Ben
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”…
Doe on Fush: John Douglas Talks to Ben Doe About Nottwel
Nearing the summer of 2001, and the end of Nottwel’s second season of mags, reformed English teacher John Douglas approached Ben Doe about doing an interview-with-the-editor for a future edition of Totally Fushed. JD conducted the interview with Ben one sunny afternoon over Bewley’s cherry cake and tea, and it was meant to be included in the first TF of Season Three. Unfortunately, by the time Ben had recovered from his bone marrow transplant in June-September ’01, JD’s interview seemed out of date, and was left by the wayside. During a recent clean-out of his room, however, Mr. Doe miraculously discovered the hour-long tape of his conversation with JD from that sunny afternoon so many years ago. The following is an edited transcript of the conversation…
Maximum Exposure: A Snapshot of Photographer David Stephenson
‘I always wanted to take photography and sort of…travel with it, have it as a reason to travel’, Dave says.
Two in a Million: One of Eason’s ‘Best of Irish’
Mum, Dad, and I pulled into the car park at Our Lady’s Hospital for Sick Children at around lunchtime. The three of us prepared to plod the familiar walk to St John’s Ward. I paused just before entering the hospital, and let my parents move a few steps ahead. I looked out over the car park, and breathed in deeply. I knew this would be my last breath of fresh air for a long time. ‘Ben?’ my mum called, from beyond the hospital doors. I turned. ‘I’m coming,’ I said.
A Very American Blog: John Hawkins Interviewed
‘I thought the press coverage of the 2000 election was horribly biased against George W. Bush’, says John. ‘It was clear as a bell that Bush had won the election and that Gore was trying to steal the election with the help of the ultra-liberal Florida State Supreme Court. As the controversy over the elections dragged on and on, I became more and more disillusioned with how the media was covering it. The breaking point for me came when I was watching TV and a viewer commented that Bush should concede. Concede? Concede?! The votes had been counted multiple times and he had never been behind! That was the moment I decided to create a conservative website…
Kingdom (Here I) Come
It’s nice to get away from it all. Last March, my dad announced that he was slipping off to Killarney for three days to the annual Chartered Accountants in Practice conference. Thinking my cries would be in vain, I pleaded with him to take me too, so I could get a break from my satisfying-yet-tedious year-out home-bound book-writing.
Book Hits Shelves (no one injured)
Well, we had the book launch just under two weeks ago and copies have now started trickling onto the shelves. It was quite a thrill to see it in the Irish Biography section of Waterstone’s the other day. I felt like saying to the other browsers around me: ‘Hey – THAT’S MY BOOK! I WROTE IT!! WHY AREN’T YOU BUYING IT??!!!’
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