Next time you open up the Indo and see a vomit-inducing hagiographic puff-piece about His Royal Highness 'Sir' Tony O'Reilly, remember this.Or when you wince as the Irish Times lectures you like a prissy maiden aunt about how you should vote in a referendum, remember this.Or when you peruse the rows of red top tabloids and sneer at the garish pictures of scantily clad starlets and schlock headlines in a superior manner, remember this.Freedom of the press is a privilege we enjoy. With it comes things we are interested in hearing and happy to be informed about. With it also comes lectures, preposterous opinions, spin, fluff, puff and outright nonsense on all too many occasions.But that's the point of diversity of opinion and press freedom. It permits all sorts of truths to be told, in a...
Ten days sampling the Aussie media has left me pondering the power of positive thinking.I recall how some years ago, ITN news presenter Martyn Lewis was laughed at for suggesting that British news was too negative and could benefit from being lightened up with positive stories. Images of front pages about cats saved from trees filled the heads of his cynical colleagues and they chuckled.I did too.But it is true that the British media environment is a profoundly negative and mean-spirited one. The Irish media climate is little different.I've noticed this especially here in Australia, where they are prepared to put a story about a medical discovery or a community initiative on the front page without apology.In some other places I've been, the positive news can seem seriously parochial....
Certainly, some Muslims seem to think so.As far as I'm aware, there have been at least two complaints to the Press Council and Ombudsman from Irish based Muslims about articles that appeared in the Irish Independent.One was a somewhat inflammatory piece by commentator Kevin Myers, whose flights of fancy I've previously examined here.The other complaint apparently relates to Ian O'Doherty (airbrushed above), whose otherwise interesting and light-hearted column I-Spy is regularly marred by his blinkered defence of all things Neo-Con or Israeli, and his blanket demonising of Islam.After yet another crack about Shariah law in Ireland from Ian, a large number of Irish Muslims finally had enough and collectively wrote a letter to the editor, which was published in today's edition.What I found...
Obviously every single day you can pick up an Irish newspaper, any of them really, and roll your eyes in horror at the errors, misspellings, pretensions, outrageous opinion masquerading as objectivity, and blatant spin.So I'm going to reserve this occasional series for serial offenders and major errors of fact.In the first category is long-time frustrated poet, Irish Independent sports writer Vincent Hogan, whose airbrushed, outdated 'matinee idol' byline picture is only matched by his fondness for prose more purple than a crate of Ribena.Maybe you were busy Wednesday night, and didn't catch the Ireland V Brazil game? Thought you'd pick up the Indo on Thursday and read all about it? Vince has other plans for you.From the casual racisw of the opening line - 'It was settled by the deftness...
I wouldn’t normally be one to be too negative about things that try to bring arts, culture and music of Northern Ireland to the forefront of traditional media, such as television, but sometimes it just doesn’t work. Who am I kidding, in N.I. most ideas like this don’t work. Then again it is the BBC - they don’t provide a budget for local talent to be seen and heard through T.V. or Radio.
Yes there are exceptions, yet not enough. Those exceptions don’t have any sort of decent budget like they should either. Not to get boiled down in such a heated issue right now. The point is, they have actually gotten something semi-right.
The Show in question is Imeall Geal, the new oddly titled Irish Language show, which in English translates as ‘Bright Edge’,...
Tomorrow Belfast band Mary’s Great Idea will be on the new Irish language chat and music show from BBC Northern Ireland called Imeall Geal, which translates as ‘Bright Edge’. Last Sunday they performed in front of a live studio audience in Newry’s Sean Hollywood Art Centre along with Dublin band Director.
The idea being that each week two bands perform, one an unsigned band from Northern Ireland and the other a bigger name band from throughout Ireland. Other acts to perform in coming weeks include Ruby Colley, The Delawares, Olympic Lifts, Henry McCullough, Foy Vance, and The Winding Stair.
Click here to view a short interview with Mary’s Great Idea.
Imeall Geal is on BBC Two Northern Ireland each Thursday at 10pm...
A photograph of mine has been printed in today’s copy of The Ticket, the entertainment section of The Irish Times!...
Culture minister Edwin Poots was yesterday foiled in an attempt to “abuse” the democratic process by manipulating the DCAL Executive Committee to justify a publicity stunt promoting the Maze stadium plans later in the day.
A meeting of the committee was called for the architects and consultants to show off some pretty pictures (artist’s impressions) of what a new stadium could look like and then turn them over to the media to circulate. Members of the committee were furious that they were being used like this and walked out of the meeting, pointing out the absurdity of having a meeting like this without any kind of business case or feasibility study for the plans available after all this time, despite such details having been repeatedly requested.
The real agenda seems...
Thanks to the help of my good friend, Andy, I have a nice new website for you to marvel at, with an updated portfolio.
Check it out at www.philokanephotography.com
Stay tuned for more updates over the next few weeks.
Copyright Phil O’Kane © 2006-2007This feed is indended for personal use only. If you are not reading it in your feed reader please let me know....
Last week I was asked to recommend a local band, and believe me it is never an easy question. I love my music and I love my local music. There is just so much good music about this land that I have to think very hard before coming up with an answer. But there can only be one this time around.
The chosen band is Boathouse, a Belfast-based five-piece with a host of instruments including a shaker and glockenspiel.
Unfortunately, with the current lineup, they have no official releases other than the session which was broadcase on Across the Line for BBC Radio Ulster in June of this year. The three tracks ‘Johnny and Ruth Story’, ‘What I Remember’ and ‘Don’t Knock’ are rarely far from the currently playing song in my playlist.
The review was published...
Another startling example of the “let me just bend over for you” attitude of the local ‘press’ to the Northern Ireland Office was printed in the Belfast Telegraph yesterday in an Open Letter to Sports Fans in Northern Ireland penned by David Curran. Curran makes a lot of flawed assumptions and uses a lot of warped logic. It seems he made the mistake of actually believing some of the rubbish that has been said about the Maze proposals and opposition to them. To afford Mr Curran the generous assumption that his errors were honest, let’s look at his collection of “mistakes”.
(On a side note, the Amalgamation of Northern Ireland Supporters Clubs have reportedly made repeated requests to have an opinion piece printed in the same paper. These repeated...
It first started about this time last year. Though it didn’t last too long thankfully, shortly into the new year the problem subsided, temporarily it would seem. But it has begun again. It has even led to one of my house-mates commenting that I “watch a lot of T.V”. I wasn’t sure how to respond. I still like to think that I don’t.
When I was a lot younger I watched a lot of tv. Even jotting in my little notebook each Saturday what I planned to watch in the week ahead. Eventually, the internet was free for as many minutes a month (dial-up), then broadband came along. Television was a thing of the past.
But then…
In the last few years good shows started being made, or I started discovering them: Family Guy, Green Wing, Black Books, Boomtown, The Shield,...
Let us once again indulge that rare suspicion that there may indeed be a benign deity in this universe.PR Puffmistress Monica Leech has been laughed out of the High Court after losing her libel action against the Irish Independent.The woman, who was banking 650 euro of taxpayers money PER DAY while swanning around the planet on junkets in Martin Cullen's wake, now faces a 350,000 euro legal bill.(Not that one need feel too sorry for her - her mammoth paycheque for sitting on the board of the Higher Education Authority and her chairmanship of Waterford Chamber of Commerce, as well as her ongoing PR work means that she's probably not shy of a few quid. Oh, and didn't she just take a quarter of a mill off RTE too?)Leech's team had sought to argue that the offending article, published in...
All empires bear within them the seeds of their own destruction, history informs us.Even as Rome was in it's Imperial pomp, with Caligula appointing his horse as consul, or Nero blowing the entire Imperial fortune on interminable poetry contests, a bit like John O'Donoghue used to, we can see with retrospect that the fall of the Caesar family was inevitable.So it will be with Fianna Fail and it's rum cast of dynasties.As their grip on Ireland, or at least the 26 counties of it they still claim is Ireland, copperfastens, we have seen the many various dissenters come scampering back into the fold for the third term.The Donegal Blaneys, who'd make a Shinner feel Unionist, have now signed up to the whip. So have the Kerry publicans the Healy-Raes, their ongoing feud with the former minister...
For the media savvy reader who has everything - here's the Daily Mail-o-matic! Why bother reading the Daily Mail when instead the Daily Mail-o-matic can auto-generate a plausible and convincing Daily Mail headline for any occasion?As you can see to the side, the Daily Mail has been responsible for outrageous headlines for a long, long time.My favourite so far - Will the French impregnate Britain's Swans?Well, will they????...
Andrew Baron has responded to the “misleading” Market Watch article saying:
“Rocketboom will always remain free and easily available to obtain. That’s our #1 foundational principle of being and I don’t ever foresee needing to change that.”"
Its not true at all. Rocketboom will remain freely available. The point I was making is that we are not happy with advertising right now. The advertisers are not being very flexible and down-to-earth and we are just not happy with the idea of mass advertising on Rocketboom. Its not ruled out, it just feels wrong so far. “
Copyright Phil O’Kane © 2006-2007This feed is indended for personal use only. If you are not reading it in your feed reader please let me know....
Saturday was the last day of ‘the show‘ with Ze Frank. Today I watched it for the first time in a few weeks.
[damn just lost all I had written so have to start again…]
I found Ze and his Show almost a year ago, and every few weeks I watch the shows I have missed. I much prefer to watch a few at a time rather than just one.
It was from the first time I was introduced to Ze that I became hooked. I started showing all my friends. Even at parties after a few drinks. Although he definitely takes a little getting used to, his fast paced, in-your-faceness, non-blinking and intellectual comedy can take some people a little getting used to. I managed to make fans of a few people however.
Apparently Ze does not write a script for his shows. I’m not saying I don’t...
Wrapped in a beautiful brown envelope when I arrived home this evening was my copy of the Observer Music Monthly and Observer Music Magazine. But even better than that two sheets of money off vouchers for the Guardian and Observer. Two whole weeks of the Guardian for 30p (60p off on Sat) and 90p off the Observer!
Now thats good marketing.
Copyright Phil O’Kane © 2006-2007This feed is indended for personal use only. If you are not reading it in your feed reader please let me know....
I just noticed that Charlie Brooker’s great Mac Hating article has the very ads that he hates at the top side of the page. I had never noticed this because I use Firefox’s Adblock plugin, but Gavin pointed it out and so I got a nice little screenshot of it. I do think the ads are funny.
Copyright Phil O’Kane © 2006-2007This feed is indended for personal use only. If you are not reading it in your feed reader please let me know....
I can see the similarities…
But definitely no more.
Copyright Phil O’Kane © 2006-2007This feed is indended for personal use only. If you are not reading it in your feed reader please let me know....
Following up from the email I sent to The Observer yesterday, I got a nice reply this evening:
Dear Phil,
Don’t worry, I believe you! Let me have your address and I’ll post one off
to you - free of charge!
I’m please to hear you enjoy The Observer, even when bits go missing!
Yours sincerely,
Teresa Goodman
Assistant to the Readers’ Editor
Isn’t that nice!
Copyright Phil O’Kane © 2006-2007This feed is indended for personal use only. If you are not reading it in your feed reader please let me know....
Jett Loe was caught in Adelaide Street by the Irish News TV crew recently and questioned on the size zero problem.
Got a fear of flying? The Man in Seat Sixty-One has all the answers to getting around and keeping your feet on the ground.
Get your very own “Spock” Spacesuit. This one is currently going for $30 on ebay.
The Belfast Festival has been saved! For one more year at least
Sick of spam? Well some BBC presenters are sick of shit mail
Dream PC display or what! I so want one.
So everyone knows by now that Britney Spears shaved her head at the weekend. Personally I think there is no problem with it. Does someone have to have some sort of health problem, mental or otherwise, to do something like that. A little unexpected, but c’mon leave her alone.
Copyright Phil...
I bought The Observer yesterday in the hope of reading, for the first time, its Music Monthly (or monthly music, or just music?) magazine. After making my purchase I made my way to Clements on Botanic where I was due to meet Ronan. I decided not to rush into reading the magazine, instead to read the main section first.
It was only an hour later that I noticed the music magazine I had been looking forward to so much was not there. I was in shock. Flipping through each supplement to make sure it wasn’t hidden somewhere, Ronan tells me that they keep it behind the counter and should give it to me as I pay for the paper. They didn’t.
So I decided there and then that I would in fact send an email to the good people at The Observer asking if they would send me a copy. Here’s...
The Ian Bailey libel action against five newspaper groups has ended suddenly. It seems that the eight year action, which Mr Bailey took when the newspapers suggested he may have been considered a suspect in the murder of Sophie Toscan du Plantier, was settled out of court yesterday.The newspapers' defence was always that they had not said he was the murderer of Ms du Plantier, but that he was considered a suspect by the Gardai. Bailey sought to argue that they had attempted to pin the blame for the murder upon him.But following the sudden end of the action yesterday, when the newspapers agreed to pay some of Mr Bailey's costs from a previous action which he lost in the Circuit Court and waived the costs they themselves had been awarded, the allegation that Mr Bailey was a reasonable...
According to RTE, Justice Minister Michael McDowell launched another unwarranted attack on the media last night.Apparently, the Minister believes that truth is becoming a casualty in the reporting of politics in Ireland. He also warned other politicians against courting cheap headlines.Obviously the hypocrisy of the man has few limits, if any.Wasn't it McDowell, after all, who used Dail privilege to accuse prominent investigative reporter Frank Connolly of travelling to Colombia on a false passport, and being involved in a plot to provide FARC guerillas with IRA explosives?His accusation has been vociferously denied by Connolly and disregarded by the Gardai. But that did not prevent McDowell leaking his non-story to a pet hack at the Irish Independent.But the end result of this appalling...
I don’t normally read the trash that are ‘lads mags‘. My feelings towards them were once again confirmed on Friday; that they are complete bollocks. Spread over the front cover are the words “100 hot footballers’ wives”, followed by pictures of eight of these ‘wags’ as they are known. I pity those who care. Flick to the contents page and a nice pair of fake breasts. ‘News’, sport, features, ‘real girls UK’ - plenty of breasts and, of course, Paris Hilton’s latest ‘release‘ to the net.
Yes, I read a copy of Nuts - the weekly magazine for ‘lads’. It’s pretty much a magazine filled with dirty jokes, dirty pictures, football, David Hasselhoff, followed by some dead and mutilated bodies...
Tonight I won something. It made me happy. I never win stuff. More to the point, I never listen to Across the Line, the local music show on BBC Radio Ulster. I have listened to the show maybe twice before. Its not because I have anything against it, I just never listen to the radio. But tonight I decided to give it a listen. Immediately when I heard the word ‘competition’ I got ready to email my answer. Within five minutes my answer was away; flying through the datasphere.
An hour later I got a reply to that email.
Phil
Can you confirm your age for me please?
Paul (producer, ATL)
To which I answered honestly:
Hi Paul,
Im 21
Though I realised after sending that reply that I left my signature in the email:
–
Phil O’Kane Photography
www.philokanephotography.com
I...
Being a huge fan of classical music I enjoy putting it on in a bar juke box occasionally. I also enjoy doing that ‘cos its so out of place. But it’s usually hard to hear so there isn’t much point really. I did this on Tuesday in Auntie Annies before going to see The Last King of Scotland (more on that later). I must admit, I haven’t listened to a great deal of classical music over the last few months, this has been sparked by comedian Rob Paravonian (who has a blog) and his rant on why he hates the tune so much.
Someone else who was famous before creating a most excellent web presence is moby, he probably even made the site himself! (*note to self; ask moby if he designed his website*). He often updates his blog many times a day and comes across as very down to...
The Amalgamation of Northern Ireland Supporters’ Clubsand Belfast City Council are to host a debate on the national stadium issue in the Waterfront Hall on 25th January. Councillor Bob Stoker (Community & Recreation committee chairman) will be representing Belfast City Council, Gary McAllister (press officer) the Amalgamation of NISCs and Michael Smyth as an lecturer on Economics from the University of Ulster.
The Political Development has been invited to take part and the Maze Consultation Panel have been asked to nominate a representative as well to ensure a balanced panel. The Maze Consultation Panel’s chairman Edwin Poots (whose DUP party colleague Jeffrey Donaldson illustrated many politicians’ understanding of the situation perfectly when he dismissed the...
Today the images of Richard Hammond’s high speed crash have been released by the BBC.
He was making an attempt at the British land speed (currently 300.3mph) record in the Thule Vampire, a 30-foot Rolls-Royce jet-powered dragster made in Sweden capable of reaching 272 mph in six seconds en route to a theoretical top speed of 370. The crash took place at over 280 mph.
I find it interesting that the BBC put this in the Entertainment” href=”http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/default.stm”>Entertainment section of the News site.
Richard is returning to the show when the new series starts on 28th Jan, and apparently the crash is going to be shown in full.
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