So Far, S*ph*m*re

I know, Dear Reader, that I’m a persistent curmudgeon, but even reading online music reviews, as I do on a daily basis, gets me riled beyond accidental Emmerdale viewing.  Today (well, like every other day since I started using the Internerd) there are two Titanic funnels’ worth of steam emerging from my ears over the dogged, moronic insistence of non-American music reviewers to use the word ’sophomore’.  In case you don’t know, this hugely unattractive word refers to a second-year student in a U.S. college. Due to American review outlets like Pitchfork, its use (before the word ‘album’) has now come to refer to an artist’s second long-player. Which is quite all right over there; I’m absolutely sure normal, everyday Americans pop the word into normal, everyday conversations.  Quite patently, however, we do not.

The Radio Contributor Cliché Drinking Game

Here’s a fun drinking game for any housebound people (e.g. the elderly, the unemployed, freelance hacks or waiters actors) sitting listening to the wireless of a morning/afternoon.  Your drink of choice could be anything at all – Vodka, Mi Wadi, tea, Jeyes Fluid, the floor’s the limit, really.

The rules are simple enough. 

See Me! For Vandalising The Language

If anyone had any concerns over the state of education in Ireland before yesterday, they were duly confirmed at the Teachers Union of Ireland meeting in Cork.  This placard, brandished here by an Enya lookalike, erroneously and humiliatingly introduces the word “vandaling” into the English language.  

Please “Give It Up”, For God’s Sake

I dreamt about Fame Academy the other night.  There are reasons for this that I won’t get into but it’s fair to say I woke up terrorised, breathing like a hyper-ventilating Phil Mitchell.   Mercifully, Patrick Kielty isn’t on the telly so much these days – but it’s not nice that he came crawling into my head during the night.   Anyway, the dream reminded me of something Kielty always said on the show and I’m going to rant about it now:  “Give it up for… (Daniel Bedingfield/ James Blunt /Jamie Cullum, etc)”

Wonderful Words: Continental

Some words don’t require explanation, they simply generate emotions and stir senses all on their own.  One such word is continental.  It makes me hungry in the morning, it makes me long for holidays while I’m working, it comforts me in the evening.  The first time I remember hearing it was when a family friend bought their son a duvet – back then, they were known as ‘continental quilts’.  That sounds hilarious in 2008 but, for people on these chilly northern islands, it was evocative of European style, culture and comfort, a crisp, minimalist and sophisticated world away from the copious layers of blankets we were used to shivering under up here.  Naturally, the word also evokes images of wishful holidaymaking; not 18-30 beer’n'Bermuda shorts orgies in high rise hotels, but lazy afternoons on quiet beaches, long, late lunches and glorious, mountainous vistas. 

For me, though, it means breakfast.  A perfect cappuccino and a warm, soft croissant, preferably enjoyed at a table in the forecourt of an Italian street café on a hazy summer’s morning, just as the piazza awakes and the Vespas start buzzing.  I’m daydreaming the scent of Pietrasanta just typing this.