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IN 2020, THE Year of Bad News, the universe has decided to give us one good thing.
The Den is coming back and we can all take comfort in the fact that it’ll be just the same as we remember it, with the ultimate goal of messing and winding up Ray D’arcy.
The show will return to our screens this Sunday evening and TheJournal.ie got the inside scoop on what to expect from The Den in 2020 from Zig and Zag.
The pair spent most of the pandemic their home planet Zog, which Zag said “is like the New Zealand of planets”.
“They’ve kept it [coronavirus] very minimal, everyone wears masks and because we’ve got fur we’re not as prone to the virus so it’s been quite cool,” he explained.
Here’s what else we learned:
Zag: ”Dustin has promised us that he has all the Covid safety precautions in place in the studio.”
Zig: ”Dustin’s organised all the perspex for us – or “purspex” as he calls it. We’ve got all these sheets of perspex in between where we’re working and everything.”
Zag: ”I think it was a job lot though, I don’t think it’s because of safety, Dustin’s strange that way. He’s always up to something.”
Zig: ”It says Supermacs on all the perspex.”
Zag: ”When RTÉ asked us to come down we didn’t know there was going to be a second lockdown and we kind of forgot that Donald Trump would be possibly elected again. The thing is with Donald Trump, he used to like illegal aliens because we interviewed him once, but he’s kind of changed.
“He’s flip-flopped on that now, he definitely flip-flopped but I think he flip flops on everything. He just does whatever he thinks.”
Zag: “We like Mr Biden because he’s from Meath or somewhere isn’t he? Or he’s from Louth…We do like the Irish ones.”
Zig: ”If Biden wins we should have him on The Den. I reckon he would do it, we’ll get him on soon, let’s do that.”
Zig was hired to do the “bip” noises in the self service check-out machines.
“He can see the barcode from underneath and as soon as it goes over he just bips,” Zag told us.
Zig has also been collecting cornflakes shaped like Leo Varadkar.
“We’re going to be bringing that collection in so that’s the first half hour of the show taken care of,” he said.
Zag: ”It’s an hour long live TV show from 6.30 to 7.30 every Sunday and the cool thing is it’s almost like a Covid-free zone because we’re not really going to talk about Covid, it’s just going to be talking to people live on the show, doing competitions, ringing up people on the Zoom. It’s just going to be lots of fun really.”
When asked whether they’ll be trying to modernise The Den, Zig says “No”.
“It’ll be just like it was, it’ll be like you just turned it off yesterday and you turned it back on Sunday it’s just going to be the same,” he said.
Zag: ”That’s why we’re doing it live, it’s just like the cameras on, we’ve only got one camera like the old days. So it’s live and in your face and anything can happen and there’s four of us on screen and it’ll be crazy. Ray will be trying to do something and we’ll be going off on a tangent somewhere it’s just going to be loads of fun.”
Zig: ”And the great thing is, we don’t have scripts or anything like that, it’s just like The Den was in the old days. Plug ourselves in and see what happens.”
The lads said they want viewers to send them photographs and videos and to let them know what kind of things they’re doing these days to keep life fun. They’ll also be running competitions and the birthday roller will be making a return so if you have a birthday coming up soon they want to hear from you.
Zag: ”Keep an eye out for Ted, he comes in he attacks Ray, we want to keep this whole show a Ted free zone. Security’s a lot tighter now because of Covid but also because of the threat of Ted.”
Zig: ”I don’t know if we can tell this secret but there’s a chance that Christmas might need to be saved and we might just be the guys that might have to do it. Because we’ve done it before a few times, we might have to do it again, that’s all I’m saying.”
Zag: ”Yeah because we’re on on the 20th of December, that’s our last show and that’s going to be a kind of Christmas special thing so that’s only five days to go, but we’re going to make sure everything’s in order. And hopefully we might even get Santa Claus the man himself in studio.
“Don’t worry about it, I think it’s going to be okay. The Den, we’ll look after it.”
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Cool. Fair play to her. Hope she enjoys her year doing whatever mayors do.
Nothing and just watch the money roll in
Pity about the Party she chose.
lies what about that baby mayor in naas
can you say “in these struggling times”? I feel like I am unlearning all my English
Lol! You’re right… It should be “…in these times of struggle.”
Hmmm, I have to second that sentiment voiced earlier- green party? *shudder*
Me fail english? That’s unpossible!
Good Luck to her!
what an achievement and couldn’t have happened to a more bright and lovely girl
Parks & Recreation anyone?
Yes that was the first thing I thought of when I read the headline!
Shows how downhill things are going when children are elected.
Why shouldn’t young people be elected??? We are the future of this country!!
And how are the adults thus far. Hope this is the start of a trend, too many oldies with a set way of thinking!!
Yep,the older crowd are doing a great job aren’t they?…… Give the younger generation a chance to try dig us out of the shit the older generation have dug us into I say!
Heard her on Colm Hayes this morning. She was very impressive!!
Some posters on here…uggghhhhhhh!!!! :(
Congratulations Mayor Lonergan!
All well and good – but the Green Party??????? C’mon
I see grammar isn’t a requirement of the job!
Paul, I agree.
Unfortunately the standard of spoken english continues to drop.
My 15 and 13 yr old children tell me of their ENGLISH teachers who say things like ‘she done that’, ‘he was sat there’, and ‘I could have went’ as three examples.
‘Done that’ and ‘I seen that’ makes me want to blow a gasket!
@ Paul,
I think it’s “I see grammar isn’t a requirement for the job”! ;)
Many of our politicians are teachers and where has that got us thus far??, its well known that a genius usually can’t spell, grammar won’t save the country from going down the tubes, leadership and innovation is what is needed
Agreed Paul and Johnny. When teachers teaching English begin their lessons with such statements as ” Now here’s deh ting, deh correct pronunciation is dat dat ting over dere, is not deh same as dat ting over dere, then I will regain hope.
To follow up on this (as we detract even further from the article).
I´ve always had a doubt on the ´I´m just after seeing/doing (something)´. A purely Hiberno-English construct?
It´s how we were thought, but seldom heard aside from Irish speakers of English.
Oh, and yeah, fair play to her.
It´s how we were “taught ” … that should be. This is what happens when you don´t use your native language in work anymore. :o
@Johnny Thunder… Their “ENGLISH teachers”? I think you mean their teachers of english ;)
She’d have right Craic down the pub with her big hold chain
The best of good luck Darcy, you are a credit. Keep up the good work and ignore the begrudgers, hope that is spelt correctly.
town mayor
Fair play to her
and the award for the most ”ridiculously stereotypical Hollywood Irish name” goes to………
Come on don’t leave us in suspense! Who?
why not have some infant in a position like mayor? its a banana republic anyways. let her off. carrick is a hole anyways. interesting to read her views on migrants, as not that long ago they had the place terrorized with fighting and generally acting the bolix. good luck with that love. good point made about the so called adults running politics. good luck to her. I seen the ladies of her, I tawt she was lovely an all.
You seem like an upbeat kind of person! Good for you.
How much does a mayor get paid?
Depends on the town. Probably no more than a regular town councillor, which is a couple of grand per year.
Caoimhe Sloan is to be elected mayor of Navan next week and she’s 21.
Nice to see Irish people are taking part in some thing meaniful … rather then just Fashion and useless media shite…..!!! GOOD LUCK to her in her career…
Well done Darcy, dont mind the begrudgers, its time we had some new, young blood in politics, its the old boys in suits toeing the party line that got us into the mess we’re in. Best of luck to you in all your future endeavours!
Ahhh begrudgery , thy name is Ireland
It;s excellent to see an intelligent young woman like Darcy elected. So refreshing from the average male, pale and stale councillor. We need more like her in local politics.
Go away with your sexism.
This is the 21st century.
I thought that it had to be a city that had an elected mayor , not a town.
Nice to see Young Irish people are taking part in some thing meaniful … rather then just Fashion and useless media shite…..!!! GOOD LUCK to her in her career…also best of luck in kicking old greedy narrrow minded people out..!
yeah, you CAN make a difference!!! woohoo!
Just to put on record, I am the Ireland’s youngest ever Mayor when I was elected Mayor of Youghal last year at the age of 22. Might only be few months in it but I was still younger than Darcy when she was elected. Anyway, best of luck to her
Is she also the only non democratically elected mayor in Ireland? Ms Lonergan was co-opted onto the council when the previous two “Greens” jacked in their seats. She has never been elected by the people. The original seat was won via local election. This person packed it in when something better came along. The seat then went to his sister. She too had bigger fish to fry, resigned and so Ms Lonergan took the seat. Young and female is just great. It’s the lack of public say in the matter that curdles my blood. Nepotism, thy name is local Irish politics!!
Shaking hands and kissing babies.
You don’t need to be genius to be mayor.
Just smiley and know what to say.
More Parks,
More Guards,
More Cleaning,
More Money,
More Jobs.
Vote for Me!!
*What’s the bets she gives up on her righteous cause to sit on they money train?
€2000
Odds are 1/9999.
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