Totally Dublin

Though it’s already powered ahead on Fox in the US, our favourite diagnostician found his way back to Sky 1 on Sunday night to continue his travels in this, the sixth season of the popular medical drama.

A brief catch up then: House went, more or less, stark raving mad at the end of series 5, resulting in him ending up in a One Flew Over The Cuckoos Nest style institution to detox off Vicodin in the Series 6 opener. Following that, he moves in with Wilson, goes back to work in the hospital and even helps Chase cover up, what was effectively the murder of a genocide preaching dictator they were supposed to treat. But hey, what comes around…

Season 6 marked a drastic change in formula of the series which, though highly entertaining was repetitive. At around the 37 minute mark in EVERY episode, House has one of those epiphany moments and walks off on whoever is talking to him at the time, yet no one ever stops to say, “Hey dude, that’s really rude and you’re ALWAYS doing it!” Personally I find some of his epiphany moments hilarious, especially the facial expressions of whoever he’s just walked off on.

Realistically though, giving Forman (Omar Epps) power over the team for most of the first half of the series should have been dealt with better. The only thing different was rather than House telling his team to go do something, he had to goad Forman into telling them to do it, resulting in one incredibly funny miming scene. But there was a prime opportunity for some tension between these two egotistical doctors, particularly as Forman had already managed to dismantle the second team in a short, sharp burst, resulting in House spending the first half of Series 6 convincing Taub and his nose to return, and Thirteen to bring back some much desired lesbianism.

Onto the rest of the series though, the latest episode, The Down Low is standard House – strange illness, in this case noise induced vertigo inflicting a drug dealing gangster with a warped sense of morality. Meanwhile House and Wilson garner a different kind of interest from a neighbour in their new apartment who thinks that they’re gay. We’ve been thinking it for years…

The writing is still as tight as it was five years ago, David Shore’s remarkable ability to create new and absurd metaphors and insults for House being something of an art form. The characters too, are realistic and believable in their actions. I can’t honestly remember ever watching an episode and remarking that someone’s action was out of character. A show like this doesn’t need to do that because anything out of character for the secondary characters is something House would do without a moment’s hesitation. In a sense, the character of House is any writer’s dream because you’re effectively given a blank page and told to make as much of a mess as you like. Cuddy’ll clean it up…

In this sense though, the rest of Season 6 will be interesting and particularly the finale. Where does the show go from here? Primarily about House’s addiction for the last five years, that’s come to a head and he’s apparently kicked it, so what next? The obvious thing would be a relapse but somehow I don’t get the feeling the writers are going to go with obvious. Plus, a relapse would result in House returning to a detox facility which we’ve seen already and is hence rendered boring – much like what House would say if he got a case of Lupus.

So perhaps the most interesting thing about this series is not what’s already happened or happening right now but what’s going to happen. As a show, it’s powered along nicely to this moment, with its effective formula and some truly memorable TV (Season 4 finale comes to mind) but like any series, House appears to be reaching its turning point, the moment when we find out if David Shore has anything more up his sleeve for this great character, or if he’s simply milking the formula.

Judging from everything we’ve had for the last five years, I doubt the latter is the case. There are plenty of unanswered questions in this series: what will become of Chase and Cameron; how will Chase’s murder crop up again, as it undoubtedly will; will Wilson donate any more internal organs to patients and has Cuddy really lowered her dating standards to Lucas? And of course, the main question: what kind of insane move is House going to make next? (I personally hope he shoots a corpse and breaks the CT Scanner again…)

But with the format changing slightly in coming weeks: an episode based entirely around Cuddy’s day coming up, and a Hugh Laurie directed episode scheduled for April in the States, I get the feeling that Season 6 is shaping up to be a cracker.

House broadcasts at 10pm, Sundays on Sky 1

YAY! It’s a new series of Friends! And look, Monica’s moved somewhere sunny. She looks great. I wonder where Chandler and the rest are… Oh they’re divorced? Hang on, why’s it called Cougar Town?

Yup, the hopes and dreams of Friends fans everywhere are to be dashed against the rocks of RTE2 this Tuesday, for it’s not actually a new series of Friends, just a new series where Courtney Cox inexplicably puts her Monica hat back on, despite the fact that this is an entirely different character in an entirely different show. She’s not the only one though, in fact for the first few episodes of new comedy Cougar Town, it feels like this is where old sitcom stars go to die. Christa Miller is virtually a carbon copy of her character Jordan from Scrubs, while Busy Phillips reprises the role she’s been playing for a good ten years now, i.e. that of a whorish Barbie doll who’s been left out in the sun too long.

Coming to us from ABC, Cougar Town takes us into the world of Jules Cobb, a forty-year-old divorcee who’s venturing back out into the world of datin’ and relatin’. She’s flanked by two best friends who hate each other (Miller and Phillips), a dead-beat ex-husband and a perpetually mortified 18-year-old son. Add to this mix her rather winsome neighbour Josh Hopkins (who plays her rather obvious and conveniently just-divorced-as-well love interest), and there’s a recipe here for a slick and sexy series, that could be executed with incredible panache. Like a female dominated version of Nip/Tuck perhaps, where Mrs. Robinson skips the surgery and has the surgeon instead.

Unfortunately though, the first couple of episodes fall horrendously flat. Aside from the séance for dead sitcom characters, the script itself is insultingly stupid, with paper thin plotting that leaves the show feeling like a random assortment of characters with hit-and-miss one liners. If it were funny, this would hardly matter, and rarely does in the better sitcoms, but at times it reads like a transcript of Loose Women, performed by a bunch of beaming Saturday Night Live rejects. It does get a bit better as the series progresses, but takes nearly nine episodes to muster up any kind of heart or humour. This is slow progress even by rookie standards, but when your creators and writers are Scrubs, Friends and South Park alumni, what excuse can there really be?

The sad fact may be that Cougar Town is just another casualty of ABCs reputation for taking great ideas and mismanaging them to the point of abuse. Just look at Flash Forward, a wonderful idea and opportunity that once committed to film became little more than a exercise in keeping Joseph Fiennes out of trouble. Or Desperate Housewives and Ugly Betty. Both had a candy-coloured promise to begin with, and indeed enjoyed great first seasons. But by the time Mary Ellis is corpse-monologuing about the 19th consecutive murderer to move in across the street, you can’t help feeling the writers are like helpless bunnies caught in the headlights of their own success. Poor, dear Betty has met a similar fate, never matching the buzz of her initial storylines, and limping, as we speak, to her finale next month as a result.

Cougar Town seems to fit the pattern sadly, for even when it improves it’s at the cost of its core concept. Which is a shame, primarily because there aren’t many decent roles for older women, certainly not in sitcom land. Cougar Town could have been an empowering little treat that made you laugh and made your spinster aunt feel like maybe a night out in Coppers wasn’t such a bad idea after all, but it seems to be selling out without a dirty, cross-generational weekend in sight.

Unlike her hilarious foil Barb, whose lecherous slapstick is fatally underused, our heroine Jules isn’t long out of the gate before she’s being reined back in by forty something year old men her own age. In fact she doesn’t seem fit for this cougar lark at all, only boffing two young men within the first half of the series, and even then sticking to a ten-date rule that keeps her sheets tediously clean. These young men, as an aside, are some of the most perfunctorily drawn characters I’ve ever seen on TV, recurring in several episodes each but only blessed with only enough depth to facilitate the erections that seem to be their primary function. By nature of their pointlessness alone,the viewer can be in little doubt as to whose middle-aged arms Jules will be falling into.

The problem with Cougar Town, perhaps, is that it’s very, very safe. Cox is as squeaky clean as the surfaces her old incarnation Monica used to obsess over, and destined from the start to have a brief rush of freedom before quietly acquiescing to marriage and insemination by her all-American neighbour. The show will keep running through their romance, no doubt, but by then the whole thing will have beiged into the landscape of rom-sitcom tomfoolery. By contrast, shows like Fat Actress, and The Comeback were unapologetic in their middle-aged hellcat ethos, and suffered network censure as a result. With Cougar Town losing sight of its own ideals and edgy potential in the first few episodes, it may perversely do a bit better. Though if you were looking for a sassy and empowering portrayal of mature women who want to enjoy life and sod the social stigma, you’ll be better off watching Judge Judy.

What do knee bruises, Roman emperors, Kelly Osbourne’s hair and that stuff that Lil Wayne drinks all day have in common? All of them are purple, which so happens to be a key trend for Spring/Summer 2010. Whether its Zoe Saldana and her frou-frou violet Oscars dress, or the gorgeously designed Purple Diary blog belonging to French style bible Purple Magazine , Prince’s style signature is cropping up all over as this season’s favourite shade.

Zoe Saldana rocks purple on two different occasions

High street basics this spring range from dark mulberry to palest pastel lilac; check out these cute tattoo-print sweatshirts from Illustrated People, and the American Apparel onesies in dark mulberry  (not for the lycra-shy, but ridiculously, ridiculously comfortable and versatile). Those with empty wallets can still work the trend on fingers and toes with Model’s Own lilac nail polish, a  mod pastel shade of matte lilac.

Converse’s patent purple hi-tops (on net-a-porter.com ) are a nice touch, uber-practical but unusual for everyday, while glamorous geeks should definitely check out this Timex ‘Trippin’ purple watch, chunky, bright, brash and plastic. Also, take a look at MAC’s Spring line; the Canadian colour genius have translated the trend into the Spring Colour Forecast line of glassy nail laquers, and splendid tinted lipglass called ‘Purple Rage’.

Uniqlo’s ridiculously well-priced jeans (Japanese denim, oh yes..) come in a great pastel purple shade, cut super-skinny with a mid-rise waist. And Hollywood brand Gypsy 05 , beloved of starlet types like Taylor Momsen, are taking orders up ahead for this gorgeously wafty tunic dress in lilac silk . Featured in their creepy Wonderland-themed campaign (pictured below), it’ll be a spot-on look once the sun comes out.

The shops are full-up with purple accessories; we’re currently swooning over the Mulberry Alexa clutch, in tacky-chic vinyl but with elegant hardware details (if you’re extra lucky you’ll also have matching ballerina flats!). Cheaper but equally chic, there’s this Sonia Rykiel tote in a loud neon leopard print with a super-functional size, big enough to lug around a laptop.

And at even cheaper there’s this Marc, we mean Marks and Spencer’s clutch bag, patent leather, structured with a chain handle and a vivid fuschia colour (OK, so this isn’t strictly purple, more of a pink, but at £25 it’s too good not to be mentioned!). On the jewellery front there’s Lanvin’s sweet charm bracelet, naïve-chic but with a lofty price tag, and Vivienne Westwood’s purple heart on a chain. And what’s a Fashion Wednesday without a pair of Topshop wedges? These ones come in an uber-fashionable pale purple, chunky and perilously high, and look something like what figure-skaters of the future would wear on their feet. Which can only be a good thing.

Of course if you really want to rock the trend and take the purple haze fashion-forward (without going for a full-on Prince-style mauve tailoring..), you should follow Kelly O’s example and go for purple hair. Fudge, neon hair purveyors to the stars, have the best crime-against-nature shades; for violently violet locks, try their ‘Blueberry Hill’ or ‘Raspberry Beret’ colours to give your granny’s purple rinse a very modern update.

Ireland isn’t very good at winning the Eurovision anymore, but that’s okay because the contest is doing very well without us.

Lawks-a-Lordi! Scary Finnish Eurovision winners from 2006

Now that Ireland is in a slump - no World Cup, no sign of a return to the wealth of the 00s - what do we do? We send a load of old rubbish to represent us at Eurovision. Yeah, THAT’LL give the world the impression that Ireland is a thriving cultural hotbed. And if you’re rolling your eyes and saying “Stop being ironic, Eurovision never mattered in the past and doesn’t matter now”, let me remind you that ABBA, Francoise Hardy and Celine Dion used the contest as launchpads for their careers. And also the Italians took that viewpoint – they have refused to enter the contest since the mid 90s, dubbing it “silly” – and they have since voted Silvio Berlusconi into power repeatedly. Being deprived of Eurovision participation has addled their minds.

Put another way, if you can’t find room in your heart for Teach-In’s glorious “Ding-a-Dong” or Freddi and Friends “Pump Pump”, then you should stop reading now. Go on - bugger off.

We need to change our attitude to the most important pan-European decades long pop contest. Doing well at the Eurovision is a good sign that your pop culture is flourishing. In the 1960s when England won the World Cup and The Beatles spearheaded the British Invasion of America, and when French pop was at its pinnacle, the UK and France seemed to swap the contest back and forth between them. Luxembourg’s winner in 1965 was sung by the FRENCH France Gall and written by the FRENCH Serge Gainsbourg. Italy won in 1964 while Fellini and Visconti’s films were the talk of the continent. Massiel only won for Spain in 1968 because Franco rigged the vote, the old git. In the 1990s when the first stirrings of the so-called Celtic Tiger were spotted, Ireland won it 4 times in 5 years and the year they didn’t win it Norway won with an Irish girl singing for them. The noughties saw the emergence of Eastern European Euro-dominance. Blame “voting blocks” if you must, but the reason we don’t win Eurovision any more is because the contest changed and we didn’t.

In the past, Eurovision viewers have seen Germans in Israel singing songs about mass-murdering despots, polite Swedes singing sweet love songs with inappropriate lyrics and earnest, bearded Belgians attempting to kick-start the Euro synthpop avant-garde. But Eurovision went through a bit of a bland phase around the time that Ireland won in the 1990s and this has in turn made Irish Eurovision entrants very very snoozeworthy in their efforts to recapture “the glory days”. In recent years Eurovision has seen something of a revival; drag queens and transsexuals have helped to transform the contest’s camp side into outright “what-do-you-make-of-THIS-then, homophobes?” LGBT pop activism . Finnish metallers Lordi represent the apex of Eurovision anything-goes fun. Sebastien Tellier entered the contest for France in 2008 with an excellent tune (“Divine” – he wuz robbed!). So us sending Niamh Kavanagh off to Norway with an old style Euro ballad WILL NOT DO. But this is only a part of the complete picture. All over Europe as we speak the contestants for Eurovision 2010 are being chosen and some of them, let’s be frank viewers, are quite mental. We could do well to pay more attention to them, and learn.

The Swedish Melodifestivalen continues to be a superb source of brillo-bonkers music such as that produced by the blank, sarcastic, nihilistic Pay TV. This is a marathon, 6 month long process whereby Swedish people attempt to be chosen to represent their country at Eurovision. Whereas last week the Irish entry was chosen in a half-arsed way on The Late Late Show by a panel of experts which consisted of Dana, Johnny Logan and Marty “Silver Fox” Whelan - each determined to do anything but actually provide some criticism, and each doing everything they could to avoid causing offence to the hopefuls. Isn’t this the problem with Irish Eurovision entry process? We need a Simon Cowell figure to be hauled in for things like this to blast the mediocre entrants with some home truths. Dustin the Turkey’s entry of 2008 notwithstanding, why are Irish entries always so blooming mild and bland and “ooh-we-don’t-want-to-upset-the-listeners-of-Derek-Mooney’s-show-on-Radio-1”? Miles away from our blandorama, Melodifestivalen is like X Factor meets the FIFA World Cup multiplied by the Olympics to the power of (This analogy isn’t going anywhere – Ed). There is a Pop World Cup going on at the moment, by the way, and a Punk World Cup; readers are encouraged to follow both – they’re tremendous fun. But they’re not as fun as the Melodifestivalen, which you can “tune into” via the wonders of the World Wide Web on Saturday March 13th.

Let’s see how the rest of the competition is bearing up. Pete Waterman has written the UK entry this year. He is a legend, a 24 carat diamond geezer and he has Eurovision form, as Stock Aitken & Waterman wrote the Cypriot entry for Eurovision in 1984. Why can’t we get someone like him to write for us? Oh yes, because we don’t have anyone like him. (Admit it Ireland, we’re rubbish at pop. The UK produces The Beatles, The KLF and Girls Aloud. We produce Westlife and, yes okay, B*Witched’s Blame It On The Weatherman but no amount of blabbering on about “economies of scale” can change the fact that no-one in Ireland seems to want to write a summer smash.) The performer for the UK song has yet to be chosen, and the televised competition is on BBC One this weekend should you wish to see a TV spectacle that’s approximately 0.00000000001% as entertaining as its Swedish equivalent.

Elsewhere there are the usual big balls-out ballads (F.Y.R. Macedonia, Malta, Norway), there’s stormin’ anthemic pop of the lighters-in-the-air variety (Denmark, Poland, Albania, Slovenia), there’s some knees-a-jerkin’ folkmongering (Finland, Netherlands) and there’s The One That Sounds A Bit Like Shakira (Armenia).

I’ll be keeping my eye out for Lithuanians InCulto, who sound like long-lost Brit-funkers Beggar and Co or Light Of The World, and whose song “East European Funk” (what a horrible idea) is very knowing and has lyrics about their compatriots surviving two world wars but then having to go abroad to clean other people’s houses for a living. This is politics Eurovision style. It probably won’t win, but hey at least they’re doing something interesting. And you don’t get that from Niamh Kavanagh.

In the last of our ely trilogy, (we’ve already served you up real carbonara a la ely and treated you to a stack of their delicious banana pancakes with brandy cream), we bring you yet another great recipe featured in ely’s award-winning cookbook, the wine and food of ely through the seasons. If you’ve ever wondered what the fruit of Bambi’s loins might taste like, this is it. Sweet and succulent, this aul deer will make you weak at the knees. Check out our interview with Erik and Michelle Robson, the husband and wife duo behind the ely brand, in the latest issue of Totally Dublin, out now.

chargrilled venison

with red cabbage, prunes and roasted figs

What to do

Split the figs into 4. Place on a baking tray, drizzle with a little of the vinegar and lightly dust with icing sugar. Cook for 15-20 minutes at 50°C, or as low as your oven will go. Set aside and keep warm until ready to serve.

Meanwhile, place the brown sugar and crème de cassis in a pot and heat gently. In a bowl, combine the red cabbage with the remaining vinegar and leave to stand for 5-10 minutes. Add to the pot together with the prunes and cinnamon stick. Turn up the heat slightly. Stir well, cover and cook for 20-25 minutes, stirring every 2-3 minutes. When cooked, strain over another pot, reserving the liquid. Set the cabbage aside and cover with cling film to keep warm. Reduce the strained liquid over a gentle heat to make the sauce.

Preheat the oven to 180°C. Heat a griddle pan until smoking. Oil the venison very lightly and sear on each side to get a chargrilled effect. Place on a roasting tray in the oven for 4-5 minutes for medium-rare. If you prefer, leave in the oven for longer. Remove the venison from the oven and slice neatly.

To serve, divide the cabbage between 2 serving plates, place the venison on top, coat with the sauce and arrange the figs as desired.

A wine that works

Domaine Le Sang des Cailloux, a Vacqueyras from the southern Rhône is exceptional value and competes nicely with the best of Châteauneuf-du-Papes. It has a Provençal nose of herbs and garrigue; black fruits, pepper and roasted herbs on the palate. Rich, rewarding and lovely with this dish.

Also try

Alvaro Palacios’s ‘Les Terrasses’ from Priorat in Spain.

What you need

2 figs

150ml red wine vinegar

1 tsp icing sugar

50g brown sugar

100ml crème de cassis

150g red cabbage

finely shredded

50g dried prunes

1 cinnamon stick

Olive/sunflower oil

2 x 180g pavés of venison loin

It’s official. I want Patrick Jane (Simon Baker) to read my mind. I also want him to promise not to be scandalised by what he reads there, it is after all an occupational hazard of mind reading. Personally, I’d love to be able to do it; it’d help me sort out all of life’s little predicaments. But for now, I’ll have to be content with the new series of The Mentalist instead.

Crime dramas are always going to be something that TV stations everywhere are overrun with. Just look at Law and Order – it must be on about series 74 by now. We at Telly Thursday don’t know what it is; after all, if you see one crime drama, you could certainly make a compelling argument that you have in fact seen them all. But yet, they keep popping up, like a malfunctioning Jack-In-Box.

The format of crime dramas hasn’t changed much over the years. The genre itself is for the most part not a particularly inventive one, not to mention reinventing. In short, it’s almost impossible to sit down, watch two separate crime dramas and actually point out the fundamental differences, because there are none. It’s like the studios take a template and just fill in the blanks.

The latest trend in crime drama is to give the main protagonist some kind of quirk or edge, usually something that helps them do their job better but at the expense of their credibility, which they really didn’t care about anyway. Think about it, Patrick Jane reads minds; last week’s Rick Castle is a crime novelist which, for some reason, in a crime show, translates as criminal profiler. Tim Roth reads lies in Lie to Me. Even Life on Mars and Ashes to Ashes could be considered in this sub genre of crime dramas.

These quirks do give crime dramas an extra dimension if used properly. Where the problems lie in these subgenres though, is when the shows start to take themselves too seriously. There is the danger of this creeping in with any of these shows, it’s effectively the moment when the quirk, or the science becomes more interesting than the actual show.

Thankfully though, The Mentalist so far remains immune, sidelining the party tricks of Jane in favour of being a highly entertaining, fun hour of TV. So, yeah, we can guess who killed who, who slept with whom and where the family’s lost dog ran off to, pretty much in the first twenty minutes. So what do we do for the next half hour? Well, I actually just stare lovingly at Patrick Jane, but I’m sure other people have their preferences too…

The new series opens with a couple of predictable enough cases: the murder of a woman accused of swindling her boss; and the murder of an intern (sounds like the Totally Dublin office) working for a State Senator. Both cases are solved handily enough using Jane’s box of magic tricks, much to the annoyance of his peers, yet when it appears he is quitting they remark that they think they need him.

The fallout from the last series plays heavily on their minds, and even more so when the Red John case is transferred to a different department who aren’t too keen on letting Jane, or female agent Lisbon know what’s going on. We’ve been promised a darker edge to this series, Jane still hunting for the murderer of his wife and kids, even though the case has been taken from him. Meanwhile Lisbon is indebted to Jane for saving her life.

It’s a funny series in a way. The plots aren’t complicated, meaning it’s not a particularly challenging drama. The supporting cast are likeable as is Lisbon but the usual sexual tension we see in these kinds of shows hasn’t reared its head yet in the second series. In a sense, those are the two things that ensure crime dramas survive – either they have a brilliant narrative drive; or they draw in a different kind of audience who champion the inter character romances, commonly known as ‘shippers’. But The Mentalist doesn’t have either of these factors in abundance. It’s almost as if they’re trying to do everything a good crime drama doesn’t do. And yet it’s still entertaining. That in itself is a rare and impressive feat.

Of course if anyone disagrees with this review, I will argue that the sheer beauty of Simon Baker completely clouded my judgement, not only managing to read my mind, but manipulate it aswell.

The Mentalist airs on RTE 2, Sundays at 9:30pm.

On his research trail for the upcoming Ricardo Villalobos gig in the Academy, our very own beardyman intern Paddy noticed a strange trend in Google Image Search’s results for the Chile’s best ambassador and one of techno’s biggest (longest) names - he’s more mangled in any of his shots than his audience. Here we salute Ricardo’s sweatiest moments.

Ledgebag.

A rather innocuous envelope arrived on our doormat the other day, smelling, as all unopened envelopes do, of hope and potential. As it turned out though, it was a rather stern reminder to pay our TV license. Now, we don’t mind paying up in the least, we just prefer to pay in instalments, coughing up the odd fiver whenever we feel the national broadcaster has actually done something worthy. If after twelve months RTE haven’t earned the full hundred and sixty, well, maybe that just means they’ll have to up their game a bit next year. They learn a lot like this we find, especially if you stick a post-it on each payment, explaining which non-Neil Delamere show was the one that impressed you.

2008 was a tricky year though, as TV3 were awarded 3,000,000 of the license fee fund and we suddenly found ourselves in danger of playing favourites. However much they got from us in the end, we’re sincerely hoping it’s all been spent by now, because if one cent of our money went anywhere near the simply appalling few hours of TV3 ‘primetime’ we’ve just witnessed, we’ll be very disgruntled tax payers.

Celebrities Without Slap was what jumped out at us from Tuesday’s listings, like a culturally vapid jack in the box. “Pictures of celebrities”, read the description, “not wearing make-up.” “Christ,” we muttered, and moved swiftly on. Living in shared accommodation though, Telly Thursday often falls victim to the dreaded zapper politics. With a sink full of dirty dishes as leverage, our steely eyed flatmates easily got their way, and the washed out slebs stayed on,, to rouse our bile and bluster.

It was one of the most insulting, infuriating, and asinine half hours of television I’ve ever witnessed. Running through Hollywood’s female A-listers at a frenetic pace, Celebrities Without Slap made some heavy handed points about what it is to be a famous woman in the media glare. Which it turns out, is bloody hard work. Deploying gossip column talking heads and some on-screen MS paint scribbling worthy of Perez himself, not one of your favourite female performers was safe from the vitriolic gaze of CWS.

Katie Holmes was on a “make up free shopping spree,” looking rancid even though, as we all know, “Holmes can be a hottie, if only a kind clerk would direct her to the cosmetics counter.” Kelly Clarkson was getting on a plane at 5am, but the silly bitch was wearing a green hat that did nothing for her complexion. Even the normally resplendent Julianne Moore was decried as “dishevelled”, although she was given some “credit because she has a baby.” Which was obviously pretty generous of our powder and paint overlords, though luckily for us their altruism didn’t stop there. A photo of Hilary Swank out for a jog was decreed to “prove that you can look great running,” while Nicolette Sheridan of Desperate Housewives fame was admittedly “looking a little rough in that photo, but she’s giving you the abs and the boobs as a distraction. Good tactic!”

Tips and tricks like this came as fast and thick as caked foundation, with invaluable hints such as “”If you’re gonna get arrested, at least make sure you have some concealer for the mugshot.” Later, and with a tad more faith in us perhaps, came instructions about large sunglasses and wearing… um, hats (not you though, Clarkson, obv). Without these life-saving accessories though, you are to appear absolutely flawless and miraculously made-up. Ever the caring cretins, our talking heads even led by example, appearing on-screen to berate you whilst wearing most blusher than you’re ever likely to amass in your average-looking lifetime. The essential thrust of all this, dear women of the world, is that the vast majority of you (even the ones in whose professional interest it is to be beautiful) are actually exceedingly ugly. Did you know that? Can you read this through your oversized sunglasses and pulled down baseball cap? Have you considered a burka?

What I’m driving at here (and rather laboriously, I’ll admit) is that Celebrities Without Slap represents the ultimate in lazy, shallow programming. Offensive not just to women, but to television audiences and humanity in general. It showcases our culture in such a way that we personally can’t decide if we should flee the cities for the uninhabited mountain side, or gather at the heart of the metropolis, gazing skyward and simply willing the bombs to fall. But what, you must now be screaming at the screen, did we expect? These shows are ten a penny and many-formed. Most people wouldn’t even bother putting pen to paper over them. Our reasoning for critique, dear reader, was not so much the show itself, as was what followed.

Without a hint of irony, nor a tongue scarce near their cheeks, TV3 repeated Sasha: Beauty Queen at 11, a BBC production from 2008 about a little girl whose entire life has been consumed by fulfilling modern ideals of beauty. Describing herself as “dumb”, “stupid”, and not “needing a brain”, Sasha’s journey is a piteous one, as a very sweet but clearly mal-nurtured young girl is laid bare before your eyes. The villain of the piece would appear to be Sasha’s domineering mother, whose desperation to live out her limited dreams vicariously has led to the abuse of her 11 year old daughter. She is a woman who feels it necessary to point out that she doesn’t “have aspirations for [her 11 year old daughter] to be a porn star, or anything like that,” but will bleach Sasha’s hair, apply fake tan and acrylic nails, as she likes Sasha to look “like a Cindy doll.” She is a woman who beggars belief, but so is TV3’s complete lack of awareness or savvy in scheduling programming that celebrates superficial celebrity culture alongside that which purports to decry it. The fact that these were advertised prior as a double bill just reinforces the lack of any sort of comment, as well as the perfunctory way in which this content had been considered.

Worse than the scheduling blunder though, are the fractures within a culture which devotes hours of prime time television to picking out imaginary faults in celebrity make up habits, but then has only time to boil the kettle before tut-tutting at the familial dysfunction and cultural mal-adaption of those who buy into it wholesale. The eerie face-on interviews with Sasha’s mother are like an odd foil to the talking heads of Celebrities Without Slap. Her unshakeable belief in her daughter’s destiny as a top model reaches its apogee with her admission that yes, she is actually envious of Sasha’s “really good looks.” With each of Sasha’s insistences that she wants to be a model like her idol Jordan, it’s uncomfortably plain that she’s never really been told she has the potential to be anything else.

This kind of lazy, ill-considered schedule filler is typical of TV3 primetime, despite a three year plan instigated in 2008 that aimed to pull themselves out of these very doldrums. That plan has produced some successes, but the channel has always historically poured its in-house production budgets into daytime news and topical programming, shying away from the drama and fiction production that could build its legacy. As long as they continue this trend, they’ll have a harder time justifying any kind of share of the license fee. This year, in fact, we’ll be earmarking our license fee for RTE, specifically for the reinstatement of High Queen Blathnaid, and the purchase of a solid gold dress for Jean Byrne. Because if the people who guess blindly at the weather forecast don’t look utterly, utterly fabulous, why the hell should we have to pay for it at all?

Celebrities Without Slap and Sasha: Beauty Queen at 11 aired on TV3 on Tuesday 2^nd March, at 730 and 800 respectively.

While Dublin’s head shops get closed down (or burn to the ground..) here at Fashion Wednesday we’re going crazy for a whole other kind of acid. Acid wash clothing is one of those trends recovered from fashion  oblivion, an eighties throwback look, like high waists, bum bags and peg-leg trousers, which we never thought we’d wear again. But how things can come full circle; with a bit of tongue-in-cheek irony and a stylised, more flattering silhouette, the look is back with a vengeance on catwalks and the highstreet. Christopher Bailey made the erstwhile grunge favourite chic with his charmingly kooky knee-length dresses (pictured above), paired with seventies-style wide brim hats. The look is a braver alternative to neutrals, injecting denim and cotton basics with DIY attitude.

No-one wants to repeat those stone-washed monstrosities of yesteryear, the jeans with designer ‘rips’ and  superfluous zips everywhere (here’s looking at you, River Island…). This time around the detail is more minimal, the tie-die more a tongue-in-cheek and nineties-referencing. This season’s acid wash isn’t quite as punky as you’d expect, more the logical successor of those tie-die cardigans and dirndl skirts from Prada 2004. Anyone looking to lighten up their wardrobe for Spring,  but unwilling to go full-on floral, should look into acid denim; cool, bleached-out skinny jeans are confrontational but simple enough to mix into your everyday wardrobe.

Gwen Stefani’s LAMB sent out bleached and processed denim worthy of eighties rockers for Spring/Summer 2010.  Meanwhile our favourite Swedes Acne have come over all Woodstock with a line of tie-died and distressed dresses and sweatshirts, minimal but splashy (in the bleach-splashed sense..). Check out the ‘Zenit’ tunic dress and ‘Abey’ distressed denim jumpsuit (pictured below). Subject of Sweden, Cheap Monday also do this look to perfection, with acid-wash denim a tier above the usual fake-distressed jeanswear. Their ‘Rip and Zig-zag’ jeans are worth a look, reduced to a palty £18 at ASOS.com.

Acid denim is fantastic for that Mad Max-esque street punk look so beloved of celebs like Rihanna. There’s grunge favourite the bleach-denim shirt (cheapo but perfectly wearable versions available at New Look ) and super-skinny, eighties-throwback jeans at Topshop (try their bleached-out ‘Jamie’ jeans for the brave, or the tie-die version for the braver). Urban Outfitters have an intriguing military-style dress by Aussie brand Shakuhachi, a high-fashion style (but mid-priced) version of those lovely Burberry creations. Pixie Market, also, have two dresses that are a gorgeous and grown up take on acid-wash; Something Else by Natalie Wood (also available, sometimes, at Urban Outfitters) do their fabulous racer-back ‘Vortex’ dress , while their ‘Finder’s Keep’ cocktail dress keeps to the eighties aesthetic with a peplum and spaghetti straps.

Poetry is life-affirming and soldiering is death-affirming. So how does one individual hold those two aspects of humanity together? This is the issue at the core of Academy Award-nominated playwright Dave Duggan’s new play Still, The Blackbird Sings which opens tonight at the Project Arts Centre.  

A dramatic & engaging production it focuses on a period in the life of the poet Francis Ledwidge when he was stationed at the barracks in Derry. It explores the stress, fear and tension that the soldiers experience when they come back after a military campaign and before they return to the front and although set in 1916 it resonates today with wars in the Middle East, Iraq and Afghanistan. 

“It’s a barrack soldier story of a squad of men feeling conflicted and terrified following two years of war” says Duggan during our early morning phone call from Derry. “Projecting forward as to how it will be when they go out again. And in the context of that fear they’re further conflicted by the fact that the period is roughly July to December 1916. And in Easter 1916 the Easter Rebellion happened and in July 1916 the Battle of the Somme happened.  

“The first event threw up the whole idea of what it is to be an Irish man in uniform because other Irish men put on another uniform and fought the very army that Ledwidge and his very squad members were in. And these guys had come back from campaigning in Gallipoli and the east to the news of the massive slaughter of soldiers at the Battle of the Somme so these events weigh heavy on their minds as they are being set up to go out and fight again.” 

Duggan has had an interest in Ledwidge for a long time. Mainly through his poetry which he came across in school but later in his character which is described so well in Alice Curtaynes biography. 

“He’s very romantic and Byronic. A lively, good-looking young fella, who liked the girls, did a bit of courting but was also very shy. And he used his lyrical, poetic voice to engage in romance in that way.” 

Born into a peasant family in Slane, Co. Meath, Ledwidge had no meaningful education but he started reading books and writing poetry at a young age, which he sent off to the Drogheda Independent. Soon he was swanning around Slane and Drogheda, The Boyne Valley, the local poet and the man about town, throwing shapes, and getting involved politically, in labor conflicts. And suddenly he’s off to the British Army even though he had spoken out against Irish men and women fighting in the war. 

Duggan is aware of the danger involved when imagining something that actually occurred in real life. “The play is a fiction and there is a history and the challenge when you write a history is to not bore people” he says. “People don’t go to the theatre for a history lesson. This is a dramatic engagement. You remain true to the themes and the history of the character, but its an all action, all engaging piece with lots of songs, lots of movement, very fine tablots and very fine images to look at. “ 

Duggan doesn’t consider himself a “troubles” writer but conflict is often at the core of his work with one of his Fringe shows AH 6905 currently touring Afghanistan. The modern echoes of our own troubled past with the Middle East struck him. “It is the classic tragic story. Why and how did this nightmare become a reality-a question which is really deepened within the context of war- and the struggle then for the survivors to get at the truth of what happened.” 

Theatre is in his opinion as one of the better mediums for getting at this truth. “Theatre has the great advantage of being live and also from being a communal experience. You watch a group of people in front of you and even though it is about a conflict or person who is past, when it’s happening in front of you and it’s done well, it is happening now. You are able to engage.”

Still, The Blackbird Sings opens at The Project Arts Centre in Dublin, March 1-6; The Balor Theatre in Ballybofey, March 9; and An Culturlann in Belfast, March 11-12. The production finishes its run back in Derry, at Ebrington Barracks, March 13-14.