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  • Island Living Ain’t for Me

    that Icelandic volcano that no one can spell or pronounce

    So for the second time in what, two weeks, ? Irish airspace is closed. The bloody volcano is at it again.. Yes, that Icelandic volcano that no one can spell or pronounce or Eyjafjallajokul, to you and me, has decided to blow its top again. Cheers for that!

    Now, I’m not planning on escaping the country tomorrow or anything but the sheer thought of not being able to go anywhere I want, whenever I want is enough to actually make me want to leave our fair isle altogether.

    Two weeks ago, our airspace was closed for 6 days, 6 days!! Do you know what that felt like to me? Well, living close to the airport, I’ve got used to the roar of the engines. The colder it is, the louder the engines. Its only 4km up the road so during the Artic Winter of January and February, the planes sounded like they were taking off from our garden. I’m a weird one. you see. I actually like that, I love planes.

    Not being able to hear the planes felt like I was trapped somewhere in Outer Mongolia (no offence meant to the nice people of Outer Mongolia). Even now as I write, I can hear the planes taking off, must be chilly tonight. However, the one thing that really freaks me is, how the hell do I get off this island?

    Seriously? If I had the money I’d invest in a big boat. The volcano, caused havoc for two years the last time it decided to spurt its lava. It’s a bloody volcano, its not going to know when two years are up.

    So realistically, the only definite way out of the country is to swim, as all the ports are chocker blocked again…

    It’s like we’ve all gone back a few hundred years, the icy weather at the beginning of the year kinda turned us all into hunter gatherers again, stocking up food and heating supplies. This, this could be what turns us into Vikings again, going everywhere by boat. But even if we can get to the UK or Europe by boat, we cannot get to the US of A, no surree.. a six week boat trip for all.. hurray!

    It’s scary, I like my freedom, I like being able to go where ever I want, whenever I want, even if I have nothing planned I want to know I can get out.

    The ash cloud is dangerous, the sash cloud is safe. No its dangerous. Admit it, you guys haven’t a clue !

    Trapped, isolated, dying to burst out. Is this what claustrophobia is like?

  • Things I dislike greatly

    This is part two of what probably will be an ongoing series.

    Bands without Biogs

    Right, here’s the deal, you want me to review your new song and you want to come on my radio show. Send me a biog? no everything you need is on our Myspace page you say.

    Point Number 1:  Myspace is dead, its a waste of time, why are you even bothering?  Get yourselves a website.
    Point Number 2: A list of gigs isn’t a biography. Give me a bit of history about the band, where you’re hoping to go and what you want to achieve.

    Then, you can get hopefully, possibly a good interesting interview, not ‘eh so er, who are your influences?’

    Final Cut Rendering Times:

    Dear Mr Jobs,

    This is the second time in four months I’ve complained about FCP rendering times. Forget about developing your Ipad thing, time is money and if my computer is busy rendering something in FCP, I’m screwed.

    Please get your team of superbrains to develop a FCP system that dramtically cuts down on rendering times.

    Yours in waiting, hoping and being driven to dispair.

    Nessy

  • Gerry Ryan: R. I. P.

    Ireland lost one of its best know media personalities yesterday. Gerry Ryan was larger than life. He was the kind of radio presenter that you either loved or hated.

    Being honest, I prefered Ryan when he was on his late night shows in the late eighties. On these shows, he introduced me to Deacon Blue, Prefab Sprout, lots of Irish bands too I didn’t know. I remember fondly as he played Aidan Walsh’s ‘Community Games’, the song was so bad it was good.

    I remember not being happy when Ryan was moved from his night time slot to the 9am slot. Within weeks, he turned the show into his own and became one of Ireland’s biggest radio stars.

    He did some television too, most recently Ryan Confidential. I always thought though, he never got a real break with TV, he never got a real cracker of a TV show. I remember though Gerry Ryan and Dave Fanning were team captains on the eighties music show ‘Number One’. RTE One, Monday (I think) at 7. I always watched.

    I met Gerry a few times, seemed like a nice guy. I remember when I was 18 doing work experience in RTE, being sent to look for something in the video library.  Gerry, producer Philip Kampf (who was producer on the show I was working on) and a group of others were in Connemara for a week, without supplies. This lead to the infamous “Lambo’ controversy where a lamb was killed for food.

    At 53, Gerry’s gone way too soon and is a major loss to RTE, the media and really to Ireland. My sympathies go out to his kids, Moira, family and partner.

    The Ryan line has closed.

    .

    Picture from Independent.ie

  • Glee: What went wrong with the new episodes?

    Glee_logo

    Before anyone attacks me, I really really enjoyed the episodes “The Road to Sectionals’. I’ve seen the three new episodes shown since mid April and can’t help but feel that maybe Glee has already run out of steam.

    The first series of episodes were good, had decent storylines and the songs brought the storyline along. The episode where Finn and Quinn are having dinner with her family immediately come to mind when talking about this.

    Now however, it just feels like the songs are there in the show, just for the sake of it. The episode ‘The Power of Madonna’ was disappointing.  Yes, being able to do a full show of Madonna favourites is great but if I wanted to see or hear an hour of Madonna songs, I’d just switch on to VH1.

    The last episode shown here in Ireland, where Mercedes is trying to lose weight, is another showing of a lack of ideas and originality. Quinn is accompanying Mercedes in the doctors, going by her script I thought, ‘oh here goes, here’s Xtina’s Beautiful coming up’. Five minutes later, The Cheerios and New Directions are singing it in the auditorium.

    It’s become to predictable, the storylines have dropped to nothing. To be honest I don’t care if ‘A chair is still a chair’, if its not any better this week, I’m afraid Glee will be losing a viewer.