EVERY SATURDAY MORNING we take a look at all the best comments left on the site by our readers over the past seven days.
This week there was a lot of talk about Robin Williams, the Leaving Cert and the English-speaking world’s newest words.
So here are the standout comments from the week that was.
The 5 most popular comments this week
1. First up was Art Vandelay with his unconventional but ridiculously popular approach to how to treat any possible Irish case of Ebola. He got 5,357 thumbs up for this:
Flat 7up,be grand…
2. Sinead Taaffe summed up the feelings that so many of us had upon hearing of the death of Robin Williams late on Monday night, with 3,002 thumbs up:
Such a great loss, RIP
3. There was a huge outpouring of support for Rory McIlroy after he won the PGA Championship. Eddie Roche got 2,596 green thumbs for his theory on the golfer’s current run of form:
2nd straight major for Rory Mcilroy.
What a phenomenal advertisement against marriage.
4. Meanwhile, in response to Art’s comment about how to cure Ebola, dung like a honkey (yes, that’s his username) got 2,443 thumbs up for this comment to another user:
Ah, it actually was a joke Kev – you can’t really treat Ebola with flat 7up
5. Last but importantly, juicy pants posted this comment on an article about Robin Williams, outlining what they had been through and how they cope. They got 2,002 thumbs up:
I suffer bad from depression and work is unbearable sometimes. I remember reading that quote ‘what’s right is what left if you do everything else wrong’ and I found great comfort in it so I saved it in an email and I started to add other stuff to it. Other people find stuff like that cheesy but it helps me get through the day sometimes. He made such a difference to peoples lives beyond his comedy. RIP Robin Williams.
The top 5 articles which received the most comments this week
1. Israel Deputy Ambassador calls some Irish protesters an ‘ignorant, anti-Semitic mob‘ (575 comments)
2. Ebola virus ruled out for patient in Dublin hospital (397 comments)
3. Robin Williams found dead at his home in suspected suicide (362 comments)
4. Up to 7,000 march as Dublin comes out in force to support Gaza (353 comments)
5. Palestinian 11-year-old shot dead in West Bank as Israel refuses to return to peace talks (309 comments)
The big issue this week
Sean C on the loss of Robin Williams.
The ending to Aladdin is gonna hit me hard from now on, I guarantee it. Just like the ending to Ghost or Dirty Dancing hits me hard cos of Patrick Swayze’s death (and how he also died from pancreatic cancer, like my dad). It’s just gonna be another instance where I know that they are gone, and with them goes a part of the fondest memories of growing up. I know this sounds selfish, and yeah, it is to a certain degree.
But there’s this degree of feeling like you know this person, even if you never me them. From TV appearances, to movies, to music…one felt like he was part of your community. This is the guy who walked the streets, shook hands with people, and just tried to cheer folks up after 9/11. His contemporaries did the opposite, hiding out and not wanting to be seen, but he wanted to cheer folks up because he knew they were scared. When South Park: the movie was nominated at the Oscars for best music and song for Blame Canada, the actress who sang the song in the film, Mary Kay Bergman, was not there to sing it. She had taken her own life a month or two before the Oscars. Williams stood in and sang the song instead, and it was actually one of the most memorable moments from that ceremony. Funny, but poignant. And then there was the time Christopher Reeve was paralysed in a horse riding accident. He walked into the room of his friend from college, and, disguised as a doctor, started giving him orders. Reeve cracked up laughing, and that was the beginning of his desire to live. Williams never told that story, that was in Christopher Reeve’s biography.
He was a darn good human being who did his best to make everyone feel good, the sad thing being that the only person he could not cheer up was himself. RIP.
Pun of the week
A small town in America made a dog its mayor and Symbolism came up with this one. Obvious but still a bit of a giggle.
The first lady’s a proper bitch
Some of our favourite comments
The Leaving Certificate results came out on Wednesday and lots of our readers had memories. Simon Tuohy has some success story:
I came out of the leaving with a E in English. Career guidance councilor said to me on the day about 3 minutes after I got my results in my hand “i don’t think you can go to university now.”I went home and read the CAO handbook and saw that there was a rule that said you can compensate a fail in an honours subject with 3 C3s in honours subjects in an NUI university. So I went to NUI Galway got a degree in Physics (actually repeated leaving cert English during first year of uni and passed) . Then did a masters in Queens Belfast. Then did a PhD in physics in University of Kent. And for the last 5 years have been a post-doctoral researcher in the University of Oxford, currently in Neuroscience/Optical Engineering.As for the quality of my English I have for what it is worth won 3 Irish blog awards, written a few articles on this website and for some unknown reason write amateur sketch comedy in a group. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCvq66dVgl0EwH2IgXFbhgzAAnyway to sum it up the net effect of me failing English first time out was instead of doing physics in UL and living at home I did physics in Galway and lived away from home and had a great time. I haven’t done all that badly I think. I have no idea where I would have ended up if I had passed and ended up living at home going to UL. But I think my life has probably worked out better being forced to be independent at a young age.
Kevin Maughan added:
Did very badly in 2001 (my own fault) but two years later went back and got an A2 in English and Maths (at foundation but I worked my arse off to get that) and fast forward another few years I hold an Honours Degree!Don’t be afraid to go back and try again.
A different look from CAK:
An alternative perspective: I passed my leaving cert with 570 points, all honours subjects, could do pretty much any course. Ten years later I am half way through a PhD and very unsure of all the choices that I have made regarding courses and career paths, I have very limited job prospects once I do finish it at 30 years old and I am also completely broke with zero savings from being a student so long. So keep perspective, your massive points or your lower points don’t matter – its what you do with them thta matters – sit down, evaluate what your gut/instinct tells you you should be doing rather than what someone else thinks you should do/what you think you should be doing and realise that the leaving cert is just the start of an awful lot of choices you’ll have to make in life and that it gets less and less important as the years go by.
And the final word to Dublinjonny after he found out that YOLO and ‘amazeballs’ were added to the Oxford Dictionaries.
Udjdjekd ejekckeowjd fjfkfkekff djdicjskd djciekdnfgcjf fjfjr. There might as well pass that off for English as well
Spot any good comments? Send them through to us by email at sinead@thejournal.ie.
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