Clinton on Letterman

Hilary Clinton appeared on 'The Late Show with David Letterman' last night. The show has more bad than good jokes and Letterman seems to see the show as a congratulatory award for him being so brilliant. Nevertheless, his is the most watched late night show and Hilary needs to get the sense of humour, personability factor out there so appear she did. Commenting on the possibility of her husband (the future First Gentleman?) being her VP, a woman as commander in chief and of course pants suits, the appearance seems to have been well received. Read more here and watch Hilary announce her Top 10 Campaign Promises here. (If you are unaware of the format of the show please note these are firmly tongue in cheek!)

News Coverage

FOX News, the news broadcaster of record for Israel, circumventer of facts and world record holder for over use of the term alert has been giving much coverage to the decision of Katie Couric, the lead anchor for CBS evening news, to travel to Iraq to cover the ongoing conflict. The thrust of the argument of its commentators has beent that a single mother should not put herself in such danger, ignoring the interests of her children who have already lost their father. They are slinging the mud of ratings grabbing and undermining jounalistic integrity at her. How many reporters, many of them parents, all of them children of somebody are covering the events in Iraq? Why must Kouric, a significant name in news broadcasting in the US, be subject to this sort of scrutiny, other than of course a chance to lampoon the opposition. I am not naiive enough to think that there are entirely unselfish motives at play for both Kourics profile and CBS viewership but I am still impressed by the decision to commit a high profile reporter to covering events at this stage, when the repetitive nature of major statements and military advances mean such stories fade from headlines.

To go after FOX for this type of lazy coverage, lampooning the hypocrisy of them striving to protect jounalistic integrity is just too easy, a lack of credibility is tied up with their very brand. News has become pointless live uplinks, where reporters add little to what the reader has just told us, needing to be by a camera every 15 or 30 minutes to repeat the news of an hour earlier, neither though do I expect them to venture into a war zone. To go all Michael Moore, except without the sensation, to put thought into the agendas at play in both print and broadcast media, it is difficult to have faith in much of the information. Read here a bit of a tirade from Robert Fisk (though he disses blogging the point of his article is effective), and find links of other coverage of the FOX story here.

Dog - Fighting

I was really taken aback last night watching the special BBC investigation into dog-fighting going on in Northern Ireland. The individuals involved are beyond any form of redemption in my eyes, profiting from such brutality and their disrespect for animals is disgusting. I've posted an article here from the Times Online, which details the extent of the investigation and its outcomes. I've posted a separate story here on the worrying fact that Dublin port was used as the location to smuggle pit bulls into the country for these fights.

Top 6 Friday: Marx Brothers Quotes

So I've put my sense of humour under scrutiny lately. The conclusion I've arrived at is the more subtle and simple the harder I will laugh. Smart puns, dry takes on standard situations and a sense you are conversing with smart people is the ultimate in laughter fodder me. Woody Allen and more recently Joss Whedon master deadpan delivery and finding laugh out loud humour in the simplest of dialogue. These men though and particularly Allen owe much to the classic humour and put downs of the Marx Brother films, with Groucho on lead man, cigar munching duties. Relish the lines I have chosen below, if only I could be this wry in real life.

1. I never forget a face, but in your case I'll be glad to make an exception.

2. I've had a perfectly wonderful evening. But this wasn't it.

3. Policeman: "A hermit eh? Then why's your table set for four?"

Groucho: "That's nothing. My alarm clock is set for eight" (A Night at the Opera)

4. Groucho: "That's in every contract, that's what you call a sanity clause." Chico: "You can't a fool a me there ain't no sanity clause" (A Night at the Opera)

5. Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read.

6. "Why don't you bore a hole in yourself and let the sap run out?" (Horse Feathers)

Movie Review: 'Knocked Up'

For all the pot fuelled humour and sending up of celebrities there is a very uneasy reality running through the story of ‘Knocked Up’. This is best represented by the relationship of the sister and brother in law of the leading lady (Katherine Heigl), as played by Paul Rudd and Leslie Mann. Mirroring the premise the central duo are faced with here, they married on foot of an unplanned pregnancy and both Heigl and Seth Rogen look upon their situation as a worrying prediction of how their lives could turn out if they follow a similar route. Mann, has been locked into a mould unable to see beyond her function as a mother and Rudd, feels empty and unfulfilled, with underlying contempt that the person he shares his life with understands him so little.

Neither of the central pair are at a point where they can comprehend how to deal with the huge changes stemming from such a brief encounter. Turning to parents and friends alike, the best consolation they can find is over a phone call admitting they are both as lost as each other and will need support. How they grow into these supportive roles forms the remainder of the story. The truest kind of comedy in my view is the humour that we use to cushion the sharp edges life presents. Rudd as the embittered husband is the perfect example of this – a caring and attentive father, his exchanges are nevertheless dripping in sarcasm, channelling his frustration through throw away remarks. He wants to enjoy the simplicity of blowing bubbles as much as his daughters but life doesn’t seem to allow him. In the pub set post mortem of the movie, I told my company how this was the type of movie I struggle to write about. I want to say something new in every review, stretch how I think about the movie and feel confident that I am offering some genuine insight. Part of the reason for this reviewers block is I felt I should be reviewing a comedy, so that my review should be littered with praise or condemnation for the jokes and their delivery. Instead I find myself analysing the characters, drawn into a movie where the docile pot head is opening up to his newly pregnant ‘girlfriend’ that he is normally the type to be screwed over, setting him out as equally vulnerable player in their set up.

Now before I go too far down the road of turning this into a remake of ‘Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?’, let me clear there is comedy here, running facial hair joke gags, the referred to digs at celebrity, dry, insult laden comments from TV producers, apt observations and who knew - ‘Munich’ gets a pop culture reference, as well the classic pool set encounter of Neve Campbell and Denise Richards in ‘Wild Things’. There is smart writing and if we believe the makers, excellent improvisational skills at play here. The movie does loose direction for a time, suffering whenever the future parents are apart, making the movie feel over long and while there is a great mix of comedy value and real world relationship ‘stuff’ the whole package didn’t gel seamlessly for me. The conclusion, though always inevitable, seems tagged on – it never gathers steam and fails to offer the convincing resolution we want to see these decent people enjoy. Ultimately, this movie is absolutely worth your viewing consideration, but the final product is shy of the effortless comedy I wanted it to be.

Arrested Developemt - An Appreciation

So sitting down to find Youtube clips to give the uninitiated a sense of the madness, wryness and endless humour of 'Arrested Development', I realised I had set myself a nigh on impossible task. How in the name of beejesus could I even begin to give an insight into this show, endless layers of sight gags, pop culture references, crazy characters, dysfunction making the Soprano family look positively Waltonesque, where your father dresses in your dead wifes maternity clothes, your son fancies his cousin and your 14 year old niece cons her way into a film producer job. From endless gay puns, to having an attorney named Bob Boblaw (say it out loud) and Michael Moore cameoing to convince the mother of the piece to send her son to Iraq no type of humour and commentary is left unused. Over the last month, I have purchased, watched and re-watched the first two series and do plan to buy the lesser but still hilarious 3rd series. Jason Bateman epitomises the everyman, a very necessary anchor for the insanity of those around him. It is probably better than I don't have the know how to get clips from the disks onto Youtube, picking my favourites would be even more difficult that browsing through what is already available online. I don't know how these clips will go down without context - they should give you a taste for more though.

No 'Celebrity Big Brother' in 2008

Lets all hope this marks the beginning of the end. Tuathal wrote a great piece a while back on a number of options to bandy all these sorry excuses for TV together, as a method of eliminating the existence of this TV format and the careers (or the subsequent revitalisation of said careers) of those who choose to partake. Refresh your memory here.

Blaming Mulligar is a cop-out

So Pat Rabbitee is gone and so shall start the banding about about how his pact with FG was the reason that Labour failed to make any gains. But it was not. The reason that Labour failed to make gains is that no one really cared for their policies or more accurately their perceived policies.

The voters knew that FG and Labour were a single entity why would they vote FG when they prefered Labour. They knew a vote for was good one as a vote for another so why would they not pick their preferred shade? So why would they favour an FG TD over Labour TD it makes no real sense. Neither was it a lack of Labour articulating it’s own policies. The Greens, Sinn Fein, Socailists all lost with people on rejecting their left wing policies why would the Labour party think they could articulate these positions and fair any better?

That fact is that the positions of the left were not an issue for the electorate. Neither were the issues of the right. It was management that was the issue of the day not policy. People didn’t want radical policy change they want more of the same with more Richard Branson and less David Brent.

People don’t read manifestos Labour is a party of the left and raises taxes the PD’s a party of the right cut spending. Whether or not these parties articulate these positions it does not matter. The perception of the parties is what really matters. Do people know the Greens policy of road tolling or just like the green ethical right-on aura they excused.

Their really was not much Pat could have done to save Labour. One of Tony Blair’s masterstrokes was call them New Labour the re-branding made people think again about the party. Re-assest them. No policy change can really do it is down purely to cosmetics.

Look at David Cameron in the UK spending some much time re-branding the party with the whole eco line. He rode high in the polls for ages without any policy announcements just photo ops and branding. Pat didn’t do this. he didn’t re-brand Labour he just announced policies on tax cuts. But the blame for the result will be said to be the Mulligar accord for a long time to come. Far easier to blame a single policy and an outside force then realize the flaw is yourself.

Pat Rabbitte Confirms his Resignation

Story here. No doubt more to follow.

Movie Review: The Bourne Ultimatum

Looking for an appropriate analogy for the Bourne Ultimatum, Ronseal comes to mind. Hitting on a winning formula and applying it has endured three times now, weathering the rule of diminishing returns which often leaves sequels reduced to poor, faded imitations. Matt Damon, having subtlety built a franchise for himself, with an ever present brow of sweat, is front and centre for a movie which does exactly as it says on the can – a one man show of hand held camera, fast paced brutal energy. All too importantly, while you expect the limb crunching, domestic appliance using tactics to feel tired at this stage, they maintain their effect. Bourne is the impervious, bordering on super human action hero we know of old, yet there is never a need to cast a blind eye at his incredulous escapes or abilities, the mans enforced solitude and focus, and presumably intense programming referred to, let us know he is a man built to survive. There are no neurotic side-kicks or family members to be held hostage in the final scenes and potential love interests are put out of harms way – this man learns lessons - there may be formula at play here but not so as to insult our intelligence.

The story is present, neither wafer-thin or over convoluted. Its intense execution though grips you from the off. The espionage at play, tracking and monitor watching, particularly an early chase to Waterloo Station, are as tense as any of the outright action sequences. You never feel though you are watching a set piece, there is never a dramatic pause or shrill in the music to warn you to change your underwear for the oncoming bus of vehicular and human carnage. In fact music disappears entirely for a segment of the mandatory Bourne car smash up, only the sounds of grinding gears and scraping metal assaulting your senses. Breaks for exposition only add to the sense of urgency as motives are revealed. Any suggestion of lost lives or time for emotion that dare to show their faces are given little breathing space. The effect overall is that at least twice during watching I had to remind myself to start breathing again.

The Bourne Ultimatum is a great movie experience, inhabiting some intangible ground between the thriller and the blockbuster where heroes are the most real of people.

Aer lingus and Fianna Fail

Seriously are this government just trying to make themselves seem worse? They sent out a briefing document to Fianna Fail TD's on the Shannon controversy to I guess persuade people that it was a good thing. One of the points

the Government's refusal to intervene in the Aer Lingus controversy protected the airline's share price.

Seriously do they just want a shovel.

Limerick your a lady?

The ourtube video on the news recently about Limerick

How come I don't have a Newspaper Column

Capitalist attitudes and economic growth triumphed in England because those with such attitudes came to predominate in the population by biological means. The modern English are the descendants of the upper classes of the preindustrial world, those who prospered economically. The poor disappeared. This process was most likely cultural, but we cannot exclude the possibility that the English may even be genetically capitalist.

Seriously what the hell is this article. About genetically superior capitalists. For a quick rebuttal. Ireland. We were poor the rich were British and Protestant having small families. The poor were catholic and had large families. Very little interbreeding due to the religious divide. Yet we are a raging success at capitalism.

Seriously how is did that Article get in the London Times

Least Convincing Screen Couples

Here is another one of those pointless lists doing the rounds, this time of couples who failed to light up the screen with their chemistry. I would definitley add Julia Roberts and Nick Nolte, who had an famously bad relationship off screen, with this tension seeping onto the screen in 'I Love Trouble', itself a terrible film in the style of '40s screwball movies. Read the list here.

Rolling stones opening in Slane

Hat Tip AnthonyMcg

Dossing Times goes to Slane

The Dossing Times crew regrouped this weekend to view the wreckage left following Tuathal's departure from our fair blog this past fortnight. The chosen venue was the rambling hills of Slane however our intended withdrawl from the mania of city life, analysing hypotheses in physics and rambling around the halls of our heads to come up with ideas for posts was rudely interrupted by a quartet of rocking geriatrics. Unless you were hiding under a rock on a part of the island that detached and floated behind the moon blocking all communication you will no doubt have heard and read of the reports of outstanding music and performance on stage from around 9 p.m last Saturday night. The Rolling Stones with inspiring levels of energy, delivered a religious experience. I don't know what can be said about the band that hasn't been said already but I do know that I want to get across without too much hyperbole, yet with still some sense of high falutin' gushing what a great day it was.

Armed with wellies, ponchos and the expectation of expensive pints we battled queues for buses, felt our rib cages compress, balanced as many pints as possible as we navigated the muddy, slippery form of suction cushion the ground turned into hoping to stay upright. The skies overhead were filled with traffic carrying people to some hidden wonderland behind the castle so that they could ultimately sit in the rain as opposed to stand in it. Walking onto the castle grounds we were met with people who felt staying sober enough to be able to stand up would have been too much of a good use of their tickets. Walking out onto the ampitheatre shape surround, and never having been to a U2 concert I was blown away by the stage, as one of the lads put it, resembling the first stage in the construction of a sky scraper and this was even before the fire works, back ground graphics and detached floating stage segment. The music and the crusty men on stage, who each seem to have better physiques and more energy than I can ever hope to achieve were front and centre, turning out classic tunes like they were putting just the right amount of butter on a perfectly crisp piece of toast. I over reached there with that last sentence but it's staying in. Running from one song to another you realise the eclectic influences on their music from outright rock, to big band vibes and country 'n' western twangs and friendships with the late James Brown. I rank these men along the likes of Peter O'Toole and Richard Harris, somehow inspiring in the reckless fulfilment with which they seem to have filled their lives and what must be their complete bewilderment with what the hell this rehab fad is.

Bowie, you are next on my list.

Joker Up Close

This picture is likely to be taken off the internet pretty soon, seemingly it hasn't been officially released. The Joker's image has been revealed in stages to date but here he is in all his deranged glory.

Top 6 Friday: Ultimate Meals

So we're talking food, tastes and dining experiences here, something as unique to the individual as our retinas I feel. There aren't any pictues, there's just no point trying to muster up the sensation of a good meal other than thinking about it and sitting down to it.

Spare Ribs: Last year travelling around New Zealand the single best thing I ate was a plate of spare ribs with sour cream and a plum sauce. There is something satisfying about eating fiddly bits of food, getting to re-enjoy the taste over again, slow cooked, tender and something of the cave man swelling up inside me ripping off meat. There is little that can't be improved upon by barbecuing, we are lucky enough to have a fine stone barbecue out the back and have been determined to use it this year, whatever the weather may have dictated.

Steak and Rice: This is the meal that I cook for myself most often and when I do manage to go shopping will ensure I have the ingredients for. At home, my father has usually been to the English Market in Cork and have bought fillets the size of my head. There the steaks are cooked on a grill, with potatoes, onions, mushrooms, some other form of veg and if my sister is cooking a pepper sauce. On my own the steak may be some bought from a butcher I pass on the way home from work and on days where I want a treat I go all out for a marbled rib-eye. You are entitled to char you steak however you choose,the more blood the better as far as I am concerned, mine is cooked for mere minutes. Your steak must be let rest to leave the juices run back into the centre, then sat on a bed of rice and on the side half a tub of greek yoghurt with a red chilli, spring onion, parsley and lemon juice combined to make a sauce that will suit any dish. Dinner done in 15 minutes, tasty as hell.

Toasted apple, cheese and mustard sandwich: This is obviously a snack moreso than a meal and may fall under the category of strange food combination that everyone seems to develop a taste for at some stage during their lives. Use a toasted sandwich maker if you like, I prefer the grill for this. Cheddar cheese, sliced apple (green, I don't know why) and too much mustard all let melt on toasted bread.

Bacon and cabbage: This is the meal that is cooked on the day anyone in my family returns home from travelling whether it be a 2 week poolside sun holiday or 6 months seeing some of the southern hemisphere. It doesn't get old. Nevertheless, I have cooked bacon in Coca Cola, that is put bacon in saucepan, cover with 2 litres of Coke and cook - an idea picked up from Nigella Lawson, the bacon is somehow infused with essence of barbecue and is on a par with the classic meal itself. You'll have lived half a life if you haven't tried it.

Christmas Dinner: Two years ago it fell to me to cook Christmas dinner. The precision exercise in time and motion studies required to co-ordinate this meal is made all the worthwhile sitting down to relish your work. This meal, guaranteed once a year and part of the reason I came home from New Zealand, is full of ritual, stuffing and the single handed best reason for sitting at a table - the roast potato, crunchy exterior, floury interior - we're taking perfection time here when done well. See also: Sunday roasts.

Dessert in my books can go wrong far too easily and can taint the meal that may have gone before. I do not have a sweet tooth, would never eat dessert straight after a meal at home and would pick a beer over a dessert when in a restaurant. Some sense of savouriness is required so that I might venture the way of cheese cake or pecan pie but my ultimate dessert would have to be apple tart.

15 minutes of Youtube - Rolling Stones special

Edit: The Dossing Times crew are going to be in Slane. SO I thought I would bump this up. I am particular looking forward to some Guinness. It is so bad this side of the Irish Sea

The Rolling Stones tickets went on sale this morning and, eventually, sold out. Tickets were still available well after 9am which astonished me. Maybe, the Stone's audience were still in bed, I don't know. If it had been a McFly concert it would have probably sold out in 20 minutes...that's today's music scene for you.

Anyways, all 3 authors here at the Dossing Times will be in attendance in August. To celebrate here is a special 15 minutes of Youtube dedicated to Mick and the boys.

To begin, Gimme Shelter. This is my favourite track by the Stones, something I share with Martin Scorcese...that or he's contracted to put it in all his movies.

Sticking with movie themes, here's Paint it Black, famously used in Full Metal Jacket.

Next, Miss you

Changing gear a little with Ruby Tuesday

Finally, a real cigarette lighter song, Angie

This 15 minutes of dossing was brought to you by the Dossing Times...your number 1 dossing destination.

Empty Houses

The CSO has released figures stating almost 1/6 of private dwellings in the state are unoccupied. The 2006 census found there are 1,769,613 homes in the State, and of those, 174,935 were vacant houses, 41,598 were vacant flats or apartments and 49,789 were holiday homes. The number of vacant homes amounts to 15 per cent of the total. It seems that while supply is forthcoming, presumably on foot of perceived demand the reality is buyers are not realising their demand due to deteriorating affordability conditions. What impact the abolishment of Stamp Duty will have on these figures will be interesting to see. I would be interested also in seeing the number of commercial properties which are unoccupied - the commerical property market we are told is consistently bouyant. Link to CSO press release here.