I’m easy to please. Put me in a few fields with over 30,000 happy people and I soak up the atmosphere until I’m giddy. A pill-less e-zone. Put a camera in my hands, however, and I’m lethal. The act of observation changes that which is being observed; but it also changes this observer. There is an element to photography that is undoubtedly phallic, in that it is about probing, objectifying, penetrating, capturing, possessing. It can be, of course, the opposite: reverential, lyrical, sensuous, intimate. For every rapist-paparazzo, intrusive and disturbing, there is a humane portrait artist. For every image ...

Just came from the launch of Katherine Zappone and Ann Louise Gilligan’s book Our Lives Out Loud in Dublin. Edna O’Brien gave a lovely speech, her first book launch, she said. I’ve read the book, and loved it. My full review will appear in Thursday’s Hot Press, and on this blog in a few weeks’ time. ShareThis ...

I’ve been scraping the bottom of the pop culture barrel recently. All in the name of journalistic research, you understand. Television is fascinating precisely because it’s so popular, there is no better representation of general human preoccupations: this is who we are. And yet, my fascination is also a sort of macabre masochistic experiment: how long can I subject myself to lobotomy-by-broadcast before I reach rock bottom and am able to count my brain cells with the fingers of one hand. In a strange way, I’m looking for clues in the hive mind; if I allow my brain to pickle ...