Eoin Butler

Miscellaneous Amusing Items I’ve Comes Across #33

My sister’s girlfriend found these in her cupboard today. Read it the whole way through. Someone is having fun at the Ten Thousand Use The Dish Cloth people’s expense. Read the rest of this entry »

Are You Lonesome Tonight? (1969)

Yeah, it’s the laughing version… The back story, from Wikipedia: Read the rest of this entry »

Published: Mongrel magazine, March 2004

Embrace Satan

Welcome to the the first in a series of commercial features (i.e. articles that look like real articles but are actually just a mutant form of advertising.) This month, we’ve teamed up with His Satanic Majesty, the Archangel Lucifer, to suckle upon his fiery teat and drink deep of his molten juices.

The forces of evil have never been as hip and youth oriented and we want you to get involved. Below you will find details of a fabulous offer open exclusively to our readers. But first here’s a personal message from Satan himself: Read the rest of this entry »

The Aristocrats!

“Your rook is attacked and shortly after I’ll take another pawn. This is a position to die for, in fact…”

‘You’re not doing very well, I’m afraid.” It’s Wednesday morning and Eamon Keogh and I are playing chess on the banks of the Grand Canal. It’s a glorious sunny day and a gaggle of swans have glided over to see what’s going on. But the two-time Irish champion is unimpressed. He tuts quietly and leans across the table to offer some constructive criticism. Read the rest of this article here.

“As adept with the long pause as he is with the awkward silence…”*

Compiling the singles reviews for The Ticket, I must admit, is one of the easiest and more pleasurable of my weekly chores. But I do sometimes approach the Irish releases with some trepidation. Mediocre music is mediocre music. So even if I once queued behind the bass player for service at the bar in Whelans, it doesn’t exactly sweeten the deal for me. Read the rest of this entry »

Rocks Off (1972)

“The sunshine bores the daylights out of me…” Listened to this today for the first time in a long time. It’s even fucking better than I remembered it. My favourite rock n’ roll track of all time. Easy.

You’ve just made me vomit in my own mouth, Gary Neville

As a neutral, I’m glad the title race is back on. But this was just uncalled for.

Miscellaneous Amusing Items I’ve Come Across #32

“Better broken Irish than clever English…” Not since the Russian anarchist Mikhail Bakunin, who decreed that ‘the impulse to destroy is also a creative impulse’, have I come across any activist stupid enough to highlight precisely the weakest strand in their own argument and turn it into a catchy slogan.

Admin Blues

I may appear polite, even deferential, to the spineless jobsworths who populate my workplace. But I despise them, and I despise their petty politics. Their meaningless office-speak is this company’s unofficial vernacular. Mastery of that, as well as an ability to smile like a simpleton in any situation, is what passes for professionalism around here. The head of my department is particularly fluent:

“With er… regard to the salary review you were promised, as such, we are presently not in a position to implement any… increases, as such, going forward… at this time.”

Days later I catch him pouring vodka into a vase in his office. I don’t tell anyone. But I make a conscious decision to do a lot more dossing, going forward.Read the rest of this article here.