[quote=āfarmerinthecityā]Bad. But I think there is a lot worse out there.
A small case of hypocrisy versus discrimation against Catholics for the guts of 70 years and more than anyone contributing to the Troubles and resulting 3,000 deaths.
I know which Iād choose.[/quote]
donāt give a shit about comiskey, he can die creaming for all I care, the innocnet party in this was the hotelierās daughter
I would have voted for OāDoherty to win the overall title if heād made the final but I think youāre giving him far too much credit calling Twink a ānobodyā in comparison to him.
Iād be fairly sure Twink is far more well known and even talented than that quadruple chinned bastard (sorry, cunt)
Letās not forget about Brendan OāConnor amidst all this canvassing.
Itās a sad day for politics when Bev is hunted out
By Brendan OāConnor
Sunday May 09 2004
RTE pointed out on several occasions that not one of Beverley Flynnās Oireachtas colleagues spoke in her favour at the Fianna Fail parliamentary meeting on Tuesday regarding her expulsion from the party.
But then, as Beverley herself was quick to point out, no one spoke against her either.
Apart, that is, fromthe Taoiseach, who has suddenly, on this issue, adopteda decisiveness that isunprecedented.
No one has noticed this more than Beverley Flynn, who is acting genuinely mystified about her treatment. Given how remarkably reluctant Bertie Ahernās Fianna Fail has been to deal with its gallery of rogues in the past, it is understandable that Beverley feels a bit singled out.
Bertie is a party leader who has knowingly promoted crooked colleagues in the past. He is a party leader who has been notoriously slow to take sanctions against colleagues whoāve been up to their necks in all kinds of serious, deliberate, premeditated corruption. But somehow, for whatever mysterious reason, it is now that Bertie has decided to act.
It is with Beverley Flynn that he has decided to draw a line in the sand.
Beverley Flynnās appalling crime, apparently unprecedented in the history of Fianna Fail, is that before she became an elected official she worked in an industry in which a then widely accepted practice was subsequently discovered to be illegal.
So letās be clear here.
As far as we know, Beverley Flynn never used public office to solicit bribes. As far as we know, she has never been involved in the kind of planning corruption that was seemingly endemic among certain sectors in Irish politics.
Yet somehow, as Beverley herself pointed out on Wednesday morning, of all the crooks and rogues who have graced Fianna Fail over the last few decades, Beverley has been the first to incur the ultimate sanction, that of expulsion from the party. People have gone to jail while in public office and not been expelled from that party. Charles Haughey was never expelled from that party. But Beverley has to go.
Beverley Flynnās crime was mostly ignorance, an ignorance that was pretty widespread at the time.
And somehow, through either trying to prove her name or through the sin of pride, depending on your viewpoint, she has been the one to suffer most personally through the whole banking scandal.
As she said herself on Morning Ireland on Wednesday, not one bank manager, not one CEO has paid the price for the policies Beverley Flynn sold. She alone has been ruined because of it. Ruined because she sold the policies and ruined because she tried to protect her good name afterwards.
Which is a shame. Because judging by her recent media performances, most spectacularly on Morning Ireland on Wednesday, Beverley Flynn is indeed a class act and is someone we need more of in Irish politics.
We need politicians who can be bullied for a full 16 minutes into offering an apology to Cathal Mac Coille and who consistently refuse to do so. And Beverley refused to apologise not out of petty arrogance but because she genuinely believes she has done nothing wrong. Sheer arrogance would not lead someone to the Supreme Court and to millions of euro of legal costs.
Beverley Flynn clearly believes she has done nothing wrong and clearly believed in the justice system in this country.
Her extraordinary cat and mouse game on Morning Ireland was a joy to behold. Mac Coille asked her whether she accepted she had encouraged people to evade tax. She was a PAYE worker doing her job, she said. At no time did she feel she was doing anything wrong, she said. Neither was she doing anything specific that people werenāt doing in banks all over the country. She paid the price because she attempted to defend her reputation. And you know, you found yourself being forced to agree with her.
Was she sorry? Mac Coille asked her repeatedly. She was sorry she had lost the case, she was sorry Fianna Fail felt the need to remove her from the party. Did she admit that what went on in the bank was tax evasion? She could only answer for her own role and not that of the bank. She most definitely was not involved in tax evasion.
When she won most people over must have been when she pointed out that sadly for her, she had become the public face of banking in Ireland, that she was the only one to pay the price for what went on in the general bank and that the work she did in the bank was nothing to do with the type of the job she was doing in Leinster House.
Here was a victim of circumstances being hounded out of public life because of an unfortunate situation she had got herself into many years before. And if this is how it is now we might as well forget about ever attracting anyone good into politics.
When a fluent, intelligent, articulate, principled woman, who has the enormous virtue of believing in something, even if itās only her own innocence, is chased out of public life by a mob itās a sad day for politics.
Itās a sad day when we lose a woman who still comes out fighting, even after the āhop onā that the media and some of the public have indulged in over the last few weeks. Sure, her father was a bit of an old fool but get over it.
Who would you rather have going out to bat for your area, some overweight old gombeen institutionalised by years in Fianna Fail, or Bev? Indeed, there are days when you nearly think youād trust Bev more than youād trust Bertie.
http://www.independent.ie/unsorted/features/we-should-do-a-rwanda-on-iraq-479231.html
We should do āa Rwandaā on Iraq
By Brendan OāConnor
Sunday April 11 2004
[b]I HAVE to say Iām rethinking this whole Iraq business. Now that white people are dying, itās become a much more serious issue. It was grand to be honest when they were all just doing away with each other out there. It was grand when Saddam effectively committed genocide on the Marsh Arabs. Sure, we barely knew the Marsh Arabs.
But now that Americans, who look a bit like us and speak a bit like us, are dying, Iām thinking we should maybe get out. We should just let them at their civil war or whatever it is theyāre at. And sure, they seem to gravitate towards vicious tyrants anyway so let them slide back to that inevitability themselves. Itās really not our problem.[/b]
So hereās my plan. We should get out and completely ignore Iraq for the moment, let them on with liquidating each other and let one bunch of them wipe out some other bunch of them. Irresponsible, youāre thinking, not fair, how could we live with ourselves if we did that?
Donāt worry. I have a solution. I like to call it an Irish solution for an Iraqi problem. We should do nothing but then feel really bad about it afterwards. We should do what is known as āA Rwandaā.
We should let them at each other and not intervene and then when we feel bad about it afterwards, we should flagellate ourselves for our sins, and get the guilts about it in perhaps 10 yearsā time.
After all, whatās a momentās silence in 10 yearsā time next to dead Americans now?
I think Iāll call it retrospective intervention, or ādoing a Kofiā. Let them all murder each other and then send in some aid afterwards. But for the moment, we should ignore it. We swear weāll feel really guilty afterwards.
If asked about it, just say, āyes, the international community made some unfortunate misjudgements thereā.
Fair enough, these articles are from a few years ago. But the ladās an utter cunt.
I canāt find his tribute to Katy French.
[quote=āBandageā]Letās not forget about Brendan OāConnor amidst all this canvassing.
http://www.independent.ie/unsorted/features/we-should-do-a-rwanda-on-iraq-479231.html
Fair enough, these articles are from a few years ago. But the ladās an utter cunt.
I canāt find his tribute to Katy French.[/quote]
found it bandage, but only because I think french was a cunt
There is something extraordinary going on here. It was really after she died that it started. Texting. Everybody. People who never knew Katy French, people who thought they didnāt like Katy French. All finding themselves shocked. All shocked that they are shocked. You could imagine that it is because of the manner of her death, that it ties in with the countryās current obsession with cocaine. You could say that it is because it is such a terrible, cruel, pointless tragedy. You could say it is because the country, to some extent, has been obsessed with Katy French for the last year. She had got under everyoneās skin to some extent. Love her or hate her, practically everybody in the country seemed to feel they had a stake in Katy.
I think thereās one very simple reason why Katy Frenchās death has had such an extraordinary impact and led to such an extraordinary outpouring of grief. That is because Katy French was a superstar. Katy French was a better banker than Bono to sell papers in this country. She had the looks, the sass, the magnetism, the charisma, the brains, the performing nous; all of that. Katy had the indefinable quality that made people want to watch her. And of course, poor Katy had that thing that really makes a superstar; that slight wanting, that slight vulnerability. And maybe that slight wanting was the poor petās undoing in the end.
Itās curious the things you remember. I first met Katy French properly at the beginning of what would become the year of the French. Iād seen her around obviously and Iād seen her pictures. But nothing really prepared you for the ball of determination and composure that came into the office that day. That was the first time I got to study her properly. And, funny, the first thing that struck me was that, aesthetically, her nose was perfect. And she had a lovely voice. I told her that much later. She said it was one of the nicest things anyone ever said to her.
I guess I was there or thereabouts for this past year, the year in which she burnt so brightly. And I dunno, we kind of got each other, me and Katy. I donāt get that many people, and many people donāt get me. So itās nice to find someone new who does. And this past year we kind of became confidantes, pals, whatever. The child in her spoke to the child in me and the cynic in her spoke to the cynic in me.
The obvious stuff first. If you didnāt know Katy French you might be surprised to hear that the overwhelming things, the first things that spring to mind, when I think about her are her intelligence and her generosity. I was suspicious of her for the first few months I knew her. I didnāt entirely trust her. Because thatās what youād expect from an opportunist, careerist modelly type isnāt it?
But I learned very quickly that I was underestimating her. I guess everyone had their own experience of Katy and I think she was quite good at keeping the various people she knew in different compartments. But for me, Katy French was one of the sweetest, kindest, most generous people I ever met. She was a giver, a fixer. I think she got her buzz out of giving and helping. The other thing about her was how calm she was. Iām a bit hyper and I get cranky easily. In matters of work, or in matters of trying to discourage her from doing things that I didnāt think she should do, I would sometimes get impatient. And she handled it as sweetly as anyone could. Unflappable.
But she wasnāt so unflappable underneath it all.
She told me the Friday before that fateful Saturday that she had thrived on this year. And thereās no doubt she did. When I met Katy first, at the start of 2007, she was seeking to end a relationship that wasnāt good, she didnāt have a lot of money and she was just another Irish Model. The last time I spoke to her things were very different. She was a national icon now, with a few quid, a relationship for which she had hope, and with a few TV projects on the boil. 2008 was going to be a big year for her. As more than one TV producer has said to me in the last few days, Katy French was going to be a superstar. That Friday she was tough and confident.
But she wasnāt so tough. Again, other people might dispute this and I can only go by what I know. But I think Katy was just a baby underneath it all. The thing I always thought most about her was that she just wanted someone to look after her and for her to have someone to look after. I think Katy was a really genuinely lovely, decent, kind, person who was bursting with love. She gave it to the charities she did so much work for; to her family and friends, and of course, to the men in her lives, for whom she gave up everything.
A lot of really seedy horrible things have been implied about Katyās life in the last week. Iām holding on to what might be a somewhat innocent version of her but I think itās as true as any version of her.
I called out to her on that Friday to do an interview with her at the house in Citywest. I actually suggested a glass of wine but she had no booze in the house. Instead she insisted on spaghetti and tea and biscuits. I was hungover from her party the night before and straight away she kicked into looking-after mode, the practical Mom.
She looked so sweet and innocent sitting there on the couch opposite me in her tweedy city shorts slurping down her spaghetti, like a happy little kid. Iāve stopped reading the papers or listening to the radio or watching TV at this stage. I donāt need to know any more. Maybe itās being nave, but I want to remember her like that.
I want to remember that afternoon sitting with this incredible contradiction, who gave interviews like a pro but who was happy sitting there with a bowl of pasta on her knees, an innocent, a home bird, someone who wouldnāt really have been out partying anymore if she had had a home and family to look after, or something.
Then she told me her life story, dazzled me yet again with how smart and self-aware and honest she was, and then we hung out a while and talked about everything.
Then she drove me home, playing me Leonard Cohen songs. I donāt think Iāll ever listen to Tower of Song again without thinking of Katy a little bit. āI was born like this, I had no choice, I was born with the gift of a golden voice.ā
Funny, because Katy talked that day about how she wasnāt really addicted to publicity and how modelling frustrated her because what she was really addicted to was having a voice.
And then: āNow I bid you farewell, I donāt know when Iāll be back, Theyāre moving us tomorrow to that tower down the track, But youāll be hearing from me baby, long after Iām gone, Iāll be speaking to you sweetly, From a window in the Tower of Song.ā
We sat in the car and chatted for a while before I went in home. I told her this kind of personal thing because it was related to a thing she was telling me. And the last thing she said to me was thanks for telling me that. And I brushed it off, the way you do after sharing something, said a casual see ya and got out of the car and walked off without looking back to wave or anything. I didnāt even give her a showbizzy two pecks on the cheeks. Iām not big on goodbyes anyway. And shure, I didnāt think we were saying goodbye. As you do with your friends, I thought we had all the time in the world.
Iāll never forget Katy and Iāll never forget my year of the French, when this big ball of dazzling light and charm, this force of nature, came into my life. It is too horrible, too tragic and too terrible how it all ended. Iāll never forget either that text from a friend on Sunday morning saying āring me urgentlyā. I thought it was something horrible about me in the papers. I wish it had been. Instead it was the beginning of a bad dream that is still going on. Like many of you, I still donāt quite believe it.
more cuntaciousness from brunker: she must be blowing a few fannings for coverage like sheās getting
Sunday January 28 2007
SEX and the city, yes - but not in our capital city.
Itās official. Amanda Brunker is too raunchy for Irish Chick Lit. Her debut novel is, she claims, too hot for any Dublin publishing house to want anything to do with it.
āIāve decided Iām now going to publish it myself with my SSIA savings,ā the chesty Sunday World columnist tells Social & Personal editor PJ Gibbons in this weekās issue of the magazine. Amanda, who is expecting her second child - company for 10-month-old Eddie - adds that she wrote it when she was on maternity leave.
āItās a very real book. Some people on the social scene probably wonāt admit to recognising themselves.ā
Most of these socialites are generally too busy hoovering up lines of powder from mirrors on their dining room tables to actually look at their reflections. So recognising themselves is invariably out of the question for the whiter-than-white (sniff, sniff) Irish glamourati, Amanda
And there was me thinking I had it narrowed down to 4. Fooking hell this is tough.
hmm ā¦ what a final grouping ryan,paisley,brunker and wankface almighty g cusackā¦ i think wankface might get my vote though
Please read people, before you make any rash decisions.
How Gerry Ryan turned into Mr Smug
Thursday October 16 2008
So, is Gerry Ryanās new book worth the guaranteed 100,000 he has got from Penguin Ireland for writing it?
The book does have a few redeeming qualities but the straight answer to that question has to be: Definitely Not.
Most books by minor celebs have at least one Big Revelation within their pages.
Gerryās big revelation is that he suffers (mildly) from Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. Heās a tidiness freak who hoovers too much. Itās an early indication of how mundane the rest of the book is going to be. And the main problem with it can be summed up in two words: Gerry Ryan.
Like most of the nice middle- class Dublin boys of his era who went on to find success, Gerry is self-satisfied to the point of being smug.
āMy canteen is the restaurant of the Four Seasons Hotel,ā he writes in a chapter headed Fine Dining. āI have all my meetings in that restaurant. I know Louis Walsh does the same thing.ā
Shortly after that, he is talking about wine: āI think Irish people still need to wake up to the joys of sommeliersā¦ My favourite sommelier was Pascal in Dromoland.ā
Or hereās Gerry in a chapter called The Front of the Plane: "I go first class with Aer Lingus to JFK.
āThereās a big seat, everyoneās attentive and nice,ā he goes on. "I have a few drinks, and when Iām with my family, I see them enjoying the fruits of my labour ā¦ Then we get to New York and thereās a limousine waiting to take us to Manhattan.
"We check into Fitzpatrickās and go upstairs to one of the suites, or as we did last year, to the penthouse ā¦ And the path is always greased. Maybe U2 are playing in Giants Stadium, and the backstage passes will be waiting for us in the Rockefeller ā¦
āI defy anyone to say thatās not a good way to travel.ā
And thereās more, much more, of this sort of tedious, self-admiring guff. āMy favourite tipple is Jameson twelve-year-old. I like Gold Reserve ā¦ I used to spend a lot of time collecting single malt whiskies ā¦ At one stage I had a big collection of whiskies, fifty or sixty, and I would delight (in an obsessive compulsive way) in lining them up.ā
He also loves cigars: "My eldest son Rex, who was eight or nine at the time, was in charge of the two big humidors, and he had the business of keeping the cigars at the right temperature down to a fine art.
āHe kept the whiskiesā labels all turned out front too.ā
Yes, indeed, Gerry loves the finer things in life: "These days, Paris for me is staying at the Hotel Meurice up at the Jardins des Tuileries.
āYou canāt even get in there unless youāve got a grand in your sockā¦ā And he goes on to tell us a story about how he ordered a 2,000 Petrus thinking it was a 200 bottle.
Of course, thereās nothing wrong with enjoying the finer things, itās just that Gerryās need to justify himself and his compulsion to tell us about it in such detail become boring after a while.
He finds himself fascinating and seems to think that everyone else should find the minutiae of his life fascinating as well. The truth is, however, that Gerry is not particularly interesting. The only difference between him and anyone else from a similar background is that heās got a few famous friends like Harry Crosbie and Bono and he is famous for waffling on the radio.
That is the other big weakness of Gerryās book. Interspersed between the details of his own life and career are numerous short chapters with headings like How to Run the Country and Is It Possible to be Friends with a Woman? in which Gerry riffs on various subjects much as he does on radio.
Itās not his fault, but the kind of waffle that sounds funny or insightful on radio and fills up hours of airtime does not work in print. Once it is written down, it seems lame. The truth is that Gerryās views are often superficial and trite, the kind of stuff you hear from young fogies in college debating societies.
There is also Gerryās irritating assumption that his imprimatur on things actually matters. Here he is on Bertie, for example: āBertie Ahern is, without doubt, more than any other politician in the history of the Republic, substantially responsible for the success of this country, and he has been pushed, shoved, prodded and pked around beyond all tolerationā¦ How much was it? Two grand? Five grand? ā¦ Weāre a begrudging bunch of fers.ā
Or here he is on the difference between the sexes: āI do believe that men and women are very different ā¦ Men and women want to be celebrated and cherished and loved and taken care of, but weāre utterly different.ā
This is the kind of guff that can sound profound when heard on the radio but it does not stand up to much scrutiny on the page.
They are one personās non-expert views on complex topics. They donāt carry any more weight than the average caller to Liveline.
There is a lot more that makes this book a questionable buy for 100,000. There is Gerryās name-dropping (he even works John Banville and the former attorney general John Rogers ā misspelled as Rodgers ā into the mix).
There is a lot of mind-numbing stuff about the internal machinations in RTE and why Gerry almost left to work for Denis OāBrien.
And there are lots of boring details about Gerryās health and about how he uses Udoās Oil for arthritis in his hands and Reductil to help him lose weight.
Do we really need to know this?
Gerry confuses being open about the small details of his life with being interesting. And he seems to have little awareness of how hilarious his self-importance is at times.
One example of this is when he is writing about presenting the Eurovision: "My talent is to imbue a project with much more significance and theatricality than it actually deserves. This gives a sort of incandescence to it that makes things that are not all that bright shine very brightly. I can bring that to the party.
āBut like it says in Blade Runner, the light that burns twice as brightly burns twice as fast. How brightly I have shone.ā
Make of that what you will. But there are some redeeming sections in the book. Gerry writes with great insight and love about his father, a slightly eccentric dentist, and his mother a flamboyant woman who herself grew up in a famous theatrical family.
He is also very good on being a father himself and raising kids in todayās world.
When he sticks to what he knows and what he really cares about, he writes well and there are sections of the book which are very honest and moving. The great pity is that being G. Ryan just keeps getting in the way.
Has to be Brendan OāConnor. He is living proof that ego is more important than talent in making your mark in Irish media - and always has been.
Speaking of which, how the hell didnāt Ian OāDoherty, Eoghan Harris and the various members of the Fanning family not make it to the final list?
Also, perhaps a wildcard should be extended to Mr Sean Fitzpatrick of Anglo-Irish Bank infamyā¦
Excellent campaigning here.
On the calendar year thing my opinion on the competition is that itās the greatest cunt in Ireland as at the end of 2008. This is an annual competition but past cuntishness is obviously part of the equation. We may have a best newcomer award next year in case the current cunts retain the awards.
Iād say some people are treating it like the Allstars or the FIFA Player or the Year. Itās different to that. Itās a statement of cuntishness up to a point in time. All cuntishness prior to 31 December 2008 should be included in your deliberations.
Iām down to OāConnor, Ryan and Bono. Above them all is Paisley but Iām still not sure that cunt is an adequate description of someone so evil. This competition is far from light-hearted but Iām reminded of Christy Mooreās words on Thatcher:
āWhen I saw her recently take tea with Pinochet and laud him for his suport during the Falklands War I thought the poor lady might be totally fucking mad. But that would be to trivialise her absolute danger to us all.ā
Iām not sure that any sort of victory for Paisley over Twink could possibly do justice to that prickās history on this island. For those reasons Iām leaning towards OāConnor/Ryan/Bono with OāConnor a nose in front. I remain unsure however.
Good man Fran, keep this cunt to the forefront of things with all the excellent campaigning thatās going on.
Iāve voted for him this far and hopefully he can scramble over the line now.
Cuban cigars and Middleton whiskey loving cunt.
There isnāt one name on that ticket that reached the Cuntāitude heights as Neil Francis and Dessie Farrell did in 2008.
Well ok maybe Gerry Ryan; but only for his for shite talking about First Class and the Air Lingus Limo. We all know that Aer Lingus donāt do first class, and in Premier, the courtesy Limo was disbanded by Willie Walsh years ago.
But its still a disgrace and I will not be casting my vote in what is clearly a fixed ballot.
Not one decent Cuntidate; it looks more like a Fine Gael selection convention.
We all have cunts who we think should be in the final but are not for wahatever reason.
But we are not all throwing our toys out of the pram about it.
i would urge those voters who are currently undecided to await Donal Og Cusacks next move in relation to the cork hurlers crises.
MGGs gossip column aside, I have a feeling he could make a big play very shortly.
[quote=āHBV*ā]i would urge those voters who are currently undecided to await Donal Og Cusacks next move in relation to the cork hurlers crises.
MGGs gossip column aside, I have a feeling he could make a big play very shortly.[/quote]
Bollox, that would only make the actions/ outcomes eligable for 2009.
This is the 2008 final. Theyāre enough accountants here to explain the matching principle. But take heart he will have accrued some very valuable Cuntits that can be rolled out for the 2009 competition.
[quote=āMairegangaireā]Bollox, that would only make the actions/ outcomes eligable for 2009.
This is the 2008 final. Theyāre enough accountants here to explain the matching principle. But take heart he will have accrued some very valuable Cuntits that can be rolled out for the 2009 competition.[/quote]
no, i thought likewise but thats not clear, this tournament is turning into a shambles with the current favourite an individual who has barely been seen or heard in either 08 or 09, so anything Cusack does before the week is out is relevant!
saying that the cunt could easily win 3 in a row , easily
I agree with all of this except Bono wouldnāt really make my top 10. Heās obviously a bit of a clown and fierce pretentious but I honestly think his heart is in the right place. He spends an awful lot of his time doing work for others even though heās insanely rich.
Whatever ya think about him heās also made his money and success off the back of his talent and heās made it big around the world. This is in complete contrast to the likes of Ryan and OāConnor, who as someone said are operating on ego alone, and are big cunts in a small Irish pond.
Iād also say if you were to meet Bono heād be quite mannerly in contrast to the other two cunts you have mentioned, who Iād say wouldnāt think twice about taking a shit on the common manās face, the pair of cunts.
The canvassing here is excellent, everyone vouching for their favourites.
However, if you donāt vote for Ian Paisley then youāre gay.
phew, thank God I voted Paisley or I might have caught gay.
Iāve seen the way you look at Donal Og.