It would be a crime for me to say that Islam is a backward desert superstition that has no place in modern, enlightened Europe and it would be a crime to point out that Jewish settlers in Israel who believe they have a God given right to take the land are, frankly, mad. All the above assertions will, no doubt, offend someone or other.
Ian O'DohertyPolls are now even more meaningless than ever... there was the case of Ronnie O'Brien, the young footballer who incredibly found himself at Juventus, and even more incredibly found himself in the running to win an internet poll of the great club's greatest ever player. The curse ironically struck O'Brien a second time when he was at one point leading Time magazine's list of the Greatest People Of The 20th Century. The error in the polling was soon rectified and O'Brien, happily, is leading a highly successful career playing pro-football with FC Dallas in the American soccer league.
Ian O'DohertyIt turns out that conservationism can be fun, with the news that the Norwegian red king crab - which weighs in at an impressive full kilo of juicy crabby goodness per shell - must be eaten as much as possible, because it's scoffing all the other fish in Norway. In fact, it would be remiss of all of us if we didn't eat as many of these buggers as we possible can every week because they now provide a genuine ecological threat to fellow marine life. So, c'mon vegetarians. Let's see how much you really care about the environment.
Ian O'DohertyIt is fashionable to scoff at Americans, but they routinely produce most of the important and ground-breaking entertainment in the world. 'Popular culture' is still culture, Shakespeare was once as popular as any of today's icons with the common people.
Ian O'DohertyWhere would we be without science? Sure, those boffins may have come up with occasionally handy items such as life-saving medicine, air travel and the internet, but science is also guilty of some terrible things, like eugenics and Jordan's breasts.
Ian O'Doherty