Robin Ince had a bit in his stand-set recently about giving up reading newspapers and instead reading a book or looking at your favourite bit of art for a while. I’ve thought about this a lot, as the news has swept everyone up in its hysteria over the past year more so than ever before. […]
Breaking: Everything
Back in January of 2014 my girlfriend and I visited Reykjavik. At the time, the mayor was Jon Gnarr, a former comedian, who set up The Best Party as a response to the anger and exhaustion Icelandic people had of their current, post crash, political parties. Gnarr’s party jokingly promised to be ‘openly corrupt’ as […]
Partly Big Society Update
A couple of weeks ago I posted this: http://www.tiernandouieb.co.uk/2016/03/partly-big-society/ A few people read it and said they liked it. Mark Thomas very kindly sent it out to his followers on Twitter too which gave it about 400 views and the podcast where I talked about it had over 1200 listens. Which is all great. And as […]
Partly Big Society
It might be just me, and the amount I’m reading and watching the news at the moment, but things feel a bit despairingly bleak right now. In terms of politics I mean, and the future of the UK and world. I’m writing this just before today’s latest probably cut filled budget is announced, homelessness has […]
Dirperpromo
I’ve been having to promote a lot of stuff lately. My own stuff that is, I haven’t given up and gone the full selling my soul and becoming a PR person just yet. In fact, while I know some excellent PR types, I decided a few years back that I’ve been doing what I do for […]
January Doom
I’m having one of those times of year where I panic unnecessarily. I think it’s the sort of panic you only get with self employment, the sort that only comes after you plough through your diary for the foreseeable future and notice a distinct lack of work. Well, that’s not true. There is a lot […]
President Trump
President Trump flicked idly through an Encyclopedia Britannica. He couldn’t pronounce the title, but he liked all the pictures and without this book that he found on the shelves of the White House, he would’ve known about so many other terrible things that existed in the world. As a result it was the only book he […]
’34’
Apart from her willingness to avoid tax or her oft complaints about being famous (hard life innit?), I have nothing much against Adele. Today her new single ‘Hello’ has been released, from her originally titled album ’25’, because she’s y’know, 25. The internet, as it’s prone to do, has gone bonkers over it, saying how […]
Knowing Everything About Nothing
Today I had the pleasure of being that expert on the news that has no idea what they’re talking about. You know the one? They’re asked all sorts of serious questions and they squirm slightly over a video link, and repeat themselves fifteen times while trying not to sweat profusely? Well, I played the role […]
‘We’re safer with Nuclear Weapons’
Nine days ago I was standing in line at the Hiroshima Memorial Park Museum, looking at the remnants of a tricycle of a small three year boy who’d been outside when the atomic bomb was dropped on August 5th at 8.15am. His father found the barely alive child clutching the handlebars and trapped under the rubble […]