evening herald

Student hack bites back!

If there’s one thing this blog is fond of doing, it’s recycling old material. And the hardiest of hardy perennials in that respect is this wildly inaccurate perhaps-not-entirely-definitive profile of me written, in 2005, by a young student journalist from DCU. No matter how many times I post it, it never fails to raise a chuckle. But now the hapless anonymous author has stepped forward to answer his critics. Read the rest of this entry »

The phone is tapped.

The bed is bugged. And that ice cream van outside ain’t selling too many ice creams. So I’ll get to the point. I’m with the East Mayo Boys, outta East Mayo. You might not a heard of us, but we’ve heard of you. We’re hip to every scam. Wise to every scheme. Abreast of all the latest developments on the street. Oh yeah and we move fast, constantly changing our underwear to avoid detection by the authorities. You might say we’re the best. Read the rest of this article here.

Perusing the Sunday papers, something suddenly strikes me…

I hate the Sunday papers. The first six days of the week, newspaper articles tend to begin with sentences like ‘The government has announced…’, ‘Sources in Timbuktu report…’ or ‘Grave robbers in Ballyjamesduff have stolen…’ But come Sunday, all that goes out the window. Suddenly, it’s all ‘Is Bebo turning our children into vampires?’ or ‘Can worrying about my bum give me the plague?’ Read the rest of this article here.

So I hear you’re a racist… Is this the new thing?

“Ah Christ… Who told you?”

“I met Tina in Tescos the other night.”

“For fuck’s sake… He was a Malaysian fella in a Malaysian restaurant wearing a black shirt… Anyone could have made the same mistake.” Read the full article here.

Pakistan and India: armed and fabulous

The India-Pakistan Wagah border flag-lowering ceremony, as witnessed by the BBC’s Sanjeev Bhaskar.

Suspect is armed & dangerous

Is this the least likely (& most amusing) photo of a youthful Bill Gates you’ve ever seen? Haha… not by long shot it ain’t.

That’s some real conversation for your ass

Top 5 Reasons Why Ben Folds’ Bitches Ain’t Shit is the Greatest Thing Ever.

1. Okay, technically, “Bitches ain’t shit but hoes and tricks” is about the most misogynistic statement you could possible make. But for some reason, it’s even more UN-FUCKING-BELIEVABLY misogynistic when uttered by a nerdy, middle class white guy (accompanying himself on the piano). This has more than just shock value though. Read the rest of this entry »

SXSW: dispatches from the frontline

Day began @ 6.30 in the AM when a 30-piece Mariachi band in full regalia performed a surprise gig in my hotel bedroom. Advance warning would have been nice, but the set certainly created some buzz in the adjoining rooms and corridor. Read the rest of this entry »

Nitelink 69N: a critical analysis

The sights, sounds and smells of late night urban transportation are all powerfully evoked by Nitelink 69N (Westmoreland Street, 2.45am). The dialogue is crisp and authentic, with some riveting individual performances extracted from a cast of veritable unknowns. Read the rest of this entry »

Your Ma: A Critical Perspective

There has been a tendency in recent times to recalibrate the matriarch by endowing her with glamour, sophistication or sex appeal. Unapologetically bucking this trend, however, is your Ma: a gormless, rotund but ultimately lovable woman, who makes a persuasive case that the best path forward for the Irish Mammy lies not in elegance or refinement, but in understatement and verisimilitude. Read the rest of this entry »