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Never Get Ahead (1997)

Wow, hadn’t seen this before. It’s a special clean version of Bobby Conn’s Couldn’t Get Ahead recorded for a kids television show in 1997. The singer recalled the performance on his blog many years later: Read the rest of this entry »

And the Best Picture Award goes to… Let’s Just Go F**k Ourselves, Shall We?

Acclaim for The King’s Speech irks me for any number of reasons. It’s a nothing film that’s been done a thousand times before, but one that was nonetheless attracting Oscar buzz before anyone had even seen it. Now, inexplicably, it’s regarded as a shoo-in for Best Picture ahead of David Fincher’s far superior (and infinitely more relevant) The Social Network.

Does this sound familiar? In John Madden’s Mrs Brown (1997) an aloof monarch deigned to interact with an extremely helpful commoner. The viewer was expected to admire said monarch’s eventual magnanimity, rather than abhorring her initial imbecility. Read the rest of this entry »

My Luke ‘Ming’ Flanagan story

I was a student in NUI Galway at the same time as Luke ‘Ming’ Flanagan. Back then, he was known as Ming the Merciless and was a militant pro-cannabis activist, well known to the Gardai (or “the Shades” as they are known in Galway.)

One day the guards stopped Ming in a car and found a tiny bit of hash on him. He was fined £50 which he refused to pay. He was told he had a week to pay the fine or he’d be sent to prison. Read the rest of this entry »

“I’m not necessarily making the comparison, but don’t Page 3 models usually say the same thing…?”

I’m sure they do and I’m sure they enjoy what they do, otherwise they wouldn’t do it. But their work is primarily oriented to a male audience and it’s done to elicit a sexual response. Burlesque is all about the trimmings, the sets, the costumes, the storyline. It’s about feeling sexy, but also showing the personality behind it.Read the rest of this article here.

“It melts on my tongue like a snowflake, with a taste that is like hearing music for the first time…”


There aren’t many onerous tasks associated with taking a luxury ski break in Chamonix Mont-Blanc. The trickiest, perhaps, is deciding which of the highlights best to rub in the noses of jealous friends and family members at home. Heli-skiing down the spine-tingling Glacier d’Argentiere? Husky sledding at La Vormaine? Lunch at the two Michelin-star Albert Premier restaurant?

Winter sports are the main attraction, of course. But if you happen to be preposterously wealthy, the boutique chalets are well worth a visit in their own right. They’re not cheap. A week in Argentiere’s Le Marti costs €16,000 off peak, rising to well over double that amount at peak season. Read the rest of this entry »

I couldn’t tell you exactly what this girl is thinking. But I’d be very surprised if the words “gay porn” aren’t high up in the mix.


THE POLISH GIRL with the tea trolley is trying to work out what the fuck is going on. A tall, athletic young man in a tight-fitting black T-shirt is standing in the centre of Room 202. His hair is meticulously tousled and a tacky necklace pendant bobbles on his chest. He is a rising inter-county hurling star, but that wouldn’t ring any bells with her. She’s more likely to have noticed that he’s holding the hand of another (identically kitted-out) young man and leading him in a graceful twirl around on the spot. On the far side of the room, a third boyband clone is filming the pair on a digital camcorder. Read the rest of this article here.

When I’m in charge, this scene will be replicated in classrooms the world over:


Ideally, the teacher wouldn’t look like she was being forced to sing the song at gunpoint. But sure you can’t have it all. Read the rest of this entry »

“We all remember the bad days – bored crocodiles, listless giraffes, monkeys indulging in recreational activities of an adolescent nature…”


Elephants in the wild spend 70% of their time looking for food. Now, just between you and I, and the readers of the Irish Times, if we gave the entire Phoenix Park to our elephants, but fed them in the one spot, they would just stand there. They wouldn’t move. They’re very careful about expending energy. So we hide the food on them. The elephant is never conditioned to look at his watch and say, it’s seven o’clock, where on earth is my dinner? Read the rest of this article.

This is funny


What did Jim Corr say when he was framed on knacker drinking charges? Read the rest of this entry »

Gee Baby, Ain’t I Good To You? (1944)


This song was written in New York in 1929 and still sounds just as good today.