The #IrishTimes has long been the spiritual home of the cult of #Bono. But now its veneration of the self-important patron saint of 1980s Irish yuppies has led the newspaper to disappear completely up its own rear end. #NotSatire
Screenshot from https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1APubHRTbG/
For masochists, the full article is at https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/tv-radio/2025/05/29/bono-documentary-u2-songs-of-surrender-film-apple-tv/
Irish Times: "If there’s so much buyer’s remorse about Brexit, why is Nigel Farage the rising figure in UK politics? Ten years on, an angry tribe sees itself as more English than British - and Ireland must stay alert to the dangers"
I suspect I feel more positively towards Farage than standard taste in Ireland dictates.
Give that woman an #IrishTimes column! Oh... She has one already.
Stand down.
This #IrishTimes journalist has obviously never read the comment section of #TheJournal
Of all the culture war issues in Britain, the 20mph limit in London is one of the oddest
At least the #IrishTimes are reporting it. On BBC News..... *Crickets*
Elton John & Brandi Carlile
'The two collaborators are on stage at the London Palladium earlier this week – the ashes of the song-and-dance man Bruce Forsyth are buried under the stage – where they are being interviewed for a television special....'
The first time I read this sentence I thought it was Bruce Forsyth's ashes that were being interviewed.
#EltonJohn #BrandiCarlile #BruceForsyth #LondonPalladium #lgbtq #EltonJohnandBrandiCarlile #IrishTimes
In the Good Books
It seems like eternity since I was on sabbatical and had enough time to get stuck in to some reading not related to work. Since I got back from Barcelona last September I’ve lapsed and haven’t read many books since then. I keep reading reviews in the Times Literary Supplement but that’s as close as I generally get.
It’s been in my mind for a while to rejuvenate my interest in literature but last week I had two specific triggers. One was the news that Amazon has opened a dedicated website in Ireland. I view that as a trigger not in a positive way but because it will make life even harder for our excellent local bookshop in Maynooth so I felt I should do more to support them. The other trigger was that the Irish Times published a list of the “best” 100 Irish novels of the 21st Century. When I saw I had only read a few of them, and feel I should read more contemporary literary fiction emanating from Ireland, I decided I should use the list as a guide to help me get back into a reading habit. Anyway, I went to the bookshop last week and bought these six to start with:
These aren’t the top six, by the way. They’re just the ones that caught my fancy while I was browsing in the store.
I’m going to start with Claire Keegan’s novella Foster, as it was this work that inspired the beautiful Irish language film An Cailín Ciúin which I blogged about here. It’s quite short, so it should provide me with a relatively gentle re-introduction to reading. I have’t decided in what sequence I will read the others. It remains to be seen when I can get another six let alone how long it will take for me to read all the books on the list!
Any comments on these books, or indeed any others either on the top 100 list or not would be welcome!
That doesn't seem like something you should be able to get insurance to escape?
"According to The Times of Israel, the insurer, PassportCard, has allocated $1 million to cover the cost of repatriating #Israelis to avoid possible prosecution for alleged crimes during the war in #Gaza which followed the Hamas attack on Israel on 7 October 2023." https://www.irishtimes.com/world/europe/2025/02/25/israeli-soldiers-flee-netherlands-following-accusations-of-gaza-war-crimes/ Peter Cluskey in #TheHague 25 February 2025 #irishtimes
Irish Times survey: "Voters in the South [of Ireland], as well as voters from a Catholic background in Northern Ireland, are more strongly opposed to Commonwealth membership than they are to NATO membership."
Despite joining NATO having significant foreign policy implications and joining the Commonwealth being purely symbolic, albeit of British hegemony.
2legged
iamBullivant
Dread Pirate John Scab🚫
Karin Fenz
Pino Carafa
w
In the Dark
Hurting more people is worse
