Maev MacCoille

I sometimes wonder if there’s some inexplicable link between finally having a night tube and the slow death of London nightlife - though I had to admit I haven’t exactly fleshed out that thesis.

“I started out writing theatre, what happened?”

“You realised you need to buy stuff.”

I feel personally attacked by Lisa McGee.

*I think it’s also noteworthy that while all of Heathcliff’s violence against Isabella is legal under the law of the time (he is at pains to point that out), he is still considered a monstrous husband by everyone who knows him.

The law does not necessarily reflect the morality of the time.

Always important to ask yourself - “am I being less honest about the brutal reality* of women’s lives pre-feminism than a Victorian?”

It’s not a question you want to be on the wrong side of.

I know “in the book” is a really irritating phrase…but in the book, Isabella shows up bleeding from the skull, because Heathcliff has beaten her so horrifically.

Brontë knows that’s wrong. Fennell doesn’t want to grapple with that, so tries to make it “sexy” instead.

Emerald Fennell’s “Wuthering Heights” is currently turning half the online world into various kinds of hissing cats, and that’s all very tiresome, I know.

But I cannot get over the decision to turn Heathcliff’s violence against Isabella into “consensual BDSM.”

The Anna Karenina one is unhinged.

This, but for London

Introduce yourself with the name your parents almost gave you: Doireann

Which is a lovely name, but the thought of the thought of the absolute butchery most English people would make of the pronunciation*, makes me glad they went with Maev (which only half of them can manage).

*no, it’s not Doreen

Mine would be acknowledging that the second half of the book exists…

I do appreciate when filmmakers acknowledge that the female gaze exists…

But I can’t help it - it takes me out of the story when an adult man on a starvation diet has biceps the size of my neck.

Just on my experience, it seems pretty spread out generationally, though maybe it’s more prevalent in Gen Z?

It feels really strange every time I encounter it though - like, if you are capable of using a phone, I should not have to instruct that in a conversation we both talk.

Eventually, being weak, I crack, and start asking questions…which makes me feel like I’m some kind of sinister interrogator.

Have people got worse at making phone calls since the pandemic?

More and more, I pick up the work phone to people who introduce themselves with: “Hello.”

That’s it.

Not a hint of who they are or why they’re calling, just “Hello” and a dead silence.

Seems like I need to dust off my “the Irish Sea is not the English Channel” sign again.

Cork people tend to be very sensitive about it.

The problem with any Shakespeare is that sooner or later (but probably sooner) you run into a dick joke, and most teachers are extremely unwilling to admit it.

Trying to teach Doris Lessing’s the Grass is Singing to a group of 17 year olds with no knowledge of Zimbabwe was also probably a mistake.

There are many things about Americans I like - their instant friendliness, their cooked breakfasts, Grand Central Station - but every time I hear the…Atrocity that is their pronunciation of the word croissant, I mentally start humming La Marseillaise.

With that I agree completely.

It’s partly due to real life examples I won’t get into here, but I think these non-specific ICKS are often warning signs of things we have observed but not consciously identified yet. Which is why I baulk at them being dismissed.

it is, and yet…

I stopped reading Gaiman after American Gods, because something in the writing, particularly about sex, gave me an undefinable ICK.

I could never explain what it was, but when the allegations came out it was a real “of course” moment for me.

A good shout, but given my subject area, very unlikely.

Thankfully there are only a few of these - I was never any good at crosswords.

Currently trying to work out who on earth the “Colin ITV U.C” in my contacts is.

Usually I save the number of every journalist who calls me, with a few notes (their paper, subject matter) but clearly, sometimes that goes awry.

It’s like trying to do archaeology on my own brain.

I don’t know - archaeology is a harsh mistress and all that. And I think most of the really big sites that have been excavated are pre-Celtic (Newgrange etc) as well.

It’s the “drying in the sun” part that gives me pause, to be honest.

…I know that the celts (or maybe just the Irish) thought the head contained the soul, unlike most Europeans (heart and liver seem to be the go-tos) so I can just about see them getting to something this weird.

*I always have mixed feelings about plays that revolve around men who just ‘happen’ to have young girls fall in love with them out of no where - and sadly there are a lot of them. Tom Stoppard - the King of fuck boy playwrights

A sensitive, nuanced, gorgeous production of Arcadia, a play that I love (with reservations*). Go see it as soon as you can. Your brain will melt and your heart will break.

On the one hand, I still dislike these LED tube things - well, I dislike that they seem to be used in every second big house theatre production at the moment.

On the other hand - at least this time they’re not being used to create the illusion we’re watching a flatscreen TV?

The Haunting of Hill House is the only horror I’ve ever read that actually frightened me - it’s beautifully written, but the bit with the hand!

I am shamefully under-read in Shaw, but I feel like John Bull’s Other Island could be quite thematically rich, just from what I know of the subject matter.

YouTube video by Killian Sundermann Irish and German People Offering Things #irishcomedy #comedy #germancomedy

An illustration of my point:

m.youtube.com/shorts/AsQ0K...