This week we were

Catching up with:Emeralds' Does It Look Like I'm Here?The album was one of 2010's hidden gems

Reading: Daniel Lieskes beautiful online graphic novel, The Wormworld Saga: wormworldsaga.com

Listening to:The best of the Brownbread Mixtape nights, run weekly at Dublin's Stag's Head. Bursts of good comedy, poetry and music. The performance poetry of Colm Keegan is especially good. It's all archived at brownbreadmixtape.wordpress.com.

Going all method:For the Gaiety School of Acting's free introductions to drama and acting for the camera, in Cork and Dublin this week (there are kids' classes in Bray, Wexford, Castleblamey and Temple Bar today). Call 01-6799277 for times.

Curious about:The impending NCH concert in which Duke Special pays homage to Ruby Murray, with backing from the RTÉ Concert Orchestra, and guests Mary Coughln and Mary Kate Geraghty of Fight Like Apes, on Wednesday, February 2nd. Before that, a documentary, Ruby and the Duke, is on RTÉ1 on January 18th.

Suddenly patriotic about:Maggie O'Farrell, after her Costa award for best novel. Paul Murray was overlooked, so the Derry-born O'Farrell became quite Irish all of a sudden. But what has she said about her nationality? Is she from Ireland (where she was born), Scotland (where she moved when very young), Wales (where she spent much of her youth) or Britain (she now lives in England)? "All of them and none" she told the London Independentlast year. "As I get older people tell me I look Irish [but] Scotland's where I feel at home. We were living there for three years but came back to London recently for a variety of reasons. My husband had to drag me kicking and screaming."

Watching:A lot. It's a decent week for cinema releases, in fact, thanks to Oscar-hungry The King's Speech, sweet It's Kind of a Funny Story, Danny Boyle's mountaineering and self-surgery 127 Hoursand phone sex and self-publishing Easier with Practice.

"I don't like watching myself at all. Mind you, I saw some of 'A Room with a View' recently, when I had to dust it off for some friends. I didn't mind that so much. I don't think I was much of an actor back then, but I think I've changed so much from my younger self. It was like looking at a person from a bygone era. A bygone era of corsets– the actor Helena Bonham Carter in yesterday's Ticket