Newspaper of choice

[bandage]

Would be interested to find out what paper, if any, you lot buy as I expect you are a very discerning bunch. Is there any particular reason for doing so? Maybe to ogle at some Manchester Citys or is there another reason such as political, compactness, price, standard of writing, quality of cetain columnists etc etc?

Don't buy one during the week and only get The Sunday Tribune and/or Sunday Times purely for sport coverage and to read Dunne, Kimmage, Shannon and Griffin in that order.

[cully]

Times man myself, since moving out i've missed reading it daily (we get it delivered to my house) and find myself buying it on the way home from work. used to read the indo loads but since we changed to getting the times at home it's been my first choice. wouldn't be caught dead reading a smutty rag like the sun, star etc.

[therock67]

As an online paper the Guardian is unbeatable (www.guardian.co.uk) It would also be possibly my first choice weekday paper to purchase. If there is important Irish sports or domestic news (usually if it's a big GAA weekend) then I'll buy the Irish Times but prefer the Guardian. Sometimes by The (London) Independent too, though I hate giving Tony O'Reilly money. Still it is infinitely better than its Irish counterpart, in fact the two are incomparable.

On a Sunday I'd be for The Observer or The Sunday Times usually. The Sunday Times has a decent sports section but I usually throw the rest of the thing out. The Observer is better but it's not brilliant. I'm usually happy enough with thefreekick.com

[humbug]

Monday to Friday it's the Irish Independent. I read it online and I find it a more user friendly online paper than the Times.

On Wednesday I quickly peruse the Bray People for pictures of people I know. I also read the reports from the District Court...hilarious stuff.

On Saturday I will get the Irish Times and the Irish Independent.

Sundays is all about the Tribune. I detest the Sunday Indo with a passion.

Anyone read Tom Humphries today? Has a bit of a pop at lads who use chat rooms. What do forum members make of this lad? I used to consider Locker Room essential reading but he just rehashes the same stuff all the time. He was banging on about GAA lads not talking to the media AGAIN today. I swear I must have read half a dozen articles by Humphries on this one subject.

[humbug]

Here is said article for your ease of reference...

Locker Room: Feet up on desk. Cigar lit. Time for a chat. No fancy talk now, just plain dealing. Take the scales from your eyes. A few facts of life to stiffen your drink.
Listen, I read the websites. I haunt the chatrooms as discreetly as a brothel creeper with a career in politics. I see more than I let on. This is a little delicate, but I have gotten to know the esteem in which the ordinary working Joe holds the modern sports reporter. I have read the testimonials sent in by grown men.

Often those men are so overcome with emotion that they can't stick their name on to the posting.
The love of journalists is truly the love that dare not speak its name. (By the way, what is a glipe? More to the point, what's a "big effin glipe?" I feel so out of touch with the people.) I know we are the literati and the glitterati. Frankly, it's embarrassing.

We don't set out to be anybody's idols. We're just doin' our job. The adulation sits uneasily on our shoulders.
It was especially heartening to drift into one or two of the Armagh chat rooms last week, where the county's defeat to Kerry was being discussed in terms of a graciousness which put me in mind of Tonya Harding and Nancy Kerrigan back in 1994.
Even amidst all that sober-minded analysis, people were sparing some thoughts for the big guys. On one site the admiration for Pat Spillane was so great and fervent that there was a petition going to have Pat gelded. For free.

The same site had a generous tribute to Eamon Sweeney of the Sunday Independent. The site moderator had invoked the Special Powers Act and had deleted a posting of some of Eamon's work lest it have the effect on young minds that DH Lawrence might once have had upon your servant.

It was suggested also that a colleague, a well known writer with the Irish News, had the ability to speak out of parts of his body other than his mouth. Honestly! You guys! Stop! We are only human.

It's not just Armagh either. Generally, trawling these sites and dark discussion rooms, one baulks in embarrassment and modesty when one overhears the warm words reserved for us humble quill bearers, or - as the ordinary punter calls us - twats.
I'm hear to ask you to pause the next time you see a guy dashing to a phone and calling the sports editor and screaming "Hold the back page!" When you see that guy - handsome, devil-may-care - that guy wearing a trilby with a tag in the ribbon that says Press (or Twat), when you see him, pause and realise that his life isn't all glamour and whiskey sours with the fast set.

The guys on the websites (btw: listen, be honest here, am I really as funny as your mother's funeral? Cripes what happened there!), you groupies, you fans - whatever you'd call yourselves - you seem to have gotten hold of the wrong end of the stick. Of course the money in this racket is fabulous, and, natch, every dame is crazy for a guy who can talk sports all night. But some days are plain tough.

It's only when you have a good day you remember how it used to be back in the golden era. Take last Saturday. Ah, what a day for nostalgia that was. Kerry had beaten Armagh, and we got the express lift down from the press box and traipsed around to the dressingrooms on the far side of the ground under the Cusack.
Now, normally of an afternoon we stand outside the winners' dressingroom in a forlorn huddle until somebody comes out and washes us away with a water cannon and some disinfectant. Last Saturday, though, Seán Walsh, the Kerry chairman (and my nominee for next president of the GAA), came out and swung the door open and said, "D'ye want to go in, lads?"

Did we want to go in? Christ! Does a fish want water? It had been years since we had spoken to a GAA player in the flesh, let alone seen one naked and wet. Still, we hung back in case it was a trap, but then our excitement got the better of us and we poured in.

The players didn't exactly throw us a surprise party, but (apart from the odd merry slap on the bare backside) we didn't interfere with them too much either. We asked our dumb questions. They gave patient and enlightened answers. Nobody died. Nobody caught anything from us that penicillin won't cure. The fabric of society suffered no decay.

On Monday, everybody was able to read the thoughts of the Kerry players in the papers. We got a good flavour of Kieran Donaghy's warm, open personality. A little idea of how Jack O'Connor is feeling after a rollercoaster season. A sense of Séamus Moynihan's journey through this summer.

That all seems like a small good thing for the GAA and for those who follow it - although I do know from reading those posts that a lot of people would much prefer if that space had been filled with the opinion of a highly paid "twat". (It needs to be said here that before Kerry's dramatic gesture of glasnost last week, Armagh and Tyrone were virtually the only football counties in the entire country conducting their press relations with any level of maturity and wisdom. Come back soon boys. We're big effin glipes and we miss you.)

Since then we have returned to service as usual. Nobody talks. Everybody mutters out the side of their mouths about either being "built up in the media" or being "written off by the media". Kilkenny hurlers have a beautiful system in place. You can't call anybody on the team or your house might explode. Instead, you must call a man who will get you five minutes talk-time with a guy who plays Junior B for Inistioge. Just don't ask him anything about Sunday.

Soon we are to go to the Kilkenny press night. Always the same caper. We eat. We go into a room where the hurlers have eaten. Somebody call the cops! An entire hurling panel seems to have disappeared. Lordy, will we ever learn?

The Dubs have a more mystifying system, sort of a Buddhist thing going on which you have to respect. It's not that they can't talk or they won't talk, they just don't feel right now is a good time to talk. The Zen isn't right. The karma is bad.

Last Thursday, Boyle Sports made the karma just right for Ray Cosgrove and the media were invited to feed off Ray's thoughts for 15 minutes. We were glad for Ray and hoped he wouldn't be struck by lightning. He wasn't, but it all went quiet again anyway.
You can see how wrong it all feels when you watch Pillar Caffrey give his two-minute debriefing sessions to us after a match. Even when surrounded by us, some of the biggest swinging twats in the whole media world, you can see that Pillar finds the ordeal truly harrowing. He would much prefer to have his brief thoughts on the game scratched out onto his backside with an old rusty nail and then displayed on O'Connell Bridge for the rest of the weekend. That's not practical, though, for a man who works shifts.

Laois are slightly more open but deadly predictable. If Micko sees a game which resembles in grimness and casualties, say, the Battle of the Somme or Guernica, he will always pronounce it a good game of football. And always we will write it down, or at least alter the pre-prepared box which says "good game of football? Yes/No".

Yesterday it came down to Micko or Mickey Moran for the last semi final-spot.
Mickey is a nice man but seems weighed down with disappointment with the world; he carries so much melancholy around he's like a character out of a Garcia Marquez novel.
The Cork hurlers are fine fellas and appear in public as regularly and as dazzlingly as Halley's Comet. Our gripe is with their press nights, which involve the same three players every year, and with the press kit, which tantalisingly gives you the names of the players who haven't appeared. You know it's a bad night when the press get all that mileage and still complain.

Anyway, that's what we are calling you in here to talk about. Sweet as it is to be loved and cherished by the Gael, we galoots of the Fourth Estate would just like to talk like regular folk. The odd interview before a game. Some quotes afterwards. It's gotten so bad and frustrating that there has been discussion recently about just photoshopping the names of sponsors off jerseys in media pictures for a month or so. Just to see if anyone at the money end would sit up and take notice.

You see - and excuse me while I redden this old stogie again - it's not that we're the world's most intriguing conversationalists or that we don't know that we should write preview material which stresses that both sides are precisely equal in ability and potential and heck knows who could win the big game. No, it's just that the stars increasingly live in a bubble.

The bubble is insulated by sponsors and paranoid team mentors and hangers on. The players grow apart from their clubs and grow away all the more from the people who watch them.
Think of the weekend's three big games. Take out the guys who've been around a long, long time, Jayo, the Lohans, Sheff, etc. How much do we know about the rest of them? What sense have we of the personality or flavour of these players or their teams?

Something needs to be done. Specifically, something, somewhere by somebody.
Law: Coverage goes where the coverage is wanted. Munster rugby players speak. Irish rugby players speak. Even the soccer guys are runny at the mouth compared to the Gael. Derval O'Rourke speaks. Tiger Bloody Woods speaks after a round. Everyone speaks. It's natural.

So desist from your ardent worship. Yes, we journalists are the great figures of our time, but we're not getting the goods. We're not getting near the goods. Pray for the invention of mixed zones or press conferences, or a return to the grand tradition of just throwing the dressingroom open and letting us pile in on naked players. Anything.

There's nothing to fear but our cliches.

[timofte]

Generally The Irish Times during the week when I get the chance. Sometime buy the Sunday Business Post but the fact that there's no sport section puts me off and end up getting the Tribune. The SIndo is complete trash, used to get it the odd time but refuse to buy it now since the Liam Lawlor front page.

DT

[bandage]

Would also throw out every other part of the Sunday Times without reading it. Was still reading their sport supplement last night. It’s always very good – big fan of Kimmage, he got stuck well into Eddie Jordan in an interview this week about a new reality show Jordan’s involved in on Channel 5 where he tries to rehabilitate young car thiefs from rough London inner city areas by providing them with mechanic courses etc with the aim they’ll get a qualification, then a job and steer clear from a path of crime. Kimmage was suspect as to his motives given his own brash lifestyle and wondered was he out for some publicity rather than having the kids’ best interests at heart. Two of them exchanged a few words in the interview and it made for good reading.

Also interesting interview with Tony Griffin from Clare in The Tribune. Very deep character, quoting all sorts of scheidt, keeps a big journal that he uses to calm him down before games too. Said he wouldn’t play for Flannan’s if he could go back to his school days again. They won’t be happy in the famous nursery down there.

Would always have a gander at the Wexford People too to laugh at the fools contributing to the Garda Benevolent Fund for making pig noises at passing Gardai outside Burger Macs on a Saturday etc etc. Only picked up The Observer a few times for the Sport Monthly magazine which can be good; like the time they did a list of the 50 best sport books of all time.

Always want to punch those folk who shove Herald AM and Metros in my face in the mornings.

[Ball Ox]

My favourites include:

The homosexual times
The gay gazettel
the pubic post
the horny herald

and my favourite is

the cunt chronicle ;D ;D ;D ;D

[steamboatsam]

The Times monday to friday - big fan of their monday sports supplement. Tribune on a Sunday but it really annoys me having to carry home a 2 inch thick wad of paper when i only read a fraction of it (same goes for all sunday papers). The one thing i really detest is all those "life" and "living" magazines that are full of interviews with random post menopause biddies about how they struggled to combine a successful career with renovating their house 3 times, enjoying an active social life, being involved with 7 charities and bringing up 4 children (all of whom they are immensely proud of and have gone on to great things). the centre piece is then an incredibly gay family photo with a couple of "glamour pics" of the trollop on the side.

also peruse the FT in work as it's the one paper i can read at any stage during the day and people can't accuse me of dossing (even if it takes an hour or two). was very handy during the WC as it had a few good articles on the footie.

[Ball Ox]

[glow=red,2,300]BORING. THIS WEBSITE NO LONGER SATISFIES MY NEEDS. SEE YA LATER SUCKERS[/glow]

[bandage]

fockoffrangers said:

[glow=red,2,300]BORING. THIS WEBSITE NO LONGER SATISFIES MY NEEDS. SEE YA LATER SUCKERS[/glow]

Suit yourself son, but you will be back just like that rash that steamboatsam can't get rid of.

[whyohwhy]

I rate the Sunday Times highly, love their sports section espicially Kimmage. Clarkson can be good sometimes but with his car reviews, shoite others. Tis a great sunday read

The culture section is very good for book reviews and tips on what to read next.

Wouldnt touch the Sindo with Ranger's, Barry Fucking Egan is an absolute fucking twat, who fucking cares who goes to Lillies or Fucking Marbella on Smurfits yacht and 'who is marrying this socialite', fucking waste of ink. Hate Hugh leonard, Angela Phelan and all the other 'stuck-up-their-holes' journalists (word journalist used lightly here). Rant over

Anyone see 'The Panel' last year when Neal Delemare went on a rant about Barry Egan, priceless.

[bandage]

Point proven, welcome back rangers.

[Ball Ox]

CAN WE ENCOURAGE FORUM MEMBERS TO REGULARILY CHANGE THEIR USER NAMES
COULD BE A LAUGH

[Ball Ox]

[glow=red,2,300][shadow=red,left,300]Hi Jackass, this is the captain of your ship speaking...[/shadow][/glow]

Im just doing this to get my 150th post

[Ball Ox]

[shadow=red,left,300][glow=red,2,300]_{[glow=red,2,300]150th JIVE ASS MONKEYS[/glow]}[/glow][/shadow]

[bondage]

Well said WOW that idiot and his like are morons. Writing tosh that no one gives a fook about. And as for those 'charity banquets'.........a load of ball ox.

And Humphries......pity to see quite a good writer go down that road again, but he's not alone. Hogan and Breheny have been banging on about GAA players keeping quiet aswell. Ridiculous really, alot of guys prefer not to talk so why should they? Sponsors don't get anything for players doing interviews (As he was alluding to) and players generally get fook all from the interview apart from hardship from coonts over what they may or may not have said. And how does a player not speaking to some media guy distance him from his club?

In any event, 90% of player intervies are full of the usual mundane nonsense.

He seems to have a problem with chat rooms also, punters expressing opinions....which is exactly what he does except he gets a free ticket and gets paid for it.

Humpheries has an excellent book called Laptop Dancing and the Nanny Goat Mambo, well worth a read.

As for the thread itself.......generally read the tribune and the indo and times during the week. Try to avoid buying them though. Read someone elses! Buying a paper a day costs over 500 europes/yr.

Can't understand how anyone could buy and read a red top. Utter nonsense for the most part and Siobhain O'Brien hasn't printed my letter yet........

[bandage]

Agree totally re those socialite fools in the Sindo. Give me strength!

As for Humphries, I enjoy reading his stuff at times but he can rehash the same article on occasion too. I read that one the other day and I didn't take it to be a dig at forum users, I thought he was kind of saying, 'fair enough if you disagree with our opinion articles but tone down the criticism a little bit, the reason we are doing so many of them is because we can't get access to the players to do direct interviews/stories with them.' That said I agree totally that it is up to the individual player whether he wants to speak to the media or not. An amateur sportsperson is under no obligation to give copy to a journalist who's getting paid to write up his story. As the game's not professional there's no contracts where players have to turn up at kit launches and give soundbites to the media but with players' commercial value increasing year by year that is likely to change.

[briantinnion]

F**king love reading Simon Jordan, I think the guy is a legend! Appears in the Observer on a regular basis, link to some of his articles below:

football.guardian.co.uk/Columnists/Column/0,,1754742,00.html

Also wouldn't miss "Sideline Cut" in the Gorey Guardian.

[stickywithoutjam]

Times all the way- compared to other publications out there you can really see the difference, other Irish & UK papers included.

The Economist deserves a mention also, quality analysis and always satisfies.

[bondage]

Gerry McDermott is a twat, better suited to a red top and David Kelly the indo rugby correspndent is a compete and utter moron. Someday Eddie O'Sullivan will be gone and he can rest easily. Fooking tool, just wanted to get that off my chest.

Another bee in my bonnet is Tony Ward's annual eulogising of the Leinster SC. Does anyone give a fook if Blackrock beat Clongowes? Maybe its just me but the amount of coverage the indo gives it seems very disproportionate to the amount of punters interested in reading it.

James Lawton is class though.

[iamthelaw]

bondage said:

Another bee in my bonnet is Tony Ward's annual eulogising of the Leinster SC. Does anyone give a fook if Blackrock beat Clongowes? Maybe its just me but the amount of coverage the indo gives it seems very disproportionate to the amount of punters interested in reading it.

While a big supporter of schools rugby, I have to agree coverage is disproportionately great. Rock-Clongowes I wouldn't mind, interesting to hear who we'll have to look for in years to come, names like Hickie, D'Arcy and O'Driscoll would have been first seem there, but when they give more space to, say, Skerries v Sandford in the preliminary section of the Cup than to any GAA club match bar the finals, or, indeed, a Tri-Nations game, I wonder what the reasoning is.