We should be grateful, as a nation, to Ryan Tubridy and Jamie-Lee O’Donnell for giving us something other than war, plague and terrfying gas bills to talk about.
And the big reaction to their awkward little moment on the Late Late Show shows how desperate we are to be able to care about silly stuff again, after two or more years of news that just wants to make you hide behind the sofa with a bottle of whiskey and a baseball bat.
If you were hiding out in a cave for the weekend, Ryan managed to outrage half the country by asking the Derry Girl’s star a pretty innocent question, in a bid to compliment her and the rest of the comedy’s crew for convincingly playing teenagers.
But such are the times we live in, the RTE man was immediately dubbed “worse than Putin” for having the outrageous nerve to ask a guest how many birthdays they’ve celebrated.
On social media, you could see the virtual pitch-forks and torches being handed out as the angry mob formed.
But in all fairness, wouldn’t it be lovely if this kind of carry-on was the only thing we had to worry about?
Remember the good old times, when Liveline would get at least two days of radio gold with Joe Duffy trying to make sense of some lady from Ennis having conniptions about the sex scenes in Normal People?
All of Ireland could enjoy Joe egging on callers with his trademark sly patter; “And was it the full-frontal male nudity that made you uncomfortable, Nuala?”
Open a newspaper, turn on the radio or take a look at social media in these troubled times of ours and it’s often a bit like opening a portal into hell. Everybody’s angry and scared.
A buddy in the pub showed me pics of the very lovely Maura Higgins at a yoke called Coachchella (some class of music festival in California where very tanned and toned people compete to get as near-naked as possible).
And it was like seeing something from another planet, a place where carefree people cavort under sunny skies and all that Maura has to worry about is whether her feather-duster micro-belt will survive the weekend.
You’ll hear bores bang on about how we shouldn't care about sport, celebrities or silly stuff when there’s a global pandemic and terrible war in Ukraine.
But for the love of God, we need the distractions more than ever right now. Give us more, Maura, Ryan and Joe. A troubled world needs you!
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It’s quite mad how many apparently smart and powerful people are only now waking up to the fact that International drug lord Daniel Kinahan may, in fact, be an international drug lord.
You could knock them down with a feather! Seriously, how could anybody have known that the man who has seen no less than 79 ‘associates’ convicted of serious crimes might, in some way, be connected to serious criminal activity?
It’s almost as if the boxing world didn’t really care, as long as the dollars kept flowing.
You’ll hear people say; ‘boxing has always been a dirty business’ - as if it’s the only multi-million dollar sport that’s had dodgy characters involved.
If the dramatic US law enforcement move signals the end of the Kinahan involvement in boxing - then great. But nobody with two eyes in their head can say they’re surprised to see it coming.
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More than 50 days now and Russia’s brutal invasion of the Ukraine is still claiming innocent lives and destabilising the world. The end is coming - but it can’t come soon enough - for those gangsters in the Kremlin.
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