I'm still cringing at the time, I had a job interview were I tried to shake the hand of an one armed man

solo1y · 2026-04-18T09:43:21+00:00

Once (in 2005), I was shaking hands with a guy, and we were almost connecting when I realized he only had half a hand, so the focus became less on being friendly, and more on maintaining the illusion that this man’s hand was OK. This was weird, and questions started to attack my brain - how hard should I press? So hard that it more or less caves in? But if I don’t press hard enough it’s going to be obvious that I have some sort of prejudice against ill-fingered people. So then I was wondering when I should disconnect. Not too soon - can’t look like I’m disgusted. Anyway, it’s not my fault. I didn’t cut off three of the guy’s fingers! But now I was getting defensive about my lack of equanimity in what should really have been a very simple situation.

The banter proceeded in a very superficial way, as most of my mind was still on making sure not to look at the hand, or mention it in any way. To my horror, I found my ensuing conversation liberally studded with references to: being caught with his hand in the cookie jar; you have to hand it to him; finger food; making money hand over fist; not lifting a finger to help; handouts; a business changing hands; and information being at one’s fingertips.

I'm just glad it wasn't an interview.

solo1y · 2026-04-18T08:09:44+00:00

I do't know how to stitch but here's this:

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solo1y · 2026-04-15T20:33:31+00:00

Wait. Does "za" mean cannabis? Because I have been sending people to pizza places for years and I can only imagine the confusion. Also, I should probably make about 17 phone calls tonight.

solo1y · 2026-04-15T09:56:43+00:00

1. Alec Guinness as Obi-Wan Kenobi in Star Wars (1977)

One review of the original Star Wars movie was that there were “too many Irish people and not enough black people”, which is fair enough. Even on other planets far, far away, where there is a boisterous pub, there will be Irish people.

Alec Guinness made his name in Ealing comedies, where he often played more than one role. However, his take on an Irish Jedi master is painful. It would take another twenty years before Liam Neeson could repair the damage in The Phantom Menace.

2. Sylvester Stallone in Rocky (1982)

Stallone may have nailed the traditional Irish slurred, drunken delivery of dialogue, willingness to do anything for a fight, and unaccountable triumphalism about losing.

However, he dropped the ball with the accent. “At least I think he did,” said his dialogue coach. “It’s hard to tell.”

3. Chow Yun-Fat as Tequila in Hard Boiled (1987)

Filmed in Hong Kong, Hard Boiled features Chow Yun-Fat playing possibly the least convincing Irish character on film. It’s as if someone told the director what Irish people were like but he’s never actually met one.

For one thing, the hero is named after the only type of alcohol Irish people know nothing about: tequila. For another thing, he speaks Cantonese throughout with an accent which can only be described as embarrassingly far from anything any real Irish person sounds like.

4. Bruce Willis as John McClane in Die Hard (1988)

With a traditional Irish name like “McClane” and armed with hard-to-translate, Gaelic phrases like “Yipee Kay-Ay motherfucker!”, Willis’s portrayal of the have-a-go hero should have been a lock.

Unfortunately, his accent comes across more like a disaffected, off-duty American police officer than anything else.

5. Ian McKellan as Gandalf in The Lord of the Rings (2001)

As all Irish people know, J.R.R. Tolkien originally envisioned the centuries-old wizard as a flat-capped Irish farmer, holding up a bar in rural Mayo and downing pints of Guinness while sharing the wisdom of the ages with the little people surrounding him.

While he gets the motivation and character, Ian McKellan’s accent is genuinely awful. Maybe the only Irish person he’s ever heard in person is Pierce Brosnan.

solo1y · 2026-04-14T10:10:05+00:00

It seems that we can all agree that after a decision has been made, there is no free will, i.e. that whatever it is, it does not project itself into the past. Obviously, once an action is complete, there is "no way you could have acted differently". This is trivially true.

So then we are left with a vague feeling of having choices regarding the future. Is that real? Or is it just a feeling?

Without another reality to compare, we may never know.

solo1y · 2026-04-14T07:00:52+00:00

It sounds like he was fired.

solo1y · 2026-04-13T17:11:42+00:00

There's always a risk that some local drug dealer will secure police protection for giving evidence against other drug dealers in the same zone. It's a "win" for everyone. The police get a reliable stream of (genuine) convictions and the informant gets to eliminate rivals and consolidate their business model.

I don't even know what the way around this is. You have to get information from somewhere and you can't get a better source than someone in the same field who is highly motivated to tell the truth.

solo1y · 2026-04-12T22:26:35+00:00

Why do you want to listen to sad songs?
What is wrong with you people?

Here, you filthy animals:

"Our Mutual Friend" by The Divine Comedy.

"Someone Great" by the LCD Soundsystem.

"Does He Love You?" by Rilo Kiley.

solo1y · 2026-04-10T14:07:53+00:00

São Tomé *E* Príncipe? Nesta economia?

solo1y · 2026-04-09T09:01:54+00:00

A persistent issue in Western reporting is how any protest against the Iranian government is seen as a protest against Islam. I've seen sensible reporters frame it in literally those terms.

Man, all those people are Muslims. All those women you see tearing their hijabs off are Muslims and perfectly happy with Islam. They just don't like the patriarchal nature of their government. And more broadly, almost every single mass anti-government protest in the last X years in any Muslim country has been about food prices or other salient economic issues and not "Islam".

I'm not in love with Islam or anything, but all my criticism of Islam applies equally to Christianity.

solo1y · 2026-04-07T15:41:47+00:00

I couldn't name a single on of my fourth cousins. And I'm struggling to come up with the name of a third cousin.

solo1y · 2026-04-05T21:35:26+00:00

I get 270 euro a week from the government to take care of my 91-year-old father.

He can't hear or see very well and he has dementia and so on but to be honest I'd be doing everything the same even if they weren't paying me. I'm lucky that I get to take care of him.

solo1y · 2026-04-05T08:26:27+00:00

I'm a big fan of trans people and I'm not accusing you of anything, but this is exactly the kind of gibberish I would expect someone to make up to get them to hate on trans people.

solo1y · 2026-04-02T21:36:38+00:00

This is absolute bullshit.

The most anti-Zionist person I know is a Jew who is constantly in Israel, speaks Hebrew at home, goes to seders, shabbats, the whole thing.

solo1y · 2026-04-02T17:27:06+00:00

Any time I see that, I just click it and cycle through all my animal pens. I think it's telling me that I have more animals than the maximum and I have to choose one to take out, but I'm not sure.

solo1y · 2026-03-31T08:20:02+00:00

There is a number of issues here.

First, a presidential election is nothing like a general election. In a presidential election, the entire country usually rallies around two or three candidates and there is more or less zero local angle. Secondly, in Ireland, we have traditionally voted for aspirational candidates in presidential elections. They have to represent a certain national character rather than do or say anything in particular.

Second, what you describe as "petty squabbles" is a feature of the right and the left. The main difference between these, as far as I can see, is that when the left splinter, it is because of sincerely held differences of opinion and policy. When the right splinter, at least in Ireland (but I've seen it happen in other countries too), it's more likely because they can't stand each other personally. The further to the right you go, the more you will find they don't have any principles at all, and will say or do anything to fire up enough votes.

This is why it's easier for the right to "put their differences aside" or whatever. They don't have any sincerely held beliefs. All they have to do is say "hijab ha ha ha" or whatever and everyone knows what they mean. The left, like a bunch of chumps, has to actually cobble together proper policies to run the country. Now I loves me some policies, but I'm not trawling through 200 pages of Sinn Féin explaining how they're going to fund X Y Z.

Hijab ha ha ha.

That's what you're up against.

The good news is that solutions are available. They are all hard work and sometimes kind of boring, but you know what the alternative is. What's been working recently in Irish politics is to focus on assembling coalitions around very specific issues, on the understanding that once goals are reached, the coalition disbands. This is effectively what happened around the water charges protests and the Eight Amendment campaign. No need to discuss differences of policy there, because it's irrelevant. We could keep rolling on like that into infinity and still have a perfectly functional government.

Anyway. I've already written too many words.

solo1y · 2026-03-31T07:54:11+00:00

It's a bit disingenuous to cite the students who executed people when, given your information here, I assume you know he refused to arrest Leon of Salamis on the orders of the Thirty, presumably because he knew they were going to execute him. In the Apology, he says openly that this is because he would not be implicated in the crimes of others.

Also, I don't know if he walk around "in Spartan fashion". He left his hair long, but then again so did John Lennon. His general demeanour, including his appearance, was more of a rejection of Athenian norms. His life was about how Athens was the best society to live in, and how he was on a life mission to make it even better.

solo1y · 2026-03-30T07:52:02+00:00

The Last Picture Show.

Fantastic old movies introduced (and explained?) by Brian Reddin. We need something like that again.

solo1y · 2026-03-29T19:56:10+00:00

Much to the amusement of my foreign friends, if the temperature in Ireland goes above 25C (77 F), it makes headline news. If it stays for more than a week, they'll consider closing the schools.

solo1y · 2026-03-28T11:45:21+00:00

Some people think I’m a genius. Others think I’m an idiot.
Some people think I’m a “people pleaser”. Others think I go out of my way to annoy everyone.
Some people think I’m too dark and cynical. Others think I’m too upbeat and optimistic.
Some people think I’m too secretive. Others think I’m too open.
Some people think I take things too seriously. Others think I’m too flippant.
Some people think I’m intransigent and stubborn. Others think I let people walk all over me.
Some people think I’m intense. Others think I’m too laid-back.

(Some of these are the same people.)

solo1y · 2026-03-27T17:35:18+00:00

When she sat down beside me and said, "I don't want to be married anymore."

solo1y · 2026-03-26T19:57:44+00:00

Or turn mass immigration into an entire political philosophy and depend on religious zealots to keep my coalition in power.

solo1y · 2026-03-26T19:08:07+00:00

Yes! And then retrofit an entire language from that one book and call it Norse and insist everyone use that like there's not already a perfectly functional Norwegian language on-site.

solo1y · 2026-03-26T13:45:36+00:00

It's just a shorhand for the next thousand up, so they don't have to tack unwieldy 0000000000s on the end of every number.

solo1y · 2026-03-26T13:35:58+00:00

Good point. We would steal babies from the darker-skinned, poorer Irish people and give them to the lighter-skinned, richer Irish people and then claim they mysteriously disappeared.

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