The Indo asked me to write something about baldness, Christ have they heard I’m thinning on top? Anyways: Flogging beauty products to men is a hard sell. We pay so little attention to our physical and mental well being that you have to feel sorry for Gerard Butler attempting to convince us that moisturizer is […]
Recent Posts
Facebook, hell, kicking the habit, life after
Indo col 48: I can still remember the first time I heard about Facebook. A friend who works for Apple (and therefore has his finger on the tech pulse) told me it was the way forward – clean, functional, smart, the exact opposite of its social media predecessors, Bebo and MySpace. So I joined, and […]
Ishmael, Youghal, decline, resurrection
Indo col 47: Given his status as one of the great Hollywood directors, John Huston wasn’t great at giving direction. When he got a perfectly cast actor like Bogart, Huston was a master. With other actors he was less so, as Gregory Peck discovered during the filming of Moby Dick. A method actor, Peck made […]
Flooding, Kindred Spirits, kindness, hurling
Indo col 46: There is a road in my home town of Midleton that floods at the slightest opportunity. Running alongside the town estuary, all it takes for the Bailick Road to disappear under water is a moderately high tide and a few hours of rain. There were attempts over the years to alleviate the […]
Bentham, surveillance, treats, kindness
Indo col 45 The English philosopher Jeremy Bentham was a man of vision. In the late 1700s, his ideas were seen as completely radical, as he opposed slavery, called for the separation of Church and state, advocated for women’s rights, the decriminalisation of homosexuality, legalisation of divorce, animal rights, and the abolition of the death […]
Donner party, the beast, cannibalism, drama
Indo col 44: In May 1846, a wagon train of pioneers set out for from Missouri for California, looking for a new life and the dream of fulfilling their manifest destiny. The group, led by George Donner and Armagh man James F Reed, became trapped by snow high in a pass known as Hastings Cutoff […]
Asimov, robots, humans, gods
Indo col 43: Isaac Asimov loved the future. As a professor of biochemistry and prolific science fiction writer, he wrote or edited more than 500 books, along with a vast archive of correspondence. He is considered, along with Robert A Heinlein and Arthur C Clarke, one of the greatest names in sci-fi. Asimov’s embrace of […]
Bill Linnane – misogynist, love and other drugs, war, shifting
Hate to break it to you @Bill_Linnane but doing your half of the housework and caring for your own kids ain't romance! 💔 pic.twitter.com/Wj0xmY4F6N — Leslie Ann Horgan (@LeslieAnnHorgan) February 14, 2018 Indo col week 42, a Valentine’s special which has somehow made me History’s Greatest Monster. I am not especially romantic. My wife would […]
Brexit of champions, Irexit, Barrage, freedom
Wee 41 of the column and this time I get political, with terrible results. As a portmanteau, Brexit works quite well. It rolls of the tongue, and its similarity to the word breakfast gave great material to headline writers: Full English Brexit, Brexit buffet, bed and Brexit – all potentially great headlines. Granted, none of […]
Blogging – your pathway to success
Loving whiskey can be a bit lonely. It’s a bit like trainspotting – both involve a love of history and engineering, lots of note taking and bringing a camera everywhere. Granted, whiskey is a lot more fun, as you get to do all those things whilst half cut, but you get the idea – it […]
