Nothing much to add to Ms Lord’s majestic (Ah now, he doesn’t use words like that every day you know! – ed) treatment of the #picturegate #cowengate #portraitgate scandal… Except that now over on creative Ireland it is time for the revenge of the Photoshoppers… Of course it wasn’t An Taoiseach who was complaining, just one of his pesky servants… Ah but who, then, is behind this incredibly aggressive police investigation?
Here’s a great review of a fascinating book (H/T reader Rory) on how the Internet is destroying our capacity for intelligent, focused and critical thought. It opens thus: …here is the news that Ulin brings in this slim, meandering book: that reading is “an act of contemplation”; that such an act becomes more difficult in [...] read our review »
John Laird (Lord Laird of Artigarvan) is unionism’s jester. His memoir A Struggle To Be Heard ” by a True Ulster Liberal” (from Slugger’s shop on Amazon here) might serve more as a heavy stocking filler than anybody’s idea of a main present. In it he wears the masks of comedy and tragedy to turn the [...] read our review »
More as a trailer than a review – as it’s out on Thursday– I draw attention to Fintan O’Toole’s latest polemic “Enough is Enough – how to build a new Republic“. Fintan has been promoting the book vigorously on this side of the water, on Radio 4’s Start the Week and here at greater length [...] read our review »
Miriam Lord’s piece was great but there is an unintentionally hilarious article by John Waters in todays Irish Times attacking the sketches as a cultural by-product of Internet ‘auto-eroticism’. Ah the coarsening of modern discourse! You’d never hear Brian use ‘toilet language’ or the dread F-word.
bocktherobber.com has some great blogging on this outrageous overreaction by the culture police. Waters piece is pompous drivel.
Bock the Robber website