"I had a romantic notion of journalism I carried with me back to Ireland and I found it to be a profession that brutalised me as a human being. I thought, for example, that journalism would be, even occasionally, about writing. But I discovered if you're strictly a journalist, it's a disadvantage to be able to write..."

Starting this week and concluding next week, 'Any Given Sunday' is a thoroughly revealing two-part television documentary following the ill-starred fortunes of Stars On Sunday, a picture-heavy, gossip-dripping gazette for the famous-person-hungry, now defunct. It was founded by a collection of what were assumed to be Ireland's most movingest, shakingest young publishing guns - the most swashbuckling among them without doubt being John Ryan, longtime journalist with the Independent, founder of glamour-lovers' monthly VIP as well as RTE Guide competitor TV Now!, onetime editor of Magill and the man largely responsible for successfully revamping the Culture supplement of The Sunday Times.

Hot Press interviewed John Ryan in September of 2000, shortly after the launch of TV Now! - and the ensuing conversation covers everything from the perils of journalism (see quote above), to Ryan's great lost love ("It's my greatest regret. That I wasn't the person I could have been"), to why he, ahem, hates Hot Press. Read: