stolentelling

Interactive Fiction Time Lapse

2011-02-28T16:22:00.001Z

All writers of digital fiction or elit can surely appreciate this slice of our glamorous lifestyle.
His finished work itself is pretty excellent and should be checked out via the IF wiki...

slight intellectual breezes on twitter..

2011-02-02T16:17:00.005Z

The internet; a weird & wonderful cerebral network, a conduit of concepts, images, brilliant bits, bots and byways populated with wonderful people, great ideas, lucid thinking, funny quips, odd opinion, deep scholarship and a whole raft of varying degrees of intelligence, engagement and expertise. Yet as anyone who has ever suffered from spamming, viruses, phishing, getting flamed on IRC, lists, forums, witnessed or been subjected to Ad hominem abuse in chat rooms or elsewhere, we come to understand very well that for all its openness and stimulation it can prove an unforgiving public parapet from whence to raise one’s head. This is particularly true if we harbor intentions to use it to sell something to someone.

I find network culture debates stimulating and interesting on many levels, in a life of tech, composition and creativity I have been fortunate, entirely blessed to have been involved in the business of entertainment technology and the technological entertainment business for over twenty years now, having started in TV & Video hardware and also written among many other creative pieces, my first text based computer game in 1982. I want to lay out below just a few of my life experiences to elucidate the foundation of my current position for the benefit of just one other human being on the planet. Namely Mr Dave Grey. With whom I have found myself sucked into an exchange on twitter..

Just to let you understand a bit about me Dave, I founded the first and only licensed playstation developer in Ireland in 1996 – in some degree a test bed for the now ubiquitous Havok technologies. I conducted the first ever feasibility study into Interactive Entertainment Software for Ireland’s National Enterprise Agency, conceptualised and managed third level applied research in game technology applications. In the naughties I worked as a program manager for Microsoft game studios and in that time, received production credits on eight or nine PC & XBOX titles, (or about 50+ SKUs) I also sat on various committees and was a member of the IDGA (Ireland) steering committee. I have an intimate understanding of the business, art and science of making computer games, across 8Bit to 64Bit, from small scale indie work to thee largest PC and Console gaming products produced by MS and others.

I'm fortunate to have a whole raft of experience working, earning, managing and risking in the game’s industry at all levels, sometimes my independent actions were rewarded by meeting, engaging in conversation with, and learning from wonderful individuals like Joel Jewett, Yves Guillemot, Chris Deering, Peter Wong, and many others, other times working alongside companies like DICE, MGS, etc Both lists are long and my name dropping stops now. I have worked with over thirty companies operating in the digital creative spaces, mainly as facilitator/consultant. I have had more business breakfasts with developers, enginners, accountants, agencies, experts, investors, trade show participants, companies, than twitter has hashtags. While I have an initial educational background in Engineering, Electronics and Theatre, I enrolled in DMU’s78 MA in Creative Writing and New Media from 06 to 08 as it was obvious to me at that time that digital creative communications in these areas were going to be personally essential to generate and sustain my own critical and creative career momentum.

Now I’ve taken ten minutes out ( its getting longer by the line here) from working on my Doctorate, which is essentially about my love for specifically digital creative possibilities of Language in our contemporary networked culture, because there is something I’d like to put to bed/knock on the head. (if I’m allowed that is)

It began by my tweeting:

@clevercelt clevercelt

detestable neologism that even usurps 'staycation':"gamestorming" brainstorming + game mechanics - I'd call that creatidiotivy

Despite the clearly stated: “100% Averse to supposed internet marketing experts.” on my twitter profile, occasionally someone else's retweet will contain some such selling me something type tweet. A lot of the time I ignore them.. I use twitter for information & banter not self promotion or selling.. The thing being sold in this instance was a book called gamestorming. The underlying concept emanating from a company Xplane was quite simple –game mechanics combined with business based brain storming techniques - retweak some terminology and flog it anew as a brave leap forward in business management techniques, targeted at those seeking to improve their creative productivity or garner new insights into innovation. Hey the above paragraph could almost be used as a pitch…or not.. it was just the word that caught my attention.

Whatever.. or whatever sparks your standbye but I still stand by my initial tweet, cognisant that twitter is called twitter for a reason, it digitally mimics idle corridor banter, water cooler chat and general gossip, So in my own defence why should I be quoting Adorno, Kittler or Foucault since few outside academia actually understand what they were on about and it might make me appear like a smartass, or why not invoke Sternberg, Guildford, De Bono, even Csikzentmihalyi, since I’m fully familiar with most of their works, Well in my experience general twitter interest in creativity is usually prefaced by ‘my’ or ‘me’, specifically when it comes to the aforementioned ‘experts’.

Recently as part of an innovation course I read another couple of books on exactly those subjects: Innovation and creativity. They offer additional perspectives on a field with which I have been involved and which has been very personally fulfilling to me for over twenty five years now. The kernel of any actual definition of creativity falls upon ideas of value. Value is on the whole subjective. Thus obviously what and how a poet may value in terms of creativity will significantly differ from what an executive vice president in charge of corporate creativity might purport to value, its much more complex than cost versus profit centres, outputs and problem solving Techniques, QTC triangles, time and resources allocation, whatever about time, the poet might have more disposable or genuine resources available to him than the VP, since like internet poker the only requirement to be in the internet VP game is a chip and a chair, albeit a silicon chip. But I digress..

Dave Gray (co author of the gamestorming book) responds to me, although I don't follow him and have never heard of him before:

@clevercelt The good hashtags were already taken. If you can get over the label take a look at the content and see if you feel the same way

Ok, although I was specifically referring to that label, his word and how such conflations irritate me, the author invites me to view his content that gave rise to his new word. In normal circumstances I would simply buy his book, as an act of support and also as you may have already guessed, as a writer I love books specifically books dealing with specific or similar subject matter to stuff I'm interested in.. i.e. language and modern technoogy(check just some of them out on my librarything). But the word ‘games’ has been particularly bumped and buffeted of late, getting bandied about a lot by many people with little or no experience of actually making them and even less playing them. Just thinking about games ...confers minimum expertise in thinking... not expertise in games. So I will admit it, from his invitation I now approach Dave’s content with a somewhat cynical eye, particularly when I discovered the Author himself appears bereft of the slightest game making experience. Maybe he had like me, a wasted youth incessantly playing arcade games from pong, through space invaders, galaxian, gorf, spyhunter, defender, donkey kong, etc etc in between reading books, writing and making stuff, but evidence for that was flimsy at best.. maybe a local warhammer gamesmaster.. or a clan leader on WOW.. hows to know... well it would be stated clearly and in plain view if it was true....

I have also noticed that in the last couple of years, the term creative technology has really taken off and entered the mainstream, Citroen immediately spring to mind but I’m also a professional member of a linkedin group bearing that name and I see a vast array of professionals whom the term fits perfectly, yet their traditional disciplines range right across the full creative spectrum. Indeed what unites the group is the technologically based creativity present in our common experiential history. That’s fairly fundamental one would assume. So my cynicism was tinged with respect, maybe apprehension that having been invited into this person’s professional world, I should at least give him the benefit of the doubt in terms of his gaming experience. So I have a quick skim… and satirically respond thus…

@davegray the term 'bandwagon' was obviously taken too... enough already please

Now as in so many other areas of my interest/field, specifically the area of transmedia and transliteracy, digital humanities, electronic writing, digital poetics, etc many of the longer term proponents, practitioners and academics, one might call pioneers (even visionaries like chris crawford, Nelson, Murray, N.K. Hayles, et al) have witnessed a recent groundswell of engagement and renewed interest.

There appears to be a sort of intellectual or commercial invasion going on whereby the relevance of our contemporary digital milieu renders established (though for a long time considered diverse distractions at best perverse pursuits at worst) interdisciplinary digital creative endeavors now entirely relevant to those in search of career renewal or progression. Like my own black dinner jacket casual wear of the 1980’s, classics eventually come back into fashion at one time or another. Years involved with games culture teach us something...

Everyone is and should be welcomed in all such areas of cyclic convergences. Since as death proves, in the relative longer term no one actually owns anything for very long, and in my view obsolete ideas of intellectual ownership have become harmful to wider human prosperity. I have little time for wanton consumerism and less for those who promote or facilitate the commercialization of everything – including expert opinion.

Dave seems like a nice guy but from what I could access of his revolutionary gamestorming book it initially struck me as a sort of recess drizzle, an awkward grafting of distorted play principles on top of a below par understanding of Japanese management philosophy.. with various creative perspectives distilled, filtered and mechanically stuffed sideways into it.. clearly supporting Maslow’s delineating primary and secondary creativity and at that point I knew I was devoting too much of my valuable time to something which I really shouldn’t care that much about… hence my please in the tweet above, I like people, particularly real people, and even more so real well meaning people, and Dave struck me as obviously one of those.. Someone who is passionate about his own creativity. I’m a creative person and when I write or create delusional tripe (like now like now anyone who is still reading this screams at their screen) I simply need to be told, preferably by a friend, but if not by someone who might understand,a understand that an ugly mishapen word can be annoying, particularly to anyone who genuinely loves words, likes people, I’d tell people that if I really had to…specifically if I’m invited to..

Dave offers:

@clevercelt If I were to judge you by your name, you'd be the type who thinks he's cleverer than everyone else. Do you think that's fair?

If you are genuinely in business Dave and from the fact that you are trying to charge people for both your supposed expertise and your book that reflects it, I hope that my assumption here has some validity, than you obviously understand that fairness has little to do with business, business is about profit and competition and markets and that elusive concept ‘value’. Fair is utterly irrelevant unless of course your magnum opus gamestorming has somehow now morphed into a social responsibility project or become a ferris wheel in which case the word fair would be wholly applicable, or circus either...

Welcome back to the internet, feel free to think whatever you like about me, Dave like me, enjoys the privilege of living in an open democracy, we are both free to express honest opinions, well Dave's opinion costs.. mine is free and for the record I don’t think I’m cleverer than anyone else – if I did I would obviously have called myself cleverercelt… I used the ID clevercelt back on geocities and other early internet websites and have been doing so for fifteen years, at no time have I ever attempted to sell anyone anything, or condescend in their direction as you might understand if you visited my site, or tried doing just a little tad of research. Never do I go off on tantrums because someone doesn't like a word I've invented... Look Dave, I write something that lets me directly address you:

Since you've asked: Your central idea for what you refer to as a playbook, (as I would understand it relative to American football tactical plans) designed to corral free thinking sessions and problem solving techniques strikes me as somewhat self defeating if not outright farcical, you want to actually restrict and guide thinking during free flowing sessions.. maybe that works , maybe it doesn’t but what it does suggest to me is that you need to go off and read a bit more of Winnicott, Caillos, Huizinga, or at least some Ian Bogost, Jesper Jull or similar and think some more about the fundamental elements of play, discovery, imagination and fantasy…, or since you’re an expert maybe not, many business game guru’s are already well versed in the latter…

I'm writing the above when I get another from Dave..

@clevercelt assess the content on it's merits, good or bad. Not the name. That's not clever at all. It's just being a dick.

What ?....Erm as I wrote in my first tweet, which was actually focused solely on your newly invented word, your label for your activity, that and that alone, just a basic omment on your word and nothing else, I think it’s an idiotic ugly word, it’s a puerile name, inconsequential in terms of actual creativity and misguidedly mediocre in respect of reflecting understanding of what constitutes innovation, without wishing to offend passionate people who don’t seek payment for their myopic and shallow views…amateurish at best. In my first tweet to my followers, and not addressed to you in anyway, I offered a diluted response to the name/term and nothing else, I said it was a detestable neologism and I'd call the act of artificially associating the two terms an act of creatidiotivy.. to me a throw away witty twitter comment.. basically a self effacing comment, where I ironically mimic and replicate the very action which I claim to detest. In your eagerness to promote your own brand of game based insight /understanding of creativity, you jump on it, miss the point entirely and now you want my opinion on your content or that somehow makes me.. the dick ? Stirring up offense because all publicity is good, it drives sales, its a valid engagement strategy, in the new world of Internet marketing vacuity, its engage with potential customers and listen to what they say, refute those who would not support the product.. oh please... please and please for a fourth time..

So from my simple self effacing comment on a word, Dave is now deciding to tell the 7K people in his twitter stream that I am dick ?

Is that because I have not offered a reciprocal delusional netiquette endorsement ?

And when I tweet back and say I’ll respond in full. Rather than react Dave you have the temerity, the egotistical audacity, the brass neck, the stupidity to tell me that I have offended you ? by Judging you... if you don't want to be judged then keep you mouth shut and stay out of other people's twitter streams when you haven't been invited... or stay at home and concoct more driveling gibberish..

Since you have been tweeting my name repeatedly (5 at last count) and have engaging in what is tantamount to an unsolicited intrusion into my twitter stream, Indeed you have now asked twice that I offer an opinion on your content, ok allow me to finish what was to be a short post by assessing what content I have access to, in order to placate your self inflicted sense of injustice without recourse to having money extracted from me in payment for your insight and understanding.

Indeed consider the below another free review of your work and opinions, you can display it alongside those free ones you've been seeking from those in your twitter stream who have been follish enough to have bought your book on Amazon...

The content I viewed has little if any merit to anyone who has actually engaged in creative problem solving sessions, its awkward re-framing of several old ideas from already accepted formats, embarrassingly rebranded for I.P. reasons and somehow vaguely stuffed full of superimposed myopia about gaming. The execution of the whole concept is a pig with lipstick and eyeliner.. it might hoodwink some people who have no experience in such areas but more seriously it could have the potential to be psychologically damaging to certain would be participants if executed in the shoddy shallow ramshackle manner in which it was conceived.. it is another example of the conflated idiotic net marketing piffle that clogs communication clarity and corrupts and disappoints eager minds, a vertible hotch potch amalgam of cheesy wordplay and uber-management horseshit purporting to be knowledge and wisdom.

Its opportunist bollix, flogged by an inflated ego with little or no experiential understanding of the actual evolution of game mechanics or the nuance of the international video games industry, as a whole, its a shallow mucky, sour tasting text based snake oil blend of business bullshit designed to ride the wave of interest in social gaming and commercially exploit the desire of business to engage in meaningful exploration of creativity and innovation. It’s the worst type of bad business advice available and merely demonstrates the pathetic inadequacies and insecurities that pervade the self-back slapping brigade of internet experts. who lie awake at night conceiving such tripe. Its complete crud of the lowest order. But hey maybe you can come up with a more appropriate word for the sequel …. hows about: dickstorming….

Kate Pullinger Wins...

2009-11-18T11:04:00.002Z

Kate Pullinger, winner of the 2009 Governor General’s Literary Award for English-language fiction and general all round generous good Gurl. Kate was co-course leader for the M.A. in creative writing and New media in DMU, a really generous Fiction tutor, highly talented and ultra aware in the area of Digital Literature. Anyone who has the pleasure of knowing Kate will be utterly delighted that her talents have received the due recognition she deserves, I know I am. So off you go now and buy her award wining print book the mistress of nothing Its available at the incredulously cheap price of £6.00 from Amazon.

The above image was found online at The Montreal Gazette

sometimes..... you need a laugh

2009-11-11T14:40:00.000Z

"About a month before he died, my grandmother covered my grandfather's back with lard. After that, he went downhill very quickly."

--Comic Milton Jones

Explicit Lyrics Warning - Real X Factor

2009-11-06T20:08:00.008Z

This video contains a single performance from Jinx Lennon, a Dundalk man prepared to sing and say what others, who too claim to be punk poets, will only think. Certainly in this performance he uses a word not heard very often in mainstream media.

I spent many many hours sitting beside Jinx at the same secondary school desk. He was always interested in both music and social justice / commentary even back then - approaching thirty years ago. I wish him every success he wishes for himself, I say that because, while Jinx has enjoyed national radio play with some of his songs, has even had documentaries made about him, I don't believe the flame of fame attracts Jinx - for him it's about his music and what he wants to say with it. In his own X (factor) you, way.

Original Man Up

2009-09-09T10:22:00.002+01:00

The live event was outstanding in terms of spectacle - 80K of supporters cheering the brutal intensity that is our unique national sport - more sedate media theorist's can enjoy the illuminating MCLUHAN media embed levels operating

I love it when one of my sons points me to stuff like this

2009-08-03T01:18:00.005+01:00

Sort of a cross between Bobby Mc Ferron and KT Tunstall ( but improved in terms of an edge methinks) by very talented Ozzy Gezer. ( Hey Give him at least one minute of your time - to impress you ) Observe as he quickly and smoothly covers a minor mis-timing error.

Digital Ethnography Maybe

2009-07-20T12:21:00.004+01:00

Some of you ( i.e. at least 1 million ) may have seen his 'the machine is using us' youtube video, which brought him to public prominence, so here is Michael Wesch's latest take on aspects of 'Digital ethnography':

lest we forget what exploitation actually looks like

2009-07-12T20:12:00.000+01:00

Time Out to Think

2009-06-30T14:32:00.005+01:00

The above photo is from http://www.timsfotos.com/Donegal%20Dawn.jpg and may be copyrighted so can't be used for commercial purposes without prior permission.

Tims photo shows the place (Donegal) where I'll spend the next couple of days off-line recharging.

2009-06-25T16:31:00.000+01:00

David O Reilly

2009-06-25T12:51:00.000+01:00

three months old but hey I like it.

Henry Jenkins on Transmedia

2009-06-22T13:53:00.001+01:00

over to my own site for a while

2009-05-11T14:33:00.001+01:00

Although I've set up the new email a post feature on stolentelling it's actually been over a month since I posted here on Blogger - I'm over at my own (hosted) site : www.michaeljmaguire.com fixing it up and playing around with stuff, I plan to post up some of my work there - and thus retain my own copyright.

I've temporarily stopped using blogger.... it got a bit buggy on me.

You can check out my twitter, linked in, friendfeed and other stuff here too...

Changing (Faces of) Uni-Comedy (Formulas)

2009-03-14T12:49:00.012Z

At various times last night I caught bits and pieces, snippets really, of the BBC's Comic Relief broadcast. As someone who has written comedy, satire, parody and other supposedly funny stuff, I often prove hard to please. Like many others and their individual taste in art, I know what I like, I know what makes me laugh, I know who are the masters of comedy and why. Below is Ken Dodd - One of the my Heroes of British Comedy: He knows all the rules and formulas but specifically knows how to use or break each one or all for maximum titterlarious effect. The man is a legend and a hard working life-time comedy connoisseur.

( image found on the daily mail site @ http://img.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2007/12_03/doddDM2312_228x280.jpg )

When lesser (much lesser then Ken) comedians and their comedy becomes formulaic, I'm mentally beyond the upcoming punchline usually figuring the mnemonic linkages while most of these standard comics are still exposing a set up to Joe Public. Its a game I play, Guess where the joker is going after the punchline.

In Ireland we have a comedian called Jason (Burn him, Burn him) Byrne as maybe living proof that determination and ambition can triumph over (utter lack of) talent, quite simply one of thee most unfunny people on the planet, even if he tries his best to 'look funny, say stupid things that might be funny if actually thought out, He also acts outrageously, over and over and over again - he laughs and laughs and guffaws and laughs and seems to believe being silly can be like a forest fire, drilling that friction of his unfunny laughter into audiences heads, over and over and over again, will somehow eventually catch a spark of laughter in one clone - like thicko Audience head, thereafter sparking a wider reaction in Burn's audience. His attempts to do this are beyond any cringe comedy ever offered by the office or the superbad crew, particlularly when it it actually works for him.

Found again at the telegraph but we easily tire of Burn's flat comedy

While there is a place for burn him burn him's (lack of) style of unsophisticated humor, his cringing ginger simpleton perosna tries to be funny without recourse to any other formulas, superficially cajoling his audience with his repetitiously rebellious analytical antipathy, all of which is terrific if you are an inherently funny person with a natural ability to make people laugh, which he isn't and he hasn't.

But many naturally gifted people do eventually end up investigating the cause / theory behind their own humor successes, particularly if their 'stage character' impinges upon their off-stage personality in some regard. Some invariably end up back at the classics, P.G. Woodhouse, Aristophanes, Groucho, Vaudville, Music Hall, etc, where they can discover century and millenial old comedic tricks. Pity Burn didn't take the time to try to figure out another strategy to be funny, like in his particular case, maybe just pay someone to write some funny material for him.

Little Britain of course is held in high regard in the UK, as is Catherine Tate, you would need to be very high indeed to find last night's intersecting character comedy funny. As stated and repeated above, while repetition is a recognized comedic device and Jason (Burn Him Burn Him) is a blatant example of singular overuse due in part to his (to quote George Bush) misunderestimation of the power of repetition and Unicomedy to also irritate as well as entertain.

Williams and Tate were the archetypal 'comedy stars' last night, but overly formulaic and ultimately equally as flat and unfunny as Burn Him Burn Him. Burn Him Burn Him is certainly No Dylan Moran, Dara O Brien, Eddie Izzard or the very talented Mr. Jimmy Carr - those guys simply don't do unicomedy - while working hard at it all daily, they also meticulously research and learn the various aspects of their trade. So Burn Him Burn Him may end up traveling that Jim Eoin Unicomedy route of 'fooking no where talentless twat' pioneered by the once funny Roy(ston) Chubby Brown. ( FYI: That once was on tuesday april 15th 1986, 4 33pm for approximately fifteen seconds)

Tate and Williams reside at the opposite side of the scale from Burn Him Burn Him & his unfunny Co, instinct once central to their success, has been usurped by over reliance on a previously proved array of formula. Faced with the last nights reality of a national requirement to perform and be funny, they should have forgetten about doing a Hancock, and take the same advice I've given Burn Him, Burn Him, above - Yes they too should just get some freshly talented writers in, give your comedy some legs Lurvy, spread that lurve, and the paydays too folks. Old puns about greedy Bankers have already entered reality.

All of which brings me to the reality of Comedy actually Traveling, three Cheers for the American office, south park, Frazier, Curb, Seinfeld, even, Jackie Glesson, Bilko, but more recently 'the big bang theory, Scrubs, Boston Legal, Etc, Which is truly great but I'm still expecting to see Simon Cowell turn up as head panelist on an American version of Dead Donkeys Dancing on Millionaire Ice or something, I'm wondering what happens when they eventually take British TV format formulas and cross fertilize them with formulaic American comedy - and then I came upon this image of this lady....

That's Iliza Shlesinger's above and her slightly sultry and very different take on the Ken Dodd or the Burn Him Burn Him comedy look, and I must say it's somewhat reminiscent of a one time Tea Leoni pose I can't seem to find to hand, ( i.e. she one time wife of an X-files sex addict called DD ??) Oh Okay this, legs in air reversed, one will just have to do you for now:

Tea (Leoni) for two Mr Woodhouse ?

Iliza does remind me, in terms of her actual delivery, of one Sarah Silverman, she who, despite her USA success (with a little help from Matt Damon) so miserably failed as a comedian in Britain, Her choice of material was so wrong, so... her attitude was wrong... just too 'American' for the British really. It will be interesting to see where Shlesinger goes with her career, whether her ego will do a Burn Him Burn Him or she travels the true route of comedy connoisseur.

The purpose of a baldy chicken's cutting edge.

2009-03-04T15:36:00.009Z

I'm always genuinely surprised when I hear talented and gifted people bemoan the proliferation of innovation, as if there could somehow be such a thing as too much innovation in any area of the arts ?

Here in Ireland business is being induced to develop an innovation culture, the state has even created its own dodgey financial instrument the 'innovation voucher'.

Technology literally touted as a trouble proof tarpaulin, or tonic has seen us asked to innovate our way out of the recession or depression or whatever the end of the material greed machine is being called this economic weather. Apparently it's part of our personal civic duty to innovate, surely no one would or should reject this national rallying call to innovate ?

Last evening I listened to a very eminent theater practitioner do just that, to the applause of fifty intelligent people - the newly appointed professor espoused it's rejection. I knew better than assume myself befuddled and begrudged among a bunch of learning Luddites. The thing was, the gentleman in question wasn't exactly complaining about innovation itself, he was acutely observing the overuse of the 'innovation vernacular', the dullard use of innovation as element of a revitalized marketing mix within the commodity centric culture in which we myopically lost ourselves in recent years. The vanish oxyaction of clinical 'innovation application' threatening to obliterate the relevance of Beckett's stain on the silence.

The very idea that such a high percentage of productions lay claim to being 'cutting edge' is more a line of lament regarding the state of theatrical imagination and cultural conformity than any rejection of innovation.

I wholeheartedly agree that innovation for innovation's sake is as apt as being armed with a bag of baldy chickens in a pillow fighting contest - while there may well be some conceptually obtuse connection, and as a tool the bag will no doubt be effective to some degree, the whole idea is fundamentally wrong, essentially devoid of any understanding, spirit or connotation of the word 'Play'

By all means do new things, even do old things in new ways, but only when these are required, only when they serve a purpose. Purposelessness simply shouldn't enter into it ? should it ?

Which conveniently brings me to some recent work of the very talented game artist friend of mine Mr Kevin Martin. Kevin has worked on some of the top selling UK console games in recent years, This example is some of his private work and is of itself a case for some innovation to occur at Youtube in respect of improved resolutions and file size accommodations, enjoy and as ever draw your own conclusions as to the purpose of my including it here.

2009-02-26T09:52:00.001Z

A PhD in April, Should I show them this clip before or after I start, LOL:

2009-02-15T15:24:00.002Z

Think I'll give the INTERNET thing a rest for a while.

1.7 Billion Euro Worth of Irish Imagination - My Hole

2009-02-11T16:41:00.015Z

I was recently fascinated by the clever and humorous work of artist Christoph Niemann showcased over on the New York Times website. Basically images of various lego bricks, with superimposed text added, created using a lot of his imagination. The image below is just one of them, you should check out the rest.

Lego was in someway responsible for my own fascinations with creativity, the image above reminded me that it was the one toy that I continually played with. Well it was my only toy really, apart from the environment as a whole, (or should that be spelled hole ?) which when you are an imaginative kid is almost the equivalent of all the toyshops in the world rolled into one big one that stings, bites and hurts as it teaches you things.

The cheese and the green and NYC ESB in the image above reminded me of the annual exodus from Ireland of every level of public representative that can grab a seat on an air fungus flight, usually splitting under the guise of ambassadorial role or cultural smackhead or some such bald ox that conveniently gets classified as expenses, any excuse to get out of the cold and as far away from the metaphorical heat for a while.

There has been literally no imagination shown on behalf of the government in relation to the Irish Bank systems difficulties in the credit crunch, credit crisis and now recession.

Apparently the best we can come up with is to throw another 7 Billion Euro into those holes in an effort to fill them up, the trouble of course is; none of the banks have stipulated exactly how deep their own individual holes are, and indeed when the government decides to use taxpayers money to fill the hole, it actually their hole actually becomes my hole. How can these people in all conscience call this a remedy, what ever happened to the idea of creative problem solving ?

Proud to be Irish ? absolutely, Proud to be in anyway associated with the horde of dullards soon to be flying all over the world, allegedly on my behalf - Hell No.

A little bit of complex creativity

2009-02-05T15:35:00.005Z

I recently finished reading M.Mitchell Waldrop's 'Complexity - the emerging science at the edge of order and chaos' which obviously isn't a book that I'd try to condense into a short and somewhat impulsive blog post like this.

Yet just as, for many years now, Physicists have been fascinated by James Joyce's Ulysses, particularly quantum physicists, other writers, digital writers and creative individuals, like myself, have been drawn towards string theory and complexity theory.

Concepts of emergence and intelligent design now inhabit traditionally humanistic realms, multi-modal and interdisciplinary research fields merge and encourage a curiously productive cross pollination of ideas. Which all sounds terribly waffly I know, tell you what why don't I just show you this video I only recently discovered from Oisin Prendiville and Michael Higgins

Twitter: A Bubble of Insignificance ?

2009-01-29T18:47:00.008Z

The text below is quoted from another more personal blog I write hopefully and humorously entitled:
'Mick's Plan for world Domination':

"For a while I thought it might be the Douglas Adams like spaceship of hairdressers scenario (substitute INTERNET marketers or even awkward Internet writers/wafflers like me) where everyone jabbers away incessantly about our collective common stuff of no importance to anyone else outside our bubble of insignificance"

Found Here it is a Video frame by J. Johnson, courtesy of Ka`Io Productions
Lava bubble burst on March 17, 1999

I'm suffering an internet/social media marketing headache right now.

History of the internet - nicely techy & visually crisp

2009-01-28T14:45:00.005Z

Found via twitter & P2Pnet.net I like this because it actually has a nice tech info level.

Melih Bilgil, a German Visual Artist from Mainz, created it using 'Picol icons. (available here)

Pretty cool story of how the net evolved.

Sir Tim Berners Lee fans might have something to say about it though.

Yes, I am very very safe..... but these guys

2009-01-22T16:43:00.005Z

While rooting around at the bottom of my twitter account, I encountered the independent (the Irish newspaper - not the adjective) journalist Ronan Price under his username 'yallingup' and found his tweet about this video posted on Vimeo (I seem to be there quite a lot lately)

This video has had 1.6 million views and after adding one more to that number, I can understand why.... it's awe inspiring. Watching these guys, boy I'm just a big ole scaredy cat

wingsuit base jumping from Ali on Vimeo.

Digital Homage or Theft ? Blu's original and innovative work a sign of the times ?

2009-01-18T14:59:00.008Z

I found the image above on richard pettingers blog via google. It's funny but it might also be a visual metaphor for the advertising journey taken by Rainey Kelly Campbell Roalfe - well all except the bit in the bottom right hand box.

After seeing their advert/insert on my telly, I was more than slightly reminded of an earlier post of mine here before I remembered that I'm not actually a British tv license payer, I got an urge to fire an email or snail mail off to the BBC.

I wanted to offload a diatribe about ownership of ideas, the unattributed regurgitation and repositioning of someone else's work, the blatant theft of craft, all those utterly repugnant additional activities that a genuinely creative individual finds utterly repulsive; weird worming around the potential theft using semi-complex language, justifying by deflection, the usual mechanisms of evasion such as denial by omission - If I don't say it up front, then it might be missed and I might get the kudos for this iinovation.

I'm interested in such things, I did explore that very idea in one of my own digital fiction works called : Bob Casio's Dead Cameraman - a hopefully obvious reference to Boccaccio 's seminal work. (it looks old, it looks badly designed and its meant to for perhaps not immediately obvious reasons.) I even set up a blog back in June of last year where I might further explore those ideas about theft or homage... occasionaly I post to it.

Now the thing is this, I happen to become aware that Chris Reed and Gerel Orgil have both written excellent blogs on this very same subject so let me just direct you towards their posts which explore this question in a perhaps less emotive (& therefore less potentially actionable way).

Unseen Stolen tellings

2009-01-15T17:43:00.007Z

I lifted the following video link from Deanna's tweet
- her (writing) website is here:

Starwars by someone who hasn't seen it.
Sounds like some of the pitches I've done at MIPTV LOL

Star Wars: Retold (by someone who hasn't seen it) from Joe Nicolosi on Vimeo.

BTW I'm changing my twitter profile icon in protest at the arts council of Ireland's recent decision to cut all funding at the Irish Writers Center
from my lovable happy head to this:

Mechanical Mindfook

2009-01-14T14:47:00.003Z

Stolen From Paddy Donnelly, who borrowed it from Youtube:

Summer Glau in the Sarah Connor Chronicles, now this mechanical German Lady at the end, Should I be worried about the evolution of my affinity to female metal.

Believing my twittering was simply inappropriate.

2009-01-12T18:34:00.007Z

I haven’t posted here since Jan 7^th and my last two tweets were separated by five whole days – during that five day period, my father in law passed away and was laid to rest

The above photo is copyright Bart Verstockt from Belgium who kindly sent it to me via email.

Since the afternoon of Jan 7th, my full attention has been with my wife and children, my extended family, close friends and those kind and generous people who shared their time, sympathy and support with my wife’s family. At such times of loss and grief, twitter, technology, PCs and pretty much everything except family and friends, become superfluous and totally fade from view. Now that those sad events have passed, should it simply be back to business as usual for me?

I’ve become a big twitter fan and have been very fortunate in terms of followers and consequent networks of their followers and friends, I tend to use twitter a bit like an occasional asynchronous delicious but with added humanity + pretty much instant interaction – my twitter stream is a tremendous way to explore common interests and I’m fortunate to be offered daily insights, advice and direction into various areas that interest me. (Which I may get to list in my next post)

My own use of twitter, is entirely and totally non-commercial, I haven’t anything to sell anyone and yet I can see my (clevercelt on-line persona ) non standard sorta smart arse identity starting to conform to various marketing models of ‘personality brands’ which kinda scares me a bit.

Let me be 100% honest, as a writer and digital creative, I’m sure I may eventually get around to producing something of value to others at some point that may need to be externally funded, financed or in other ways have creation costs paid. The easiest way to do that is to maybe ask people to buy some kind of end product or invest in a business plan. Yet there is more than likely an even better way. If and when the time comes I’ll ask my twitter friends and followers about all that.

Twitter is just riddled with advice about how to sell stuff, whether through social media marketing, affiliate programs or whatever, for me that’s irrelevant or so far into the future as to not be a consideration. Yet that knowledge, experience and wisdom (Can you be wise about marketing Mick?, yup course you can) feeds my twitter stream with intelligence, insight, cleverness and so many generous people, sharing links, advice, across so many areas, these generous folk are my own personal pile of polymaths.

I follow a lot of people who are writers, creators, editors, designers who are transitioning from traditional to new media, I follow experienced social media users, those versed and proficient in traditional and digital literacy, I follow people who make stuff, people who dream and I follow a lot of people who ‘believe’. What exactly they believe differs from one to the next but all have some kinda faith in common, even those that believe that traditional beliefs have no attraction, these I follow for their conviction and honesty.

I follow funny tweeple, clued in tweeple, buzzed and vibed tweeple and sometimes just sitting back and observing the collective creativity of these tweeple fills me with belief in People.

I’m just not a volume tweeter, I have shed loads of stuff to do daily, I do tend to offer answers to people in DMs and also try to help out where I can without actually broadcasting that fact, I’m delighted that despite my enforced absence, my own followers have stayed with me, I think only ten or so of my 1400 plus followers actually stopped following in the last five days.

My experience of the last five days will stay with me and I’m possibly more aware of my own mortality than usual, I’m also more acutely aware today that I believe in people but also believe in Tweeple.

SHUT THE FUNK UP (S.T.F.U.)

2009-01-07T01:18:00.001Z

I made this three years ago now....

Shut the F.U.N.K. (Fairly Unneccessary Negative Karma) UP from clevercelt on Vimeo.

Nicked from Shannon Paul

2009-01-04T15:15:00.003Z

As a result of a quick reading of Shannon Paul's Blog, which I enjoyed, I did indeed steal and enjoy this this, maybe you will too?

Lip Dub - Flagpole Sitta by Harvey Danger from amandalynferri on Vimeo.

Goodbye to all that

2009-01-01T16:02:00.006Z

Thank God for George W Bush,

He has been the standard bearer of stupidity, cheerleader of the criminally incompetent, Icon of Idiocracy, it took eight years of pain and suffering on a global scale, but he eventually proved that dumbing down doesn’t work, and with his demise the value of stupidity and ignorance has once again declined. Bad Simple ideas are no longer in vogue, Let’s all take the time to celebrate, understand and maybe consider complexity again.

The end of 2008 saw greed and money join stupidity and avarice in going out of fashion, the obsolete hoarding empires and empirical reasoning are failing to function. In the coming Obama era, a European and Asian economic depression, new leaps of faith must be made, trust rebuilt, changes to how things are done, changes to how things are thought about, its all about change again and somehow seeing and doing beyond economics and fiscal rascality, Captain Picard like on a mission to boldly…

Digital Wrting Down Under

2008-12-16T18:38:00.005Z

Fans of Douglas Adams' BBC series ( which imho merely kidnapped rather than captured a percentage of the humor in the four books in his trilogy. yet developing in that flawed process a pretty slickly comedic distinctive screen style - derived from radio !) and anyone interested in digital writing as a potential career (in which we can fail miserably but make that miserable failure the basis of a phoenix like comeback - well I hope we can, that's my plan anyway. Enjoy

the relative merits of street cred

2008-12-06T19:02:00.006Z

I recently saw this image above from Banksy and wondered about the tag currently attached to him, as 'the world's most famous street artist'. - Well that's the trouble with fame, credibility and particularly 'greatness', like Einstein's theory - they are all relative.

Below is some awe inspiring street animation from the Argentinian artist BLU (don't mention the Falklands pls) which to some more than tops Banksy for street cred...... originality and artistic endeavour. It may be like comparing apples and oranges - but hey isn't it tremendous to have such wonderful fruit:

MUTO a wall-painted animation by BLU from blu on Vimeo.

I know who I am

2008-11-21T10:42:00.003Z

Now that the new Star Trek trailer has broken (even in HD) I love this reworking of it.

Democraphics

2008-11-12T19:05:00.002Z

Democraphics

Is my new word that means the ancient practice of breaking people into categories that we already know actually means nothing anymore.

back inside the outside

2008-11-05T21:43:00.008Z

The previous post, like the website in the image returned an invalid argument.

Ah yes, I've decided to join the Irish social media club after all, well not that 'official' style club via twitter 'lets somehow charge everyone for listening to each other' model - but the by far more imaginative Irish Arts Council initiative. Come along and remain outside the official structure if you so desire - right up my street really.

I suppose, when it comes to traditional arts and new media Ireland is currently a bit like it was during the 1950's electrification phase, while we were supposedly just working on the physical infrastructure we were actually having to perform some renovation work on the national mindset itself, bit by bit, mile by mile. I suppose in the 21st century arts & arts orgs must be taught to contextualize themselves in the current international technological paradigm - This seems to be the arts council's way of starting that process. I found it strange that the list of Irish Experts for the conference was quite short and not all that deep in relative terms - when you begin to consider the size and impact of the tech, innovation, software services industries we already have in Ireland

Digital Dinosaurs : Sure but how long could you last listening to the Irish experts ?

2008-11-01T23:45:00.012Z

60 seconds

Sure but how long could you last listening to the arts council's new media 'experts'.

I've just spent over two years of my life researching just this sort of stuff while studying for my recently awarded MA in Creative Writing and New Media - I remember a very wise man once telling me that if I wanted to know what was really going on in the new media world today then I should ask my kids - (10, 15, 19) I must say the Arts council's definition of 'expert' and that of my kids' appear to somewhat differ: more bog roll than role call of Irish experts - residue of the old celtic dot bubble web 2.0 new media property porn hype crush thing, spectacularly mispromoted and mostly misunderstood by naive pr bandwagoneers, as thee idea that we all need to hear what they are seeking to communicate. wisdom it aint.

- Anyone who has blogged using or about new media obviously has something to say on the matter - in a similar vain to the assertion that almost everyone has a novel in them.. and in most cases it should stay in them. So tell that to me and another 100,000 plus over at http://www.nanowrimo.org/ so that's democracy for you, free will, but will anyone really last the whole day listening to these experts ?

I think I migh have another go with that other dinosaur.

comedy is outright difficult

2008-10-28T22:13:00.007Z

I signed up to the National Novel Writing Month partly because it's actually an international event and a tremendous way to (re)test self discipline for writers. There's also potential something there.

I genuinely want to spend part of the coming month writing a comic novel, but joining up I soon discovered that really wanting to write a comic novel can prove an unpopular and difficult idea. I am very grateful for all those folks who offered insight and opinion in that regard, below is part of my take on why writers tend to dilute novels and very rarely distill them into a purely comedic novel.

Yet it's potentially inspiring and fun but horrible and hard and ridiculously difficult to sustain and despairingly dumb when it dies and elating and frustrating in unequal measures when it flies, not only because comedy and the comedic somehow says publicly I want people to like me and find me and my writing funny, genuine, entertaining, slap on the back buddy brilliant, your stuff is like sooooo funny I'd buy the next one on Pratchett like pre-order. Its tough wanting to write comedy not just because it's some muted form of psychological defense mechanism developed over years scraping a living / learning on this miserable greedy weedy wee planet, not only because many of us have spent part of our life subconsciously examining the elements, components, structures and theories of successful comedy, and thus ensuring we socially conform if confronted with funny situations, It's odd and difficult not just because we can exaggerate in fifty million ways about what it is that makes stuff 'funny' to some people in the first place and totally unfunny to others in second place or in any sort of place if their's is being repossessed right now.

It's tough but rewarding not only because nonsense is often the least offensive vehicle to hold and transport actual sense and truth and attack the status quo, or that the history of clowns and court jester's is as valid and worthy as that of economic advisers, military commanders even spiritual leaders, or that to be prepared to be a comedy writer or comedy maker you MUST be prepared to lie, to cheat and trick your reader/viewer, even become a fool of sorts, that 'simple funny' is actually a very complicated process to which the vast majority of the planet is immediately capable of responding positively - while merely a minority are capable of instigating, sustaining or making those laughs and humor and the actually funny jokes live and, like a long line of incredibly convoluted unfunny dialog ...... going to the end of your tolerance level .. yet .....incredibly keeping your attention ...... last.

Even he who is regarded as that gifted 'wisecracker' or she as crackerette perhaps and we all know at least one, would have trouble with 70K words worth of wisecracking, you'd need to be slightly cracked to want to do that in the first place and he who laughs last, is he who didn't get the joke and he who says or writes 'he who' all the time sounds a bit like an ass backwards.

I think the objective of deciding to write comedy is making a decision to enjoy the process of writing that bit more than the straight forward or more mainstream genres - to be braver, to be more prepared than most to embrace failure, then on the other hand, there's four fingers and a thumb - I am always prepared to be this wrong in the pursuit of something that might somehow turn out right.

Web 2.0 non runner.

2008-10-16T13:29:00.006+01:00

I'm so busy right now, I'm taking my own advice to do nothing at all electronic for one afternoon, just because I can ! For a couple of hours I'm not answering the phone, email, txts, mobile or even the door (ok it's wood but the bell has electronics). I'm checking out of the twitter stream, the superhighway, the loop, boards, forums, moodles, etc etc, powering down so I can actually plan and write up some stuff on paper for a change.

All the 'e' stuff is really great and the latest web 2.0 stuff does excite, broaden the horizons, add value, etc, but there is a strange competitiveness to it all, my blog's bigger than your blog sorta stuff, awards for this, recognition for that, all of which kinda perplexes me in so mnay ways, anyway, I decided to award my self the afternoon off by quickly creating the above award for me and my electronic presence.

DUMB DIGITAL - Offended ?

2008-10-11T14:44:00.010+01:00

I recently set up a twitter account - it's not a week old yet and I'm genuinely surprised that I have already received many followers. I embedded this Whoopi Goldberg Video here for reasons which may become obvious.

As with so much social media, I was required to offer the usual username, password, info, and a one line bio. Fine. We all have to do that, later we often go back and tweak that info. Well I do.

My one line twitter bio initially said, 'dumb digital paddy'. In parts of the UK, 'Paddy' is a label that would be easily given, in some instances as a term of endearment from boisterous 'Brits' or scallywag 'scousers', a jovial cultural classification from Good hearted Geordies, etc, I'm sure that slang interpretation of the term 'Paddy' has entered the British lexicon.

A mate read my blog but said he wouldn't f**king subscribe to my f**king twitter, he wouldn't get an account or follow me simply because I was demeaning the Irish Identity by calling myself, a 'dumb digital paddy'. " Irony is not your favorite subject ?" clevercelt asks, erm nope, he prefers his 'PADDY' as a racist slogan of condescension, even though his name actually is Paddy and he too is Irish.

I changed my bio, because I'm sure there are other sensitive paddy's out there that wear their own form of ractist glassess and thus colour their opinions accordingly, I have no desire to offend anyone, so I changed my 1 line bio to Dumb Digital Mick.

Now in the USA & elsewhere, they don't refer to Irish People as 'Paddy's' they call them 'Micks' but since my name is Michael and I have been called Mick by my close friends for over 40 years, then Paddy can go ' F... F... Find himself' (-:

My computer is recognizing your creative genius…. and some…

2008-09-27T13:22:00.006+01:00

I very recently, while metaphorically scratching my head in search of a suitably quirky discussion topic for this blog somehow examining recyceled story ideas, received a promotional email from HP - not the nice fruity and brown sauce makers in the UK but that nasty global computer hardware entity - grrr grrr (feigned anger at anything that employs more than 1000 people!) grr grrr (genuine anger for similar and other reasons)grr grr, 'mocking is catching' as my grandmother informed me, so I’ll stop.

HP didn't send me that email directly, the admin bot at animation world network sent it to me, it and I ,usually get along you see. Since we do, I began to wonder about the actual validity of HP's question in that promo email- "Is your computer recognizing your creative genius?" What superficially seemed like a totally absurd Kotler cougher, (i.e. embarrassingly inept attempt at marketing cleverness) actually contains a modicum of provocative thought. However being Irish & a creative craftsman for in excess of twenty years, I respect the old adage, “A bad workman blames his tools" so you see, claiming that I cannot realize my creativity through my lack of HP hardware innovation is counter intuitive to what I’ve learned about creativity and being creative.

Such inane advertising slogan’s pander to a sort of selective whingey prima donna type creativity, "I can only be creative on Monday’s and only if I’ve had my Skinny Latte First " Sounds pretty ridiculous to anyone who has experienced genuine creative flair, naïve noobs and other apprentice types might think subscribing to such a idea is good for the ego and ergo good for creativity. Substitute the above ‘HP Hardware’ for 'Skinny latte' and somehow it’s supposedlyvalid ? Sorry I don’t think so, my brother often said, ‘a good snooker player doesn’t even need a cue’ and while that sounds utterly incredulous perhaps more so than this inane computer recognition concept, there is an underlying reverse wisdom in operation, a sort of prompt of the Zen Koan variety – being; no matter what kind of tool you have, whether top of the range, latest innovation or slow and clunky, the tool will not make you creative, if you are genuinely creative then you will also be creative in how you achieve that creativity.

My computers just do what I tell them to do, each an inert piece of hardware that passively processes my instructions - it doesn’t interpret them and therefore is incapable of recognising, pattern matching , comparing, or any other form of heuristic behaviour, HP’s ad agency on the other hand recognise insecurities in the commercial creative communities, specifically among those seeking an edge, advantage or indeed excuse, as a result of lazy or lack of creativity, such as that which spawned that stupid ad in the first instance.

strikes me as strange flexi muscle

2008-06-18T16:54:00.008+01:00

Well there is a rare photo, from the CPSU website, it's Derek Mullen Assistant General Secretary of the CPSU (Civil Public & Services Union) and he's on the phone, I hope that photo wasn't taken at lunchtime !

Why is that rare ? well his union membership is currently refusing to answer phones or indeed open social welfare offices at lunchtime. Specifically affecting those particularly vulnerable low income members of Irish Society - those on the dole or the sick or pensions. But hey when one man, i.e. that unknown train driver in cork, could, a the drop of a hat, completely and utterly fuck up the travel plans of twenty thousand people over some bullshit personal dispute (that subsequently disappeared into the ether,) then why shouldn't the CPSU show their civil service muscles with the low income strata of society over their flexi time concerns !

It's at this point where I reminisce, Jim Larkin, James Connolly, ahhh what men and then what other men, later Union Leaders with dodgey cars in eighties and dodgier morals in the 90s, the rotting of collective welfare concerns, replaced by the stink of self interest and the belief of the supremacy of the individual. Haven't any of these guys seen Star Trek.. not remember ? The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few - that idealistic idea of collective good - while trade unions are on the whole a positive force in Irish Society, it's telling that the majority of the multinationals here avoid them like the plague. One academic institution I'm familiar with is being run by trade unions in every thing but name.

Everyone wants fairness in our society, we like the idea of the little man being able to stand up for themselves if only collectively, but when the little man decides to punish the even littler man, how is that going to solve anything ? I think the CPSU could do with an injection of fresh conscience and new brains if this is the only course of action their collective intelligence could determine.

There is very little or no coverage of this dispute on the net currently, from any of the major networks or news/print media, I wonder why that is ? Well I don't really, if it was a strike affecting auctioneers or property developers, we'd have a government minister on railroading possible solutions down our throat faster than you can say ' are the fishermen still striking ?

Then there's the whole health service debacle. My solution is exactly the same as the solution I use for a bluescreen or frozen computer - reboot the whole thing in safe mode and only enable what you need, as you need it, that helps identify the bottlenecks and prolems, why can't that be done with the health service ? well one word really: UNIONS.

Kindle - A New Bet ?

2008-06-13T11:22:00.005+01:00

Jeff Bezos has been talking (up) recently to the wall street journal and in his ultramodern view apparently todays books are like 'horses'. Which can only be great news for Paddy Power and all the other on-line gambling providers that allow you to enjoy a flutter. Wonder what odds you'd get on JKR coming first past the post again ? Anyway there's the whole aura of risk and innovation, exclusivity even, that's been created around the kindle - when to this observer it's really a one horse race at present (Sony hasn't got out of the gate really) and with the ridiculously low levels of content innovation it's turning into a one horse race on the flat.

But then hype and business and the business of hype ensures that we're cleverly fed intimations, cheap psychology, safe and tested communications, it all gets repackaged to make it sound as if it's actually new thinking. I have heard the book/horse analogy many many years ago, I added the (very entertaining in it's own right) clip below from last years TED where the Lady Erin uses that exact analogy just as a matter of record for anyone who thinks that Jeff Bezos is somehow engaged in innovative or new thinking on the subject, basically if you have a business plan and you have become the hulking tanker of an org that Amazon has become then you can't really apply agile thinking to your outlook - even a big famous powerful individual sometimes gotta do a bit of that stolentelling thang to get by.

All of which reminded me of that great Tommy Cooper Joke:

I backed a horse at twenty to one.

It didn't come in until quarter past five.

Two sides to any revision.

2008-06-10T11:02:00.002+01:00

I happened upon two Gael gores (sic) warbling away to their heart’s content about a Charlie Haughey ‘Inish flickle on’ story they both knew - just while flicking channels on TV last night. Yes I do occasionally see the passive box but maybe rather than my seeking intellectual fare I just switched it on to get some value out of an exorbitant license fee and Sky subscription – yup almost Springsteen like channel hoping – 57 channels and only two old Irish gits slobbering on.

Like many myths, the story they were sharing was based in landscape, had a cast and even an absent hero, the under two minute tale carried a little internal didactic to be unearthed by anyone willing to mull it over in their head for longer than it takes to beat up a child and steal their lunch money. You see the hero (not) in question was good old Charlie J Haughey, former ‘tapioca’ (sounds similar but kinda the Irish President or prime minister type 'boss') one time savior of the Irish people, but specifically Saviour of Irish artists and writers and more specifically Saviour of many Irish artists and writers who were his own friends but even more specifically than that, himself being a ‘would be’ Irish artist and writer namely Saviour of his own thick deluded selfish skin.

For the record, which was by Denial O Donnelly I believe, I didn’t know Charlie Haughey personally but I did have to personally endure his belt tightening banana republic posturing back in the eighties, there was a kinda garment theme running through our simple life back then, we tightened our belts and did sweet F.A. while Charlie wore the pants, bought wardrobes of £400 designer shirts in Paris and fleeced us for our own good.

The story the two real Irish people were telling on TV was of Charlie’s unmitigated generosity over some expensive vintage wine in his personal cellar that the locals had borrowed in times of need, apparently reserves beyond comprehension of the simple locals were taken only to be later replaced by inferior grape. But good old Charlie saw the funny side, he laughed heartily at the honest simplicity of the locals and forgave their pillage. So the multifaceted legacy of the disgraced leader once again gets a revision, does time really heal all wounds, even the wounds of a nation’s consciousness ? Are we being offered two more sides to a revision of a proven thief who abused his position of trust ?

I think that's my TV surfing over for a while.

Off we go on paddy's day

2008-03-17T17:39:00.005Z

Well Folks, I wrote last year about 'the future inside the box' (in the article - linked to the title) and this year some stuff has changed, namely my own personal optimism.

I finished the article last year by saying that I personally felt pretty optimistic about what Irish Digital Media Companies could achieve in late 2007 and indeed at MIP2008. Well the credit crunch, the housing bust, and the general deflation of sentiment has put pay to most of that. My faith in humanity remains, my faith in financiers may have been shaken violently and my faith in politicians........ well I never really had any faith in politicians to begin with, but the fact that an oilman from Texas can run one of the biggest economies, most powerful countries, greatest nations into the ground in such a short period of time is quite amazing. Sitting on the sidelines and watching the lack of federal regulation, the lust and greed and the simple ineptitude, it would be funny if it weren't for the terrible pain it will cause, as usual, the least fortunate in that society.

And what's happening here at home, well Biffo Cowen, (heir to the FF throne) sits on his hands and relies on the 'stratedgically' tied old rope to keep the ship sailing straight and true, but as anyone who has watched Titanic can attest, sometimes you need to change direction to ensure safe passage, currently our economy is just listing towards the same hole swallowing the USA, and as their 51st state we can look forward to plunging patriotically towards the abyss, safe in the knowledge that their is no safety in knowledge alone, action is what counts, and what actions are the government taking, well check out the photo's of the respective overseas correspondents, the upper echelons are off inviting people over to our parlor, unaware or oblivious to the fact that it might be burning to the ground in their absence.