Bin the Bongs - no more Angelus

Note: Picked up on this survey thing from the excellent 'Gombeen Nation' blog.

RTE are doing a SurveyMonkey online questionnaire thing to garner our opinions on big issues like diversity in programming.

http://www.rte.ie/about/publicservicestatement.html

It seems like an ideal opportunity to demand that the Angelus is removed finally from our national airwaves, or at least gets moved to TG4.

Some of the survey's questions are unbelievably stupid, with very vague references to 'the Wider Community' and 'Serving the Whole Island of Ireland'...

Anyhoo, I filled it in with a few ideas:

1. Get the Angelus off national TV and Radio.
2. Axe Fair City and let the actors feck off and play to 3 people per night in Andrew's Lane or the Tivoli (because usually, theatre is their first love!).
3. Axe Craig Doyle's Saturday Night show. People thought Kenny, then Tubs were safe and bland but Craig has managed to stretch the boundaries even further...
4. Ban Mary O'Rourke from Montrose and let her go and do some real work (or potter around her garden) and desist from constantly appearing on every RTE TV/Radio talkshow as some sort of political punditry queen.
5. Don't let Gerry Ryan on TV ever again...  Goodness, that was bad timing when I posted that yesterday. Feel pretty shit about it now:-(

R.I.P. Gerry...

Hang on in there Twink (a.k.a. Adele King).

Mixing vodka/gin or any other strong alcoholic beverage with prescription medicines is never a good idea, especially in the early morning (ask Jimi Hendrix...)

On a completely unrelated note (ahem!), heard Twink interviewed on the Gerry Ryan show this morning and almost knew this was coming...
http://www.rte.ie/arts/2010/0427/twink2.html

Anyhoo, although she seems to be deeply despised by anyone who has ever come into contact with her (I recall an RTE friend describing her as the bitch of all bitches), I hope she pulls through; Otherwise:-

• I will have to delete at least 20% of my blog posts in which I reference her in a less than flattering manner.
• Gay Byrne will return to host a special 5 hour Late-Late show in her honour. Guests will include the old-school: Hal Roach, Sonny Knowles, Dickie Rock, Brendan Bowyer, Fr. Brian D'Arcy  et al.
• Maxi will appear and breakdown in tears and claim that Adele is/was a national treasure and was Queen of all our Hearts.
• President McAleese will declare a national day of mourning.
• Bertie Ahern will stuff his pockets with freshly chopped onions to help him weep at her funeral (she's a true inner-city, North Dub, you know; well at least North Rathfarnam...).
• Linda Martin will get  the lead role in 'Menopause', Maxi will assume the secondary role.
• Paul Williams will publish a story in the News of the World claiming that the old hag was poisoned in an INLA/Maxi/Linda Martin conspiracy, aided and abbetted by the Donnybrook mob leader, the psychopathic Olly 'the Otter' O'Toole, who has strong links to various Limerick and Brack/Noggin/Shankill gangs.

Twelve Angry Men - Lee J. Cobb goes mental

I think this is my favourite movie of all time.  Seems to be shown twice a week these days on Sky. One of the greatest casts every assembled. Henry Fonda does the lead, but also great performances from E.G. Marshall, Cobb, Martin Balsam, Joseph Sweeney, Jack Warden and Jack Klugman (later known for the Odd Couple and Quincy).

Think this was made as a kind of a post McCarthy witch-hunt message, as many of the people involved had been at least semi-blacklisted for their leftie views.

Anyhoo, this is one of the classic final scenes, where Lee J. Cobb's character reveals why he really wants the defendent proven guilty and sent to the electric chair.

Edith Piaf - Avec Mes Souvenirs

On foot of my previous post, this is a quite moving video of the great Edith Piaf in her very later years belting out her 'teeeeem tooon'. Play it loud! :-

Janis Joplin Tribute

Joss Stone and Melissa Etheridge do 'Piece of my Heart' and 'Cry Baby'.



Think it is Melissa who gets Janis the best, although she was apparently recovering from chemo at the time, which adds extra poignancy to this...

Janis was one of the all time great female singers in my opinion, comparable to Sarah Vaughan, Billie Holiday, Judy Garland, Aretha, Mavis Staples,  Edith Piaf, Twink and the mother and daughter in Crystal Swing.  I'm just joking about the last 3!

TV3's Xpose - It's Banana Facile

Five completely Facile Bananas - giving the puplic what they need..

Since David Bowie did his skit song on 'Extras' series 2, I've been waiting for the chance to use the expression 'Banana Facile/a Complete Waste of Space' in some meaningful context.

Thanks TV3 for providing the very opportunity, courtesy of Xpose, which is close to being as bad as their notorious 'PlayTV' debacle, and probably equally as nauseating as the TV3 breakfast show, with Mark Cagney and that creepy co-presenter guy Alan who, I've been told, spends his evenings hiding in the bushes on Dollymount Strand, with a scarf around his face, looking for anonymous sex (allegedly!). Ireland AM is actually addictive TV also...

We get great interviews from Mark, looking very solemn and then outraged as he learns that Mary from Tullamore has had her state funding cut for her three kids suffering from Spina Bifida/Autism etc.... He tends to ruin the mood though when he ends the interview abruptly, goes to an ad break and then directly to travel or the weather report when they come back, which is ironic really as Mary from Tullamore is probably making her way through the rain to the nearest bus stop to get to Connolly and catch her train back to Tullamore.

Xpose is a dinner-time, TV magazine show, which makes NOW magazine look like the Times Literary Review, such is its low-brow content, or lack of any content.

It's presented by 5 people; 3 interchangeable 20-something dollybirds who seem to be heavily influenced by Lorraine Keane and/or happy pills, one slightly older (and more competent and butch) lady, and a fey former kids' TV presenter called Sean who got the gig via a reality TV show (on TV3). Most of them have horrific mid-Atlantic accents (with Dalkey affectations), which sound like fingernails scraping down a blackboard.

Anyhoo the show does what it says on the tin. Endless 2 minute segments on the weighty, important issues of the day, e.g.

• Is the Nautical look in this season, or is the Rustic look coming back? We investigate...
• Brown goes with everything, but can you go wrong with a classic black heel? We investigate...
• Has Jennifer Anniston had botox or implants? We investigate...
• Are Katie and Pete about to re-unite? We investigate...
• Affordable designer handbags. We investigate....
• How to buy sexy socks on a budget. We investigate...
• Whom was Colin Farrell seen with in a Ringsend chip shop last month (all will be revealed...)?
• Is Danni pregant. We investigate...?
• Of course, we all know that denim is back,  BIG STYLE. But you do need to accessorise wisely with denim; So, one of our presenters went to TK Maxx in Mullingar for some top style tips...
• What's new in the A-Wear and Unique collections for that classy Summer look? We investigate...
• Fake tan or sunbeds. What are the risks? We investigate...

 Plus endless fabulusss red carpet interviews, movie premieres, and wardrobe tips.

 For 'movie star interviews' they use the now common technique where they read pre-prepared questions against a video of the 'star' in question who gives stock answers that were obviously pre-recorded once, for mass media distribution. So they are never in the same room, or country, but pretend that they are!

 My favourite presenter is Sean, who seems to become even more camp as every day passes.  While the girls totter around on impossibly high heels, Sean seems to be trying to fill up the screen by adopting an  earnest I'm a little teapot' pose while spreading his legs wider and wider in each episode, rather like a dog marking his territory; He may end up doing the splits.

He must be paid well, dressing like he has a personal stylist (perhaps he's getting freebies from Penneys), all the time grinning inanely at the camera, with his bleached teeth, and uttering banal phrases like:-

• Great Stuff
• Great Stuff Indeed
• Great Stuff Entirely
• Fablusss Stuff
• Fablusss Stuff Indeed 
• Fannnnntasssstick!
• Join us tomorrow, when we'll be pretending to interview Hollywood superstar Pierce Brosnan about his latest instantly forgettable movie and on just what it was like to play Remington Steele.

It's PlayTV all over again.  I've just replaced one car-crash TV addiction with another... Oh the Humanity!

Bad Day at Dublin 15 - Tyrrelstown Murder

Just read a posting on Gombeen Nation about the murder of that kid in Tyrrelstown:-

http://gombeennation.blogspot.com/2010/04/racist-killing-of-toyosi-shittabey-in.html

If the addendum on the post is true, then it's sickening that a racist, thuggish, piece of sh*t like the alleged perpetrator is allowed out on bail, or even more how he was walking the streets at all, in the first place.

What is even more incredible is that the guy's (alleged) accomplice younger brother could only be charged yesterday with the enormous crime of 'possession of a hockey stick'. What the F*ck? Thought April Fool's was over. I'm guessing it was a hurl or baseball bat and the naming convention of the charge refers to some obscure, ancient  law to tackle traveller wedding riots/faction fighting).  Anyhoo, I'm sure he'll do hard time for that charge (not!!!). Only in Ireland...

I had thought that, over the last 10 years, Dublin's 'Skanger Nation' had gone back to their mainly peaceful interests (i.e. wearing tacky sovereign rings and Celtic jerseys and getting skulled on 'Dutch Gold' 24 hrs a day) and gradually got over their mentality of 'Dem blacks and dem Bosmanians  duz be taking our jobs. And the social welfare duz be giving dem free cars and big houses to live in. It was bad enough when the Pakis took over the corner shop in 1995... etc.'.

It's a minor issue at this point, but it's also a bit depressing that we have learned nothing from the past English  model and appear to be unwittingly allowing micro ghettos to slowly develop in Ireland along racial/cultural lines.

Jesus is Just Alright (or is he?)

Something for the weekend...  The Doobies in the 90's doing 'Jesus is Just Alright'. Think this was one of their earliest hits in the 70s, a cover of a 60s folk/gospel song.



The first version I heard of this was done by the late-era Byrds on some greatest hits CD. Not sure how tongue-in-cheek either version might be.

Would be great if Crystal Swing did a version of this...