Eoin Butler: writer, journalist and Mayoman of the Year
Tripping Along The Ledge
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Finito
This is a piece I wrote about The Devil’s Double for The Guardian last weekend. I’m flattered someone took the time to set up, not one, but two comment accounts to defend Latif Yahia and his Walter Mitty-esque memoirs. But most of all, I’m glad that this is the last time I’ll be mentioning his name, here or anywhere else.
“Readers will have to live without his thoughts on the the retirement of Micheal O’Muircheartaigh and the suspicious longevity of Fungi the Dolphin…”
It is a bright, clear morning in mid-September. Aidan Gillen’s battered BMW rattles along one of the bumpy backroads that snake across the sun-kissed Dingle peninsula. To our right stands Mount Brandon. Ahead, the Atlantic Ocean sparkles in a summer’s last hurrah. But the driver is ill-at-ease. I’m a journalist. He doesn’t like journalists. You can tell. Read the rest of this interview here.
“He went out drunk and hit the ball like he was beating the hell off someone. He was a superhero.”
PUGWASH
Songwriter Thomas Walsh talks Twitter, Brian Wilson and crisp addiction.
You’re looking well, Thomas.
Thank you. Lost five stone in the last year. I was twenty-five stone, I’m now twenty. Ideally, I’d like to be fifteen. I had a bit of a shock to be honest. I was told if it happened again, I’d be gone before I was fifty. So I haven’t eaten crisps in a year. Seriously, there should be rehab for crisp eaters.
What are the secrets of your bikini body?
My tip would be not eating a big plate of taco fries and falling asleep in the chair. If you do that most nights of the week, with a bellyful of drink and a kebab, that’s not going to be good for you. It’s not a myth. Read the rest of this entry »
Alex And Liam Do Walmart
My first time in America, in 1998, I visited Walmart and was as flabbergasted as these guys. There was one section where they stocked nothing but piles and piles of awful romance novels. (You know the ones with, like, a topless Fabio lookalike on the cover.) The press quote on one said: “Marks the arrival of a major new talent.”
The store was about the size of Colorado. I almost made it the entire way across before this one nagging thought got the better of me. I stopped in my tracks and turned around. Hold on, what newspaper could possibly have given that review to a trashy romance novel? I turned around and marched the entire way back.
That newspaper? The Romantic Times. God bless Walmart! God bless America!
This is funny
In honour of Comic-Con, which gets underway in San Diego today, here’s maybe the funniest ten minutes of television I’ve ever seen. “Here’s a spoiler… you will die alone.” I’m not a big fan of science fiction myself. But I have had some fun at it’s expense it in recent years…
Who will watch The Watchmen? No, seriously.
In the grim darkness of the far future, there is only war.
Q&A with Pat Mills, the ‘Godfather of British comic books’
The Imelda May story: Irish media still seeking that elusive second angle
Miscellaneous amusing items I come across #57
The phrase “history is made” is so rarely used by people who have actually read history.
Miscellaneous unlikely situations I’ve found myself in #56
Full set of my own camera phone photos from South Sudan visit are here. Long feature also in the works. (Don’t rush me, I’m tired.)
Birth of a nation
On Friday midnight, South Sudan became Africa’s 55th nation. In the new capital Juba, joy was unconfined.
By 10pm, thousands of revelers had poured out onto the streets, hanging out the windows of cars, vans and pick-up trucks, waving flags and chanting slogans.
In the city’s slums, sound systems could be heard playing well into the night. Read the rest of this entry »
A little ray of sunshine…
They say that, into each life, some rain must fall. Here in the Glasnevin Barber Shop, on a warm summer’s day, Arthur McGuinness is gleefully talking up a monsoon. The McGuinnesses have been cutting hair at this location, just opposite the National Botanic Gardens, since 1910. And mine are about to join some pretty illustrious floor sweepings.
Matt Talbot and Brendan Behan were both customers. Ditto Eamon De Valera. “He was bald on top,” recalls Arthur. “So he’d have had it very short.” The former Taoiseach’s family were also patrons. “The son was a lovely fella. Used to drive a pale blue Mercedes. He was a gynaecologist, big long fingers he had on him.” Read the rest of this entry »