It’s the season of top 5 lists more than ever this year as we crawl to the end of a decade. Here’s my list of the things that are essential to my Christmas:
David Parkes’ Christmas Hits on repeat (cassette version too for a nice old school crackle)
Fixing the Christmas tree lights
Myself and the sisters wearing Santa hats *all* the time
Drinks and chats at my Nana’s before midnight mass on Christmas eve
The annual Christmas day swim fundraiser for the RNLI after morning mass in New Quay
The first one on that list is particularly close to my heart. It was an RTE production of the classic Christmas songs along with a cracking ‘disco’ medley at either end. The cassette has been wheeled out and left in the stereo every Christmas for as far back as I can remember and has been the sound I associate with being at home in Clare for the festive season.
I had a look online last week to see if perchance it ever came out on CD or there was still some way of getting a copy of it as I’m sure the cassette is bound to wear through sooner rather than later. To my delight and surprise it’s available on iTunes for €8.99! You can even get the individual medleys on their own if that’s your pleasure. Can’t believe it was released in 1992 – where the heck do the years go? I was still writing letters to Santa then!
Since spotting tweets about the suspect ads on BenDunne.com at lunch time, it seems there’s been no let up in the spamming of the website and seemingly no efforts made to stop it either.
It’s got me wondering if it’s some kind of stab at a “viral marketing” campaign or a hugely embarrassing spotlight on an overlooked step in the website’s ad posting process. I’m inclined to think it’s the latter and if so I can’t understand how a brand as (seemingly) big as Ben Dunne would fail to monitor or take action on such a potentially damaging situation.
I have to admit to taking some pleasure in the humour of some of the supposed ads, particularly after having endured the awkward and somewhat irritating ads on the radio for the website that were being run repeatedly before the website ever got up and running at all. It did provide some light relief from the dreaded Budget coverage online also.
How long will it take for the spam to be stopped? Is there anybody watching? One thing’s for sure, Ben is going to see quite a spike in his traffic analytics – let’s just hope he doesn’t count the extra few hundred or thousand hits as a milestone and fuel for his next radio ad.
Why, yes there is! Free ads on BenDunne.com until the 18th of December. No fees, no catches and by the looks of things, no vetting either.
Exclusive to BenDunne.com
Poor old BenDunne.com is getting spammed like it’s going out of fashion. Twenty Major has been following some of the fun as have the robots on BeenDunne.com
From the ‘Self Aid’ gig in 1986. For those of us too young to remember Self Aid, here’s the Wikipedia story:
“Self Aid was a benefit concert held in Dublin, Ireland on 17 May1986. The purpose of the concert was to highlight the chronic unemployment problem in Ireland at the time, with nearly 250,000 people unemployed. The 14 hour concert was the largest that had ever been staged in Ireland.”
The first one on that list is particularly close to my heart. It was an RTE production of the classic Christmas songs along with a cracking ‘disco’ medley at either end. The cassette has been wheeled out and left in the stereo every Christmas for as far back as I can remember and has been the sound I associate with being at home in Clare for the festive season.
