Declan Cashin

Writing: the art of applying the ass to the seat

Charlie Brooker in today’s Guardian talking about flirting. High-larious.

Official UK trailer for 24, season 7. It looks like it may be a real return to form! And how hot does Tony look?!

Surely, SURELY even by Fianna Fail’s laughably, abysmally low standards, Transport Minister Noel Dempsey’s position just isn’t tenable after the provisional licence…what’s the word? Joke? Debacle? Fiasco?

Whichever one you pick, this man should not be in office by the end of this week. The Taoiseach should fire him, and not even allow him the chance to resign.

But what are the chances? As the Taoiseach himself has more than proven over the past year, he nor his ministers nor anyone in Fianna Fail don’t do accountability. Incompetence is consistently tolerated and, indeed, rewarded by Bertie Ahern. But then, who’s he to adjudicate on what constitutes fitness for office anymore considering what he’s been up to?

This Life column from Day and Night in today’s Irish Independent

Guess what my pick is for movie scene of the year. The awesome Dunkirk panorama in Atonement? The pants-wettingly intense Waterloo Station segment of The Bourne Ultimatum? Every single frame of Ratatouille?

No, no and no. I’m plumping for that scene in Knocked Up where Leslie Mann unleashes a tirade of abuse at a snotty bouncer who won’t let her character into a nightclub. When I saw that, I nearly had to be strapped down in order to stop me from jumping up in the middle ofthe film, and sassily shouting, ‘You go girl!’, all while making animated snapping movements with my fingers.

We all have had our run-ins with rude and obstinate door staff and bouncers. Show me someone who goes out on a regular basis who hasn’t had at least six infuriating experiences with bouncers and I’ll show you someone who obviously drinks so much that they’ve blocked out the said encounters.

People point to George Dubious Bush or Vladimir Putin as examples of how absolute power can corrupt absolutely. Well, we have mini-Bushs and Putins on the doors of every bar and club on earth. Granted, there are some bouncers who wield their power benevolently, but there are twice as many who go insane on their power trips, the ones who cackle maniacally while stroking a cat as they watch mile-long queues form outside their superbars or clubs for no other reason than to make the place look more popular and fabulous than it really is.

That kind of petty behaviour I can just about tolerate. It’s the rudeness that I can’t stand. And I think I found the all time champs in that regard while on a weekend away to London a fortnight ago.

Our nightclub of choice that night was hosting a major girl group so we expected there to be crowds. The queue was manageable, but when we got to the top, some lovely lady with a clipboard barked at me, ‘How many in your group, love?’. ‘Five’, I replied, presumably in some rare Inuit dialect thatI didn’t know I possessed, because she glowered at me and repeated very slowly, ‘How many in your group, are you deaf?’

Now if it had been an episode of Ally McBeal, that would have been the point where I fantasised about biting off her head and then using it as a sled to ride down the side of a craggy mountain. Instead I patiently repeated, ‘Five’ and she rolled her eyes and growled at us to go around the corner into another queue.

Except there was no other queue. It was more like an enclosed pen for grazing cattle, which, it turns out, is the best metaphor for our general treatment that night. We were herded inside, and literally pushed along by an army of staff who prodded us like cows at the mart and bellowed orders at us all like we were the fresh meat arriving on our first day at Shawshank.

When the gig ended, we went out for a cigarette, and were again shouted at for daring to ask for a stamp to get out. But when we all got out, they wouldn’t let us back in, saying the club was too full!

I could go on, but space and rising blood pressure are constraining me. My point is that this club was a perfect demonstration of what happens when a place becomes successful: inevitable complacency and arrogance. Why bother treating people as humans anymore? We’re just commodities afterall. Move along now cattle. Moo!

I tell you, that whole experience was so traumatising that I had to double my vodka intake once I got inside. So like a mindless bovine, I played right into their hands and was milked for all I was worth.

Interesting article in Entertainment Weekly looking at the cultural legacy, if any, of Brokeback Mountain and why TV is leaving Hollywood in the shade in terms of gay related projects and characters.

Seems like Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama will campaign with just about anyone to close the gap on frontrunner, Hillary Clinton. Disappointing, Barack.

With Claire Danes’ new movie Stardust now in cinemas, how about revisiting the TV show My So-Called Life which made her name back in 1995 (yes, if you watched it on TV then, you are old!!!). This is an interview from the new Entertainment Weekly with Wilson Cruz who played Ricky Vasquez on the show. Bless. I really must dig that show up on DVD.

Harry Potter author JK Rowling has outed one of her characters from the books. Which one is it? Find out here.