My arse or ours
Listening to RTE Radio over the past ten days, I grew increasingly annoyed at the lack of pronunciation house style.

The letter that seems to divide Irish broadcasters is "R". Some pronounce it to sound like "or" and others like "are". Surely, a national broadcaster such as RTE has a standard style for pronunciation. It doesn't matter which version they use but if they had any attention to detail they would choose one and impose it on all who broadcast on its airwaves.

But then sub-editing, house style and proof-reading are not qualities Irish journalists put that much store by. It seems that committing their own opinions to print is more important than the news and proper presentation.

The Irish Times, once regarded by many as the finest newspaper in Europe, showed great sloppiness when it ran a promotion for its Christmas TV and radio guide by stating that it would be available in 24 December. The promo was to alert readers not to miss the supplement in the paper published on that date. What day did I read this inside the paper? Er, 24 December. Oops!

A day without newspapers
Boxing Day. St Stephen's Day. The day after Christmas. Call it what you will. I call it the day we get newspapers back after missing them for a day. Hurrah!