I like to imagine Jim Gavin's tenants were flat-sharing. They haven't seen each other for a while. It's hard to stay in touch, you know with family and all that. Now he's writing them a cheque and they can meet up for a pint. Nice to see yous again lads, here's to the man who made it happen

Thinking about that time someone asked Seamus Heaney if he fancied being president and he said "Sounds great, would I be elected unopposed? No? Then no"

Tidying up my record shelves, I (literally) dusted off a few treasured relics in CD format. I ripped most of my CDs to digital and sent them to the charity shop years ago. But there were a few worth keeping

America is none of my business

Jessica was the only good Mitford, set replies to "nobody"

Thing about politics mags is they kind of people who might write for you when your party is in opposition will usually get better jobs when it comes to power. So you have to restaff with people who couldn't get those jobs but desperately, want them

Disappointed, given my interests, that I am only discovering this today

I used Microsoft 365 spellcheck for a document with a lot of typos today and it was terrible; just making the most wildly unlikely word suggestions almost every time. Has AI destroyed yet another useful tool?

Something I've noticed in reading about this Riyadh comedy festival thing is just how much of their time comedians spend talking to each other on podcasts

Got talking about music to a guy at a wedding last week, we swapped some recommendations. He mentioned this, which turns out to be 1000% my bag. Also, recommending music to each other is "dudes rock" excellence tidal.com/browse/album...

Jim Gavin was very much a modern sports manager: meticulous, technical, professional. Not really the charismatic, motivator type. As a candidate, he's a CV rather than a character. I don't seem him getting off the ground.

Back in the early 2000s blog era, someone did a thing where they asked all the big name bloggers for their favorite books. All the usual subjects, War & Peace, Infinite Jest etc. Ezra Klein said "I mostly just read the internet"

Far from "giving them the attention they crave" it's actually a great idea to prosecute these guys. Most of them are cowards and not particularly committed: now that there's a cost, they'll find something less risky to fill their free time www.irishtimes.com/crime-law/co...

If you think Maria Steen's handbag is something wait till you hear about her Da's car

Late to the party on this one, but have any of you guys ever got the novel coronavirus, "Covid-19"? Really quite bad, just like everyone always used to say.

All attempts to "solve autism" are monstrous per se, even if they don't involve denying women pain treatment and discouraging vaccine take-up (also monstrous per se)

Yep

Thinking about the Daily Mail in its chip and pin panic era

Giving the Grateful Dead another go. I put on one of their live albums this morning to work to, its still going

I see this headline and I imagine the story as a Nationwide segment about an eccentric farmer, building the robots in his shed www.rte.ie/news/busines...

Jimmy Fallon will be the last man standing. Dead-eyed, joylessly giggling Jimmy Fallon, on every channel, he'll outlive us all

Aside from being untrue, this is basically just the author's nostalgia, and like all nostalgia it's impotent: those days are never coming back

Thankfully Keir Starmer has ensured that the Labour Party"s traditional left-of-center base has his back www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

I'd never heard of this Charlie Kirk guy until yesterday. This is one of those US-only stories Irish people can safely ignore, like when the host of Wheel of Fortune dies or whatever

24 years to the day since Bob Dylan released "Love And Theft", sometimes it feels like we're all still living in its aftermath

Ireland will not take part in 2026 Eurovision Song Contest if participation of Israel goes ahead, RTÉ Director-General says

Repeating "America is none of my business" as a mantra

Lol genius

We finally have an answer to the question "what do you get for the man who has everything?": Its "a bound volume of scrawls from rich weirdos saying 'happy birthday you old pervert'"

Seeing an absurd volume of reviews of this book (the NYRB ran two!) a biography of a man who will be deservedly forgotten as soon as there's nobody left around who can remember him from the TV

Galaxy Brain: Expel the UK from the ECHR

Stupidity, Dr. Feelgood. €19.99 I may have mentioned this one before

YES

Sure, these guys will stop at nothing to protect their power. Yes, there's nothing they won't stoop to. But the thing is, they're just not very smart

Industrial action works

There actually is a technology that can "unlock potential", "juice productivity", "boost innovation" maybe even "revolutionise work" the way people claim AI will: remote working tech. But the people who run companies don't want to hear about that

First vinyl buy in a while, spending a voucher from Spindizzy I got for Christmas. (Buy records there, it's a great shop) @spindizzyrecords.bsky.social

Disappointed to learn he meant sitting at his desk, I had visions of him trying to fit a Union Jack behind the cistern

A thing that happens when you get older and you're watching football is you hear a familiar name and think "oh wow, is he still playing?" but it turns out to be the guy's son. Except if it's Italian football; then it's the same guy.

There's an unwritten convention in Ireland that there are no former barristers. Once called to the Bar you remain forever a barrister. I say this only because "Barrister Maria Steen" was called a year before me, practiced for maybe 2 years, and hasn't donned a gown in 20 years

I'm old enough to remember the post-9/11 "ticking time bomb scenario" thought experiment: would you torture someone to save many lives? Of course the scenario never arose in real life; the point was to get people to accept that torture was OK in principle

Stop it everyone, you’re only getting Melania’s hopes up

This is a fun read, a literary novelist having a bit of a lark with a popular genre and some familiar tropes. Until she pulls off some kind of miracle about 75% in and you realise, thrillingly, that she was doing something far more profound all along.

Of all the creeps and perverts working for Trump, the one who I think is the most sincerely committed to fascism in its purest form is Robert F Kennedy Jnr.

Oh, I saw one of these in the wild last week. Hard to know where to start here - there's "trauma" of course, and "brazen" is pretty striking too. But I think the worst part is actually "but".

Wait, this is the "make crime illegal" guy? Who came 12th out of 17 in a five-seater in the locals? I mean I like a bit of fun as much as the next person but there are ethical issues around news media encouraging this poor eejit to ruin his life by doing this

I mean this is where the back bench rebellions start, isn't it? Unless (and I accept that this is very possible) everyone is fully on board

Uh-oh we’re in trouble, these lads are famously good at negotiating

Why would you even make this? What are you hoping to achieve here?

Also I think that America is just too invested in "college" as topic of public interest