Springsteen v Kathy French Hot Press (1 Viewer)

[Franco]

Asking someone who's never actually seen the stuff in real life is pretty stupid. It's like asking my mum and her saying yes because she heard on the tv that it anyone could get it.

I think they proved how easy it is to get with the Derek Thompson bit.

Those drunken young 'uns were a bit of a joke alright, but no-one is going to own up to taking class a's in a vox pop.

They also didn't seem to mention that the White Horse is an early house, so the chances of scoring there are higher than any random pub.

Those faults aside, i thought the show was a measured and decent assessment of the situation. Better than the High Society sensationalist nonsense anyway.

 

[rettucs]

They also didn't seem to mention that the White Horse is an early house, so the chances of scoring there are higher than any random pub.

or that the White Horse is beside Tara St DART station where drug dealing goes on openly all day every day.

I go by there on the bike on the way into work and see it all the time. Sometimes with gardai in the vicinity who are more interested in giving out to taxi drivers than they are tackling small time drug dealers

 

[avernus]

Absolutely. It certainly wasn't some of the worst journalism ever, considering we've read some of that this past week.

 

[Diddles]

However, the one redeeming part was the dealer guy who brought them back to his house, that was tv gold. Stupid fucker.

I loved the way they kept going on about the proffered coke being dropped on the floor and that the undercover journo HAD NOT TAKEN ANY.

I felt sorry for the dealer bloke to be honest.

 

[Space]

I loved the way they kept going on about the proffered coke being dropped on the floor and that the undercover journo HAD NOT TAKEN ANY.

I felt sorry for the dealer bloke to be honest.

I did too for a bit, but then when he had strangers up to his room showing them where he kept his stash I lost a lot of sympathy for him.

 

[cephalopod]

As these things go, Prime Time was pretty good last night. The vox-pops were a bit glib, but everything else was better than I expected. That young fella with the mad culchee accent blowing on about how easy it is to get coke was a bit sad and I'd say Moose is right that a lot of the people in the vox-pops were just parroting the statement that it was easy to get cocaine, cos that's what they read in the papers every day. But on the whole, cocaine use is pretty rampant in Ireland right now, and I don't think anyone can argue with that.

 

[avernus]

Also, it is easy to get coke.

 

[Wobbler]

I wrote this letter to the Times yesterday. The bitch didn't publish it.
Madam - As your editorial (December 8th) puts it, cocaine kills. Cocaine occasionally directly kills people who overdose on the drug. Fortunately these occurrences are quite rare, recent tragic events notwithstanding. We all know, most of the damage done by cocaine, and indeed all illicit drugs, is done indirectly. The evil criminals who bring drugs such as cocaine, heroin and cannabis into this country are truly dangerous people and are responsible for dozens of murders every year. Those of us who spend money on these substances are indirectly causing these avoidable deaths. But why are these drugs illegal? Because they’re dangerous? Are all dangerous things illegal? If drugs could be legally purchased, criminal gangs would go out of business. Gangland murders would drop considerably. The tax revenue collected from this could be put to good use, to provide improved treatment to heroin addicts (people who are amongst the most vulnerable and isolated in our society) and to educate people about the dangers of all drugs. The thousands of man hours the police spend seizing drugs and solving gangland crime could be put to different use. People who make the decision to take drugs could be assured that what they’re taking is at least of reliable strength and quality. Maybe future overdoses could be avoided in this way. I suspect that none of this will happen, that our nation will continue to be outraged until another major story occupies our collective attention, meanwhile the corpses will mount up and the criminals will continue winning the war on drugs.
Yours etc,

Published today

 

[CitySickness]

Published today

Scarleh.

 

[rettucs]

Published today

Its well known that Geraldine Kennedy reads thumped

 

[magicbastarder]

kevin myers:

Well, I suppose the presence of the Taoiseach's aide de camp at the funeral of poor Katy French finally puts an official endorsement on celebrity culture in Ireland, though, in all truth, I had never heard of the girl until shortly before her death.

I first registered her existence when reading a nasty, sneering piece in one newspaper about how no-one of note had turned up at her birthday party (what delightful people we journalists can sometimes be, and what a story to be able put on your CV). Next the girl was dead: and may flights of angels sing thee to thy rest, Katy.

Many observers have often remarked upon the Irish characteristic of imitating other cultures, both shamelessly and badly.

Cross-channel television formats are copied, almost as if the derivative Irish versions were entirely new and original, though the qualities which usually distinguish them are amateurishness, ineptitude and inaccuracy.

This degrading business of copying like ill-bred monkeys is not new: the hideous showbands of yesteryear attempted to be what they were not -- Nashville, Elvis, even the Beatles. Sad, pathetic stuff, yet it is so common in Irish life that one can only presume it is actually part of the national character.

So, of course, we emulated celebrity culture when it arrived, though we didn't have the raw product, and in the absence of the real thing, we even turned a solicitor to the "stars" -- or rather the fool's gold that masquerades as such -- into a celebrity.

Utter non-entities became famous merely because the media said they were famous, when they simply weren't. It was post-colonial mimicry at its most embarrassing. Yet, with the Katy French phenomenon, we got a genuinely new and very Irish slant on celebrity culture. The poor girl only became a national figure for being on the verge of death and then dying.

Thus, once again, we got an Irish solution to an Irish problem -- from Wolfe Tone to Patrick Pearse, from Terence McSwiney to Bobby Sands, and once again unleashing a convulsion of hysteria.

But this time, the hysteria hasn't been in the streets, but solely in the media. Katy French was invented by the print media; celebrated in life in the same media -- though in a way which escaped my attention entirely; was turned into an object of acidulous media scorn towards the end of her days; took some drugs; hovered on the verge of death, to the intense satisfaction of some journalists; and, like the good girl she was, then did what was expected of her, and died.

But now it was the media imitating what they expected the plain people of Ireland would be doing; only they weren't. They were sorry for the girl, to be sure, and rightly, and felt for her family, as they should.

They also felt for the families of the Waterford lads, Kevin Doyle and John Grey, who apparently died of similar causes. But around where I live, the talk wasn't so much of Katy French but of Tracy O'Brien, who was seven-months pregnant in her 4 x 4 when she was hit and killed around the same time Katy died. A caesarean did not save her baby, and on Monday, he, baptised Cameron, was buried in her young arms.

And so her husband, David O'Brien -- an officer in the Army of this Republic, than which there is no higher calling for an Irishman -- must make sense of this world, after the greatest catastrophe that can befall a man. And of course, he cannot.

A week ago he was a proud and loving soldier-husband and about to be a father; now he is a childless widower, and outside the ranks of the Army, and rural Ireland, his tragedy is largely unknown. Dublin-based journalists may prattle about poor Katy (see pages 5,6,7 & 8 et cetera) but in terms of human catastrophe, the instant deaths of Tracy O'Brien and her unborn baby are far more shocking and tragic. But it doesn't make such lurid copy.

Moreover, one gets the pungent whiff of desperation in all this. Newspaper circulations are declining everywhere, and few people under 30 read newspapers, either broadsheet or tabloid, at all.

So the "Katy" phenomenon only becomes really explicable in the context of a newspaper war in a declining market. There are too many titles chasing too few readers: the result is a downward spiral in taste and decency.

That being the case, we must brace ourselves for more Katy Frenches, though it is unlikely any will fit the requirements of the tabloids as she did so perfectly: beautiful, young, glamorous and thoughtful enough to give the tabloid-media all they wanted -- a drug-related tragic end, with the kind of protracted death-bed drama that our beloved carrion-devourers prefer.

From vultures, we can only expect beak and claw. Similarly, from the Government, surely, while drugs remain illegal, we might expect a single clear message on the subject.

But if the Taoiseach continues to send his ADC to the funerals of high-profile drugs-users, what possible chance of success has any government campaign against cocaine consumption?

- Kevin Myers

 

[classic seanc]

kevin myers:

What a crazy loon. Nothing has anything to do with anything.
C'mere Pete, I'll be sending you an invoice for the bullshit I write on Thumped. I don't see any reason why he should get paid loads while I get nothing.

 

[Unicron]

Its well known that Geraldine Kennedy reads thumped

Someone showed her this thread.

 

[magicbastarder]

What a crazy loon. Nothing has anything to do with anything.

it's the best piece of journalism i've read about the whole thing. which isn't saying much, admittedly.

 

[kavanelli]

kevin myers:

And what does Kevin Myers do for a living he works for one of the newspaper who had Katy French on pages 2,3,4,5,6,7,8 and in the sports supplement.

What was the need to compare the death of a person who died in a car crash and another who dies coke related. Two people died.

Also he slags off the celebrity culture in Ireland, was he not on The Restaurant on RTE last week. Where the solicitor to the "stars" he mentioned was guest chef a number of weeks before.

Fuck off you untalented Hack.

First Rant on Thumped complete.

Al

 

[Wobbler]

And what does Kevin Myers do for a living he works for one of the newspaper who had Katy French on pages 2,3,4,5,6,7,8 and in the sports supplement.

What was the need to compare the death of a person who died in a car crash and another who dies coke related. Two people died.

Also he slags off the celebrity culture in Ireland, was he not on The Restaurant on RTE last week. Where the solicitor to the "stars" he mentioned was guest chef a number of weeks before.

Fuck off you untalented Hack.

First Rant on Thumped complete.

Al

I'm not a fan of Myers' but I thought that article was reasonably good.

 

[magicbastarder]

And what does Kevin Myers do for a living he works for one of the newspaper who had Katy French on pages 2,3,4,5,6,7,8 and in the sports supplement.

What was the need to compare the death of a person who died in a car crash and another who dies coke related. Two people died.

he's not required to agree with the editorial policy of the paper he works for.
the need was nothing to do with how they died, it was to do with how their deaths were treated.

i don't agree with everything he says in the article, but he got a fair bit right.

 

[classic seanc]

it's the best piece of journalism i've read about the whole thing. which isn't saying much, admittedly.

Maybe,

but Myers’ job is no different than the job of “being a celebrity”.

And of course he’s well aware of that himself. So what's the point?

 

[lympog]

or that the White Horse is beside Tara St DART station where drug dealing goes on openly all day every day.

I go by there on the bike on the way into work and see it all the time. Sometimes with gardai in the vicinity who are more interested in giving out to taxi drivers than they are tackling small time drug dealers

there's a pub in wycombe called the white horse - it's a seedy little strip bar
oh, how the world turns...

it's the best piece of journalism i've read about the whole thing. which isn't saying much, admittedly.

true
a cunt, but so are most salivating editors and journalists who towered over this young lady just waiting for her to pass

- leigh

 

[avernus]

yeah. and the comparison of the other girl's death was far more a logical one than that fool comparing KF with Veronica Guerin. he was basically highlighting the senselessness of the media coverage of so-called-celebrities. the other death is far more tragic, yet the papers didn't touch it - speaking only of how tragic it was that a young faux famous girl died from taking drugs. I think that's bang on. the entire article isn't 100% coherent and sensible, but that much is.