tom cruise

Sorry RTE… this is Ireland’s greatest person.

Next month RTE launches its search to find Ireland’s Greatest Person. As usual when the national broadcaster adapts a successful format from abroad, the resulting mess will likely serve only to remind us of what a small and, in the wider scheme of things, insignificant nation this actually is.

The BBC’s 100 Greatest Britons list in 2002 included personages as august as Churchill, Shakespeare and Darwin. Our list runs to only forty names. But it still finds room to indulge the preposterous candidatures of Mssrs. Daniel O’Donnell, Michael O’Leary and fully three (three!) members of the Boyzone camp: Ronan, Stephen and Louis Walsh. Read the rest of this entry »

Faith Alive

1. What’s the difference between a saint and a masochist? Not a whole lot, provided you’re the Pope.

2. “The Lord directed that I go to the sun tanning salon and get sun tanned more evenly on their suntanning beds.” A fascinating (and, on balance, pretty sympathetic) snapshot of life inside the polygamist Fundamentalist Church of Latter Day Saints from this month’s National Geographic. Read the rest of this entry »

FAITH ALIVE

Tom Cruise speaking about Study Technology

1. In his latest film role, Intergalactic Scientology overlord Tom Cruise plays a deranged megalomaniac… Oh, wait. [UPDATE: B’ah they’ve deleted it. For now at least, it’s also available to view here.]
2. Irish government takes a laudable stance against people saying things other people don’t like.
3. What happens when a hapless Polish exchange student is thrown together with a family of American Christian fundamentalists? Does hilarity ensue? Er, no.
4. Apparitions:Rest of the Country 0 Mayo 2.
4. Finally, are you rapture ready?