I’m hearing this referred to as “picturegate” or “cowangate”, but whatever I did today it seemed I was either getting emails or reading about this on the web. Apparently last night RTE officially apologised for reporting on the following:

Two unorthodox portraits — one in the National Gallery showing the Taoiseach on the toilet, and another in the Royal Hibernian Gallery showing him holding his Y-fronts — appeared mysteriously in Dublin among paintings of the country’s other famous citizens in more decorous poses.

Source: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article5971027.ece

All day long this just kept popping up over and over. With breaking news stories on the Irish Times regarding the police getting involved, the original RTE report going up on YouTube (followed by the apology), a whole barrage of noise on Twitter, and people calling out for everyone to make some noise and ensure this kind of bullshit bullying isn’t allowed continue.

Damien Mulley was enraged:

Last night part of the freedom of the press was murdered in front of our eyes, in prime time hours. We should be crying at that apology. Hope is quickly diminishing in Ireland and more of it went tonight. The country is going to hell in a handcart and now they’re attacking satire in a most brutal way. RTE News has been shut down. RTE cannot report news anymore without having to secondguess themselves and the reaction from Government press officers.

Twenty Major even more so:

Cowen and Fianna Fail had a meltdown though and rang RTE to complain. They demanded the story be removed from the RTE website, and it was. They demanded the clip of the news item be removed and it was. They demanded it be removed from the archives, and it was.

They also demanded an apology be made on air and it was. Pathetic stuff from RTE, truly spineless, but then this is the same organisation that allowed that wretched cunt Beverly Flynn to get away without paying back all the money she owed. No balls whatsoever.

FF’s action , however, was bullying, pure and simple.

The BBC are reporting that the man behind the act of art guerilla warfare could go to jail, and the story is getting coverage all over the place.

I’m personally thrilled to see so many people standing up and saying “fuck this”. Want to buy a naked Cowen caricature on a t-shirt? Are people profiteering, no, proceeds are going to the Rape Crisis Network. Some people are planning to run exhibitions of postcards featuring naked Cowen.

Naked Fat Cowen

Now it’s nearly 2am and despite being zonked and under far too big a work load, I couldn’t help but flex my supremely weak Photoshop muscles to have a go at a bit of a naked Cowen picture. It’s not very good, but it’s a bit of fun and the best I could come up with at this late hour – click the photo to enlarge!

Brian Cowen protects his bits to avoid embarrassment

For those interested, the original photo is by drivenbyboredom on Flickr.

What are ye waiting for?

So why not get off your fat arse and find a picture of a nice big wobbly person and attach Cowen’s head to it. He can’t come after everyone. Boogie boogie boogie.

Update – 1pm :: 26/03/09

Apparently the person mainly reponsible for making this complaint to RTÉ is Eoghan Ó Neachtain. If you feel like complaining about this directly you can reach him at the details below.

Telephone +353-1-619-4098 Fax +353-1-676-3302
Email Address press.office@taoiseach.gov.ie