Messages

The Uncanny "X-Mas"...

Well, according to www.snopes.com (the great urban myth-debunking website):

"The X abbreviation of 'Xmas' for 'Christmas' is neither modern nor disrespectful. The notion that it is a new and vulgar representation of the word 'Christmas' seems to stem from the erroneous belief that the letter 'X' is used to stand for the word 'Christ' because of its resemblance to a cross, or that the abbreviation was deliberately concocted "to take the 'Christ' out of Christmas." Actually, this usage is nearly as old as Christianity itself, and its origins lie in the fact that the first letter in the Greek word for 'Christ' is 'chi,' and the Greek letter 'chi' is represented by a symbol similar to the letter 'X' in the modern Roman alphabet. Hence 'Xmas' is indeed perfectly legitimate abbreviation for the word 'Christmas' (just as 'Xian' is also sometimes used as an abbreviation of the word 'Christian').

"None of this means that Christians (and others) aren't justified in feeling slighted when people write 'Xmas' rather than 'Christmas,' but the point is that the abbreviation was not created specifically for the purpose of demeaning Christ, Christians, Christianity, or Christmas -- it's a very old artifact of a very different language."

So there.

Hope you all have a great time this "Holiday Season"!

Love and cuddles,
Mike the Christmas Bunny

The Nose? The NOSE?! What in the name of zarking fardwarks were they thinking?

Oh, wait a second... according to my sources (i.e., Planet Magrathea) that stuff about the nose is nothing more than a pile of frelling drenn. I really, really hope it's not true.

I'm getting more and more excited about this movie as time goes on - just heard that Mos Def has received a Golden Globe nomination ("Best Performance by an actor in a mini-series or motion picture made for television") for his role in "Something the Lord Made". He was also nominated for an Emmy for the same movie, in the "Outstanding Lead Actor in a Miniseries or a Movie" category.

Apparently a rough cut (minus many of the special effects) was recently shown to Important Movie Executives, who thoroughly loved it.

- Mike

Link: http://www.planetmagrathea.com" target="_blank">Planet Magrathea

The worst thing about being self-employed is the Christmas parties...

I book restaurant for one, sit there on my own for a couple of hours wearing a paper hat, half-heartedly attempt to sing a few songs, then go home blind sober because I'm the designated driver.

-- Mike

Finally heard the new version yesterday... Er, it's not great, is it? Aside from the annoying hip-hop bit (apologies for the redundancy there), there's a bit where most of the "stars" (never heard of any of them) are singing along merrily and then for no apparent reason one of them goes off on a tangent; "woah, woah yeeeeaaaaah feed the world, mmm, oh yeah (baby)".

This always bothered me a little: "Do they know it's Christmas?"

Since the majority of them aren't Christian, no, they probably don't. Plus I would imagine that they're too busy starving to death to worry about tinsel and suchlike.

-- Mike

I've always been very sceptical about modern art, ever since I was a little kid and heard about some guy (can't remember who it was now) who specialised in painting canvases in a single flat colour. And *selling* them!

I was about ten when I heard this, and swore to myself that when I was older I'd do the equivalent in writing terms; I would publish a "modern art" novel with no words in it. Never got around to doing it, though...

-- Mike

Irish viewers might recall a lovely little moment a couple of months ago on The Panel (an excellent chat show in which a quintet of comedians talk about the weeks events an interview [relatively] famous people)...

One of the guests was Mary Lou McDonald, a member of Sinn Fein recently elected to the European commission thingy. She went on (as her lot always do) about how this is the NEW Sinn Fein, totally divorced from any connections with the IRA, which they absolutely never had anyway, and even if they did have - which they didn't - that was a long time ago and now things are different. And so forth.

And then Colin Murphy drew her attention to the official Sinn Fein website, from where one could purchase an assortment of interesting, colourful T-shirts boasting such politically-aware slogans as "IRA - The Undefeated Army!"

Oh, how she sweated and squirmed!

It was a wonderful piece of cringeworthy TV, right up there with the best bits of The Office!

The Panel has now ended for the season, sadly, but on the positive side Colin Murphy's hilarious show The Blizzard of Odd has just started again; probably the two best home-grown shows RTE have ever broadcast.

Fergee

For this catrgory, the films have to be shot in Ireland AS Ireland, so we can't count Braveheart or Saving Private Ryan...

I first saw The Quiet Man when I was about six; we were all made to watch it because our parents loved it, because they'd grown up on John Wayne movies and the very idea that The Duke was making a movie in Ireland automatically pushed it into the "good" column in their opinions.

I remember thinking, "That's not John Wayne! Where's his hat? Oh, screw this, I'm off to finish those differential equations. Either that, or I'll play with my lego."

I've seen the movie a couple of times since, and I have to say I actually feel insulted by it! I'm not the most patriotic of Irishmen, but that movie makes us all look like drunken, wife-beating idiots!

But maybe I take these things too seriously... Any British folk out there feel the same way about about early British movies?

-- Mike

Well, you have me convinced!

Here's another Irish question: What's everyone's least-favourite Oirish movie (you can't count The Quiet Man, because it's so shite it goes off the bottom of the scale)?

My vote's for The Snapper.

-- Mike

To simplify this amazing topic, I have created a new Poll! Please be honest with your answers!

-- Mike

Oh for fe*k's sake! That Neelix-alike is Brendan Kilkenny. My good lady used to work with him. And yes, he's as untertaining* in real life as he is on the telly.


*Untertaining: a new word I've just created especially for him!

Just wondering: who on this board is from - or currently living in - Ireland?

Apart from me, that is.

-- Mike

Just wondering: who on this board is from - or currently living in - Ireland?

Apart from me, that is.

-- Mike

This isn't so much a stupid thing that someone has said to me, more a stupid thing that someone did, many years ago...

My new credit card arrived. I went into a petrol station to pay for petrol (naturally enough). I gave the assistant the card, which she swiped through the machine. Moments later, the machine printed out the credit card slip. I signed the slip. The assistant then examined the card to compare the signatures, and noticed that the card hasn't yet been signed. So, right in front of her, I signed the card. She then compared the signature on the card with the one on the slip. Amazingly, the signatures matched!

[Annoyingly, I mentioned this to a friend a couple of years back and he didn't believe me, because - apparently - Mark Lamarr relates a similar experience in one of his concerts. My friend seemed to think that if it happened to Mark Lamarr, it couldn't have also happened to me.]

And I was the one running around like a blue-arsed fly all weekend and having panic attacks... Hope you all enjoyed the con, lads! Isn't Mr. Smith one of the nicest guys you could ever hope to meet?

-- Mike