During my regular perusals of the Hot Press website, I invariably experience overwhelming relief that during my time at Trinity Street the magazine didn’t yet have a presence on this “thing” we were vaguely aware of called “the internet”.

It is probably fair to say the need to diligently update and maintain it around the clock in this modern world of 24-hour rolling news would not have sat well with those of us more comfortable with producing one magazine every fortnight and the latitude for drinking this schedule presented.

They were great days, arguably the best of my life, as a twenty-something culchie catapulted into a world inhabited by the kind of weird and wonderful creatures I could never have hoped to get to know if I had not one day entered a journalism competition run by Hot Press in conjunction with a Sunday morning TV and radio show called the Beatbox. I am certainly not the only person in the world lucky enough to have won the job of their dreams on the whim of a judging panel, but I’ll bet I’m the only one who celebrated by going to watch Birr hurlers take on Coolderry in the Offaly county championship.