Rubberbandits - Horse Outside

Nobody really doubted that Matt Cardle would get the Xmas number one, but while Cage Against The Machine failed to dent the UK top ten, this is number two in the Irish charts this week:

Irish Economic Crisis Explained By Robots

Sadly I'm a bit out of the loop of the Irish media to know what is going on there with the current financial situation (but to summarise it's not good) but this clip which my brother linked on Facebook offers up some answers. To summarise, they're not good.

Fatal Deviation - Epic Irish Martial Arts Movie

Never heard of this film before, but then that's not hugely surprising. From the Fatal Deviation Wikipedia page:

"Fatal Deviation is a low-budget cult film produced and set in Trim, County Meath, Ireland. Produced in 1998, it enjoys the distinction of being Ireland's first full-length martial arts film. The film stars real-life martial arts enthusiast James Bennett. The movie went straight to video without a theatrical release."

The whole thing is on Youtube if you wanna watch:

SMOKE/LESS/FUELS

There's a great four-track free download EP available at the moment from the Irish blog Smokeless Fuels.

The four tracks are in a nu-skool garage vein - lots of skippy beats & samples and fat basslines, with some nice deep chords over the top of some of them too. The tracks are from the Standard Crew, who do a radio show too. These guys are new to us, but the quality of these tracks means we'll definitely be keeping an eye on them in the future. Click the pic above to download the EP.

Gerry Ryan = Dead

I woke up this morning to the news that Irish television and radio personality Gerry Ryan has died. He was 53 and it was not suspicious circumstances it seems.

It's a big shock - it won't mean much to anyone outside Ireland, but in UK terms it would be like Chris Evans dying. In fact Chirs Moyles might be more apt, but Ryan had a bigger profile in the mainstream than Moyles does. Still, the Moyles comparisson holds because Ryan divided audiences and listeners like oil and water. In short, I am not a fan of Ryan's style, but hey, he was somebody's dad and partner, so my thoughts go out to his family right now. Here's a clip of him swearing at Gordon Ramsay:



Hmm, the final line in this clip is oddly prescient.

Happy Paddy's Day!

I am back in the mammyland right now, and it's been a long time since I was here on St Patrick's Day. I can hear the rumblings of the parade in the distance. To celebrate all things hilarious and Irish, here's a video of some boggers in Co. Limerick worshipping a tree stump. This may come across like a Day Today parody but every ounce of it is true. I love this clip - enjoy!

Politics in Ireland

- is obviously quite a different affair from the UK. Just check out TD (Irish version of MP) Paul Gogarty's language in the Dáil (Parliament) last week: