Ba-Spock Obama

Nerd, geek or dweeb?

Queer Notions

Good stuff. Check out the details here.

Movie stuff

Two pieces of mine from today's Day and Night in the Independent...

Interview with Channing Tatum.

Review of Synecdoche, New York

Stuff, Part Deux

Some more recent pieces of mine...

Kathleen Doyle, author of What Would Ma Say?

How to bomb in Hollywood and still be a top star

Stuff

Few pieces of mine in today's papers...

Nightwatch column in Day and Night in the Indo

Feature on Fawlty Towers @ 30 also in the Indo

Lastly, a piece on Legacy Locker in today's Irish Examiner...

Just as the internet and the dawn of the digital age has changed life as we know it, now it is changing death too. Earlier this month a website was launched offering a form of ‘cyber will’ that would bequeath to a loved one the usernames and passwords for a person’s entire online existence, be it their social networking pages, iTunes subscription, PayPal information or online bank accounts.

Legacy Locker, conceived in the heart of Silicone Valley in San Francisco, will allow a person to nominate one or more beneficiaries to receive this sensitive information upon the event of their death. The site’s creators have argued that, while in the past, a person only had to make provisions for their physical belongings, today’s cyber-centric culture means that “digital assets” need to be considered just as seriously.

Jeremy Toeman, a digital media consultant who co-founded Legacy Locker, says the inspiration for the site stemmed from the death of his own grandmother two years ago. “She was 94 when she died, but she and I used to exchange emails all the time,” he explains. “It was a pastime of hers that she also enjoyed with other friends and family around the world. After she died, my dad and I tried to figure out a way to get into her Hotmail account, but had no luck so basically her account is, for all intents and purposes, dead.

“Then last year, I was on a flight home, and I just had one of those moments. It hit me that, while all my physical assets were protected in my estate plan, I had nothing in place to deal with all of my online goods and assets such as my computer’s password, my five email accounts and my Amazon store credit. If anything happened to me, virtually all of these assets would become literally inaccessible to my wife and family, despite the fact that I had a will. While they were legally protected, in all practical terms they’d become effectively worthless.”

Customers to the Legacy Locker site have three different sign-up options to choose from. You can register unlimited assets, beneficiaries and “legacy letters” (emails that get sent to family, friends, or colleagues with a goodbye note) for e22 a year or for a one-off payment of e225. There is also the option to register three assets, one beneficiary and one legacy letter for free.

Upon signing up, you choose security questions (for example, your favourite band) and “verifiers” (people you trust completely who can “confirm your condition” with a death cert). You then get to select the digital assets you want to make available to a beneficiary, be they email accounts, photo sharing sites, Facebook, MySpace and Twitter accounts, as well as blogs or (and I quote) “simple directives/locations of all real-world important assets like contact info for nannies, dry cleaners etc”.

It’s certainly a very novel, 21^st century concept, but how can Toeman and the site’s operators guarantee the security and legal integrity of the service? “We’ve designed the security system to work at least as securely as typical online banking services,” Toeman explains. “Every user’s data is individually encrypted, which prevents the worst kind of hacking attempts. Regarding legal issues, we have consulted with numerous estate planning attorneys to determine the best methods for providing a correctly designed system for our users.”

Toeman admits that not everybody would necessarily want their Facebook or Bebo page to live on after them, but he adds: “With Legacy Locker, the account holder is in control of these kinds of decisions, instead of being at the mercy of a web service with hundreds of millions of users.”

Apparently, there are many people who agree. Toeman says the response has been “amazing” since the site’s launch two weeks ago. “We’ve had a lot of users signing up and trying it out,” he says. “Right now we haven’t done any user surveying, and for both privacy and security reasons, we don't have access to specific information about our users. But from the emails I’ve exchanged with people, we seem to have a lot of parents signing up, in particular.”

There are two obvious questions to ask when considering such a service as Legacy Locker. The first is: if someone signs up for the site today, and lives for the next 60-70 years, how can Toeman guarantee the service will still be around at that time in the future?

“I think predicting 70 years into the future is a challenge for anyone,” he laughs. “That said, we’ve taken measures to ensure the business can be fully self-sustainable for the foreseeable future. Our customers can have a lot of confidence in our longevity.”

The second question is: why not just write all your passwords, usernames and so on into a journal and lock it away in a safety deposit box, the location of which could be indicated in a written will? “Ultimately it's just not feasible to maintain all online account information by such a method,” Toeman argues.

“Most internet users are signing up to new services on a fairly recurring basis, and considering we should all be changing our passwords on a semi-regular interval, it seems pretty logical to me that an online service is the appropriate way to handle such activities.”

Damien Mulley, a Cork-based media trainer and web consultant (www.mulley.net), predicts that sites like Legacy Locker will play an even bigger role in years to come. “I think a lot of people will be shocked at the idea of it, but we’re now in a world where we own more digital than physical items,” he says.

“I think in five years time these services will be very common and people won't react to them at
all. I’ve seen and heard of a few of these services before, and considering the way I interact with people now, mainly via Facebook, Twitter or my blog, I’d use this service.

“An Irish blogger died a short while ago, and his blog is still there showing all his previous writings. I’d want the same for what I've done and I'd like to have my username and passwords go to someone that would look after them. It's really just like passing on house keys, car keys and photo albums when you think about it.”

*www.legacylocker.com

Other options:

*Legacy Locker isn’t the first service to offer an online storage unit for your vital cyber information. KeepYouSafe.com is a e38-a-year online safe deposit box for your home owner’s policy, medical data and other records.

Meanwhile, www.deathswitch.com is an “information insurance” service that advises you not to die “with secrets that need to be free”. The company - whose motto is “Bridging Mortality” - explains its service on its homepage in slightly morbid terms: “A deathswitch is an automated system that prompts you for your password on a regular schedule to make sure you’re still alive,” it states.

“When you do not enter your password for some period of time, the system prompts you again several times. With no reply, the computer deduces you are dead or critically disabled, and your pre-scripted messages are automatically emailed to those named by you.” The premium subscription to the site costs e15 a year.

Pegg-head

My interview with Simon Pegg in Day and Night in today's Independent

Simon Pegg is sitting purposively on a decorative sofa in a plush suite in Claridges in London busily fiddling with his iPhone. He’s trying to nab extra tickets for some friends to the UK premiere of Star Trek which is being held that evening in Leicester Square.

“This thing is just awesome,” he says, brandishing the apps-tastic device. “I bought mine while shooting Star Trek, and on set we were all comparing it to the communicators in the original series. This looks more science-fiction than anything that was in the show, and that was supposed to be the 23^rd century.”

No, Simon Pegg isn’t a spokesman for Apple. Rather he is just, by his own admission, a hair-slicked-down, pen-and-calculator-in-shirt-pocket, pushing- glasses-by-the-bridge-back-up-off-your-nose, thorough-bred geek. “It’s funny to be a nerd’s nerd,” he laughs. “I know how it feels to like and care so much about something that is essentially ephemeral and meaningless. I see it as an honour to be part of that world.”

Continue here.

For Christ's sake...

Carol Coulter on the Government's terrifying proposal to make blasphemous libel a criminal offence.

Best gay clips

The ultimate time thief, but well worth checking out.

Animal CSI

From today's Irish Examiner...

Fans of the hit US TV show CSI: Crime Scene Investigation will be familiar with the work of forensic scientists, the experts who trace bullet trajectories, study blood spray patterns and retrieve the tiny bits of evidence crucial to any investigation of mysterious or unusual deaths and crimes.

But what happens when the victims of such crimes are cats and dogs, rather than men and women? Can forensics be used in the same way to build a case against those who abuse or kill animals? Dr Melinda Merck, director of veterinary forensic sciences for the American Association for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, certainly believes so.

She has spent the past seven years developing the field of veterinary forensics, preserving animal crime scenes and collecting evidence that has helped to nail several perpetrators of violence against animals. Dr Merck was in Ireland last week to speak at an ISPCA conference on animal forensics in UCD, and how some of these techniques might be introduced here in Ireland.

Dr Merck is the first to admit that this is an unusual line of work, so how did she ever get into it in the first place? “I guess it happened gradually as more cruelty laws were passed in the US,” she explains. “The higher burden of proof in aggravated cruelty cases meant there was a greater need for forensics. I’ve always been interested in solving puzzles and mysteries. I think that’s a natural extension of veterinary medicine because we have patients that can’t tell us what’s wrong.

“In 2002, I started working with all those who had something to offer on animal cruelty cases: medical examiners, coroners, entomologists, forensic experts and crime scene investigators. None of these people had the time nor were they trained to process an animal crime scene, so I decided I would study and learn it myself.”

Dr Merck, herself the adoring owner of nine cats and two dogs, has now been working full-time as an animal forensics expert for two years. She says that despite the somewhat eccentric nature of the job, law enforcement officials and criminal prosecutors take her line of work deadly seriously.

“They really just didn’t understand what was involved, but once they became educated we got their full support,” she says. “My aim is to build a case and make it as legally tight as possible. Before, nobody wanted to take these cases to court because they didn’t know how to present them as evidence, and these cases are all evidence-based.

“We have a victim that can’t testify, so the evidence is what provides the voice and tells the story. My focus is helping at the first level of investigation at the crime scene, as well as examining the live or deceased animals, and then presenting, or helping a prosecutor to present that evidence in court.”

Dr Merck says they have been “extremely successful” so far in getting convictions against people who harm animals. The number one problem in the US is neglect cases, but animal forensic teams also prepare evidence against those involved with puppy farming, dog fighting and animal torture.

While animal cruelty cases are important in their own right, they can also serve as indicators of many other forms of violence and ongoing abuse and neglect, including child and spousal abuse. Professor Randall Lockwood, a psychologist and animal behaviourist, was also at the ISPCA conference in Dublin to talk about the links between animal violence and other serious criminal activities.

Having spent over two decades studying why and how people hurt animals, Prof Lockwood began liaising with animal rights activists, social workers and child protection officers to conduct a study comparing ASPCA records of homes that were visited for suspected animal cruelty and child protection reports. He says he wasn’t at all surprised to find a high degree of overlap.

“The problem in the States, and I see the same here in Ireland, is that most agencies that deal with violence are segregated according to the nature of the victim,” Prof Lockwood says. “What we’ve realised is that we’re dealing with the same perpetrators.

“We’re increasingly using the presence of animal abuse and neglect to identify families that are in need of intervention. I always tell child abuse investigators that the first and best question you should ask any kid is: tell me about your pets. It will be there in all likelihood and the children will be aware of it. They understand how the animals are being treated and they want it to stop.

“One of the things we try to stress is finding something to talk about with the children that is non-threatening and which establishes a bond. Everyone likes dogs and cats. Sometimes we might have a therapy animal in the room when talking to the kids, and they will often indirectly reveal details of abuse at home.”

In the course of his study in this area, Prof Lockwood spent time interviewing some of society’s most deranged elements, including rapists, murderers and serial killers, in order to establish links between the various forms of violence against the defenceless.

“Some were more self-aware than others about their own pathways,” he explains. “The serial killer with whom I spoke the longest was named Keith Hunter Jesperson, the so-called ‘Happy Face Killer’. There had been a case where some boys had killed one of their mother’s cats, and it was being treated in the local paper with an attitude of, ‘Oh it was just a cat and boys will be boys’.

“But this guy, who was in prison for three murders, wrote a letter to the editor of that paper saying, ‘You should take this seriously, that’s how I got started’. I was on a plane to the prison the next day and spent two days interviewing him. After that, he wrote his own biography, and he even has his own blog now about animal cruelty. When a guy like that offers some insight into his motivation, then you have to listen.”

Right now, the field of animal forensics looks set to grow and grow. The conference in Dublin was attended by several members of the Gardai as well as social services and the veterinary profession. Meanwhile, courses are now being taught in vet schools in three American universities and a full undergrad and MA course is about to start in the University of Florida.

It appears the “CSI Effect” has struck again, popularising and glamorising a niche corner of forensic science. Dr Merck laughs and says: “All we need is for Jerry Bruckheimer to develop a CSI: Animals television show and get it out there on a massive scale. That would be great.”

Bea Arthur, legend

RIP

Easy glider

My piece on Segways from last Thursday's Irish Examiner...

It’s a beautiful, sunny spring afternoon in Dublin’s Phoenix Park. Kids are playing, couples are having romantic picnics, the joggers are out in force, and elsewhere hordes of people are enjoying nice, leisurely strolls in and around the Park’s fields and green areas as the deer frolic nearby.

“Suckers!” I think to myself as I whizz past them all on my snazzy, sleek Segway transporter. What’s that you ask? A Segway is a two-wheeled, self-balancing electric vehicle that you operate standing upright. Movie-goers will have seen one featured prominently in the recent comedy Paul Blart: Mall Cop, while regular travellers might have encountered them, or even used one, while visiting several other European countries or US cities like Washington DC or Chicago.

Hot-headed super-chef Gordan Ramsay was also snapped in the papers last week falling off his Segway while buzzing around Santa Monica pier in Los Angeles. Just how Ramsay managed this clumsy feat is beyond me because the machines appear to be foolproof in terms of safety.

That’s because it operates according to your body movements: it is designed to be as intuitive to use as walking. To move forward, you simply lean forward. To stop or slow down, you lean back. Similarly you just turn your body slightly left or right to turn the transporter in that direction. All the while, electronic sensors ensure you keep your balance.

The good news for all of those wishing to try out one of the machines is that there is now a guided Segway tour of Phoenix Park in operation. Organised in conjunction between Segway Ireland and Pat Liddy Walking Tours, ‘Glide Tours’ take groups of eight people at a time on a two-hour Segway expedition of the historic park, taking in the buildings, monuments, and natural sights.

Upon arriving at the Ashtown Visitor Centre in the Park, I’m met by Vincent Lundy of Glide Tours and Martin Butler from Segway Ireland. I spend a few minutes in training, familiarising myself with the machine. This is so easy that the most difficult aspect is figuring out the strap on the helmet.

“Loosen your knees and act natural,” Martin advises as I scoot off down the path. I’m a bit careful at first, but after a few minutes, there’s no stopping me. I have a huge, goofy smile on my face the whole time, what Martin refers to as ‘the Segway Grin’.

It is an incredible way to get around: it literally turns with my body. The machine - which, incidentally, will cost you about e6,000 - works by a computer programme, which sets the speed at a maximum of 20km per hour.

The inbuilt safety mechanism ensures that if you approach that speed, it will force you into brake mode. What’s more they can’t coast or free-wheel: they only move when you do.

In addition, their green credentials are unimpeachable. The Segway has a maximum range of 38km on a single charge, which is one unit of electricity costing 16c (or half that if charged overnight). The company’s research also shows that travelling a distance of 9km in Dublin city centre would take about 20 minutes on a Segway, which is surely of interest to all of those who sit in gridlock traffic every morning and evening.

Lost in my own world, I don’t realise that a large crowd of French students have assembled along the sides of the path. As I pose for the Examiner’s photographer, they all start cheering and, I suspect, willing me to fall over for their own entertainment. Thankfully, I don’t give them their wish.

Stopping to rest for a moment, a young boy shyly approaches and asks me to autograph his football. My Segway exploits have made me a star.

After that I convince Vincent and Martin to take me on a quick tour of the Park. The machines are cross-terrain so we whizz down by the Aras (apparently President McAleese gave a big wave to one of the tour groups last month), over to the Papal Cross, where I get brave and chug up the small mound and back down again with ease, and then return to the start point via the US Ambassador’s residence.

Every passer-by stops to have a gawk. A car slows down at a roundabout and a young man’s head pops out the window to shout, ‘How is it they don’t fall over?’ I start to reply, but realise now probably isn’t the best time to get into a discussion on the complex engineering dynamics of the “inverted pendulum”. I pass a young boy playing with a scooter. He looks at me disconsolately as I power past, shooting him a superior look. Elsewhere a sweaty jogger calls out to me: “That’s cheating man.”

Having prised me off the machine, Martin explains that Segways are so new here in Ireland that their legal status is “a bit of a grey area” in terms of public usage. “There’s no classification as yet, but we’ve had very positive meetings with [Minister for Transport] Noel Dempsey so that should change soon. The legal model we discussed was based on what the Austrians did which more or less classed the Segway as a bicycle.

“Our clients are mainly security, building management, warehouses, and medical response in large complexes. Private citizens, mostly with mobility issues, are using them on the streets, but they’re very select.”

One such private Segway owner - perhaps the most famous in the country - is RTE’s economics editor George Lee, who has been regularly spotted zipping around town on his machine. “It’s like a magic carpet - that’s the only way to describe it,” Lee explains.

“I have mine since last August so I have about 700km up on it. It’s very addictive, I look for any reason to use it. I get a huge reaction to my Segway. Everybody wants to hear about it, even if they think you look odd on it.”

The financial wunderkind says that he uses his Segway to make the five mile journey from his home in Cabinteely to work in RTE in Donnybrook, as well as for popping into town. “I have a lock for it, so I can tie it up in a bike stand, plus there’s an in-built de-mobiliser so it’s actually impossible to take the machine away,” he explains.

He adds that his Segway even saved the day once when he had to rush across the city for a live report. “I had to get down to the IFSC to do a live feed for the Six One news,” he recalls. “It was 5.50pm and I was still in RTE. I knew I’d never make it in a car or taxi. I had no choice but to take the Segway. I was down in the IFSC from RTE in about 8 minutes. I couldn’t believe it. I was live on air for the top story at 6pm.”

On that note, my interview with George ends, and I trudge to the bus-stop to make my way home. I can’t help put scowl resentfully at the bus when it (eventually) pulls up. After all, how can any regular mode of transport ever hope to compare to a ride on a ‘magic carpet’?

www.glidetours.ie

www.segway.ie

[Cue theme tune of Imperial March...]

Genius (knacked from Ray Foley).

Kal Penn: from 'House' to White House

Most bizarre celeb career switch. Ever.

Kal Penn - star (until last night's shocking episode) of the TV show House and the Harold and Kumar stoner movies - is the new associate director in the White House office of public liaison.

Spanx for the memories

My piece on the new Equmen Core Precision Shirt - aka the male girdle - in today's Independent.

First came package-enhancing underwear; then there was the 'man-bra'; and most recently man-scara, concealer and 'guyliner' make-up products. Now men's fashion is once again going where only the fairer sex dared go before -- this time into the realm of spanx and control underwear. Yes, guys, the male girdle has arrived.

Continue here.

(Not: picture is NOT me, alas).

The gays are revolting

Tell a friend.

Levi on Tyra

Remember sexy Levi, the poor chap caught up in the Palin madness last year? Watch him on Tyra Banks this week...

Part 2 here.

'The most popular girl in the world'

In the week of Michelle Obama's triumphant tour of Europe with her husband (whathisface?), some of the coverage is linked below...

Profile in The Sunday Times

The Daily Beast has a whole page of articles headed 'the most popular girl in the world'.

Time reports how Michelle has 'found her role on the world stage'.

I Love You, Man

My feature on bromances in Weekend mag in today's Independent

Love is in the air this spring, but I'm afraid the ladies won't be getting a look in. That's because we are living in the era of the 'bromance', a social (r)evolution that is changing the very nature of male friendships and how men relate to one another...

Continue here.

One on the house

It's 2am on a Sunday morning, and we've been wandering around a pitch black neighbourhood in a north Dublin suburb for 20 minutes, carrier bags in hand. My friend is on the phone getting fuzzy directions. "

Right, so it's left, then the second right, then straight ... wait, say that again," he shouts.

Two other friends hop from one foot to the other to keep warm, while I feel on the verge of reverting back to my four-year-old self, tugging on my mother's coat, whining: 'I wanna go-a home-a'.

Continue here.

Fang-tastic stuff

This morning I caught a screening of Let The Right One In, which I had been looking forward to for donkeys. It didn't disappoint and is sure to be at or near the top of every critic's top 10 list for 2009. Think Twilight done by Bergman, re-cut by Guillermo del Toro and you get some sense of how unusual - and special - this movie is.

A bullied 12 year old boy in early 1980s Sweden befriends a 12 year old ("more or less") vampire that moves into his building. That's all you need to know because from that the quietest, stillest, most visually-stunning vampire love story you've ever seen unfolds. Despite its eerie calm, it also manages to be totally gripping and utterly haunting.

This probably won't have them queuing around the blocks when it opens next Friday, but this is one to be very excited about (the inevitable Hollywood remake is due next year, to be helmed by Cloverfield maestro Matt Reeves).

Lost, Entourage win Peabody Awards

Very prestigious - and very deserved.

Lost: "Breezily mixing metaphysics, quantum physics, romance and cliffhanger action, the genre-bending series about a group of air-crash survivors on a mysterious island has rewritten the rules of television fiction".

Entourage: "Hollywood gets an affectionately merciless tweaking in this picaresque about an ambitious male starlet, his posse of pals, and his multi-faced agent".

Mother Mayer I!

John Mayer: I love you.

Watch.

Latest Star Trek poster...

...courtesy of Empire. I can barely wait!

Emperor Cowen sans clothes

Will the Government try to censor me now too?
Cartoon courtesy of Caricatures Ireland

Now who were the last crowd to get so upset about a satirical cartoon? Oh yeah, that's them...

850,000 Euro a year. That is all.

Oh no Pat. Oh no.

Lastly...

...just to round off my BSG-themed buzz this evening, that iconic shot of Jamie Bamber from season two. Lee God-Dama!

The last frackin' episode

I'm just about to start watching the series finale to this amazing, astounding drama series. It's been a helluva ride. GET THE DVDs NOW PEOPLE!

More coverage here and here in The New York Times no less. Plus get the great Mary McDonnell's take on the whole thing.

What's more, read about what happened when the cast visited the UN...

Good piece entitled 'BSG: Immersion therapy for the post-9/11 world'

And here's that piece from The Guardian earlier this week arguing that BSG is even better than The Wire - high praise indeed, seeing as the latter has been consistently hailed as the greatest TV drama of all time.

Slammin'

I'm no expert by any means, but that was frickin' awesome. Is this our Euro '88/Italia '90 moment of joy in these despairing times?

Flasher

Kinnear and I tell ya

Interview with Greg Kinnear in Day and Night in today's Independent

Greg Kinnear is a laid-back guy. In fact, when I first meet him, he's so laid-back that he's practically horizontal. Walking into the suite in London's Soho Hotel, I find the actor dressed casually in jeans and a black zip-up top, lying back comfortably in his chair, boot-bedecked feet propped up on the table, his face hidden behind a copy of the latest edition of Vanity Fair.

Continue here.

Natasha Richardson

So shocking. God help Liam Neeson and the two boys.

Picture of the day

Barry O'Bama

Irish Simpsons

Bart Simpson will have to swap his trademark catchphrase 'Ay Caramba!' for 'Begosh and Begorrah' tomorrow when the Simpsons officially touch down here for the first ever episode based in Ireland.

The episode entitled In the Name of the Grandfather will see Homer and Grampa travel to Dublin, the Giant's Causeway, Blarney Castle and the Guinness Brewery; encountering special guest stars such as Kenneth Branagh, Colm Meaney, and Once Oscar winners Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova.

Continue here.

I saw the episode in the Lighthouse Cinema this morning (attended by Nancy Cartwright, Al Jean and James L Brooks) and it's a cracker (craic-er?). Look out for the Yup-rechauns!

American Idol: Let your queer flag fly

Good article in the LA Times last week about why American Idol needs to come out of the closet.

Culchie culture

Welcome to Culch.ie

All others Palin comparison to our Mary

Calamity Coughlan - aka Sorcha Palin - launching a new McDonalds training centre. What PR genius in her department thought this picture would be a good idea?

Cool to be kind

My piece from today's Independent. To quote the great Ja'mie King: "That's so random!"

Movie poster mash-up

You gotta love these, courtesy of Empire.

Features...

Two features of mine in today's Weekend magazine in the Irish Independent...

-The story of the Moran family and how their daughter overcame leukemia (written by my identical twin brother 'Michael White')

- Anna Nolan and I both wrote our coming out stories for today's magazine. Mine is below. Click on Anna's name for her's.

The legendary drag artist Charles Pierce once quipped: "I'd rather be black than gay because when you're black you don't have to tell your mother". Like many other gay people, I grappled for a long time with the question of if, when and how I should come out to my parents and family.

I didn’t do it for quite a while. From age 18 on, I spent four years coming out to various friends, gradually shaking off the fears and inhibitions that had long kept me down, in every sense of the word.

By the time I did tell my clan, I was well rehearsed. I was in my early 20s then, out on Dublin’s lively scene, and making up for lost time. I just had to wait for the right opening to bring the family in on the new arrangement.

For me, that opening came on a Good Friday five years ago. I was home from college for the Easter break without a penny to my name, so I was spending my evening watching the Late Late Show with my mam and dad. My mother, sly minx that she is, had been goading me for quite some time at that point, trying to get me to confess all. She just knew. I suspect mothers always do, but there’s still a big difference between knowing and knowing. During a commercial break, she turned to me, with a knowing glint in her eye and asked the killer question: “So Dec, have you a girlfriend at the moment?”

I froze. I could fob her off with some line, as I had done for years. But something in me just clicked that evening. I thought to myself, ‘I’m 23 years of age and here I am about to talk make believe with my parents’. So I turned down the volume on the TV, looked at both of them, and said: “No, I don’t have a girlfriend [here I paused for dramatic effect]. And I never will because I’m gay”.

They both just nodded and didn’t say anything for a moment. I don’t think they were shocked at the news – just shocked that I had actually told them.

Then my mother, bless her, came out with her own admission and people don’t believe me when I tell them this, but I swear it’s true. “I knew you were gay, and I always knew you would be,” she told me mysteriously. “Why’s that?” I asked?

She continued: “When I was pregnant with you, I didn’t know what sex you were, and I prayed and hoped you would be a girl. I was convinced you were going to be. Then when you were born, and you turned out to be a boy, I said to your father, ‘I bet he’ll turn out to be gay now because I so wanted him to be a girl’.”

I just burst out laughing. I wanted to hug her for inadvertently breaking whatever tension there was in that moment. My dad simply said he wanted me to be happy. It was all very calm, just as I had always hoped it would be. By the time I told them I was confident enough in myself to be able to reassure them and not cause any panic. I do firmly believe that in most cases you can set the tone when coming out. If you’re not stressed or panicky, then those you’re telling won’t be either.

In my case I underestimated all of my family’s reactions. At least one of my brothers seemed genuinely hurt that I hadn’t confided in him. I always assumed my family would be upset if I told them. It had never even occurred to me that they could be upset for not telling them.

I know I’m lucky. Not everyone is in the same position. Some Irish gay men and women never come out, sometimes by choice, sometimes by necessity. I don’t judge them for it. It’s an intensely personal decision, and if a person feels that they are not in a position to confidently neutralise any fears and prejudices their loved ones might have, then perhaps they’re right to stay quiet until such time as they’re ready.

Looking back, I was so afraid my parents and family would look at me differently, think less of me, be ashamed of me. That hasn’t been the case. They mightn’t fully understand it all, but that’s fine. I know, ultimately, they have my back, even if they don’t always say it.

Take my dad for example. My mam told me recently about something he said to her when they were on holidays in Portugal two years ago. They had gotten to know what my mam describes as a “gorgeous, friendly young waiter” who served them every night in their resort restaurant. On their last night dad said to my mother: “Wouldn’t he make a nice boyfriend for Declan?” I was deeply touched by that. I guess parents can still surprise us as much as we do them.

Sometimes I can’t believe I stayed quiet for so long, but it’s what made sense to me at the time. Today I see the generation directly after mine coming out younger than ever before, which can only be a good thing. There’s a burgeoning confidence that allows gay people to realistically focus on the possibilities as much as the challenges. Why settle for a closet when you can have the world?

*Gay Switchboard Dublin, 01 872 1055 (Mon-Thurs, 7.30-9.30pm)

Prime Time f*ck up!

Classic blooper material. Reminder: this all went out live last night. Somehow

Fair play...

Judd Apatow's favourites pose for Vanity Fair. I particularly like the one of Seth Rogen as Frida Kahlo.

Computer Tan

Very good. Stick with it until the end - it's worth it...

Public Enemies poster and trailer

Excitement.

About frickin' time

Energy prices set to go down. I don't know about you, but I've been bled dry by the ESB for the past few months. And on that note, I see the price is set to drop by 10 per cent. But it must have increased by at least 30 per cent in the last year or two alone? So we're still being fleeced.

As long as a committed gay couple can't get married...

Maybe I'm in a crabby mood this Monday evening, but does anyone else find the concept of this competition repugnant? And inappropriate? And offensive?

Gay people, in particular, should be up in arms, not to mention the opponents of gay marriage, like the Iona Institute, who are out to protect marriage from the apparent degradation that same-sex couples are seeking to bring to the revered institution. I think it's pretty clear just from this competition, and a similar one conducted by 98FM back in 2004, that the straights are doing a pretty good job of that themselves.

For doesn't this tacky gimmick not demonstrate a blatant disregard for and cheapening of the institution of marriage?

A gay couple that have been in a meaningful, loving, deep-rooted relationship, perhaps for years or even decades, like Drs Katherine Zappone and Anna Louise Gilligan, will have to drag their private life through the courts, at their own expense, in order to receive the legal and formal entitlements that were so frivolously granted to two complete strangers, who will marry, essentially, on the basis of a blind date.

Without even knowing each others' favourite colour or their middle names, the winning couple can completely exploit a legal avenue denied a loving gay couple.

There was a mute reaction to 98FM’s prize a few years back, and there has been no objection to this prize either, so law-makers and the Irish public should have no problem with allowing gay people to formalise their relationships with a civil ceremony.

After all, if two total strangers can just avail of the option, with no regard for the subsequent taxation and legal consequences, or social ramifications, and all to zero public outrage or consternation, what’s the hold-up with granting that right to a committed gay couple?

Do I have a point? Maybe someone from the opposing side could respond. I'm writing to Iona as well as MarriagEquality to get their views on this.

Stalking Connie

So there I was in a random Rite Aid pharmacy on Santa Monica Blvd in LA two weeks ago, when I noticed that the person in front of me was Connie Britton, the monumentally talented star - nay, goddess - from the brilliant TV drama series Friday Night Lights. She was a real lady, especially considering I followed her up the street for 20 minutes before I talked to her.

Welcome...

...to Eoin Butler.

Broadband of brothers

My piece from the Independent last Friday on the drama/trauma of trying to get broadband installed.

I moved apartment recently and, for the first time ever, it was a breeze. I boasted to one and all about how my move was totally seamless, hassle-free and a general festival of sunshine, lollipops and rainbows.

That, dear reader, was a prime example of what the Greeks would call hubris: the pride before the fall. Because just like one of those poor chumps in a Greek tragedy, I forgot that the gods mock us for their sport. And the gods, in my case, were broadband providers.

Continue here.

UnaRocked

So long Una! You'll be missed. Sies.

(I've been out of blogging action for the past week so a bit behind the rest of the world!)

Watch this space

My feature on the movie Watchmen, which is released nationwide this Friday. Article originally appeared in Day and Night in the Irish Independent on February 27.

Matthew Goode is positively giddy about his role in the long-awaited movie Watchmen - so much so that he’s even proudly talking about it to random strangers in airports. I know this for a fact, because I was one such random stranger.

There I was on a Tuesday morning, sitting in the departure lounge in Heathrow, reading my copy of Watchmen while waiting to board my flight to Los Angeles for the movie’s promotional junket, when this guy sitting opposite me asks: “Are you enjoying it?”

“Yes, very much,” I reply, obvlious. “Have you read it too?” He smiles and replies: “Well, I play the character of Ozymandias in the movie.” Bewildered, I stare at him for a moment, before embarrassment sets in, and I start srcambling through my brain for his name. Just as I’m about to stammer something in reply, Matthew Goode hops up off his seat and joins the queue to board the plane.

Two days later, Goode, sporting scruffy stubble and clad in casual shirt, jeans and a beany hat, is just as excited, bouncing into a hotel room in the Hilton in Beverly Hills. He sits briefly in his chair, before he jumps back up, grabs a cookie off a nearby refreshments tray, and heads towards the terrace.

“I’m going to be a bit cheeky and have a sneaky fag before we start,” he says, and for the next three minutes, he leans out of the window, puffing into the glorious LA sunshine, all while gabbing excitedly about his girlfriend back home in London who is about to give birth (“to my baby, which is frightening”) and what it was like to “suck face” with Colin Firth for three weeks while making the forthcoming A Single Man (“I loved every minute of it”).

The 30-year-old British actor has every right to be this cock-a-hoop. His role as the charismatic billionaire Adrian Veidt (aka Ozymandias) in the big screen adaptation of Alan Moore and Dave Gibbon’s iconic graphic novel is Goode’s first foray into the world of mega-budget blockbusters – and this is a doozy of a one to be associated with.

First published as a series of 12 comics in 1986-87, before being edited together into a grapic novel that later made Time magazine’s list of the best books of the twentieth century, Watchmen is set in an dystopian, alternative America in 1985, where a draconian government headed by Richard Nixon (entering his fourth term on the back of winning the Vietnam war) has outlawed once-beloved costumed superheroes from acting as vigilantes.

When one such retired hero, The Comedian (Jeffrey Dean Morgan), is brutally killed, his former comrade, the masked Rorschach (Jackie Earl Haley), takes it on himself to solve the murder, assembling the reluctant ex-crew of Watchmen to help him, including billionaire Ozymandias (Goode), the Night Owl (Patrick Wilson), Silk Spectre (Malin Ackerman) and, the only one with real superpowers, the atomic, blue-skinned Dr Manhattan (Billy Crudup).

It’s a complex, multi-layered, uncompromising graphic novel, and the movie (which was 20 years in the making) is suprisingly faithful to the source. While that will no doubt please the original’s fanboys, it carries the risk of alienating the uniniated or the moviegoers expecting an easily-accessible Spiderman-esque franchise.

“It is a concern,” Goode says. “It’s such a visual feast, and made with so much affection for the source, that I can guarantee that there will be people who come out saying, ‘I f*cking hated it, I didn’t understand it’, but hopefully that will encourage other newcomers to see it and make up their own minds.”

As he speaks, his co-star in the movie, Billy Crudup, come into the room. Classically handsome (he wouldn’t look out of place on the set of Mad Men), the tanned and relaxed Crudup jokingly throws his eyes up to heaven as Goode finishes his point, lunges for more cookies off the tray, and nips back out for another cigarette. “Kids,” he quips.

Crudup, an award-winning stage actor who has made an impressive leap into movies with roles in Almost Famous, Stage Beauty and The Good Shepherd, is virtually unrecognisable on screen, disguised as he is under heavy CGI to affect Dr Manhattan’s atomic glow and God-like physique.

Indeed, the character of Manhattan is all set to become an usual sex symbol, especially as he is frequently seen on screen fully nude, his impressive, er, instrument hanging out for all to see. Crudup smiles as I raise the topic. “This is a character with enormous power who refuses to accept the social constraints of a culture he couldn’t give a crap about,” the 40-year-old says.

“What’s really fun about it now is observing how people can’t really deal with his nudity. I would say that this topic has occupied 40 per cent of all interviews I’ve done for this movie. Sociologically I find that really interesting, not the least of which because the penis itself is fabricated.”

Ah so, it’s not modelled to scale? “I’m just saying that, like the rest of Dr Manhattan, it’s fabricated,” he replies with a smile. “It’s interesting that this movie has some pretty pornographic violence, and themes of holocaust and doomsday, and yet it’s all about the blue dong.”

At that point Crudup is whisked off, and in comes the strapping Jeffrey Dean Morgan, best known for his role as heart patient Denny Duqette on TV sensation Grey’s Anatomy, and for wooing Hilary Swank with a dodgy Irish brogue in PS I Love You.

“I was very conscious of that accent during filming PS,” he later tells me. “It was a challenge, but I had a great time making it. I filmed and stayed in Wicklow. Man, I could live there. I loved it.”

Dressed in a black suit, with open-necked white shirt, and bedecked in several silver skull rings and blingtastic bracelets, Morgan is sporting a grey-flecked beard, which seems to disappoint two of his adoring female fans in the press corp. “I’ve been off for the past month, so this is me au natural,” he explains in his deep voice, lazily leaning back in his chair.

The role of The Comedian couldn’t be farther from Morgan’s hitherto nice-guy screen persona. In Watchmen, the 42-year-old plays a ruthless, government-sanctioned killer and would-be rapist, who thinks nothing of shooting dead a Vietnamese woman carrying his own child. Morgan’s devoted Denny Duquette brigade are in for a real shock.

“Oh I reckon those fans are just going to have to live with it,” he laughs. “Like Watchmen, Grey’s has its own fans who are very specific and they feel very protective of the characters. It will be interesting to see those worlds collide. But I think a lot of those fans wont see it because they will know what kind of movie this is, and what kind of badass The Comedian is, and realise that it’s not their thing.”

Morgan will playing another villain later this year, when he reunites with Hilary Swank for the thriller The Resident, one of five movies he has signed on for since wrapping Watchmen. “I like to work,” he states. “I spent 20 years not working and trying to get work, so I’m not going to complain. I’ll sleep when I’m dead.”

With that, Matthew Goode sneaks back into the room. I ask him about his forthcoming romcom Leap Year, which will see him filming in Ireland alonsgide red-hot red-head Amy Adams. “I still don’t understand why anyone wanted me, a British guy, to play an Irishman,” he laughs. “It must be because [Michael] Fassbender and the boys are very busy at the moment. It’s due to be filmed in Dingle and Dublin in the summer.”

As he moves to leave, I bring up our airport encounter. “Oh f*ck yeah,” he exclaims. “Afterwards I thought to myself, ‘What a dick. Did I just boast to a total stranger that I’m in that movie’. But I just thought it was so cool that someone was there in front of me reading Watchmen, I had to say something. That’s wicked. Maybe I’ll see on the flight back.”

“Something tells me we’ll be sitting in different sections of the plane,” I say back to him. Goode just laughs as he exits the room, too much of a sound gent to say what no doubt must have crossed his mind: ‘Too bloody right, mate. Too bloody right.’

Who’s who in Watchmen:

The Comedian: Anti-anti-hero and government-owned killer, brutally murdered in opening scene.

Ozymandias: Former ‘mask’ who made billions corporatising his superhero image.

Rorschach: Pyschotic but oddly moral vigilante with moving-inkblot mask

Night Owl II: Nerdy, flabby ornithologist who finds his wings once in costume.

Silk Spectre I: Retired, ageing hero, mother of Laurie Jupiter aka Silk Spectre II

Silk Spectre II: Lyra-clad scientist; lover of Dr Manhattan

Dr Manhattan: Formerly 1950s scientist Jon Osterman transformed into blue-toned superman by freak lab accident