Blog entries are often little more than squibs, textual equivalents of a nudge in the ribs and a confidential aside asking “Have you seen this?” However, the occasional blog post has substance and even the vapid ones have the saving grace that they’re free. However, no such excuses can be offered in defence of “professional journalism” that misses the benchmark of quality by a mile. I came across one such example of sub-standard Irish journalism this morning in The Irish Independent. A column that goes by the misleadingly Sweet-Smell-of Success-style title of I Spy is, to be blunt, an embarassment. A clippings job threaded together by the juvenile witticisms of its compiler, Ian O’Doherty, the flavour of the column can be picked up by the following comments about entertainer David Copperfield:

Even when he made the Statue of Liberty disappear, people mocked his sexuality and he must be the only bloke alive who could marry Teutonic totty Claudia Schiffer and still be called a bender.

“Teutonic totty” is pushing it, but “bender”? C’mon–a playground taunt such as this is out of place in a national newspaper that claims to offer something higher than the usual comic-strip lingo of The Sun or The Star.