AS you can only imagine I have a vibrant and interesting social life here in Dublin, with a calendar bursting with dinner parties, film premieres and all that sort of thing.
So I don’t want you to judge me when I tell you I spent last Friday night on the couch watching The Late Late Country Special. The folks were up from Cork, veering eastwards for a weekend in the capital, so we decided to give Paddy Kielty a go. I mean, is there a more poignant sign of a son’s love for his Mammy and Daddy than sitting through about six hours of Daniel and Co?
What I saw on my television, ladies and gentleman, was as weird as anything I’ve ever watched. There were characters new and old turning up to perform for the wildly enthusiastic audience. There were reliables like Daniel and Margo singing songs of old, and a whole new generation of stars who look like they were sculpted out of the Donegal mountains. It made the TV show Dallas look like a Macra amateur drama, an alternate universe where Texas meets one of Albert Reynolds’ dancehalls.
And it struck me that the closest thing we have in Ireland to the Marvel cinematic universe is the Country & Western military industrial complex. In the films, you have a universe of characters from the original comics coming together in crossovers films to make daft and massively lucrative content. And just as Marvel has Iron Man, Wolverine, Hulk and Professor X, so the Irish Country & Western multiverse features a line-up of living legends like Wee Daniel, Margo, Susan McCann and a host of new superheroes who are most likely raking in the cash. Nathan Carter has his own mini franchise probably worth more than Spiderman.
It’s easy to scoff at it, but The Late Late producers know what draws the audience and in a world of competition for eyeballs it looks like Irish Country ‘n’ Western still reigns supreme. In the end, you fear, they will enslave us all.
Russians in our seas
AS you all well know, at The Southern Star we keep a keen eye on the Russians. Thankfully, we don’t have to travel too far these days. According to the former Irish army ranger and now TD, Cathal Berry, Ireland is a veritable playground for Russian intelligence. We’re considered a soft touch because of our weak security culture. This was all heightened further with the reports at the weekend that an unnamed politician had been recruited ‘as an agent of influence’ in a honeytrap operation by Russian agents. You’ll remember their Dr Evil-style bunker that was being proposed in the Russian embassy, which would have included a subterranean network of 20 storage rooms, 10 power plant rooms and 13 toilets, and which Berry said looked like a ‘nerve centre’ for Russian intelligence.
Call me naive, but having grown up watching James Bond dealing with sneaky Russian lads trying to kill him with poison darts firing out of improvised umbrellas, a part of me is glad that we finally are having our share of Cold War intrigue. There’s a certain frisson that comes with going out to the shops for a tin of beans and not knowing if you might end up in an underground cave on some offshore island suspended over a pool of gnashing piranhas.
Morgan moves up
SPEAKING of infiltrating foreign governments, it’s been a good week for Macroom with the appointment of Morgan McSweeney as chief of staff in Keir Starmer’s Labour government.
There was a bit of a power struggle going on amongst senior staff during his role as head of political strategy, it seems, with McSweeney’s desk having been reportedly moved further away from the prime minister’s.
But his rival Sue Gray became ensnared in rows over pay and perks after it was revealed her salary was higher than Starmer’s. So her head had to roll, if you’ll pardon the expression. The Corkman has now replaced her and is arguably the most powerful unelected figure in the Downing Street government. Go on, the lads!
Chips for a Danish
HATS off to the Cork fella who travelled all the way from an island off the coast of Denmark to have one last supper in Lennox’s chip shop which has closed after 73 years. Painter and decorator David Lavelle made a 2,082km journey and queued for two hours and 42 minutes in the rain to order ‘Two battered sausages, a battered burger and chips.’ You’d imagine he’ll walk it off on the way home. For the love of Cork, eh?
