Rave on, Sean Dunne

[Guest]

Planning permission refused for Ballsbridge phallus

[Ek weet nie]

Rave on, Sean Dunne

Does this make him actually insolvent yet?

[Cavalry Trouser Tips]

Rave on, Sean Dunne

Never mind that - what's the Dunphy story all about? He's volunteered for a 10% pay cut?

[Guest]

Rave on, Sean Dunne

It's easy to take a 10% pay cut when you are being paid €320,000 a year for sitting on your hole and bullshitting your head off about the Champions League. Still, at least he's doing his bit to bring the subject to people's attention.

Pat Kenny, who gets more than a million euro a year from RTE, said in the papers yesterday that he was "suspicious" about why the Oireachtas communications had called for RTE's best-paid presenters to take pay cuts. Ha ha ha ha.

RTE often trots out the argument that it has to pay its big stars top dollar in order to prevent them being poached by British or US stations -- but who in the name of all that is good and holy would hire Pat Kenny outside Ireland? The fucker wouldn't last ten seconds at ITV or the BBC, let alone a big American network. They wouldn't put him in charge of the paperclips.

[Guest]

Rave on, Sean Dunne

Here is an excruciating clip of Pat Kenny trying to interview Jerry Seinfeld a couple of years ago.

[Duncan Gardner]

Rave on, Sean Dunne

Tell yer what, Strokes, we'll take Kenny in exchange for the Belfast mafia on the BBC- Holmes, Murray, Bleakley, shock-jock Nolan etc.

Is PK still due to interview IKP tonight? If so, I trust you've shuttered all the shop windows in Grafton Street?

[G-Man]

Rave on, Sean Dunne

Articulate speech in the thread title.

[Guest]

Rave on, Sean Dunne

I'll happily take Christine Bleakley off anybody's hands.

Meanwhile, Plank Kenny has been shamed into taking a pay cut. Rejoice! Rejoice!

RTÉ's Pat Kenny has joined several other highly-paid broadcasters in agreeing to take a 10% cut in his salary.

In a statement, the broadcaster said: "I wish to confirm that my company has informed RTÉ of my willingness to accept a 10% cut in my salary for 2009.

"I do not normally comment on arrangements for my services to RTÉ. However, I feel it is appropriate to clarify my position at this time.

Advertisement"Everyone has a responsibility to accept the financial challenges facing the State and to examine the role that they can play in working to ensure that we pull through this economic crisis.

"I am pleased to play my part in this way.

"Many people who also work hard and who have lost their jobs did not have the opportunity to take a cut in salary. I have a privileged position within RTÉ and I am fortunate to have been presented with this choice.

"My negotiations with RTÉ on a new radio and television contract were concluded within the last few weeks. These negotiations took place over a number of months and were conducted against the backdrop of deteriorating economic circumstances.

"It was also indicated to me at that time that a contribution from my company to cost saving efforts might be sought, given the difficulties facing the country and RTÉ. I indicated at that time that I would not be found wanting if such a request was made.

"The objective of the negotiations was to achieve a package that was fair to both sides, which reflected the new reality and which would still be proportionate to the services that I provide on radio and television. I am satisfied with the outcome of those negotiations.

"I will have no further comment to make on this matter."

[Guest]

Rave on, Sean Dunne

Ryan Tubridy (who gets more than €400,000 a year) has refused to take a pay cut, saying that he will instead "be making a private donation to charity". Tubridy, you utter shitehawk.

No word yet on whether the increasingly repulsive Gerry Ryan has decided to follow Plank's lead. I don't think a lot of these guys realise the depth of the public resentment over their colossal salaries, especially considering that most of them wouldn't be able to get arrested outside Ireland.

[Duncan Gardner]

Rave on, Sean Dunne

Pat Kenny's people talking about him in the fourth person:

In a statement, the broadcaster said: "I wish to confirm that my company has informed RTÉ of my willingness to accept a 10% cut in my salary for 2009

"I do not normally comment on arrangements for my services to RTÉ. However, I feel it is appropriate to clarify my position at this time"

Even if Strokes is a wee bit harsh about his employment prospects abroad (there's an awful lot of TV time to be filled over here), Pat sounds like a right knob.

Never heard of the other guy, so.

[Guest]

Rave on, Sean Dunne

Duncan -- Kenny is an absolutely awful TV presenter whose interview technique consists of working his way through a shopping list of questions while not listening to any of the answers.

It is no exaggeration to say that he is a national joke down here.

Tubridy's kind of like a more youthful version of him, a square young fogey who makes a big show of being able to laugh at himself. He's fairly crap, but Kenny makes him look like Johnny Carson.

[Duncan Gardner]

Rave on, Sean Dunne

Fair points. I only see him now when I visit the mother, who much prefers the LLS to Useless TV's equivalents. I suppose I'm remembering this slightly more adventurous broadcasting youth in the 80s.

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

Rave on, Sean Dunne

he's intermittently like alan partridge, only more so.

When RTE were doing a fashion show for charity, He was presenting a spot with lenny henry, and when dawn French came on as an outsize model, kenny said "and here's a supermodel I'd pay £10,000 to stay in bed....."

A nation held its breath.

There was another more recent late late show discussion about carers, about parents who wind up looking after their kids when they are handicapped but will live into their 40's or 50's. One woman was tearfully explaining that when she was gone, there was no-one to take care of her son, because the state wasn't going to do anything and she didn't have any relatives. So when she got a letter from the hospital after a mammogram, she broke down in tears because she said if it turned out to be cancer, her only option would be to kill her son and then commit suicide, because no-one would take care of him. An entire nation was transfixed by the horror of this woman's situation, and by the iniquity of the situation, and the only thing that pat kenny could think of asking her was "and how would you commit suicide, Pills?"