When a McMuffin top will no longer do…

It’s “grow your winter layer” time of year and no one seems more keen to give you a better weather-resistant, wind-cheating midriff than old Burger King. We’ve covered American contempt for the concept of pizza here before, but this vile object really should have anyone with tastebuds and a modicum of self-respect reaching for their sick bags. […]

“Sure, we understand irony…”

“..it’s like rain on your wedding day, right? Or a free ride when you’ve already paid. ”

Good Old American Indie-Dependence

There’s a huge underground hype-machine winging its way to Whelan’s later this year, if whispers whizzing around hip musical circles are to be believed. A new North American 5 or 6 piece are pencilled in to be the new ‘thing’ for the entire month of November. From Baltimore or Brooklyn, or maybe it’s Canada, they’re said […]

So Far, Sphm*re

I know, Dear Reader, that I’m a persistent curmudgeon, but even reading online music reviews, as I do on a daily basis, gets me riled beyond accidental Emmerdale viewing. Today (well, like every other day since I started using the Internerd) there are two Titanic funnels’ worth of steam emerging from my ears over the dogged, […]

Please “Give It Up”, For God’s Sake

I dreamt about Fame Academy the other night. There are reasons for this that I won’t get into but it’s fair to say I woke up terrorised, breathing like a hyper-ventilating Phil Mitchell. Mercifully, Patrick Kielty isn’t on the telly so much these days – but it’s not nice that he came crawling into my head […]

American… Wonder Pests

“The phone/ The phone is ring-ing.” What the hell has happened to Wonder Pets? Or, more specifically, the UK version? Any parent who spends their mornings, afternoons and evenings being blasted by the unremitting fire cannon of kaleidoscopic, hyperactive, cacophonous, epileptic programming on Nick Jr knows what an oasis of calm and cuteness Wonder Pets […]

Americans… Have Talent?

America’s Got Talent, apparently – but it takes Michael Knight and two vastly unqualified British goons to separate the weird from the chavs. And what have they uncovered so far? 4-year-old Kaitlyn Maher, an impossibly cute little girl whose suitably adorable version of ‘Somewhere Out There’ (tragically, not the Nina Hynes one) melted the hearts of the audience and the supposedly ruthless panel. What […]

American… Pizzas

A colleague has got me thinking, in the way that colleagues often do – by inadvertently riling me. The poor blighter asked, in all innocent ignorance, “how do they make ‘pizza sauce’ in Italy?” Pizza sauce? Sauce? They don’t use sauce, they use tomatoes. Fret not, dear reader, I didn’t start ranting at him, I thought I’d do it here […]

American… Voices

I’ve just heard that ad on the radio again: “Muse – LIVE at Mawwrlee Pawwrk, Dublin”. I’ve a few issues with it. First and foremost, the only thing I can think of that’s worse than spending a wet August night in ‘Mawwrlee Pawwrk’ is spending a wet August night in ‘Mawwrlee Pawwrk’ watching Muse. Secondly, […]