John Waters Wins Eejit of the Year 2007
December 22, 2007
John Waters was voted Eejit of the Year at our Christmas lunch yesterday, with a very strong 26% of the votes, narrowly beating former twice-winner Hector who polled a creditable 24%. There were two other shock results. Liam O Maonlai came third with 12%, solely on the strength of his Irish phrases CD. And Father Brian D’Arcy, who was only added to the ballot paper at the last minute, polled 10% to knock last year’s winner, Eddie Hobbs, into fifth place with 8%, just narrowly ahead of David McWilliams at 5%.
These results give rise to three lessons for eejits and eejit-watchers alike in 2008.
- The Rise of the Intellectual Eejit
- The Importance of Year-Round Eejitry
- The Power of Traditional Eejitry
Here are the key points of those lessons: >>>
The Rise of the Intellectual Eejit
This year saw the strongest showing yet for intellectual eejitry, with Waters (26%) and David McWilliams (5%) taking almost one third of the votes between them. Indeed, during the pre-vote hustings, some traditionalists controversially argued that Waters may be too serious to even be an eejit. This was countered by the triviality of his appearance on the Late Late Show Celebrities on Ice Special.
His victory may mark a battle among eejit-watchers in 2008 between the traditionalists (who, in fairness, accepted Waters’ victory with good grace) and the modernisers, whose strongest argument was a pragmatic one: despite Waters’ undoubted intellectual gravitas, if it walks like an eejit, and quacks like an eejit, it may well be an eejit.
The Importance of Year-Round Eejitry
One of the keys to Waters’ victory was his consistent eejitry throughout the year. He had a strong start with the Eurovision Song Contest, followed by a steady stream of strange articles peaking with his ‘I am crying, writing this’ eulogy for Katy French (who he had met once), and his eejitry climaxed in December with his Late Late Show 7 Up Celebrity on Ice appearance.
Contrast this with last year’s winner Eddie Hobbs, who had a very strong first half to 2007, including being photographed as a schoolboy, a money medic and a pensive guru while promoting a financial horoscope, until he seemed to pull back from eejitry when trying to get people to give him millions of euro for Brendan Investments. See the following posts for examples:
- Eddie Hobbs Hosts a Masterclass of Eejitry
- Eddie Hobbs Falters with Poor Show of Eejitry
- Warning: Eddie Hobbs Might ‘Loose’ Your Money
The Power of Traditional Eejitry
Hector is an icon of eejitry, to the extent that – like Elvis, or Pele – he no longer needs a surname. His eejitry may have peaked during 2004 and 2005, when he won Eejit of the Year twice in succession, but even in relatively fallow years he came second in 2006 to Eddie Hobbs and this year to John Waters.
Indeed Hector (24%) and Hobbs (8%) alone, who have between them won the last three titles, polled almost one-third of the votes between them this year. Add in the surprisingly strong showing of latecomer Father Brian D’Arcy (10%), and traditional-style eejits have about the same vote (42%) as Fianna Fail traditionally get in opinion polls.
Congratulations to John Waters
I will end by congratulating our new champion, and wishing him well in 2008.
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1.
jeano | December 23, 2007 at 10:04 pm
Richly deserved. Nice to see awards going to such worthy recipients.
Can I suggest that you post the full lyrics of You Can’t Stop the Spring here as well? My personal favourite bit:
They might scare the blackbird
But they cannot stop him sing
2.
JL Pagano | December 24, 2007 at 10:19 am
A worthy winner indeed, but I would have tried to find a way to cheat by voting several times to make sure Hector won, seeing as he is the perennial winner of my own Gobshite of the Year award.
3.
Caoimhin | January 10, 2008 at 12:42 am
An esteemed field of eejit contestants for sure!
4.
nouns | January 10, 2008 at 8:07 pm
I thought I should point out that John has already come out strong in defence of his title …
5.
the chancer » Blog &hellip | January 11, 2008 at 11:06 am
[...] On Ice sensation and Eurovisionary John Waters disses the blogosphere. Poor Johnser - that Eejit Of The Year Award has definitely gone to his [...]
6.
dc | January 22, 2008 at 11:29 pm
Sounds like J Waters has had an early and encouraging start to being crowned Eejit of the Year 2008 with his rant about the Pope & Galileo & bloggers
7.
BrianClarkeNUJ | February 17, 2008 at 8:07 pm
Dear Mr. Nugent,
Could you please send me the entry form, for the next Eejit competition. I would also suggest that you have category called Village eejit for all villages in Ireland.
Anyway, I want to enter. Waters does not deserve to be eejjit of the year, I’m sure one of his ex’s would find a better category for him
Yours
BrianClarkeNUJ
8.
Lenstar | February 22, 2008 at 1:15 pm
What a fucking spa he is. He totally deserves the award after the stupid write up he mad about Katie French. He’s a fool with brains in his ass puking shite out every time he farts. A complete fuck wit!!!
9.
Deco | February 26, 2008 at 9:15 pm
See what happens in a year when Martin Cullen and Dick Roche both lie low…..But actually there should be loads more Eijet awards….special awards to give recognition to the various categories of Eijets…..I mean Ireland is a diverse country now….we have many types of Eijets….I mean what about Steve Staunton….surely the winner of the Expensive Highly Overpaid Eijet award ???
And we also need an International Eijet award…past winners including Comical Ali, and Donald Rumsfeld, for 2007, the International Eijet award category has to go to Gordon Brown for not his ’stewardship’ of the Nortthern Rock meltdown….Most Brits would solidly agree….Gordo has blown taxpayers billions and lost the bank… a case of being an Eijet twice…
Is there a female category for eijetry ? …I am thinking about Mary O’Rourke, Joan Burton, etc… I mean Martin Cullen is a category of Eijet in his own right…and Dick Roche has practically invented the obnoxious Eijet category based on his ‘personality’ (sic…)….I expect Dick Roche to make his presence felt strongly again with another EU referendum…no doubt our nuetrality is crapper-fassened with this Treaty as well….
Of course winner of the Eijet of 2007 award - female category …the former female half of Jhan Waters….Sinead O’Connor….
And the prize is a mortgage on a abandoned, disused brand new dormer bungalow in the Midlands….Dan McLoughlin ( strong candidate for Economics Eijet ) will give a speech at the presentation explaining that house prices will go up forever…..
Then we had Bono’s recital of poetry…surely winner of the Performing phArts Eijet category….
Then we had Ryan Tubridy….who managed to overtake Gerry Whine, and Pat ‘Plank’ Kenny to win the Broadcasting category Eijet Award….
2008 will bring lots more Eijet awards…… We definitely need categories….so many Eijets in the public realm….and they are not receiving the attention they deserve….
10.
K8 the GR8 » Blog A&hellip | March 5, 2008 at 3:48 pm
[...] to the world, should we just give up? I thought blogging was a skill, much like journalism. Was John Waters a child prodigy? Did Kathy Foley always write such excellent articles? I’m thinking [...]
11.
Eoghan Harris Hosts Maste&hellip | April 6, 2008 at 11:33 pm
[...] the Year 2008. His article in today’s Sunday Independent both borrows a tactic perfected by last year’s winning Eejit John Waters (the famous ‘I am crying, writing this’ theme) and also ventures into unparalleled [...]