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Irish Times
23-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Irish Times
I tried to get my children to busk. I'll never learn. Vicarious living through your children does not work
Dublin's great in 88. That's how the slogan went. Dowdy, dirty, recession-addled Dublin. And it was great. I was 17. The late Carmencita Hederman was our mayor, Frank Feely bestrode the Corpo like a colossus. We had these souvenir milk bottles and a 70-foot Gulliver, an actual colossus, lying down on Dollymount Strand. I mean, looking back, the timing of these millennium celebrations was questionable. The date was even disputed. Dublin was supposed to have been founded by the Vikings in 841, according to my historian colleague Ronan McGreevy. But, sure, any excuse for a party. And the millennium was some hooley. That's my memory of it anyway. My fleeting career as a busker began in the summer of 1988. The Millennium Busking Competition had a prize of a music voucher for McCullough Piggot music shop and me and my friend Marie felt like having a go. She was a singer but neither of us had busked before. We had three songs: Ticket to Ride by the Beatles, 20 Flight Rock by Eddie Cochrane and another one lost to the mists of my cider-doused 80s brain. My mousy brown hair had been recently dyed white blond. I had an off-the-shoulder polka dot dress, a face full of Pale Biscuit Rimmel foundation and the kind of brass neck you only have at 17. The Hothouse Flowers were out and about that year too, returning to their busking origins on Grafton Street to promote their new album People, a classic. It's playing as I type this, blaring from a phone and a streaming platform my 17-year-old self with all her dreams and cassette tapes would think was some kind of voodoo magic. READ MORE There's a news report online from 1988 where an RTÉ reporter asks the crowd gathered outside HMV what they think of the Hothouse Flowers. 'They're different, they're original, they dress well, they're fantastic,' a red-haired young teenager who looks like someone I went to school with is saying. Two other school girls in uniform reckon 'they've lovely clothes and they're all gorgeous'. Another older woman is not impressed by Liam and Fiachna and friends. 'They're scruffy, dirty lookin',' she says. Well, you can't please everyone, especially not in Dublin, not in 88 or now, for that matter. [ Fiachna Ó Braonáin of Hothouse Flowers: 'I was quite disappointed by Bono. I don't think Sinéad O'Connor would have done it' Opens in new window ] The cheek of us entering a busking competition the first day we ever busked. I can only imagine how irritating it must have been for everyone else, the seasoned buskers who knew way more than three songs, that we won. But that's what happened by some kind of millennium miracle. I look back now, at my tambourine, my polka dot dress and I hardly recognise myself. But she's in there somewhere, that 17-year-old. And in her head, she's still got it. She's a 50-something, who still fancies herself as a musician. She's got a ukulele and she's not afraid to use it. And she is keen to pass on her wisdom to the next generation. In other words, she's been badgering her teenage daughters about the possibility they might earn some summer cash by busking. It's not been going down well. They are 16. They can sing far better than I ever could. They harmonise like a dream. But as I have discovered, you can lead a couple of teenagers to Grafton Street, buy them a guitar, pay for lessons, sheet music, capos and plectrums but you cannot make them busk. Apparently, if you go busking in Dublin in 2025 you might see someone you know from school and life as you know it would cease and the world crumble into a bleak, black nothingness. There would be no survivors from this mortifapocalypse. Zero. People by the Hothouse Flowers is playing from the magic machine. A song called The Older I Get. A much younger Liam is singing the truth that feels even more truthy now that we're both that bit older. 'The old they can't reach us, their ways are not ours, though they furrowed our futures, our freedom they bore'. Last week we went to Lahinch where the sea shines like a jewel and I tried to get them to busk on the promenade seeing as it was unlikely they'd bump into anyone from school there. No joy. None. I will never learn. Vicarious living through your children does not work. Cannot work. It is not supposed to work. Future furrowing is fruitless. Their ways are not ours. They will be moved or gravitate towards the things that make their own hearts sing. Not mine. [ Buskers of Dublin: 'I love playing here because the quality of the sound is amazing' Opens in new window ] But that doesn't have to stop myself and my brother Michael. Apologies to anyone who was passing by The Flaggy Shore last Sunday. My brother, who like me fancies himself as a bit of an undiscovered rock star, could be heard singing the whole of Romeo & Juliet by Dire Straits accompanied by my daughter on guitar. She had never heard the song before, so fair play. Is Romeo & Juliet hard to sing? Yes. Did that stop my brother? No. Sitting out in the sunshine we also did Creep by Radiohead and Common People by Pulp and Rainy Night in Soho by The Pogues. Passersby occasionally stopped as if to while away a moment listening until they realised this was amateur night at the busking festival and moved quickly on. We didn't care. We were singing for our past selves. We were singing like nobody was listening. Which nobody was. Just as well.
News.com.au
13-07-2025
- Entertainment
- News.com.au
Apple, Facebook, Netflix among biggest disrupters of the 21st century
It's the year 2000. You've just booked a taxi via a landline to go on a holiday after buying physical tickets from a travel agent. Once you get to wherever you're going, you cling to a map like flotation devices. You take photos using fragile film that then has to be carted to chemists or photo labs to be printed to actually see. Friday nights mean stressful dashes to Video Ezys and then the sour disappointment of finding the VHS you wanted was out. If you want to access the internet, it means having to listen to the wail of dial-up and then waiting. So much waiting. Our 25@25 series will finally put to bed the debates you've been having at the pub and around dinner tables for years – and some that are just too much fun not to include. In 2000, the majority of Australians didn't have mobile phones (only 45 percent) and two thirds didn't have home internet access. Today, there are nearly 40 million mobile connections, which works out at roughly two per Aussie adult. The world today bears so little resemblance to that. There is no part of our lives that is untouched by incredible, and incredibly fast, techno-isation of the way we shop, date, travel, listen to music, holiday, and even buy toilet paper. Gutenberg had his printing press; we have Prime and the algorithm. Nearly all of the companies and brands that are fundamental, immutable, unshakeable, non-negotiable parts of our lives in 2025 didn't exist back at the turn of the millennium, when Sydney was busy hosting the Olympic Games and Britney Spears was still being called an ingénue. So - which one do you think has changed your life the most? Facebook In the early aughties, in a dorm room in Harvard, a freshman coded away, creating a handy way to rank the hotness of fellow students, an offering that would morph into Facebook, and in doing so create an industry that has been blamed for everything from inciting racial violence to skyrocketing rates of youth mental health distress. Facebook itself might have long lost its youthful disruptor edge, with the kids having since migrated to other platforms, but there would be no Instagram, no X (formerly Twitter) and no TikTok if Zuckerberg had not been so keen on finding a way to rate the bang-ability of his classmates. While there were social media sites before Facebook, it was Zuckerberg's baby that ushered in the social media revolution. Today social media is how we communicate, express ourselves, stay in contact, and connect with loved ones and influencers flogging dubious tooth-whitening products. Aussies spent about 14 billion hours on social media last year. Facebook's parent company Meta has achieved even greater global cultural domination than when McDonalds started exporting golden arches. Four out of five people on this planet, outside of China, use a Meta product every day. Its birth has also had unthinkable consequences. The Russians weaponised it to sow disinformation during the 2016 US election. In 2018, Facebook admitted the platform had been used to incite violence in Myanmar. The year before, the country's military unleashed a sweeping campaign of massacres, rape, and arson, according to Human Rights Watch. In 2021, President Joe Biden accused Facebook and social media platforms of 'killing people'. Last year US research found that nearly half of all teens think social media has had a mostly negative effect on their age group. Apple Yes, the iconic computing brand is the only one that existed back in 2000 but in a completely different incarnation. There were no white, temple-like stores and all they made were computers either of the bulky lap or desk variety. It would be a full year before skivvy-clad wünder founder Steve Jobs would release the iPod in 2001 and seven years before they got into the phone business. However, that would perhaps be the defining technological leap of the millennium and it is hard to convey how profoundly Apple products have reshaped the world. The advent of the iPhone put more computing power in our pockets than what powered NASA rockets in the 80s and meant there was nowhere we could or should go without being perpetually tethered to the ol' information superhighway. Without the Jobsian revolution, we would not have apps and we would not carry the internet in our pockets. They were the first trillion dollar company for a reason. Netflix For a company that not so much disrupted the $480 billion global movie and TV business but overturned it like a Real Housewife on a table-flipping bender, Netflix started life as a company that sent out rented DVDs in the mail. In 2007 CEO Reed Hastings had the brilliant idea of this thing called 'streaming' where you could watch whatever you wanted and whenever you wanted, replacing appointment viewing with the free-for-all binge. The numbers today are wild: Globally, we watched 188 billion hours of Netflix last year and the behemoth has won 26 Oscars in less than a decade. Airbnb The original concept now seems laughable - with hotels in San Francisco at a premium, two young chaps figured they could rent out blow up mattresses on their apartment floor. Today that concept has morphed into the Airbnb monster that is worth $121 billion. It has changed the way we travel irrevocably. Some say that has come at a high cost in places like Venice and Lisbon, accused of pricing out locals and thereby eroding the populace of these historic cities. But still, it's like so handy, so… Amazon Who would have thought that once weedy bookseller Jeff Bezos would end up as one of the world's richest men and that he would revolutionise shopping and all consumer behaviour forevermore? In 1995 he launched the now ubiquitous site to help Americans get their copies of John Grisham and Nora Roberts novels faster and cheaper and along the way built the most monster-sized, Goliath of a retailer in human history. The Amazon store in Australia stocks hundreds of millions of products, it has been claimed. Bezos' baby has trained us to expect near immediacy and next-day delivery, to be impatient consumers who can have a new loo brush on our doorstep in under 12 hours. However, did we survive before? Tinder What Amazon did for shopping, Tinder did for dating, meaning we could undertake formerly out-of-the-house activities from the comfort of our sofa. Thanks to Tinder, love (or lust or everything and anything in between) was no longer something that had to be sought out in crowded bars on Friday nights or at horrendous things like singles salsa nights. On-demand dates were here. Critics have accused Tinder and the swathe of similar apps that have followed in its wake, of making dating feel disposable and superficial and that it is that much harder to find a genuine connection; supporters point out the vastly expanded dating pool on tap. However, based on US estimates, there are now about one million partnered Australians who met on platforms like Tinder. Or should I say, they got their appily ever after. Spotify What Netflix did for tele, Spotify did for radio, making every song, ever, immediately available, a gluttonous aural overload that has changed the lives of music lovers and musicians, for better and worse. The Swedish-born company's 678 million users can listen to Ace of Base's All That She Wants any time day or night. It also means that artists can earn as little as about $0.005 per stream. Uber Imagine the horror of having to get into a taxi and a) have to know a specific address and b) find your wallet at the end? And in a strange city? Where you don't speak the language? What Uber has done is make travel and moving about the world seamless in a way we now take for granted, offering a way to navigate streets foreign and domestic without having to get behind the wheel or find a bus timetable. The real test? 'Uber' Is now both a (new) verb and a noun.
BBC News
28-06-2025
- General
- BBC News
Newcastle children's memories unearthed from time capsule
A time capsule unearthed after 25 years has been described as a "beautiful reminder" of children's hopes and dreams. It was buried under a paving slab near The Theatre Royal in 2000 as part of Newcastle's millennium celebrations. Opened up in a ceremony by representatives from the schools which took part originally, the capsule revealed children's drawings of city landmarks, including the Grade I listed theatre, along with letters and photographs."This project not only celebrates our city's past but also inspires future generations to reflect on their own place in Newcastle's story," Newcastle City councillor Lesley Storey said. "This time capsule is a beautiful reminder of the hopes, dreams, and creativity of Newcastle's young people at the turn of the millennium."Designed to "enlighten and delight the schoolchildren of the future", the capsule contained contributions from Canning Street Primary, Parkway Special and Throckley Middle schools. Its contents showcased their thoughts on the buildings of Grainger Town and also included drawings of the landscape at the and booklets of a children's discovery trail were also in the capsule, along with children's Christopher Heslop wrote at the time: "The Theatre Royal used to be further down but Richard Grainger broke The Theatre Royal and made a new one there further up."He was referring to the demolition of the building on Mosley Street before it was moved to Grey Street, as part of builder Richard Grainger's grand design for the centre of Newcastle. The unearthing ceremony was attended by staff working in the city's schools at the time, representatives from the only remaining participating school, Canning Street Primary School, as well as staff from Newcastle City Council and the Theatre Royal.A public exhibition of the recovered items will be held this summer in the Arches Reception Gallery at Newcastle Civic Centre. Follow BBC North East on X, Facebook, Nextdoor and Instagram.
New York Times
21-05-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
2019 LSU, best of the 2000s? Plus NFL vs. CFB scheduling
Until Saturday Newsletter 🏈 | This is The Athletic's college football newsletter. Sign up here to receive Until Saturday directly in your inbox. Today in college football news, the rock and roll album of the year is 'I Don't Want to See You in Heaven' by Atlanta's own Callous Daoboys. Recommended for: Those who are now imagining what it would be like if Fall Out Boy was our only source of news on the end of the world. Since the number 25 is special in college football, of course the 25th season of the 2000s needs to have its own top 25s. This week, Stewart Mandel kicked things off with a ranking of the 25 best teams of this millennium-ish. That's a hard job! Stewart went with 2001 Miami at No. 1, pointing out the nine future All-Pros on that cartoonishly loaded roster. It's long been a popular choice, especially as the NFL careers of those Hurricanes only added to that team's standing. Three things: Psst: Now that some readers have already scrolled past the rest of this section, I gotta admit a CFB internet heresy. I'm not sure I would have 2001 Miami at No. 2 on my list, either. 2004 USC, 2005 Texas, 2018 Clemson and 2020 Alabama would each get very strong consideration. Still, Stewart's the one who did all the work of actually ranking 25 teams. Read it here. 🏆 Another ranking! Bruce Feldman has the 25 best players of the millennium so far. I think No. 1 is indisputable here, despite playing just one real year in FBS. Hint, hint. 🎲 This newsletter now delivers good Clemson feelings every week. Bruce's win total picks include this: 'If I had to predict the national title game matchup now, almost 250 days away, I'd predict Clemson versus Texas.' So far, I've been leaning toward exactly the same. Advertisement 🤔 In the big-playoff era, traditional conference championship games already feel a little obsolete (and maybe even counterproductive). Could the SEC really turn its main event into a multi-parter? 🙄 Realignment has already killed way too many rivalries. Now it seems to have conspired with CFP uncertainty to endanger Notre Dame-USC, who have played almost every year since 1926. 🏆 All 136 QB situations in FBS, ranked in tiers by David Hale. My alma mater is in 'Tier 20: Nowhere but up.' Hell yeah. Love going up. 👴🏻 ''Those parents are going to want to have conversations with you. Whereas not many parents in the NFL are calling the head coach saying I need to talk about my son being unhappy,' the ACC assistant said.' (Bill Belichick, college football coach, continues to sound like an experiment designed to make one man hate both college and football.) 💎 Mayhem underway already in the softball championship scene: Texas A&M became the first No. 1 seed to ever lose in regionals, falling to Liberty on Sunday. Million-time champ Oklahoma is now the top seed remaining, and former Sooners star Jordy Bahl leads Nebraska against No. 7 Tennessee. Everything to know here. The NFL and its own de facto developmental league are now counter-programming each other. (To be clear, that's now how I think of college football, but the NFL's opinions matter a lot more than mine.) Personally, I find all of this rude. The NFL has more than enough days, and college football feels like the last entertainment entity it should ever trample upon. Think of everything college football has done for the NFL, such as making sure nobody in the league has to think about Belichick's personal life. In light of all this, Chris Vannini explains this battle actually goes back more than half a century, back to when CFB was nationally entrenched and the Super Bowl wasn't even a thing yet. Advertisement In 1961, when Congress began allowing the NFL to pool its TV rights, college football leadership lobbied for Saturdays to be protected. The bill eventually protected Friday nights as well, ensuring high school football also wouldn't have to compete against the pros. That's part of the reason this year's Black Friday NFL game happens to kick off at 3 p.m. ET, dancing just around the outskirts of the Friday night part. How convenient! Lots more in Chris' story. One last ranking! It's another big one: Stew's updated 2025 top 25 after portal season. More good Texas and/or Clemson feelings! Let's come back to this one on Friday. (Slightly different newsletter schedule this week, like when it's November and the Sun Belt is suddenly playing on Wednesdays.) 📫 Love Until Saturday? Check out The Athletic's other newsletters.
The Guardian
15-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
On a roll: the snowballing success of BuzzBallz pre-mix cocktails
A trip to a dive bar over the weekend has left me riddled with despair. It was the first time in quite a while that I'd left a house party to Go On Somewhere Else™, and when I arrived at 3am, I noticed that all the other customers were so young. The Guardian's journalism is independent. We will earn a commission if you buy something through an affiliate link. Learn more. None of them was even alive for the millennium bug, yet they all wear low-rise jeans. While my friends and I sing Avril Lavigne's Complicated with eye-watering sincerity, they join in ironically. Hell, they even show their top and bottom teeth when they smile. And, at this party, they were also all drinking BuzzBallz, curious little single-serve drinks that are becoming as prevalent as tonic wine in that small category of bottles you regularly see balanced precariously on windowsills on a Sunday morning. A buzzball is a cocktail in a rotund little can or plastic container that fits rather ergonomically into the palm. Sealed with a ringpull at the top, and made with opaque or transparent recycled plastic, they have a pleasing y2k vibe. The company was founded in 2009 by one Merrilee Kick (a fabulously American name), a teacher who wanted the welly of a cocktail but without the fragility, or ceremony, of drinking it from a cocktail glass. It's little wonder that BuzzBallz have picked up pace with gen Z. I've written before about the tinnification of booze, and its implications for the drinking habits of the younger generation, but these ones are designed specifically for those among them who actually enjoy drinking. BuzzBallz come in 200ml measures, and are all at 13.5% ABV, which puts them at the same strength as a medium/large glass of wine. That said, with the help of their high sugar content, I daresay you'll get to where you need to be a lot quicker. There are various flavours, from Chili Mango and Lotta Colada to Tequila 'Rita and Pornstar Martini. (Incidentally, does anyone know why we started calling the latter passion fruit martinis? If you're old enough to drink one, you're old enough to know what a porn star is, surely?) So, to the off-licence! My local in east London had five varieties in stock, so I bought one of each. And, on the whole, they're actually fun and really rather delicious – not as strong as I'd have hoped (it's only 13.5% ABV), and lacking the acidity of a cocktail made with freshly squeezed lime or lemon. If you're comparing BuzzBallz with a fancy cocktail from a glitzy bar, you quite obviously shouldn't. This is a completely different ballgame, for when you're after something you can pull from a box of melting ice as if you're diving for pearls, when it's hot out and all you want is something cold, simple and sexy to drink. Strawberry 'Rita £3.99 (200ml) Drink Supermarket, 13.5%. A lurid cherry red, but the strawberry doesn't taste too artificial. Add a squeeze of lime. Choc Tease £3.99 (200ml) Drink Supermarket, 13.5%. I didn't expect to enjoy this as much as I did. Like a boozy Chocomel. And it tastes strong. Pornstar Martini £3.99 (200ml) Drink Supermarket, 13.5%. Super-sweet, but good if you like your pornstars more vanilla. Chili Mango £3.99 (200ml) Drink Supermarket, 13.5%. Really, really good. If a picante margarita is your thing, you'll get a lot out of this.
