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So Christmas is upon us!

In the spirit of the recession, I’m going to recycle this image from a previous post from last year (but the feeling is still there in full!)…

By the way, as you may know if you know me (or if you follow me on twitter!), I’ve been on Christmas FM presenting “Christmas Stories” as part of the Breakfast Show for the past few weeks. Tomorrow, Christmas Day itself, I’m on for a very special show – which I’m presenting myself – from 9 to 10am. I may even go in dressed as Santa Claus! (- like I did in work… see pic below!)

So, if you’re in Dublin or Cork – unwrap your presents with me on your radio! The station is on 100.3FM in Dublin and 106.7FM in Cork. If you’re anywhere else in the world, you can tune in via the web site. You can also read the news team blog there and check out some of the stories we’ve been reading out in the mornings!

A very happy and safe Christmas to you all!

Ah Sunday. Bloody Sunday. The Sabbath, if you will.

I was wondering actually… there were places at Electric Picnic to bounce about like a mad yoke, to rock your socks off, laugh your ass off, chill the heck out, eat, drink, and indeed be merry – places to indulge your inner child and places to sooth your soul… but I was wondering, was there any place for the religious among us (not that I was one) to indulge their need for a weekly service?

I know there was the inflatable church (on the way in from Hendrix, past the cinema) but all they were doing there, as far as I know, was mock wedding ceremonies (and the reception discos that followed) – and not the normal Sunday service. In fact, I think the closest you could get to a proper religious service (although I could be wrong!) was heading up to the main stage (met my friend Arun from my class in college on the way there, he was working in the bar – and my other college classmate Adam at the main stage itself – he was doing security) to praise the lorrrrrd (halle-bleedin’-lujah!) along with the Dublin Gospel Choir… which was fine by me.

On the only day of the weekend when the heavens decided to open and the rain came down, these guys and girls (including a friend of mine, Meabh) really lifted the damp spirits of the small crowd that showed up and got them moving to the beat. It was a great way to kick off the day.

*stretch* … out of “bed” (for which, read “ex German army sleeping bag with arms on top of bivvy bag on a bloody hard ground”) after about 3-4 hours sleep. It’s Saturday in Stradbally and I’ve a long enough day ahead, including meeting a bunch of twitter folk and, of course, attending a pile of gigs. Good times.

My first stop (after ‘breakfast’ – which consisted of a ham and cheese crêpe and a pretty decent coffee) was the pink boat near the Nokia dome for the tweet-up, where I met Amy (@amylong), Ben (@dinglesurf), Blaithín (@bngr), Anthony (@anthonymcg) and we all wandered down to the garden of peace and harmony (a.k.a. The Body + Soul Arena) and checked out the mind expanding and artistically inspiring stuff there…

Here we are:

L->R: bngr, anthonymcg, amylong, me. Photo taken by dinglesurf (not in the picture, obviously)

I’m home after a wonderful and wacky weekend in Stradbally and am ready to review it – so here’s Day One!

After setting up my tent in the Jimi Hendrix campsite (which took twice as long as it should have due to me putting the wrong poles in the wrong section first…), I decided to kill time by passing out for a while, getting up at 1 O’Clock to head up to the main arena. At the gate, we were told it would be open at 2 – so I headed off, got some food, dossed about and came back then – where we were told to come back at 4… which a large crowd of us duly did… and waited for an hour before they finally let us in at 5.

I wandered around a bit and found the main stage – which looked like the picture on the right… Oh! Look! Grass! (That didn’t last long…)

Anyway, here’s the acts I saw on Friday:

Larry Gogan – the legend of Irish radio – now confined to the weekends on RTÉ 2fm – is well known for the “Just-A-Minute Quiz”… a quickfire general knowlege quiz that, as the title suggests, takes just a minute to complete.

Today’s contestant, Ryan Kinealy from Galway, was clearly taking the piss out of Larry – pretending not to know any of the answers, repeatedly asking the veteran broadcaster for the next question, really pushing it at one point by asking “can I go on to Google for a sec?” (with Larry somewhat angrily replying “No, you can’t!”) and even looking for a third option in a “true or false” question.

This made for very uncomfortable (but pretty bloody funny) radio. I think Larry handled it as well as could be expected! Check it out:

Aside… What was the contestant saying at the end there before he got cut off? Sounded like “Cock balls! Cock balls! Cock balls! Ha ha ha ha …” to me… (!)