Thinking about great opening lines. My feeling is that of this RTE list, very few are actually great opening lines qua opening lines (Lola, Big Yellow Taxi, You're So Vain). The rest are just opening lines of songs people like www.rte.ie/radio/gold/s...

DM: ‘You come to large wooden door.’ Cat: ‘I knock at the door.’ DM: ‘An orc opens it and asks you to come in.’ Cat: ‘I do nothing.’ DM ‘He asks you to come inside again.’ Cat: ‘I do nothing.’ DM: ‘Eventually the orc tires and closes the door.’ Cat: ‘I knock at the door.’

I know I have achieved a debilitating level of influenced wokeness when I see this and think "this is bad for wildlife"

Himalayan Balsam is seeding right now. These dark green torpedos mean they’re ready to drop. Ideally you’d have got this stuff sooner, but those are just the first seeds, usually at the top, they’ll produce more and more down the plant all month. Yank it now. Right now. Go go go,

Heard what I thought was forgotten "grungy" and objectively not good mid-to-late REM song Binky the Doormat in the place I sometimes buy a sandwich today. Impossible to know what it means.

Name the restaurant

Continues to be the case. A celebration referencing a previous Riquelme celebration? It is simply too deep.

My feeling was that if England continued to play, using their better-than-Argentina bench, they would have won.

They are endangering perhaps the most important part of the game: print deadlines

[Me after getting diagnosed with autoimmune gastritis, a non-fatal disease hundreds of millions of people have] I am like Gilgamesh

I assume Ireland's Brazilian population will be cheering for England this week. And I suppose it's their right to nurse that grudge.

Increasingly of the belief that Ireland needs to issue another psychedelic handbook containing general facts about itself www.rarebooks.ie/books/litera...

This seems to be a point of confusion so I looked it up for a piece a few months ago. Data centres in Ireland are air-cooled 90% of the time. That's why they're in Ireland. HOWEVER they are water cooled when it's hot for a long time such as now.

Beckham's vicious attack on Simeone, no doubt vengeance for 86, only underlines this.

Slightly rattled by Argentinians. Is it possible to be too proper a football nation?

We've had the desert World Cup in Qatar, the humidity World Cup in the US, the altitude World Cup in South Africa. But what about the rain World Cup. Ireland. Scotland. Wales. Northern England. October/November. Who can deal with 11 days without daylight.

Is Nico O'Reilly Ireland-qualified? We would have let him play 8.

MAGGIE THATCHER CAN YOU HEAR ME

As a Dubliner I have kinship with the wider sea network of Norse trading towns and outposts and as a result, despite Erling Haaland being spontaneously generated by a vengeful god to punish Manchester United for Roy Keane's treatment of Alf Inge Haaland, I will be supporting Norway.

The captain doesn't row.

You would have to think France do these no problem, and also do the winner of the other bracket no problem.

Belgium employing South Africa's tactical innovation, sending it long but somehow weakly to nobody. Who is to say whether it will work

Firstly, if they got rid of offside football would become a game primarily played with the head by very large men in the box. Secondly, if they didn't suspend red-carded players, it would incentivise intentionally injuring the best players of the opposing team towards the end of games.

Can I observe that the big grey cloud and raindrop icon for today on several weather displays online resulted in what I estimate to be about 12 raindrops at circa noon.

Had never heard of this stuff but someone gave us some with cheese as a present at Christmas and, six months later, I am enjoying it a lot. Very distinctive. www.irishblackbutter.com

Is it normal when there is a series of earthquakes everywhere simultaneously or is that doomsday?

The most southerly point of Ireland is further north than the majority of the Canadian population, we didn't have to think about air conditioning until like 10 minutes ago! Leave us alone!

In lighter news: In Stoneybatter, an annual tour of local cats – from the gentle giant to the chicken thief. Read about the neighbourhood cat crawl here: www.dublininquirer.com/in-stoneybat...

Tell you who didn't fall down conceding a goal is Crumlin man Pico Lopes

You don't understand. When it's hot in the country achill gets covered by a thick wet sea fog. I haven't seen the sun in two days and today isn't looking good either. This was midday yesterday and if taken the day off work to enjoy the sun 😭😭😭

Heard someone passing on the street saying (verbatim) "You know what I said to him, I says to him I said, I said: Karl, would you ever wake up". Processing what to do with this.

Rice needs a holiday

How far does this have to go down before he's not a trillionaire any more

Fella saying they should illustrate stories about the heatwave with images of vulnerable people dying. There is a reason most articles even about vulnerable people dying do not feature images of people dying, which is that dying people tend not to want to be photographed by the Associated Press.

Hint of condescension about Pico Lopes stuff. He is a veteran player for a team that wins the (admittedly minor) league and plays in Europe. It's not 'play for France' levels but there are plenty of lads in World Cup squads at that level. New Zealand have a fella who plays for Braintree.

WHYY a great name for a radio station. Also America consider playing sports on normal grass as god intended. You can get retractable pitches now for Zack Bryan concerts and for when you need to heatlamp your primary pitch.

No disrespect to this young gentleman who is doing a thing, as all NCAD students should, but a robot seanchaí: not for me. www.rte.ie/news/2026/06...

Shout out to the Scots showing the lovely Americans what alcohol, travel insurance, and socialised health care waiting at home can achieve. "Big historical horsecunt was pure beggin' for a conin'", noted one onlooker.

This book sounds fun, two good facts in the review: the Authors cricket team was once ill-advisedly called the "Allahakbarries", and Virginia Woolf looked down on them (shock) literaryreview.co.uk/often-caught...

Terrific piece by @patrickmaguire.bsky.social:

Thomas House of Dublin exhibiting the pro-human solidarity that all of us should demonstrate.

I think US soccer fans are underestimating the role of drinking 10 beers in the production of new and innovative football chants. The chant generation process and the 10 beers are parallel. Sometimes it's cans on a bus, sometimes it's pints on the terrace of The Shamrock Irish bar.

Head chef at Patrick Guilbaud, a two Michelin star restaurant, has opted for the Itsa Bagel in Arnott's, incredibly. www.independent.ie/lifestyle/fo...

Every extant city in Ireland was founded as a city by the Vikings (Dublin, Cork, Limerick, Waterford) or the English (Belfast, Derry) apart from Galway, where it rains 365 days a year and traffic is chronic. It's time to try again. www.irishtimes.com/opinion/2026...

Did RTE send lads to some kind of correct pronunciation boot camp or something, I thought we had settled on how to say Breel Embolo in English about 10 years ago.

Who taught JD Vance about tone-policing ffs

Cannot believe the South African strategy of blindly leathering it into the defenders has finally paid off.

The time of the week once again to say that the Republic of Ireland Men's National Team would have battered these chancers.

Enjoyable that you can tell the difference between a visiting fan roar at a game and a local roar (the latter generally prompted by showing an NFL guy or country music star on the big screen, which the commentator has to explain because they don't cut to it on the world feed).

Macron as a diplomat has one thing very few can match: famous shiny gold palace