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


Monthnotes for December 2017 & January 2018

It’s been a while. December seems so long ago now. It was partly a write-off anyway, owing to a head cold that lasted from the 24th till New Year’s, and pretty much ruined Xmas. Which is why we did Xmas dinner again at the end of January, like I promised.

Work-wise, I had a busy-ish couple of months on the writing front, with almost daily scribblings and/or subbing, a few film reviews for Thumped, a lengthy piece on the Irish Sailing Awards, and another big music feature that I expect I’ll be able to share in a few weeks.

Being sick kind of took the wind out of my sails for a while into the new year, so some of that was more of a struggle than it ought to have been. I mean, there’s a reason why I’ve put off writing up these notes till almost mid February.

And I’m already forgetting what else I’ve been doing. There was some good wrestling to watch, with January bookended by the top-notch Wrestle Kingdom 12 and the NXT TakeOver/Royal Rumble weekend. I haven’t watched many films thus far in 2018, seriously bringing down my average. On the other hand, I binged two whole seasons of Homeland in a matter of days.

One more thing (and even though it took place in early February, it was almost a week before I’m writing this): I attended the previously postponed NUJ Freelance Forum in Dublin. I’m not sure if the sessions taught me anything new — there was some useful stuff about pitching, especially internationally, though I doubt some of the panelists were adequately prepared — but the day confirmed a few things that should serve as a professional kick up the backside.

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