2010 - Year In Review Part 7

Ah 2010 - the year that we finally figured out that Ireland was flat broke. We kind of knew that we were in trouble when this all first kicked off in 2008 and rumours of spending cuts and tax increases were spreading. A couple of property developers combined with reckless lending by the main banks have brought this country to it's knees and have saddled the taxpayers with debts that we will be paying for years to come.

One of the main problems with the bailout was that government ministers denied it right up to a day or two beforehand. The defining moment for me was during the press conference announcing the bailout when TV3's Vincent Browne vented the anger of a nation at Brian Cowen. He said what we were all thinking!

2010 - Year In Review Part 6

Cast your mind back to August when the story of the Chilean miners first broke. The world held it's breath as we awaited news on the 33 trapped miners and 17 days in, it was confirmed that they were all alive. The Chilean government immediately set about formulating a rescue plan and we were told that it could be Christmas before the miners would be freed.

Digging started on August 30th and, over three different digging phases, took 40 days to complete. The rescue generated international coverage with every news bulletin updating on the status of the digging and the condition of the miners. And then on October 12th, "Operación San Lorenzo" kicked into action. A combined television audience of over 1 billion watched as the miners ascended the specially dug shaft in the Fenix 2 capsule. The rescue effort took 24 hours and every news channel cleared their schedules to bring round the clock coverage.

Take a look at the BBC News Channel coverage of the last miner (Luis Urzua) being brought to the surface.

2010 - Year In Review Part 5

In Ireland, we don't really have much to worry about when it comes to the TV as the national broadcaster puts out utter crap with license payers money and TV3 rebroadcasting programmes from all over the world with limited original programming.

That's why its always fun to watch the TV wars in th UK. This year saw BBC's Eastenders celebrate 25 years on air with a 30 minute live episide while ITV's Coronation Street celebrated 50 years on air with a 60 minute live episode. BBC moved Strictly to earlier timeslots on Saturday and Sunday nights so that they didn;t overlap (where possible) with the juggernaut that is ITV's X Factor. But while ITV programmes generally get more viewers, there has been criticism that it's "lowest common denominator" television and is sensationalised to draw in advertisers.

My personal favourite out of everything this year was the Eastenders 25 episode back in February. The acting may have been questionable and some of the actors did trip over their lines, but we finally found out who killed Archie Mitchell (albeit in tragic circumstances). Here are the best bits from that show:

2010 - Year In Review Part 4

This year saw the release of the next big thing from Apple - the iPad. I'm not going to lie on this, I would LOVE one of these devices! They were released in April after being announced in a press conference last January (which we speculated about here).

The devices were priced from $499 (or €499 in Ireland), but are still missing some of the functionality that could make them great like Java and Flash players. Who knows, maybe the rumoured iPad2 will fix those issues .... and if they do, i'll be first in line for one!

2010 - Year In Review Part 3

2010 saw the biggest disruption to European air travel since World War 2 when the Icelandic volcano Eyjafjallajökull erupted in April. Thousands of flights to and from Europe were cancelled as plane manufacturer's advised against flying through the ash for fear of damaging the engines.

The disruption lasted for much of the second half of April (albeit intermittently through parts of Europe) as well as two or three occasions in May.

I remember first seeing the story on Sky News before I left the house for work and thinking "my god, I'd hate to be working in the airport today". Little did I know that the knock on to my job would make the following 2 weeks feel like hell!

Will 2011 see another eruption from Eyjafjallajökull or will we see the other volcano Katla kick off? Only time will tell.

2010 - Year In Review Part 2

No review would be complete without a nod to the legend that is Kylie Minogue. 2010 saw the release of her much anticipated 11th studio album Aprhodite which had All The Lovers as it's lead in track.

Click through to watch the video in HD



The album performed solidly, charting at #1 in the UK, #5 in Ireland (her best placing since the 2000 release "Fever") and #19 in the US (her previous effort "X" only managed to get to #139 in the US).

And in 2011, we have the tour and a re-release of the album to look forward to!

A review of the year!

Can you believe that 2010 is almost over?? Over the next 2 days we'll be looking back at the best virals, news stories, tv moments and scandals of the year.

We start with a news report that turned into an internet sensation - a little old lady tells a Kansas news reporter about her ordeal during a robbery .... and it was turned into a song. My god, it's damn catchy!