Susan Hated Literature

When Katy French died I only knew her as “that so-called celeb in a coma”. I only knew her as that because I use TV3 to keep track of the time before I go to work in the morning. And she was a true example of a TV3 celebrity.

I never really intended to post about her death.

What’d be the point. I didn’t know her. Or anything about her. And if I’m honest I don’t care. That may sound uncaring; obviously for her family it is a tragedy. But I don’t post about every person who may or may not have died because of cocaine. Actually this isn’t about her at all, or her death, it is about the media reaction to her death.

Today Kevin (Disillusioned Lefty) posted a link to The Monkey’s Typewriter post about John Waters column in The Irish Times.
OMG what a load of old tripe. The John Waters column I mean, not the blog post. Did someone pretending to be a journalist actually write those things? If it wasn’t so horrendous it’d be funny. Actually, horrendous as it is, it is still hilarious as only self-indulgent tripe can be.

And of course it also further belittles the tragedy of French’s family as they have to put up with the media intrusion into their lives. Personal tragedy is the only real tragedy. This misbegotten piece of trash, from a person who didn’t know Katy is simply cashing in on her family’s pain with no real regard for what they might be going through.

French was not “personification of our fantasies” she was simply a person who was famous. And like all famous people, was therefore subject to other people’s projections and, in this case, a journalist making her less than a person in order to make some general sweeping comment about society. A general sweeping comment, btw, that says nothing at all.

She was a child. She was my daughter and Eoghan’s daughter and Eamon’s daughter and Pat’s daughter and Bertie’s daughter. She was your daughter, your little sister. She was a child of Ireland in the time of its rebirth.

Excuse me while I vomit.

Today’s Irish Times has some interesting facts on the rugby match^[1]

An average of over one million viewers tuned into RTÉ on Saturday to witness Ireland beat England 43-13 at Croke Park.
These average numbers (1.052 million) are remarkable: they trump the peak figures for the Ireland v France game on February 4th, the soccer World Cup final in July and the All-Ireland hurling final in September, which were all just shy of the seven-digit figures.
…
Seventy per cent of those watching television on Saturday tuned into the coverage, anchored by Tom McGurk, from 5.40pm to the final whistle at 7.27pm. An average audience of 535,000 watched the entire coverage from 2.30pm to 10pm.
…
he independent electricity system operator Eirgrid noted a decrease in demand similar to that experienced during the Ireland v Romania game at the soccer World Cup in 1990.
Because people were watching the match together in sitting rooms or public houses all over Ireland, lights or appliances in other rooms were not switched on and this meant the demand for electricity during the match was 100 megawatts less than on a normal Saturday at this time of the year.
…
the effect was also demonstrated by a temporary rise in demand at half-time as kettles all over the country were switched on

Talk about a blood injury

I’d say he had to change his jersey and all before he came back on.

And now for something somewhat different:

A Chara, - How ironic that in the week when we finally have had to accept that we are killing the planet with our over-use of energy, the main cause for celebration should be the playing of a football match under a megawatt blaze of floodlights, following a beautiful sunny spring afternoon.

The challenges of the years ahead in saving the planet will indeed be painful. - Is mise,

And it is terrible, I sorta agree with him. Not entirely though, cause yes, waste of energy, but dude, “the Stadium of Light” looked fantastic. And they did need a proper game to test the floodlights, and if you really want to moan about a waste of energy you should complain about all those shops who leave lights on 24 hours a day, just so you can see their fancy displays when you are coming home drunk from the pub.

Of the ones who feature tvs in their window displays, and leave them playing films all night long too.

You’d really have to wonder what some people have to complain about. Recently there has been a string of letters whining and moaning about Dublin Bus. First off, and for the record, I have never ever had a problem with a bus driver, apart from the crazy russian dude who tried to do his route at light speed, shouting to all his customers and listening to classical music as he went, but even he was amusing. And yes I have waited and waited for a bus that never came, but for the most part that had to do with the fact that the line only had one bus every 30 minutes and it took longer than that to make it through traffic depending on what time you were travelling at.

Anyways, the most recent complaints to The Irish Times have been about the lack of change. See Dublin bus don’t give change. They ask you to have the exact fare, and if you don’t you’ll get a little bit added on to your ticket that you have to bring along to O’Connell st and exchange it for the cash.

Shane O’Sullican writes (sub’s re’q):

Madam, - 2005 has seen a flurry of comment about “Rip-off Ireland”. My vote for “Rip-off of the Year” goes to Dublin Bus for its continuing mistreatment of customers who do not have the exact fare.

According to Dublin Bus over 150 million passenger journeys will have taken place on their buses this year. If even one in every 15 of these journeys is undertaken by someone without the exact change and who pays 10 cent over the going rate, the surplus to Dublin Bus is over €1 million this year alone.

While paper refunds are produced on request, the unfortunate bearers must make their way to O’Connell Street to claim their refund, a pilgrimage that I doubt many people bother to make. - Yours, etc,

What a moaner. The surplus to Dublin Bus, as he puts it, can’t be kept by them. There is no best before date on the ticket, so you can go back in 10 years with your horde if you so wish. Or at least I think you can. And even if they did get to keep it, so what? The actual surplus would be nothing like €1 million, I’ve been in to exchange my change tickets, and I’ve had to queue. Therefore people do make the long and ardous journey down the main street in the city and collect their money. I doubt they do it for every single 10 cent, instead they do the sensible thing and wait til they add up. The in you go with bits of paper and come out with a fiver, or a tenner.

Honestly what is the big deal?

And if he doesn’t want to face the ordeal of Dublin city centre he could always give the fare to a charity and let them go in with a bucket load of paper slips to be exchanges for cash.

I wrote most of this yesterday, just before leaving work, and then wandered around the shops, left my overdue and still unread copy of Anansi Boys back to the library^[1] and then purchased a couple of books in Chapters^[2] I got Twenty Years After by Dumas; the first book in the Sarantine Mosaic trilogy by Guy Gavriel Kay; and The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler. this last one because NM has mentioned these Philip Marlow books are worth a read. And it was cheap.

Found myself up by the kino, so popped and the only thing I hadn’t seen that was on at the right time, and that I actually didn’t not want to see^[3] was Merry Christmas, and the only thing I knew about that film was that it was in one o’dem furrin languages, and set in WWI. I went anyways.

Only for some annoying woman to walk by and knock over my popcorn^[4] luckily only spilling a tiny bit, but still, that stuff expensive man. Anways, was really thinking I shouldn’t've bothered when the credits started and the seemed to go for ages. But I’m really glad I went. I’ll stick a review up over at Moving Pictures eventually, but I just thought I’d tell you all here that if you have the chance you should go see this film. Really great. Although you will be required to read some subtitles. The film is in French, German and English^[5] and is based on the accounts of the unofficial truces during World War I over christmas along the trenches.

So if it is showing near you off you go and take a peak. It’ll put you in a really good mood.

I was shocked to read this article in today’s Irish Times. I mean, television viewers making sense! What’s that all about? A shocking and horrifing new development if you ask me.

Those interviewed found depiction of a graphic rape scene more acceptable as part of a detective drama than in a soap opera, for example

And this belief that violence is more acceptable for adults than for children! Where did such reason come from. Won’t someone think of the children. Oh, hang on, they are. Because, and this really is an inciteful finding,

issues of violence, sex or coarse language were more acceptable for late-night broadcasting.

Since when did common sense become so rare that an example of it makes the papers?

And in a totally unrelated issue was out at the pub last night, and one of the usual discussions came up. You know the whole unemployment rate in France ^[1] and the fact that Irish people do enjoy using their credit cards, and getting massively into debt, because, lets face it, unless you use real hard cash then you really aren’t spending any money now are you. But that is not what I want to type about now. Oh no. A far more valuable discussion occured.

One concerning The List, you know the top five fella’s^[2] that are pure sex on legs. Only I could only come up with three. Sure there were other names hovering, but they just weren’t, you know, top five material. I did have a list of five before, and while Brad Pitt and David Boreanaz are still “all that” are they still top five?

My list of three in no particular order
• Adam Baldwin
• Sean Bean
• Keifer Sutherland

So I need another two…. Vince Vaughn maybe. Suggestions?

The build-up to this week’s football has begun. Ireland v France. Of course we will win And in order to help our team the journalists are already calling us the underdogs, because the Irish team simply cannot win a match that, on paper, they should easily walk away with. Although, obviously enough, this is not the case against France. They should beat us, which in turn, makes it more likely that we will actually perform. Or at least, so I hope.

We can play a little football but let’s not forget that while the papers were noting the return of Zidane, Makelele and Thuram they were also wondering whether Clinton Morrison would be at Norwich this season. There’s a gulf. In this fight we’re the underdog but it’s the size of the fight in the dog, not the size of the dog in the fight, that matters. Let’s rumble.

As for the title, well that is from a statement of Thierry Henry’s: “The Irish possess the fighting spirit that we don’t have in France and I find it striking, it is going to be a case of everyone going to war, pure and simple.”

Nothing like a cliche is there Thierry?

In my oh so brief round up of the weekend I never mentioned the GAA action. Poor Laois were well beaten by Armagh in the football, but the match of the weekend was definitely the hurling^[1] between Galway and Kilkenny.

for context and excitement and sheer wonder, Croke Park yesterday was the place to be. The centre of the universe. There were just under 40,000 there but in years to come at least five times that amount will claim to have breathed the same northside air through these 70 minutes of hurling
What we saw was a Galway team who were humiliated to the tune of a 19-point margin by Kilkenny last summer come to Croke Park on a big day and drive five goals past Kilkenny. The last time that was done to Kilkenny was 33 years ago (an 80-minute game and they managed a draw) and it’s something which one could go a hurling lifetime without witnessing.

The final score was Galway 5-18 Kilkenny 4-18 ^[2] and seeing as we were cheering on Galway it was an even better result. I’m just wondering how many heart attacks fans out there had, considering the way the game was played.

The rebels or the tribesmen, who’ll win the final?