1 April 1999 Edition
television: Where were you in `72?
Top Ten Glam (Channel 4)
Manchan in Eireann (TnaG)
Michael Moore's Awful Truth (C4)
If you're under 40, you were most probably trapped in a cloth nappy with a big blue safety pin, the ones your ma used to boil in a big pot in the kitchen, and you're probably now a Slade or T-Rex fan.
Channel 4's Adam Freeman and Tony Blackburn were stirring the `70s embers on ``Top Ten Glam'', although understandably in present circumstances denying Gary Glitter the No. 1 spot in the glam chart. The glitter had very much faded from the `70s, with Glitter resembling an overweight Liz Taylor, while his most famous songs, ``I love you love me'' and ``Do you want to touch me there - oh yeah!'' take on a somewhat sinister or ironic tone in light of pending legal proceedings.
Alice Cooper was always guilty of bad taste with his stage antics, including bringing snakes on stage, reputedly biting bats and painting his baby in gold paint and covering him in dollar bills, giving us the title ``Million Dollar Baby''.
Bay City Rollers were No.1 in Clare with their yellow tank tops, tartan flares and Kevin Keegan hairstyles.
After much success and teenybopper mania, they were subjected to the clichéd tabloid grind of sex, drugs and rock `n roll and the inevitable split followed, with gorgeous Derek the drummer graduating to a career in medicine.
Other parachute-trousered Hairy Mollys featured including Mud, Slade and Sweet, who were all prone to the ``hell raiser' lifestyle and suffered the consequences through alcohol and drug addiction and in T-Rex singer Mark Bolan's case death in a high speed smash.
Still, who can forget such classics as ``20th Century Love Boy'' or ``Mama we're all crazy now''.
In retrospect the `70s were a much more positive environment to grow up in, unlike us `80s teenagers who suffered pimples, Nick Kershaw and drainpipe trousers. For you ageing glam fans, there'll always be the cover bands and the yellow jackets and silver platforms at the bottom of your wardrobe!
Manchan Morgan, TnaG's wacky but energetic presenter, was busy looking for ``Faoiseamh'' relief, visiting the highlands and lowlands of Ireland at lightning speed on TnaG's ``Manchan in Eireann''.
Although omitting the heroic feats of Alistair Elliot and the hurlers of Antrim's Glens, we were taken to the Giant's Causeway, where tourists visited long before ``it was either popular or profitable''.
Sure didn't Cú Chulainn stand his ground here, as he and his Scottish foes hurled chunks of Ireland at each other, resulting in the creation of the Isle of Man and Lough Neagh simultaneously when one of his chunks landed short of the enemy. In the words of Flann O'Brien: ``Wasn't his arse so big and strong that the little people used to play handball up against it!''
Highlight of Manchan's travels was his trip to Tory Island, nine miles off the coast of Donegal - ``Lán le cúltúr craiceoch, meisceach `s draíocht'' (full of mad lively culture and magic).
Tory isolation has resulted in a less commercialised beauty spot when compared to the shillelagh-ised Dingle and the like, and a survival of ancient beliefs and superstitions combined with Christianity.
The independent-minded souls of Tory even have their own royal family, headed up by (High King Patsy Dan Rodgers) Ard Rí Patsy Dan Mac Ruairí. Its place ``ar imeall an gnáth saoil'' (on the edge of the rat race) has become somewhat tainted where one can now spot the youth excelling in foreign games and AC/DC graffiti on the gable ends. Still surely the best place in Ireland to ``chill out'', and not a peeler in sight!
Mad Manchan also took us to a lonely deserted monasteries in Westmeath's everglades, ``where monks went mad in splendid isolation'' and to Brú na Bóinne, where the terrific Celtic wooden carvings of (master craftsman) sár snaídóir would make an excellent wedding present alternative to carraige clocks or tasteless Parian China dogs. Manchan still has ``na mílte míle fós romhaim'' (many miles to travel) - fair play duit a chara!
Mischievous Michael Moore is busily exposing corporate crime on his Channel 4 ``Awful Truth'' series, where he sends in a Big Bird character and other strange types to the headquarters of evil multinational types to expose and ridicule them, including the visit of a ``voice-box choir'', a group of elderly folk, who had lost their voices as a result of throat cancer, to the HQ of Marlboro to sing Christmas carols for the slimy PR men in shirts who battled vainly to keep their cool, inevitably sending in their own numbskull heavies to ``vacate our premises, please''.
Other targets of his zany but effective campaigning have included Disneyworld, whose workers are forced to work in sweaty costumes for buttons, and United Parcel Services (UPS), who recently reneged on increased wage promise to their workers, despite increased profits.
Moore's opening lines, in light of the current NATO bully boy bombing tactics, are very apt: ``In the beginning there was a free press - now at the end of the 20th century, the world's press is controlled by five people, and the world's people rejoices, because their televisions tell them so. Standing in their way is one man''.
But let us not forget our own An Phoblacht!
By Sean O Donaile
Manchan in Eireann (TnaG)
Michael Moore's Awful Truth (C4)
If you're under 40, you were most probably trapped in a cloth nappy with a big blue safety pin, the ones your ma used to boil in a big pot in the kitchen, and you're probably now a Slade or T-Rex fan.
Channel 4's Adam Freeman and Tony Blackburn were stirring the `70s embers on ``Top Ten Glam'', although understandably in present circumstances denying Gary Glitter the No. 1 spot in the glam chart. The glitter had very much faded from the `70s, with Glitter resembling an overweight Liz Taylor, while his most famous songs, ``I love you love me'' and ``Do you want to touch me there - oh yeah!'' take on a somewhat sinister or ironic tone in light of pending legal proceedings.
Alice Cooper was always guilty of bad taste with his stage antics, including bringing snakes on stage, reputedly biting bats and painting his baby in gold paint and covering him in dollar bills, giving us the title ``Million Dollar Baby''.
Bay City Rollers were No.1 in Clare with their yellow tank tops, tartan flares and Kevin Keegan hairstyles.
After much success and teenybopper mania, they were subjected to the clichéd tabloid grind of sex, drugs and rock `n roll and the inevitable split followed, with gorgeous Derek the drummer graduating to a career in medicine.
Other parachute-trousered Hairy Mollys featured including Mud, Slade and Sweet, who were all prone to the ``hell raiser' lifestyle and suffered the consequences through alcohol and drug addiction and in T-Rex singer Mark Bolan's case death in a high speed smash.
Still, who can forget such classics as ``20th Century Love Boy'' or ``Mama we're all crazy now''.
In retrospect the `70s were a much more positive environment to grow up in, unlike us `80s teenagers who suffered pimples, Nick Kershaw and drainpipe trousers. For you ageing glam fans, there'll always be the cover bands and the yellow jackets and silver platforms at the bottom of your wardrobe!
Manchan Morgan, TnaG's wacky but energetic presenter, was busy looking for ``Faoiseamh'' relief, visiting the highlands and lowlands of Ireland at lightning speed on TnaG's ``Manchan in Eireann''.
Although omitting the heroic feats of Alistair Elliot and the hurlers of Antrim's Glens, we were taken to the Giant's Causeway, where tourists visited long before ``it was either popular or profitable''.
Sure didn't Cú Chulainn stand his ground here, as he and his Scottish foes hurled chunks of Ireland at each other, resulting in the creation of the Isle of Man and Lough Neagh simultaneously when one of his chunks landed short of the enemy. In the words of Flann O'Brien: ``Wasn't his arse so big and strong that the little people used to play handball up against it!''
Highlight of Manchan's travels was his trip to Tory Island, nine miles off the coast of Donegal - ``Lán le cúltúr craiceoch, meisceach `s draíocht'' (full of mad lively culture and magic).
Tory isolation has resulted in a less commercialised beauty spot when compared to the shillelagh-ised Dingle and the like, and a survival of ancient beliefs and superstitions combined with Christianity.
The independent-minded souls of Tory even have their own royal family, headed up by (High King Patsy Dan Rodgers) Ard Rí Patsy Dan Mac Ruairí. Its place ``ar imeall an gnáth saoil'' (on the edge of the rat race) has become somewhat tainted where one can now spot the youth excelling in foreign games and AC/DC graffiti on the gable ends. Still surely the best place in Ireland to ``chill out'', and not a peeler in sight!
Mad Manchan also took us to a lonely deserted monasteries in Westmeath's everglades, ``where monks went mad in splendid isolation'' and to Brú na Bóinne, where the terrific Celtic wooden carvings of (master craftsman) sár snaídóir would make an excellent wedding present alternative to carraige clocks or tasteless Parian China dogs. Manchan still has ``na mílte míle fós romhaim'' (many miles to travel) - fair play duit a chara!
Mischievous Michael Moore is busily exposing corporate crime on his Channel 4 ``Awful Truth'' series, where he sends in a Big Bird character and other strange types to the headquarters of evil multinational types to expose and ridicule them, including the visit of a ``voice-box choir'', a group of elderly folk, who had lost their voices as a result of throat cancer, to the HQ of Marlboro to sing Christmas carols for the slimy PR men in shirts who battled vainly to keep their cool, inevitably sending in their own numbskull heavies to ``vacate our premises, please''.
Other targets of his zany but effective campaigning have included Disneyworld, whose workers are forced to work in sweaty costumes for buttons, and United Parcel Services (UPS), who recently reneged on increased wage promise to their workers, despite increased profits.
Moore's opening lines, in light of the current NATO bully boy bombing tactics, are very apt: ``In the beginning there was a free press - now at the end of the 20th century, the world's press is controlled by five people, and the world's people rejoices, because their televisions tell them so. Standing in their way is one man''.
But let us not forget our own An Phoblacht!
By Sean O Donaile