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 […]

The Swiss made a rare incursion into the Irish mindset last Wednesday, when their football team’s stolid defense at Lansdowne Road denied the Irish team a place in the World Cup Finals, which will be staged next year in Germany. Given the woeful performance of the Irish team, some pundits have claimed that the Swiss […]

From the Washington Post:”In what may turn out to be one of the biggest free-falls in the history of presidential polling, President Bush’s job-approval rating among African Americans has dropped to 2 percent, according to a new NBC/Wall Street Journal poll.”

According to the Swedish Academy, Pinter is a writer “who in his plays uncovers the precipice under everyday prattle and forces entry into oppression’s closed rooms.” As with every Nobel Prize, one wonders at the political context–is the above comment a dig at the ongoing trial-free detentions at Gitmo?All in all, I think most people […]

From the deluge of stories about John Banville following his (conventional-wisdom alert!) surprising Booker Prize win, the most interesting nugget was offered up by John Boland, whose Saturday TV review in the Indo is always worth reading. According to Boland,”[…]since the day we first met as young subs in the ‘Irish Press’ until he [Banville] […]

OK, yesterday’s sunny post was an anomaly. Today, I want to beat up on Fintan O’Toole–his review of the book by former Irish Times editor Conor Brady, “Up With The Times”* was largely a snow job, focusing on the positive (breaking the Bishop Eamonn Casey story, for example) while glancing on the not-so-shining moments (when […]

Well it’s good to return after an unplanned, unannounced sabbatical from the blog with something unusually positive. (BTW, I’m writing this after deleting about 1380 spam comments–has anyone else noticed that in the last year or so the concerns of spam have shifted from porn, viagra, and, erm, “member enhancements” to focus mainly on offers […]

The BBC features an article on The Meaning Of Tingo, a book by euphoniously named Adam Jacot de Boinod that collects some words or phrases that deserve to be borrowed by English.For example, the Japanese phrase “bakku-shan” describes a girl who appears pretty from behind but not from the front (a phrase that is quite […]

From the surprisingly dependable National Enquirer:”Bush, who said he quit drinking the morning after his 40th birthday, has started boozing amid the Katrina catastrophe.”When the levees broke in New Orleans, it apparently made him reach for a shot,” said one insider. “He poured himself a Texas-sized shot of straight whiskey and tossed it back. The […]

Those who have earned a crust writing courseware for that nebulous industry, e-Learning, often cringed at the “scenarios” they had to create that illustrated some recommended workplace behavior. These scenarios are usually populated by saintly figures of decorum and tact (illuminating the “right” approach) and oblivious boors who make sexist comments and say the worst […]