I trained my brain not to care about nudity at work. It’s like going to the beach
Our Glorious Leader is no laughing matter
RTE itself has been indulging a bit of navel-gazing, writes Pat Fitzpatrick
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By Pat Fitzpatrick
Sunday Mar 29 2009
AH hello, Taoiseach, I didn't recognise you with your clothes on. As the rest of the country splits its sides at NakedGate, official Ireland went all North Korean on our ass and said down with this sort of thing. Gardai burst into The Ray D'Arcy Show on Today FM demanding the name of the artist who somehow persuaded our busy Taoiseach to take a break from saving the country and sit in the nip for half an hour. Of course, some Fianna Fail TDs insist that he never posed for the paintings. But if this is the kind of artist who likes to imagine the Taoiseach naked holding up a pair of briefs, then he has enough problems without the cops hassling him.
RTE's po-faced reaction to the events makes them the clear winner of Soviet Union News Outlet of the Week award. Having first carried the story on Monday night, they rolled back, Italian-tank style, the following night after a spokesman for The Great Naked Leader reportedly complained that the story "went beyond the news values of RTE". The question is, beyond in which direction? This is after all the channel that brings us Winning Streak and Anonymous with Jason Byrne, which is funny all right, but not in the way intended. Could it be that having a story about art on the RTE 9 o'clock news is considered too BBC2-highbrow for a broadcaster that believes the All Ireland Talent Show is suitable for creatures with opposable thumbs?
Leave all the arty-farty stuff for that crowd on The View. From now on, RTE News will be all talking to the ordinary people of Ireland, telling us that tractor production is up and it's only three weeks to the birthday of Our Great Leader, who today abolished the artist's tax exemption with a big grin. Take that, you artists.
- Pat Fitzpatrick
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