to.. In truth he cut a bit of a pathetic figure in his expensive clothes and his sunglasses..

Eventually he was rescued when a friend phoned him and he left to go and have a burger - soakage, as he put it, to prepare him for the night ahead.. The last I saw of him he was rattling a door that was clearly locked trying to get out.. Shuffling out of a hotel that he'd been drinking in alone to have a burger.

Such is the glamorous life of an MOR rock star.. I wouldn't really fancy it much..

Caption please..

"Fans were shocked just how rough the intervening years had been on Boyzone"

I think I might run in Bertie's constituency next time. I'm separated and my finances are in a mess. I'm a natural!