She strolled on stage in a slinky white robe to perform ‘Glitter in the Air’ from her Funhouse album at the 2010 Grammy Awards. For those of you hovering over the mouse wondering whether or not to watch this video, let me aid in your decision making. Shortly into her performance Pink drops her robe to reveal a flesh coloured bodysuit, is hoisted into the air where she gives one of her trademark aerial acrobatics displays before getting very…..wet.

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.

No doubt aimed at the ‘more money than sense‘ and ‘clinically insane‘ market,  Regretsy is a haven for people who could not give up make and do after they reached adulthood. The site whose tagline is “Handmade? It looks like you made it with your feet” allows people to sell their handmade wares. A tasteless eBay if you will.

Having a quick look through the goods on offer caused me to completely forget the worries that those of us that reside in the real world must deal with. I pondered what the person who made this looked like and what their ‘day job’ was as they most definitely should not give it up to peddle their line of kitch soap:

The tag ‘bath and beauty’ clearly requires a stretch of the imagination. Other items on offer include:

Off with you to make your own crafts to peddle to the mentally challenged!

Fronted by Sunday Tribune journalist Una Mullally (who also runs Thursday club night ‘Soundcheck’ at Spy), the programme will shine a light on up and coming Irish bands as well as interviewing well-known names like The XX and Passion Pit.

The Irish language programme is launching tonight with a bit of a bash and a special screening at Spy. It kicks off at 7pm and entry is free.

Born to a German mom and a Nigerian dad, the singer and guitarist describes music as “therapy” and compares performing on stage to “being in a church or in a shrine”. You couldn’t be blamed for getting Lauryn Hill flashbacks whilst listening to Nneka, whose head-bopping blend of hip hop/reggae is influenced by her upbringing in Nigeria. She describes it as “a very tough place” and as a result her lyrics are “very conscious” and “very political”.

She released her first album in 2005 -- ‘“Victim of Truth” -- which, despite being released in Germany, England, France, Netherlands, Nigeria and Japan, capturing the attention of critics, it went largely overlooked by the average Joe consumer. Her highly political second album, “No Longer at Ease“, brought her more success, with the lead single -- “Heartbeat” -- reaching the UK Top 20 Singles chart and earning her a MOBO Award for Best African Act.

After the release of the three disc ‘best of Nneka so far’-type album, “To and Fro“, in 2009, Nneka is now heading Stateside. She is releasing her first US album, “Concrete Jungle” in February in an attempt to “bring Africa to America”. The compilation album is likely to put Nneka on the map given the current lack of emerging hip hop stars, so expect to hear more of this:

• Jedward are twin teenage boys -- John and Edward Grimes -- from Lucan, Dublin who entered Simon Cowell’s ‘talent’ show last year
• It quickly became obvious that despite their quirky ‘There’s Something About Mary’ haircuts and cheese-tastic matching outfits, the twins could not sing
• They became the centre of attention, being booed at every live performance, with all talk focused on how they were lowering the tone of the competition
• With the resilience of cockroaches and a truly unbelievable and inexplicable performance of Britney Spears ‘Oops I Did it Again’ complete with matching skin tight red catsuits, the pair began to win the public
• Soon Jedward were the only reason to watch the show -- will they finally get voted out? What song will they murder? What will they wear?
• A ‘Jedward to Win’, “Jed we Can” campaign was launched to try and drive the twins to victory
• The campaign failed but not before they gave their ‘best’ performance of the show by bending the rules during ‘Queen week’ when they sang and rapped (Irish rappers!!) a version of ‘Under Pressure’ mixed with Vanilla Ice’s ‘Ice Ice Baby’ -  a song which samples the Queen song’s bassline.

It was reported today that Vanilla Ice saw the performance and is now keen to work with the Irish twins. They’ve also been rumoured to have been offered TV shows and modelling gigs so it looks like whether you love ‘em or hate ‘em, Jedward are here to stay (for a while at least!). Check out their attempt at ‘ Ice Ice Baby’ here complete with intro which gives a bit of a flavour of their ‘journey’ -- performance starts at 2mins 32

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