EVERY SATURDAY MORNING we take a look at all the best comments left on the site by you lot over the past week.

This week there was a lot of talk about the RTE Prime Time investigation into mistreatment of children in creches, the property tax deadline, the unexpected sunshine, contaminated cannabis, and the definitive list of the greatest Irish biscuits.

So here, in no particular order, are the standout comments from the week that was.

The top 5 articles which received the most comments this week

1. Column: I have always considered myself pro-choice but I can’t support the proposed abortion bill (294 comments)

2= Anger as RTE Prime Time shows mistreatment of creche children (246 comments)

2= Irish biscuits: A definitive ranking from worst to best (246 comments)

4. Swedish riots ‘should serve as a wake-up call’ for Ireland (232 comments)

5. Which TDs did not pay the property tax by the final deadline? (231 comments)

Some of the best comments left on the site this week

(Pete Burrows/Flickr/Creative Commons)

Sound people got a lot of love in the comments this week. This article about some of the soundest people in the world got commenters talking about some of the nicest things they’d seen people do. Some of the best included this one from Derek Hynes…:

I was living abroad and working in a bar and restaurant. These two lads from Liverpool came in every evening for a few pints,
One day I was all over the place. They were having a good laugh at me and asked what’s up with you today? I told them my parents just rang from the airport and they were about to visit for the first time. I was all excited.
Finished work, had a four course meal with my parents and when I went to pay was told that the two lads had settled the bill.

… and this one from Chloe Coyle:

Found a handbag in a shopping centre a few months ago, it was a middle aged woman’s bag with 2 grand in cash inside. There was no phone but I was able to find her address from a letter inside, went to her house and she was in tears.. Gave her the bag and she said she was going to book a flight to Australia to see her new grandchild . She tried giving me 100 euro but couldn’t take that. Wished her well and gave her a hug. Sad to think if someone else had of found the bag they prob wouldn’t have gave it back and that woman wouldn’t have met her grandchild.

Awkward autocorrect moment of the week: Well, there were a lot of them on this article, but Ed Forrest – or at least, his mam – had one of the best/worst:

-your great gran aunt passed away, lol
-mam whys that funny?
-its not funny what do you mean?
-lol means laugh out loud…
-oh no i thought it meant lots of love! Iv texted everyone, oh god I have to ring everyone back

The list of Ireland’s most popular baby names has had some strange additions this year – including Logan. David Murphy was pragmatic:

If I heard someone had called their child Logan because of the Gilmore Girls I would slag the shit out of them. If, however, they had named their son Logan after Wolverine they would get a high five.

If you’re planning on holding a barbecue this bank holiday weekend, here’s some sage cooking advice from Damien Chaney:

Cooking on a BBQ is straight forward enough once you use the right timing/drinking method
Burgers and sausages take 2 beers
Chicken and pork 3 beers
A whole chicken 5 beers and one in the chicken
And remember people you can always add an extra beer on to your cooking time if you like

The RTE Prime Time investigation into mistreatment of children at some creches angered a lot of commenters, particularly parents. Some criticised people who work in creches – but in this comment, childcare worker Jenni Hynes explained why her job means so much to her:

Dan, as a parent and childcare worker I can state that it is certainly possible to care for other children as you would your own. No the love, to the degree of intensity that one loves one’s own children, is not there, but there is certainly tenderness, compassion and a deep sense of caring for and enjoying the company of the children we are entrusted with. It’s not simply a matter of ‘keeping calm’ (which comment implies that all parents who love their children manage to stay calm at all times). It is a job requiring empathy, energy, organisation, understanding of the individual wants, needs and abilities of each child, and the skills to provide for these individual demands. Is this not identical to what good parents do? Just as I see good and ‘challenging’ (as we say in childcare!) in my own children, so too I have seen the good and not so good in the children I have cared for over more than a decade. I have found reason to like every one of those children and yes, reason to love many of them. Every decent childcare worker in the country could say the same. Please do not pass comment without knowledge of what we do and how we feel.

Finally, who knew that biscuits could be so divisive? Earlier this week we published a definitive(ish) list of the greatest Irish biscuits – and readers were outraged. Many questioned the exclusion of Chocolate Kimberleys, while George Sheils got almost 190 thumbs up for this comment detailing the flaws in the list:

Michael, I’ve got to hand it to you that you’ve had the journalistic courage to investigate this topic. I’m surprised that no one else has thought of doing a top twenty list of biscuits. So, fair dues to you.

However, your study is somewhat incomplete.

Quite apart from so shocking omissions (No Fig Rolls, No lemon Puffs etc), I’m really disappointed that you didn’t add a paragaph on HOW to enjoy your biscuit.

For example, it takes quite a bit of creativity, dexterity and skill to remove the outer chocolate covering of a Club Milk for instance, without damaging the biscuit sandwich beneath. First one has to nibble away the four corners (quite easy) but removing the chocoate along the sides is more difficult and as for trying to remove the layer along the front and back well, that takes unreal skill !

Oh, and you ignored mentioning how difficult it is to time precisely how long it takes to dunk a Ginger Nut without the biscuit becoming so soggy that it drops off into the cup. People need to know this kind of stuff.

The 5 most popular comments on the site this week

1. First up, the most popular comment this week came from cullen11 on the article about annoying things men say to women. More than 1,210 people agreed with his/her suggestion for something to never, ever say:

You’re turning in to your mother

2. Sarah Walsh had the second most popular comment this week, with 1,172 people agreeing with her comment beneath an article about how the average weekly earnings for a worker in Ireland is now €697 a week:

Dunno who came up with those figures I’m earning nowhere near that

3. Also on that article about pay, Eileen Dover got 991 thumbs up for this point:

So the boss earns 200k per year. The cleaner earns 20k per year. The average pay is 110k. Would that be about right?

4. In fourth place this week, and a strong contender for good deed of the week, was Seany McDonagh, who got 942 thumbs up for describing what he did when he was asked to jailbreak a phone:

Got handed a phone to jailbreak and unlock a few months back. Seen loads of pics of a girl and her newborn child, also pics of an elderly person I’m hospital. Told the person I was keeping it and sending it back , obviously rang “mam” in it to find out where to send it . Almost 500 pics on it , ya can feck off if ya think I’m gonna mess with someone’s personal photos

5. Last but not least, rounding out the top 5 this week was The Descolada with 907 thumbs up for this comment beneath the article on the man who wrote a letter to AIB to explain why he was closing his account with them:

Right on my man. I’m paying off the last of my loan with them this week then getting the f*** away

Spot any good comments? Let us know: Email christine@thejournal.ie with any and all suggestions for next week’s comments of the week.