My phone must be listening to me. No sooner did I post this than both of yesterday's pods came up!
He always sounds like he's dialing in from the Mir space station or from the Argentina '78 World Cup. Maybe using a Nokia 3310 is his thing but it's mildly annoying. I make more effort with my boring daily remote meetings.
I'm a fan of Murph but his only opinion how people feel about transgender athletes was very black and white and ironically quite narrow minded . He didn't seem to give any thought to people who were legitimately concerned about fairness or safety(combat sports, boxing etc) . He seemed to be lumping anyone who voiced a concern into the same category.
At least Ken gave a more balanced opinion and Eoin tried to reason where people were legitimately concerned
His comment about it "being weaponised by pricks" makes it clear once again that he spends far too much time on twitter, and that's where his outrage on this seems to be drawn from. It's a serious problem with many journalists, as they seem to feel it's a fair reflection of society, when in actuality a tiny percentage of the population are on there. And that's not even getting into the bots and trolling accounts.
Yeah no nuance whatever.. hilarious that he put it down to culture wars... Failing to see his own black and white position as being the general starting point when engaging in identity politics and culture wars..
I can't understand how quickly women's concerns about trans females get waved away by some people in such reductive manners.
Yep, thought the same about Murph. Weird position.
I've tried to read up about it online and often seen angry posts from people who want trans people in elite sport. Up until now I've found it very difficult to find balanced information on the topic.
Delighted with the episode today. Really helped me understand a lot more.
I enjoyed the episode more than I thought I would. Agree with previous posters points about Murph. I found him to be a bit jarring and uneccessarily devicive. Ken added much needed thoughtful nuance and Eoin handled the guest very well.
Joanne Harper has indeed put the leg work into understanding the subject and came across very well in explaining a lot of the ups and downs re performance after hormone therapy etc.
But one nagging thing I was left with was- what about Self Identifying Trans who don't partake in any treatment?
But on the whole a good episode into a tricky subject. Eoin's skills as an interviewer on contentious subjects are (in my view) without parallel in Irish broadcasting.
Agree with the above comments, the episode was very good and did open my eyes to some of the down sides of hormone therapy which I was not aware of. To me originally, the whole issue just seemed so unfair on female athletes and seemed to be PC gone mad to my eyes. The episode did open my eyes to other elements but I'm still happy with the judgment made.
When Murph started his tirade I literally rolled my eyes thinking here's a woke puff piece on this issue but luckily Ken and Eoin had a much more balanced view. Thought the guest was very good and told the whole story warts and all about the positive and negative elements of this complex issue. It's definitely made me look again at an issue I thought I'd made my mind up on.
The episode and guest were excellent, extremely balanced and informed. I agree with Murph's kneejerk reaction though - it is generally d!ckheads that are aggressively opposed to trans engagement in sport, largely because there are many d!ckheads who don't want those people to exist, and it is reasonable to simply oppose these people. The issue is absolutely being weaponised by pr!cks, this is not hard to see and it's not exactly hidden - it is "are we the baddies" kind of stuff. The job of figuring out fairness in sport is a lot more nuanced and difficult than this of course, and the guest did an excellent job of articulating some of the actual problems and solutions.
As others have suggested, it seems a poor move from a rational/journalistic standpoint to approach the topic in such a way. He was likely to garner emotive responses with that kind of statement, but what relevance or benefit does that have for the average listener? There are well regarded scientists and sportspeople who have been outspoken on this, why not evaluate their positions instead?
Where does that Dunphg 'HotIrish sex' audiobed come from? It's bloody hilarious
He's not wrong though. It is being weaponised by pricks, mostly on social media, and largely by people with little or no interest in sport. Joanna Harper addressed this later on - anti-LGBT groups have had public opinion move very much against them over the last 20-30 years and in the last few years have had significant defeats over same-sex marriage etc. in many countries, so having lost the war on "LGB" they are now turning to attacking "T"
Couldn't agree more. The arguments about trans women in sport largely comes from people who couldn't give a **** about sport. Liveline was really obvious in that the other week.
The contributor made a really obvious point too, trans women want to play sport and happen to be trans. Men don't pretend to be trans to get an advantage.
The intro to yesterday's pod was.....bizarre.
Ken was entertaining on the Pogba documentary.
I'm a Man Utd fan and have Amazon.
There is no way in hell I'd watch it, even if it didn't have the worst reviews in history...
Don't need to hear from Oisin or Paul next week, only one man's views matter
Sitting in the "guaranteed to be on TV" seat... just a coincidence. Yeah right.
Tomorrow should be interesting....
Might even listen to the gaa pod tomorrow
Met Murph briefly yesterday after extra time in the Galway match. He was trying to get a quick pint in before Kerry Mayo, but the queues were manic so had to abandon the pint to make it back for throw in. I threw a 'some game that was Ciaran' at him and he was very friendly in fairness and chatted happily for a minute. I said to him it will make some podcast Monday and he replied 'I picked a bad week to go on holidays for feck sake' and then followed it up with ' I may have to phone in!'.
Fecking egomaniac!
Ken really does look like a true gael/ member of the waterboys there.
Today's podcast with Oisin & Paul is out. I haven't listened to it yet
Ken's trolling in the GAA podcast today is brilliant. If you were listening to Ken for the first time you'd think he was being deadly serious
Ken was class on yesterday's gaa pod.
I raised an eyebrow on Murph's chat about the calm demeanor of Padraig Joyce throughout the chaos as I thought that's his job. But then I remembered he lost an air pod at the start of the match and now I have new found respect for Joyce as I would be tearing my hair out looking for that air pod while trying to manage my team in an All Ireland quarter final.
Lol at "one high speed run on the GPS"
Jaysus they are really scraping the barrel with the latest Book Club. Seems like they are doing it for the sake of filling a slot.
Yeah they seem to be in need of some filler with no football tournament this summer.
Hope they do more Wimbledon coverage, was a little disappointed that the main focus yesterday was on the Russian absentees with just a brief nod towards the actual tennis.
Did Eoin not mention that it was one of the most requested books for the slot?They're just giving people what they want!
Anyways, I'll probably be skipping it as I'm not a huge Richie fan.
