First of all, an audience for the first round of the competition? That bit generally known for poor deluded gaums revealing the chasmic discrepancy between what they think sound like and what the rest of the aurally-competent know to be true? It’s bad enough there are millions at home laughing without them having to deal with it in real time, with restless bloodlusters turning on an emotional sixpence when  the girl who reckons she’s Tina Turner couldn’t hit a note with a homing missile, or when a man develops an unwitting erection while singing.

No doubt this decision has been inspired by that other Simon Cowell-infused arsefest, Britain’s Got Talent, where audience disembowling of contestants is as integral a part of the recipe as pathos-laden ugly duckling singers and the tears of judges. I’ve only seen fifteen minutes of the show directly, during which a dog tapdanced to a Fred Astaire, prompting Cowell to claim it was “the best thing I’ve ever seen”. Which must have left Sinitta a bit put out.

Though while the histrionic mess that is Britain’s Got Talent or X-Factor seems to showing no signs of stopping, at least one show of the reality stable is being put out to pasture. Big Brother may have been the Pandora who opened the reality TV box, from hence all manner of evil has since come, but I don’t feel quite as much hostility to the source as most people do. What began as a kind of grand social experiment may have been co-opted by the tabloid mainstream in extremis, but amidst all the controversy it stirred up it could provide some fascinating TV, and like it or not it has shaped the decade in all manner of ways.

Reality TV, such as it is, may not be perfect, and it’s merely a spoke in the wheel that’s been at the height of it’s powers for a while but will revolve agin to be replaced by some other staple of programming. But until that happens, the reality genre will rope you in one way or another. Even me.

For you see, much as I loathe the likes of X-Factor, I absolutely love Strictly Come Dancing. As someone who suspects they may have been a 50′s song and dance man in a past life, Strictly hits all my buttons. The fact that the show is based around learning a skill from scratch, a bloody difficult one at that, appeals to me too, as opposed to X-Factor, where the point seems to be a year’s worth of fame for someone and ritual humiliation for everyone else.

The other thing I love about it though is the effect it has on men. While dudes can use Cheryl Cole as a pretext, or indeed the only text, to watch X-Factor, watching a show about the supposedly unmanly field of dancing is a much harder man sell. And yet, the amount of  soldiers, carpenters and other such ‘ard grafters I know who watch the show would truly surprise you. In one particular case, I heard a story of workmen in a hotel asking the barman to “turn on that ‘oul ballroom shite”, as if the swears would mask his love of the magic of dance. He was fooling nobody, of course.

Next week Strictly starts it’s seventh run up as far as Christmas, thus sorting out my Saturday evening viewing for a few months to come. Seems nobody is beyond the bite of the reality bug.

One thing that I’ve found particularly remarkable of late is the truly dire level of public discourse, in this country and beyond. In America, the idea of giving healthcare  to uninsured people is so unseemly it’s causing catatonic fits in town halls around the country, fuelled by vested interests propagating mind-bending truth contortions and, in some cases, just plain making shit up. And so, what would appear to be a pretty rational attempt to try and insure nearly 50 million Americans has been hijacked by those who swear blind that the government are drawing up death lists and marching old people to gulags.

The most frustrating thing about arguments like this is that logic or well-informed opinion are no match for an iron-clad conviction, whether it’s passively assumed from the talking head who shouts loudest on the TV or radio,  or pulled from whichever orifice these ideas come from. As Jewish Congressman Barney Frank said to that now infamous woman who castigated him for supporting a “Nazi” policy, you may as well argue with a dining room table.

I wish to hell this type of thing was restricted to an “Only in America” guffaw file, but no joy, alas, because we’ve got Lisbon Treaty II: Beyond Thunderdome to misrun and misrepresent soon. Not perhaps since Toto Schillachi has a European creation caused so much ire on this island of ours, and with October hurtling at us at untold speed the rhetoric is only going to be dialled up from here. Now, speaking as a bit of a Europhile, in the interest of fairness I must say I’ll be voting yes, but it’s not as if I have a problem with the No side by default, it’s the lack of any decent rational argument against the treaty that gets to me.

In fact, so tired was I by claims of us losing our Commissioner, our regional influence, our neutrality, our minimum wage, our tax bands, our ethics laws, basically everything short of our bloody car keys, that I took that most drastic of steps, and read The Lisbon Treaty, to see once and for all.

First of all, while it’s not going to be a best-selling paperback classic, it’s certainly not the inscrutable drivel it’s been claimed to be. Yes, it’s lengthy and complex, but you’d be hard-pressed to find a law of this magnitude that isn’t, and yes it makes continual references back to previous paragraphs and treaties, but if you can follow a Tarantino film, you can follow The Lisbon Treaty.

As for the objections, well it’s fair to say that a great deal of people on either side of the No side are going to be so against it by default for their own political positions. On the left, Sinn Féin have repeated broadly the same concerns to every European treaty since 1973, and Joe Higgins’ principled brand of socialism is irreperably at odds with the pragmatic nature of the EU, and indeed governments in general. On the right, you have Eurosceptics inherently opposed to the whole project, and the religious right, eminently audible in this debate, who aren’t so much opposed to a European wide confederation as they are to the fact that it’s not administered from The Vatican.

But for the myriad undecideds, all 25% of them, who have no particular feelings towards the EU, have been put off by the spin or whose vote is just generally up for grabs, well consider this:

“The Union is founded on the values of respect for human dignity, freedom, democracy, equality, the rule of law and respect for human rights, including the rights of persons belonging to minorities. These values are common to the Member States in a society in which pluralism, non-discrimination, tolerance, justice, solidarity and equality between women and men prevail.”

That’s how the Lisbon Treaty starts out, and I think you’d be hard-pressed to find anything objectionable in that. While the Treaty deals with a great many things, syntax changes are amongst the most prominent, replacing the word “assent” with  ”consent”, important with vital, that kind of thing, but even the substantive changes aren’t indicative of a sinister EU land grab. Take as an example the language around one of the No side’s centrepiece arguments, defence:

“The Union shall respect the equality of Member States before the Treaties as well as their national identities, inherent in their fundamental structures, political and constitutional, inclusive of regional and local self-government. It shall respect their essential State functions, including ensuring the territorial integrity of the State, maintaining law and order and safeguarding national security. In particular, national security remains the sole responsibility of each Member State.”

So EU conscription isn’t exactly on the cards with a statement like that, especially so when you consider the right to conscientious objection is enshrined in the Fundamental Rights Charter. But while the title “Common Security & Defence Policy” may understandably raise eyebrows, it clearly states that any defence decision would have to be taken unanimously and within the confines of existing UN and NATO  rules. It spells out what such common policies may entail here:

“…joint disarmament operations, humanitarian and rescue tasks, military advice and assistance tasks, conflict prevention and peace-keeping tasks, tasks of combat forces in crisis management, including peace-making and post-conflict stabilisation.”

Needless to say, Irish soldiers have been doing exactly that domestically and internationally for years already. And if you’re wondering about that clause that suggests that in a time of international crisis we’d be compelled to throw every weapon in our arsenal behind a collective solidarity:

“If a Member State is the victim of armed aggression on its territory, the other Member States shall have towards it an obligation of aid and assistance by all the means in their power, in accordance with Article 51 of the United Nations Charter. This shall not prejudice the specific character of the security and defence policy of certain Member States.”

On that other hot button topic however, abortion, it’s harder to offer a defence with citations. Mainly, because references to abortion are non-existant. There is literally more in The Lisbon Treaty about space exploration than there is about abortion. In fact, the only thing I could find resembling anything close was in the first two articles of the laudable Charter of Fundamental Rights:

“Human dignity is inviolable. It must be respected and protected.”

and

“Everyone has the right to life”

Which, frankly, are two sentences you could see in an edition of Alive! at any given stage. Perhaps my favourite section in the whole Treaty though is on the topic of regional development, and one of the reasons I’m such a big fan of the EU in the first place:

“Among the regions concerned, particular attention shall be paid to rural areas, areas affected by industrial transition, and regions which suffer from severe and permanent natural or demographic handicaps such as the northernmost regions with very low population density and island, cross-border and mountain regions.”

The effect that the EU has had on rural Ireland these past 36 years, through Development Fund-funded infrastructure, CAP-funded agricultural competitiveness or Peace-funded youth and community projects, has arguably been worth the admittance fee alone, and it’s a commitment that puts our own government to absolute shame. But of course, none of this guarantees a Yes vote in the slightest.

Be it through an aggravated frustration with the government or politics at large, ideological entrenchment or, in some cases, a weary, baseless stubborness, debate on the merits or detriments of the Treaty itself has been hijacked by those who are projecting their own issues onto a materially unconnected surface. The lobby group Cóir, for example, presumably suggested the new minimum wage could be €1.84 after Lisbon because it sounds at least 75% Orwellian, and their deposing of the Easter Rising signatories into their argument is nothing short of cheap emotional manipulation. Ireland only won any measure of freedom when Griffith, Collins and the other envoys plenipotentiary sat across the table with the British and hammered out a deal. We did not win it by putting ourselves under siege.

Ultimately though, no matter who endorses it or abhors it, the Treaty’s fate rests in the hands of the people who show up on polling day. And while it’s nearly as lengthy and difficult as this article, it is incumbent upon everyone who votes to make up their own mind with the facts at hand, and not singularly on the advice of a local representative, lobby group or flippant postering. With the range and scale of the problems we face today, complexity is no excuse. There is no Lisbon Treaty for Dummies available, because it isn’t meant for dummies. The Lisbon Treaty will be nothing short of pivotal for Ireland’s future  whether it succeeds or fails, but unless we can get back to a position where we debate the facts intelligently and not water our arguments down to ill-informed slogans, we’re in big danger of losing something a lot more precious than anything Europe could take away.

So what is this genius topic that has restored my joke de vivre? Eh, ice-cream. But not just ice cream, thinking up ice cream flavours that could be endorsed by pop stars. When ideas come to me I try not to think too much about where they come from, but the fact that it was very hot at the time and I was listening to Radcliffe and Maconie on the radio, two men whose musical mirth I hope to emulate some day, probably has something to do it. It started lightly enough, with Milli Vanilla, Mango Jerry and whatnot, but then I posted my idea on the global zetigiest machine that is Facebook. And that’s when a throwaway epigram became, in the most curiously organic way, an honest-to-God game, a competition. Or “a most incidious and virulent internet meme”, as one contributor put it.

From Thursday night to Sunday morning, a merry band of  time-rich musos came up with 216 such popstar-inspired flavours, some of them outlandish, some of them bizarre, most of them plain hilarious. To that end, much props have to go out to those who saw my initially insanity and pitched in some of their own: to Louise Higgins, the irresistible force to my punstoppable object, and her cohorts Steve McConville and Barry Magee; to Kevin Ward, perhaps the funniest man who’s never been on Radio 4; to Mike Dunbar, who is essentially my English equivalent; and to Claire Shepherd, who despite only coming to the game about 3/4 of the way through the game offered some real gems.

So, in an attempt to make us all feel like our comedic efforts haven’t gone to waste, I thought I’d post the complete list here, so that we can look back at this list years from now, bask in its’ nerdy glory and think to ourselves, “Wow, we were funny/unemployed back then.”

As you may notice, the flavours sort of go in cycles, biscuit flavourings were big for a while, then more alcoholic ones took precedence, sometimes flavours that only Heston Blumenthal would make would come up and some of them may be obscure Irish confection you didn’t realise exist, but however palatable a summer treat some of them may sound, here goes the complete list. Enjoy!

Milli Vanilla,
Mango Jerry,
Corinne Bailey-Cheescake,
Barry White Chocolate,
Scritti Politti Tutti Frutti,
Bananarama,
McAlmond and Butterscotch,
Nena Cherry sorbet,
Godley and Creme Egg,
Black Eyed Pecan,

Kiwi Dee,
Tiramisuzie Quattro,
The Passions Fruit,
CoffeELO,

Hall & Oatmeal Raisin Cookie,
Berry Manilow,
Fiona Apple sherbet,
Not-so-hot Chocolate,
Durian Durian,
Fudge Lovin Criminals,
Arctic Roll Monkeys,

The Peach Boys,
Lychee Li,
Sigur Raspberry,
Ice Tea – ly brothers,
Girlfriend in a Honeycomba,
Urban Cookie Dough Collective,
Ne-yopolitan,
Feast,
Hot Choc Chip,
James Brownie,

Lemony Kravitz,
Rage Against the Praline,
Doop The Doop,
Simon Le Bonbon,
(Baked) Alaska In Chains,
Joe Strumm ‘n Raisin,
Carol Double Decker,
Skakespear Sister,
Plum-a Faith,
Chaka De-moussaka 

CaraMel Tormé,
Megadeth by Chocolate,
Nat King Cola,
Calpol Young (get to it, pharmaceutical industry!),
OranGina G,
Thom Yorkie,
Tiffin-y,
Pavlovan Morrison,
Black Forest Gatori Amos,
Britney Spearmint,

Raspberry Coulis-o,
Twix Smith,
Donna Summer Fruits,
Sparklerhorse,
Big Countreacle,
Bangles Twister,
The Carte Doors,
HB-52s,
AlMundy,
Mark Cone.

Fat Frogs Die In Hot Cars,
BTO M&Ms,
Wayne Coynetto, lead singer of the F-lemon Lips,
Stevie Wobbly Wonder.
Malteaser Butler,
Chaka Flan
Eclair Grogan,
Kylie Minoghurt,
Tone Loc Ice,
Taking Back Sundae.

Knickerbocker Rory Gallagher,
Oreo Speedwagon,
Honeydrew Lachey
Haagen Nas
Helen Shapi-Rolo
Macadamien Rice
Luther Vancandyfloss,
Bob Geltoffee 
REM-enthal
Bis-tachio
Peters and Lea and Perrin.

The Caramelvins
Super Split Enz.
Viennetta James
Limey Fisher,
Pear Supply,
Mr. Mister Freeze
Emersonny Delight, Lake and Palmer,
Johnny Cashew,
Fish Food,
The Chi Tea Lites,

Steely Dandelion and Burdock
Daft Punkoconut. Sprinkled with Stardust, no doubt.
Paolo Nutty-ni
Rick Parfait
Mariah Cherry
Jelly and The Pacemakers
Haircut 100′s and thousands
The Profiterolling Stones

Brandy Crawford, with her hit performance with the Crusaders, Sweet Life.
Thorntony Bennett,
Jammy Davis Jnr,
Fred Astairey Milk
Cognac West

Mika-dos,

Terry Hall-Gold

Aretha Franklinberry
Cheese Boards of Canada
ABBAnana
Irv Biscotti of Murder Inc. Records
Tony Viscount-i, Teenage Fanclub Orange
Jackson 5-4-3-2-1
Arlo Guth-Riesen

Fleet) Fox’s Mint (Royale) Echo (& The Bunnymen)
Kit Kat Power
Anne Murray Mints
Solerophonics,
Twister Sister,
Vanilla Choc Ice,
Marilyn Magnum,
Pear Jam,
 
Captain Quencher Beefheart and his Magic Band.
Fruit Past-Elaine Page
Josh Fritter

Absinthe-le Minds,
 
Whiskey Lo Tengo
WKD Lang

Sonny & Schloer
Cannon and ScrewBall
Stiff Little Fingers of Fudge,
Matt Munroly Poly
Watermelon Boys

Vanessa Passion Fruit

Persimmon and Garfunkel

Skunk Anan-iseed
Greengage Day
My Name Is Mocha, (suitable for Susanne Vegans, but you can only get it at Tom’s Diner.)
The Captain Morgan & Tenille,
Sambuca T & The MGs
Paul Weller-aisin,
Hazelnut O’Connor,

 Jefferson Star(bar)ship,
Giorgio Moro-der

Double Decker & The Aces.
Chompetty and The Heartbreakers.
Rocky Nick Rhodes,

Advocaat Stevens,
New York Bols
Bollingerry Rafferty,
Lil’ Christal
ActiviAlthea and Donna

But while I value the significance of voting immensely, I have to say I’m not very good at it. Well, at least as regards picking the winner is concerned. My first general election two tears ago, I was one of 2.79% Labour voters in the constituency. The man I voted for the Senate  got less votes in a nationwide election than I did running for Youth Council in five schools in east Donegal. I was rather fond of the Lisbon Treaty, actually. But while I’m dreadful as regards picking winners, I do fancy myself a bit as a pundit, and at the risk of making an ass out of myself in a style similar to one of those American spiritualists who claim to talk to people’s dead aunts in big auditoriums, here’s my thruppeny bit…

North West:

My old stomping ground is an odd mix of loony orthodoxy, with FF and FG always guaranteed a seat on one hand and yet that rural independent streak always tends to throw the odd curveball on the other. Dana worked the bonkers vote to the hilt back in 1999, but she was ousted by the considerably more liberal independent Marian Harkin. Chances are she’ll keep her seat, despite the presence of the latest maverick in town, the Dana-endorsed Declan Ganley. Being at the forefront of the Lisbon Treaty’s No Campaign hasn’t translated into big money prizes for the multi-millionaire anti-elitist, and he’ll probably be doing well to tip 10%. A much more likely challenge will come from that other leading Lisbon light, Sinn Féin, although Padraig MacLochlainn’s chances effectively ended the minute his fellow Donegalese Pat “The Cope” Gallagher decided to run. The Cope will get a seat, but the decision for him to run smacks of robbing Peter to pay Paul: His return to Brussels will precipitate a by-election, and the current state of the FF party in south west Donegal is like something J.B. Keane would’ve wrote, all leading towards an uncomfortable high-noon  for the government.

South:

One of the few places where Fianna Fáil won’t look too embarrassed statistically because of Brian Crowley’s personal popularity, but he’s the only thing going for them here, as Ned O’Keefe will wish he’d forgot to send in his declaration forms. Fine Gael have an interesting internal battle for their seat, with GAA superstar Sean Kelly likely to topple incumbent Colm Burke. The final seat is an intriguing battle between Labour’s Alan Kelly, Sinn Féin’s Taoireasa Ferris and sitting MEP Kathy Sinnott, which will all hinge on the musical chairs of multiple counts. Sinnott is the most likely casualty of that tussle and good feeling for Labour might just push Kelly over the edge.

East:

Labour momentum will be a factor in Nessa Childers’ likely election to Europe too, which will cause all manner of consternation in Fine Gael. Their current two seats was a bit of an unsustainable fluke to begin with, but any party expecting 40% odd of the vote and only get one seat for their trouble will feel rather aggrieved. Mairead McGuinness’ vote tally may prove embarrasingly big when her running mate John Paul Phelan loses out. Liam Aylward will survive with a seat, but it won’t be easy.

Dublin:

If the east is a bit of a dull contest, it’s anything but in the capital. Shrinking from 4 to 3 seats means one of the incumbents will lose out and, incomprehensibly, FF’s Eoin Ryan is the favourite to go. Mary Lou McDonald of Sinn Fein is vulnerable, and much-loved Socialist Joe Higgins all of a sudden seems a fair shot. The bellicose Gay Mitchell is a dead cert, as is the bearded Proinseas de Rossa, but the third seat is all over the place. My instinct is that Ryan will do better than expected and Higgins slightly worse, but if left wing transfers from de Rossa and former Green MEP Patricia McKenna go his way he could pull away from McDonald, leapfrogging Ryan at the last minute.

Dublin is also witness to two by-elections in Dublin South and Central. In South George Lee looks likely to cash in on his celebrity status and commanding knowledge of economics, but Central is rather more inscrutable. Maurice Ahern may stop some of the bleeding in the constituency his brother effectively rules, but he won’t win either. It could be any of Labour’s Ivana Bacik, Fine Gael’s Paschal Donohue and Sinn Féin’s Christy Burke to take the seat, and trying to analyse placings and potential transfers is harder than organising an orchestra of cats. Six to five and pick ‘em, as Leo McGarry would say.

Northern Ireland:

Unionists seem intent on eating their young of late. The DUP is suffering from clusters of defections from within, the Traditional Unionist Voice from without, and a candidate in Diane Dodds who tops obnoxiousness polls if little else. Her appalling display in a BBC debate with arch-enemy Jim Allister, himself hardly a beacon of moderation, where they tore lumps out of each other over who was the most dedicated to Unionist fundamentalism, left a nasty taste in the mouth, not to mention bringing up memories of a kind of political posture that should have no place in modern Northern politics. Allister and Dodds don’t deserve to have a larnyx, much less a vote in this campaign. That in-fighting on the right wing of Unionism plays completely into the hands of not just the Sinn Féin bogeymen but the UUP’s Jim Nicholson, who’s also a partial Tory now apparently. His quiet, dignified manner will probably see him become the only Unionist voice elected this time around, with the SDLP’s Alban Maginnis benefitting from both transfers from the Alliance and Greens and the chasmic Unionist vote.

See, I’d never have got 1,000 words out of writing about Christmas. Incidentally, if the above is proved to be completely wrong, someone has vandalised the post. Ahem.

Now I’ve heard of relaligning elections before, but how often does that pertain to colours? Fine Gael, long associated with dark blue, have taken on a green tint in their European election posters for Senator Joe O’Reilly, capitalising on the fact that green-liveried parties have been devalued somewhat of late. Meanwhile, Pat “The Cope” Gallagher has gone all cerulean, presumably in a bid to hide the fact he’s a Fianna Fáil candidate. And whenever a heralded local man such as “The Pat” has to revort to such dirty tricks as sky blue posters to get elected, you know things are dire for the Soldiers of Destiny.

Hearing of FF canvassing practice in this campaign it sounds, in some cases, like a morose documentary about the demise of the railways. “Aye, the Fianna Fáil lads don’t seem to come round here much anymore, I blame the economy myself”. In the instances that FF candidates do summon the courage to knock on a few doors, they seem to be getting more than a few spleens thrown at them. I’ve heard more than one instance of party operatives being chased at doors where they’d be getting tea and battenburg cake in previous years. Their election material seems to reflect their chastened attitude.

Leafing through my local FF councillor’s godawfully produced booklet, complete with mid sentence capitalising, unnecessary quotation marks and a jazz-like syntax, the crux of his case was that he always tried his best, even if he wasn’t working on world-changing stuff. In other words, please don’t hurt me. It’s a far cry from the rather more triumphant rhetoric of  “Bertie’s Team” at the last election, where it sounded like Ireland was working as a waitress in a cocktail bar before we met Fianna Fáil.

Considering the government’s myriad problems, Declan Ganley must be a bit dissapointed he’s not gaining quite as much traction in the North West constituency as he’d hoped. But since his menacing posters, complete with grin that suggests he’s about to say “No Mr. Cowan, I expect you to die!”, aren’t doing the trick he’s taken on a pretty interesting schtick: giving out legal advice. Campaign supporters were last week giving out non-descript looking leaflets directing you to a website to go to if you’ve been shafted by legal counsel. Makes you think his economic plans revolve around consolidating our national debt into one managable monthly repayment.

While Ganley’s unsettling smile hardly rocks my world, there are plenty of candidates taking this election to strange and sexy new places. Sterling copper Ray Carling from TV’s Ashes To Ashes  once claimed that “Female detective inspectors should look like a cross between Betty Turpin and HMS Belfast, they should not be shag worthy”, and it’s often been the same case with politicians. Step forward the positively Venutian Newbridge Town Council candidate, Emma Kiernan: http://www.finegael.ie/representatives/lea/index.cfm/type/person/pkkey/1093/pkey/655/ikey/18

As if looking like one of the Robert Palmer girls wasn’t enough, she’s become embroiled in quite the media, hehe, bust up of late, a picture surfacing of her at a party with a female friend grasping her breasts, her exqusite breasts, with the open-mouthed wondrous expression of a Japanese gameshow host. While Emma would no doubt like people to be concentrating on her policies rather than her looks, you have to think that any situation that propels a first time town council candidate to national prominence and makes her a shoo-in for comfortable election should be, ahem, taken with both hands. Let’s just hope this new combination of pretty candidates and enclosed ballot spaces doesn’t precipitate any underhand tactics.

It’s not as facetious as it sounds. People start supporting football teams from a young age for such spurious reasons as the colours they wear, a player on the team with a funny name or their Dad likes them, and religious organisations get you involved when you’re too young and unintelligible to do anything about it. What those two things have in common though is that both often end up fostering an unfettered, lifelong loyalty, however abstruse the introduction was.

It goes without saying that my interest and involvement in the EU is based nowadays on a more logical and intellectual sphere, but the fact I was intrigued cosmetically by the EEC as a child certainly did no harm. Not everyone was as interested as me mind, and it wasn’t helped by the fact that they seemed to keep changing things all the time.

We’d all just got used to the idea of the EEC in school when it became the EU, we were just about remembering  the cast of 12 western European countries when Austria, Finland and Sweden joined, so now we had fifteen countries to remember. By the time the ten others were introduced in 2004, most students of my, by then, teen age had long since forgotten their primary school dalliance with Europe, and had much more urgent if ephemeral things on their mind. And so, for a whole generation the EU is much less a pan-European political organisation as a relic of an education long since confined to the dusty filing cabinet of the memory, along with the theorem of Pythagoras, the conditional mood and the function of the proximal convoluted tubule. And not much more relevant either.

Ask your average Irish citizen what they think of Europe and it’s just as likely you’ll get their opinions on merits of The Final Countdown as a power rock classic than the inner workings of the Berlaymont. More often than not, the elections of MEPs are used as a  de facto referendum on the government of the day, leaving European issues well on the periphery. And with the voters I’ve talked to, the main issue on the table this year  is “taking vengeance” on the current government, pushing Europe further down the list of priorities.

Even when we vote directly on Europe, like with Lisbon last year, we struggle to debate it on the merits alone. In many ways our initial rejection of the Nice Treaty was very much for  juvenile grounds, a mix of geographic embarrassment  for failing to keep up with the political effects precipitated by the fall of the Berlin Wall and the USSR and the fear that if the EU absorbed ten small new countries into the fold then Ireland, long the baby of the community, would become a kind of continental Jan Brady, which would explain our recent dismal performances at the Eurovision Song Contest. Nobody finds our kitsch singing and dancing cute anymore, and it kills us inside.

Even though we did eventually pass Nice, that “What about me?” attitude has simmered on and it was the beating of the Lisbon Treaty. Systemic hubris from the pro-treaty side allowed the anti-treaty side, a motley group composed of the religious right, the far left, republicans and Bond villain pastiches, to frame the question and thus exploit both the inscrutable nature of the treaty and our own mixed thoughts and expectations from the EU. 

On one hand curbing the power and waste of those lousy bureaucrats in Brussels was a powerful electoral issue, yet the idea that the Commission would be streamlined from 27 to 18 members was even more anathema to us, because it’d mean we’d lose our Commissioner for five years out of every fifteen. The calls for a more accountable EU were loud and clear during the election, yet giving greater responsibility to the European Parliament, elected regionally and directly, and the Council of Ministers, chosen from elected national governments, was roundly eschewed. Small wonder we often need two votes to clarify these things.

What the EU means to Ireland is a difficult question to consider, mainly because  we haven’t the foggiest notion what it means. It’s up in our heads somewhere that it’s broadly beneficial to us, but we’re just not sure why. Or how. And while we’ve been poor at meeting Europe halfway of late, Europe’s advances haven’t exactly been universally engaging either, and that’s why the phenomenon of early classroom fascination is so important. The importance of EU involvement  not only has to be fostered from an early age but not allowed to drop off either. If people think of European Union not in terms of shadowy political officials with an air of menace but an institution that makes it beyond easy to go foreign for our holidays, funds almost every community and youth initiative going in the country, provides Irish industry with a willing market and the ability to compete, in other words an institution that effects us in a matter of ways every day, then indifference wouldn’t be so much of a viable option.

Having been part of a relatively small economic community for nearly thirty years, and being the poorest member thereof, to being part of a much larger EU as one of the wealthiest is something of a culture shock. The world is a very different place to what it was twenty years ago, and Ireland has been witness to a lot of that metamorphosis. A lot of issues are still in flux, both domestically and internationally, and we’re struggling to fully make sense of them. The new 27 member state EU is still very much finding its’ feet, but the countries on the darker side of what used to be the Iron Curtain will soon know the benefits of being involved all too well. And hopefully we in Ireland will remember them too.

But there’s another show recently that, while it has had less effect on me in the grand scheme, I’m sad to see go all the same. Seoige, a  polished banterfest hosted by two sexy sisters, had it’s last show transmitted last Friday, a victim of  RTÉ cutbacks, and with it a nation of men who wouldn’t be seen dead watching daytime TV otherwise rubbed their thighs in a Vic Reeves fashion for the last time. It’s a shame that it’s gone, not just because Síle’s insane dolphin impression is a national treasure, but that because it was one of the few daytime magazines that was at all watchable.

The Afternoon Show, for instance, isn’t a patch on Live At Three (Derek Davis is much needed back on our screens), Loose Women is the type of show where I’d be afraid to watch it for more than a few minutes lest I get brainwashed, but the worst effort of all is from, who else, TV3, with their midday offering called, accurately if nothing else, Midday.

Now, one hand, you have to give credit to TV3 for attempting to make some in-house programming to make them look less like ITV Ireland, but there are only so many marks for effort anyone can give out when they’re as “dear jesus, make it stop!” bad as Ireland AM, Tonight With Vincent Browne and indeed Midday. It’s often said of TV shows that they don’t really know what they are, and in this case it’s really true. Of the five or so panellists they have on every day, three of them are regular presenters on other shows, often spreading links between the three of them, oftentime leaving the audience, to say nothing of the other panellists, not a small bit bemused. Whereas RTÉ are cutting the wages of their bigger stars, TV3 seem to be putting them on as many shows as possible to make sure they really earn their money. If only it was the format though that was lacking. On the day after President Obama’s Innauguration, the panel were engaging in a conversation that’s very much the station’s calling card: Fashion, and the fabulous celebrities who wear it. In the middle of analysing the choice of Michelle Obama’s overgarments one panellist made reference to “the old guy” at the back. They guy in question was Senator Edward Kennedy. Good to see his 46 years in the US Senate didn’t go to waste, then. Mercifully though, I tend not to catch too much of that type of thing because the radio rules supreme at Casa Duffy until 3:25, when my TV world starts to make sense again.

I’ve waxed lyrical about the virtues of Countdown on this here blog before, but its’ presence as the intelligent oasis in a desert of banality isn’t to be underestimated. From the suave and assured presentation of Jeff Stelling, the infinite lexicon of Susie Dent, the institutional goodwill that comes with over a quarter century of  being on air and the fact it’s the only show you’re likely to see ads for ear wax relief on, Countdown is still an absolute joy to watch. Of course, there is one other crucial thing I’ve thus far omitted that keeps the show so eminently watchable. Riley be thy name.

Frankly, there’s too much to admire about Rachel Riley. The fact she’d never looked into a camera save for holiday pictures prior to auditioning for her current job and yet still got it, the fact she’s a couple of months younger than me and she’s slipped right in to a TV institution with ease, the fact that at her time at Oxford (Oxford for Christ’s sake!) she was considered “one of the most talented physicists her teacher has taught in 30 years” (it says a lot about me that I find this incredibly sexy), plus the fact she looks like Venus’ little sister make it pretty easy to understand why her army of fans grows with every passing abstruse maths problem solved.

So enamoured was I in fact that when Jeff announced a limerick competition, the winner of which would get a Countdown Teapot, I sent one in, dedicated to Her Ladyship. To my considerable delight, I got an email a few weeks ago saying that my own humble five line epigram would be read out on the episode broadcast the 8th May, mollifying  my fears that I had crossed that fine line between healthy crush into mental. And not only am I not the only person to verbalise my fondness for Miss Rachel, but some people have put music to it too.

Introduced over Facebook  by a mutual friend because she thought I might be of help in getting his picture taken with a mannequin (it’s like I don’t even recognise bizarre anymore, it happens so often), Mike Dunbar is a comedian from the north east of England with whom it turns out I’ve a lot in common: We’re both fans of The West Wing, Garth Merenghi’s Darkplace, and Rachel Riley. His song, The Ballad of Rachel Riley, which can both be found at http://mikedunbarcomedy.wordpress.com/podsongs/ and is great, was described by the lady herself as “Hilarious, but not funny enough to prevent me seeking a restraining order”, and is the type of song you’d expect Wayne Coyne to write if he watched the show.

For all my lamentations of the loss of Boston’s most entertaining lawfirm, it’s still nice to know that TV can move people to activity, creativity and puppy dog affection, and for that Rachel Riley should feel pretty proud of herself. That and the fact that she knows her 76 times tables inside out. And if I can make her laugh even the slightest bit at my limerick when it’s read out next Friday, I can retire a happy man.

I used to study atlases intently, especially the political maps (mountains and valleys weren’t really for me), even then I was fascinated by the nature and location of borders, and with the additional information on flags, capital cities, national demographics, languages and religious make-up, it’s been the bedrock of most my interests developed since. Even now, I’m still fascinated by and feel very comfortable with a map in my hand. Which is just as well really, because I’m useless without them.

I’ve always been a little disoriented in places I don’t know (I once walked from Galway City out to a few miles shy of the Gaeltacht in my first week in college) but last week in Belgium was just plain embarrassing. Flying into, ahem, South Brussels Airport, a name which stretches the truth to breaking point (it’s south of Brussels in the same way Belfast is south of Reykjavik) as opposed to my regular, much more central Brussels put me off just enough to miss my stop from Midi, overshooting it no Noord when I should’ve got off at Centraal, and then missed the first train back because I’d freaked myself out enough to be convinced I’d end up in Bruges or something. I fully deserved all the slagging I got from the friend I was meeting at Centraal, but if only my lack of direction was limited to a bingo tour of Brussels’ train stations.

The following night, what should have been a three minute walk from the park to the hotel took about an hour and a half and a lift back from the Arab district. This would’ve been OK if it was just me, but the fact I was walking home with someone made it a whole lot less funny. And needless to say, the profundityof one’s lostness is directly relative to the level of how much you’re wanting to impress the person with whom you’re lost. It’s presumably a law Isaac Newton forgot to wrote down, perhaps because he was too busy trying to find his way out of a large orchard with Mrs Newton.

The worst thing about getting lost, whether literally in Belgium or otherwise, is how easy it can be. One minute you’re on terra firma, the next you take one wrong turn, don’t pay as much attention as you ought to, or get caught up in where you ought to be rather than where you actually are, and suddenly you can find yourself a long way from what’s comfortable, in a lot of all-consuming trouble. And you sure as hell can’t unwalk any route, no matter how much you’d like to.

Come Sunday, I’ll be embarking on a journey into largely unchartered territory: going on work experience on Top Gear. The chance to work in Television Centre has been an ambition of mine since my atlas skimming days, and so I can’t help but feel tremendously excited about the unseen adventures that lie ahead.  In fact, it’s probably the type of place where wondering where the hell you are is encouraged.

It’s always nice to know where we stand, or know where we’re going, but we’re  all destined to stray at one point or another, so we shouldn’t fret too much about it. Lord knows worrying about your missteps won’t get you any less lost.  Rather than obsessing over the best routes, the best thing to do is just enjoy the journey and take it all on board. Wrong turns lead to destinations too.

While it may have started off as a fun and tongue-in-cheek idea, I am now deadly serious about becoming Captain #5 of Ireland’s longest sailing chat show ship. Amongst the 47 (edit, we’re now over 100 strong!) current members are not just good friends and well-wishers, but people I don’t know and even fans from overseas, including one from Luxembourg. Miriam O’Callaghan might be an expert political interviewer, but can she nail the Luxembourg demographics like I can? I doubt it.

I’m well aware that when it comes to being considered for the job I’m a bit of an underdog, but like in most classic bouts against the odds - David and Goliath, Mr. Smith and the U.S. Senate, Stephen Colbert and NASA – I’ve got one thing going for me: Unnervingly sturdy self-confidence.

If you’re not yet convinced that I’d be the ideal man to become Mr. Friday Night, allow me to give you a few further reasons that’ll leave you hardcore Duffyites.

- I’m young. Unfeasibly young. Previous presenters have all been so old they could’ve all taught Methusaleh fourth class maths, whereas a host that was born in the same year contraception was made legal in Ireland (1985, how depressing is that incidentally?) would bring the show right up to date.

- I’m liberal. Unfeasibly liberal. The Late Late has a habit of being ahead of the curve on social issues and broadening the nation’s collective mind, and who better to argue with bishops or Eoghan Harris than me?

- I’m inexperienced. Unfeasibly inexperienced. Some people might think that a solitary outing on RTÉ’s The Café, being interviewed in the back of a Renault Scenic for Hungarian TV on the EU’s youth policies or being the team captain on a live version of BBC comedy show Would I Lie To You? wasn’t really sufficient grounding for a shot at the top presenting job in the country. But they’d be wrong. Pat Kenny has been a TV presenter for years and he still looks at a camera as if Freddie Krueger is trapped in there, so being fresh and preconception-less is no bad thing. Besides, I’ve considerable experience as a radio broadcaster and writer of international renown, and if Sarah Palin can become Vice Presidential nominee by pissing about in a big house in Juneau, why can’t I be in line for a shot at The Late Late?

- I’ve got a large selection of ties, a must for any show host.

- I know RTÉ. Not so much about they work internally or anything, I’ve just been in there a few times and know where the studios and all are, which is a crucial but often overlooked element to being a show host.

- I can bring da pain if necessary. There’ll be no repeated utterances of “thank you” if a crazed man walks on my set , oh no!

- I’m a world beater in multiple demographics, including but not limited to: teenage girls, their mothers, fans of 1990′s football and elderly religious men.

- Some presenters struggle with light entertainment but excel with politics and vice versa. I can do both light hearted and serious, sometimes simultaneously.

- My choice of guests. My Late Late wouldn’t just have people plugging their newest shows or books or weight loss technique, there’d be just generally interesting people on who make for an engaging interview. Top of my list thus far are David Tennant, Clive James, Alan Alda, Murray Walker, James Spader, Tina Fey, Zig and Zag, Ken Bruce, Martin Sheen, Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, Mary Robinson and plenty more where that came from.  And The Saturdays, they would feature quite heavily too.

- Similarly, Brendan O’Connor, Brendan O’Carroll, Twink, Eoghan Harris, Linda Martin, Louis Walsh wouldn’t  be allowed within a mile of Montrose.

- I can ask a question without the benefit of cue cards or an obsessive desire to start another question before a previous answer is finished. Again, another crucial but often overlooked quality needed. Very often overlooked.

- I’ll bring back the old theme music and old “For Whom It Concerns” announcement. Gravitas like that is invaluable as well as timeless, and should never have been got rid of to begin with.

- My combined loves of dodgy jumpers, toys and books and the laughter of children would make my Late Late Toy Show the funnest in recorded history.

- Boston Legal has just finished on Living TV, so my Friday nights are totally free now.

So there you have it, proof if it was needed (it wasn’t) that I am the only man, or indeed woman, for the job. So come on, join the Duffy Revolution and make Friday nights watchable again!

While I had a brilliant if completely surreal night as part of a brilliant weekend at the north Antrim coast (youthwork residentials annexing a smalltown pub is really a site to see), the music played was not. The ubiquity of that  derivative, up-herself slag Gaga notwithstanding, there were a host of other songs played twice too – a mortal sin for DJ’s no matter how drunk your audience are, not to mention various 90′s rave tunes played without the slightest hint of irony, bound together by timeless, and by now soulless, hits such as Ivan Morrison’s Brown Eyed Girl (with reference to “makin’ love in the green grass” taken out for some reason, as if our drunkled sensitivities would be offended like), The Proclaimers’ 500 Miles (grab the person beside by the shoulders, shake vigourously) and, may God have mercy, Galway Girl. Now, having studied there for three years I can attest that their raven-haired populace are indeed quite alluring (now there’s a story for another day), but hearing anything ad nauseum will indeed make you sick. No chance of getting Animal Nitrate played, then.

Of course, this is very much the rule as opposed to the exception, and it’s one of the reasons why the club scene doesn’t really do that much for me. It might sound a bit snobbish or indeed curmudgeonly, and I suppose it is, but it seems that by and large clubs are the sole preserve of gentlemen for whom shirts with primary school maths copy book are the height of fashion, and girls for whom naturally pale skin is not an option. As such, pop dross, dance tunez and generally music to get blotto to rules OK in clubland, leaving anyone who doesn’t revere Maniac 2000 or the Toyota Starlet very much out in the cold.

It’s possibly a sign of my getting old and resentful that I hold the club scene in such contempt, but getting all dressed up to walk like a penguin on sticky floors, avoiding the clear and present danger of pint spill, negotiating zombie drunks and vying for audibility against state of the art soundsystems is just not for me anymore. Sure, clubs can be fun for a while, but there comes a time where you just want to sit in a quiet pub, having a nice chat with a small group of friends with some nice music on in the background and there not being some dude failing miserably to score a few feet away from me. And certainly no Lady Gaga.