Our 2014: Graham Norton speaks out

"He's not doing any interviews at the moment, but we'll ask him."
Graham Norton was supposed to be on media lockdown when we contacted his agent asking if he'd like to comment on the Pantigate controversy, but 30 minutes later we got a call back saying that he'd be delighted to talk.
Hooking up the next morning, it was obvious that Mr. N was spitting nails angry.
"I'm not registered to vote in Ireland, but I do pay the licence fee there and I'm fucking furious that some of my money has gone to these idiots," he said of The Saturday Night Show's €85,000 in payouts to six people including journalists John Waters and Breda O'Brien, and the Iona Institute's David Quinn. "RTÉ settling wasn't just gutless, it was absolutely moronic."
And that was just for starters.
"The Iona Institute, and people like that, are like rats trapped in the corner of a barn," he continued. "They know the jig is up. That's why they're screaming so loud."
Eloquent, well-informed and not afraid to raise conservative hackles, Graham's interview promptly went viral around the world, with everybody from the Australian Broadcasting Company to Germany's ZDF picking up on its contents. Yours truly got an anonymous death threat from a Christian right-winger, which was very much 'mission accomplished'.
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Rudimental's Longitude stormer was a shoo-in for my Gig of the Year until Willie Nile paid a low-key Sunday night visit in December to Dublin's fabulous Bello Bar.
Like his pal Bruce Springsteen, the Buffalo guitar-slinger is one of the great American storytellers and cheered on by a crowd who'd travelled from all over Europe to see him delivered a set that went straight into this scribe's All-Time Top 10.
Hell, I even took part in the stage invasion when The Riptide Movement joined him for an encore version of 'One Guitar' that still has be grinning like a Cheshire cat.