Jeremy Vine’s finest few minutes reminded us that most television news seems to have viewed the likes of The Day Today as an encouragement to act like gibbering news monkeys, rather than as a deterrent. This gives us the excuse to look back at the BBC’s brilliant late-90s satirical series Saturday Night Armistice (later Friday Night Armistice), presented and written by Armando Iannucci, with Peter Baynham and David Schneider.
This is brilliant mash-up between Rainbow and Newsnight’s London mayoral candidates’ debate.
EVERY ONCE IN a while an issue comes along that is of great importance to the State and its citizens, which must be discussed openly and about which the people will ultimately have their say.
But which just happens to be so dry that people’s eyelids involuntarily droop at the very mention of it, their brains rebel 30 seconds into every debate, and their breath quickens when anyone asks them for their opinion. Because they realise that, yes, it’s a terrifically important issue – it just happens to be really hard to pay attention.
You’ll have guessed by now that this is a column about the Lisbon treaty. (more…)
With no surprise whatsoever, the Government’s new laws on alcohol turn out to be weaker than a non-alcoholic Becks. In fact, this is pretty much the wussiest attempt at dealing with the alcohol problem that could have been managed. A snip at the off-licence hours, a move to remove booze from open sale in convenience stores, a few CCTV cameras outside nightclubs, and a promise to actually enforce legislation already passed that allow on-the-spot fines, and seizing of alcohol on the street.
And, thankfully, they’re cracking down on theatre licences. Well, by cracking down they mean they’ll make it harder for them to get one. Thank God they’re finally hitting those theatres hard. Dens of iniquity the lot of them. Especially those specialising in early European avant-garde. Louts.
So, a pointless exercise all round. They listened to the recommendations of the Alcohol Advisory Group, and then went ahead and ignored several of them. The Government goes on about changing this country’s attitude to alcohol, but it’s unable to change its own attitude to publicans and the drinks industry.
And it means that in a week that a HSE report gave some stark facts about the impact of alcohol in Ireland, the drinks industry will continue its mealy-mouthed defence of itself. It claims it is responsible in all it does, when it continues to target young drinkers through sponsorship and multi-coloured rocket fuel. Frankly, when you have the drink industry and vintners welcoming legislation aimed at tackling the alcohol problem, you can be sure it has nothing to do with their own changing attitudes and more to do with how watered down the legislation is.
According to Slate, Barack Obama took only five-and-a-half hours to react to a Hillary Clinton ad this week.
11: 15 a.m.: Clinton campaign e-mails: “NEW AD: Clinton Campaign Unveils New Ad Asking Voters, ‘Who Do You Think Has What it Takes?’ ”
4:49 p.m.: Obama campaign e-mails: “AD RESPONSE TO CLINTON FEAR AD”
His is called: ‘He Has What It Takes’. You can watch them below.
THE DEPARTMENT of the Environment is running a television ad proclaiming that this generation will be defined by how we tackle climate change.
As examples of previous generational challenges, it includes images of emigration, an aid worker in Africa, and the North. To illustrate the Independence era, it features both Éamon de Valera and Michael Collins, so hinting that someone in the Department felt it was best that the issue of switching off unnecessary lights was not split along Treaty lines.
But each time this “Change your world. Change the world” ad runs (to be followed by a commercial for bottled water or some attractive product wrapped in unnecessary packaging) you have to wonder: what’s the point? Yes, it is trying to help us take personal responsibility for a global issue. And it directs us to a website that has handy tips, a map informing us that Westmeath will some day be a haven for exotic wildlife, and that promises it will soon feature a carbon calculator.
But is it really worth spending millions to raise awareness of an issue that the public is possibly more aware of than any other? It’s a message that is already being hammered home in schools, that’s been seen in an Oscar-winning documentary, and that pops up in regular news reports. And we’re still fresh from the Power of One and the Race Against Waste ads, also funded by the Government. Surely anyone on this island who hasn’t already got the message is, at this stage, never going to get it, no matter how snappy the ads. (more…)
The Dept of Environment’s new ad, telling you that how we tackle climate change will define this generation, can be seen here.
Note the use of both Michael Collins and Éamon de Valera as symbols of the struggle for independence. Message: just because you might disagree on the Treaty, doesn’t mean you shouldn’t turn off unnecessary lights.
ON WEDNESDAY, it became obvious where Cecelia Ahern had inherited her narrative skills from.
Her father, it seems, has passed on not his penchant for tortuous, intricate and confusing plotting, but his ability to introduce a sudden twist at the moment you least expect it. This week’s was surprising, effective and satisfying. Most important for the general public, it was tremendously good fun.
Every story needs a twist, but this is an era in which surprises come rarely. The weekly glossies have destroyed the suspense of the soap opera, whose plots are now revealed weeks before climaxing on screen. Instant media means movie twists are spoiled before they hit the cinemas; books are scanned and posted online for those who want to skip straight to the end; US TV dramas are reported, dissected and spoofed in the few days it takes them to cross the Atlantic.
Meanwhile, because it knows the public gets a kick out of a newsflash, Sky News has devalued the concept by running “news alerts” all day, even for the most minor stories.
Bertie Ahern, it seems, appreciates just how much the public loves a good shock. In hindsight, when the discussion gradually turned to the question of when he might go, the answer should always have been “when we least expect it”. He had already proven his narrative élan last year when he allowed the rumours about the date of an election to stretch out almost to the point of tedium. Then, at possibly the least likely moment imaginable, dawn on a Sunday morning, he travelled to Áras an Uachtaráin – trailed by political correspondents so unprepared they might as well have been half-dressed and had toast sticking out of their mouths. (more…)
RTÉ’s Nine O’Clock News, which last night went out on a musical montage (Westlife, naturally). “How could you just turn and walk away…”
Watch the piece here.
Warning: this may make you cry tears of vomit.
“I’d like to say that it has been an honour to serve Fianna Fáil. Thanks to the people in Fianna Fáil. They clearly take precedence over the rest of the people. By the way, I have been the second longest-serving taoiseach. Not the second-most corrupt though. No way.
“It was honour to join such giants as De Valera and Lemass. Charlie who? Never heard of him.
“I will now assert my ordinary man credentials by thanking the plain people of Ireland who prayed for me and sent me Mass cards. I will know tighten my mouth some more to give the impression that I could cry at any minute.
“I want to thank my colleagues who are gathered around me today, blatantly reading my script and wondering how much longer I’m going to talk for.
“I want to say that I fully respect my coalition partners, Mary Harney and John Gormley. Gormley, you’ll have noticed, is standing on my shoulder today like some slobbering pet. Good boy, John. Now sit.
“I want to thank my make-up team who have given me this healthy orange glow, which is emphasised by the pasty faces of the cabinet crowding into shot around me as I speak.
“While I have always done my duty for the people only and not myself, the media has steered the political discussion towards the minutiae of my private life. I will not allow this to happen and so will throw myself selflessly on the sword so that we can get on with talking about the important issues of Irish politics, such as how much of a political genius I am.
“Now, I will talk about the minutiae of my private life. At the time all this money was swilling around my bank accounts I was undergoing great problems in my family life. Remember those? They worked as an excuse before, so damn it I’ll use that card one last time.
“When deciding on a date to go, I took several factors into account, including my speech to the joint houses of Congress, the visit of a Japanese delegation and the Lisbon treaty vote. So, I am getting out of here before that referendum campaign kicks in. If you think it’s boring, try negotiating the bloody thing.
“Therefore, I will tender my resignation to President McAleese on May 6th. You won’t have Bertie to kick around anymore.”
Mint Productions (run by Miriam O’Callaghan and Steve Carson) is giving Bertie Ahern the major documentary series treatment, for RTÉ1′s Autumn schedule. Mint previously made the Haughey biography and Fine Gael: A Family at War.
It is, arguably, one of the best production companies at the moment, and the three-part series is unlikely to be a souped-up version of the pre-election broadcast in which his very best friends lined up to tell us that we should thank the heavens he saved the North.
Given that Mint has been interviewing various ministers, including, apparently, Willie O’Dea and Dermot Ahern, it clearly has the dear leader’s approval (Brian Cowen is reported not to be taking part). And he’ll no doubt have been encouraged not only by Mint’s track record, but also the BBC series on Tony Blair as he was on his way out.
But would it be better to wait until Ahern’s out of power a couple of years, when the developments at Dublin Castle can be sifted through and understood? Clearly, the man himself feels that it’s better to do it now. And he’d probably be right.
“I suspect the guillotine is hanging over my head.”
Samantha Power’s interview on RTÉ Radio 1′s Today with Pat Kenny would have been interesting anyway, but given that it was perhaps her last public comments before being axed from the Obama camp for calling Hillary Clinton a “monster”, it has an added pathos now (although that depends on your political viewpoint).
You can listen to that interview here. You’ll find her comments on the “monster” controversy from 52:30 minutes on.
As a journalist it raises the important question of what is off the record and what is not; and is it unfair to quote her as saying that Clinton “is a monster, too – that is off the record – she is stooping to anything”?
If journalists printed everything that they were told was off the record, newspapers would be far more exciting places. But they don’t, often to maintain relationships with sources, out of respect for interviewees, and because of the unwritten code introduced by the mere mention of teh words “this is off the record”. They are supposed to act as invisibility dust, hiding the remarks from the record. But not this time.
The one thing that can be said for the epic saga of the Tribunals is that it’s filling YouTube with content (well, 0.0034% of YouTube anyway).
Because satire is dead on Irish television and radio, here’s the latest online attempt at summing it all up in a snappy tune.
The new anti-drugs campaign – largely focussed on cocaine – has a couple of problems.
Firstly, the ad that features a balloon popping over and over is, ironically, the kind of thing that would drive someone to substance abuse.
Secondly, the slogan it reveals – The Party’s Over – represents a preachy, finger-wagging attitude that people only bristle against. The radio ads are pretty bad – badly acted, badly scripted – but the slogan might actually suggest the wrong thing: that a party’s only a party with drugs. It’s a “right now folks, time to go home to your beds and be responsible citizens” message of a killjoy authority.
Besides, having complained about the “same aul’ jargon” last week, what does the minister with responsibility for drugs, Pat Carey think about a campaign that, despite the information leaflets and website, is largely hinged on the kind of aul’ jargon that has proven useless in the past?
Back to Senator Mary White’s bid for glory in 2011. She’s just been on the News at One showing her humility: people “thank me for inspiring them” and giving her Liveline-lite spiel again.
“We’re becoming more aggressive and less caring,” she says. More aggressive and caring than a society that used to beat children, protect sexual abusers, lock away pregnant women and steal their babies? Really?
She was also been going on about age again, that there’s an unfairness against older members of society. And she has a point. But she’s running for a position that is not available to anyone under 35, which is pretty unfair too.
The Constitution should be changed to abolish that age restriction. For a start, a young president would be more representative of the population. Plus they wouldn’t be prone to constantly harking back to some non-existent heyday.
3hrs 24mins: time Hillary Clinton spends each day widening her eyes and pointing at people in the crowd.
Perhaps she’s been hyped up by the US Presidential primaries but Senator Mary White has announced that she’s running for the Áras. The election is not until 2011, but she’s starting early.
“I want to be the third Mary in the Park,” Senator White (63) said today. “I’m a warrior and I’ll give it my best shot.” Ms White said her goal for the presidency was to bring Ireland back to being a caring society in the post-Celtic Tiger era.
She how she’s getting the overblown, hand-wringing “caring society” talk in early. It’s the Liveline approach to political campaigning, and if you don’t like it you’ll want to tune out for the next three years.
The big questions are: will Emily O’Reilly up the ante by responding with another meaningful musing on modern society?
And are we reaching a point when the maternalisation of the Presidency is becoming tiresome?
Some observations from the US primaries:
- Cathal McCoille must have wanted to slap down the American chap this morning who told him on Morning Ireland that he knew a lot for an Irish man. “Hey, aren’t you a clever little leprechaun. Do a jig.” This guy had already arrived on the show by saying hello to the “emerald isle”.
- The New York Times cuts to the chase on its website and just gives its readers the results first.
- Of the many US campaign ads, this has the oddest catchline. It’s like something off a low-calorie chocolate bar (“Choconums: surprisingly moist”). Although, it would be fun to see an ad of this type on Irish television. “Willie O’Dea: surprisingly bitey.” “Enda Kenny: surprisingly evil.” etc.
The Americans here are obsessed about who we’re not paying attention to over there.
The Irish are obsessed with which of the candidates is a ninth cousin of someone over here.
And now here’s Tom McEnery (“a former mayor of San Jose … he spends part of each year in Ballybunion”) writing in the San Jose Mercury News about the bellweather town of Ballybunion.
When you want a real idea of who will be the next president, do not turn to the pundits and the talking heads of the chattering, bodiless, odoriferous order that pontificates for each and every network and cable channel – look to Ballybunion. Here in a place known for golf, seaweed baths and prognostications, you will find the truth. Here the denizens decry the hoopla of polls and likely voter profiles, and simply prefer the age-old method of trial by rhetoric, argument and ancestry – oh, yes, ancestry. Even now in Costello’s Public House, the verdict has been rendered, and it’s for the kinsman. As they say, “Surely, he’s Irish, near Killarney, ye know, and ye’ve only to look at Barack’s face and the way he speaks: Homeric!” This is a vetting and examination that each American president and aspiring president has to endure. The verdict is in… (more…)
This video from Ron Paul Supporters in Ireland popped up on YouTube this week. If you don’t know who Ron Paul is, this attempts to point out why. It complains that the US presidential candidate has got little coverage here; that you would assume there were only two candidates in the race.
It has a point, although this video isn’t interested in examining the context. This isn’t the Irish election, in which the media follows rules about bias. Instead, the Irish media concentrates on the stories that interest them and – they presume – the public. Still, even in its blunt way, it raises an interesting issue.
