The overdue burial

In the grand scheme of things, embarking on a Facebook ‘friend’ cull is no big deal. Things change, people move on, acquaintances are fleeting and you’re essentially doing others a favour by ever-so-slightly lightening their burdens. You know the people who don’t ‘like’ anything you say, you know the people who probably ‘hid’ your updates some years ago. Basically, the people who can’t be arsed with you.

All you’re admitting is that, perhaps like your own sad, failed pop career or other youthful crush, clinging on to the past and trying breath life into its sagging, rotting cadaver is a pointless and tragic exercise. You need to move on, break the chains, and rejoice in hearing the Looney Tunes-style whistle as this particularly uncomfortable baggage falls off its cliff edge and moments later makes a satisfyingly distant thud.

Old rope on a soap

Oh dear.  Slippers: check.  Cardie: check.  Pipe: definitely on its way.

Today I wrote an email to the editor of venerable Irish weekly Woman’s Way to correct, in as nerdy a manner as one could possibly achieve, one of their little trivia boxes on their soap pages.  Titled ‘The Rules of Soapland’, it stated that, unlike in real life, no two soap characters will have the same first name.  Much as I was tempted to let that go and turn the page, I couldn’t help the little Trekkie at the back of my brain shouting: “Well, actuallaay, in point of fact…”

It’s WAR on The Kiosk next Saturday…

At 11am on Saturday 11th December 2010 on Phantom 105.2 – It’s WAR as teams representing these two venerable publications lock horns in The Kiosk Quiz of the Year.

It promises to be a great competition – not only for the teams but for a lucky Kiosk listener. We have a great prize for one listener who correctly predicts the winner of the quiz: a €200 gift voucher from EASONS – The perfect place for all your gifts this Christmas. See the bottom of this post for more details.

Team Ticket vs Team Day & Night

“We’re going to MURDER them. And then laugh. Out loud. And point our fingers at them. And laugh again.” – Jim Carroll

“Jim who? He’ll be Off the Record after this.” – John Meagher

Jim Carroll vs. John Meagher

Sinéad Gleeson vs. Nialler9

Lauren Murphy vs. Eamon Sweeney

Time to call in pest control

I’m sure Irish News Of The World readers are a discerning bunch but surely even the most apathetic of them have their limits.  The new ad for the paper is little short of astonishing, even in a country which has experienced its fair share of shocks lately.

‘Typical’ rheumy-eyed NOTW readers open their fridge and kitchen cupboards of a Sunday morning to find an infestation of various types of pest.  The first three would be bad enough but the fourth is none other than the former Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern, in his latest guise as a ‘roving’ football reporter.  For anyone who doesn’t know, doesn’t care or may simply have forgotten, he wasn’t just the leader of this country a long time ago, he was elected leader of this country at the last general election.

Ham roll with the changes?

How did I miss this?  Have Ham Sandwich have done a ‘Sugababes’ and changed their entire line-up?  This photo beside the review of their new album White Fox in this morning’s Metro Herald is the first I’ve heard of it. 

Either that, or it’s the first published result of a wacky new Hot Press photoshoot, where Podge and Niamh impersonate famous Irish presenter duos. 

Hot stuff..?

This is how they sell fires and stoves to Corkonians.  Clearly, they believe that sex sells, and there’s no expiry date.  I bet you when Giovanni Trapattoni took over coaching the Irish football squad, he never thought his Italian charms would be exploited in quite this way.  What a role model – Berlusconi, take note.

A life in magazines: TV Comic

TV Comic was the first proper weekly magazine I collected.  I could barely contain my juvenile excitement between issues.  It would pop through my letter box on a Thursday, even though, somewhat frustratingly, it had “Every Monday” printed under the banner – such were the trials of Scottish village life in the mid-1970s.  TV Comic pandered to practically all my favourite things on TV, as well as a few I had no idea existed.  It had a natural BBC slant, in as much as most of the cartoon strips in it were based on programmes shown on the BBC, whether home-produced or imported.  The first copy I remember owning was bought for me by one of my great grandmothers.  It was a fine summer’s day (I’m not just saying that because I was 5, it really was sunny), and we sat on a bench in Kirktonhall Glen, the local public park, while I peppered her with questions about its contents:  “What does that say?  What does that mean?  What is that?”

It started with a Tom and Jerry strip on the front, one which concluded on the back – good for a chortle but nowhere near as funny as the actual cartoons.  Inside, there were strips of other cartoons too, like Roobarb and Barney Bear – although, I confess, I don’t recall ever seeing a Barney Bear TV cartoon in my puff.

Local investment

Lots of arms were brought to bare at the Cahirmee Horse Fair in Buttevant, Co. Cork (the oldest horse fair in Europe) last week, as stallions and mares of all shapes and sizes travelled from far and wide to attend. 

F**k right off France? F**k “right-on” Hot Press

It’s hard to fathom who Hot Press thought they’d impress with their “F**K RIGHT OFF FRANCE WORLD CUP PREVIEW”.  They try so hard to be seen as the elder, liberal mouthpiece of the nation’s overaged youth, with their regular, preachy articles and editorials on drugs, head shops, sexual liberation, mediocre Irish rock bands and men keeping their hair long until they’re well into their 80s. 

But trying to appeal to Sun readers?  I mean, did anyone question the validity, relevance and potential consequences of this headline?  This is the sort of rubbish Britain’s leading chav rag peddles on a daily basis.  Any second now, no doubt, someone will tell me that I have “no sense of humour” for not laughing at a blatantly xenophobic, inciteful ”joke”.   But it simply isn’t funny, by any stretch of the definition.

All the fun of Dunderry Agricultural Fair…

Ah, this quaint photo of village dignitaries and rural maidens from the Meath Post makes me fair nostalgic for the countryside.