The Sigla Blog

…sitting in a cinema wearing funny glasses watching a U2 gig in 3D for 85 minutes. I’ll never get that time back you know.

Amid the hundreds of blogs longlisted for this year’s Irish Blog Awards, this blog is humbled to be nominated in five categories: Best Arts and Culture blog, Best Music Blog, Best Blog, Best Blog by a Journalist and - very surprised by this one - Best Blog Post for this post.
Thank you, whoever you […]

This week, I’ve been listening to an album called L’Autre Bout Du Monde by French singer Emily Loizeau and it puts me in mind of Cathy Davey. Loizeau has her own musical nous going on, and there’s some serious piano-playing on the album (she’s been playing since she was five), but there’s the same musicality […]

Pre-Christmas, bookshops were heaving with more music biographies than you could shake a Flying V guitar at. Most of them - Slash, Nikki Sixx, Ronnie Wood - ran the gamut of rock stardom excesses (groupies, drink, drugs). Things the Grandchildren Should Know, couldn´t be further away from the hedonistic rants of rock´s six-string A-listers. Written […]

The Irish Blog Awards are far from a sinking ship, but this year it seems to be springing leaks all over the place.
Here’s the longlist for Best Designed Blog:
www.primalsneeze.com
www.annierhiannon.blogspot.com
www.thechancer.ie
www.irishkc.com
www.kimotay.com/phototay
www.kenmc.com
www.goodonpaper.org
www.homebug.net
www.irishelection.com
www.davidbehan.com
www.greetingsearthlings.net
www.bt2.typepad.com/guru
www.magooo.org
www.beaut.ie
www.theredscrapbook.blogspot.com
www.poetryireland.ie/
www.irelandlogue.com
www.design-undercover.blogspot.com
www.thedossingtimes.com
www.themenace.com
www.fustar.info
www.sabrinadent.com
www.sluggerotoole.com
www.clamnuts.com/rants
www.words.iced-coffee.com
www.nialler9.com/blog/

Yesterday, my friend Paul sent me a link to this post by Andrew Sullivan entitled “Is Blogging Harder Than Writing A Book?”.
Sullivan compares the two media:

“I’d say they’re just very different genres and each can be hard in their own way. I have to say that producing a book - I have four […]

“I usually write music at home in my box room. I live in a quiet cul-de-sac in Baldoyle with (other people’s) kids cycling up and down outside in Spiderman costumes. Musical ideas, when they come, usually come quickly enough. Then I play them over and over and over, until the music, and […]

Every time there’s a mention of the film Teeth, I can’t wait to see it. If you haven’t heard about it, New York Magazine sums it up as the story of “Dawn, a high-school student with a fanged, carnivorous vagina that exacts bloody revenge on all males who dare go near it.” Now the magazine […]

The Goldfrapp interview and London day-of-hell (due to closed runways, not Alison) last week are for the forthcoming first issue of State Magazine. The print version hits the shelves on March 6th, but in the meantime, the website has just gone live in the last few minutes. They’ve got an interview with Hot Chip and […]

This weekend I’m chuffed to be heading off on a writer’s weekend. First a confession: I can’t decide if I’m more excited about the idea of writing or the thought of uninterrupted night-time sleep. Myself a a couple of other reluctant scribes are heading off together to do some mutual arse-kicking and get writing. This […]

No, not a deliberately provocative post title, but Sabrina’s new project and an excellent idea.

Two Tits and a Vote is a website intended to help Irish women become politically active around the issues that affect them. Basically it is set-up to make it easy to take action in under 10 minutes - you can send […]

Dorothy Parker astutely remarked that “Writing is the art of applying one’s ass to the seat.” Anyone who has attempted this will know that rearranging your CDs/books/cleaning products alphabetically becomes very pressing when you try to sit down and write creatively. But shackling yourself to a desk and suffering for your art might just be […]