belling the cats
(Heelz and the media.)
The Daily Mail ran a curious advertisement for itself on Saturday without any apparent sense of irony.
The page size magazine ad was headlined: "Four reasons why you'll love the Irish Daily Mail."
It featured pictures of four harridans who are apparently Dail Mail journalists, namely: Brenda Power, Fiona Looney, Mary Carr, and Regina Lavelle.
Beneath each name was a slogan summing up that particular harridan's attributes as follows.
Brenda Power: Fearless, forthright, compassionate.
Fiona Looney: Irreverent, irrepressible, irresistible.
Mary Carr: Unpredictable and always provocative.
Regina Lavelle: Are you thinking what she's thinking?
On reading this paean to the hagerdotal, I couldn't help wondering do the ladies in question ever borrow each others' attributes...
Does Brenda Power sometimes become irresistible?
Has Fiona Looney ever perhaps written fearlessly, forthrightly and compassionately?
Does anyone even by sheer chance ever wind up thinking what Mary Carr is thinking?
And could they not come up with a better epithet for Regina Lavelle?
Meanwhile my old humanitarian pals at the Johnston Press, (Slogan: Life is local. Especially when we fire you.) have issued a statement claiming they have had three expressions of interest in the purchase of their Irish titles. Among the interested parties claimed by the Johnston Press is a certain John McStay. I recognise that name from somewhere. At some stage of his life, John McStay became the owner of a large number of shares in the Leinster Leader newspaper. I don't know how he came to own those shares. Probably through some inherent merit of his own. When he and other share holders sold the paper to the Johnston Press, I was fired. Now a year after firing me, the share price of the Johnston Press has fallen from four quid to five pennies, and the Johnston Press is leaving Ireland with their tails between their legs. Seriously though, they did a brilliant job. And lo! John McStay is back on the scene as a supposed bidder once more for the Leinster Leader. Is that how society is supposed to work? Whoever wins or loses, John McStay ends up ahead. Whatever happens to the rest of the staff John McStay ends up owning the Leinster Leader? Hoo boy. Now that's a social vision I can sign up to. And I used to wonder where communism and terrorism came from.
The Irish Times has begun dropping weighted hints that maybe just maybe the Irish government should give free money to national newspapers with no readers in order to help them to survive. The Irish Times is not terribly explicit in its description of itself as a potential recipient of such largesse, but we may legitimately suspect that the series of articles on the matter last week, probably weren't intended to get emergency relief funds for Tony O'Reilly's rat infested moribund anti Catholic crew at Independent Newspapers. The Irish Times started this campaign for government funding, with a straight forward report suggesting the Americans would have to soon bail out their own dying lefty newspapers, The Washington Compost and The New York Time(s) To Surrender To The Jihadis. This was followed by a sledge hammer subtle piece of free money agit prop by Margaret Ward on Saturday. Ah yes. That old gag. Trying to get the public ready to divvy up for newspapers we don't read. She wrote: "Now more than ever we need a strong investigative media committed to shining a light in all those dark places. Who dares to fund it?" Here is the news. The Irish Times is hoping we'll all be compelled to fund the Irish Times regardless of whether we read the Irish Times or not. Traditionally both The Irish Times and Tony O'Reilly's Independent Swinepapers have survived without readers. That is to say for three decades they have survived on government State Sector and Health Board advertising. I would suggest that this advertising should not have been placed with those newspapers in the first place. It meant I was personally funding anti Americanism at The Irish Times and anti Catholicism at The Irish Independent without ever buying either of those dreadful fervourless talentless divorcenik condom culture abortion pill promoting rags. Yes I was never really happy with the procedures involved in the placing of such advertising with The Irish Times and Independant Newspapers. I always wondered was the process corrupt. I mean if I give you twenty million dollars for a few ads in your no readers newspapers, it's no big deal for you to hand me back a million for myself. I wonder did it ever happen. And now the Health Board advertising isn't enough for em. They want more. Here's an idea. Why don't they start working for a living. I mean just for fun Irish Times and Independent Newspapers management and journalists. Just for fun, I say. Get a job.
And finally Esther. Mr Ian O'Doherty who writes an unusually insightful and zesty little column called The Heelers Diaries for the Irish Independent, seemed uncharacteristically vindicative this weekend with a series of paranoid delusional attacks on Bonio and the gallant little Belgian (Bob Geldoff). Mr O'Doherty's mean spirited vituperation came just a day after some light hearted ribbing on this website directed at the same two heroes of popular humanitarianism. The coincidences just mount up don't they. He should rip off Regina Lavelle instead. But maybe he's just not thinking what she's thinking.
The Daily Mail ran a curious advertisement for itself on Saturday without any apparent sense of irony.
The page size magazine ad was headlined: "Four reasons why you'll love the Irish Daily Mail."
It featured pictures of four harridans who are apparently Dail Mail journalists, namely: Brenda Power, Fiona Looney, Mary Carr, and Regina Lavelle.
Beneath each name was a slogan summing up that particular harridan's attributes as follows.
Brenda Power: Fearless, forthright, compassionate.
Fiona Looney: Irreverent, irrepressible, irresistible.
Mary Carr: Unpredictable and always provocative.
Regina Lavelle: Are you thinking what she's thinking?
On reading this paean to the hagerdotal, I couldn't help wondering do the ladies in question ever borrow each others' attributes...
Does Brenda Power sometimes become irresistible?
Has Fiona Looney ever perhaps written fearlessly, forthrightly and compassionately?
Does anyone even by sheer chance ever wind up thinking what Mary Carr is thinking?
And could they not come up with a better epithet for Regina Lavelle?
Meanwhile my old humanitarian pals at the Johnston Press, (Slogan: Life is local. Especially when we fire you.) have issued a statement claiming they have had three expressions of interest in the purchase of their Irish titles. Among the interested parties claimed by the Johnston Press is a certain John McStay. I recognise that name from somewhere. At some stage of his life, John McStay became the owner of a large number of shares in the Leinster Leader newspaper. I don't know how he came to own those shares. Probably through some inherent merit of his own. When he and other share holders sold the paper to the Johnston Press, I was fired. Now a year after firing me, the share price of the Johnston Press has fallen from four quid to five pennies, and the Johnston Press is leaving Ireland with their tails between their legs. Seriously though, they did a brilliant job. And lo! John McStay is back on the scene as a supposed bidder once more for the Leinster Leader. Is that how society is supposed to work? Whoever wins or loses, John McStay ends up ahead. Whatever happens to the rest of the staff John McStay ends up owning the Leinster Leader? Hoo boy. Now that's a social vision I can sign up to. And I used to wonder where communism and terrorism came from.
The Irish Times has begun dropping weighted hints that maybe just maybe the Irish government should give free money to national newspapers with no readers in order to help them to survive. The Irish Times is not terribly explicit in its description of itself as a potential recipient of such largesse, but we may legitimately suspect that the series of articles on the matter last week, probably weren't intended to get emergency relief funds for Tony O'Reilly's rat infested moribund anti Catholic crew at Independent Newspapers. The Irish Times started this campaign for government funding, with a straight forward report suggesting the Americans would have to soon bail out their own dying lefty newspapers, The Washington Compost and The New York Time(s) To Surrender To The Jihadis. This was followed by a sledge hammer subtle piece of free money agit prop by Margaret Ward on Saturday. Ah yes. That old gag. Trying to get the public ready to divvy up for newspapers we don't read. She wrote: "Now more than ever we need a strong investigative media committed to shining a light in all those dark places. Who dares to fund it?" Here is the news. The Irish Times is hoping we'll all be compelled to fund the Irish Times regardless of whether we read the Irish Times or not. Traditionally both The Irish Times and Tony O'Reilly's Independent Swinepapers have survived without readers. That is to say for three decades they have survived on government State Sector and Health Board advertising. I would suggest that this advertising should not have been placed with those newspapers in the first place. It meant I was personally funding anti Americanism at The Irish Times and anti Catholicism at The Irish Independent without ever buying either of those dreadful fervourless talentless divorcenik condom culture abortion pill promoting rags. Yes I was never really happy with the procedures involved in the placing of such advertising with The Irish Times and Independant Newspapers. I always wondered was the process corrupt. I mean if I give you twenty million dollars for a few ads in your no readers newspapers, it's no big deal for you to hand me back a million for myself. I wonder did it ever happen. And now the Health Board advertising isn't enough for em. They want more. Here's an idea. Why don't they start working for a living. I mean just for fun Irish Times and Independent Newspapers management and journalists. Just for fun, I say. Get a job.
And finally Esther. Mr Ian O'Doherty who writes an unusually insightful and zesty little column called The Heelers Diaries for the Irish Independent, seemed uncharacteristically vindicative this weekend with a series of paranoid delusional attacks on Bonio and the gallant little Belgian (Bob Geldoff). Mr O'Doherty's mean spirited vituperation came just a day after some light hearted ribbing on this website directed at the same two heroes of popular humanitarianism. The coincidences just mount up don't they. He should rip off Regina Lavelle instead. But maybe he's just not thinking what she's thinking.
posted by heelers | 3:20 AM
2 Comments:
You're right about those captions, although Fiona Looney and Mary Carr have the worst.
"Irreverent, irrepressible, irresistible" means in my local lingo "Shows up already drunk at every party, declares "It's hot in here. Isn't it hot in here?" before stripping off clothes after dinner, and wakes up in garden shed the next evening about 5-ish."
"Unpredictable and always provocative" is even worse. It means that one goes from the hugging/slobbering sentimental drunkenness in one breath to the bottle-breaking brawler the next. In between, this one tries to instigate arguments by playing the contrarian. Finally the rational bystanders must intervene when she wheels elderly woman's wheelchair to the pool and declares, "You're faking! You're just trying to elicit sympathy from the masses, you boug... burj... you old rich hag!"
If I were Looney or Carr, I'd demand new captions. (I'd also demand that our last names never appear together, as "looneycarr" makes one think of the tiny little vehicles out of which great crowd of clowns come tumbling.)
-MJ
Tiny little vehicles out of which great crowds of clowns come tumbling... That's Independent Newspapers and The Irish Times, isn't it?
J
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