Big Mental Disease

The Triumph of Death by Pieter Bruegel the Elder

This shagging thing pissed me off. Not so much the stupid (shit) question, but the way the guy put two exclamation marks in the sentence, between words. How annoying.

I’m fascinated by RTÉ chat shows. It’s mad how they manage to pluck the most pointless, godforsaken guests out of thin air every week. Two-thirds of these guests are other RTÉ personalities. It’s clear that the presenters involved are morbidly embarrassed by the quality of guests; sometimes even the guests themselves seem embarrassed at how pointless and uninteresting they are. But nobody addresses the awful issue, and everybody pretends it’s great entertainment. The whole thing has an apologetic air.

“We tried to get Gore Vidal but he told us to fuck off. Instead we have some handicapped fella off Fair City and this woman who used to be in Dallas. Sorry lads.”

What if Alice had taken a hefty dose of PCP?
More information on the guy behind this here.

Johnny Logan was on the Late Late Eurosong Craporama last night, sounding as mentally unstable as ever. According to Johnny, RTÉ are trying to ruin his life by not treating him like the spectacular talent that he is, and also by stealing his thoughts. Johnny sounds like Alan Partridge with his “needless to say, I had the last laugh” anecdotes. Of course Johnny hasn’t stopped to wonder why, if RTÉ hate him so much, have they had him on their chatshows twice in the space of a month? Why is he invited onto our screens almost every year for a stroll down memory lane? With the fawning guff that protrudes every time he makes an appearance, you would swear he came up with the cure for AIDS or something.

I get the feeling that Johnny throws his toys out of the pram because he realises that Ireland doesn’t take him seriously. He sees himself as some sort of Irish Dalai Lama, spreading cheesy goodwill across Europe. Irish people just see him as some embarassing reminder of the eighties, an embarassing reminder you wouldn’t necessarily want in your house.

Johnny loves Ireland, but mainly for the shitty weather. He loves a bit of rain and sometimes wishes that it would rain even more, as evidenced by his song “I Wish It Would Rain”:

See the rain falling down
While thunder and lightning rage
I cry out loud

I wish it would rain
Let the world share my sorrow
I wish it would rain
Night and day

All my rainbows are grey
Got no love that I could borrow
I wish it would rain
Another day

A strange man he is. Bad weather makes him cry, but he wants more of it. Fucking masochist. He must have been over the moon at the recent floods in Cork.

Johnny enjoying the weather in Cork

I often hear people say that Johnny is a big star in Europe, despite the fact that he is the equivalent of a washed-up showband star over here. I call bullshit on this. It’s only his word we have to go on when it comes to how well-known he is around Europe. Nobody ever seemed to check this out, so I decided to.

I took the initiative and did a bit of digging. After I had finished in the garden, I went online and investigated Johnny’s so called European fame. I left some notices on bulletin boards asking for further information on the man’s activities in Europe. Lo and behold, the next day I received an email from a guy in Eindhoven who informed me that Johnny Logan IS well known across the continent, but not for being a singer. Allegedly, Mister Logan has been arrested eighty-seven times for masturbating on trams. Not only that, but Logan is notorious across Holland and Germany for dining and dashing, i.e. eating meals in fancy restaurants and then scarpering without paying the bill.

I dropped an email to Johnny to give him a chance to rebut these claims, but I didn’t receive a reply. I think his silence speaks volumes.

There are ads on Facebook for a Pat the Baker competition. If you post on Pat’s wall, you could be in with a chance of winning a Pat the Baker hoodie. Who the hell would wear a Pat the Baker hoodie? Apart from the following categories of people, that is:

• Bakers named Pat
• Bakers not named Pat but who are enthusiastic about the bread trade in general
• People who like bread too much, i.e. the mentally ill
• The homeless.

Pat’s website showcases some other treats, like this Pat the Baker shopping bag.

Whatever next?

Pat the Baker Blow Up Doll

Buy Oirish, says I.

Irish Times

BUYING IRISH: IN RECENT months, cash-strapped consumers have been called upon by politicians and lobby groups to think local for the sake of the nation and the chorus of food producers warning against the “Tesco-isation” of Irish society and exhorting us to buy Irish has grown increasingly loud.

Speaking to a food conference in Dublin earlier this month, economist Jim Power, the chairman of the Love Irish Food (LIF) campaign, pulled no punches when discussing the Irish retail business. He gave out yards about consumer organisations which claimed that food shopping was all about price and he warned that Irish suppliers were being put under intense pressure by big retailers, some of whom, he claimed, wanted to stock the same products regardless of where in Britain and Ireland they were plying their trade.

Jaysus, it’s a bit late for that, Jim.