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20th December 2016
12:10am GMT
When it comes to covering the beat of Dublin life, journalism isn't always pretty.
It's not all new restaurants, brunch reviews, chicken wings and delish burgers. No; sometimes we need to get outside of our comfort zone, and bring the public a story they might not particularly want to know, but need to.
That means putting ourselves into sticky situations – situations that make our loved ones worry about us as we head out to work in the morning, and force us to remind ourselves that we're compelled towards this existence by an insatiable thirst for truth.
That doesn't make it any easier, though, particularly when we're forced into the frontline – as I was this morning, when I visited the newly opened Christmas store on the top floor of Brown Thomas.
Swarmed by the fourth estate, there was no denying that this was an issue of unfathomable public importance – and as I stared through the glass roof, this became as clear to me as the blue August sky.
Disney tunes and Rat Pack classics were favoured over festive tunes in forming the soundtrack to this surreal experience; a sea of red and gold that was deceptively kind on the eyes, betraying the cruel nature of its existence some 126 days away from Christmas.
Were it December or even late November, I though, this would be perfect. Prices that aren't ludicrous, classy-looking festive kit that would look good in your gaff and fake trees that look more real than real trees.
A wave of yuletide warmth washed over me, and I was briefly under the spell. I snapped out of it, but not before realising how potent, how dangerous, this nefarious force truly is.
The bloke from Xposé knocked around – him off that TMZ video where he said Irish people didn't know who Beyoncé was – and seemed suitably impressed. Which extinguished all my lingering hopes of finding some virtue in this unseasonal exercise.
Basically, we're all fucked.
