Super Trouper, Pooper-Scooper

Ah, Hogmanay. ‘Tis the season for anyone with a dodgy beard and/or a crappy ’70s hairstyle to pretend they’re in Abba. And that, as they say, is just the girls. Yes, it’s the time of year when hundreds of clearly inebriated people pay good (a.k.a. scarce) money to sit in the function room of a soulless country […]

How Green Was My Hobby?

According to the “special” Christmas Day edition of The Avondhu, the Green Party’s greenest candidate for the 2009 local elections, Fermoy’s Adam Douglas, is “concerned over fishing proposals”. No wonder. It’s almost guaranteed that fishing was his dad’s proposal; like most kids, young master Douglas no doubt wanted to go to Funderland instead.

Craig’s Lists 2008 – Albums of the Year

From The Sunday Business Post, 21st December It may be the age of instant, one-song downloads, but 2008 was chock-full of truly excellent and artfully-crafted long-players. Glasgow’s Sons & Daughters got the year off to a fine start with the glossy, girl-group pop of This Gift, while soulful compatriots Glasvegas rose above the hype with […]

Craig’s Lists 2008 – The Worst Albums I Reviewed This Year

All reviews from The Sunday Business Post Jason Donovan: Let It Be Me Poor Scott from Neighbours; after Charlene (Kylie) went off to be a mega-selling pop princess and Mike (Guy Pearce) found Hollywood stardom, he did his best with the slim pop-pickings and Technicolor dreams, stuff that suited his limited voice. Now back on TV, […]

For Whom The Bells Jingle…

Friday, December 19th: At length, I took shelter from the howling wind and relentless rain under a dark canopy on Leeson Street. It was a particularly dismal spot on this torrid night; a place where nocturnal revellers would smoke cigarettes, gossip and guffaw, and grimace at the cowering vagrants who nestled amongst the wheelie bins, […]

The Future Of The Left..?

As a former teenage Civil Servant back in Scotland (Britain’s Official Secrets Act forbids me from stating where, which makes it seem way more dramatic than it actually was) during the Thatcher era, I get strangely nostalgic whenever I flick through that venerable journal, Public Service Review. For those who may not have come across it, it’s […]

You Have Kilt Me…

Well, if this doesn’t put the Ross back in your Cromarty, you’re already immune. It appears my old country wants its ex-pats back. Well, if Connery fancies paying taxes there again, and Lulu is prepared to go on a hunt for her long-jettisoned accent, maybe I will go back. For a weekend. The song carries […]

The Nightmare Before Christmas

Originally published in U MAGAZINE, December 2007 Dear Johnnie Did you know that girls spend at least 6 weeks before Christmas hinting at what they want you to buy them? Men say they never know what to get. Is it because: A They’re deaf B They’re stupid; or C They don’t care enough to listen […]

What’s blue and upsets older people?

That’ll be the “festive” December/January edition of Senior Times, which comes with the reassuringly seasonal front-page headline “Road To Nowhere”. Pass the humbugs, why don’t you?

Oliver Postgate 1925 – 2008

I’ve known and loved Oliver Postgate all of my life. He’s been in my living room since I can remember and, thanks to Nick Jr Classics, his Clangers are still there too, beaming whistles and soup slurps from their little hollow planet. If my mum ever looked for someone to blame for my overtly fertile early imagination, I always pointed her […]