Ireland also appointed a former Meta exec to the role of Data Protection Commissioner for the whole of Europe. If you think you see a pattern here, no you don't.

Dean Buckley@deanbuckley.bsky.social · 21h ago

just a reminder the cathaoirleach of the AI committee has stock in a AI-based revenue intelligence company. Naoise insists the stock – whose value is only realisable if the company goes public – is not a conflict of interest for him as a TD forming AI legislation www.ontheditch.com/fianna-fail-...

I did a bit of venting yesterday. Thanks to those who gave kind responses. It meant and helped a lot. For various reasons this has been an annus horribilis from a personal point of view. However, as the man says, I can't go on, I'll go on.

My daughter is watching Cruella, or as I like to call it, 'The Devil Wears Madra'.

Because I can't do anything else except write. A piece on the film star who died in Donegal and how war tore German movie making apart. At War With The German Film Stars open.substack.com/pub/saturday...

At War With The German Film Stars

Cinema's collision with reality in Nazi Germany

open.substack.com

"Bluesky is a political echo chamber" okay but I'm mostly here to chat with fun internet people and post art and make jokes, I cannot stress how much I don't care

The Rod Liddle biography suggests a certain post-1968 'type' who was just idiotically drawn to norm-breaching, moving via adolescent rebellion, punk, revolutionary socialism, and eventually ending up at racism, because by the 21st century that was the most efficient transgression still on offer

The Ceuta border is already heavily fortified. Does she want the Guardia Civil to shoot Moroccans?

FinTwitter@fintwitter.bsky.social · 2d ago

EU'S VON DER LEYEN SAYS TO SANCHEZ IN LETTER: CLEAR WE MUST DO MORE TO STRENGTHEN BORDERS AT CRITICAL POINTS

I would presume the nonsense about it being hard to get a passport and Chambers attacking the civil service are connected.

Ministry for Alternate Diversion of Resources for Administrative Efficiency

These Liddle tributes are like what you'd hear after the funeral of a drunken pain in the arse who still has family living locally.

Lee Hurley@hleehurley.com · yesterday

The Times, one of the leading voices when it comes to 'protecting women and girls' calling a man who assaulted his young pregnant girlfriend, said he would rape the kids if he was a teacher and called for child sex abuse porn to be legal, 'brilliant'

@paulduane.bsky.social's Barbaric Genius, a film about John Healy - the vagrant turned memoirist turned international chess whizz - is one of my favourite documentaries of all time. It's having a rare full screening at the IFI in Dublin on Monday 17th August. You should go!! ifi.ie/film/from-th...

Are the government really going to start pushing this Yank brained nonsense? Maybe Chambers thinks we should have our own version of DOGE. We could call it MADRAE.

Aidan O’Brien@aidanobrien.bsky.social · 2d ago

Unlike what Minister Jack Chambers claims Ireland has one of the lowest per capita ratio of civil servants among EU member states. And significantly fewer than other high tax member states like Sweden, Finland and Denmark

This "underlying health issues," thing is like when the Irish media say that someone who's been shot, "was known to the Gardai." The message is, "Don't worry, these dead don't matter so much."

The New York Times@nytimes.com · 2d ago

Breaking News: Two deaths in Michigan have been linked to cyclospora. Both people who had the parasite also had underlying health issues.

youtu.be/RaBGoghLHiw?...

The Siege Of Mullingar

YouTube video by John Montague - Topic

youtu.be

It seems like a really appropriate time to post up John Montague's great poem The Siege Of Mullingar about the 1963 Fleadh. I'm not able to complete such a complicated technical operation but if anyone else could it would be good. I'm sure Montague would have loved to see the Fleadh going North.

Great to see the Americans getting so excited about Rounders again now that the World Cup is over. I wonder how they'd feel if their time line was full of Europeans going, "Well done Yankees, score more goals than the Black Sox."

These are workers They have rights. They work long hard hours and then in down-time they face this? A four-bedroom house rented by a company behind some of Dublin’s trendiest Chinese restaurants has been declared a potential fire hazard after it was found crammed with bunk beds and sleeping spaces…

Tarkovsky's Sacrifice at IFI. It'd be great if last film by one of cinema's greatest was a masterpiece. But AT seems lost outside Russia and there's an air of parody Bergman. Saving the world by having sex with the maid is of its time. His least lyrical and fluid film. He was dying. Loved by many.

Never knew Taylor Swift was a satirist.

Mic Wright@brokenbottleboy.bsky.social · 2d ago

Fraser Nelson reckons Rod Liddle was “the greatest satirist since Swift” while Michael Gove is comparing him to not just Swift but Orwell. Amazing the comparisons you can get if you’ll pump out exactly the racist opinions even they are too squeamish to commit to print.

Brilliant letter from Stuart Thompson to Jeremy Clarkson about his comments that benefit claimants should write weekly thank you letters to tax payers detailing how they spend their benefits each week.

I have never heard a song by The Frames or read a column by Rod Liddell. Feeling very out of touch with the zeitgeist.

Went to A Private Life in IFI. Jodie Fosters bravura performance as the worlds worst psychiatrist makes it worth watching. Billed as a hitchcockian thriller but more of a Manhattan Murder Mystery vibe. Old arthouse fave Daniel Auteuil very charming too even if plot is a mess. JFs French impressive.

I had become accustomed to thinking that a viral post on Bluesky was 4000 likes but every day for the past week I’ve seen something like this that has 27,000

Lots of ancillary talent involved in Stavisky. Script by the radical Spanish novelist Jorge Semprun, a terrific Sondheim score which seems influenced by Georges Delerue's for The Conformist, beautiful gowns by Yves Saint Laurent. A pleasure to see their work.

Stavisky may be Alain Resnais's most under-rated movie. Maybe because it doesn't feel like Resnais. Story of the legendary 1930s con man financier told pretty straight and so lushly it feels like Visconti. Intelligent and entertaining. Belmondo gives it socks in title role. youtu.be/ef-DpdsvHAY?...

STAVISKY... (Alain Resnais, 1974, 117 mins)

YouTube video by Indicator

youtu.be

The framing by the Sunday Independent excludes introducing a wealth tax. The framing by the Sunday Independent leaves out increasing income tax for very high incomes. The framing by the Sunday Independent doesn't mention a real leaving wage. Dud poll, dud findings.

there is no meaningful moral difference between Donald Trump visiting Ireland and, say, Benjamin Netanyahu visiting Ireland btw

A cinephiles dream label. Fair play to them.

Chris@staggerlee42.bsky.social · 3d ago

I can think of no other Blu-ray label that has made such an impression on me so quickly. It hasn’t been around that long and I am already building up a nice wee Radiance collection 😍😍😍

I'm no pol corr but from this graph it looks like Sinn Fein could do well if they announced a "no coalition with FFFG" policy before the next general election. A united left government would be great but a united left opposition would be a lot of help too.

Paul Culloty@paulculloty.bsky.social · 3d ago

Some juicy coalition preference data for @hmcevansoneya.bsky.social!

Sinead O'Sullivan has written an article on how the only way to get a passport quickly in Ireland is to contact your TD. This sounds like the kind of thing you'd write if your most recent experience of getting a passport in the late 1970s.