The Anti Room

Nevermind the fact that a gay man who claims a gypsy mother would find little favour with the Hitler he professes to love, that there was plenty of room on those cattle cars for folks who weren’t Jewish.  John Galliano’s rabid anti-Semitic outburst was a vehicle to attack women for being ‘ugly.’ Galliano’s point as a man who made millions in fashion was the [...]

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Lisa McInerney: I remember well the February 14th I realised Valentine’s Day was not for me. I was eighteen, lurching through drizzle to get to a lecture, when a friend stopped me and asked excitedly what I had gotten for my boyfriend. “Nothing,” I said. “Am I supposed to?” For I had thought Valentine’s Day [...]

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I don’t buy magazines anymore. Not at all. Not even for the train. I prefer to read news sites, tweets, pompous novels, and the backs of cornflakes boxes; the only magazines you might find in my house are gaming bible Edge (which I nick from my other half because I’m far too cheap to procure [...]

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Now, I don’t want to pretend that I’m NOT constantly bickering with TV commercials, like an irate budgie having words with the mirror in his cage, but if there’s an ad that’s really seizing my contraband at the moment, it’s the one for Xbox Kinect’s Your Shape: Fitness Evolved. Oh, you know the one. Smug [...]

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If  you don’t have a ‘real’ nativity to go to this year, complete with tinsel-haloed angels and grumpy four-year old consigned to playing stable animals, here’s the next best thing. Digital nativity. There’s so, so much about this that makes me laugh, possibly more than it should. Google Maps and its ‘Avoid Romans’ route finder [...]

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Living overseas, as I did for most of this decade, has all sorts of random benefits.  My favourite? From time to time, you get to experience the kind of thing that seems like it must have been made up for tourists, except that no tourists are within a 15-mile radius. At a trade fair in [...]

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Thoroughly depressed with the state of the nation, I decided to cheer myself up yesterday by listening to some nice, brainless pop music. I feel the qualifying adjective is important here, because there’s also very clever pop music out there, but that’s not of any use to me when I want myself opium’d up by [...]

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This morning, inspired by Catherine O’Flynn’s denunciation of Jaffa Cakes in the Anti-Room Questionnaire,  fellow Anti-Room editor Sinéad and I were discussing, along with regular commenter Colin Morris, the phenomenon of what Sinéad dubbed “marmite things” – the things that everyone else loves but that you hate. Sinéad and Colin were on O’Flynn’s side against [...]

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Of the seven Capital Vices, those supposed mortlers which in exercise threaten the well-being of your soul or moral compass, depending upon your belief system, Envy has never held much sense or appeal to me.  I’ve had many opportunities to answer the siren call of Pride, Lust, Wrath, Greed, Sloth, Gluttony with varying degrees of [...]

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Dear Anti Roomers and Readers, I propose that we begin our own broadcasting awards for outstanding services rendered to the industry by many of our beloved household names. The Ron Burgundy Broadcasting Awards would look to recognise and commend radio, print, TV and new media broadcasters and journalists who have given an outstanding performance in [...]

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