11.05.07
The Luck of the Irish
Am so sorry this programme wasn’t broadcast prior to Leviathan, but for those interested I would recommend listening to this morning’s Start the Week on R4 in which Roy Foster is interviewed about his new book. (fast forward to 20 mins if you are not interested in the nuclear stuff at the beginning)
First the irritating thing – when Andrew Marr promoted this show at the end of last week’s he referred to the Seltic Tiger, ie the football club not the Keltic Tiger. I nearly wrote an email to complain but don’t want to turn into one of those people who writes crank emails ( I write enough cranky stuff already). But really, is it THAT hard to get it right? It’s the BBC. Don’t they have pronunciation departments? And we’re not Khazakstan….
THEN this morning he kept talking about Charlie HOCKEY. I mean REALLY. You have to think there is something wilful about these errors. Finally, another contributor Sally Vickers, who minutes earlier speaks beautifully about Freud and Oedipus refers to great Irish writers like Colm TOYbin. Jeeeez……
Other than, the programme is wonderful in that BBC terribly calm, mature and analytic style that reveals more and says more in 10 minutes than we could in one hour on Friday night.
Is it just because its Radio 4 that they assume its listeners are clever? I had to turn over from Ryan this morning, because even though I like him and he is TERRIBLY nice, he was doing a piece on the politics of Belguim and preceeded ALL his questions by declaring, in various ways, that he was thick, he had to write it all down to be clear, beseeched the expert to keep things simple and generally spent more time dumbing us all down in a cheery chappy manner than discussing the issue at hand. Is there some survey that revealed that Irish radio listeners are completely stupid? The Belgians have a federalist system and a language barrier. What’s so complex about that? Interesting, but not unfathomable….Is there a memo warning presenters (other than Pat Kenny but particularly Derek Mooney) that says “right now, none of your intellectualising boring old shite – let’s keep it simple for the thickos”….
sigh…
Luke said,
November 5, 2007 at 1:37 pm
In England they have brainy Radio 4 and thicko Radio 2 I suppose. Over here we’ve just the One. But it’s a real problem in the media generally. I can’t bear watching those BBC programmes where the presenters care-full-y en-un-ci-ate every word as if the audience are a pack of drooling knuckledraggers.
L.
PS Where are you on Facebook Sarah?
Sarah said,
November 5, 2007 at 2:05 pm
I am avoiding Facebook.
a) I waste enough time on the Internet
b) I know myself – the possibility of obsessing and indulging my paranoia about friends, invitations, who to ask, how to refuse, the possibility of entangling myself with people I am fearful of being entangled with (notwithstanding the possibility of wonderful new entanglements…its just too much. I have neurosis to cope with…
c) I think I have quite enough personal information about myself on the Internet thank you very much..
so em, no Facebook for now
Andrew Lawlor said,
November 5, 2007 at 7:35 pm
Sarah,
absolutley with you on the Derek Mooney thing. He was just about bearable on Saturday mornings with Mooney Goes Wild when he had Eanna and Richard with him full time to shut him up now and again. Now, however he just prattles on and on and on and on……..
They should call te show Mooney Talks Shite!
Byeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!
Joseph said,
November 5, 2007 at 11:21 pm
“I am avoiding Facebook.
a) I waste enough time on the Internet
b) I know myself – the possibility of obsessing and indulging my paranoia about friends, invitations, who to ask, how to refuse, the possibility of entangling myself with people I am fearful of being entangled with (notwithstanding the possibility of wonderful new entanglements…its just too much. I have neurosis to cope with…
c) I think I have quite enough personal information about myself on the Internet thank you very much..
so em, no Facebook for now ”
Simply brilliant! And so true for so many of us who like to at least try keep our sanity
Joseph said,
November 5, 2007 at 11:36 pm
“absolutley with you on the Derek Mooney thing. He was just about bearable on Saturday mornings with Mooney Goes Wild when he had Eanna and Richard with him full time to shut him up now and again. Now, however he just prattles on and on and on and on……..
They should call te show Mooney Talks Shite!
Byeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!”
Again Simply brilliant! Totally agree!
But I am afraid I have to add that I think Ryan Tubridy is even worse and while he may well be a nice guy in real life? He is easily the worst TV person and chat show person I can think of right now.
He is bad [very bad] on radio but on TV he is positively the most cringe inducing, annoying and frankly incompetent TV person. His show is show bad it is unreal to watch. He makes sucking up a new art form! But mainly he looks awful sounds awful, has zero charisma and is totally unprofessional. Plus fake and soooooooooo phoney!
For example he effectively humiliates many of his guests when he goes into the audience to do his highly embarrassing thing where he first asks someone to get out and side on the ground while he acts luke a total twit and asks people in the audience their name and what do they do! – then makes a stupid comment about this. [Pat Kenny does not do this]
All the while the guest is left hanging like a spare tool and often clearly very uncomfortable or even irate at being put in that position.
In short Tubridy is a complete disaster and there is no reason on earth that I can think of as to how the hell he is on TV let alone the radio
Sarah said,
November 6, 2007 at 12:18 pm
oh dear..that’s very harsh. I think he’s much better than Kenny on the TV – he’s relaxed for starters.
And the radio programme I generally enjoy and think its come on hugely in the past year – I just want to be treated with more respect as a listener…
Maria said,
November 6, 2007 at 1:59 pm
Damn I just posted a long post and it got lost cos I’d entered the email address incorrectly. Sheesh..
Anyone noticed the way they (Anne Doyle & Co) over-pronounce words on the 9o’c news. ISSSue for ishue, sexYOUal for sexual… irritating. Who speaks like that in real life.
Tubridy sucks on radio but that could be the format of his programme, always skims the surface – comes across as glib. He’s not too bad on TV though, enjoyed Esther Rantzen the other night. Now there’s a pro.
Sarah said,
November 6, 2007 at 2:20 pm
oh but last night on the 9pm news Robert Shortt’s report opened with There’s two things……THERE ARE THERE ARE, when its more than one, THERE ARE. I keep hearing this “there’s” business. STOP STOP STOP. THERE ARE!!!
Joseph said,
November 7, 2007 at 1:05 am
I still have to say that Tubridy is far worse on TV than radio and I just assumed that was accepted consensus because heretofore I have only heard people say that he was utterly rubbish on TV but less so on radio.
I can’t believe people can not see how bad he is? He is up there with that guy from the English class which has got ot be the worst piece of garbage since Ed Burns was given a sitcom that was arguably worse.
Betty said,
November 7, 2007 at 11:46 am
Mary O’Rourke P_R_O_N_O_U_N_C_E_S all her words C_O_R_R_E_C_T_L_Y
Tomaltach said,
November 12, 2007 at 11:23 am
Anyone read Olivia O’Leary’s review of “Luck and the Irish” in the IT a couple of weeks ago. She wasn’t overly impressed with Foster’s analysis of the changes in Ireland since 1970. If you’re bored with debate about the origins of the celtic (seltic!) tiger turn away now. She reckoned he was putting much of it down to good fortune, while ignoring the genuine efforts made by Irish government, Irish agencies (IDA etc), Irish business, and our use of Eu funds, and education yada yada yada.
I have always found Foster provocative, but he tends to push the revisionist argument too far. Way too anglocentric. The story of Irish history needed to be rebalanced – from the Christian brother variety, or the latter day SF 800 years of oppression stuff – but much of that rebalance has taken place (perhaps since TW Moody challenged his colleagues to move away from the traditionalist ‘history as morality tale’ when he said Irish historians needed to wage a “mental war of liberation from servitude to the myth”.)
BTW, anyone read Foster’s new book? For me, not yet, it’s at the back of a long (and thanks to the birth of my son, slowly moving) list.
but mostly 
Leon said,
November 19, 2007 at 1:14 pm
Foster is an Englishman; being born in a stable doesn’t make one a horse.
As such it is no surprise that he is anglocentric.
Myles said,
December 6, 2007 at 11:15 pm
Foster IS NOT English. He was born in Waterford and went to Trinity. His father was an Irish teacher.
I think Leon’s snide comment rather proves Foster’s point.