It's shocking to find a murder story on your doorstep

Sunday Tribune August 23


Thunder rumbled beyond Dalkey quarry as I walked into the village: a storm was threatening to move in from the south. It was almost tacky, like a bad special effect, but matched the gloomy mood about the place on Thursday.
A group of subdued young people in black crowded around a gate. The funeral of Shane Clancy had taken place that morning in the church. The suicidal student murdered Sebastian Creane in Bray last Sunday in a jealous rage over his ex-girlfriend, Jennifer Hannigan. I presumed these young people were mourners. They may have been the young voices extolling Clancy's virtues the previous day on Joe Duffy's Liveline. "He was a great man," said 'Phillip'. "An all-round really nice guy," said 'Jennifer'.
Phil Coulter also came on air to lament tragic Sebastian Creane, the innocent friend of his children. "It's the kind of unreal thing you read about in the papers that always happens to somebody else, but when it comes to your door…" he said.
Headlines become three dimensional when you live in a village. I walked down Castle Street to buy the papers, past The Queen's where Sebastian spent his final hours with teetotaller Clancy on Saturday. As they left at 3am, I was leaving a party nearby. I might have passed them, I thought.
I eat in restaurants within feet of Clancy's house and occasionally drink in The Club, where he and Jennifer worked. He may have packed my shopping during a charity drive in EuroSpar. He lived half a mile from me and knew people I know. Even as a cynical hack, it's shocking to find a murder story on your doorstep.
I fine-combed the papers, wanting to understand Clancy and his crime. There were grainy photos and timeline maps in the Independent. The Irish Times carried the story about him buying knives at 4am on page one. The Daily Mail painted a picture of an enraged stalker – the Evening Herald that of a teetotal charity worker who had gone psychotic. It also carried an interview with a Jesuit who had strident views about the case.
What had started in the village rumour mill as a crazed stabbing, the papers fleshed out as a crime of passion.
Around the country, others pored over the details too, trying to understand. Interest was so great that the murder eclipsed a spate of stabbings on the streets of Mayo. Stabbings don't normally happen in Ballinrobe. Why was Bray more newsworthy?
The reason is that the Mayo attacks happened on the street – where we expect them. The Clancy stabbing, on the other hand, happened in a suburban home and involved a jilted lover from a 'celebrity' village. The story has an obvious, tabloid attraction.
However, once you strip away the voyeuristic aspects, another reason for our fascination with this type of story emerges – fear. This was a 'next-door killing'. We subconsciously fear that something similar could happen beside us or, worse, in our own homes. Therefore, we forensically examine the story to make sense of the crime. What was the reason? We have to have a reason, because if there isn't one, it will haunt us.
Ten years ago, almost to the week, Raonaid Murray was murdered a mile from Dalkey. No motive or killer has been found. Every year her story is republished and every year we read it, hoping for a breakthrough. Until her mystery is solved, there is a killer still living among us. We read hoping for closure.
Whenever the Herald carried a Rachel O'Reilly story at the peak of the interest in her murder, sales increased. Raonaid, the Robert Holohan tragedy in Cork, Siobhan Kearney in Goatstown and the Club Anabel's death of Brian Murphy all did likewise. Sales were boosted by people's need to make sense of the seemingly senseless. If Rachel's husband didn't murder her, who did? Is there a serial killer on the loose? And so on.
Ireland is becoming more violent. We fear confronting car thieves or kids vandalising a Dart carriage. We fear intervening in street fights. Most of all, we fear violence creeping into safe suburbia, as it did with Bray. As readers, we have the closure we need with this case. It wasn't random: we have motive and killer. The families are not so lucky and other questions remain. Why were the warning signs not spotted? Should a young man be able to buy a block of knives at 4am?
In his homily, Dalkey's parish priest spoke of Clancy's psychotic state and prayed for him to be at peace.
Jesuit blogger Fr Fergus O'Donoghue was not so kind. "All the psycho-babble explanations in the world will not take away from the fact that this killing was pure evil," he told the Herald. "Some will want to take comfort in a psychological explanation, but that won't help."
Statements like that won't help Shane Clancy's friends and family either as they deal with their grief. His final acts defined his short life, but branding him evil on the day they buried him is brutal and grossly insensitive. The theological discussion about Clancy's character could have waited until the mourners had gone home and the clay had settled.
I'm sure Joe Duffy would have handled the debate admirably.

dkenny@tribune.ie

August 23, 2009

Baron Wince, Tara and the lords of incompetence

Sunday Tribune 16 August


Tenner for the first person who guesses what 'Carbon Wine', 'Brace In Now!' and 'Bare Cow Inn' have in common. My travelling companions didn't make the connection. One threatened to connect his fist with my gob if I didn't shut up, though.
On Tuesday we headed to Tullamore for a lads' night out with a friend who has swapped the Liffey for Offaly (he's a 'Liffo'). I spent the journey shouting out stupid anagrams of people's names to irritate the other passengers. I can be really, really, really annoying when I'm bored.
Brian Cowen's name is stuffed with good anagrams, like the ones above, but I discovered one that describes him perfectly. It's 'Baron Wince'. You know the way you wince at your bills these days? That's down to Baron Wince – Ireland's Lord of Pain.
We headed to the Baron's local, the Brewery Tap, because I wanted to ask him what he knows about bi-location – being in two places at once. Noel Dempsey got me wondering about this last week as he defended the latest news from Tara. The Baron wasn't about, so my question had to wait. (We'll return to it later.)
The news from Tara is that we will have to compensate the operators of the M3 if the number of cars using it falls below a target agreed by the state. So what's that target? Don't ask the National Roads Authority. It would only say last week that it was "competitive".
Don't ask Dempsey either. Newstalk's Eamon Keane asked him if the public will ever be told. Not if it's commercially sensitive, he replied, adding "what we WILL know is if the target is NOT reached". So there you have it. How many cars make the M3 viable? Answer: mind your own business.
Even after all the crookedness Fianna Fáil has displayed towards Tara, this latest revelation stopped me in my tracks. What next? Are they planning to sell the rights to Tara's name, like The Point did to 02? Will we see 'Welcome to The Hill of Eurolink' as we approach Tara? It wouldn't surprise me.
The M3 scandal embodies all that is wrong with Irish politics: greed, wastefulness, ignorance and a total disregard for democracy. Nobody wanted it in Tara/Skryne bar Fianna Fáil, which was so eager to destroy the valley that it paid almost €69,000 an acre for it. So eager, that it bulldozed the national monument at Lismullen, sparking an expensive European Court case. If/when we lose, we could be ordered to do a new environmental impact study and go back to scratch on the site.
Unesco may also order the road to be moved if it deems Tara a World Heritage Site. Environment minister John Gormley is afraid of this so he delayed presenting it for consideration. The obvious thing to do now is halt the M3 pending Unesco and the court's decisions. 'Green' Gormley, however, is hell-bent on completing a motorway that is destroying a heritage site, may have to be moved and may not prove viable.
A shortfall is highly likely. Last April it was predicted that almost 23,000 vehicles would use the M3 daily when it opens next July. Those numbers need to be readjusted because of the recession. Last month, Meath experienced the largest increase in people signing on – an extra 17,000 people, or 4%. That means a lot of cars off the road until the gloom recedes. On top of that, the remaining workforce won't want to pay €11.20-a-day in tolls when the rail service to Navan opens. Incidentally, neither Dempsey nor Gormley will have to pay the tolls – ministerial cars are exempt.
The pair's record with sums is appalling: last year Dempsey spent €70,000 on a new logo for Transport 21. The existing one had been developed in-house… for free. At around the same time, Gormley spent €15m on a climate change advertising campaign and only €5m on the Warmer Homes Scheme.
Two men, two things in common: the M3 and financial incompetence.
Remember I wanted to ask Brian Cowen about bi-location? The M3 bail-out has made it theoretically possible for me to be in two places at once – driving through Meath while at home in Dublin. Here's my question: why should I pay a toll on a road I don't want, will never use, in a county I don't live in, to a foreign consortium – for the next 45 years?
Fianna Fáil has secretly shackled us to a road that's in the wrong place. It agreed to underwrite a bad development that was in trouble from the start. How many other similar deals has it done? After this, how can we trust its judgment on Nama?
Last week, the Greens made noises about holding a convention on Nama. Under party rules, Gormley and Co can be ordered to vote it down, effectively ending the coalition.
Here's another question about location: where were the Greens' grass roots when the rest of us were discussing Nama? Why have they suddenly discovered their voices when the Dáil is on holidays? Are they serious or just posing?
Considering the Greens' hypocrisy to date, another two-word anagram comes to mind. It's of 'T-a-r-a' and is normally preceded by "I smell…"
It's also always associated with sinking ships, Mr Gormley.

dkenny@tribune.ie

Here's some media advice, Beverley: stop laughing at us

Sunday Tribune, 9 August

Summer 1984 ended too quickly. May crashed into June as the 'mock' became the Leaving. Fourteen years of school were over. July flew: a blur of discos at the Cliff Castle Hotel, dancing to Dexy's 'Come on Eileen', and evenings at the Pierrot Club scrounging coins to play PacMan. Afternoons zipped by, hanging around our road, ogling Spanish students and rehashing gags from the Young Ones. Disguising dread with stupid banter as August, and results day, sprinted in.
Leaving Cert summer is a type of No Man's Land between childhood and adulthood. I didn't want mine to end. Results day terrified me: it meant either college or the shame of a repeat year. For many it meant a ticket to England or America. We were the last generation of Irish to emigrate.
Two other fortysomethings who were in the news last week also waited on exam results in 1984. One was from Glenageary, the other from Castlebar. Both went on to UCD. Both are politicians. Both are shameless opportunists.
The former made headlines during the Thomas Cook sit-in on Grafton Street. On Tuesday I watched the 'protestors' singing 'Ireland's Call' and behaving as if they were on some kind of a patriotic mission. I cringed. They were deluding themselves. They weren't heroes. They had been offered a good redundancy package and greedily wanted more.
The appearance of left-wing campaigner Richard Boyd Barrett added to my irritation. He's respected for his work in Dun Laoghaire, but what was he getting involved in this for? This was a circus. His presence, however, prompted me to look closer at the story and my attitude changed.
Thomas Cook's profits were up 35% last year and its CEO received a 34% pay rise and a €7m bonus. It's making buckets of money. When the workers tried to negotiate for more, management moved to close the office ahead of schedule. They were being 'railroaded'. The employees had no right to defy a court order ordering them to leave, but their action was understandable.
The country can't afford industrial mayhem, but workers can't be expected to just roll over either. Sacrifices must be made, but people's rights must also be protected. Ireland has already been run into the ground by ruthless profiteers. Profiteers who are constantly in the sights of arch opportunist, Boyd Barrett.
While his sincerity isn't in doubt, the Glenageary man knows the value of a picture of him being arrested with the protesters. It helps further his socialist agenda. Still, even if you don't agree with his beliefs, you can't deny he's in politics for the right reasons.
Now look west. Another opportunist is making headlines. Unlike Boyd Barrett though, Beverley Flynn only ever makes headlines for the wrong reasons. The latest is that she claimed almost €30k in expenses for work done by a media adviser.
Beverley has always been good with money. After her failed libel action against RTé she dragged her heels over the €3m costs and got away with paying only half. Bertie Ahern later declared she would be a minister some day. Possibly minister for finance given her dexterity with taxpayers' money.
Earlier this year, we learned she was still claiming €41k of expenses as an independent TD. Despite public revulsion, Beverley keeps soldiering on.
No wonder she needs a media adviser. Here's a piece of media advice, Beverley: wipe that smirk off your face. You look like you're laughing at us. Your bloated self-importance is stomach-churning.
Flynn, and others like her, proves Boyd Barrett's case that Ireland needs a new radicalism to shake up the establishment. I obviously don't mean turning the country into a socialist state, but to adjust the balance. To stop a small part of the population screwing the rest. You know, like in a R.E.P.U.B.L.I.C.
Those of us who did our Leaving in the '80s claimed to have built a new Ireland. What we actually built was a New Babylon, founded on greed and toppled by our towering self belief. We wanted more, more, more and so overstretched to buy overpriced houses. Both parents then had to work to pay the bills. This created a new breed of latch-key kids, flush with guilt-money from their absentee parents. They became designer accessories for mum and dad: the more spoiled your child, the more affluent you looked.
So we have a generation of cosseted kids staring out over No Man's Land as the hours tick down to results day. I feel sorry for them. For all their cockiness they're more vulnerable than we were. We were prepared for the worst. They've only ever tasted success and aren't prepared for failure. Unlike us, they have no escape route to England or America.
What's more, we've loaded them with another responsibility: the task of rebuilding this country over the coming decades. They can start by looking at two individuals who awaited exam results 25 years ago this week. Boyd Barrett and Flynn. Who is giving more to society? Who has made the most of their potential? Our school-leavers' answer to this will be the key to Ireland's emergence as a just society.
And kids, if you ever need a media adviser, I know just the man for the job.
And I'll do you a good deal …

dkenny@tribune.ie

August 9, 2009

Bertie's 'legacy' is as good as his fashion sense – rotten

Sunday Tribune August 2

I have an admission to make. It's not pleasant, so prepare yourself. I once… God, this isn't easy… I once owned a pair of… white shoes. And an electric-blue Miami Vice jacket, white baggies and a canary yellow polo shirt with matching tie. I also had a mullet. I never wore white socks though – I swear it. Sorry if the image is putting you off your brunch.
I used to wear the jacket's sleeves rolled up. I had to: I bought it for £19.99 in Unique Boutique and in my hurry to leave before anyone I knew saw me being such a cheapskate, I grabbed a size three times too big for me. Still, I thought the huge shoulder pads made me look manly. My dad said they made me look like Joan Collins dressed as a rent boy. The jacket ended up in the cat basket after that.
I was reminded of my fashion unconsciousness last week when I saw pictures of Bertie Ahern at the Galway Races. Bertie, one expert wrote, broke the cardinal rule of not wearing navy with black.
He was a right mess: navy jacket, striped shirt and tie – clashing so badly they nearly gave me an epileptic fit – and black trousers. Bertie looked like the kind of man who tucks his shirt into his underpants and wears his socks in bed. Not that I ever want to find out.
When Garret FitzGerald wore odd socks it suggested he was too busy juggling matters of state to notice. Bertie can't claim the same excuse. He hasn't much to worry about as he's on holidays until September. Not that he's been too busy at work. In his first year as ex-taoiseach, Bertie missed 85% of Dáil votes. He didn't even attend for a vote on the bank bailout.
The main thing on Bertie's mind last week was the demise of the Fianna Fáil tent at Galway Races. "Some of the flak it got over the years was a bit unfair," he said, "but it never worried me."
Nothing ever worries Bertie. Nothing: like the intake of breath when he told the planning tribunal he had won sums of mysterious money on the gee-gees.
Nothing: like the economy he helped wreck through his profligacy. The economy that last week pinned its hopes on Nama, set up to bail out his developer friends and rescue deals struck over pints in that same Fianna Fáil tent.
He's not worried about the Commission on Taxation either, as it prepares to recommend introducing a property tax. He can afford it – unlike the 78 families whose homes were listed for repossession in court last Monday. The government is going to tax the house Bertie encouraged you to buy, as you struggle to hold on to it.
As he checked the form last week, Bertie was probably glad he no longer has a garda minder. He wouldn't have been able to concentrate, with him moaning about his pension.
The gardaí last week legally challenged the levy on their sweet-deal pension. If they succeed, more public-sector challenges will follow. If only Bertie hadn't over-inflated the public sector. Never mind, spotted any 'bankers' on the card, Bertie?
Bankers? Last Monday, Permanent TSB raised its rates. Bertie's colleague, Brian Lenihan, said he wouldn't intervene. He gave PTSB a state guarantee and now it's giving him the finger. Didn't you promote him to cabinet, Bertie? Good judge of form, there.
It's enough to make you sick – if you can afford to be sick. The HSE last week published a list of chemists who won't 'strike' over the Drugs Payment Scheme row. Typically, the list was wrong and included one pharmacy which closed three months ago. Wasn't the HSE put under starter's orders by your government, Bertie?
While Ahern was at the races, the fall-out continued from his 2002 deal capping the church's liability over child-abuse payments. Last week, the state was still waiting for a statement of assets from one of the 18 orders named in the Ryan report. Presumably, it will pass the post some day soon, Bertie.
Some people like to blindly stick a pin into the racing pages when choosing a runner. You could have stuck one anywhere in the paper last week and skewered a piece of Bertie's 'legacy'. Or a picture of him: smug, laughing. Funny Bertie. As funny as a hernia. Bertie Ahernia.
Ahernia used to spend thousands on make-up, but his dress sense on Tuesday suggests he couldn't be bothered keeping up appearances any more. The real Bertie is resurfacing, as shabby as his 'legacy'.
Not that he sees it as shabby. The Washington Speakers Bureau describes him as having "brought economic prosperity, peace and political prominence… creating a progressive strategy and blueprint for other countries of the world to follow". Who wrote that CV?
I suspect I wasn't the only person watching Bertie acting the retired champion last week and wishing he was finally put out to grass.
When he said he never worried about flak taken over the Fianna Fáil tent, I happily imagined him being boiled down for glue.
The FF tent is gone but, like the odour of stale horse manure, Bertie lingers on.
Roll up your tent and take a hike, Ahern. You're not at the races any more.

dkenny@tribune.ie

August 2, 2009

Airport tax doesn't put me off flying but O'Leary does

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Sunday Tribune 26 July

Bags unpacked, fridge magnets in place and the last of the after sun squirted over the peeling bits: the holidays are over. I'm not complaining, though. I was grateful for the break from the relentless bad news. During the fortnight I was away, the only 'Snip' I heard was the label being cut off the new, larger, shorts my expanding belly forced me to buy.
This year we were determined to leave catching up on events to the bitter end. On the way from the airport the taximan got as far as "So what do you think abou…" before we yelled "Stop!" A relative managed "Recess…" before we wrestled her to the ground.
On Tuesday, Her Nibs finally turned on the telly – as if she was detonating a bomb by remote control. We chose the BBC, to avoid any bad news from home. Bad choice. Up pops Ryanair's Michael O'Leary spinning figures and moaning about airport taxes, which he says are putting people off flying. He's cut some winter flights from Stansted in protest and is expected to announce the same here.
O'Leary has the same effect on me as haemorrhoids have on jockeys. It's the man-of-the-people act that gets me: when he puts on fancy dress, gurns and Takes On The System. What man-of-the-people has his bank balance? What people-friendly organisation cuts dozens off from their holiday homes in Fuerteventura by withdrawing flights in a business row? Ryanair did, two weeks ago.
This latest gripe suggests he's either deliberately talking rubbish or is completely out of touch.
His tax theory falls apart when you consider the ordeal that air travel has become. Let's start with booking. Ryanair insists you print your own boarding pass. If you forget you're fined €40 – four times the airport tax plus a surcharge of extra stress.
When you arrive at the airport you have to queue for security. Forgotten the plastic bag for your 100ml of liquids? That'll be €1 for two, please.
Instead of cashing in on this rule, airports should be lobbying to have it abolished. It's a joke. Last year, a friend was stopped with 150ml of expensive moisturiser and refused to hand it over. Instead, she squeezed half into a Zippy bag and was let through. What was she going to do? Hijack the plane by threatening to give the pilot a facial?
The next stress point is the scanner and trying to remember to remove all metal objects, your laptop, your shoes, your belt and keep moving. This, by the way, is when you discover you've holes in your socks and everyone else discovers your novelty underpants as you struggle to keep your trousers up.
Whereas the staff are always pleasant, the scanner is a bit on the sensitive side. A female friend's bra frequently sets it off. We call it her Booby Trap Device.
Bras aside, Dublin airport has recently added another item to its Most Dangerous list… the pop-up umbrella. This has to be scanned separately in case, presumably, you storm the cockpit with it. "Don't move, I've got an umbrella… and it's spring loaded!" Mary Poppins flew with an umbrella. Bet she never had it scanned.
To avoid the gate scrum we normally gamble on Ryanair's priority boarding and hope that everyone else hasn't had the same idea. In Krakow a couple of years back, a friend discovered it gave him priority boarding… onto the bus to the plane. Being first on meant he was last off. There's value for money.
Speaking of value for money, O'Leary loves finding new ways to milk his herd. The latest are to get passengers to load their own luggage – turned down on security grounds – and stand for the flight. The next may be to strap a few to the wings.
Then there was the proposed charge for the loo. What if you hadn't any coins? That's where the plastic bags you bought at security would come in handy. Once filled, they could be given to the stewardess who – as a Ryanair employee – is probably used to taking the p***.
What about installing pedals at every seat to save on fuel bills: Passenger Power?
With all this in mind, you have to conclude that O'Leary is wrong about the tax being a disincentive to fly. If we're willing to put up with all the crap he and Dublin airport fling at us, then who cares about a lousy tenner?
The recession is the reason people are cutting back on foreign holidays. If you're fortunate enough to have saved for one, you're not going to let a €10 tax put you off. The tariff also brings in extra revenue from foreign tourists and it all goes into the state's – not O'Leary's – coffers. That's why he's so annoyed: he wants that tenner. He reckons if you've paid it in tax you'll be less inclined to buy his Baggies or Cup-A-Soups. It's eating into his profit margins.
O'Leary has some neck whingeing about taxes given that he considered introducing one himself four months ago: a fat tax on porky passengers. After weeks of winding everyone up, he dropped it.
Pigs will probably fly before he stops mouthing off about this one though, and gives us all a break.
I definitely need another one now.

dkenny@tribune.ie

July 26, 2009

It's a cruel, cruel summer, but at least I've got ELO

Sunday Tribune 5 July


I HAVE good news. I won't be giving out about anything this week. I decided this on Wednesday while listening to RTÉ's Drivetime. Along with the relentless misery there was a piece marking the 30th birthday of the Sony Walkman. It raised the clouds for a few minutes.
So the following is a sort of Happy Birthday to the Walkperson. It's for people from a certain age group. So kids, bugger off to your room now.
I remember the first time I saw a Walkman was behind my school's handball alleys. Ten Major in hand, I turned the corner to see Andrew Flood surrounded by a crowd of excited, spotty adolescents. He was shouting. "BRILLIANT!!!! JUZCANGEDENNUF, AH JUZCANGEDENNUF!!!!" What a mentaller, I thought.
"What's up?" I asked Charlie Costello, trendsetter of fifth year.
"He's listening to my Walkman," he explained.
"Oh." I nodded knowingly, not having a clue what a Walkman was.
"Here," he lifted the headphones off Floodie's mullet, "have a listen."
I suppose you could call it an epiphany. There's no other way to describe being assumed into stereo heaven for the first time. The quality was staggering. Depeche Mode's 'Just Can't Get Enough' was playing. Electronic notes pinged, buzzed and ricocheted around my head. "AH JUZCANGEDENNUF!!!!" I sang and silent faces laughed back at me.
Prior to the Walkman, the most portable musical player was a tape recorder. I bought my first one with my Confirmation money – £11. It was a rectangular, mono Lloytron with a built-in condenser mic. I used to put it under the telly for Top of the Pops and pressed record when the The Jam or Blondie came on, noisily banging it off when Abba or The Nolans appeared, which really annoyed my sisters.
It was portable, but you couldn't walk down the street listening to a Lloytron. Someone would, justifiably, beat you up for being a twat. Then the Walkman arrived and music could be pogoed to on a friend's hi fi and played on the way home too. It had left the living room.
The Walkman, if you could afford one, made the streets of early '80s Ireland seem less grim. It helped block out the uncertainties of being a teenager and cast us as the stars of our own imaginary music videos.
It also eventually led to the solipsistic world of today where Mp3 players are used to shut out the sound of humanity's cogs turning: coughing on the bus, a baby crying, someone looking like they want to chat.
The Walkman brought opportunities for adolescent intimacy. Sharing a headphone, cheek to cheek, could lead to brittle teen romances. The mix tape was conceived: a cassette filled with favourite tracks and given to the object of your lust.
It contained songs like Frankie Goes To Hollywood's 'Two Tribes', with its controversial video depicting Ronald
Reagan wrestling the Russian premier. Maybe we should get Brian and Enda to do that. Could solve a lot of problems. My money's on Biffo, though. He looks like he bites. But I'm digressing.

Madonna's 'Papa Don't Preach' was another favourite. Someone should sing that to Bishop of Galway, Martin Drennan, who is stopping mourners leaving loved- ones in church overnight. Apparently it's 'inappropriate'. Yet another example of compassionate Irish Catholicism. Actually, I'd better be careful what I say: don't want to blaspheme. I might get fined €25,000 under Dermot Ahern's new blasphemy law. Last week, he back­pedalled slightly by reducing it from €100,000 but is still sticking with his crackpot's charter.
We'll add one in honour of his new anti-gang law. The Clash's 'I Fought The Law And The Law Won'.
How about 'Caravan of Love' by the Housemartins for John Gormley? He's backtracked on placing a property tax on mobile homes after an outcry on Liveline. He still won't listen to the outcry over Tara though. What a hypocrite.
Sorry, I promised not to give out. Here's one for Bill Cullen who accuses Gormley of wrecking the car industry: Alexei Sayle's 'Hello John, Got a New Motor?'.
How about some ska? Madness to go with our ministers' decision to take 10 internal flights this year at a cost of over €20,000. Bad Manners to go with the second suspension in a week of the Dáil due to heckling. The Specials' 'Ghost Town', which is what the Dáil will be when these timewasters go on their 11-week holidays.
Our penultimate track is the Boomtown Rats' 'Banana Republic'. Blasphemy laws, Tara and Nama becoming the biggest owner of bad debts on the planet? BananaNama. Wasn't that a girl band who sang 'Cruel Summer'?
It's cruel all right, given that unemployment reached 11.9% last Wednesday. This was the news which prompted me to stop listening to Drivetime and promise (unsuccessfully) not to give out. When Leo Varadkar said "this is the darkest day in the worst ever recession" Julian Cope's 'World Shut Your Mouth' began playing in my head. I reached for my iPod, stuck in my headphones and listened to one of my favourite bands, Electric Light Orchestra. The song I played is 30 years old this month, like the Walkman. 'Don't Bring Me Down' never fails to cheer me up.

July 5, 2009