Hundreds of Christmases ago, before DVDs were invented, I bought someone the VHS of Wallace and Gromit’s The Wrong Trousers. It turned out to be the wrong Christmas present. “I’ve already got this,” she said glumly. Apparently, I hadn’t listened properly, although, due to her subsequent, door-slamming, stomp off to her room, I was left unsure whether it was just the wrong Wallace and Gromit video or if she’d wanted an actual pair of trousers.
Anyway, I’m reminded of this gaffe every year when I think about going Christmas shopping. It ought to have taught me a lesson, to listen more, to write things down, to basically remember to get people whatever it is they asked for. Buying Christmas gifts is a minefield; and it’s a minefield under additional sniper fire when you’re buying for your significant other.
At the start of any relationship, when all is lovey-dovey, you’ll ask her what her heart would desire for a yuletide gift; and she’ll reply, in all sincerity, with that beautiful line from the great poet and sage, Mariah Carey: “All I want for Christmas is you.” Of course, she doesn’t mean it. Read the rest of this entry »
In 2004, I elected to take voluntary redundancy from a job which had sapped my personality, soul and energy for too long. Ultimately, while others just got on with things, I thought too long and hard about them, became too bitter, narky and spiteful. I had an imperceptible patience threshold which too many people took to be the limit of my personality.
I took this period not to be The End, but, in the immortal words of the sadly mortal Stephen Gateley, “time for a new beginning”. I learned how to use a ‘puter properly; I found a job where I could use it better; I began to write for fun; soon after, I started to write for money. Not a lot, but I was paid. What’s more, people actively sought me out. They asked for my opinion. Some of them even paid for it. For a while, I was having the time of my life. I don’t say that lightly either. I used to go to bed thanking my lucky stars each and every night.
In 2006, I secured a weekly stint with the now defunct InDublin magazine – a job which I still say was the best job anyone had ever given me in terms of total job satisfaction. I was working, albeit at a distance, with a completely inspiring editorial team, some of the finest people I’ve ever had the pleasure to work for. In all honesty, I was still pinching myself. Having had no journalistic training, and writing in my own idiosyncratic style, I’d somehow found what I took to be my niche. Of course, I sweated buckets over every submission, no matter how small, expecting everything I thought and wrote to be returned like a failed maths test, with SEE ME scrawled all over it. It didn’t happen. It was the happiest time of my working life. Read the rest of this entry »
As Liverpoo-el fans who might form part of my friends and family will doubtless agree, I have not gloated once about Fiorentina’s glorious double victory over them in the Champions League group. And nor will I; I’ll simply celebrate on my own - as Viola fans are a bit thin on the ground ’round my way, not the sort of side people here traditionally cherry-pick for vicarious glory.
Nevertheless, it seems as good a time as any to remind people of this hugely embarrassing ad, which appeared in the Herald earlier this year. Read the rest of this entry »
It might be difficult to fathom but there are people out there who don’t find Michael McIntyre funny. Worse still, some have even suggested his routines are inoffensive and “middle class” in nature. So, in an effort to “lash out” at these accusation, McIntyre has given his side of the argument in an interview with the notoriously edgy, working class propaganda publication, the Radio Times. Read the rest of this entry »
My daughters have this friend, a wee boy, who turned 2 last week. They were invited to his birthday party, so the usual, excitable discussions and debates ensued on what present to buy him. Youngest daughter thought the he would like something train-related, based on her own ideas of what wee boys like. So, train-related products (one of which came in a parent-pleasing 56 pieces) were purchased. While the girls set about designing the birthday card, daddy went to the local convenience store for some wrapping paper – what could possibly go awry? Read the rest of this entry »
Do you enjoy listening to the choons of Scooter emanating from some spotty youth’s car at traffic lights outside shopping centres? Are you disappointed when the souped-up Corsa, Punto or Saxo speeds off, leaving you hankering after more happy hardcore jumpstyle Eurobilge? Well, help is at hand, with the SCOOTER DELUXE SOUNDMASTER, which offers a proper, access-all-areas, non-stop sound for skangers on scooters and their many appreciative fans. According to the manufacturer: Read the rest of this entry »
This twisterrific opus is the new single from marvellous young Dublin band The Dirty 9s, from whom we expect even greater things in 2010. ‘Tis out this very day and can be downloaded right here. Take it away, chaps.
You know who you are, I’m talking to you. The sort of people who, back in the 1960s and ’70s, would go around wearing a sandwich board bearing the legend, “THE END IS NIGH”. Nowadays, you hide indoors, sitting on the internet wearing nothing but your old Y-fronts and a string vest, but you’re no less doomladen than your predecessors. Hark! A bell! For whom does the bell toll? Well, ting. Yes, your microwaved meal for one is ready – go fetch.
Seriously now, the world’s not going to end, we’re not all going to die at the same time and (you’re not going to believe this, but I’m going to put it out there anyway) 2010is… Just. A. Fil-um. Read the rest of this entry »
Well, the self-appointed security ‘gaffer’ has thrown in the towel. As mentioned here last week, my office’s gent’s toilet seat was stolen by person(s) unknown. While expecting our marauding Mr DayGlo Jacket carpark attendant to conduct a thorough investigation via his bluetooth earpiece, no doubt twitching his moustache, Poirot-like, in the process, it seems that the scoundrel responsible has eluded him.
Halloween guises suit some people more than others, but surely none better than Aslan. The Dublin band “rocked” Trim during the festivities while dressed as a rather convincing jazz sextet, ”accordion” to this photo in the Meath Post. Read the rest of this entry »
It might be difficult to fathom but there are people out there who don’t find Michael McIntyre funny. Worse still, some have even suggested his routines are inoffensive and “middle class” in nature. So, in an effort to “lash out” at these accusation, McIntyre has given his side of the argument in an interview with the notoriously edgy, working class propaganda publication, the Radio Times. 
My daughters have this friend, a wee boy, who turned 2 last week. They were invited to his birthday party, so the usual, excitable discussions and debates ensued on what present to buy him. Youngest daughter thought the he would like something train-related, based on her own ideas of what wee boys like. So, train-related products (one of which came in a parent-pleasing 56 pieces) were purchased. While the girls set about designing the birthday card, daddy went to the local convenience store for some wrapping paper – what could possibly go awry? 
You know who you are, I’m talking to you. The sort of people who, back in the 1960s and ’70s, would go around wearing a sandwich board bearing the legend, “THE END IS NIGH”. Nowadays, you hide indoors, sitting on the internet wearing nothing but your old Y-fronts and a string vest, but you’re no less doomladen than your predecessors. Hark! A bell! For whom does the bell toll? Well, ting. Yes, your microwaved meal for one is ready – go fetch.
