Category Archives: Misc

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Last week’s Golden Discs voucher giveaway was a disaster.

The winning song should have ran last Sunday, Father’s Day.

Bodger slipped up massively. He is very sorry.

The winner of the €25 Golden Discs voucher in last week’s competition is Stephen F, who penned for his dad the following.

For Fathering Sunday, please give the Golden Discs voucher to my father Robin and play him ‘A Whiter Shade Of Pale’ by Procol Harum while you’re at it. It is his favourite song from the 60’s and remind our family of trips to France on the ferry from Rosslare when we were young, listening to ‘Our Generation’, on a 4 tape 60’s compilation my parents bought over the phone long before online record shops were even a thing, as we travelled further south through France…

Bubblin’ under:

Bertie Blenkinsop: “For Father’s Day please play “My Old Man” by Ian Dury & The Blockheads as it’s a gorgeous, heartwarming tune that says the things you wouldn’t have the nerve to say to your Da.”

Starina: “For Fathering Sunday, please give the Golden Discs voucher to my father John and play him Johnny Cash’s ‘Folsom Prison Blues‘ cos when we were driving through Folsom a couple years ago he wouldn’t let me play the song in the car because ‘I won’t have country and western in my truck!’.”

Me Myself I: “For Fathering Sunday, please give the Golden Discs voucher to my father Tom and play him ‘Madonna – Papa Don’t Preach’ while you’re at it because I’m male and gay so it would confuse the hell out of him (the keeping the baby part, not the being gay and playing a Madonna song, that’s fairly standard!)”

Thanks all

Golden Discs

Previously: Dad Rocks

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David McWilliams

Amid a tragic parade of gloomy Europhile pundits [John Bruton, Pat Cox, Alan Dukes and Noel Whelan to name but four] on Today with Seán O’Rourke on RTE Radio 1 this morning, David McWilliams took a more cheerful stance on the Brexit vote.

G’wan McDreamy.

Seán O’Rourke: “I want to go now to David McWilliams, on the line, the economist. David you dissent from a widely held view, among economists, that this is very bad for Britain, very bad for Ireland economically. Just looking at one of the headlines on something you wrote in the [Irish] Independent recently. ‘We will do just fine if there’s a Brexit‘ – how so?

David McWilliams: “The most important thing was to get the result right, OK. There’s no point in analysing the wrong result. So I always believed the British would leave and that was an unusual position in Ireland but not an unusual position if you spent any time working or living in England.

So I think what happened, it wasn’t that I dissented, Sean, in actual fact I believe Official Ireland just got this totally wrong – underestimated the feeling, overestimated their use of propaganda when they deployed it. And, ultimately now, have got to pick up the pieces.

I couldn’t understand why Ireland bet so ubiquitously, Official Ireland that is, Sean, on one result in a two-horse race that we knew was going to go down to the line. We have to have a plan B and Official Ireland had no plan B so..”

O’Rourke: [audible sigh] “Well, we’ll see now…”

McWilliams: “But it’s very important to listen to that Sean. And it’s very important that your listeners are told this: That we had a two-horse race. For whatever reason, Cameron decided go for it, he did. When it became apparent that this was going to be 50/50 or close to it.

We should have a much more nuanced approach, rather than trying to scare people into voting one way. Now I’ll come back to the scare, right.

Every single institution, Sean, that has told us this will be economically a catastrophe, it’ll be detrimental, etc, etc..Every single one of those also told us in Ireland it would be a soft landing eight years ago. Ok?

The IMF, the European Commission, all these institutions that were so confident in the forecast about Brexit got everything wrong on the financial crisis.

So, let’s just stand back a bit. Nobody really knows what is going to happen economically.However, what we do know is that, during this period of uncertainty, some direct foreign investment will be diverted away from Britain because companies might think, ‘well, hold on a second, we’re not going to put, invest there, just in case, we don’t know really what the end result is going to be’.

Now where Sean will that DFI be diverted to? Americans will not stop investing in Europe, via the two English-speaking countries in Europe, just because Britain has said politically ‘we’re out of the EU’. So I suspect we could have a huge opportunity here, actually garner a percentage of that diverted capital and income to Ireland. So rather than assume that the world is going to end, what we know Sean, is that change is the only thing that is constant in life.”

O’Rourke: [faintly audible sigh] “Ok, I’ll come back to you on that..”

McWilliams: “And we’ve got to deal with it…”

O’Rourke: “In a few moments…”

Listen back here

Previously: ‘You Came Out Pretty Aggressive There, Dan’

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What you may need to know:

1. There’s not much going on in the news this morning, so let’s have a look at the new Jack Reacher trailer.

2. Reacher (Tom Cruise) returns to the headquarters of his old unit and finds himself accused of a 16-year-old homicide.

3. Cruise hasn’t changed in 25 years. Because lizards.

4. Fans of the Lee Child novels were furious when Cruise was cast as the 6ft5in Reacher. But the first movie grossed $218m.

5. Shooting probably involved a box for Cruise and a trench for Cobie Smulders.

6. Cruise will be seen next in Universal ‘s reboot of The Mummy (2017).

7. Broadsheet prognosis: Reach for the top shelf.

Release Date: 21 October.

(Mark writes about film and TV at ScreenTime.ie)

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Northern Ireland Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness

The British government has a “democratic imperative” to call a referendum on whether Northern Ireland should leave the United Kingdom and unite with the Irish Republic, the province’s Irish nationalist Deputy First Minister said on Friday.

“The British government now has no democratic mandate to represent the views of the North in any future negotiations with the European Union and I do believe that there is a democratic imperative for a ‘border poll’ to be held,” Sinn Fein’s Martin McGuinness told national Irish broadcaster RTE.

Northern Irish deputy leader calls for vote on united Ireland (Reuters)

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The cabinet gather at Aras an Uachtarain on May 6, following the General Election.

Well…

With some choice, salty and, frankly, work-unfriendly language the author casts her eyes over the performance of certain members of the cabinet to date.

Grab a tay.

Frilly Keane fumes writes:

This Government is S H one T

This Government is SH 1 T

This Government is just plain shit

Whatever way you want to spell it; it still means shit.

And by Christ is this current Irish Government all of them.

I don’t know of any other Government that has been more shit.

Did ye ever see the like?

A Minister for Health that was a Journalism School wannabe only a few years ago. Seriously. One of the biggest monsters in our annual spend, and one that is vital to the health and wellbeing of all us and our families is being led by a a 29-year-old DIT Journalism graduate .

Fair enough if Simon Harris decided journalism wasn’t challenging enough and he was capable of bigger and better things.

But you and I know he didn’t go off to McKinsey’s or Harvard MBA lands or even, you know, the real world of work. What Simon Harris did next was arse around and slobber up for a handy gig. And it worked. Like this is la-la land and we’re all doing so well that there is no need to consider someone of substance, qualification, experience and meaning. But it’s not yet we still get Simon Harris. Those Nurses better not strike is all I have left ta’ say about this one.

We have over in Iveagh House a Minister for Foreign Affairs that makes Elmo look like the smart one. Charlie Flanagan is useless. USELESS. He’s as much an International Diplomat & Statesman as I’m a Prima Ballerina. If I was ever held hostage over in some place where the even the kids carry guns I’d have a better chance of a safe return to ye if t’was a Healy Rae or a Mattie McGrath on my case.

Look at Leo, Minister for Social Welfare, now spending his days sitting on his arse waiting to pick a fight with the next Johnny Come Independent; that’s all he’s at these days – falling out with the Independents. For all the busy-at-work they’re-my-taxes heads pissed off at Social Welfare receivers… remember this, that’s also your pension (and Paternity Leave) in there.

Coveney? If yere wondering like … is Clongowes thru and thru, from his toenails to his receding hair line. That snobby langer is no more going to get houses built for our housing lists and hotel room families in the name of the common good of our local communities than Denis O’Brien will offer to pay for them. Watch the developers and land bank hoarders sort out his job for him while he pulling on his mainsheet.

And WTF was Mary Mitchell O’Connor ever good for? Now she’s Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation … now there’s an Edinburgh festival winning routine all on its own. Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation a vital Government Department in my opinion, it’s as important as Foreign Affairs, yet Fine Gael treat these appointments like they’re dishing out fun size packs of Haribos.

Paul Kehoe: Defence!!!! I feel’d more assured with just a Garfield sticker in his place.
Is it any wonder they’re having to back track on Water Charges and Bin Charges.

What’s next? I tell ya wha’

The 2017 Budget. What Noonan is going to have to do to get the votes could well exceed any previous pork barrel buffet benchmark by a toll-free 100km motorway with free NCTs at the Service Forecourts along it. At least.

And there’s another sham of an appointment btw, Minister for Finance Michael Noonan. Enda might as well have renamed the gaff the Department for Old Misers and Misogynists. It’ll be like a scene from a Willie Wonka revival in there come Budget Negotiations: I want I want I want or I’ll cry and cry and fuck off.

So what is that despicable cruel old man Noonan going to have to give to Ross? A South Dublin Stock Exchange perhaps? Ha I can see it now on RTÉ News: “and on the N11.sEX – down 4 points”

And what d’ye think he’s going to have to give to that interloper Zappone?

It won’t surprise me to see him tell Pascal Donohoe to increase their mileage allowance. Because all Droopy Donohue is going to do there in Expenditure and Reform is figure out a way of taking from one group of public servants and dish it out around the Cabinet table to keep them all happy.

I’d say Zappone is going to need a bigger promise meself, a Presidential Candidacy wouldn’t surprise me.

Maybe I’ve actually short-changed this Government. Not alone is it Shit – It’s a Gimme Gimme Gimme free for all.

Hon’ Ireland.

Frilly Keane’s column appears here every Friday. Follow Frilly on Twitter: @frillykeane

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