Like Douglas MacArthur to the Philippines, like President Bush to New Orleans, like Bertie Ahern to, er, Fagan's , I have returned. The reasons for my online absence (or should that be "offline presence"?) are varied and prosaic: the demands of a new job and "quality parenting" stand out. Of course, we should not discount the power of lassitude.

Yes, while I've been away my blogging antennae have quivered at certain events--the pharohic dispatch of our former "leader", Charles J. Haughey, made me want to emit an anguished howl across the blogosphere. (And still the apologia dribble from the mouths from the great and the good--at some Summer School jolly a few weeks back, former Irish Press hack Tim Pat Coogan bizarrely suggested that Haughey's avaricious behavior could be ascribed to head injuries he received in a car crash in the early 1960s.)

RTE's hilariously woeful Autumn schedule also looked like a large trout conveniently swimming in a cylindrical container. Alongside the rip-offs of BBC 1's schedule circa 2002, there is also the prospect of home-grown hard-hitting drama, such as "Legend":

And you thought there were too many crims on Fairly Shitty .

So other than the usual, easy snide carping, what I've missed about the blog over the past few months is the chance to share some of the more interesting things you encounter through reading either online or even using that paper-based medium Google seems to be interested in. I'll offer some updates in the days to come, but for the time being if you can get your hands on Michael Faber's collection, The Fahrenheit Twins, I recommend you check out the story, "Vanilla Bright Like Eminem." Emily Dickinson famously said "If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, I know that is poetry." Well, you can recognise this an outstanding short story because it stings like a slap to the face.

Actually, the story is available online at Prospect Magazine: http://www.prospect-magazine.co.uk/article_details.php?id=5807 but it's worth picking up the book for the rest of Faber's collection.

It's good to be back...

Summer is over, the evenings are drawing in, the roads are again clotted with traffic, and, if you were not sufficiently depressed, the country's worst journalist is back in the saddle. Yes, Orna Mulcahy surpasses even chick-lit author "Kate" Holmquist and Róisín Ingle in the production of the most vacuous prose appearing in The Irish Times. Readers of the paper's Saturday magazine--so lightweight it makes the Guardian's G2 supplement seem like the TLS--might be familiar with Mulcahy's sideline, the series of vignettes of Ireland's monied classes, Irish Lives. Mulcahy broke new ground in this space-filling genre by eschewing any pretense to satire, preferring to evoke the atmosphere of a cosy bitch over a vat of Chardonnay.

But it as cheerleader of the Tulip Mania that is the Irish property boom that Mulcahy really has the chance to strut her stuff. In today's Property section , Mulcahy gushes that for "The price of a good house in Dublin will get you over 120 rolling acres in Co Tipperary" But what exactly is the going rate of an acceptable-but-hardly-exceptional "good house" in the Hibernian metropolis these days? Well, the "advised minimum value" of the property that Mulcahy has decided to flog (I mean elucidate in an objective fashion) is €7 million, so expect to add another 2 or 3 mil to that figure.

Of course, for €7+ million you can't expect the earth. As diplomatic as an estate agent with a maxed-out credt card, Mulcahy notes "The 242sq m (2,600sq ft) home is in need of some updating." Oh, and "the prodigious lawn needs some attention". I love that "prodigious"--it tells you that you're reading Ireland's paper of record and not a card in the window of SherryFitzGerald or Lisney's.