Dustin’s song sung in a North Dublin accent urges the contest judges to “give douze points to Ireland.”
Which sounds like a wasted effort, given that it’s all decided by telephone voting now. Rather wonderfully, a subeditor pads out the slim news article in time-honoured style:
Should Dustin be chosen as the Republic of Ireland’s entrant, it will be the first time that a turkey in the form of a glove puppet has represented a nation.
I wonder how long it took them to fact-check that sentence. Also included is a YouTube link to Dustin “doing Riverdance”.
I’m moving house again, so when I get a rare chance to go online I’m less inclined to write a new post than just quietly surf around and think
deep thoughts.
“So she’s not coming in today either. She called in sick yesterday then went shopping and broke her leg falling out of a taxi.”

Boulez, according to all known biographies, did not have a childhood. Not in the Michael Jackson sense of “He never got a chance to play with little boys because he was recording ‘Ben'”, but quite literally: Boulez actually
materialized one day in Messiaen’s class at the Paris Conservatoire. Some say that he walked out of a forest in the Rhône one day wearing white dress shirt and black tie. (I believe
Peyser’s book adds that he was trailed by a pack of wolves over whom he had a sort of psychic power.) …
Needless to say, he was already balding.
For peace of mind, I will assume that I’m not alone in being willing to overlook the most egregious failings in my heroes. Let’s see, there’s Ezra Pound’s anti-semitism, John Cage’s flirtation with Maoism, Cornelius Cardew’s wholehearted embrace of same, William Burroughs shooting his wife in the head (accidentally! so that’s not so bad, is it?). And then, of course, there’s Pierre Boulez’s combover, which I like to pretend simply isn’t there whenever I see a photograph of him. I wonder how easy it is to ignore if you meet him in person?
This seems like a good time to remind readers that we still have some remaining items from the mid-year
Julian Day toiletries auction. In particular, the toothbrush and shaving equipment are still available to the hygiene-conscious Fine Music fan:
click here for pictures, descriptions, provenances, and reserves.
There’s a broken portable CD player under the bottom drawer of the kitchen dresser which isn’t doing anything, so I’ve decided to publicly launch the defunct device as my very own
iPod Killer.
I figure all I need to do now is issue a press release announcing that this useless piece of technology is the first serious competitor to Apple’s
portable music device and see if I can attract any investment capital. As I see it, my iPod Killer has the advantage over previous contenders by having no effort or expense put into the technical development or business model whatsoever, and yet being just as
doomed as every previous iPod Killer.
Although my bold, innovative plan is already condemned to failure, I can unequivocally state that the past five minutes have been a great journey for me and my plucky little startup. Despite the completely forseen pitfalls along the way, it’s been a real learning experience which will immensely benefit me when going forward with my future doomed e-commerce strategies and worthless online business solutions.
As for the rest of you, I wish you nothing but success in developing your own DOA iPod Killers.