Sweary’s Jaw: Ringside Tweet

Twitter was five years old the other day, and the whole virtual landscape flowered with congratulations and early-onset nostalgia. The first tweet was dug up and retweeted, retweeted, and retweeted again in worldwide echo, and we all wondered how we ever got by without our own tailored news feeds and gossip lines. I’m not entirely sure what the Twitter primary directive was - social media blah, open line of communication wah, but its snippet-sweet and frequently one-way nature has proven the perfect blah-wah ground for A-list celebrities. You gotta be on Twitter to be uber-anything, man. Twitter, to celebrities, is like having the only megaphone in a room full of people with laryngitis. It’s the absolute bollocks! With that in mind, I thought I’d check out how everyone’s favourite celebrities were doing on the ould Twitteroo. Are they using the platform in order to connect with their fans? Are they … There’s more

Ad Nauseam: Konnichiwa Celebrities!

The new Alfa Romeo ad for their Giulietta model, starring the ever-fabulous Uma Thurman brought this to mind: In the film Lost in Translation Bill Murray is an ever-so-slightly-washed-up actor visiting Japan, a country in which his stock is still high, to make a commercial for the premium whiskey brand Suntory. I thought this was a made-up product until I discovered a certain ever-so-slightly-washed-up actor who has been stumbling around in Suntory ads, crystal tumbler in hand, for quite a while.

Under The Covers

Like all drunken Irish balladeers, myself and my friends love a good yowling session of a Saturday night. At our most recent Singstar marathon, my cousin and I got up to sing Erasure’s A Little Respect, and were surprised (really, because we’re terrific singers) to get relatively low scores, until it occurred to us that we’d instead been belting our way through the version by American ridicu-rockers Wheatus. We’d been emphasising the wrong words, rushing through the wrong lines, because we were rocking out to synthpop. Funny thing how a good cover version can nibble its way through your beloved original. It’s not the custom for a cover version to outshine the original (fear not, Erasure fans! I’m not strictly referring to the Wheatus usurpers!), so when you do come across a particularly wonderful cover, it’s a real treat. There are those, like Wheatus’ version of A Little Respect, that … There’s more

Sweary’s Jaw

Surreptitiously rifling through Robert Pattinson’s wheelie bin, so you don’t have to. We all enjoy a bit of peace and quiet from time to time, don’t we? Nodding off in the armchair in front of Jonathan Woss, having a relaxing cuppa with half a Twix you found in the glove compartment, a gentle stroll along the seaside with a gambolling labrador by your side and Enya playing on your iPod. Or whale song. I can’t tell the difference. All of these are appropriate ways to indulge your inner hermit. But did you know that whenever you enjoy those stolen, golden moments, you’re honouring that unfortunate distance between your reality, and that of the rich and famous? This may not worry you; you may never want to be … er … smeared by the paps, or impregnated by Jude Law, or parodied by Katy Brand. But if you’re the kind of … There’s more