I’m impressed with a few people actually…

I was impressed with the people that turned up at football tonight in our local sports centre – enough, finally, that we didn’t have to call it a day and not play any more. I was impressed with how well they played – and somewhat impressed with myself that I made it through the night, could still hack it with the youngsters and that I actually managed to score a few goals! Good work football playing fellahs!

I was impressed with RTÉ’s new 4-part documentary, Bertie, (or what little I saw of it, at least) which documents the life and times of our last Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern. It was made by the same (also impressive) team (Miriam O’Callaghan’s company) who made “Haughey” – about our most infamous Taoiseach. Part two goes out next Monday night. Good work, telly production fellahs!

I was even impressed to learn that there’s an Irish version of Wikipedia… although I guess I should have realised that ages ago… Good work, language loving online encyclopedia localisation fellahs!

I’m somewhat impressed by Barack Obama (as, it seems, are both Damien and Fergal) and would like – and expect – to see him become President Elect of the United States within the next 36 hours. Good work, America’s first black President fellah!

Incidentally, I’m also impressed with Damien himself, in all honesty – with the incredible work he did as Ireland Offline chairman – as well as his creation of both the Irish Blog Awards and the Irish Web Awards. Good work, hard-working comms consultant fellah!

Speaking of awards – well done to Michele Neylon, who won two of the gongs at the NetVisionary awards recently – those being the awards for business blogging and Internet marketing. Good work, ISP running net visionary fellah!

I’m impressed by a few radio DJ’s too… particularly with Today FM’s Ray Foley and his sensible stance on the Brand/Ross controversy. Honestly – it’s a ridiculous situation that’s been blown out of proportion by bandwagon jumping complainers who, for the most part, probably never even listened to Russell Brand – or possibly even to the excellent BBC Radio 2. Seriously – read Ray’s blog post on the issue – it’s clever and well written, and while the story is still unfolding and we have yet to see the results of the BBC’s investigation into the incident, I find myself agreeing strongly with him… so good work, just-a-bit-of-fun-for-your-lunchtime fellah!

At the same time, while he doesn’t want to comment on the controversy itself, Rick O’Shea brings up another point that’s well worth considering… where do we draw the line? How far is too far in comedy? What rules should there be? How should the BBC react? … and so on… Good work, hairy-whiskey-drinking-good-point-making-DJ-slash-blogger fellah!

Finally, more DJ’s I’m impressed with are these two lads from CKY Radio, Montreal – who prank called Sarah Palin in a way that helped showed off her… erm… “qualities” even further. (Good work, prank-calling Canuck fellahs!) As if everything that Saturday Night Live has done to her (not to mention her own performances) hasn’t walloped her credibility hard enough, here she displays her incredible (and I mean “in-credible” in the literal sense) intellect when she believes she’s talking to President Sarkozy of France.

Canada seems cool…

(Yeah, this has just been a post of links… sorry.)

Been busy lately. Worked a fair bit. Got my new laptop. Met some legends of radio (Ray Foley is a lovely fellah, by the way) and enjoyed two new stations on the air now in Dublin (a college classmate of mine is reading the news on one of them!)… oh and I’m back in this situation again (off the cigarettes – and today is day 16, coincidentally) … but anyway… I’ll blog about all of that later.

For now, why not enjoy the wonderful attraction that is … a giant panda vomiting out top quality photos on a rainbow? … Oh YES!

Here he is!

Oh, and I made this video… just trying something out. Sad, I know.

According to reports in the Evening Herald – as quoted on the Radiowaves forum (and as mentioned on the Ray Foley show today on Today FM) and on Boards.ie, RTÉ 2FM daytime DJ/presenter Nikki Hayes was physically attacked by a known stalker in a club where she was doing a gig in, in Temple Bar, Dublin, over the weekend. There’s a lot of banter about it on her Bebo page too (although I can’t see it as I unsubscribed from Bebo)…

Apparently, the stalker approached her, asked her “are you that c**t off the radio?”, and when she replied that she was, he proceeded to head-but her, knocking her to the ground, threw a friend of hers across the room and continued to hit and kick her when she was on the ground. According to reports, she was taken to St. Vincent’s Hospital.

By all accounts, this is an incredible, disgusting and vicious unsolicited assault. It’s shocking the way things seem to be going in society these days, and what some thugs try to get away with (often succeeding, sadly). Are the country’s entertainers not safe? I mean, seriously – if you don’t like somebody’s radio show, you don’t actually hunt them down and deliver a beating to them! – You just change your listening habits! Switch stations until you find something you DO like! (Otherwise Gerry Ryan would spend half his life in Intensive Care… KIDDING!!!)

Anyway, I hope Nikki recovers fully and manages to put this horrible incident out of her mind – and I hope her attacker gets everything he deserves.