The Valentine’s Massacre

Originally published in U Magazine, February 2008 If there’s one thing most women desire of their men, to show them just how loving, caring, sensitive and thoughtful they are, it’s a spontaneous display of romance. Presumably that’s why St Valentine’s Day was invented – it’s the most heralded, advertised, hyped and commercial piece of romantic […]

Cabbing It Up

You really have to feel sorry for all those troubled taxi drivers who were protesting in Dublin yesterday, don’t you? You see, they have no control of their working conditions (sitting down in a comfy seat and forced to listen to country music all day; “no rights, no negotiations, no say in working conditions” say the placards) and […]

I’m Throwing My Arms Around Morrissey’s New 7″…

“There’s a naked man standing laughing in your dreams / You know who it is / but you don’t like what it means” Well, Meat is still too much like Murder, clearly, and what better to protect your modesty than a nice 7″. In 1984, when Morrissey was in The Smiths, he told Smash Hits: […]

It’s Not The Enda The World

The Irish government limps from one crisis to the next and what the country needs more than anything is a strong opposition breathing down its neck. Unfortunately, we have Enda Kenny. He might be able to replace his namesake Pat on The Late Late Show for the sake of wooden continuity but, as a politician […]

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 […]

Lux Interior 1946-2009

The wider world may not be recording February 4th 2009 as ‘the other day the music died’, but it lost a true original with the sad death of Lux Interior. As a performer, innovator, macabre showman and fetishist extraordinaire, the man who was born Erick Lee Purkhiser taught us that ridicule really is nothing to […]

Miley’s Not A Racist Either

No, apparently she’s just gurning, like she always does. It may look like a scene from Mind Your Language but Miley Cyrus says of her beautiful party photo: “I was simply making a goofy face. When did that become newsworthy?” Maybe she thinks we’re all 12. And I suppose now her achy, breaky dad’s going to claim […]

Thatchers’ Sitcom Just Gets Sillier

It had to happen, really; her mother is one of the most despised politicians in British history, her father was a much-lampooned, anti-socialist businessman and her brother is a former rally driver, senza sense of direction, who was involved in an alleged coup plot in Equatorial Guinea. It was only a matter of time before Carol was making controversial […]

Bloke From Out-In Tallaght Now Outa Liverpoo-el

Oh dear. Robbie Keane’s great, romantic footballing story-arc, his epic journey between the twin tracksuit capitals of the world, has all gone wrong. His boyhood dream, to wear Liverpoo-el’s appalling array of away jerseys and training gear professionally, was realised but, alas, only fleetingly. He now has to return to what his former Scouse colleagues call “that London”, with […]

Conspicuous Consumers: Chris Rea

The Road To Hell is paved with mistaken identities, unseen stars and close brushes with celebrity you’d never know you’d had. And to think I almost missed the man who did his best to put the “miserable” in Middlesborough. One late, thoroughly horrid, Thursday night at the old Our Price store in Neal Street, Covent Garden in […]