Irish Models Stalked by New Menace

Trevor White welcomes the return of Derek O’Connor

The man behind Blogorrah has launched a new website. When it shut down – a victim of John Ryan’s dog-related woes – Derek O’Connor’s blog was mourned by a legion of fans. (Some of them work outside the media.)

The formula was simple: fusing new technology and old-fashioned begrudgery, O’Connor reacted to domestic news with lashings of piss and vinegar. Incorrectly billed as ‘satire,’ the site’s concerns were not injustice or corruption but Irish models, politicians, actors, writers, musicians and artists.

Blogorrah was amusing and incisive. A typical headline: ‘Tragedy As Blogorrah Fails In Brave Attempt To Read Colm Toibin’s Latest Book.’ A typical entry: “Definitive Navan Man Pierce Brosnan has taken his rightful place at the pinnacle of Irish artistic achievement after being awarded a lifetime membership of the Irish Film and Television Academy – thus guaranteeing that at least one international film star will turn up to the next IFTA Awards ceremony.”

O’Connor has never pretended to be angry about the sort of things that exercise normal people. A fearless critic of small magazines, he is obsessed with The Dubliner, and he took special pleasure in our season of woes last year. Like a young John Mulcahy (the Phoenix publisher, whom O’Connor reveres) he analyses each issue with a zeal that is flattering or slightly creepy.

So what’s up? O’Connor once worked for The Dubliner, and while this fact went unmentioned on Blogorrah, it was well known among readers: why, they have asked me, is he trying to damage the small magazine that employed him for years? Has he some sort of agenda? Is he bitter?

To be honest, I don’t know. I like Derek O’Connor, I have tried to support his career (I am the person who put him in touch with Ryan when he went to New York) and we have never had an argument. There may well be a rational explanation for his behaviour. I just don’t know what it is.

Today O’Connor rang up to proudly announce the birth of his new website. The first item on thechancer.com – which I read while its author was still on the other end of the line – was an article-by-article dissection of our November issue. It seemed puerile, sneering, slightly aggrieved; if not as funny as anything on Blogorrah, just as obsessive.

“Wow,” I said, “I don’t know quite what to say.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah,” I replied, trying to choose my words very carefully. “I’m flattered, I suppose, but to tell you the truth Derek, I’m a little bemused.” 

“Great,” he replied, as if I’d said how well he looked.

But Derek (for I know you must be reading this) I didn’t say how well you looked. That wasn’t what I meant at all. So let me try one more time:

You have a neck like a jockey’s bollocks. And for that, I suppose, we must be grateful, for you certainly are amusing, and Ireland needs a worthy satirist. I dare you to try to be that man. 

Stop press: On December 5th, thechancer.com was besieged by idiots complaining that Katy French was not being ridiculed on the site. She died the following day.

Comments

[An Fear Bolg]

The Chancer is Blogorrah mark 2. Same ideas, same jokes. It's ok. But only ok.