There have been all sorts of gloomy predictions about the fate of the advertising industry in a modern world where nobody can be bothered sitting through a 30-second ad on a smart phone or tablet, never mind the five interminable minutes it takes for a TV break.

Joique Bell’s arms stretch behind his head as if pulled by an individual rope.

SO, how was your summer?

As sure as night follows day, you knew it was coming, writes Brendan O’Brien

You’ve gotta love June: it’s always been a month to savour for those sports fiends among us equally blessed and cursed with a varied palate.

Rory McIlroy’s injection of golfing Hollywood into the Irish Open was manifestly evident approaching 8am yesterday, as elements of the game’s royalty limbered up to unleash their opening shots of the 2015 renewal.

“Parents are less likely to pack the kids into the car or onto the train to see their lot mauled in Croke Park, but a big game ‘down the road’ would get a greater footfall from the regions" writes Brendan O’Brien

The numbers of people visiting Northern Ireland has mushroomed in the years since ‘The Troubles’ was still a phrase that merited common usage on this island. 

Most eyes were probably on events in Barcelona’s Nou Camp and Munich’s Allianz Arena last Tuesday evening, but there were happenings of a less-gilded though far more uplifting and important nature unfolding at the same time at the tidy little Tameside Stadium in Ashton-Under-Lyne in England’s north-west.

Never again let it be said that you need the perfect performance to win a European semi-final in France.