The Irish Times has a column in the magazine every Saturday with the above title. Generally, it seems to be a series of one liners on what junior journalists have been doing that week. So, for example, first item under “What’s Hot” today was: “Motor Tax Office: They phone you up when you’ve stupidly given the wrong Laser card number.” I’m not making this up. Item 2 was: “Amphibian King: Great fitting service for running shoes, or, our favourite, trail shoes, which are running shoes for people who don’t like running. On the Dargle Road as you come into Bray.” By no stretch of the imagination are either of these items hot. However, they both beat what remains my favourite “What’s Hot” entry from a couple of months ago: “[My local Dublin] shopping centre which had cheap vegetables when I went there on Monday night”.
Needless to say the items have a very strong Dublin bent unless the young journalist has been away for the week. You can tell this as they tend to say things like “What’s Hot?” “Some trendy spot in London.” “What’s Not?” “Long queues at Dublin airport”.
No byline, no wonder.
Do you think it’s a parody? Do you want more next week?
This week’s effort was particularly parochial, wasn’t it? But mildly amusing. There is or was a very similar column in the Guardian, but it was slightly more fashion-orientated as I recall (it’s quite a while since we bothered to buy the Guardian; it has got sillier and sillier and we are less interested in British news than we used to be).
Very mildly. I kind of enjoy the slight buzz of irritation I get when I read the magazine. My father-in-law still gets the Guardian every day. My father gets the Telegraph. Mr. Waffle and I have a mixed marriage.