The competition to become the first Irish person in space is becoming ever more bemusing. First, Bill Cullen, professional self-made man and memorialist of Dublin in the rare ole times (see here for his musical tastes), announced he would be the first Irishman to be launched into (sub)orbit via the services of Virgin Galactic (which […]

It’s been a while since my last post–events (principally the passing of a close grandparent) have distracted me from my duty to the blogosphere. The break makes you realize one clear connection between a blog and its pre-digital antecedent, the diary. In both cases, gaps in the entries often actually suggest heightened activity rather than […]

In the usual annual lists of best books, several reviewers have mentioned the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. This 60-volume set is a snip at just �6,500.00. One critic in “The Spectator” claims it’s so good that it’s worth flogging your daughter’s pony to afford it. Such is The Spectator’s readership.At least it’s eligible for […]

With the dollar touching new lows against the euro almost every day, the United States’ trade deficit, running at about $600 billion a year, is much in the news. This article from the New York Times (requires free registration), which tracks the 22-day journey of the enormous Korean-registered container ship Hyundai Glory from China to […]

In the wake of the smoking ban in Ireland, many pubs in Dublin now feature outdoor ashtrays, shaped like boxes and clamped to a wall. Advertisers, aware of the eyes of a captive market, have started putting small posters on the front of these ashtrays. (This painful exposition is for readers outside Ireland–that vast horde). […]

With all the enthusiasm (you suspect) of a child swallowing boiled broccoli, Sunday’s New York Times Book Review presented a high-minded Poetry Symposium* in which various poets handled the unenviable task of picking a “book of poetry, published in the last 25 years, [that] has meant the most to you personally–the book you have found […]

I came across this site via the splinters blog: espressostories. According to the text on the somewhat rebarbatively designed site, it provides stories that follow the “basic rule…that they’re just a sentence or two, totalling 25 words or less.” The project is inspired by Augusto Monterroso’s “famous” story, ‘The Dinosaur’”:When he woke up, the dinosaur […]

After poring over the kilos of newsprint lugged into the house over the weekend, I think I could draw a graph that proves the equation that the number of newspapers you buy is inversely proportional to the articles you actually want to read. At first glance, most of the supplements’ pages seem like unashamed celebrations […]

This month’s issue of threemonkeysonline should make some professional journos tug their collars with unease. After all, with an interview with one of the filmmakers behind the documentary The Corporation, a discussion with Greg Palast on American politics, and a talk with Sarah Hall, a rising author recently shortlisted for the Booker Prize, the online […]

A report (registration required) in the LA Times from November 15 provides details on the destruction wrought in Falluja (the LA Times spells it ‘FALLOUJA’–if the insurgency lasts much longer the Chicago Manual of Style might have to start listing the standardized spelling of major Iraqi cities) during the bizarrely named ‘Operation Phantom Fury.’ (Presumably […]