Hello, world. I’m MacDara Conroy, and this is my blog.


Weeknotes #656

Late with the notes this week due to a reshuffled production schedule. But the paper’s been put to bed now so I’ll get these thoughts down as I decompress.

Week 656 started with the NUJ’s Freelance Forum for spring 2014 at Buswells Hotel all day Monday, which was mostly helpful to me in terms of my confidence in making pitches for writing work. Not that I’ve made any pitches yet, but I feel like I know what to say when the time comes (ie not too much, just enough; and for god’s sake proofread it before you send it).

Most of the rest of the week was devoted to production: lots of subbing, laying out pages, and emails, emails, emails. That bled into the weekend a bit, too, meaning I didn’t have a lot of time for my regular freelance bits. So the week to come will see a bit of catching up there. It helps that there’s a long weekend to come.

Somewhere during last week a couple more articles of mine went online: my review for Thumped of Calvary, starring Brendan Gleeson in his best performance yet, and my take on a new split LP featuring Nick Millevoi for Burning Ambulance (which may not be available right now, as the site’s getting a revamp; I might stick it up here in the interim).

Then there was WrestleMania XXX, which I’m going to write about in more detail soon.

In other news, Bee and I went to the MCM Ireland Comic Con at the RDS on Saturday. We were mildly disappointed, to be honest, by the small range and number of vendors and attractions, despite the size of the venue. If you’re into anime, Yu-Gi-Oh! and e-sports, you were well served; a lot less so if you’re a fan of tabletop games (there were none, either being sold or played) or pretty much anything non-otaku (there were feck-all comics for a comic con, mainly just stalls for the usual places; even Doctor Who stuff seemed thin on the ground, despite the numbers of Who cosplayers).

But the panels were fun — we caught Colin Ferguson‘s Q&A and he’s every bit as charming as you’d imagine from watching A Town Called Eureka (and no, I didn’t ask where he was going when I passed him on Dorset Street on Thursday morning) — and hey, it was the first con that promoter’s done here; maybe they’ll take some feedback to make improvements for next year.

What’s on my agenda this week? Lots of listening to promos, scribbling a review or two, getting out on my bicycle while the weather’s good, and Robin Ince at the Science Gallery on Wednesday evening.