WIN Your Own Michael ‘Tea’ Cosy

Virginia Costello, who knitted the now-legendary Michael D Higgins tea cosy (above), has offered ONE lucky reader the chance to win their own lambswool presidential pot warmer – complete with cardi and red tie – in a totally Árassome competition.

To enter, suggest one way Broadsheet.ie could improve. The most abusive heartfelt and useful offering wins the cosy.

Lines close at 3pm

5.05pm Update: Winner Announced tomorrow morning. Thanks all.

 

199 thoughts on “WIN Your Own Michael ‘Tea’ Cosy”

  3. Have ye considered paying individuals to create content instead of scraping four day old reddit posts?

  8. Ads. Loads of ads, all over the screen. Ads we can print out and tape to the inside of our eyeballs so we can see them when we sleep. Ads!

    Eh… Disqus support in the comments section?

  11. A “like” or similar feature on posts and comments, instead of the +1 we’ve come to do… See TheJournal for what I mean. Not that I would *read* TheJournal, that is…….

    • What Fifflestix said! A thumbs up / down button at the side!!

      I won’t get the cosy myself, but if Fiddlestix gets it for this recommendation, I’ll be happy with that :)

      • This is the best thing you could do. It would declog the comments, and let you figure out whether the cartoons and such go uncommented because they bore us or because they’re great but there’s not much to say about them.

        I also wish you had a better sense of when things become funny through repetition and when they remain irritating, but that’s a bit hard to implement.

  13. Up/Down votes for comments so that intelligent and useful reactions are go to the top and Jerry Buttimeresque comments go to the bottom.

  14. By paying a handsome sum to anyone who leaves a comment. After all, it’s us who make the site what it is

  18. Bring back the good auld days when men were men and women were men, a morbidly obese Mary Harney ran the health service and houses cost more than their weight in gold…

  20. Can you make an interface where it would be possible to punch someone through the internet? By simply punching my screen I could take the jaw off some of the humourless twonks that inhabit these parts?

    More pics of models holding up inflatable mobile phones and other gems from the canon of Irish P.R. shot in exotic locations like St. Stephen’s Green.

  23. I suppose my recommendation would be to allow voting for comments so we can bask in glory when someone likes our comment and fall into depression when someone doesn’t.

    push the boat out with this however, vote up, vote down, and a Star to commend innuendo in the comment (Brown Star).

  24. Can you have thumbnail pics of photos/video stills etc on your mobile version instead of the dog?

    more encouragement to supply you with content (and maybe an incentive??) so that you’re not re-hashing from Reddit?

  26. RSS Feeds like TheJournal and Boing Boing with at least one embedded image.

    Also, one the left of the site you could have a few “trending” lists to give people a chance to look at what’s the hottest story of perhaps the week? Month?

    - end of line -

  27. By actually giving the answers to the ‘Where’s this place? Answers at 3pm’

    This thread is a prime example, will BS actually announce a winner or just sit back, ignore it, and keep the damn cosy for themselves?

  28. I’ll never win it with all these smart arses but I would care to purchase a Michael Tea Teapot warmer!

  30. the stuff on terry prone was excellent, more of this instead of pictures of cats to fill in the 15mins please, also some pages take a good while to load, more IT wizardry please

  36. Improve the page load times
    Improve the Reply to comments thing – indents all the way down is not good
    Bring in +/- on Comments
    More cat stories

  37. Search box thingy – Jesus, I always find something on this, then go looking for it ages after and cant find it. A little box, search box yoke to find old posts would be nice. (or am I a thick and you can? as you can tell I am a computer guru)

  38. A paper version delivered to my desk twice a day.
    More wool based prizes not excluding live sheep and lambs.
    Hire Indo journalists for inspiration.
    Hire IT editiors to carefully hide the work of the Indo journalists.
    Stay just the way you are ;)

  39. A picture of Michael Squee with the tea cosy / wearing the tea cosy / knitting the tea cosy would make my day….

  40. Find a way of stopping my computer freezing for 30 seconds while the main page loads / refreshes. I am so addicted this happens at least 500 times a day :(

  46. If the moderators/posters start using browsers with a spellcheck…

    Would save the tedious points about spelling in the original post… so we can get on to the busy work of correcting the spelling in all the comments. :-)

  47. A version that is generally pleasant at all to use on a blackberry would be a god send.

    An option to get email updates if commenters have commented on your comments would be welcome.

    Other than that keep up the fine work.

  48. More of Chompsky’s outside broadcasts, we’re going through cctv of saturday’s unlocknama event to try to discover his identity.

    I had the android app but removed it because I couldn’t turn off notifications. pain in the hole.

    edit one’s own comments.

    thumbs up/down button for comments.

    facebook share buttons.

    commission a ‘Shit Broadsheet Says’ viral video.

      • really!….. f’ing really!?!
        you are so mortified about your awful greamear being pointed out to you that you think that anyone who draws attention to your mistakes has done something so heinous that they should be aligned in nature with a member of a far-right racist völkisch violent anti-Semitic paramilitary nationalist movement?
        get a grip!

        • This hoopla makes a good point. Sadly uncapitalized, but a worthy sentiment nonetheless!

          • i was being ironicallyist about it. i take no sides in pointing out plonkerdom. i have even been known to find plonkerdom where none previously existed.
            yay me.

  50. One, Poochie needs to be louder, angrier, and have access to a time machine. Two, whenever Poochie’s not on screen, everybody else should be asking “Where’s Poochie”?

  52. I’m not saying that your not running a truly brilliant site. Because you are. But here’s my tip. A new look Broadsheet solely dedicated to things that look like Ireland, with extra sectors obviously added to include things that look like the counties. Like that? Good. Gimme Gimme Gimme.

  54. Rather than asking people to post their thoughts, the future of Broadsheet should be a topic for the annual Gonzaga College Debate.

    I’d like to see the future of this site argued to the death by Peter Sutherland, Chompsky, Sasko Lazarov, Terry Prone and Dana.

    The title of the motion, which will be called the Kate Fitzgerald Memorial Debate sponsored by Crackbird will be: “That this House believes that handing over the running of Broadsheet.ie to those with a Gonzaga Education would have saved the country. PS more kitteh videos.”

    http://www.broadsheet.ie/2011/04/29/are-you-going-to-the-gonzaga-debate/

  57. User Accounts on the web & apps so we can save favourite posts, monitor posts where we’ve left comments.

    No more cats

    No more things that look like Ireland unless they are totally mind-blowing like Ian Paisley’s mole that looks like Ireland

    More Michael Squee

    Otherwise, love the site. Keeps me entertained and looking busy in work

  60. really really want that Michael D’ cosy so here goes
    *more content, more of the time
    *content shouldn’t stop at 6pm
    *categorized articles for easy retrieval: politics, lolz, Ireland things
    *improved search functionality
    * improved graphic design, current style is effective but could be sleeker
    *forum section, dedicated discussion board
    * expansion of the service to group discussion section ( gumtree, boards, )
    *image sharing function like https://www.meebo.com/
    * perhaps a check-in functionality that people can update where they are and a user submitted story?
    *user generated content, subject to moderation
    *guest articles.
    *all in all, more content for people to procrastinate with.

    Do i get the Micheal D cosy yet?

  61. No more the thing that looks like Ireland
    A Forum
    Users of the website can nominate C**t of the Month from people they feel worthy
    Maybe some games/quizzes something to keep people occupied

  63. An annual awards ceremony, where people nominate winners in categories that are nominated annually by people.

  66. Definitely do not stop saying “literally”. It’s literally the best thing about this site. Also, things that look like Ireland is literally also the best thing about this site.

    • Hello…. Paul Galvin….??
      Sur that scrawny lad couldn’t hold PG’s pashima

  74. Fix images for old articles. Have a “random post” button to click when you’re bored and want to look at a random old article.

  75. The ability to hide replies to comments if you want. Clogs up the screen when one comment has 50 replies.

  76. Some way of grading comments so they are easier to find, more popular posts stay at the top. Grade popular posts per day, rather then overall, keep them near the top.

    Show more of the recent posts, is it 5 at the moment, could be 15 or 20 to get a feel for what people are talking about

    A forum as mentioned above, maybe for popular posts break away and turn into a forum. Too difficult to track random posts in popular threads without re-reading everything, could they be shown in real time, and linked back, have a quote button.

    Report, Delete and edit buttons, give guidelines, information on what can be posted

    List of people who are logged in and a log in ?

    I’m not desperate for the tea cosy but the kids love it, these are just things I find wrong with using the site, otherwise it has great potential and very funny….. when it’s not being serious. Separate the funny from the frivolous, there just flowing out of me.

    Broadsheet app don’t get me started

    • Limerick Blogger has a lot of these things as standard in their forum, and they work quite well, worth a look. (Poor or no moderation though)

  79. Have a User Name history – where you log in and can look at the threads or conversations that you have contributed to and see how they have developed,

    Somewhere where I can share my satorical and politically/socially apt and uptodate photos/observations etc with you for possible uploading to broadsheet.ie (after moderation of course)

  80. comments filter that removes all of the pointlessly, overly negative/cynical comments people post

  81. An optional way of subscribing to a thread, notifying you with an email, so you can keep up to date with discussions you find interesting, without having to go back in and look for the thread and scroll through every comment.

  83. More weekend posts so I have something to make myself feel better while dying a death each saturday and sunday for the next 8 weeks.

    And no more Earls photo shop’s. Not that I dont like him, they are just crap.

  84. Two words: Anne Doyle!

    Now that the queen of all things news has left the confines of Montrose, how about you offer her a daily 5 minute news summary broadcast?

  86. Make Facebook sharing less gimpy. It just comes up as a load of gobbledygook when you try to link directly from the story.

  87. Perhaps links to “prevlous” and “next” at end of comments on each piece. Would save having to scroll back to top.

  91. Sorry – Make the default page the most recent news item ONLY, then for the earlier postings..

  93. Yiz are already pretty perfect but I would really like that tea cosy please. I’ve so little in my life…

  94. Make the link to each separate article at the bottom as well as the top? Cover all the ground;) you never know when someone has a very witty slash remarkable comment to make but they just… can’t… find…. the……………………… link!

    • improve the android app to reach out and firmly slap upside the head anyone who acts the kn0bcheese by mentioning titz

  99. can you ask the kind lady for the knitting pattern for such cosy then we can have a who knitted the best Micheal T feature?

  103. A little bit of a redesign on the visuals and functionality of the site and app.

    Changing the logo/header would defo be a start, as mentioned in my email yesterday.

  104. PLEASE fix the bug on the iPhone app. I’d read Broadsheet a lot more if I could comment successfully from the phone.

  105. And less of those stupid and idiotic creations people use on their teapots to maintain the heat…

    • More contributions is not a bad idea either. You lot are well placed to publish, say, a daily or weekly “other voice,” interesting little original articles (you could have a word limit) from people who have views and expertise on a whole range of topics you yourselves might not necessarily think of covering. Your scope’s already wonderfully broad, but this could add more original content, upping your game a notch. Just a thought.

  109. Broadsheet is the most phenomenal website for learning what’s going on in Ireland and generally wasting time but a couple of things that could help it excel further is:

    1. Dedicated iPad app
    2. More squee
    3. More regular unique content – your analysis is generally spot on – trust in yourselves and do more of it.
    4. Like / dislike on comments like thejournal.ie
    5. Let people become members of the site and develop profiles – this would facilitate comments and make contributing easier
    6. Keep on trucking

    Would really really like that Michael D tea cosy … really.

  110. More regular unique content – your analysis is generally spot on – trust in yourselves and do more of it.

    What Dean says here. The analysis is excellent – honest and incisive. It also helps maintain that balance between squee and serious which sometimes gets ever so slightly tilted in favour of squee.

    The twenty ten-based theme is not really ideal for a site with a multiplicity of daily posts – it takes a long time to scroll through everything. Maybe a different layout with main news story in centre changing hourly & then round it various themes to click on e.g. squee, cartoons etc., constantly updated?

    It would be great if there was something commenters could click on to see responses to their comments on the various threads – wordpress has something like this for bloggers which is very handy. Probably would require a login, and be complicated, but might be worth considering at some stage in the future.

    A facility to search for favourite commenters’ comments would be nice too – it’s hard to find the time to keep up with comments on more than a few posts. Latest comments box shows five comments – I’d increase it to ten as it would give a better sense of which posts are being actively commented on at any given time.

    Apart from that, pretty damn perfect – great work guys.

  112. Don’t implement the pos / neg voting buttons on comments.

    Find it off putting on the journal.ie

  113. No more:

    “They’re calling it [Insert terrible pun here]”

    We all know there is not “They” only you Broadsheet.