Halloween: Get yer Haunted Dublin
WARNING: BLATANT SEASONAL PROMOTION AHEAD Haunted Dublin: Chilling accounts of the supernatural in the cityOnly €14.99 + P&P! By Dave Walsh Introduction by Barry Kavanagh Paperback: 93 pages, including 40 photographs by Dave WalshPublisher: Nonsuch IrelandPublished October 2008 It's that dark, weird time of year again, children. The time of year when the hairy salesmen of Blather Publishing Ltd. don their skeleton leotards and coming knocking on your door in the dead of night, hellbent on convincing you to buy professionally dogeared copies of Haunted Dublin. Got a copy already? Then feck off, or buy another for your granny! Go...
Friday Choon: The The’s ‘Heartland’
Photo by DigitalKatie, used under CC license. "This is the 51st state--of the U. S. A." "This is the land, where nothing changes, the land of red buses & blue blooded babies, This is the place, where pensioners are raped, & the hearts are being cut, from the welfare state, Let the poor drink the milk, while the rich eat the honey, Let the bums count their blessings, while they count the money." Full lyrics TheThe.com More Friday Choons
David Norris for President of Ireland
Ahead of the curve, that's us. Back in the dark days of 2004, we fine upstanding reprobates at blather.net called for the esteemed Senator David Norris to made President of Ireland. A seed was sown, somewhere, perhaps in the zeitgeist by our demands. Other people were apparently of the same mind - and a Facebook page "Senator David Norris for President" was born. At the time of writing, this, 15,850 people are fans of the page. After years of saying "no" to the idea, David, spurred on by the Facebook attention, has decided to now run for the presidency. Read...
Gulf of Mexico: Where’s all the oil gone?
I'm currently on board the Greenpeace Arctic Sunrise, in Galveston, Texas, where we've just come in from a week and half's work with a bunch of scientists to find out where the 4 million barrels of unaccounted for oil has vanished to. I've published a blog about it on the Greenpeace USA website: Where's all the oil gone? Some key bits: While the water samples taken from way down deep during the trip are off to the lab to get analyzed, the immediate, measurable data obtained by Rainer tells us this; that there's a clear indication of an oxygen deficiency...
Monday Conspiracy: 2012 Olympics Logo and the Secret Illuminati Something Or Other
You ready? Okay - here we go: Moody music? Check! Reference to Nazis? Check! Assertion that you're SADLY mistaken and the conspiracy theorist can help you see straight? Check! Reference to Protocols of Elders of Zion? You betcha! One World Government? Bing! Image Detail from a photo by OpalMirror. Used under a CC licence.
Friday Choon: DJ Le Clown’s ‘Message De Rien’
Utter, utter gorgeousness. DJ Le Clown rescues Edith Piaf's 'Non, je ne regrette rien' from the footnotes of Hans Zimmer's Inception score and mashes it with Grandmaster Flash's 'The Message' - with some screaming mad, Bad Lieutenant Harvey Keitel thrown in for good measure. Mag-feckin-nificent. Altogether now: 'Don't. Push. Me. Cos. I'm. Close. To. The. Edge...' Click to play. Via Mashuptown.com Image 'La Vie En Melrose' by numberstumper. Used under a CC licence.
Monday Conspiracy: The 7/7 Ripple Effect
The first in a new series for you, the Monday Conspiracy, where we take a popular conspiracy theory kicking around on Youtube or similar video-sharing site and take a cursory look at the tropes, stories and syllogistic thinking loops which are used to construct the narrative. Or we just point and laugh. First up, the '7/7 Ripple Effect' videos, which explore the conspiracy theories surrounding the July 7th 2005 bombings of London, England. Here's your check-list. Look for: Syllogistic thinking The number of references to 'they' or 'them' The use of audio, visual and other sensory tricks to introduce elements...
Friday Choon: I Want All Maneater [Hall & Oates vs. Queen]
On the announcement that Freddie Mercury is to be played in a forthcoming movie by none other than Sasha Baron Cohen (inspired casting if you ask us) here's a recent Queen/Hall and Oates mashup for your Friday listening pleasure. Click to play. I Want All Maneater Mashup by Dj Morgoth Image by Orange Beard, used under a CC license.
Friday Choon: ‘Ghostriders in the Sky’ by Johnny Cash and the Muppets
Johnny Cash performs Ghostriders in the sky on The Muppets Show.