Surprise!

The Irish embassy in Germany puts on a screening of the Late Late Toy Show tomorrow and has been doing it for years. That's brilliant. #latelatetoyshow

Toy Show: This is Child 1 Ireland: I would die for Child 1 Toy Show: Goodbye Child 1. Now welcome Child 2 Ireland: Never mind, Child 1 is dead to me. I love Child 2 now. #Toyshow #LateLateToyShow

Anyone else’s autocorrect getting worse and worse? Mine keeps correcting you to yoi, about to aboit and just corrected public to ‘pie liv’ - is liv even a word?

Watching The Horse Whisperer with my dad, and the late-90s sure did have a lot of movies about middle aged women dabbling in picturesque adultery, didn’t they?

Wish we had more political discourse like this in Ireland right now, or that the media were covering it - the current leader of Green Party UK explaining in plain, accessible terms why taxing billionaires doesn’t mean penalising businesses and hard workers: youtu.be/qxt4HCjd7VA?...

Hey! Lots more fun here now. Original versions of the title images from Cheers: UPDATED. open.substack.com/pub/joelmorr...

So how often *do* I have to turn motion smoothing off on my telly before it stays off?

You wouldn’t want to be using public transport to get to work or anything silly like that. Sure why wouldn’t it take over two hours to get from Whitehall to Donnybrook? #DublinBus #SpeirGorm

Remembering Ken Harmon who slipped out the back of life’s Story Room a year ago today. We could have told you, Ken, this world was never meant for one as beautiful as you. amp.rte.ie/amp/1473475/

please, think about the damage you might cause before sending an invoice

We should all contact your councillors and let them know that if they endorse McGregor, they lose our votes forever. They’re probably already being inundated with bot emails, claiming to be local residents, trying to persuade them to back the rapist. We need to counteract that.

The Irish Times view on the Central Bank and Israeli bonds: a victory for the protestors

Big thanks to all the amazing staff at @dublinairport.bsky.social and Aer Lingus who helped me and my injured dad navigate assisted travel for the first time. It was a stressful and unplanned journey, but everything went as smoothly as it could and people were lovely x

Drinking new recipe Football Special for the first time - WTF is this gash?!?

My long time Fair City compadre and Story Editor non pareil has launched a new way for all creative types to get the Writers’ Room experience: www.rte.ie/culture/2025... #SpeirGorm #IrishWriters

Went to the self checkout at Bershka and first it asked if I was ‘resident or non-resident’. Then it asked for my ‘zip code’ and at that point I walked out. No one needs all my personal info for me to buy a pair of shorts, WTF?

Lonely pub, Manchester by John Bulmer.

some thing

He sings a Vespers Psalm He sings a Compline Psalm He sings a Matins Psalm He sings a Lauds Psalm He sings the Psalms that remind him of the good times He sings the Psalms that remind him of the better times

Nothing makes me feel more out of touch than the idea of using AI to cheat your way through school/university. What’s the point? Actively making yourself useless and unable to contribute post grad when access to education is such a privilege- one that was so emphasised to my generation in NI

When my kids were very small, sometimes people saw me give them my phone to play (sound muted) games in a cafe. They did not see the previous several hours of playgroup, walks, library, park where the kids had my full attention. Sometimes parents just need to be able to drink one cup of tea in peace

Renny Harlin is diving back into the water to helm BLACK TIDES, a survival thriller inspired by real-life orca attacks that have occurred off the coast of southern Spain and Portugal.

Google maps having a very normal one, by suggesting that I get from my location in Whitehall, to another address in Whitehall, by driving in a big loop down to Irishtown in South Dublin and back again…

You have to use a touchscreen menu to open the glove box on a Tesla. Anyone who buys one deserves this

Raymond Chandler, letter to a friend, January 1948. Seems relevant beyond the specific Hollywood context.

[8] The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere The ceremony of innocence is drowned; The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity.

Right, because I've now seen misunderstandings of this enough times that it's got me worried that people don't know this - transgender people in the UK are protected by the Equality Act 2010 under the category of gender reassignment. *That* was not under discussion today and hasn't changed.

no lies detected. #civilrights

I was thinking about this Joe and Tracy anecdote from the supply chain crisis on gummy bears. Things are probably going to get really weird in a few weeks in unexpected ways:

After years without a distributor, Peter Dinklage's #ToxicAvenger is finally coming out. And what's more, we have a trailer to enjoy.

Free screenings of The Stone Tape, of course, occur in any building which has previously screened The Stone Tape.

Happy St. Patrick's Day! Celebrate being Irish by opening Daft dot ie and crying

Pat Ingoldsby 1942-2025

Finally allowed to say this now but I, for one, welcome our new corporate overlords to Fair City - and not just because they sent cake to the Story Room! Class acts, Lidl #SpeirGorm #IrishBlueSky

"Nowhere in the country have rents declined as much as they have in Austin — now 22% off the peak reached in August 2023, according to Redfin. The median asking rent is $1,399 per month, down $400 in less than three years" #YIMBYworks

Just realised where I’m going wrong in my writing career - I need to write more relatable characters, like the ones I see in popular shows. My next project will be about a skinny, clear-skinned, gorgeous woman who lives on junk food. There’s a running joke about what a slovenly mess she is.

Still a wall-to-wall banger of an album: open.spotify.com/album/3GSxZl...

#BlueskyResistance #Voices4Victory #ProudBlur Advertisement at a London bus stop. Ya gotta love the British…

Just found this phone on the 16 bus heading into town. I’ll hand it in to the driver, so contact Dublin Bus if this is yours! #SpeirGorm #Dublin #DublinBus

Good morning photo by Keith Bernstein

It’s sad on the eve of Presidents Day it’s appropriate to have to post this.

Keith Haring died of AIDS aged 31 on 16 Feb 1990. One of his last works, Unfinished Painting, was deliberately incomplete, reflecting the devastating, unquantifiable loss to the arts due to AIDS. #LGBTplusHistoryMonth

Now watching:

Your wife would want to have sex with you if you put consistent and reliable effort into the relationship. Happy Valentine's Day.

On Library Lovers Day, enjoy this optimistic 1950s magazine cover “Stand aside television. The library holds the stage as the curtain rises on this new age of the written word” (1957) Artist: DL Mays

PSA: It’s not okay to bash writers for sharing links to their works on Amazon. I know Amazon is shitty but it’s not on writers who are just trying to survive to change a whole distribution system that is deeply ingrained, no matter how bad that system is.