Realized today that while I take an almost childlike joy in skyscrapers, some of them are TOO TALL. Stood at the bottom of the 106-story behemoth on the left here and it actually made me feel slightly ill.

FAO @viriconia.bsky.social: BOTE TOP

Today's inexplicable morning earworm: Doubleback Alley by The Rutles.

A very orange young man with so much work done on his face that he looks like he's in a wind tunnel has just stormed out of the bubble tea place I'm in because they don't sell slushies.

Caolan Robertson is not Irish and he is not a journalist. He’s a content thief who is regurgitating the Irish Times’ reporting Irish people *will* remember Caolan from #repealthe8th when he briefly stopped working for Tommy Robinson to make propaganda for the pro life group Youth Defence.

I find the oddity of this reassuring, like something that only occurred because a butterfly flapped its wings in Japan - Donna Summer’s ‘I Feel Love’ owes some of its genesis to Anthony Powell. (This may be common knowledge) From chapter 2 of Elizabeth Alker’s ‘Everything we do is music’

Greetings from Toronto, where during my attempts to stay awake until something resembling a normal bedtime I have purchased a 1980s shirt covered in ships, a hat, and am now having a glass of wine in a bookshop.

Can't wait to read about Peter Spork, Dinky Molens, Spikel Snesmith and Gravy Joans.

Gorilla Playing Saxophone with Balloons has dropped out of the White House concert

The Sunday World renaming itself Crime World is one of the funniest things ever. What a mental name for a news site. This world is psychedelic. It's bubbled over onto the surface.

In further "the slopnet has ruined everything" news, I have a hashtag on Instagram purely for collating my pictures of crap Renaissance lions, just checked yesterday and it's been spammed with loads of terrible AI-generated pictures.

My novel, Experts in a Dying Field, is OUT IN TWO WEEKS, June 11th. Here are some nice things people have said about it

Couldn't think of a song related pun for the headline no? Nothing in his back catalogue you could link to still not being dead

Today, while reviewing submissions to the AbSciCon 2026 Creative Writing Contest, I discovered a new tell for gen AI. Now, I had assume that gen AI, when asked to write fiction, would at least come up with unique character names. Turns out, I was wrong. Let me tell you about Eva Rostova

I am in Krakow for work and am being brought to a Witcher themed dinner this evening. I have never seen The Witcher. What should I expect?

Swim before breakfast: smugness levels OFF CHARTS.

NOT NOW, ANGRY GODS OF FIRE FROM BOTH THE HEAVENS AND THE EARTH

This made it into my most recent book, but I once had a used copy of The Sorrows of Young Werther in which someone completely unmoved by his sorrows annotated, “Get a job!”

“It is an argument feminists have made for a long time,” she says. A washing line ban, with no dedicated space indoors, is “architecture attempting to make domestic labour invisible”.

Fianna Fail suffering fuels me in much the same way that yellow sun powers Superman. I feel like I could lift a car above my head.

Happy World Goth Day to that one Beaker in particular

This cause is close to my heart - please sign: my.uplift.ie/petitions/co... @uplift.ie

EXTREMELY LOCAL RANT: Christ almighty not only has the change from the 123 bus to the 73 made the route much less useful, the service from Go Ahead is appalling. Three buses in a row have just vanished, next one is cancelled.

Also attributed to Durer is 'Major Misunderstanding and the Politically Correct Brigade of the Apocalypse' from the 2008 Viz calendar. There are similarities, but experts are divided as to whether this was by Durer himself.

Today's "full aul wan" opinion: it is not an attractive look to have a deliberate rip/slash in your jeans that exposes almost an entire bare buttock.

"The €504m bill that Dublin City Council (DCC) cites to retrofit its Wood Quay headquarters is 137 times the average cost for the same works in other local authorities."

I am doing a Bloomsday event (June 16th) with the brilliant @sineadgleeson.bsky.social in Daunt Books in Marleybone in London. Do come along London folk. There will be wine. You can get tickets here: dauntbooks.co.uk/shop/events/...

pôt-pot play The Workman's Club tonight! Come see one of the best bands currently making music on this island (or in Portugal?). Search Results are opening proceedings. Thatsa a nice gigi Stage Times 8pm Doors 8.30pm Search Results 9.15pm pôt-pot

Look I just can't believe that a group of people murdered someone in broad daylight, with witnesses and with impunity, and anyone at all wants to argue that that was ok because he maybe shoplifted. Yves Sakila was murdered. How are we ok with someone being murdered?! Jesus what is wrong with ye.

HEAD OF TEETH

If you ever see anyone arguing for more crackdowns on social welfare fraud, remind them that there is none to speak of and that, far from saving money, the last time they opened a tipline for SW fraud it *cost* the state approx €471,320 in wasted investigations.

Extremely distressing video on Israeli minister Itamar Ben Gvir's X account, showing Irish activist Catriona Graham being assaulted & dragged away, & the treatment of those who were on the sumud flotilla. I know Catriona since we were teenagers. New Irish gov statement here: x.com/itamarbengvi...

For that rent to be deemed affordable (30% of your income), you need to be bringing in €7,253 a month or €87,040 a year. The median income in Ireland is closer to €60,000 per household. The housing crisis begets the cost-of-living crisis #Spéirgorm

All of culture is converging on the personalised [YOUR CHILD’S NAME] picture book

PSA: the salad in this caused my teenage sons to eat vegetables. www.theguardian.com/food/2026/ma...

Seems to be a controversial take that a bunch of Arnotts security guards shouldn’t be able to execute you in the street for potential shoplifting

This scared the shit out of me until it was explained that it only crawls out late at night.

it was just regular califragilisticexpialidocious before it went into a phone box

This is very good. "When the Government begins to see spending on services and infrastructure as an expensive outlay to the State rather than an investment in society, it has all sorts of knock-on effects that end up costing more in the medium term."

A safe place to live can be a huge help for people with no leverage.

It's not just rural Ireland. Dublin Central canvass has shown me hundreds of lock boxes near doors in Stoneybatter, North Strand, Phibsboro, Drumcondra. Nobody home, short term let. Could be someone's home but unfortunately that would make the landlord a tiny bit less money so nope.

Coincidentally heard Andy Irvine sing this at the weekend. Seems ... timely. youtu.be/untAIi48mFc?...

Man in gym previously distinguished only for his retina-searing taste in sportswear has had his teeth done. They are visible from the other end of the gym, possibly from space.

Reading Enda Delaney's excellent Making Ireland Modern, somewhat unfortunately marred by misprints: such as the woman shopping in late 19th c for 'tea, flour, sugar and the occasional oaf'

Third day at a singing festival and we have concluded that any song can be a murder ballad if you assume the narrator is dead, eg Against All Odds by Phil Collins.

Micheál taking his concept of a Government that can't do anything to strange new places

Really important article about the current difficulties faced by the Axis café in Ballymun... it also highlights some of the broader problems with how we typically attempt to deal with regeneration - and one in particular stands out, you cannot rely on private capital to serve the public good

I am on my way home from swimming and have passed two separate people carrying brand new ukuleles.

What's crazy is that everyone knew this would happen and warned this would happen, and yet if you dared point it out to any members of the government they'd react like a cat whose paw you accidentally stepped on

It'd be Eric Morecambe's 100th birthday today