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Thursday, March 01, 2001
Frankie Says - British nostalgia TVI was a child of the 1980s, and the pop culture of the time scarred my naive teenage years. My first slow dance was to “Careless Whisper”, and I wore the checked shirts and braces of a devoted Big Country fan. Howard Jones went to my school, and for a while everyone I knew had a haircut like his. Including the girls (not that I knew any). So the Saturday night BBC2 series, ‘I Love the 1980s’ should be right up my street, reminding me of the delights of ra-ra skirts, Bros and BMX bikes. Looking at one year at a time sounds great, but I can’t quite shake the feeling that it’s a complete waste of time. Thursday, February 22, 2001
Shining Surface, Hidden Depths - review of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon‘It looks great, I like the fight scenes, but it’s unbelievable and the story is really thin.’ Heard this judgement on Ang Lee’s ‘Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon’? Yeah, me too. It’s both right and so far wrong that it demands a closer look.
‘It looks great’
Monday, February 19, 2001
Accidental AutobiographyShould you keep five year-old email messages? I’m currently tidying up the contents of various hard drives and floppy disks (remember them?) to prepare for the arrival of a new machine. But how much to throw out is proving a difficult question. Thursday, February 15, 2001
Survivor of the Fittest - Survivor 2 reviewedForget the fly on the wall drama of The Hotel or The Airport, forget the social engineering of Castaway 2000, forget even the claustrophobic hype of Big Brother. You want reality TV? Survivor 2 is the real deal. Two teams of gung-ho Americans are abandoned in the Australian outback with little more than the clothes they stand up in. As well as building shelters, trying to make fire and avoiding the scary bugs, the teams compete against each other for possession of the Immunity Idol. It sounds pants, but lose immunity and you have to vote off one of your own team. Thursday, February 08, 2001
Playing on the Wing - The West Wing reviewedIrish and British viewers seem to get more than their fair share of American TV shows. From the highs of Seinfeld and The Simpsons to the lows of Temptation Island and Jerry Springer, we know our way around US output as well as most Americans. Better in some cases. Over there shows such as Sex in the City and The Sopranos are only available on the premium cable channel HBO, so not everyone gets to see them. But surely not everything plays as well here as it does there? Take The West Wing, for example. Why would we be interested in a drama about the inner workings of the White House? There is nothing more uniquely American than its political system, and while a documentary might at least show us some facts, what benefit can there be in a fictional account of a non-existent president? Saturday, September 09, 2000
Sick BoyThere’s something entertaining about being mildly ill. As I sit here writing this, it’s almost the first time I’ve been partly vertical all day. A sore throat, fatigue and high temperature has me confined to barracks, but since I know this will pass, I just have to let the illness have its way with me. Tuesday, July 18, 2000
Postcards from home - watching familiar TV abroadIt’s 7:30pm on a Wednesday, and on television the theme from the English soap Eastenders starts up. Then Ballykissangel comes on, with its gentle humour and relaxed Wicklow pace. Nothing strange there, then. Except that I’m watching these familiar programmes in my apuartment on Potrero Hill in San Francisco, and I’m not sure it’s a very good idea. Sunday, March 19, 2000
Under Construction - raising a tipiLast weekend I helped raise a tipi with some friends near Santa Fe, New Mexico. On a flat step above a bend in a river we camped out the previous night, sitting round the campfire making s’mores and drinking wine from mugs. The stars were out above us, and as the moon set behind the hill opposite we picked our way down the steep path to the river. Saturday, June 19, 1999
Cabin FeverIn the last 15 months I’ve been on over 70 aeroplanes. Since this January, from my base in Kansas, the list of cities I’ve been in seems ridiculous - Atlanta, DC, Chicago, Dallas, Tucson, San Francisco (twice), Dublin (twice), Galway, Cincinnati, Denver, Santa Fe (three times). You can spin this unlikely itinerary in a number of ways. Either it’s a fact of modern day business life, and something that an increasing number of people do all the time. Tuesday, May 18, 1999
Going deep - why Sports Night is so goodHow much do you really know about Joey from Friends? Over countless episodes, all that’s been revealed is that he’s not very bright, he’s a short-term hit with women, and he’s not a very good actor. In all the years we’ve spent with him, we’ve rarely glimpsed a deeper side. Likeable but stupid. The same superficiality is true of the other characters - Monica (fat in high-school, control freak), Phoebe (ditsy but caring), Ross (something with dinosaurs - yeah, right), Rachel (um . . .). Friday, March 19, 1999
Natural TechnologyOver the weekend, while snow fell outside, I made a unilatleral decision that it was spring, and went shopping online for outdoors stuff. The technology was a great help. I trawled through reviews from people who already had the gear I was looking at, and discussion board questions from people going through the same process as me (incidentally, if anyone here has anything good or bad to say about the Specialized Stumpjumper or the Gary Fisher Ziggurat, drop me a line). Sunday, November 08, 1998
Essential Ephemera - should you keep old emails?As I write, John Glenn and his fellow astronauts are getting used to gravity again with the completion of their Shuttle mission. Amidst the discussion of Glenn’s return to space - take your pick: heroic adventure, science experiment or publicity stunt - a small detail caught my eye. It seems that Glenn was keeping in touch with his wife by email. On the one hand this shows how pervasive a form of communication email has become (forget ‘Houston, we have a problem,’ now it’s ‘Fwd: Top Ten things we want Samuel Jackson to say as a Jedi Knight’). Friday, July 17, 1998
Le Tour en IrlandeThe preparations begin early, crowds gather and the excitement mounts. Suddenly there’s a flash of color, a burst of noise, and then it’s gone again, leaving people slightly unsure of what they’ve just seen. So it is that cyclists fly by as you watch from the side of the road, and so it is that the Tour de France leaves Ireland after three memorable days. Continue reading the article on the Salon site Thursday, May 28, 1998
To David, with fear and loathingNot so long ago, I went to a public reading given by Hunter Thompson and Johnny Depp, promoting the new film of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. The whole thing was a surreal experience - a hero of the counter-culture appearing at a media event in the Virgin Megastore in Times Square, New York - but one of the strangest parts about it was the realisation that the audience weren’t really there to see either Hunter or Johnny. They were there to get their books signed. Wednesday, March 18, 1998
The New DublinEarly morning in the Phoenix Park, and the mist sits on the tops of the trees, swirling around the stark white papal cross. From the ruined magazine fort you can see Dublin rising through the haze—the red neon of the sign on the Guinness brewery, the green dome of Rathmines church and the distant slim striped chimneys of the power station in Ringsend. Off to the south, the gray curves of the mountains watch over the city. |
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