Present Tense

  • Next up, Bosco does Bertie…

    April 28, 2008 @ 10:31 am | by Shane

    This is brilliant mash-up between Rainbow and Newsnight’s London mayoral candidates’ debate.

  • Selection box

    December 21, 2007 @ 11:09 am | by Shane

    The questions that Slate’s ‘Explainer’ didn’t answer this year.

    Shock news: some, but not all, people Google themselves, and other people

    The Onion cuts to the chase on the whole Harry Potter nonsense.

    P Diddy’s perfume is called Unforgivable Woman. Rejected alternatives: “Fallen Woman” and “Harlot”.

    Time may be running out. Literally.

    Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert have had enough of the writers’ strike and are going back on air.

    Will Smith’s next movie is I Am Legend (read the book, it’s brilliant). Then it’s a “homeless superhero” flick that’s likely to be pretty terrible.

    Dublin looks very well today and this makes it look positively funky (I posted it in July, but I can show it now, so up it goes).

    (more…)

  • Sketch of 2007

    December 18, 2007 @ 11:05 am | by Shane

    Armstrong and Miller’s slang-speaking RAF men. And shit.

    (more…)

  • Add more whoops … and an extra chortle

    September 23, 2007 @ 8:48 pm | by Shane

    From the always excellent Slate, a video history of canned laughter.

  • Something for the weekend

    August 24, 2007 @ 8:28 am | by Shane

    “Debate” on The Last Word in which David Quinn asks Psychics Live owner Tom Higgins for verifiable proof of astrology. Thrust of the row: “Prove astrology,” says Quinn. “No you prove religion,” says Higgins. “No you prove astrology,” retorts Quinn. “No, you prove religion.” Occassional sensible person texts in to point out that neither is on what you could call solid ground.
    Link
    (more…)

  • Man vs Toddlers

    August 21, 2007 @ 11:29 am | by Shane

    First, watch this ninja fight between a man and two toddlers here. (via Graham Linehan)

    Then, watch the sequel - involving planks of wood - here.

    Warning: the mother of my child found this difficult to watch. But I’m guessing that no fathers were hurt in the making of this.

  • Most influential comedy poll - Upwardly Mobile edged out

    August 17, 2007 @ 9:09 am | by Shane

    Finally getting around to this poll on the Most Influential Comedies of all time. The result? That this is a contender for Most Stupid Poll Result of All Time.

    1 Monty Python’s Flying Circus
    2 Only Fools and Horses
    3 Blackadder
    4 Little Britain
    5 The Royle Family
    6 The Morecambe and Wise Show
    7 Spitting Image
    8 The Young Ones
    9 The Office
    10 The Vicar of Dibley

    Little Britain has been around for five minutes, and has influenced nothing obvious since.
    Only Fools and Horses was funny, but it was only in a traditional vein of British comedy that stretched back to Ealing.
    The Vicar of Dibley? It only influences people to switch over.

    There’s a rake of shows missing from the list, including Fawlty Towers, Friday Night Live, Spike Milligans Q, or the satire on The Frost Report that properly carved a fresh direction of comedy. Have I Got News For You spawned a thousand panel shows. And while the Royle Family is deserving, Mrs Merton and Malcolm was Caroline Ahern’s first go at a laugh-free, high-creepiness comedy.

    And with the IT Crowd back on the box tonight next Friday night you could almost get a list out of Graham Linehan’s work alone: Big Train, Brass Eye, The Fast Show, The Day Today. That’s influence.

  • Some links

    August 8, 2007 @ 10:40 am | by Shane

    As humanity’s actions lead to the extinction of Yangtze dolphin, we can be next to die out if we follow the lead of the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement.

    Sean Hughes tells the Telegraph that his Madeleine McCann joke was legitimate (more…)

  • Bits and pieces

    July 27, 2007 @ 3:57 pm | by Shane

    How to discuss books you have never read

    An Spailpín Fánach on what to read on the train

    Three weeks ago Seamus Heaney’s limited edition The Riverbank Field was released at €100 a copy. This week, Kenny’s is selling it for €295. Nice mark up, but there’s been a copy sitting unsold on eBay since publication. And it’s a bit cheaper.

    New Zealand’s parliament “bans satire”. Jon Stewart comes to the rescue of joke-deprived Kiwis.

  • Raising the Heckles

    June 19, 2007 @ 11:24 am | by Shane

    Ten years ago, I went to the Edinburgh to compete in the So You Think You’re Funny competition, where I proved categorically that I wasn’t. It didn’t help that I had crafted a routine that involved me doing various techno dances, which went down very well in the International. But 30 seconds before I was due to go on the Edinburgh stage, the host - Michael Smiley - did a routine involving him doing various techno dances. His “big fish, little fish, cardboard box” routine, in fact, became mildly seminal - making it onto Simon Pegg’s Spaced. My routine didn’t.

    Instead, I performed to a crowd that had got their tickets in a two-for-the-price-of-one deal, and seemed to resent that. 10 minutes of near silence later, I waved them a cheery goodbye (”I’ve been Shane Hegarty, you’ve been a great audience. Goodnight!”) and bounded off the stage forever. Peter Kay went on to win the competition that year, so every time he comes on the TV now I get a flashback to my big night of comedy torment.

    I mention all of this because blogger Lorcy (The Life and Times of Jimmy Homonculus) has stepped on the stage for the first time and to mark his moment has linked to several comedian v heckler videos. It’s a chuckle-filled blood sport.

    The finest heckle I’ve heard was at that Edinburgh Festival, about 3.30am in the Gilded Balloon, when a comedian whose name utterly escapes me right now told a repeated heckler: “Every time you open your mouth I hear a little voice inside pleading ‘Kill me’”.

    Link: YouTube Hecklefest

    As a bonus, here’s a clip from the Seinfeld episode in which George struggles to come up with a great comeback to a colleague’s heckling.
    Link: Jerk Store

  • Reading, listening, looking

    June 14, 2007 @ 9:11 pm | by Shane

    - Reading Tim Guest’s Second Lives: Journeys Through Virtual Worlds, and he makes a passing reference to how many people reckon the Burning Man festival is the closest thing real life has to Second Life. Having been at Burning Man, and having spent a little time in Second Life again recently, I’d agree with him. A sense of freedom, of the art of the possible, of the surreal, or re-invention and the ridiculous. Guest also makes direct comparisons between Second Life and the cult he grew up in: not just in the adoption of new identities but also in the preciousness of the creators and some inhabitants, and insistence of rules within supposed freedoms. I’m reviewing the book for the paper, so I’ll be back to this at a later date.

    - Listening to (and watching) Bruce Springsteen and the Sessions Band Live in Dublin, and having been at one of the shows my greatest regret in life is not having gone to all three.
    Link

    - For all you Troy McClure fans out there, here’s a selection of the late, great Phil Hartman’s finest moments. This includes a sketch featuring both Hartman and John Lovitz, so you might need to sit down for that one.cultphil.jpg
    Link

  • Stray Thoughts

    June 12, 2007 @ 12:27 pm | by Shane

    Watching RTE’s promo for Miriam O’Callaghan’s chat show, I wonder why they don’t plug Prime Time by having men talk about her as a “thinking man’s crumpet” or as someone who has “lots of kids”. They’d be able to plug Mark Little as “the thinking woman’s Man from Del Monte”. Although, as inane RTE promos go, nothing will ever again match the Ryan Tubridy as Agent Smith masterwork - unless it’s Gerry Ryan as John Rambo.

    You want to see a real promo: check out this outrageously over-the-top one for an American channel’s weatherman. Gary England. Hero.

    On last night’s Nine News, David Davin Power was speaking live to the studio on how the coalition talks were going - but had his back to the action suddenly unfolding behind him…

    Belatedly, following last week’s Big Brother racism row, it’s an opportune moment to point out this bit of Daily Show genius. Send one white guy and one black guy out on the streets to ask about attitudes to the “n-word”. But only one of them can actually say it. Best line: “Do you understand how rap works, councillor?”

  • Some links

    May 23, 2007 @ 4:25 pm | by Shane

    Al Gore’s office. Now, where did he leave the Democratic nomination application form…

    The demand for ethanol fuel is pushing up world food prices

    It was a lot of hassle to build the Port Tunnel, the universe would be long dead by the time we built the Large Hadron Collider in order to find out what it was like when it was a few trillionth seconds old?

    What to do with your day/life? Soon, you’ll be able to ask Google

    From The Onion, one for bloggers - and newspaper columnists

    On Saturday, I quoted Margaret Atwood as saying that you can’t take an eBook into a bath. Well, this gentleman took up the challenge - and proved her wrong.bathtub.jpg

  • The mane event

    May 8, 2007 @ 10:25 pm | by Shane

    There’s some nice work being done over at Green Ink. Go for the pictures of Bertie as a vampire; stay for the delicious images of Green Party people wearing the mullet of their Mayo candidate Peter Enright.trevor_sargent_td3.jpgpeter_enright2_medium.jpg

  • Enda Kenny on American Idol

    @ 11:03 am | by Shane

    From the people who brought you Bertie Ahern on Dragons’ Den, comes Enda Kenny on American Idol. Brilliant. (via Mulley.net)

  • Sorted

    May 7, 2007 @ 12:20 pm | by Shane

    Since Blogorrah pointed people in the direction of The Sorted Party sketch, Paul Tylak’s put up a second one here.

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