This column has fought a long and lonely battle against discrimination in all its ugly forms. So, can ISpy be the first to congratulate the authorities at Dublin Fire Brigade who have stepped in and, thankfully, put a stop to a disgraceful, demeaning and utterly sexist calendar featuring firemen in a variety of topless poses.

The calendar, in aid of the Irish Cancer Society, has become something of a "modern tradition" according to the charity and has raised more than 300 grand since it started a few years ago.

Now, however, it seems that the powers-that-be don't want to see their employees being treated as pieces of meat.

Sure, the money raised goes to an incredibly worthy cause; sure the whole thing helps to raise the profile of fire crews who put their lives on the line every day -- they must have been doing rain dances in every fire house in the country on Hallowe'en night -- and sure, nobody actually gets hurt.

But all these blokes are handsome and incredibly fit and the sight of these men with their six- packs and fit bodies simply sets an unrealistic image of the male form and, frankly, makes the rest of us look even worse than usual.

And that's just not fair.

Although that recent Ryanair calendar featuring all the fit birds they have working as cabin crew was extremely enjoyable.

BUT IT'S A SOCIALIST PARADISE?

One of the funniest things about listening to unreconstructed Lefties is their declaration that Cuba is some sort of proletarian paradise.

It's all complete rot, of course -- it has a rigid class system largely based on colour; they have exported their best health care workers to Venezuela in return for oil; and the people are starving.

Oh, and they also have a problem with that whole pesky freedom-of-speech thing.

The most recent example comes with the news that Cuban blogger Yoani Sanchez was recently kidnapped and assaulted by Cuban security police -- ironically, when she was on her way to participate in an anti-violence march. According to Sanchez, she was left "black and blue, punches, pulled hairs, blows to the head, the kidneys, knees and chest, they applied judo or karate to us as the punches kept raining down."

Now, will we hear our Castro-loving friends come out and condemn that?

Don't hold your breath.

Although, in fairness, bashing a blogger does often seem like a rather attractive option ...

A FRIENDLY WORD OF ADVICE ...

The Mail tends to get a lot of flak in this country.

The recent Jan Moir controversy prompted the Irish edition of the paper to rush out a statement distancing itself from their mainland version and they have always been keen to try and establish an Irish identity.

But if they're going to do that, maybe they should get their facts right.

In a piece having a pop at RTE's comedy output the other day, the paper claimed that the biggest mistake RTE ever made was turning down Fr Ted and letting it go to Channel 4 instead.

Look, people, for the last time -- RTE was never offered Fr Ted. The writers were based in England and the idea of the show going to RTE was never on the cards.

Honestly, there are enough reasons to have a pop at RTE and their awful attempts at comedy without making stuff up.

Louis v McBroon -- Round Two

It would appear that evil pop genius Louis Walsh has really stepped over the line. And he had better apologise.

ISpy is not referring to his mischievous and, frankly, wicked endorsement of those two gurning talent vacuums, the Grimes brothers, although a month of Louis trussed up in public stocks while the rest of us get to repeatedly slap him in the face with a dead fish would seem an entirely reasonable punishment.

Nope, it would appear that Simon Cowell thinks Walsh should apologise to him, the British people and Prime Minister Gordon Brown following Walsh's claim that Brown "doesn't know anything about music".

This came after Brown remarked that he didn't think the twins were very good -- perhaps the only thing that one-eyed git has got right since he came to unelected power.

Cue instant, manufactured outrage from Cowell and the dribbling simpletons in the audience -- seriously, this column attended an X Factor gig once and the whole audience looked like they had escaped from a residential care home for retarded chavs -- and now Walsh finds himself at the centre of a diplomatic row.

Honestly, you know you're living in strange times when jobs are being lost, houses are being repossessed and yet the general public, both here and in Britain, are spending their time talking about two idiots from Lucan who would make even Gandhi want to start punching them.

DVD TIME ...

The 1970s gave us some great dystopian films, and Charlton Heston featured in three of the best of them -- Planet Of The Apes (okay, that was 1968, but you get the drift), The Omega Man and, of course, Soylent Green (1973).

A future New York is vastly over-populated, suffering from a permanent heat wave, law and order has almost completely broken down with authorities simply scooping up protesters in a giant bin lorry and policeman Heston finds himself unwittingly stuck in the middle of a terrifying government conspiracy.

Sample quote: "Why, in my day, you could buy meat anywhere. Eggs, they had, and real butter. Fresh lettuce, even."

ESSENTIAL SOUNDS

Tom Waits has given us some of the most haunting vocal performances ever committed to vinyl and he has seldom been better than on his version of 'Jesus's Blood Never Failed Me Yet'.

Originally recorded in 1976, in 1990 he recorded his version, singing alongside the original, which is a loop of a tramp singing. Hairs on the back your neck time . . .

Irish Independent