Cian at Irish Election has made my caricature into this year’s sartorial musthave. I’ve asked for proceeds to go to the Rape Crisis Network Ireland.
UPDATE: Spreadshirt won’t print the tees any more so we’re going to find another printer had some legal issues and it’s all hunky dorey again.

(No taoisigh were harmed in the making of this image. You may experience some nausea yourself though, for which I apologise, but this is about principle, freedom of speech, and news staying news.)

UPDATE: We’re going to have an exhibition!

Tonight RTE News issued an apology for reporting news. This will not stand.

You may be familiar by now with the anonymously donated nudes of Brian Cowen in the RHA and National Gallery.

Well RTE has been gradually censoring itself over the course of the day.

First the report which should be viewable on the RTE website was withdrawn. Next the captions on the images were changed. Now the images have been removed altogether. And finally RTE News apologised to Brian Cowen and the office of the Taoiseach for any offence caused.

I know who painted this and I know it has got even more bizarre behind the scenes. The Gardai are involved but funnily enough he hasn’t been charged with anything. Garda resources were squandered on this but what the hell, there were paintings at large.
This needs to be screamed from the rooftops: the very freedom to express dissent and poke fun at those in power is being attacked. Brian Cowen’s handlers have decided that Kim Jong-il has the right attitude and have started leaning on RTE to amend its coverage of our inglorious leader: Nob Nation had to tone it down 2 weeks ago (although the producer claimed there was no government interference with tonight’s form you’ve got to wonder) and now RTE had to apologise because the DG got a bollocking from the Government Press Office.

When the government can so clearly meddle in the broadcast decisions of the national broadcaster this should cause all of us concern. The news was changed today to reflect the offended sensibilities of those in power. This has been par for the course for years no doubt; but when something as frivolous as a report on a funny painting can be withdrawn from the RTE archive, that is cut and dried censorship of the innocuous. We are now not allowed to laugh at Brian Cowen.

Well I say no. That won’t do at all. I’ve written on Culch.ie about the importance of satire in society. Cowen’s handlers are exercising their influence over the increasingly frail RTE but they can’t stop people laughing. So even if you’re someone who’d lay down your life for Brian, you shouldn’t have to suppress your titters in a democracy.

EDIT: Irish Election have t-shirts for sale, proceeds going to the Rape Crisis Network.

We had a bit of craic on the Facebook group this week:

“Fans of 2FM presenters Rick O’Shea and Nikki Hayes have this week turned the tables on 2FM over format changes to the shows.

All this week fans, or Ricktivists, have been inundating 2FM shows with requests for Britney Spears’ Trouble and dedicating them to Richard or Nicola. This song has in fact been adopted as an anthem by the campaign. Campaign organiser Allan Cavanagh has said that in effect, 2FM has been playing a song dedicated to Rick and Nikki:

“The Facebook group was set up to show RTE that fans were unhappy with the changes to the shows. We adopted Britney’s Trouble as an anthem for its name and likelihood of getting played. Effectively 2FM has been playing our anthem in support of two of its presenters on its request shows. Now every time it’s played on 2FM it will stand for the unnecessary changes made to the shows and the need to revert to the previous, more popular format.

“The campaign now has over 300 members and will continue to urge 2FM to reverse its decision on this dreadful waste of talent.”

Rick O’Shea and Nikki Hayes had previously had highly interactive shows where listeners drove the shows’ content, but were recently instructed by 2FM management to drop features and simply introduce the music.”

Take 2 minutes to tell RTE management what you think of the changes.

My email:

A chara,

I’m writing to complain about the recent changes to the shows of Rick O’Shea and Nikki Hayes. The decision to axe the audience interaction, interviews and features has made each show nothing more than a mix tape. Your decision to do this has damaged your audience. Instead of being an engaged enthusiastic audience who felt part of the show, your remaining listeners are now passive and your shows have simply become background music. An engaged audience is more open to the message of your advertisers; to a passive audience those ads become indistinguishable from each other.

There’s simply no rationale that can convince me what you’ve done benefits these shows or 2FM. You have a duty to provide entertainment, and you took two very entertaining shows and turned them into iPods. You are going to lose audience numbers over this I am sure. It’s not too late to give the shows back their lustre; in fact if you did, 2FM management would be sure to regain the respect of the listeners.

I’m the person that set up the Facebook group in support of Nikki and Rick. As of today, that group has 327 members and is growing every day. A selection of the comments left by people are as follows:

” Rick’s banter was the only reason I listened to the radio rather than the CD player on the way home from work.”
“I can’t imagine a show without Nikki giving it a bit of lip! Keep the talk and stuff the music during the day if you know what’s good for ratings! Music is a night time thing anyway.”
“A step backwards if ever there was. The personality and the character are the reasons people tune in to specific shows. Listeners don’t want more ‘that was, this is’ linking droids which are plentiful enough on other stations. If people just want music then they will choose to listen to their choice, on their terms and in their time with their iPod, Streaming radio, LastFM, Imeem and that fella who plays the banjo at the end of Dun Laoghaire pier.
And there I was thinking Irish radio was actually beginning to get it…”
“Drop all non-music items? Are they serious? That’s beyond madness”

There are many, many comments being left on various blogs as well. There’s at least 30 influential bloggers who have come out in condemnation at this decision. This list too is growing every day. You can see the facebook group for yourselves, and I invite you read the various blog posts listed there to get an idea of how unpopular the change to format has been:

http://tinyurl.com/93u8ac

This has already been picked up by the Star and other papers are expressing interest in the story. Advertisers will pick up on the negative publicity and possibly go elsewhere. If you don’t want a PR disaster please change the shows back to their previous format.

Yours sincerely,

Allan Cavanagh.

Get your own – Open publication

AJ at LeCraic has compiled many of the blog posts about the Rick O’Shea/ Nikki Hayes fiasco into book form, embedded above. Sterling work sir, sterling work.

Let’s call it Rickgate.

I was working late on a commission last night and as I’m wont to do I was listening to Raidió na Gaeltachta’s An Taobh Tuathail with Cian Ó Cíobháin.
Suddenly there started a piece of music that I’ve heard before and serially failed to get the name of. With all the stupidity that modern technology affords us, rather than waiting to write down the name at the end I emailed the show desperately waffling a description of the piece I’d just heard (of course Cian said what it was at the end of the show but whatever I scribbled last night wasn’t English today. Or Irish come to that.)

Well Cian is after emailing me back with the name of the piece and last night’s entire playlist. That single-handedly makes up for all the times I tried to get onto Joe Duffy for a rant and failed. It negates at least 5-10 years of the suffering inflicted by Fair City. It even goes some way to alleviating the nerve damage caused by Tellybingo. In short, that was rather nice of him.

Go raibh maith agat Cian!

(The piece by the way was Gorecki’s Third Symphony (Symphony Of Sorrow Songs) – 2nd movement. Quick, get a pen.)