The Ministry is running a project whereby it turns off the lights and bundles staff out the door with a nudge nudge wink wink early every three weeks to “help staff get dedicated to childbirth and upbringing”. It should be noted that ‘early’ to the South Koreans is 7pm! No wonder they’ve baby making issues – they must be walking zombies!

The health ministry is dangling all sorts of carrots in front of employees to drive them to copulate including cash gifts and generous gift vouchers for staff who produce more than two babies! My boss gave me a Rolo today and babies were never discussed. Not surprising since in Ireland we’re on the brink of a baby boom with a birth rate of 17.2 per 1,000 population for the first six months of 2008 compared with 16.2 in 2007 when the EU average was just 10.6. Soon the Government will be doing a mass mail-out of condoms with our voting cards and turning off the hot water so it’s cold showers all round.

In contrast South Korea’s birthrate is one of the lowest in the world at 1.19 in 2008. They fear the population will begin to shrink within a decade causing economic and social problems.

Health Minister Jeon Jae-Hee told the Korea Times newspaper that increasing the country’s young population is “actually the most urgent and important issue the country is facing.”

I’m sure most Irish people would like to ‘county swap’. Ireland’s pressing issues = rising unemployment, erratic and miserable weather, banking crisis, recession depression. South Korea= The imminent need to have unprotected sex sanctioned by the government.

It is surprising that the critically acclaimed show, The Wire, only squeezes in at number 14 with a number of 80’s BBC dramas – A Very Peculiar Practice, Talking Heads, The Singing Detective, Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit and Boys From the Blackstuff – listed in the top ten.

Barely-a-drama, one of the longest running British TV dramas, Grange Hill, sneaks in at number 50, so one could presume that teen drama, My So Called Life, might have been 51. The Guardian critics were also swayed by the ‘primetime’ status of soaps, Coronation Street and Eastenders, giving them a place in the top 50 whilst omitting noughties hits Lost, Dexter, Deadwood and Spooks.

Also missing from the list is hard nosed prison drama, Bad Girls, which regularly pulled in over 7 million viewers in the UK across it’s eight seasons. The shows popularity has continued to rise since it went off air with growing demand for boxsets and a US remake through HBO on the way.

Channel 4 show, Queer as Folk, which follows the lives of three gay guys living in Manchester sits at number 13 on the list. Lesbian drama, the L Word is at number 36, ranking higher than 24 (now in it’s 8th season with talks of a 9th) at number 39 and cult classic, the X Files, at number 45. These are all dwarfed by Buffy the Vampire Slayer which is awarded 22nd place on the list – were the critics bitten by Sarah Michelle Gellar?

My top 5?

1. The Sopranos
2. The Wire
3. The L Word
4. Cracker
5. Twin Peaks

The Guardian list in full:

1. Sopranos

2. Brideshead Revisited

3. Our Friends in the North

4. Mad Men

5. A Very Peculiar Practice

6. Talking Heads

7. The Singing Detective

8. Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit

9. State of Play

10. Boys From the Blackstuff

11. The West Wing

12. Twin Peaks

13. Queer as Folk

14. The Wire

15. Six Feet Under

16. How Do You Want Me?

17. Smiley’s People

18. House of Cards

19. Prime Suspect

20. Bodies

21. Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy

22. Buffy the Vampire Slayer

23. Cracker

24. Pennies From Heaven

25. Battlestar Galactica

26. Coronation Street

27. The Jewel in the Crown

28. The Monocled Mutineer

29. Clocking Off

30. Inspector Morse

31. This Life

32. Band of Brothers

33. Hill Street Blues

34. The Prisoner

35. St Elsewhere

36. The L Word

37. The Shield

38. Brookside

39. 24

40. The Twilight Zone

41. Pride and Prejudice

42. Red Riding

43. Oz

44. The Street

45. The X-Files

46. Bleak House

47. The Sweeney

48. EastEnders

49. Shameless

50. Grange Hill

Lindsay Lohan Paparazzi Slayer: Never a dull moment in the life of Lohan. When she and her assistant were picked up in Hollywood on Sunday morning her car was reportedly swarmed by paparazzi and when driving away it clipped one, hurting his wrist. Of course this is now being reported as Lindsay mowing down the pap action movie style.

Tila Tequila Pregnant….Surely God could not allow it: Gossip columnists must think they’ve died and gone to heaven since someone kicked over the rock that was hiding Tila Tequila. In her latest bout of crazy Tequila has hinted she may be pregnant. Doubtful a diluted tequila is on the way but it raises the question – is there anything she wouldn’t say/do?

Parents Charged for Tattoing their Children: A couple from Georgia have been charged with cruelty to children and reckless conduct for tattooing their kids, aged 10 to 17, using a needle made from guitar string. Parenting at its best. Apparently the kids wanted to be more like their parents and get cross designs on the hands or ‘Mom and Dad’ tattoos…aw…touching.

Katy Perry and her lesbian back-up plan: The “I Kissed a Girl” singer told the Daily Star that if things don’t work out with fiancé Russel Brand,  she’ll turn to women.

She told the Daily Star: “I have a soft spot for women… if any of my boyfriends ever fail me, I’ll turn to them!”

“Some women walk into the room, and they’re so beautiful and you’re like: ‘I wanna smell you,’ you know?

How did she kiss any girl with lines like ‘I wanna smell you’? I bet she can smell grotty Russel Brand without any trouble. Feck off Katy.

• Tila Tequila shows the face of Mourning…not: Since the death of her fiancé, Casey Johnson, Tila Tequila has come in for severe critisism for spending more time on Twitter telling the World how grief-stricken she is than genuinely grieving. TMZ illustrated the anti-Tila case beautifully today as they posted this picture of her grieving (again note that this photo was taken today…just a few days after her fiancé died!). Paralysed with grief indeed.

• Portugal Passes Same-Sex Marriage Bill: The Portugese parliament passed a same-sex marriage bill today. The proposed law now goes to conservative President Anibal Cavaco Silva who can ratify or veto it. However even if he uses his veto, it can still be overturned by Parliament. If the bill is approved Portugal will become the sixth European country to bring in same-sex marriage. Irish government take note – if the Roman Catholic Portugese can do it, surely we can!?

So for all those Julia Andrews enthusiasts out there, this one is for you…

Via Culch.ie

Today she again got her tweet on in a rage after she apparently “caught” Ronson. She said: “Funny how I’m rushing back to see Samantha Ronson when she says she’s with her step- bro alone – and 2girls? That wasn’t mentioned. (sic)”  She then went on to say: “Trust yourself, and be true to you… Don’t let others distract you from who you are and what you want 2010 xo. (sic)” and finished with “I’m over being sad.”

Aw…poor Lindsay…maybe you need a vacation in Ireland?

• Milkshake Lingerie - and no I’m not making a dirty joke: Amongst the 20,000 types of lingerie to be showcased at the international lingerie trade fair in Paris  (January 23-25) will be a bra (see pic) whose foam cups expand as your body temperature rises (a dead giveaway if you’re getting a little hot under the ‘collar’ on a date!).

Also on show, according to event organisers, for the older lady, is a cupless anti-wrinkle bra designed to keep breasts apart whilst you sleep to help smooth out wrinkly cleavage – stunningly attractive I’m sure. Why not just sellotape them over your shoulders instead!?

Milkshake, a French range of lingerie, will also have attendees drooling as it’s made of a fabric made of milk proteins which, according to the fair’s fashion manager, is “as soft as satin”. It might be soft but milk protein underwear….I won’t even go there.

• Iris Robinson – People having affairs with boys 40 years their junior shouldn’t throw stones: It was revealed this week that holier than though homophobe, Irish Robinson, wife of Northern Ireland’s First Minister had an affair with a man believed to be aged 19/20 at the time – she’s 60.

Robinson endeared herself to the gay community when she compared homosexuality to paedophilia and declared it an abomination. She said: “I cannot think of anything more sickening than a child being abused. It is comparable to the act of homosexuality. I think they are all comparable. I feel totally repulsed by both.”

She had previously said in a radio interview on UTV that homosexuality was a mental disease which could be “cured”. In December Robinson stepped down from her position as an MP due to a battle with depression. It has since emerged that she attempted suicide last March as she struggled with the impact of her affair. So apparently being gay goes against the 10 commandments but adultery and suicide are just peachey!

• An Italian footballer who posed in his underwear for gay magazine, ‘Romeo Mag’, could be punished by his club. The player, Jesus Datalo has been accused of damaging the image of the Napoli club.  See GCN for more.

• Emma Watson is the new face of the  spring/summer 2010 Burberry campaign. The ‘Harry Potter’ star is joined by her younger brother, Alex, in the shots. All well and good but where’s her leg gone?

• Bear Grylls -- one of the few men I’d label a beast of a man -- gives himself a manky-water enema whilst stranded on a raft off the coast of Panama in the first episode of the new season of ‘Man Vs Wild’.

• If you forgot to get a Christmas gift for that special someone then why not pick up this technological wonder -- a bathroom weighing scales that sends a tweet of the persons weight every time they apprehensively step on the scales! The WiFi Body Scales is the gift that keeps on humiliating!

• Peaches is back and has dialed the mania up a notch for the video for her new single “Relax”,  a latecomer from her 2009 album ‘I Feel Cream‘ which didn’t do what it said on the tin for critics. There’s something quite freaky about Peaches the mad scientist!

• Rachel Weisz has been voted the woman that men would most like to marry in a poll by Esquire magazine.  You can see why when you look at her covershoot for the latest issue -- you’d never think she’s almost 40! Click here for more on the mags “Women we Love” issue.

Scientists at King’s College London claim that there is no scientific evidence for the existence of the mysterious G-spot, an erogenous zone named after the German gynaecologist Ernst Gräfenberg. 1,804 British women aged 23-83 were surveyed and whilst 56% of women overall claimed to have a G-spot, they tended to be younger and more sexually active. All those participating in the study were pairs of identical or non-identical twins. If one identical twin reported having a G-spot, this would make it far more likely that her sister would give the same answer. But no such pattern emerged, suggesting the G-spot is a matter of the woman’s subjective opinion.

Andrea Burri, who led the research, said she was anxious to remove feelings of “inadequacy or underachievement” that might affect women who feared they lacked a G-spot. She said: “It is rather irresponsible to claim the existence of an entity that has never really been proven and pressurise women — and men, too.”

Apparently this pressure has led women who feel they are lacking a G-spot to seek plastic surgery to rectify the problem. A Beverly Hills cosmetic surgeon, Dr. David Matlock, has pioneered “G-Spot Amplification” which entails him injecting collagen into the G-Spot region to make it larger and easier to stimulate. The equivalent of lighting it up with a neon sign or giving your partner a map….G marks the spot!  However the procedure has it’s drawbacks…some women reported a G-spot which was so sensitive it led them to orgasm when driving on bumpy roads! A driving hazard if ever there was one…particularly on Irish roads!

Sexuality researcher, Beverly Whipple, has said this latest study is “flawed” and has dismissed it’s results. Whipple helped to popularise the notion of a G-Spot by cataloging the zone in a study of 400 women and writing several books on the topic including “‘The G Spot and Other Discoveries about Human Sexuality” which became an international best seller and was printed in 19 languages.  She pointed to the fact that these researchers have not taken into account the sexual experiences of lesbian or bisexual women and also didn’t consider the effects of different sexual technique.

“The biggest problem with their findings is that twins don’t generally have the same sexual partner,” said Whipple. At least you’d hope they don’t!

So if you plan to leave your Indian Jones hat on and continue the quest for the G-Spot, never fear. There are 334,000 web pages consisting of articles, step-by-step how to guides and even videos to help you on your way. Including this guy who is, in all seriousness, is describing how to find the G-Spot giving measurements in knuckle depth!

They outlined their strategy in an email to supporters earlier in the week:

*****DATE OF DEMO WILL BE DECIDED AT SHORT NOTICE********

The Civil Partnership Bill is due for discussion very soon in the Dáil. The schedule of the Dáil is released every Monday – as soon as we know the day of discussion of CP we will spread the word to you. This is a chance to stand-up and to tell our elected representatives that the Civil Partnership Bill is an inherently discriminatory piece of legislation and that the choice of civil marriage for all citizens represents full equality for Irelands LGBT community.

Demonstrating against this bill is about showing our elected representatives that Ireland’s LGBT community should not be forced to participate in it’s own discrimination by accepting, out of necessity, the measures contained within it. Joining NOISE in protest against the Civil Partnership Bill does not undermine any progress that this bill might represent for some members of our community who will avail of the limited rights within the bill to regularise their legal affairs. We need to continuously remind the Government that they have not done enough until they have actually granted us full equality. As equal citizens, we should have equal access to the various institutions of the state including the civil institution of marriage.

Noise will be organising a ‘flash Demo’ at short notice. This demo will not be like other NOISE rallies. It is an opportunity for the lgbt community to come together quickly to make our feelings known directly- by chanting and through our visibility – to our elected representatives. NOISE will be inviting the TDs and Senators of the Dáil to mix with the demo to better undertand why Civil Partnership is not good enough for our community or for our children.

DEMAND EQUAL RIGHTS
DEMAND CIVIL MARRIAGE

In the coming days, keep tuned in to lgbtNOISE.ie, NOISE Facebook, Bebo, Youtube, Twitter and JOIN US TO MAKE SOME NOISE!

Love & Noise,
The Noise Team

If you didn’t get a chance to see Donal Og Cusack on the Late Late Show this week then here’s a clip of  what you missed:

Cusack has been supported in his decision to come out by his Cork team mates and since the news broke, the reaction of the general public has also been very positive -- so much so that some are proclaiming this a landmark time in gay equality in Ireland. Editorial in the Irish Times today described the last two weeks as “quietly momentus” for “gay men and lesbians in Ireland”. They said:

We may indeed be passing a watershed in the acceptance of homosexual people as full and equal members of society. The first open conference of gay, lesbian and bisexual primary school teachers was held in Dublin. The funeral of Stephen Gately was notable for an affection and admiration that went beyond his status as a pop star and embraced his life as a pioneer for gay men in the music industry. Donal Óg Cusack’s decision, elaborated so eloquently in today’s Weekend Review , to be open about his sexual orientation broke through another barrier of silence. It should not require courage to be honest about one’s own identity, but Cusack’s declaration is as gutsy as anything he has done on the field of play.

Mmm…ok so Donal Og wasn’t burned at a stake in the middle of Croke Park for being gay and people were genuinely saddened at the untimely passing of Stephen Gately but does that mean the tide has turned against homophobia in Ireland? The fact that the writer of the Irish Times piece acknowledges that gay teachers in Ireland are still afraid to be open about their sexual orientation in their communities for fear of being fired from their jobs highlights that there still is a long way to go in terms of gay rights in Ireland.

The Irish Times have clearly forgotten that only three months ago homophobia was the subject of much discussion in Ireland following the publication of an article by Sunday Times columnist and now ‘red flag to a gay’, Brenda Power. In a staggering display of homophobic and uninformed writing, Brenda first shared her views on gay marriage:

“Change the ingredients, and you change the institution. A legal, civil and religious union between a same-sex couple may well be new and wonderful, or sacrilegious and distasteful, depending on your point of view, but it’s not a marriage.”

“…homosexuals are entirely free to marry. They just can’t marry someone of the same sex. None of us can, because, whatever the resulting union might be, marriage it ain’t.”

She then went on to why gay couples shouldn’t be allowed to adopt (for the good of the children of course…not because she’s homophobic) and ended with a deftly delivered insult to Miss Panti, a gay icon in Ireland, to whom she referred to as “a bloke in a dress”.

Reviewing the article and the subsequent coverage now, months later, it still beggars belief!

A study by the Gay and Lesbian Equality Network (GLEN) also recently revealed that, in a study of 1,110 LGBT respondents in Ireland, “80% were verbally insulted on the basis of identity – 36.5% of these 6 or more times. 20% were threatened with physical violence on the basis of identity. 25% were punched kicked or beaten because of identity and 8% were attacked with a weapon or implement (such as knife, gun bottle or stick) on at least one occasion. 9% were attacked sexually as a consequence of identity.”

Don’t get me wrong, it is of course great that Donal Og Cusacks coming out hasn’t created much hullaballoo. There were no crazed religious folks marching in rural Ireland. No detractors on national radio criticising him. However the fact that the GAA (the sporting organisation for which Donal Og is an award-winning All-Star) and the Gaelic Players Association both declined to comment on Cusack’s coming out, suggests that while Cusack isn’t being condemned, he is not fully supported by those who could open the closet doors in Ireland’s largest and oldest sporting organisation and support others who wish to follow in Donal Og’s footsteps.

So whilst the wheels are moving towards equality they’ve a long distance yet to travel.