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The extraordinary din enveloped a tube station during rush hour. Commuters are usually quiet and passive, barely even mustering the energy to make eye contact with each other. This day they were a united front up against a group of Extinction Rebellion (XR) climate change protestors who were parading on the roof of a tram, preventing it from moving.  This caused huge delays to commuters, going about their errands and trying to get to work. The very people who should have been commended for choosing to use relatively eco-friendly public transport over their carbon-intensive cars were made feel ashamed and annoyed by climate change protestors. This irony wasn't lost on most people. They got loads of publicity for their cause , say the XR defenders. Well for sure they did, but I think the media narrative portrayed them as villains, not heroes in this story. Also, for the last week we haven't been having conversations about the substantive issue of climate change, instead about th

Why does every radio station play the same music?   Given my occupation, I'm regularly asked naive questions about radio from lay people:  Has anyone ever overheard you in conversation and interjected 'I recognise your voice'?  and Can you get me free tickets to X gig/festival?  are classics. The respective answers are 'No... don't be ridiculous'; and 'No... don't be ridiculous'. There is one question however which comes up regularly enough and I think it's important that it is being asked. Why does every station seem to play music from the likes of Ed Sheeran, Coldplay, Adele and Pink? Have they found the golden formula for pop music? Perhaps they have, but here's the thing. Most music radio stations in Ireland have what's known as an Adult Contemporary format . This was imported from America in the 1980s when aggressive heavy metal and crude rap were emerging as genres, but the soccer moms and 9-5 office workers wanted a more pre

Like any normal relationship, mine with radio has its ups and downs. Radio keeps me up late at night, wakes me up in the morning, sometimes makes me uncontrollably giggle, sometimes forces me out of my comfort zone but nearly always puts me in a good mood. Occasionally I can't help but wince and cringe at the industry, though. For instance, when a station twists their metrics to proudly claim "We're No. 1", omitting that this is only among the demographic of deaf farmers in Leitrim called Padraic. Or when a station presents their 'guess the mystery sound' competition as if it is a world-first (to those not in radio: it's the Ford Focus of radio competitions - ubiquitous and unexciting). But my largest radio bug bear is when presenters and producers throw hissy fits at the news that a celebrity or public figure will be the newest addition to a radio schedule. Ronan Keating and Harriet Scott - Presenters of the Breakfast Show on Magic in the UK. If y

I've seen bits of the new season of Netflix's Stranger Things recently. The series is set in 1980s America and follows these teenage friends with supernormal powers. Everything has a orangey-red haze and is shot to a backdrop of mock Girgio Moroder synth. For the characters, Starcourt Mall is the epicentre of their social lives - it's where they go to hang out, spot their crushes and refuel in the Scoops Ahoy ice cream parlour. The set is straight out of the catalogue of American malls complete with airy atrium, austere neon signs, a water feature and unquestionably fake vegetation scattered at various levels. You'd be forgiven for thinking that it's a good replica, but the titular Starcourt Mall is set in  a largely derelict mall in Georgia called Gwinnett Place Mall . The Starcourt Mall from Stranger Things 3 The show is an homage to the carefree '80s childhood where freedom was endowed by a bicycle and the back door was always left on the latch. It'

Tiocfaidh ár thaw. Sinn Fein have gone from having 159 local councillors elected in the 2014 local elections to 81 in the last weekend's election. What has happened? Are Sinn Fein a one-trick pony, only good at blowing the whistle when the government steps out of line? Are they a party which the electorate would trust to run the country? These are the questions being repeated ad nauseum by commentators trying to make sense of the party's seemingly calamitous defeat. I even heard one presenter suggest that Mary Lou, only wearing the Sinn Fein captain's jersey a wet week, should step down. Really I think people are missing the point here. Sinn Fein entered the 2014 local elections on a simple mandate: anti-austerity and, principally, anti-water charges. They were, for all intents and purposes, running on a single-issue ticket. At a time when it seemed like there were no benefits left to cut or taxes left to increase by the Fine Gael-Labour coalition, people voted with t

Single-issue politics has never really taken off in Ireland, but now an opportunity presents itself on the left for this to change. We've had the Green Party for the past 30 years or so, which has put forward an attractive mix of cycling, vegetarianism and business-friendly policies, although getting into bed with Fianna Fail in the short-lived 2007 coalition which presided over Ireland's second famine (this time, economic). They have strong enough convictions on climate to appeal to the eco warriors but not enough hair dye to turn off the middle class voters in the suburbs. It's a happy medium. Things are looking up, with today's Sunday Business Post poll is showing their support surging to 7%. The Greens can attribute this bounce back to perhaps the youngest and oldest environmental activists we have - Greta Thunberg and David Attenborough - who are converting the masses to their cause.  I think the Greens will only see their support head in one direction, given tha

My dad visited a relation of mine in Scranton, Pensylvania a couple of years ago. He found a town devoid of personality and life, where the main streets were all but deserted, with boarded-up shops, crumbling pavements and vast empty parking lots. It was as if some kind of war-like atrocity had occurred and people had fled the town. No war had happened. There had been a flight of the middle class to the suburbs and the landing of the big-box retailers in the shopping parks on the outskirts. This is a bad omen for what the future of towns in rural Ireland. The last fifteen years there have been attempts to Americanise our retailing by constructing warehouse-style stores out of town, some of which, such as the Park in Carrickmines have been a roaring success. However in the country they have sucked life and business out of town centres, turning once great main thoroughfares into decaying tumbleweeds. These retail parks are part of the disease, not the cure. There's a line of thou