Best Band Names
Whilst channnel-hopping the other night I happened upon a heavy metal awards ceremony (no, haven't been getting out much lately). The bands all had typically ludicrous metal Proof that a band with this name does exist

names such as 'Mastodon', 'Nightwish' and 'Satan's Arse' (ok, I made that one up). This got me thinking about band names and, more specifically, my favourite ones. So here they are...

The Tall Dwarves

John Cougar Concentration Camp

The Bastard Sons of Johnny Cash (and that's what they sound like)

The Band (cocky, but I like it)

The Trash Can Sinatras

The Tragically Hip

Death Cab for Cutie

The Nervous Wrecks

And, my favourite:

Sportsguitar (one of the oddest and strangely funniest word joinings I've heard. Note that it's not 'Sports/Guitar' or 'The Sportsguitars' but simply 'Sportsguitar'. Brilliant.)

Best name for a tribute band: The Rolling Clones (genius)

I have just discovered that Sportsguitar are from Switzerland, which somehow makes their name even funnier.

If you are offended by bad language, I would respectfully entreat you to refrain from reading the following entry.
If you're not, you won't give a shite.

RTE apparently received a deluge of complaints arising from the many naughty words spoken by the players and management of the Dublin football team during 'The Dubs - Story of a Season', screened on Monday night. Words such as 'shit' (good grief!), 'bollocks' (oh, my goodness!) and (brace yourself) 'fuck' (swoon followed by prolonged blackout).

I have one question: have any of the people who complained ever actually been to a Gaelic football match in their lives? Croke Park on a summer Sunday is a positive cauldron of expletives.Fans curse. Managers curse. Players curse. Swearing is as much an integral part of the GAA as Micheál O Muircheartaigh, violent inter-parish rivalry, hats-flags-and-headbands, and rabid nationalism.

So Paul Caffrey, the Dublin manager, says 'fuck' a lot. Big deal. You can either watch a sanitized version of a documentary about top-level Gaelic football or one that portrays something approaching reality. The programme itself was genuinely insightful on occasion and engaging throughout; far superior to most sports documentaries.

I leave you with a quote from The Simpsons.
'Won't somebody please think of the children!?'

No. They should have been in bed.

My new favourite 'sport'

As you may have noticed, the World Darts Championships are on at the moment. It's on the BBC every year but I've been tuning in for the first time ever in the last week or so and have discovered the joys of this unique sport. Granted, my present interest in the game will almost certainly end with the close of the tournament and is probably just a function of my chronic inability to get back down to work after the Christmas break.

Some reasons why darts is fantastic:

1. The Nicknames - Currently there are professional darts players with the following rather delightful sobriquets:

Wolfie

The Assassin

The Limestone Cowboy

(And my favourite)

The Prince of Dartness

Has the darts world been infiltrated by a horde of tabloid sub-editors, perchance?

Wolfie (civilan name:Martin Adams), whom I witnessed in action the other night, has a cartoon wolf emblazoned across the back of his shiny darts shirt.The same cartoon wolf is pictured on the flights of his darts (the fin-type thing on the end of the dart, for those non-darts aficionados among you). Rather wonderfully, visitors to Wolfie's website are greeted with the sound of, yes, a howling wolf. I kid you not, my friends.

2. The hair - Hair-wise, it's still 1985 in the darts world. Check out the picture of Steve Beaton (aka The Bronze Adonis; I'm not making this up) above. This is mulletry of the very highest order. This man takes his mullet seriously, no question about it. See how he complements his hair with an equally impressive 'tache. Steve is the leading champion of mulletry in the darts world but many others are following in his follicular footsteps.

3. The jewellery - The sovereign ring, much-maligned accessory of the Dublin scumbag, is an essential component of the darts player's outfit. Thick, gold chains, the likes of which you see worn in films about London gangsters, are displayed beneath the open necks of shiny, shiny shirts. The careful selection of gold jewellery can give a player a crucial psychological edge over his opponent by out-blinging him, or quite possibly blinding him, thereby reducing his accuracy with a dart.

4. The fact that the world championships are held in what appears to be an enormous pub - Every sports fan's dream.

If you have:
A) A penchant for acerbic satire
B) A strong dislike of chuggers
C) Absolutely nothing better to do for the next minute or so

Click on this link

Cliché Patrol
A tragedy occurs somewhere outside Dublin. Let's say a car accident, involving several deaths. The media gracefully swoop, vulture-like, on the area. Since the main subjects of the story( the victims) are dead, and their family are most likely too traumatised to speak to the press (how inconsiderate;we're the MEDIA, you know), local residents who are almost invariably not directly affected are the TV reporter's best chance for 'a few words'. These few words imbue the reporter with a near-mystical and entirely comprehensive understanding of the locality he/she is just about to leave at high speed in the TV network's van.

He/She closes the report with the following statement: Everyone in this CLOSE-KNIT COMMUNITY is DEVASTATED by this TRAGEDY. I imagine that TV reporters automatically lose their jobs or are demoted to working on Nationwide or somesuch if they do not obey this cardinal linguistic rule of reporting tragedies on TV.

The words 'close-knit community' are particularly important, although it is sometimes permissable to follow 'close-knit' with the epithet 'rural' . Remember, all communities are 'close-knit'. Sure, wouldn't they just unravel completely if they weren't? 'Rural' communities are the most closely-knit of all, however. You'd be hard pressed indeed to wriggle out of a rural community. They're like boa constrictors.

If Paddy Power opened a book on this, I'd bet my (cliché alert) bottom dollar that next time you see a tragedy reported on RTE, the words close-knit, (rural), community and devastated will appear in the piece. Don't these people have any imagination? Or, failing that, a decent thesaurus.