Grandad on television
Grandad March 14th, 2008
In which Sandy and I star in our own little film.
Archive for the 'Television' Category
849,139
Grandad March 1st, 2008
So Pat ‘The Plank’ Kenny is being paid €849,139 a year. And that was the year before last, so he’s on a lot more than that now.
Pat Kenny.
Let’s look at it.
€849,139 = $1,289,201 [US]
€849,139 = 51,597,044 Rupees
€849,139 = 133,786,883 Yen
All this money for a bloke with the charisma of a warthog with piles.
They could sack him and employ 25 real workers?
Every hour of every day he is being paid €97.
Every night, he gets paid €775, just for sleeping?
5.300 people are paying their licence fees just to pay The Plank?
If €849,139 were invested at 4% the interest alone could pay a full salary indefinitely.
€849,139 could pay for nearly 100,000 hours work on the minimum wage.
The Plank is paid around €1,180 a year, just for sitting on the jax and taking a dump?
Is he worth it?
Is anyone worth that?
[Apart from me, of course.....]
Ireland elects a second turkey
Grandad February 24th, 2008
For the first time ever, I took part in a phone-vote last night.
I hate phone-votes, because they have led to a cheap, tacky format of television programming. I won’t watch any program that involves a public vote, including all those horrendous ‘celebrity house’ type fiascos and those ‘you’re a star’ cattle markets.
But last night was different. Because for the first time, I was effectively voting against that very kind of programme.
I remember watching Butch Moore singing “Walking the streets in the rain” back in 1965. The good old days of black and white! I watched it in a neighbours house because my mother wouldn’t have a television in the house. Ireland came sixth, which wasn’t bad for a first entry.
In the early days of the Eurovision, it was a song contest. There was a resident orchestra, which meant that it was a very level playing pitch. Gimmicks weren’t allowed. The song stood on its lyrics and the music.
Now, it’s a fiasco. It’s a stage event. The “songs” take back stage to the visual gimmickry and flashy production. There are semi-naked dancers and pyrotechnics which have nothing whatsoever to do with singing.
Personally, I couldn’t give a shite. It’s only a television programme, when all is said and done.
Last night, I watched five contestants offering up their usual bland [sorry, lads and lasses] crap that wouldn’t stand a snowball’s chance of winning. And I watch Dustin.
Ireland’s contestant in Eurovision 2009.
Dustin is the perfect send-up of what the Eurovision has become. If they want to play silly-buggers, then we will show them how it should be done.
Musically, Dustin is crap [despite having loads of hit singles and albums under his belt/feathers]. The lyrics are a send-up of the song contest itself. Visually it is car crash television. It is perfect! He is the ultimate two fingers to the whole of Europe.
I think Dustin has a good chance of winning. They won’t know what hit them. They are going to have to vote for a turkey that is demanding that they give Ireland ‘douze pointe’.
I have only two things to say….
Don’t mess with the Irish!
G’wan ya good thing!
I have seen the future of TV….
Grandad February 15th, 2008
For the last couple of nights I have had the great misfortune to see Tallafornian TV in action.
To this of you who have missed this great pleasure, they call themselves TV3 and are Ireland’s independent TV station.
A major chunk of them is owned by Granada, who in turn produce a lot of the popular ITV programs. So TV3 just run a simultaneous broadcast of the highly rated ones. This is a bit pointless as most people can receive ITV anyway. In between the ITV programs, they show the worst outcasts of American television.
Their presenters are the only thing going for them. The presenters are so appallingly bad that they are compulsive viewing. The male presenters all look like blokes who have failed their accountancy exams, and the female ones all look like they got bored with being hairdressers and decided to become TV presenters instead. And then there is Martin King.
Martin King is their Weather Anchor [or Wanker, for short]. He is like Pinocchio on steroids. He looks like he is constantly bursting for a pee. He never stands still, and never shuts up. He dances around waving at his fancy graphics, and when he has thoroughly confused us all, he goes on to show us photographs that people have sent in. And when he has finished that, he starts handing out birthday greetings. Yes. This is the weather forecast I’m talking about. Martin King is the ultimate in car-crash television.
Last night, I had the great misfortune to see Vincent Browne in action. Vincent Brown is a good newspaper reporter. He is also a good panelist. He is a shite interviewer. He looked bored, or hungover, or both. He constantly interrupted everyone. He tried to interview Father Brian D’Arcy. I don’t particularly like D’Arcy, but his heart is in the right place. But Brown treated him appallingly. I actually got the impression that there was a hidden agenda there and that Browne was trying to belittle him. Brown actually made fun of him which is not the job of an interviewer.
And then there are the advertisements. These are the cheapest, nastiest ones out. You know the type - dial such and such for ring-tones for your mobile, or dial this number to meet the girl of your dreams. They all seem to be for premium dial up numbers [Irish Psychics Live, for fuck's sake!]. And the ad breaks are up to American standards. They barely squeeze the programs in between.
So what is the point of TV3? Its programs are crap. Its presenters are crap. It’s all ads anyway. They haven’t even got the hang of wide-screen television yet. Are they in cahoots with the Catholic Church and we get a Plenary Indulgence for watching?
I’m going to get that remote control back tonight even if I have to kill Herself to do it.
And now, I’ll leave you with the weather forecast.
Twink draws in the crowds
Grandad February 3rd, 2008
Yesterday was a very quiet day on the Interweb.
But I was browsing through my stats this morning and came across this.
Now what the hell could cause such a peak after ten in the evening?? Had somebody Stumbled something? Had the word spread about Grandad’s genius?
No.
My top search term for all of yesterday was “zip up your mickey”.
Now, last night I was very tired. Herself has the flue or something so neither of us was up to much. I flicked into “Tubridy Tonight” to see who he was interviewing and it was that old slapper Twink. And Tubridy asked her about the infamous phone call. So obviously people wanted to hear it. And I happen to have written about it.
Good old Twink. She may be a slapper and way past her sell by date,
but she can still draw in the crowds.
Jack’s bladder
Grandad January 19th, 2008
I am not really one for watching these American series on television. You know the ones I mean - CSI or Lost or whatever.
However, our K8 has a thing for 24. Herself and TAT buy each series as they come out. And they lend them to us.
So I’m in the middle of watching 24.
This series starts with Jack Bauer arriving back into America having spent two years in a Chinese prison, where he has obviously been treated like a Christian Brothers pupil.
He gets off the plane and you can see he is utterly exhausted. His body is covered all over in terrible scars, and he looks like Robinson Crusoe.
They give him five minutes to shave and spruce himself up, and then he is straight off into his adventure.
So far, about nine hours have passed. And in that time, he has killed terrorists, been captured and tortured [and, of course escaped] and defused an atomic bomb. He has outguessed the American president and proved that his thinking is clearer that the combined American cabinet. He has taken control of a situation that had the best brains confused. He has of course saved countless lives also. His thinking is crystal clear and he is on top of every situation.
There is only one thing he has failed to do so far.
There is this character. Her name is Chloe O’Brien. She is supposed to be the top computer expert, but she seems to solve everything by using sub-nets(?) or pieces of code that nobody has heard of except her. She has a face on her like a smacked arse, and she looks like a spoilt child that can’t go to the party. She has had a permanent scowl on her face since the programme started.
Chloe in a happier mood
Jack has failed to make her smile.
Now, all of this has taken place since he stepped off that plane from China.
So far, he hasn’t been given one chance to take a nap, or even to sit down, yet he is running around like a demented ferret, jumping out of helicopters and driving like a dervish around Los Angeles.
He hasn’t eaten anything since he arrived. The b*st*rds haven’t even offered him a sandwich or a Mars bar.
Gimme that apple! NOW!!
He hasn’t even stopped to take a pee.
I sometimes think of Jack Bauer when I’m sitting in a traffic jam on the M50. I’m stuck there, with no sign of moving anywhere, and I’m bursting for a leak.
I wish I had Jack Bauer’s bladder.
