Eoin Butler: writer, journalist and Mayoman of the Year
Tripping Along The Ledge
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“I’m not sure what the guy’s problem is, but he’s pointing an AK-47 assault rifle at me, so I don’t make a fuss…”
What stands before me is a scene of utter desolation: the chalk remains of roads, buildings and farmland, bombed and bulldozed beyond any recognition… Read the rest of this article here.
The (Mayo) Man Who Went Astray
Tonight I’ve been asked to speak on the topic You Can’t Go Home Again: Stories about Starting Over. Now I’ll be honest. I’ll never turn down an opportunity to waffle about myself in public. But when I sat down to prepare these remarks, I realised something. I’ve never started over at anything in my life.
I’m Irish. I resent things. That’s how we roll. Read the rest of this entry »
Vote Yes For Cute Kittens!
Aidan is buzzing. He’s like a kid in a toyshop. I’m just about managing to keep my excitement under wraps. We’re sitting in Dublin’s first and, to my knowledge, only pull-your-own-pint venue. Aidan thinks it’s amazing. Pulling our own pints. God above. What next? I’m not quite as enthusiastic. They’re making me do something that’s normally done for me by someone else?
Yippee, when we’re finished here, can I clean the toilets?Read the rest of this article here.
Party & Bullshit (1993)
This is funny
Norm MacDonald gets fired (1998)
It is said that Edith Piaf could sing the phone book and it would be beautiful. Well, Norm MacDonald could read the phone book and it would be funny. Here’s a 1998 Letterman appearance, the day he was fired from Saturday Night Live.
No one knows for sure why SNL fired Norm. The executive he mentioned here, Don Ohlmeyer, was a friend of O.J. Simpson. So Norm’s relentless pillorying of the former sports star may have had something to do with it.
After the jump, happier times. Two all-time classic Norm moments from 1997 and 2010… Read the rest of this entry »
Any amusing email / text / social media faux pas you’d care to share?
“How do you wake up the President?” wondered Slate’s twitter feed last month. The tweet linked to an old article I’d read before, concerning the protocol that surrounds when and how the commander-in-chief is roused from his sleep for an emergency briefing.
It was a Friday evening. I was babysitting my niece. On a whim, I retweeted the original question (“How do you wake up the President?”) along with a tongue-in-cheek suggestion of my own. (“SUPER-SOAKERS!!!) For some reason, the image of Obama’s Chief-of-Staff bursting into the presidential bedroom with a florescent pump-action water blaster just amused me.
When I refreshed the page a few minutes later, I had 25 fewer Twitter followers. Read the rest of this entry »
“The nets are looking great. The markings all seem to go in straight lines…”
I can’t think of a whole lot else to say to the guy. “There’d be some in this club wouldn’t think twice about playing a match after it pissing down for a fortnight,” he spits. “Then they want to know why the surfaces are cut to shit!” He sniggers bitterly. Read the rest of this article here.
“Half the ads on there were from professional ladies. Solicitors? No, not solicitors.”
You’ve never tried it yourself, of course. Nor, as far as you’re aware, have any of your friends or any of your friends’ friends. But no more than Enya’s record sales, or the viewing figures for Mrs Brown’s Boys, the statistics tell a very different story. They suggest that far more of us dabble in the world of online dating than would care to admit it.
Even in the midst of recession, it has never been as popular. Two year ago, online dating overtook pornography as the third most valuable source of paid-for online content. Only digital music and online gaming generate more revenue. This year it is projected to bring in a staggering $932m in the US alone. Read the rest of this entry »
At the very least, he might come out of all this with a better haircut
Independent TD Luke ‘Ming’ Flanagan has announced that he will not smoke cannabis while serving as a member of Dail Eireann. The former Roscommon mayor is Ireland’s best known advocate for cannabis legalisation and, during his recent successful Dail campaign, acknowledged growing “one or two small plants” for his personal use.
The announcement followed an editorial in the Garda Review magazine, which made a veiled call for action against the maverick TD, who was regarded as openly flouting the law. Read the rest of this entry »