MAVERICK

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I remember Bob Quinn from the time himself and Jack Dowling and Lelia Doolan fell out with RTÉ, or vice versa. They published a book called Sit Down and be Counted in 1969 which tore strips off the national broadcaster.

Jack, Lelia and Bob

Among other things it criticised RTÉ for selling its, and the nation's, soul to greedy parasitic multinationals by becoming dependent on advertising revenue from this source. Not that there weren't greedy national advertisers also.

At another level is was arguing for a broadcaster that would reflect and preserve the soul of the nation, that would take risks, and would both respond to regional and local needs and empower local communities.

Bob went west to Connemara and spent much time studying the origins of the "celts" and their cultural heritage. He continued to produce work for RTÉ from the outside because he was good at what he did. Then in the late 1990s he was asked to go on the RTÉ Authority and Maverick is the story of how this worked out, or didn't, as it happened.

RTÉ's original logo, saved from the props room

It is a fascinating read, and his almost lone struggles to reclaim and preserve the national broadcaster's soul tell us a lot about that organisation. Like Betty Purcell's book it is spiced with comments on some of the big names of broadasting, and I was heartened to find, just as I did with Betty's book, that I was in complete agreement with most of his evaluations. But more of that later.

I feel an affinity with Bob since I (recently) found out he had been raised in Orwell Gardens where I spent a bit of my own youth.

In the course of checking him out on the internet I came across Maverick and his comment that, despite Sit Down and be Counted he had continued to have work shown on RTÉ but since Maverick this had completely dried up.

So I got a copy of Maverick through my local library and have just finished reading it. Incidentally, I have just now received a copy of Sit Down and be Counted from the same source and am very much looking forward to reading it.

The Hasbro Dinosaur

When Bob took up his position on the Authority, he hoped to make a difference. He was advised not to spread himself too thinly and to pick an area and pursue that. He opted to concentrate on advertising directed at children, particularly during children's programmes. This was a worthy cause and it was situated at the margins of the bigger problem: the subjection of RTÉ content to the interests of the commercial sector. To cut a long story short, he did not have any success. RTÉ was too honest; it was bought; and it stayed bought.

Now this was partly RTÉ's own fault but, in a spirit of slight mitigation, we shouldn't forget that it was operating under a political system which included some relevant gombeen politicians who were likewise bought (to put it politely) on a permanent basis.

I'm not going to deal here with the many revelations about the actual status and policies of RTÉ, about its effective subservience to (international) business, or about the irrelevance of the Authority itself in the policymaking and running of the station. Ye can all just go and read the book.

I'm just going to look at a few of the other things that struck me, mainly Bob's take on some of the personalities he encountered along the way. Most of these really resonated with me and, in at least one case, reminded me of my own frustrating dealings with the station (TV).

Gay Byrne

So maybe I should start there. I have told elsewhere of my dealings with Gay Byrne's Late Late Show and the late Dr. Peter Bander. In essence, how I was frozen out of a programme, by Gay Byrne, having been given tickets on the basis that I would take an active part in the discussion.

Bob makes an interesting point, on the pervasiveness of filtering the airwaves, when reporting on the new Director General, Bob Collins, taking calls on Joe Duffy's Liveline.

Collins' was a carefully controlled interview, meaning that all the looney callers were filtered out so that the interview could be constructive. This is normal practice on "public access" programmes.

I know how some of them must have felt.

If you checked out my link above you will have realised that, had this looney been allowed to intervene, I would have been pitting myself against two serious establishment professions: the Roman Catholic Church and the Psychologists.

Speaking of the latter breed and analogous professions, Bob has a go at them in relation to their endorsement or facilitation of advertising directed at children.

Such developments could not happen without the cosmetic imprimatur of tame academic specialists in child psychology and psychiatry. The complicity on the part of these professionals in the enormous advertising and marketing onslaught on children has reached epidemic proportions in the US and must constitute the largest single psychological project ever undertaken.

On the broader question of advertising and commercialisation, Bob has a go at

RTÉ's pathetic adoption of a crude money spinner, "Who Wants to be a Millionaire", and the disinterment of an ageing ex-star to present the programme. This makes a lot of money for Tyrone Productions, Gay Byrne, RTÉ, the National Lottery and, above all, Eircom.

Eoghan Harris

In September of that year [1987] an RTÉ training and refresher course for reporters and researchers was conducted by a staff TV programme editor with aspirations to be a media guru. He pontificated to them that "television is not about thought. Television is about emotion."

Bob draws particular attention to the guru's

effort to try to convince journalists that their professional mantra - "Comment is free; facts are sacred" - was not only obsolete but ignorant. The lecturer urged the abandonment of any aspiration to objectivity or professionalism in reportage and essentially the taking of one side in a propaganda battle over the northern war.

... The aspiring media guru was Eoghan Harris whose influence on RTÉ up to then should never be underestimated and who appears never to have forgiven the organisation for not carrying out his varying instructions to the letter.

Betty Purcell

Betty was Bob's most consistent supporter on the Authority though they did not always agree on everything. I have mentioned Betty's own book earlier and I am glad to see them both acting in concert. They were the only broadcasters on the Authority at the time and are both people I admire.

Ray Burke

Bob describes the fate of the national broadcaster, and broadcasting in general, falling into "the lily-white hands of Fianna Fáil's Ray Burke, who since 1974 had been secretly distinguishing himself in private enterprise, especially that which required land rezoning in north and south Dublin."

He goes on to describe, in some detail, how Burke spanceled the national broadcaster to the benefit of commercial interests.

George Morrison

George Morrison is one of my heroes from way back. His patient dedication over decades in choreographing the making of Mise Éire is a truly inspiring story and the product is a real jewel in the crown. I had the pleasure of meeting George a few years ago when Midas Productions made a film about the making of Mise Éire. A real gentleman and I treasure the meeting. I have written about it on Blackwatertown's blog.

Bob has a great story about George. Bob was up in court for "illegally" showing a film in his house in Connemara. In the event, the only legal grounds for charging him was an old statute about nitrate films. Nitrate was the, highly combustible, base for old film stock, no longer in use in modern times. The case was dismissed, much to the annoyance of George Morrison who had brought along some old nitrate stock which he intended igniting in court and stinking the place out of it.

Pat Kenny

Bob, while praising much of RTÉ's public affairs broadcasting, sees the broadcaster undermining its capacity in this area by the blatantly commercial approach it adopts in its overall profile. This only strengthens the hands of rival commercial broadcasters with their greedy eyes on a slice of RTÉ's public funding.

These interests are inadvertently aided and abetted by the RTÉ "stars" such as Pat Kenny, who proudly proclaim that the public does not pay their fees, that they are paid from the commercial income they attract. With such spades do myopic "stars" dig their own public broadcasting graves.

Bob quotes Ellen Kelleher from McConnell's advertising agency as saying "the Mammy is the engine that drives most fast moving consumer goods markets". And the TV personality with the most "mammy" appeal? Pat Kenny, she said.

Well, as far as I'm concerned, the mammies can have him.

Mary O'Rourke

Speaking of mammies.

In contemplating the cultural mid-Atlantic limbo into which commercial forces have landed us, in particular through the targeting of women shoppers, Bob wonders:

When will the empowerment of women result in a rage at the exploitation of their hitherto harmless pleasure in shopping? Never, if one can judge by the effusion of another powerful female, our enterprising Minister Mary O'Rourke, who uses the word "deregulation" as if it were "abracadabra", a magic panacea for all our ills. If she were a gardener, she would know that a deregulated garden, left to itself, will encourage only weeds to flourish.

Bono

Many years ago the singer Bono got his secretary to ask me to meet him after my Atlantean films showed the connection between Ireland and North Africa. My children heard me mentioning the name and went into hysterics. This was odd because I had hardly heard of the performer and was certainly not familiar with his work. I went out and bought a cassette but could make neither head nor tail of the lyrics. All I could hear was a disco beat. It transpired that Bono thought my theories might explain his own extraordinary vocal talents and had even passed the word on to Bob Dylan - with whose music at least I was familiar. That is the gist of what I learned during a long monologue from the young man in the Great Southern Hotel in Galway. His young wife was very nice. I learned that her name was Ali, and she later did good work with the Chernobyl children, as did her husband. I have still not taken to his music, but at least my children got his autograph.

I think I'll leave it there. I've gone on long enough. Read the book, it's a revelation and still relevant some sixteen years after its publication.

Inside RTÉ

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I love everything about this book, from the cover to Betty herself.

I was going to say it's a real radio person's book, but, of course, Betty moved on to television. So, it would be more accurate to say it's a public service broadcaster's book.

Betty is committed to a very strong social agenda, but in the context of her broadcasting work, which seems to be most of her life, she is committed over all else to a public service agenda.

She has seen the organisation from so many vantage points, radio, television, trade unions and membership of the Authority itself, that the story carries a quiet authority of its own. The writing is crisp and crafted, and it is very personal.

I particularly enjoyed her concise and perceptive cameos of people, perhaps because her assessment coincided with mine where I had either met the person or already had a view on them.

Starting with Mícheál Holmes, whom I met in recent years, and whom I had down as a real radio man, one of my highest compliments. "Mícheál was not the campaigning type, but he had a fascination with good stories, and with the use of technology and gadgets to help find ways of illustrating people's lives." Sounds just like a younger version of the mature, but still curious, radio man that I encountered.

And Charlie Haughey, who, when Taoiseach, turned up unexpectedly at the studio in person, instead of being at the other end of a phone line, for an interview with John Bowman: "I want to see the whites of the fucker's eyes". Typical gobshite. I don't know whether that was before or after an occasion I remember when Haughey hung up the phone on Bowman, live on air, because Bowman was pushing him beyond a limit he thought he'd agreed with the producer. Betty doesn't refer to that one so she was probably not involved. She does make it clear, though, that John Bowman did not do interviews whose limits were determined by the interviewee.

On another occasion Haughey threatened to cut the licence fee if a programme on his covert and potentially controversial method of acquiring an electriciy generator for his private island was aired.

Then there's Ray Burke. Another obnoxious character. During a 1989 election programme, the "then Minister for Communications, Ray Burke, came up behind me, patronisingly tapped me on the shoulder, and said 'Yes dear, the Minister will have a cup of coffee, white, no sugar'". Broke Betty's concentration completely. But then Burke was never really interested in broadcasting as such.

And Eoghan Harris, who alternated bullying and charm and shouted people down at meetings, playing the Provo card when all else failed. She quotes Harris's own remark in a Today Tonight interview "I'm a propagandist, and always have been", he said, "that's what I do". And Betty's comment, "It is hard to argue with that self-assessment". Beautiful.

And Dick Roche. After telling us, for example, that "Tony Gregory was always apprehensive about his performance and about letting down his constituents", she goes on to say that "Others, like Wicklow Fianna Fáil TD Dick Roche, had no self-doubt or concerns before the show".

She thought highly of Pat Kenny, which I used to myself when he was on radio years ago. She had one really major bust up with him. Susan McKay had agreed to appear on the Late Late Show at very short notice to restore balance to an item where one of the participants was suddenly unable to appear. It was agreed, including by Pat, that Susan would be confined to outlining the excellent work done in the past by Dr. Maura Woods and that she would not be dragged into the wider emotionally charged and controversial discussion. Pat, on air, very pointedly did not honour this agreement and persistently tried to get Susan to comment beyond what had been agreed. No surprise there then. I always felt, in more recent times, that Pat considered himself more important than those on his show and behaved accordingly. Effectively the opposite of a good broadcaster. I had the same thing done to me on air once and it is not very nice.

Anyway, I enjoyed Betty's to-the-point observations on some of these people, but I'm not going to go through the whole book of them.

The book deals with weightier matters, including the future of broadcasting and the more recent controversies, such as the disgraceful character assassination of Fr. Reynolds in Mission to Prey and the famous supposedly Sinn Féin tweet aired on Frontline during the run up to the last Presidential election.

I found the book unputdownable and may even read it a second time.

You will see from the illustration of the cover of my copy above that Betty will not be getting any royalties from my reading of the book, but I'm sure, as a public service broadcaster par excellence, she will be sufficiently supportive of our wonderful public library service to forgive me.


Updates to 16/6/2014

Amazon censored my review.
I attempted to post the above as a book review to Amazon but without success. Now, I have 65 book reviews up on Amazon and never had a bit of bother with any of them. In fact, they normally came through within minutes. But not this one.

Amazon don't specifically tell you they are rejecting a review, but if it doesn't appear within 48 hours you are advised that it is unlikely to appear at all and you should go and check out their guidelines. So I surmised that there was a problem with this particular review and that it was the quote from Charlie Haughey regarding John Bowman. The possible sensitivity of my text had not struck me until the review failed to appear.

As it did not appear after well over the 48 hours specified, I resubmitted the review in a bowdlerised version (F word censored) to see what would happen. And Wow! The bowdlerised review came straight through, like a shot, though the word "gobshite" was asterisked to "gobs***e". So I think I was botted the first time round and am apparently not on any watch list as a result.

While the F word does appear in book titles on Amazon, this is an area over which they themselves have control and the book title in the reviews is inserted automatically from their own data base.

So now we know.

Bowdlerised review with editorial note here.

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I'm sure Charlie would be absolutely thrilled, the oul bollix.

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Update 22/5/17 Checkout my post on Maverick

2RN

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John Behan's sculpture, Na Guthanna, stands in the grounds of RTÉ in Montrose. It was unveiled in 2001 to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the inauguration of the Irish national radio service then known as 2RN.

The service started in Little Denmark St. (off Henry St.), coincidentally the street where I bought the parts for my first, and only, crystal set (which never worked).

In 1928 the service moved to the GPO from where it continued to broadcast until its move to the Radio Centre in Montrose in 1973. I have fond memories of the many hours I spent in the small cubicles in the GPO sitting in on some of Brian Reynolds's programmes and of the radio people I met in the corridors.

I was out in the Radio Centre last week which is when I took the photo above. I was recording two small WWI inserts for the History Programme on my uncle John and Richard Brewster, both of whom died on the Somme. I also did a short piece on Edward Ball, who was born in the same house as myself, and who, some years before my own birth, put a hatchet in his mother's head.

I had no idea what the thing was until I got home and checked it out.

Incidentally, the name 2RN ceased to apply to the service from 1933, but I was interested to see that it is now back (in lower case) as the name of the company which provides transmission services to the various RTÉ radio stations and Today FM and also site hosting for mobile telephone operators, the emergency services, wireless broadband and other private mobile communications service providers.

Hiraeth

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This is the Dublin Welsh Male Voice Choir in its early days at a gig in RTÉ. I came across the photo recently and wondered how many of those in it were still alive, or how many were still singing with the modern version of the choir.

I figure there are now only four from the photo in the current choir: Keith Young, Mike Hayes, Ralph Pendleton (baritones) and Alun "Ogmore" Tilley (bass). That is not to say that the rest are dead, though some are. Others have moved on or maybe just run out of steam. And there is no guarantee that everyone turned out for the RTÉ gig, though, at most, there would only have been one or two missing.

The man who introduced me to the choir, and who is to blame for my subsequent stint on a farm learning Welsh, is Hywel Morris, from Porthmadog. He's the guy with the beard and glasses in the middle of the back row. He was in the RTÉ design department and left soon after for HTV. I took over his Welsh classes in Mr. Quinn's pub in Aungier St. Apart from some non-Welsh Welsh, I had two Irish eminences of the Republican movement(s) in the class: Roy Johnston and Deasún Breathnach. I was intended to be a stopgap until a real Welsh member took over and I was only one page ahead of the class - not a comfortable station for a teacher. However, nobody volunteered and the classes petered out.

To the best of my recollection there were only two Irish in the choir at that time: me (middle front row) and Séamas Ó Buachalla (back row right - with the shades) RIP.

I am squarely between two very Welsh Welsh: Brian Powell (left), RIP, in whose TCD rooms, beside Kennedy's pub in Westland Row, we used to practice, and Howell Evans (right), RIP, who had been in Ireland since time immemorial. Brian, if I remember correctly, was from Llangefni where his mother had the post office. He was in charge of the Curriculum Development Unit in TCD, hence the rooms. Howell, who died recently, worked for British Rail and had been a member of the Welsh Chapel in Talbot St.

Garvin Evans (third row, left, with glasses) was a top-top tenor and known as the Llanelli Nightingale. He is the father of U2's Edge.

Next to him, in that row, is Monty Dalton, another Welsh Welshman, who was longtime longsuffering secretary to the choir.

Next to him is Og (Alun Tilley from Ogmore) still singing with the choir.

And next to him Mike Hayes who is also Welsh. Ralph Pendleton is directly behind Mike, and both of these are still members. [Update: sadly Ralph had already died in 2013 and I didn't know when I did this post, RIP]

Gavin Bowie (second from left, back row) was a lad from Yorkshire, who was studying industrial archeology. That was the first time I had heard of such a subject but it has since proved a fascinating area.

And no tour would be complete without Keith Young (second row, second from left), the choir's conductor for most of its existence, and recently figuring in the UK honours list. Keith is from Pontarddulais and has all the choral passion of his native town.

I won't name everyone but, if I get the time, I'll put up a mapped version of the photo on my website and link to it here.

And don't forget the uniform. Snazzy enough in its day, but a mile from today's blazered brigade.

Hwyl fawr.

Do you remember Froggy?

I am now 50 years out of Coláiste Mhuire this year. At a commemorative lunch the other day, one of my classmates asked "Do you remember Froggy?"

Do I remember Froggy? Of course I do. He was my first French teacher, and a very good one. Not exactly a compliment to a militant Fleming, but there you are. You can't have it all.

I did a post on this blog in his defence this month 6 years ago. I was incensed at the time at how Cathal O'Shannon (now RIP, but a journalist whom I once admired) and Senan Moloney (who had an agreement with Froggy in 1987, which he presumably considered expired on Froggy's death, heedless of the man's reputation, or the feelings or economic fortunes of his widow) both went for the man in an RTÉ series on Hidden Nazis.

Fortunately, his widow, who was made of stern stuff, took the matter to court and secured limited implementation of the 1987 agreement. Meanwhile, RTÉ cut from the transmitted programme a reconstruction of a Nazi interrogation in which Folens was portrayed in the part of interpreter.

If you are curious you can read my original post, but for now I just want to recall him as a teacher.

He taught French by the direct method (mainly). This may have been because he was in an Irish language school and didn't have much, if any, Irish. I suspect he would have used this method even in an English speaking school.

He operated an incentive system. Laxity or indiscipline in class earned you an X. Three Xs and you were sent down to the Head. An exceptionally good performance in class earned you a circle. This allowed you to skip homework on a night of your choice.

There was a period of weeks when less than half the class turned up in school. I think there was some flu epidemic or suchlike sweeping the land at the time. Folens put the curriculum on pause and regaled us with stories, tonguetwisters and songs, all in French. I thought this very enlightened at the time. Those who were absent through no fault of their own did not miss out on the course and those of us who were lucky enough to turn up got a bonus. Il était un petit navire. Le riz tenta le rat, le rat tenté tâta le riz tentant.

As I mentioned in the earlier post, his "cog notes" could be seen as first class, depending on your view of the objectives of the education system. I certainly found them great. They were Roneod and were the germ that subsequently grew into a first class publishing company. They were followed by modest volumes on the newer subjects, like civics, for which no textbooks were available, and, eventually, by the full range of high quality textbooks.

Anyway, I thought he deserved a mention, more than 50 years on.

On the Fiddle

I could have been Bob Dylan, but then I wouldn't be able to play the harmonica, or the mouth organ as it was vulgarly known in my day. I could even have been Joan Baez, but the gender transition might have been painful.

I could have been Bill Clinton, but then I would have had to sleep with the harridan, initially at least.

So I am glad I opted for the Fritz Kreisler route. It has brought me lots of fulfilment and variety in my life. I have played in the Workman's Club with a well known and talented accompanist (above). I have "entertained" the orphans in Stanhope Street convent on many a Stephen's Day. I have played the Francis Xavier and Father Mathew Halls. I have twice played for President de Valera and Sinéad, in the Coláiste Mhuire and Gate theatres. I have made a record in Billy McBurney's studio in Central Belfast during the height of the Troubles. I have even appeared on RTÉ television, no less (below). And all with the fiddle in hand.

So to hell with the international circuit and the crashes and the comebacks. There's no place like home when you're on the fiddle.

<cue music/>

Love Hate

I was passing by the apartments when I saw some people hanging around. Then I noticed the professional camera and sound crew. I wondered had the news services run down some ordinary decent criminal living in the apartments? Had there been a murder? Or were the news services waiting to doorstep some unsuspecting banker, civil servant, or politician on foot of further revelations about the banking guarantee.

Then I saw the trucks and all the gear and realised that this was no mere news crew. It was big time filming and they were zeroing in on a block of newly constructed, but as yet unoccupied, apartments. When I asked, I was told it was the making of the third series of Love Hate, a fairly raw drama set in Dublin's gangland. So my first guess was nearest the mark. And a local told me the crew had been around, on and off, for the last few weeks.

A closeer look revealed some last minute adjustments to a camera mounted on the bonnet of the car. And then it was "Action".

Had they come two years earlier they would have had some ready made drama to film as this same block went up in smoke in the course of constuction.

Happily, the building was in fact completed, even if not yet brought to market, and no doubt its letting out as a film set will help to pay the rent in the meantime.

I wonder is my guardian angel trying to tell me something? This is the second piece of filming I have come across in this area in the last month.

Update 5/12/12
In an amazing case of life imitating art, Dublin's No.1 Crime Boss, Eamonn Kelly, was gunned down yesterday, a mere few hundred yards from the scenes described above. He was shot near his house in Furry Park Road, Killester, by a member of the Real IRA.

Automatic Radio

Is DAB a sort of a sense palindrome? Its name spelt backwards gives you an idea of what you can encounter. From DAB to BAD to Worse.

DAB has been marketed as the be all and end all. RTÉ and BBC have gone for it and I got a DAB radio for Christmas.

Signal quality is frightening. Silences are silent. You think the signal has gone. For as long as I have listened to radio there is always a suggestion of a hum or a hiss which reassures you that the damn thing hasn't broken down. But DAB. The silences bring you up short. You think you've lost the signal. Digital is something else.

RTÉ's Radio 1 Extra is interesting. This gives you a rerun of earlier programmes and if you have missed the originals it can be a great catch up.

However I got a shock the other night when I tried to listen to a rerun of Miriam O'Callaghan's interview with Michael D Higgins and his missus. This and earlier experiences led to me writing to RTÉ in the following (perhaps over nostalgic terms).

I refer to the rebroadcast of the Miriam O'Callaghan programme with Michael D and his wife on DAB Radio 1 Extra at 9pm on 25/1/10.

I have spent a very frustrating hour trying to listen to this programme.

At the beginning it went OK. Then the sound track started speeding up to be followed by long gaps, then more speeding up and so on.

There was no announcement about difficulties at the RTÉ level and I am convinced that my DAB radio, however good it may be, could not possibly have produced these strange effects.

This programme would have been a disgrace in the age of analogue valve radio. I have been associated with Radio Éireann indirectly since the late 1950s and I am sure that any of the staff of those days would have been cringing at what went out on air.

Before commenting on this abomination on my blog I would like to give you the opportunity to set me straight on what exactly was going on. I listened to Joe Duffy immediately before the Miriam programme and John Bowman after it and there were no problems with either of these transmissions.

Let me tell you what it sounded like. The programme was incompetently recorded. Nobody listened to it before transmission. The output did not pass through any continuity suite. It sounded like the techies were trying to correct it as it went out, though this may be a charitable assumption on my part.

This was an absolute disgrace and an insult to anybody who had any respect for radio.

It reminded me of those telephone calls when you are told that "your call is important to us" and are then promptly relegated to some crap computer programme for processing.

I have been a radio person all my life and this is the worst I have ever heard from any radio station. No apology during or after.

What sort of people have you become?

I would mention in passing that my impression of output being handed over to computers is strengthened by the way you regularly cut off your foreign collaborators in mid sentence. Is there no timing arrangement with them regarding syndication of their programmes. They announce a programme item, which I often look forward to, and the programme is terminated before the item is reached. This is really treating your audience as crap.

Newstalk is not on DAB, but their programming and public service broadcasting is fast rivalling and outstripping yours. All very strange.

I have contained myself above in the interest of receiving a reply from you which I hope I get before I erupt in cyberspace.

Yours in anticipation (as we used to say, incorrectly),

Pól Ó Duibhir

The reply I got confirmed my worst fears.

"Regarding the repeat of the Miriam Meets programme on the Digital Radio Station Radio 1 Extra, the programme was indeed affected when it was re-broadcast.

This is an automated play-out service which is dependant (sic) entirely on the technology that is provided to broadcast the programmes. Because of the nature of the service, there is no one there to provide back-up.

Like most digital catch-up services Radio 1 Extra is not like an ordinary radio station with personnel. The programmes that are scheduled to go out are checked first and then loaded into a computer playlist which plays the programmes out like a jukebox.

In this instance it is believed it was a network error."

So now you know. There is nobody there. Only the jukebox.

And the particular instance I was complaining about was "believed to be a network error". At least they admitted it happened. But they must surely know what happened.

The big question is: now that they know the valve is overheating will they replace it? Or, in digital terms, will they redesign the system to get rid of its most annoying automated features?

My mother had a mangle in the back yard, but that's another story entirely.

RTÉ = RTÉ = RTÉ

RTE changes name – spot the difference
Irish Independent
Monday July 20 2009

Radio Telifis Eireann is changing its name to Raidio Telifis Eireann.
...

Spot the difference, indeed. This must be one of the most careless and ignorant pieces of writing in recent times. There are three mistakes in the rendition of the old name and four in the new.

The Independent cites as its source for the new name the new Broadcasting Bill. In section 2 of the Bill is the following:

“RTÉ” means Raidió Teilifís Éireann;

All they had to do was check out the Bill to get the new spelling,

Raidió Teilifís Éireann

and check out any of the many existing RTÉ documents on the net to get the old spelling,

RADIO TELEFÍS ÉIREANN

Just as well we're not talking paper of record here. Bad as that paper is, this one has been the dregs for years (with the exception of a few notable correspondents). The same paper would be lamenting the decline of the Irish language in the morning. Small wonder when this is all the respect that is paid to it. It's called having your cake and eating it. And making money out of the process.

They offered me a job as a Sub in 1963. Maybe I should have taken it.

Calling the Pot black ...

This is Pat Kenny, one of Ireland's highest paid broadcasters, who, on RTÉ radio, recently challenged the perks being availed of in FÁS, Ireland's state-sponsored employment agency.

Apparently he himself, has had a free BMW from that motor company until this was exposed in the national media. He is now said to be buying the car. Hardly on the HP one imagines.

As an Irish Times reader pointed out today (16/3/09), RTÉ made these people and it is about time they unmade a few of them.