An Spailpín Fánach

One hates to contradict the gray lady, but I suspect the fire was more likely caused by people in cars, rather than cars themselves. This isn't a cartoon, after all.

Nice twine, in fairness.

"Stop!" said the witch. "Let him first be shaved!"

The clamour may grow, but that wouldn't make it right. The Lions happily toured New Zealand and South Africa every four years in the fifties, sixties and seventies. I don't see a problem.

Hey Mayo! Pick up the phone!

When Did Fintan O'Toole Change His Mind on Anti-Semitism and Ireland? O'Toole found Ireland rife with anti-Semitism in 2015. Ten years later, he believed Ireland had a proud history of opposing anti-Semitism. What happened to change his mind?

anspailpinfanach.substack.com/p/when-did-f...

An additional button is added to a spammy LinkedIn internal message. The original message promotes an AI feature; the additional button disparages that feature in a humorous manner.

I'm beginning to hate a certain social network just as Iago hated The Moor.

It really does pay to shop around. Here’s five litres of paint in Woodies, shorturl.at/nBDJi, retailing at €76.99 a pop.
And here’s the very same can of paint in B&Q, shorturl.at/3ASJ7, retailing at €53 a pop.
Can you see the reason for the 45% markup? No? Me neither.

Regarding the Split Season The Split Season isn't working, and it's OK to say so

Many great GAA people are passionate advocates of the split season. I can't bear the thing, and make the case against here: anspailpinfanach.substack.com/p/regarding-...

Oh my great God almighty. Too dumb to even copy and paste correctly.

Sorry to go on for so long, but there's no shorter way of explaining it. Or at least, I couldn't think of one.

So everyone's got an idea of who the best Test team is at any given time. The World Test Championship is an attempt to formalise that, by identify who the best two teams are every so-many years, and having them play for this spurious title. But it's smoke and mirrors, really.

The PGA / European Tour is where the status is, but the LIV tour is where the money is. The same with the cricket establishment and the IPL. One of the ways the establishment is trying to survive is the invention of this World Test Championship.

Do they give up on the format, or do their best to keep it relevant? They're trying to keep it relevant, but they have their work cut out. The reason they have their work cut out is that the Indian Premier League, IPL, exists as the LIV golf to the establishment's US PGA / European Tour.

Sorry Liam, I was in The Other Place. Better pull up a chair.

Test cricket is the purest form of cricket. It's the oldest, the one where legends are carved in stone. However. Test cricket isn't quite suited to the modern world, so that leaves the cricket authorities with a problem.

They play the county/state sides too, in the same pattern as Lions rugby tours. The Cricket World Cup games are played over one day, so tournaments are possible. There's crossover between the two formats, but being successful at Test cricket doesn't mean success in one-day cricket, and vice versa.

What tournament do you mean? Test cricket doesn't have tournaments, as such. A single test match takes five days to play, so a tournament would take forever. Test cricket is organised by teams going on tour to each other and playing one, three, or five Tests there.

Best thing about Blue Sky? It doesn't have any of these maddening ads.

The Social Democrats are not a serious party if they're getting torn up over a nothing-burger like this.

The Franciscan Papacy Pope Francis's legacy depends on his successor. Ask Joe Biden if you don't believe me.

Pope Francis's legacy depends on his successor. Will the conclave stick, or twist? anspailpinfanach.substack.com/p/the-franci...

Bishops ‘have got to be fired’: The Maga Catholics trying to take back control of the church Growing number of Americans hope Pope Francis’s death will mark a decisive conservative shift for the papacy

I am surprised at the @irishtimes.com for printing this. I am staggered that it orginated from @financialtimes.com. Quoting Roger Stone on Catholicism is like quoting Mr Trump on respect for women. Neither authoritative nor reliable. www.irishtimes.com/world/europe...

Best thing he ever wrote.

I think studies will confirm the great man's words apply to 99.9% of all office jobs.

I'm not a criminologist but it seems to me that having 230 lines of inquiry is the same as having no line of inquiry at all.

There's very low levels of interaction. The reality is that people are still in the other place, myself included. Once a social network has dominance, it's very hard to unseat it, no matter how much it's changed from what it once was.

The search for Schrödinger's TD.

Robert Watt, secretary-general at the Department of Health.

I cannot think of a worse idea than a housing czar, not least because we have a health czar, the impact of whom is ... well. You know yourself, don't you? anspailpinfanach.substack.com/p/the-housin...

Thanks Ciarán. I'll take my wrench to it straight away.

Verona Murphy and Michael Lowry pictured outside Buswell's Hotel on Molesworth St, D2, the day Verona Murphy was elected Ceann Comhairle.

If the government hold firm and ram through a vote of confidence in the supposedly apolitical office of the Ceann Comhairle, can the Opposition remain sufficiently united to take the next logical step and boycott the Dáil itself? anspailpinfanach.substack.com/p/the-loomin...

Trying something new:
A 🧵 on a topic I find many students struggle with: "why do their 📊 look more professional than my 📊?"

It's *lots* of tiny decisions that aren't the defaults in many libraries, so let's break down 1 simple graph by @jburnmurdoch.bsky.social

🔗 www.ft.com/content/73a1...