I DON’T know about you but I am exhausted from the onslaught of free money and sweets being offered to me by political parties of all colours and persuasions this past week.
Fine Gael is going to make me rich if I produce more babies.
A People Before Profit woman came to my door during the week promising me a four-day week. Then I got an email from my energy provider saying they were passing on more energy credits from the government, and I didn’t even ask for it. They’re all at it by the way.
Sinn Féin are going to build a house for every baby born in the next calendar year.
The Soc Dems are going to invent a time machine and reverse the US presidential election. Michael Collins is going to charter a rocket from Elon Musk and fly us all to the moon where dental care is apparently better.
It’s all clearly starting to affect my mental state. Every night Charlie McCreevy appears in my fevered dreams saying ‘When I have it, I spend it’ over and over again and then I wake up with a start around 3am, completely drenched in champagne like it’s the Celtic Tiger again.
Have any of these people read the news from America? Do they know what’s going to happen the minute Trump slaps tariffs on EU imports? Or what RFK Jr is going to do to the pharmaceutical companies that are literally making us rich?
Cosy up for the cold front
AS economic and meteorological cold fronts sweep across the island this week, we’ve decided to hunker down and begin to get into a little bit of hibernation mode. I’ve been travelling a bit with work for the past few weeks, and I’m completely sick of airports, and feeling like I’m on a never-ending hamster wheel.
The thought of not having to travel again this side of Christmas is like an early gift from Santy and we have also been granted the pleasure of Rivals on Disney+, which has been keeping us utterly entertained.
For those of you who aren’t aware of it, Rivals is an adaptation of the 1988 Jilly Cooper novel and it charts the rise and fall of various characters associated with a fictional independent TV station called Corinium in 1980s England.
There are performances to die for – our own Aidan Turner is particularly great – and there is an awful lot of riding and shooting pheasants. And the man behind it is none other than former Eastenders producer, and our very own, Dominic Treadwell Collins – his last name being the clue – Dominic is the son of a Skibbereen man and has been a regular visitor back ‘home’ to West Cork throughout his life.
Basically, it’s the best craic I’ve had watching a TV show in ages. What is particularly freeing is that it isn’t concerned with the bland identity politics that stifles a lot of modern day dramas. Because it’s depicting the 1980s, it is just so much more loose and fun and, at times, politically incorrect. I find it ironic that one of the most fun things you can do in 2024 is travel back to 1986 for a while.
Behold the Mescal era
AHEAD of the release of Gladiator II this weekend, Paramount is showing a final trailer for the movie simultaneously across more than 4,000 TV networks, radio stations, digital platforms, and other media in the USA.
With a reach of 300 million potential customers, it is thought to be the largest ever ‘roadblock’ which is the industry term for this kind of marketing assault. And they said the movies were dead? We are about to enter a golden age of Paul Mescal, ladies and gentlemen.
Meanwhile, in the actual Colosseum over in Rome, the destroyer of long term rentals, known to you and I as AirBnb, is experiencing an unexpected backlash.
Not content with landing in cities all over Europe and sucking up rental possibilities from the local population, the company is now offering a chance for a small number of people to follow in the footsteps of fighters and various beasts as part of an ‘exclusive gladiator experience’ in Rome’s most famous amphitheatre. Presumably without any of the actual bloodshed.
‘For the first time in nearly 2,000 years,’ the blurb says, ‘the Colosseum returns to its original purpose as a venue for performances, inviting daring warriors to step foot inside the historic arena to forge their own paths and shape their destinies.’ And you thought listening to Joe Rogan would be enough for people. When in Rome, I suppose.
There is a strong local backlash that the Colosseum is being turned into a theme park and this chimes with many local protests in cities around Europe as cities suffer from ‘over tourism’, particularly in the summer months, making life miserable for those who actually live there.
Fair play to them for standing up to it. Although, there is a small part of me that wants to go fighting fictional bears in Rome.
