The Blood Line

Had a fun experience the other week, got my acting on to do a little interview for this shortfilm about donating blood and where donated blood ends up (in me - as the case may be!). It’s a little promo for the Irish Blood Transfusion Service, filmed by some Masters students at Independent Colleges in Dublin. Look - it’s me standing on a bridge in the sun! And getting on the Luas, which in real life I never get anywhere at all! That’s the magic of the movies for you.

Perilous Masters

Then, in some wild act of folly, last September I decided to start studying a one-year full-time Masters in Popular Literature at Trinity College. I am enjoying the course – we get to read porn and comics! – and I do like moving between the two worlds of work and study. But it takes time for extracurricular activities – i.e. updating this site and continuing my own projects – greedily away.

Michael Jackson, 1958-Forever

I remember being

so moved by him, by

his being who he is,

the sheerness of his voice

climbing somewhere in soft words,

skipping nothing human,

loving that he could love.

Night skies moved with his feet, stars

pocketing themselves

in and out of the stage lights:

the wonder of socks,

silver glint

sparkle

wink

twirl:

glitter moments.

Ben’s New Book, Dublin on a Shoestring - Buy Here Now!

Shoestring Dublin is the Dublin of the quiet streets, the second-storey cafés, the little places tucked away in unlabelled cul-de-sacs and only advertised through word of mouth. Opinionated, practical, entertaining – Dublin on a Shoestring is the original insiders’ guide.

A Living Word: Five Hospital Days

The Chinese writer Lin Yutang once wrote that if you can spend an afternoon in a perfectly useless manner, you have learned how to live. When I was 16, I paid a rather useless trip to Powerscourt Waterfall in Co Wicklow. At the time, I was in the middle of a bone marrow transplant. Admitted to hospital in late June, I’d quickly become incredibly ill, in violent pain and too weak to lift myself out of bed. It was now early August, and I was allowed out of the isolation ward for day trips. Even so, I clung to the idea of hospital, and the routine I had there. I was worried about infections and daunted by all the pills I had to take. Hospital was the only place I felt safe.

The Gold-Clad Warrior

This was my first pop concert. My dad and I arrived at the RDS on the evening of July 19, 1997. I was kitted out in my favourite black jeans and black jacket, along with a black t-shirt with Michael’s ghost-white face imprinted upon it. As Des and I wandered towards the RDS arena, I gawked wide-eyed at the sights which are common to any big pop concert, but which were all new to me. There were throngs assembled around hotdog stands and burger vans, and crowds queuing at stands that were selling programmes and tour merchandise. You could also buy cardboard ‘periscopes’ that were about a foot long, and had a system of mirrors inside them. The ‘periscopes’ were designed so that, if you happened to be a shorter person situated in the standing area of the arena, you could hold one end of this apparatus to your eye, and hold the other end straight up in the air, and then the action from the stage would be reflected into your view. Clever!

Michelin Star Lunches for Around a Euro!

We’re all being told to tighten our belts — perhaps that means we should be watching what we eat as well as counting the pennies. Even with shops offering value deals on sandwiches and soups it’s never as cheap or as satisfying as making your own. I spoke to four Michelin-starred Irish chefs and asked them to come up with some simple, healthy, delicious and affordable recipes — for salads, pasta, sandwiches and soups that you can carry in your Tupperware lunchbox to work, college or even school. You can eat a homemade Michelin-starred lunch for around a euro — and that has to beat the local deli or supermarket any day. - by Kevin Flanagan with additional reporting by Ben Murnane

The Everyday Irishman - new blog!

‘If drink hadn’t been invented the Irish could have taken over the world’, said Anonymous. Quirky thoughts and amusing observation on Irish life are now brought to you by The Everyday Irishman - check it out or strange unexplained events will occur!

My Piece for the Daily Mail

I’m busy as a bee’s bum at the moment but I hope to write something soon enough about the incredible journey I’ve been on since Two in a Million was published last autumn. In the meantime I’ve been posting some of the publicity that’s appeared online to prove to you all how utterly fantastic I am. Below is a piece I wrote for the Daily Mail last October – it’s basically just the story of the book, shortened. The buzz, as they say, is deadly.

Poetry Notes: The Eamon Grennan Interview

‘I think poets who are serious about what they do want their language to be honest, and in being that I suppose they understand poetry as somehow keeping faith with the language in a way some other aspects of the world don’t, like politics, commerce, religion even…Maybe poetry also reminds us that there is somehow sense in things, no matter how this may seem not the case, in the private world and also in the world at large. Poetry, a poem, is a place for, maybe, attending to the little things of the day and night, the mostly unspoken zones of the psyche, the minute observations of the ordinary stuff in the world we mostly pass through without paying much attention to. Even if it’s “about” some big issue (the North, Palestine/Israel, South Africa, terrorism, whatever) I think it’s best when it enters at an oblique angle, through something specific and small. A good poem always wakens me up a little more, makes me say “someone was really here”…