Keith Barry and the Massive Os

Keith Barry is an Irish magician. That's about 90% of what I know about him. I caught his Irish TV show a few years ago, and it seemed that he was just aping Derren Brown's tricks and style, but without the charm. I didn't pay too much attention to him.

When he was hosting Ireland's version of Deal or No Deal, I had assumed that he had given up on the magicianing lark, but it seems that his star has continued to rise - his hypnotism shows have drawn major crowds and broken records in Ireland, and he even made a 4-part series for Discovery.

He's clearly doing something right, and I've great respect for magicians, but when I tuned in to his appearance on Limerick's Live 95FM to promote his tour, he just sounded like a perverted 13-year old boy, giddily bragging about how ladies were having "massive Os" on stage. In case you missed it, he said it again and again, each time more unnerving, an ill-fitting phrase-of-choice for a man in his thirties. Yes Keith, your potency is such that ladies can orgasm from your very suggestion, but please don't sound like such a potential-sex offender next time you're trying to lure in the bawdy blue-collar crowd.

I couldn't find a copy of the recording, but in the first interview I found on YouTube, he asserts that the camerawoman is 'waxed, not shaven' within the first minute. Classy, classy guy!

Anyhow, what really prompted this ad was catching a few minutes of 'Deception with Keith Barry' on Discovery. I noticed that the producers put as much effort into designing the title card as Keith does into creating his act. Keith sees what other magicians are doing that looks cool, and then claims it as his own.

So the producers are making his title screen - they take a picture of him standing in front of something with his arms crossed, slap some text over it, then click through the fonts until something looks decent, like 12-year old girls formatting a book report.

"'Cracked' looks cool. Good enough for you? Let's pillowfight!"

It bothers me when this is done, so to punish Keith Barry and the lack of effort, I made a graphic of the show that I wish I caught five minutes of:

Still not painting a proper picture? Okay - everyone knows and is sick of Comic Sans, right? This is how much effort they put in:

Alright, that's all for today. File this under 'General begrudgery of successful Irish people'.

While I'm ragging on independents...

One of the independent candidates running in yesterday's election certainly has his act together when compared with the less accomplished lunatics also vying for election to the Dáil.

He has a website! He has proof of a previous leadership role! He has posters! He has laid out his policies. He even has an election-anthem:



Why should you vote for Dillon? Cos Dillon's gonna win! The song even says it!

One fateful night, he called to my mother's door at dinnertime. I told him I didn't want to stay long, and he gave me his five second pitch and shook my hand. Decent chap. I liked him. He gave me a flyer:

Neat! An independent who doesn't openly display an easily-diagnosed mental illness! Let's have a look here...

"@dillondelivers@twitter.com?" Sorry John, you just got bumped to #2.

Socialising with Sully: A Brief Tirade [Part 1]

I despise socialising with my friends. It's not entirely their fault, they are for the most part an interesting and intelligent group of people. The problem lies with the dearth of activities to do in Ireland, or rather, what my demographic (young, post-college people) consider fun.

I have a sizable group of friends from various counties of Ireland, and while I do spend most of my time socializing with them in Limerick, I consider them to be an accurate cross-section of young people in Ireland, and what their hopes and expectations of a night out consist of.

The objective: "Have the craic"
The method: Stand around in a pub or club ingesting mood-altering drugs, whilst enduring eardrum-shattering decibel-levels that smother out conversation and push the inhabitants towards more booze. More booze is always good.
Possible Outcomes: "Decent night" - consumed enough alcohol to briefly temporarily enhance self-confidence, and impair fine motor control - fun seemingly a consequence of the additional challenge in piloting one's body through routine acts.

"Well-daycent night" - consumed enough alcohol to progress past the stages of a decent night, and encounter prolonged losses of ability to coordinate voluntary muscle movements.

"Fuckin' deadly night" - consumed enough alcohol to bring about the stages of a "well-daycent night", with added losses of consciousness, anterograde amnesia, and possible urinary incontinence. The perceived fun of the night is the joy of having survived overnight without succumbing to pulmonary aspiration (choking on your puke).

It's my fault that I'm unable to engage in these fun activities, as I choose not to drink, meaning that without the mood-altering drugs, I'm just standing around in a loud room watching my friends gradually lose their balance. I might entertain myself by ironically dancing in an overly-enthusiastic fashion, but that wears thin after about ten minutes.

Millions of young people are happy to go with the flow, but I can't help but take umbrage with attending venues that snuff out conversation (often with terrible music), and I consider going out with the intention of getting hammered and becoming a burden for your friends to be inherently selfish. I have no problem with alcohol or those who choose to imbibe it [precedence has shown I object more vociferously to teetotallers]- my problem is with how it seems to be the focus of a night out rather than an added element.

Dear readers, I have visited the promised land for teetotallers, and I will share with you my wisdom of how to have a fun night without alienating your dry-balled tetotalling friend. But not right now - give me a day or two to parse this information in a way that won't make your brain explode.

In the meantime, I implore you to disagree with me and point out how to have fun without alcohol via the comments (no suggestions of "go on the pull" please, the ladyfriend won't abide that).

You may also be interested in "A Brief Guide To Dealing with the Irish"

Rubberbandits - Horse Outside

From what I know of the Rubberbandits, their comedy is fairly hit and miss. Nonetheless, I watched their latest music video since a few people I know appear in it, and I found it to be a slice of pure brilliance.

Yesterday, it had ~600 views. After noticing the furore on Facebook I clicked again to see what the hit tally was at - over 90,000. Eeep. I think it's time to declare this a phenomenon.

I'm not a fan of video-dumps, but I'm curious to see if those who aren't au-fait with the Irish scumbag sub-culture can appreciate this, because it might just be the best thing I've seen online since the bedroom intruder song.



I'll be supporting this for Christmas #1 with my wallet, judging by how quickly this video is picking up hits on YouTube, it shouldn't be much of a stretch to imagine a few thousand others doing the same.

Old News: The practice of Irish oneupmanshit

I've always maintained that anything the yanks can do, we Irish can do too. We just do it shittier.

Television shows. Fashion. Women. Roads. Obesity epidemics. Anything they do, we Irish will chance a second-rate knockoff.

One thing that the nutbag yanks like to do is manufacture controversies about the theory of evolution's veracity. Let's have a look at an Irish take on this phenomenon, eh?

One of the more notable items from the news in Ireland last week was the short sightedness of Conor Lenihan, who is our Minister for Science (among other responsibilities) for agreeing to launch a creationist book. The inevitable backpedalling? He was attending in his "capacity as friend", not as a person with intellectual responsibility. Shitty Irish politics from a shitty Irish politician.

There was a bit of a shitstorm that played out on the blogs, columns, and letters pages, but what caused it?

A manic depressive by the name of John J May.

John J May has self-published a pathetic treatise on why evolution is a sham, called "The Origin of Specious Nonsense". He is promoting it with a series of inane videos on YouTube in which he lists some incredible scientific facts about reproduction, and argues that the mere act of considering these vast odds proves that the theory of evolution is false.

He's a shitty author, a shitty thinker, and he has a very shitty website. Let's look at the website, in all it's 2001 school-of-web-design splendour:

Not pictured: Terrible Soundtrack

The site has a dazzling range of keywords to lure in the punters. Including "evolution, birth death, charles darwin [...] Sam Harris, Daniel C Dennett [...] religeon, muslim, orthodox faith, atheism, life, babies, pregnancy, cancer." (And yes, they misspelt "religion" in the keywords.)

Of course, the effort to cast a wide net with the keywords has been nullified by the background music that can't be disabled, thus making spending any time on this website even more of a chore than it ought to be. Since the website is clearly a steaming pile of excrement, the author has wisely decided to over-compensate with breathless enthusiasm for the book's content: "You will be shocked, mocked,amazed, dazed, confused, amused, enraged, engaged, but most of all thrilled and mentally fulfilled by the information you are about to read.. After 18 years research & 18 months writing comes" THE ORIGIN OF SPECIOUS NONSENSE""

I'll hold for a moment if you want to take a quick vomiting break.

All flushed out? Jolly good.

Perhaps being aware of the popularity of lists on the internet, the author has compiled the seven reasons that he "rejects and detests evolution". Here comes the science!

1: It teaches us to be satisfied with - not understanding origins.

2: It promotes the dangerous nonsense of no first cause - no supreme scientist and suggests order came from disorder.

3: It is a metaphysical speculation, a doctrine dressed up in scientific garb.

4: Anyone who teaches evolution is either ignorant or deliberately suppressing the known scientific facts.

5: It is a toxic poisonous mind virus which destroys the hearts immune system against hope and common sense.

6: It is an anesthetic against reason.

7: It cripples sanity, promotes myths, obscures reality and elevates matter above a maker.

Actually, wait a sec. These are all emotional reasons! This troglodyte has no interest in a scientific discussion, despite his repeated appeals to reason and sanity. This jackoff deserves no interest from me, you, or the media. Those of us itching to have a dance-off between the forces of enlightenment and medieval superstition can go home disappointed. This lunatic represents no threat to the theory of evolution, his appearance on the radar serves only to highlight the incompetence of yet another Irish politician.

I'm going to leave the last word to Dr. Steven Novella, from last week's Skeptic's Guide to the Universe:

"Have you guys taken a look at John J May's book or website? This guy is the living embodiment of the arrogance of ignorance - the Dunning Kruger effect [...]" The less able you are to assess your own stupidity, the smarter you think you are."

Yep. Sounds fairly spot on.

Much ado about fadas

Part of the problem with being a pretentious prick is when technology obstinately reminds you that you’re a knob, and punishes you for it:

'Seÿffffffffffe1n' over e-mail, but 'Sully' to my friends

My name is Seán. Not Shaun, or Shawn, and certainly not Sean. It's Seán.

I’m not sure when exactly I decided that rendering my name “Seán” without the fada over the “a” was wrong, but I suspect that I became more insistent about it during the time I spent in the States, as I tried to impress upon the local ladies of Pittsburgh that I was interesting and exotic (“You have an accent? That’s hot. We should make out”).

It’s likely that I’m a stickler for the fada because Seán is such a common name on the Emerald Isle (in both senses of the word). I figure being one of the breed who is fussy about having it included separates me somewhat from those who don’t care (and those who insist on its omission).

It's not an unreasonable insistence – it's only people from Ireland that are expected to know about the sanctity of the fada. If I’m asked to spell my name by a person who sounds like a paddy, I’ll tell them “S, E, A, fada N”, and listen for the derisive light scoff. I don’t expect non-nationals to ‘get’ the fada, so I don’t subject them to it unless they bring up how wrong my name looks written down (a Polish colleague refers to me as ‘Soen’ in all e-mail correspondence, and it’s starting to grow on me.)

While I'm keenly aware that not everybody should know what to do with the fada, I've yet to get it through my thick skull that websites will often freak out when I spell my name the "right" way. When flying from New York to Pittsburgh, I suffered unnecessary delays because my boarding pass said "Se n". Being exceptionally slow to learn, a month later I got a boarding pass that said "Sen". Rather than fixing the root cause of the problem, I just got better at giving bitesize explanations for the fada and how computers don't like it. (I mentioned the 'Sen' thing back in February 2007)

As my garbled name in the screenshot above attests, putting a fada into an online form is a bit of a gamble, as there's no telling what will come out on the other side. A messy e-mail header is harmless enough, but when the bouquet of roses I sent my ladyfriend from Flowers.com came with a lovely note signed by somebody called "Se??????n", I felt it spoiled the sentiment somewhat.

After giving my (US-based) girlfriend some casual abuse over her 'inability' to spell my name correctly online, she jumped on the fada bandwagon. Including the fada is a cinch on Irish / UK keyboards [just hold down the Alt-Gr key when pressing a vowel], but US keyboards lack this functionality. It turned out that every time she wanted to casually mention my name in an e-mail that I would never see, she would have to go to my Facebook profile and copy/paste the troublesome character, or use the 'insert symbol' feature on Word.

Until I had to send an e-mail to a lecturer with a US-keyboard, I never truly appreciated what a pain in the arse this was, and despite my repeated insistences that I'm reformed and no longer demand to see the 'a' in my name wearing its proper headdress, she and a few of my close friends go to the bother anyway, in a uniquely touching display of my monomania taking precedence over their convenience.

I'm a little torn on this whole 'fada' business. As a pedant, I want things to be done right, but I appreciate that something of such little import should scarcely warrant a moment's thought, let alone an anguished blog entry. I know that more often than not, using a fada online is throwing a spanner in the works, but shouldn't web developers have adapted to their world-wide-userbase by now? It's tough enough for us Irish folk on the Internet ("Come on now Seœ∂fµn", the websites condescend to me, "every developed nation in the world has a postal code, just fill yours in and we can both get on with our day"). Shouldn't we Irish be able to enjoy the small dignity of being able to spell one's name as it's intended?

RTÉ - not credulous nitwits?

I watched a few snippets of TV3's "The Truth About Travellers" the other night, and this episode focused on the superstitious nature of everybody's favourite gate-selling, farmer-intimidating, bare-knuckle-boxing Irish vagabonds.

When they discussed the Knock shrine, (one of Ireland's finest tourist spots for the reality-impaired) they say that "it was 1879 when our lady last appeared here" [8:10 into the programme]. That claim is restated a few seconds later, without any hedging. 


While I understand that TV3 is Ireland's tabloid network, and most of their viewers won't understand what "allegedly" means, I was still a little annoyed with the credulity with which they presented this claim - particularly as it implicitly validated the travellers' religious devotion.

I know I'm comparing apples to oranges here, but RTÉ's coverage of the Pope's excursion to Fatima today eased the pain somewhat, merely because they put the word 'reportedly' before "appeared to a group of kids" when discussing a similar alleged religious apparition. Sure, this is the same TV network that still shows the Angelus, but the reporters are doing the best they can to sound impartial.


Such a small tweak makes a huge difference to an organisation's credibility, but I fear that there are hardly enough discerning viewers left to care.

How long have I been gone?

Heard upon touching tarmac at the end of my flight home from the States:

"Good morning everyone, welcome to Shannon, on behalf of Continental Airlines and all the crew, welcome to the United Kingdom"

Damn Brits! Think they can just stick a flag in something when I'm not looking and claim it as their own?

A brief guide to dealing with The Irish

I stumbled across a website called eDiplomat today - a handy resource that offers primers on societal conventions to inoculate against culture shock. Naturally, I wanted to see what they had to say about the Irish:

The People

The Irish are interested in people and place great value on the individual. They are naturally courteous, quick-witted and will go out of their way to welcome visitors to their country. Don't rush the Irish. Although they work very hard, the Irish are dedicated to a less stressful lifestyle that allows time for friends and family, a visit to the pub, a cup of tea, or just a bit of a chat on the corner. Families are closely-knit and very important to the Irish.

There's not much there that I can grumble about, let's drill deeper:

Meeting and Greeting

• Shake hands with everyone present -- men, women and children -- at a business or social gathering. Shake hands again when leaving.
• A firm handshake with eye contact is expected.

Body Language

• The Irish are not very physically demonstrative and are not comfortable with public displays of affection.
• The Irish are uncomfortable with loud, aggressive, and arrogant behavior.
• A "Reverse V for victory" gesture is considered obscene.

Under the body language section, it states that the Irish people are "not very physically demonstrative and are not comfortable with public displays of affection", "uncomfortable with loud, agressive, and arrogant behaviour", and that a "'Reverse V for victory" gesture is considered obscene.

It recommends that one dress "modestly and conservatively", avoiding "flashy colours [...] white pants, nylon running jackets", and recommending "tweeds, wools and subdued colors". It also states that for "business meetings, men should wear suits or sportcoats and ties; women should wear suits or dresses and blazers (women wear pants less often than in America)."

Helpful Hints

• The Irish respect reserved behavior. Initial meetings should be low key.
• Assume that children will be included in family entertaining.
• Always be sincere. The Irish dislike pretentious behavior.
• Remember the Irish want to do things their way. You will not succeed if you insist on doing it "your way."

Especially for Women

• A foreign woman will be accepted easily in the Irish business community.
• It is considered more proper for a woman to order a glass of beer or stout rather than a pint.
• It is acceptable, but may be misconstrued for a foreign woman to invite an Irishman to dinner. It is best to stick with lunch.
• If a woman would like to pay for a meal, she should state so at the outset.

As far as guides to an entire race of people go, it's not too shabby. If I had to add an extra heading to the article, it would be the following:

Socialising

• The objective of a night out is to forget as much of it as possible, assisted by alcohol and occasionally, blunt-force trauma to the head.
• After a night out, the preferred ritual is to establish oneself as the participant with the least recollection of the previous evening.
• Alcohol absolves the imbiber of all personal-accountability.
  
• Mating rituals in Ireland start with the dancefloor. Men will approach women from behind and attempt to entice them into acts of fornication by grinding their pelvis against the female's backside.
• Interfering with the aforementioned dancefloor ritual will result in blunt-force trauma to the head.
• Any alcoholic beverages left unattended are complimentary.
• When leaving nightclubs, take care not to tread on drunken Irish females who have drank themselves into unconsciousness, and deposited themselves by the main exit to be located by their friends.

Playing with the boyz

I'm a massive knob for admitting it, but whilst reading the RTÉ report on Stephen Gately's death, I was more troubled by the article's rough edges than I was by the (very sad) news of a man dying at the age of 33.

It was all petty stuff like clumsy wording - they talk about how "his star quickly rose under the influential guidance of pop mogul Louis Walsh". If you want to fellate Louis Walsh by calling him 'influential', that's well and good - but why place it at that point in the sentence?

I'll spare you the rest of the pedantic nonsense (even though article has been revised since, they've still left out an 'is' - kudos to the first commenter to find it) - mostly because I've made worse errors with less pressure to get a brick of text online, but I'll mention this:

The article quoted the band's official website, mentioning that 'the rest of the boyz will be flying out today'...

... and it just struck me as inappropriate. A man has died! Do you still need to use the preferred collective noun that refers to members of a crummy Irish boyband? I thought I'd go onto the website and see what context it appears in, but RTÉ didn't provide a handy-dandy link.

So I decided to take a stab at it.

Not trying to give too much away here, dear reader, but before we continue, I feel it may be prudent to introduce you to the official Sully-Branded Cock-blocker, obscurer of tricky phalluses that may interfere with your Interneting experience since 2009!


You've probably guessed it by now, so I'll see you after the next picture...

You guessed it - boyzone.com is a gay-porn portal. Who didn't see that one coming?

Think of how many young fans of Boyzone have arrived at this site, whilst the official Boyzone website is schlep away over at boyzone.net (even boyzone.ie is currently parked and not doing the bidding of 'the boyz'). Won't somebody please think of the children?

Perhaps this is all part of Louis Walsh's masterplan to turn more youths in Ireland to homosexuality. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

Via Stephen Spillane: Videos from the No Side

Stephen Spillane is a man with a general interest in European affairs, whereas I tend to tune in when it's time to decide something, which is why I find myself paying more attention to his blog in times as this, with the Lisbon Treaty: Part Deux looming.

He posted some videos on his blog today [original post here] that dovetail nicely with my earlier posting, and I was excited by the prospect at going a step lazier than my last video-dump post by taking somebody else's video-dump.

The general theme is: "It doesn't matter that arguments are flaccid, we can scare the shit out of people by lying to them about Lisbon and achieve our goals that way!"






As much as I'm aware of what a rich parody of democracy the government's affinity for mulligans represents, I see no harm in a do-over given the ubiquity of mis-information around Lisbon.

"Everyone's opinion is equally valid - my arse!"

As long as I've had access to the internet, it's been my primary source of news and entertainment - this has been especially true over the past five years, since I've had regular broadband access.

As most big sites on the world wide web tend to have a US-bias, (and Ireland has been dragging its heels with regards to the internet until the last two years or so) it means that I've little concept of Irish TV shows, and even less knowledge of Irish celebrities, so despite the innumerable occasions my friends recommended I watch 'The Panel', I seldom did as I'd rarely be in front of the TV.

I'd like to take this opportunity to openly lament my folly in wasting every opportunity I had to watch The Panel, but never did, and that reason is Dara O'Brian. While I've always been aware of the man, I had little idea of what he was about until he impressed me with his wit during a radio interview some months back.

I finally got around to YouTubing his material a few days ago, and realised that an intelligent, sceptical mind was appearing weekly on one of Ireland's most popular current affairs/comedy shows, and I ignored it entirely.

Watch him riff on religious irrationality:


Watch him jeer at two of my favourite pet peeves: homeopathy & nutritionists:


So will I start paying attention to Irish celebrities now? Probably not - like anyone with any talent from Ireland, Dara has buggered off to some other country to earn himself a real living (see also: Bob Geldoff, Colin Farrell, Jonathan Rhys Meyers, U2), thus elevating him to the status of 'A British Celebrity from Ireland'. The lucky git.

'Moral Monopoly'

Watching videos like the one embedded below make me feel quite fortunate to have grown up in the modern Ireland, where a staunch Catholic upbringing wasn't the 'common sense' approach to take.

Whenever I hear a disgustingly nostalgic account about the 'Catholic Ireland' that was left behind, I think about the testimonies of people like this whose lives have been shattered by those who once held a moral monopoly*.


[Brought to my attention via http://www.atheistmedia.com/]

Good riddance to Catholic Ireland.

*An interesting aside: Tom Inglis' book 'Moral Monopoly: The Irish Church in Modern Irish Society' published in 1987 is a a fantastically relentless broadside against the evils perpetrated by the church from a pre-sex-scandal era. The 1998 updated edition: 'Moral Monopoly: The Rise and Fall of the Catholic Church in Modern Ireland' dials back the tone considerably, and features an extra chapter cataloguing the 'fall' of the church in a rather sombre manner, as if eulogising a stern, misunderstood father, rather than the merciless tyrant that the first edition personified the institution as.

Why the rose-tinting, Irish commentators? Answers on a postcard in the comments!

Nyctophobia

I arrived back in Ireland after a rather splendid Thanksgiving in Wisconsin (as you may be aware), and I thought it only fair to detail the kinks of reacclimatizing oneself. (doesn't the word 'acclimatize' just look so wrong?)

That's right - I'm talking about how I fared upon returning to my native lands after a meagre 8 days around the football throwin', burger-guzzlin', signpost shootin', Jesus-lovin', monster-truck watchin', light-beer quaffin', imperial-system measurin', rock-music makin', chicken-flavoured-biscuit chompin', Hummer-drivin', icecap meltin', country invadin' ragamuffins that we know and love as simply; Yanks!

Truthfully, I only noticed one small detail, and it didn't occur to me until long after I left Shannon airport. The following night, when driving in my car I was unusually anxious, if the speedometer was anything to go by. Despite the fact that I was on the same roads that have taken me home for the past four years, my 10 minute journey took 20. The reason?

Fear. Fear of the dark.

That's right folks! After 8 days of being a passenger on a small offering of the State's brilliantly lit (not to mention straight as an arrow) road network, I managed a reprise of a fear most people forget about around the same time they retire their training potty (mine was called Mr Gobbles).

Initially, I was appalled with myself - I was being ridiculous! But upon reflection, I realised that maybe hurtling headfirst into the black abyss at 100 kilometres an hour guided only by small beam of light to cut a swatch into the pitch-black before you might be something that we as a squishable species should shy away from!

What's worse, when your eyes finally manage to adjust to the scant few drops of luminance on a country road that features no public lighting, and your photoreceptor cells are suddenly flooded with the glaring headlights of the oncoming car that has come out of the bend you only saw pop out of the black a second ago. It's at this point that you are no longer driving based on what you can see - you are now blindly flailing the wheel around in whatever mental-snapshot you managed to take of the 10 metres of straight road ahead of you, and you're hoping your vision comes back before any dog/tree/child/wall/Yank/ditch imposes itself into your path.

Sounds exhilarating, yes? So is ingesting 1.5 litre bottles of sherry anally (twice). [Seriously - if you only ever click one link on this site - let it be that one!]