Good interview with Bill Simmons on ESPN, HBO and the Ringer for any of his fans on here;
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John Oliver on the recent trend to online Journalism. Thereâs a nice piece in there from The Wireâs David Simon
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In fairness he really did his COTY nomination no harm. I didnât realise he was involved in so much shit.
He seems to have litigated against most of the Irish sportswriters at one stage or another, lot of stories coming out of the woodwork about him now. His treatment of the girl at the center of the Gibney case was especially cuntish though.
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I tell ya chief, I read the article just before dinner. The wife was wondering why I was in such bad form. The man should have been locked up years ago.
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Hopefully pat might find out what its like to be raped in a foreign country
I thought @myboyblue had the coty wrapped up with his nomination but Hickey is now right up there. Iâd make sure he spends his 7 years in Brazil and then rearrest the cunt as soon he sets foot in this country.
Anyone else following the Peter Thiel crusade to bring down gawker media.
Yep, seems like a man not to be fucked with
post moved to correct thread
Starbucks should be run out of Ireland - never mind Howth
âŚand they can take their Frappuccinos with them
Wed, Sep 14, 2016, 13:12 Updated: Wed, Sep 14, 2016, 13:25
Brian Boyd Follow @@bboyd27
Inspiring and nurturing the human spirit-one person, one cup, one neighborhood at a time. Such a sweet and sincere Starbucks mission statement. But thereâll be little nurturing of the human spirit done in Howth as the owners of a Starbucks there have been ordered to discontinue its use over a breach of planning permission. Itâs not enough to run Starbucks out of Howth, they need to be run out of the whole country.
For a public company trading on the stock exchange, Starbucks likes to think itâs an NGO. It blathers on about âmeaningâ and âcommunityâ while serving up a mass, corporate product. With bad art on the walls and even worse jazz on its sound system, itâs a contemporary Potemkin village of eco-friendly, metropolitan affluenza. And they have the cheek to call the hot black water they sell âcoffeeâ.
Itâs McDonalds for the middle classes, a weird corporate cult with its own makey-uppy language (Frappuccino?). The Stepford smiling staff are like hipster Scientologists; they want to know your name so they can write it on the cup because youâre not just buying a cup of coffee, youâre entering into a partnership with them where you journey together to Fair Trade Coffeeland.
In their landscape of sameness, Starbucks sell vowel-laden, sugar-ridden concoctions as symbols of sophistication and discernment. Soft furnishings, wi-fi, bumper sticker environmentalism all with a narcoleptic Norah Jones soundtrack - itâs 21st century civic life out out of a flat pack box.
Itâs a sleight of marketing hand that has made Starbucks a Wall Street favourite. And youâve just given them money so they can expedite the process of you exceeding your daily recommended sugar allowance.
But itâs all ok because itâs happening in what Starbucks eerily call the âThird Spaceâ in your life (they allow the first two âspacesâ to be your home and your work which is magnanimous of them)
Despite your surrounds and and the faux-Italian naming system, you are not in fact in the Palazzo Vecchio in Florence. Youâre on Lower Liffey Street.
âStarbucks stands for predictability, class standing, a sense of community, more natural and authentic products, and a sense of their customers as caring and more benevolent individualsâ writes Professor Bryant Simon in âEverything but the Coffee: Learning about America from Starbucksâ.
Simon spent five years visiting 450 Starbucks branches in ten countries to come to the conclusion that âCompanies such as Starbucks no longer sell products, at least not principally; they sell experiences. That is what we pay for - we pay extra for things that makes us feel better and look better, things that communicate something about ourselves and meet our personal and collective desiresâ
Our sense of communalism and association are so fractured that any company that promises not just a product but a concomitant lifestyle enhancement (Starbucks, Apple etc) we will invest in not just financially but emotionally. It canât be coincidental that companies who claim to sell us not just phones or cups of coffee, but âexperiencesâ are also the companies who might well agree with the Leona Helmsley view that âonly the little people pay taxesâ.
On a purely nutritional level alone Starbucks should be banished. A cup of black coffee contains 2 calories; some of Starbucksâ coffees contain over 500 calories a cup. Have a latte and a muffin and depending on your gender youâve already used up half your recommended daily calorie intake.
Some Starbucks drinks have as many as 25 spoonfuls of sugar in them. In response to criticism the company says it is committed to reducing the sugar content in some of its drinks by 25% before the end of 2020. In four years time we can look forward to just the eighteen spoons of sugar in our Starbucks drink.
There was a time in the 1990âs before the corporate schtick ran thin that people used to lobby for a Starbucks in their area. The worst crime purported âcoolâ can commit is to go mainstream and Starbucks became banal and ubiquitous to the extent that people now lobby to keep them out of their area.
Worse still, Starbucks now pretend they arenât who they really are. Back in 2009, the company debuted a series of âStealth Starbucksâ outlets. These are coffee shops debranded of any mention of their name. They appear to be your standard small, independent coffee shop except if you look at the small print close enough you will see the give-away line: âinspired by Starbucksâ.
Once the jig was up on that peculiar stunt, the company then decided to go after people with more money than sense. The new âStarbucks Reserveâ concept is high-end coffee shops catering for the demented out there who believe âcoffee is the new wineâ. Thereâs one in Covent Garden, London which sells âreserve espressosâ, its menu tantalisingly reveals that the âPeru Bagua Grande coffee offers medium acidity and body, floral aroma along with notes of candied lemon and chocolateâ. It would make you shed a nostalgic tear for a jar of Maxwell House.
But the one hilarious thing you need to know about Starbucks is how scared they are of entering the Italian market. There are numerous Starbucks branches in Portugal, Spain, France, Switzerland etc. There are zero in Italy. The company even decided to open up in Cambodia, Azerbaijan and the Forbidden City in Beijing ahead of opening in its spiritual home.
Starbucks CEO, Howard Schultz got the idea for exporting and franchising Italian style coffee shops tailored for the North American market after a visit to the country in the 1980âs. All those Italian names in Starbucks and calling their biscuits âbiscottiâ are supposed to exude continental sophistication but are about as authentic as an Irish bar would be in El Paso, Texas.
Italy is the last place in the developed world without a Starbucks as the company wonât risk being rejected by the place that inspired it. You can get a damn fine espresso anywhere in Italy for âŹ1; a bucket of beige liquid with marshmallows floating on top of it might not cut it there.
Starbucks say they hope to open a branch in Milan in 2017, but will only do so âwith humility and respectâ. No need to build a new one, thereâs one in Howth you can pack up and bring with you.
Cant beat an aul Frap, lovely bit of rocket fuel.
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Hating on Starbucks is such lazy journalism.
Starbucks sells espressos, Americanos etc and calories for each drink are on the board beside them.
Most surprising thing I see is school kids having the cash to spend on 4 quid coffees. In my day you would be saving it for cans.
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Iâd say Bobby Kerr loved the article.
Canât link it here for some reason but Murray Kinsella of the42.ie has done a series where he travelled across new Zealand trying to establish why they are so dominant in Rugby union
Series just been launched nowâŚlooks like he has gotten brilliant access to players and coaches
Murray seems to be a bit of a multimedia whizz and makes excellent use of gifs etc in his pieces, this series looks like a serious effort. For me he is easily best rugby journalist in the country. Easily.
A thoroughly alright sort too, and was a fine player once upon a time the cards just didnât fall his way
Tenth time lucky, here is link
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Easy target to rip through, but a fun read all the same.
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you are talking shit
Outstanding. I greatly enjoyed that 