up to high doe

Mind you John Waters isn't all bad. I got a particular kick out of his description of a certain tabloid as "a rag" around the time of Wayne O'Donoghue's release from jail. Waters has been the one public figure in recent years who hasn't been afraid to appear politically incorrect and has thus denounced the downward slide in our culture, with the tabloid newspapers in the vanguard. the most obvious manifestation of this recently was the hysteria surrounding the appointment of the Irish soccer manager. perhaps their previous behaviour made it inevitable that the F.A.I would not be trusted in their stewardship of the process to get the right man. but the shrieking irrationality of the reportage of the protracted saga was only matched with the cheerleading euphoria of Trappatoni's appointment. ( lest we forget an Austrian club manager, who has been the only one of the last three Italian mangers to be a palpable failure )

Politician's also inevitably get sucked into this "tabloidisation of thought". Regarding the supposed crime spree Fine Gael T.D Michael Ring stated that liberal commentators wouldn't be so easy on crime if they had been affected themselves. Westport's finest might want to go on Mastermind with the bleeding obvious as his specialist subject, but that quip in of itself doesnt invalidate learned argument. Donie Cassidy, proud custodian of the upper house of parliament, guessed on Vincent Browne's t.v show that the % of Irish people who have tried cocaine was 30%. Close but no cigar Donie; its actually .5%, which probably sent Donie scurrying back to his dictionary to remind himself of the definition of "epidemic". His estimate was so off beam that it made one wonder whether some obstacle is preventing enough oxygen from getting to his head?

Every Pat Kenny usually so empirical it seems he's still doing his college chemistry experiments, has fallen prey to overstatement. he recently took to introducing the task of his Friday morning gathering as poring over "the extraordinary events of the week", even when the events had been positively humdrum.

Mind you despite all the above, on the basis of watching bits of recent rugby internationals, i'm quite willing to lead a witch hunt against Eddie O'Sullivan!