The Bookshelf with Colm O’Regan

SPEAKER_1 (0:00)

The Hard Shoulder, with Ciara Kelly and Shane Colman. On Newstalk, with Ciara.

Ciara Kelly (0:08)

Bookshelf on The Hard Shoulder. And this week we are joined by Colm O'Regan.

Shane Colman (0:14)

Just before we do though, we might take a few texts that have come true on Christmas ads.

Ciara Kelly (0:21)

Yes, indeed, Shane. The new Tesco ad is good. Just saw it last night, says one texter.

Shane Colman (0:25)

You missed the Toys R Us Christmas ad, says Jo. I don't remember that.

Ciara Kelly (0:30)

Someone says the best John Lewis ad was The Bear and the Hare, Lily Allen singing Somewhere Only We Know.

Shane Colman (0:35)

The Woody's ad from the last couple of years is amazing. The one where the young guy fixes the elderly lady's gate. That was and that is a nice ad, Mary. I suspect we wonder if we see that again.

Ciara Kelly (0:44)

And I actually love this ad, right? The Mr. Lemsip TV ad. Not strictly a Christmas ad, but it used to be on air in the winter.

That was the one with the laughing policeman and it was a lemon and he used to fall over and sneeze. I actually loved that ad.

Shane Colman (0:57)

It was good.

Ciara Kelly (0:58)

It was really, really good.

Shane Colman (0:59)

Nobody's mentioned the one with the floating in the air or whatever. You know, the Allard Jones. Yeah, walking in the air, not floating in the air. But he was floating in the air.

Ciara Kelly (1:11)

Very funnily, many, many years ago, when I was working as a junior doctor in the emergency room in James's, there was a guy who came in whose name was Allard Jones. And you were really excited. He was Welsh, and he was Welsh, and he was in and read something or other. This is Donkeys years ago. And I told everybody in the department that it was Allard Jones, but it wasn't at all. And I said he sang walking in the air to me.

Anyway.

Shane Colman (1:36)

Keep your text coming in, 87 1400 106 Back to The Bookshelf.

Ciara Kelly (1:41)

Back to The Bookshelf. Colm O'Regan has walked into, Colm O'Regan, comedian, author and broadcaster, has walked into studio. Good evening to you, Colm. Do you have a favorite Christmas ad?

Colm O'Regan (1:50)

This is the one, I think it's Barry's Tea, which is, Doesn't That Bait Bannerher? Has that come up already?

Shane Colman (1:55)

Yeah, it's a very lovely one.

Colm O'Regan (1:56)

And it's a lot, I like it because it chimes neatly with some of the stuff I've been writing about, which is, where does that, where does Bait Bannerher come from? And comes from possibly a crooked election, believe it or not. Maybe a bit of gerrymandering. Back in the day, one of the origins for, Doesn't That Bait Bannerher?

Ciara Kelly (2:13)

We have invited you in to talk to us about books and The Hard Shoulder Bookshelf and your favorite books and all of it. Before we do, you have your own new book out.

Colm O'Regan (2:21)

I have my own new book out.

Shane Colman (2:22)

Tipping Away, tell us about it.

Colm O'Regan (2:23)

I'm never not at it with the book writing. Tipping Away, it's, I very, what's the word, egotistically call it the second book in the Galavanting Entertainment Universe, Cinematic Universe. So I wrote a book last year about Hiberno English called Galavanting with Words, and this is a kind of a follow up, more of it. It's called Tipping Away.

Again, I want to draw attention to the phrases that we use without thinking. Sometimes we might lose, but just to pay tribute to the ordinary, the ordinary phrase that are hidden in plain sight, including the title, Tipping Away, because it's the answer to how many times you ask somebody, are they busy? They're either up the walls or tipping away like a small dumper.

Ciara Kelly (3:03)

I often think people who are interested in books about the etymology, the origin of words, those people are genuine wordsmiths. You're somebody who's interested in language and interested in the building blocks of language quite clearly.

Colm O'Regan (3:17)

Well, it's very much part of my stock and trade because my book career started on Twitter years ago with Irish Mammies, and when it was so much shorter, when you had only 140 characters, you had to choose your words carefully, which sounds like advice you get from your mammy. But it meant that you really put your thought into what words had most impact, what were most resonant, what had most value. Now, since then, you can write all books on Twitter, so that's kind of gone out the window.