Heytesbury Lane

Waking at night I hear a pig squeal. My room is low-ceilinged with half-moon windows. Outside the front door there is a courtyard. On summer mornings I can trap the sun. Sometimes at night, though, I wake to hear the pitiable scream of a trapped pig. It is difficult to believe I am not having […]

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Margaret in Helvick

(in memory of Margaret Kennedy) I was on the road, just below the brow of the headland, when I heard you call. Another dinner, another May evening. Now, though, I slow each moment to the crawl of images we shrug off at the time: Joe in the nearby meadow making hay, the sun skewed westward […]

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Badly needing a retune

RTE RADIO One is all talk, and its plans for next year, which are due to be announced on Friday, will ensure that it remains so.There’s nothing wrong with talk, of course, especially on radio, which is a talker’s medium, and it’s certainly preferable to the non-stop barrage of bland playlist pop that’s 2FM’s sole raison d’etre, but too often the talk on Radio One amounts to little more than blather a situation that the new schedules, from what’s been leaked about them, seem unlikely to correct.

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Gawd save us all from the IRISH pub and the chic of it

DOWN IN Ballykissangel last Sunday night, Assumpta’s pub was up for sale, and the locals were understandably worried. “The worst thing that could happen,” one of them said, “would be for someone to buy it and turn it into an Irish pub.” His companion pointed out that all pubs in Ireland were Irish pubs. “No, I mean an IRISH pub,” he replied witheringly.I know exactly what he meant, and I know, too, what Quigley meant in the same episode when he envisaged the village’s sacred drinking-house being taken over by “some Johnny-come-lately with a ponytail and fifteen different words for a cup of coffee.”

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How to avoid getting tongue-tied over Bill

WHAT DO you do when a man is down? You make money out of him, that’s what. It’s the American way, and everywhere you look stateside these days hucksters are cleaning up, which at least is more than Monica did. WHAT DO you do when a man is down? You make money out of him, that’s what. It’s the American way, and everywhere you look stateside these days hucksters are cleaning up, which at least is more than Monica did.

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The old fox wrongfoots media colleagues again

DOWN through the years, he has retired more often than Frank Sinatra in rumour, if not in real life.Indeed, in the past decade it became axiomatic that as each successive RTE season loomed, every newspaper in the land would inevitably speculate on his imminent going and publish a suitably sombre and seriously measured obituary.

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Well is that what it’s going to be then?

LAUNCHING ITS programming schedule yesterday, TV3’s slogan was simple: A Choice for Viewers, An Opportunity for Advertisers.Well, is that what it’s going to be? Time, of course, will tell, but if it doesn’t provide a choice for viewers when it goes on air this September, it won’t be in a position to provide an opportunity for advertisers, who’ll rightly shrug: why bother advertising when no-one can be bothered watching?

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A TV numbers game that can’t guarantee quality

SILE DE VALERA’S Broadcasting Bill, passed by her government colleagues yesterday, aims to address a number of broadcasting matters, but only one of them will truly interest the general public that is, you and me. SILE DE VALERA’S Broadcasting Bill, passed by her government colleagues yesterday, aims to address a number of broadcasting matters, but only one of them will truly interest the general public that is, you and me.

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