Slightly confusing argument to start with, but this comic provokes enough argument for legal eagles and philosophising owls alike. Would the three go down for attempted murder or conspiracy to commit murder? Would Alp get sentenced for manslaughter for being the last one out of the room and apparently the one to finally turn the key? Should Aaron take the blame for ultimately removing the water, the pre-meditated poison going unused? Did Harold commit suicide by being so dopey about sitting around in there with just a bottle of water in the first place? Could Alp get committed for being so loopy as to drill several holes in a bottle after confusing sand and water?

Sadly, however, rather little to do with the real question of free will!

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Tommy Tiernan

Perhaps one of the most controversial of Ireland’s homegrowns in the last couple of decades, this Donegal born son is also far and away one of the most successful. He holds the Guinness World Record for the longest stand-up comedy show by an individual. He’s also been accused of blasphemy by the Irish Senate, of killing Father Ted by Ardal O’Hanlon, and provoked quite an uproar recently with some jokes on the Holocaust. And he’s great!

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Dara Ó Briain

I’m not a religious man, I don’t even believe in God. But I’m still Catholic, of course. Catholicism has a much broader reach than just the religion. I’m ethnically Catholic, it’s the box you have to tick on the census form: ‘Don’t believe in God, but I do still hate Rangers.’ The fact is that it’s a shared hinterland between me and every other Irish person, a collection of references that we all understand, stories we all know…  Once you’ve started Catholic, frankly, there’s no really way to stop being Catholic… It’s like a huge club you can’t ever leave.²

Ó Briain is certainly the more presentable face of Irish comedy, as his common appearance on the BBC attests. The worst criticism he has to contend with is a bit of sexism in his role as moderator of weekly satire program Mock the Week. Irish speaking he might be, at least he’s from The Pale!

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Dave Allen

Tallaght’s most famous son? At least for me—I’m sure Mick McCarthy would have another candidate.³ Dave Allen’s laid back, intimate style of show, with stories regaled over a smoke and a glass of whiskey interspersed with various sketches was certainly an inspiration for many who followed him. The world’s most dedicated practicing atheist will be sorely missed.

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1. À la Thomas Cahill, How The Irish Saved Civilization: The Untold Story of Ireland’s Heroic Role from the Fall of Rome to the Rise of Medieval Europe.
2. Courtesy of An Odyssey of Quotes.
3. Robbie Keane is another.

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No smoking. And soon, no drinking and no talking!

You have to give it to the man who wrote this. I still remember laughing at Eddie Izzard’s little piece on the smoking ban in California. Smoking bans have since then proliferated to such a state, that the Pacific island of Niue is intending to ban smoking altogether. And fair play to them. One wonders how long down the line before such a blanket ban appears in some larger nations. Smoking is essentially acceptable, despite the decades spent fighting it, and an outright ban would appear to be the only logical conclusion. Whilst opinions based on fact can cause uproarious controversy in the world of drugs, alcohol and tobacco remain relatively immune. But every step towards removing tobacco from the public light is a step towards the ban which will put tobacco in with cannabis and LSD.

Perhaps then we will see an end to these rediculous signs, and churches can go back to focusing on telling people to stop begrudging their neighbour’s donkey.

[Photo by Simon White]

Yet over the years I’ve discovered a couple of things in life that I’d be willing to bear arms for. The British Isles are not renowned for their cuisine, but some things have been honed to an art there. One of these is the pie. Now quite how the humble pie could come to be threatened is quite a stretch of the imagination. If something so base could be in danger of disappearing, then there are probably problems for its basic ingredients, in which case there are much greater issues to be worrying about. Yet the prospect of a pie tax or some other form of rationing has me sharpening blades in preparation for the event, a veritable cataclysm by any standards! But this is nought compared to my second item.

A lovely cuppa

Tea. Of such basic necessity and ubiquity, it was named after a letter of the alphabet. To think of the inordinate amount of pleasure I derive from a cup of tea is to think me more than just a brick short of a load. If you were to tell me that all of the people I know and cared for had been killed in a plane crash, sitting me down by the fire with a cup of tea would make the whole situation seem visibly improved. The prospect of a tariff on tea keeps me awake at night; the scarring memories of the Boston Tea Party still leave me prepared to wage a second War of 1812 in retribution. To secure that supply of tea leaves, I would enrol to invade small countries, reinstitute slavery, perhaps restore the British Empire… but until then I’ll just pour myself another cup. Ahhh!

1. See this link.

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And for you smart cookies out there, that’s right, Jacob is meant to represent a certain Mr Zuma.

Perhaps the most controversial point surrounding this weapon’s development, however, has to be the video released to promote it. Reminiscent of the parodic advertisements of a Paul Verhoeven science fiction film, the choice of music for the video suggests farce not future. Indeed many of the features of the film highlight the weapon’s unsuitability to certain situations: one can imagine its utility in the street level fighting which prompted the development of the Wehrmacht’s “Krummer Lauf” system, but the video highlights the clumsiness of rotating the weapon through angled and forward-firing modes. Indeed this important drawback to the Cornershot system is even more blatant if one considers its use in an environment such as the hotel seen in the video. These buildings are notorious for their paper-thin walls, easily penetrable by most calibre weapons; if one were to study the execution of such building sweeping maneouvres, from the London Iranian embassy siege of 1980, to the Nord-Ost Moscow opera house siege in 2002, one is more likely to find that speed is of much more importance, and the forces would always prefer the use of gas to disorientate hostile targets.

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Furthermore did anyone spot the deliberate mistake illustrated in the weapon’s closing “paintball” scene? Two accurate splats from a paintball gun onto the wood directly in front of the carrier’s arm; you might be around the corner, but that doesn’t make you unreachable.