Deirdre O'D

Paul Simon: I can call you Betty
And Betty, when you call me
You can call me Al
Me being interviewed for a bodyguard position: sure!

Ireland, English, Fire Engine

classic tweet @futurevictim_ the only lasting 9/11 memory i have is when the budweiser ad with the kneeling clydesdales came on during the super bowl and i said "those horses are praying to mecca" and my friend's uncle got so mad that he had to go in the backyard

A pair of St. Brigid's crosses on a countertop, next to a mug. #SpéirGorm #SpéirGhorm #Ireland

For the uninitiated, these are Irish Throwing Stars, an ancient weapon wielded by St. Brigid during the 1916 Rising, striking fear into the hearts of the British, and responsible for the eventual smiting of both Cromwell and Thatcher.

Imagine if there was an epidemic of pubs selling alcohol to children and instead of shutting the pubs responsible the government imposed a nationwide curfew on everyone under 16.

Diagram comparing the Celtic, astronomical and meteorological calendars

picking up the 6-year-old from school she said "daddy i think the winter is nearly over because it's not dark any more when we're going home"

YYEESSSSS

"Making me a Gemini" in Latin? Superb

Your honour, my client has simply gotten so good at stabbing people that murder laws do not apply.

Lads I'm weeping

there are no "legitimate concerns" about immigration. there are "legitimate concerns" about how poorly a country is run for the people who live there by the powerful and lies about how this is the fault of immigrants and not the powerful.

"I imagine one of the reasons people cling to their hates so stubbornly is because they sense, once hate is gone, they will be forced to deal with pain." This James Baldwin quote is hitting harder than ever.

I somehow remembered Soupy Norman last week and my sister and friends could not and I felt insane, so this is strangely timely and I will look forward to listening!

The same sturdy media apparatus that so assiduously pores through court documents — or uncovers spending gaps or analyses executive orders — is not well positioned to tackle a movement entirely predicated on bad faith gestures designed to shock and confuse — not least one whose roots are in labyrinthine internet subcultures that modern, professional journalists will have avoided their entire lives. And so, buffering at the sight of the world’s richest man delivering a fascist salute to the cameras of the world, they froze on the spot. Within hours, the sensible and serious moderates everywhere from the BBC to the New York Times caveated their coverage with quote marks or qualifiers; “what looked like”, “what some are calling”, “what many interpreted as”.

It is a deliberate nudge and wink to the far-right ideas you actively hold, bathed in a self-defensive layer of irony from which you can always wriggle, on the grounds that it was just a hilarious joke. “I’m an edgelord, not a Nazi,” you continue to tell yourself even as your every viewpoint calcifies toward the politics of Genghis Khan. This kidding/not kidding tactic forms the entire story of the last two decades of angry nerds on the internet. We have seen it play out everywhere sad men congregate to complain about their unhappy lives and get told that someone else — someone foreign, different, or weird — is to blame. None of it is mysterious. None of it is innocent. None of it is new.

I wrote this in January, about the issues we face when responsibility for covering the irony-poisoned and extremely-online trolls of the far right, falls to journalists who can't rotate a PDF.

www.irishexaminer.com/lifestyle-co...

1st Still from Scrooby doo, Fred is about to pull the mask off the 'ghost' the words "Neither left nor right" are over the 'ghost' 2nd still from Scooby Doo, the 'ghosts' mask is off revealing the man beneath, the words now read "Right"

Everytime I see some quote from Gareth Sheridan, the only thing that comes to mind is this old meme

Inventor of the GIF, hearing about Notre Dame burning: oh no the jarjoyles

"That's a nice secret you've got there" - secret admirer

God: Hi.

Brian Wilson: Finally! And?

God: You'd be a postman.

dude this party is such an echo chamber. it's just friends hanging out and chilling and having a good time. you need to invite some people over who want to kill you with hammers

Is there any work on when OV Dingle 2025 will be? Loved this year's, and I'm hoping to book time off and accomodation, but unsure which weekend it might be 😊🙌

Due to the sequence in which I opened the packet, I thought I had been gifted a pair of socks that said The Best Shrimply. In many ways, I have.

Great papal takeaway chat line-up on the timeline. the people want to know

Apparently the cardinals can elect you even if you’re not at the Conclave. That’s the last thing I need on top of everything else.

Séamas O'Reilly: Trans people have spent a decade being attacked in a moral panic The poor provision of unisex children’s facilities— which reinforces gender stereotypes and inconveniences women and men both — was, incidentally, an issue I remember being quite talked-about a decade...

The UK's political and media class has spent years heaping sadism on trans people, and they want to do the same in Ireland next. Calls for civility and calm won't cut it. We need to fight them tooth and nail.

www.irishexaminer.com/lifestyle-co...

Chapter 1 Danny woke to the sound of moaning. A deep, sorrow-ful howl echoed through the flat, the lack of any real furniture and terrible build quality working together to create acoustics that Dolby could only dream of. He stared at the ceiling, figuring out what he could do next. He could hide in his room, trying to make shapes out of the water stains on the ceiling, hoping it would go away, or he could confront whatever was making the noise. Option A was obviously the most appealing. Unfortunately, he had been trialling this on a pro-tem basis for the past fifteen minutes and the noise showed no signs of going away. If anything, it was getting louder, as if the first quarter of an hour had just been an overture. As quietly as he could, he dug a pair of tracksuit bottoms and a hoodie out from the piles of clothes that formed drifts between the floor and his desk. Whatever he was going to be confronting, he’d prefer not to do so in his boxers. Once dressed, he pawed in the dark for his phone on the nightstand, ‘nightstand’ being something of a grandiose term for a stool he’d taken from the sitting room. The time on the screen read just after five o’clock. The phone’s light illuminated the rest of his room and he briefly wondered if he’d been the victim of poltergeist activity before remembering that this was just how he lived.

The sound was even louder in the hallway and allowed Danny to triangulate its source: the living area straight ahead. Cautiously, he made his way towards the far end of the hall and paused at the threshold of the living room. The kitchenette was in view now and he was able to rule it out as the source of the noise. He’d half-wondered this whole time whether it might have just been the contents of the salad-drawer finally gaining sentience, but whatever was there remained in the primordial stages of life. The sound was coming from the sitting room, off to the right and out of view of the hall. If anything, it sounded even less human this close up. He was about to take a step inside but his breath caught in his throat as he saw the hand print. It was on the frame of the door that led into the sitting room, dark, sticky and glistening a sickly red in the light from Danny’s phone torch. He took a breath and stood up to his full height in an attempt to look as intimidating as possible. At five foot nine, this was not terribly effective. Steeling himself, he stepped into the sitting room to confront whatever horrors awaited. And the sight was horrific. A red-haired man was passed out across his couch. The fact that it was a small, leather two-seater and the man was well over six feet tall meant that only his head, shoulders and chest were actually horizon- tal. The opposite arm of the sofa had forced his legs into a right angle from the rest of his body, the soles of his grubby Converse almost pointing at the ceiling. This awkward position was, was causing his drunken snores to emerge as drawn- out groans

In front of the intruder, the remnants of a Chinese takeaway were leaking onto the cheap laminate coffee table. Danny looked back at the handprint and, after a moment’s hesitation, dipped his finger into the dark stain and sniffed at it. Sweet and sour sauce. He sighed as he wandered over to the sleeping house- breaker and prodded him with one foot. ‘Did you at least bring me something this time?’ he asked. The red haired man didn’t even open his eyes. ‘Chicken balls are in the bag,’ Nudge said and then attempted to curl up in the foetal position to fit as much of himself on the sofa as possible. Danny dug through the remnants of the takeaway and found the small paper bag, already see-through with grease, as promised. Rent for the night secured, he pad- ded back to his bedroom and left his best friend snoring on the couch. * ‘You told me you

The front cover of Spirit Level by Richy Craven

Last year I released a weird, little novel about ghosts and drinking and male friendships and anxiety.
The Kindle version is on sale for 1 Pound for the rest of the month.
Not sure if it's your cup of tea? Check out the first three pages:

I'm increasing my goal by one a year in line with my age, so far doable, at what point I'll tap out waits to be seen!

I log mine on Goodreads and start and end date in the year is what makes the count, including rereads 🙌😉 also I can recommend panic reading a small collection of poetry on NYE to stressfully make your own goal, as it was surely meant to be consumed?

Listened to it on audiobook read by Sean Burke and really enjoyed, have recommended it to friends since 😊🙌

✨🤞✨🧚‍♀️

Dan Carey