Stupid RTE newsroom

Two gems from our national broadcaster yesterday. Okay, one of them might have been a misspelling, or a slip of the tongue, and I know that newsreaders don't always listen to what they're saying, but still, to refer to Ingmar Bergman's best-known film as The Seven Seas is surely pretty dense, no?

The other thing that really annoyed me was when the newsreader announced that Cork man Paul Cunningham was on the way to Dublin to collect his Lotto winnings, despite the fact that Mrs. Cunningham was the one who bought the ticket. Surely that makes them her winnings, or at best their winnings?

Perhaps I demand too much from the radio news.

Jesus, what is RTE's problem?

I have just had to run to turn off the radio with my hands over my ears. Not a gainly sight, I think you'll agree. But what am I supposed to do when Morning Ireland decides to have a piece about the very last episode of The Sopranos and play clips from it? And then get someone from the San Francisco Chronicle on to talk about it?

Assholes.

Furthermore, I would like to thank RTE Two very much for their inability to actually start a programme when they say they will. We set the Sky Plus to record the Saturday night repeat of The Modest Adventures of David O'Doherty, and it managed to start about 15 minutes late, which meant we missed the last seven minutes of it and don't know whether he actually did get into the Irish chart or not.

HI DERE, RTE! A television schedule is not like a hairdresser's appointment book! It is not okay to overrun late at night because you were busy earlier in the day. Please to act like professional television network. Thank you.

RTE is the weakest link

When Margaret Thatcher became leader of the Conservative Party in Great Britain in 1978, she turned down an invitation to debate Prime Minister James Callaghan on television. The decision was probably based on the knowledge that she wouldn't win, but the reason her team gave at the time was that a president was not being chosen, so why should the two leaders of the parties debate each other?

I wonder the same thing about the Irish elections. Do people in Ireland really vote on who they want to see as Taoiseach, or do they vote based on what the local representative of a particular party can do for them and their local area? Unless you're in Bertie Ahern's constituency, you're not voting for him directly, so what's the point of the debate, really?

Nevertheless, RTE have spent the entire morning so far talking about last night's ridiculous festival of name-calling between the possible Tanaisti (is that the right plural?), and trying to get people to watch tonight's debate between Bertie Ahern and Enda Kenny. They talked about it on Morning Ireland, where I got to hear Michael McDowell's "oh no he di'nt!" line that he's clearly been batting around the office for weeks, about being on stage with the left, the hard left, and the left overs. Leftovers, geddit? It's great to live in a country where the kind of line they trot out for the lineup section on Never Mind the Buzzcocks is considered cutting satire. And there was Pat Rabbitte's line about McDowell being like a "menopausal Paris Hilton; he's an inveterate attention-seeker".

OH SNAP!

Oh please. I may not watch the debate tonight (let's face it, I won't), but thanks to Morning Ireland, Ryan Tubridy, and Pat Kenny, and their tireless self-advertising that passes for current affairs programming, at least I know it's on.