Indo Sport
Bits & Bobs | Joe’s back online | The World Cup awaits | Katie’s Croke Park push
08 Jun 2026
Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
Chapter 1: What did Joe experience during his digital detox in the Mediterranean?
This is an Irish independent podcast. Welcome, everybody. Bits and Bobs on a Monday. Joe here. Happy to say my guys. Ronan and Will are here. Hello, gents.
The boys are back.
Welcome back, Joe. Oh, it's nice to be back in the bosom with you two.
Chapter 2: What are the highlights of the upcoming World Cup week?
How is everything? How are you? Good, I think. We've kept the ship floating for now. I've missed us, though. More than kept the ship floating based on the email correspondence. A triumph is the verdict. We didn't burn the place down.
You're good. We're good. You're doing very well. Nice time. How are you? How was your trip? You're looking very... I said, when I came in this morning, I said, Jesus, you look very tanned. You were like, really? And I said, no, I'm joking. You got me hook, line and sinker. You did.
You were beaming. How was it? Super. So good. Yeah, really good. Ten days in Mallorca.
largely confined to a pool and inside watching lots of French Open you know take the kids inside at times get some breaks but a few dips in the beach that was it really it was just very relaxing very nice the other televisual options you described to me upstairs would make me think you spent a lot of time outside yeah CNN International all that stuff
Oh, so you didn't catch El Homoguero last week for Enrique Roquelme's sit-down with Juan Matos?
No, I don't even know what you're talking about. I don't even know what that is. Basically, I turned whale into Guillem Balgue for 15 minutes.
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Chapter 3: How is Croke Park preparing for Katie Taylor's fight?
Oh, so it's the Real Madrid president. It was whale unplugged on the Real Madrid presidential election, which Florentino Perez swept back into power over the weekend with a two-thirds majority. Well, I'm shocked. It's amazing it's only two-thirds majority.
Yeah, some of the tweets around it were suggesting this is actually a hurtful campaign for him, that it shows he's not as Teflon as he probably thought. But yeah, still. He's 80 years old. The most jarring thing about Will's deep dive last week was that, what was the age discrepancy? 42 years. Between the two candidates.
Like, what are we doing here? No, you're all good. I totally disconnected, so I genuinely didn't hear a thing. I listened to your Leinster chat with Ian Madigan and Rory O'Connor on the Monday, and I listened to you with Luke and Keane on the Tuesday. And after that, I was like... I did not open, it wasn't intended. I just got there and my phone sort of just gave me the heebie-jeebies.
And I did not open a news app of any kind for 10 straight days, which is the longest I've ever gone, the longest I will ever go.
So you were properly disconnected from what was happening?
Yeah, it was amazing. Like the only news I found out was through a WhatsApp message that Slott had been sacked. But like I didn't know if Spurs had been relegated or not until I got home. Really? Yeah.
So like 10 days later. Yeah. Because I flew out on the Sunday. You would have known if they'd got relegated. I feel like that would have put through the bubble. I assumed they were okay. So how did you find out about Rodan Enaver? That's what I really want to know.
When I got home. When I got home and I saw some clip of you on YouTube talking to Luke and reading out the transcript. Jesus. Yeah. No, it was amazing. It was almost like taking some kind of drug to come home and be like, right... I'm going to open my laptop. I'm not even doing my phone.
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Chapter 4: What insights did Rory McIlroy share about his swing?
I'm going to open the laptop and see what I missed. And like the first thing I saw was like, you know, Nexical County Manager. And I was like, whew. Did you know they'd been eliminated? Yes. Oh, you did know that? Yeah, yeah.
So I knew nothing. That's very freeing. Because you've often mentioned on the show about wanting to go on holidays and leave everything behind. You actually did for 10 days. I tried to do it last year and couldn't do it.
In fact, I remember saying I was like antsy and... spending too much time in my own head and thinking about things from six months ago and six years ago and just like... So what changed? I put my suitor back in and it's like, I'm just going to read the news and distract myself from my inner turmoil. So how did you... Don't know. ...compartmentalise this time? It wasn't planned.
You're in the same place, right? Precisely the same place.
I think I know what happened. Go on. This time when he left, he knew the show was going to say that. That must be it. Whereas last year he was like, these two clowns. And he didn't even know me really at all. So he's like, one guy I know and this guy who I don't know that well and seems a bit off.
Joe was reluctant to take holidays last year. Will I have a livelihood to come back to?
Yeah.
Yeah, he basically had to force you to take maternity leave who he didn't trust was... I'd been overdoing the Twitter thing for sure. And it's because of this damn job where you're kind of like, what are we talking about tomorrow? And so the first thing I did was, you know, I'm going to delete Twitter off my phone. And I did that. And then I just, it was a very seamless, effort-free process.
sabbatical. It was like someone had made me smoke all the cigarettes in the packet and I just didn't want to.
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Chapter 5: Who are the new champions in the French Open?
I did say to Robin, this is what it's like to get cancelled. Have you heard anything?
Because...
But it was just, as ever, it was just guff, you know. So you have to answer the question that everyone wants to know. You, Dan McDonald. Oh, yeah. Did you meet up?
He texted me. Sorry. That positions it wrong. And he doesn't actually, he's not happy with how this has been positioned. He has made this clear to me. You're not helping. This has been positioned as I'm desperate to meet you and you've no interest in meeting me. He texted me. He texted me on the first night I was there. Eager. Come on, Dan. I just landed. I just deleted Twitter.
Was he holding one of those signs at the airport when you were like... We kind of quickly realized that we were like over an hour away from each other. So... That is different. That is different, to be fair. That's what you told him. Yeah. That was where I pinned my location. I know. It just wasn't doable.
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Chapter 6: What are the implications of the Leinster rugby team's performance?
But, oh, yeah, it was good. But, yeah, I mean, it was, you do realize how much real estate all this stuff takes up in your head. But it was good.
I have two more questions. Oh, yeah. Did you read that Michael Connolly book? I recommend it. No. I started it. That's how much I value you. No, sorry. That's wrong. Somehow that's worse. Sorry. I'm actually physically sick. The Black Echo is one of the greatest gateway books to a series of all time.
He's written 30 more based on how good the first one was and you started it and it didn't even do anything for you.
Yeah. I did. I think... How much did you read of it? To be fair now, first two chapters, and I just wasn't feeling it. I think I'll come back to it. It feels like a nice winter book. I was on holidays. I wanted a page turner. Set in Los Angeles. It's always sunny there. Yeah, but it felt like a very grimy lived in Los Angeles, you know, where men were men and...
Some of it was a bit clichéd and dated.
He invented the clichés. The book was written in 1995. He invented the clichés. So they weren't clichés when he wrote them, Joe. That's how I'd answer that.
This is like the Rocky podcast all over again. No, no, I have to accept that at the time... The reason it's so clichéd is because his was so good. Yeah, I get that. I get that. But then, unfortunately for him, I'm coming to it after there have been a thousand imitations that I've been exposed to.
The Sopranos, anti-hero, what are they doing here?
I know, and it was like, oh my God, he's got issues from being a nam. I mean, it was just a little...
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Chapter 7: How are the New York Knicks performing in the playoffs?
Who's the author? I don't know. She was over in... She's American, but she... Studied at Trinity for a while under Clare Keegan and people like that. So there's a few Irish kind of sprinklings in there. But no, it's very, very American book. It's done. The format of it is like it's all just the correspondent, as the name would suggest. She is in her 70s, the main protagonist.
And the entire book is either letters or emails, conversations she's having with different people. And that's how they recount what, you know, I'm sorry about the incident yesterday. And that's, you know, that's the kind of format of it. Project Hail Mary. Oh. Now we're talking, are we? What a book that is.
What a book that is. What a book that is, by the way. I haven't seen the film or read the book, so no spoilers.
What's the name of the author?
Andy Weir.
Wrote The Martian.
Yeah, he wrote The Martian.
Yeah, yeah. So Ryan Gosling is in. Yeah, the movie. Jesus, what a book. Couldn't recommend it. That's five stars. Okay, I'll read the book. Ah, you'd love it. It's great. It's great.
I did the wrong thing there where I watched the film first and then read the book. And it doesn't matter. The film's also brilliant. It's like they both somehow work in the medium that they're in. Oh, it's class. Just really clever. You don't actually think it's possible when you when you establish what the premise is going to be. You're like and you look at the length of the book.
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Chapter 8: What controversies surround the upcoming Ireland vs. Israel match?
Basically, The Sun is failing, and they have to get to the bottom of why. But it's great. A lot of heart to it. Really good. And then I'm currently finishing, to be fair, I didn't read three, Wellness, which is about three years old, and it's by... Oh, dude, I don't know... But it's basically Nathan Hill, New York Times bestseller. A work of quiet genius, says the Observer. It is so good.
So, wellness. Check that out. About a couple. Yeah, married couple, how they met, a bit about their childhood, their present day struggles, jumps here, there and everywhere. So, so good. There's entire paragraphs you'd reread and go, Jesus, that's amazing. So there are my holiday recommendations and obviously steer clear of Michael Connolly. My feelings were hurt.
Sorry. I started it for you. It's a reflection of what you think of me, that you wouldn't have given it more than two chapters, that you thought it was so crap. I gave it three chapters. No, you didn't. You don't. Because if you had, you would have liked it. It just spent forever in that tunnel with the dead body at the start. See, that's why I know you didn't give it a chance.
Because that's like literally just the first five pages. So I actually don't think you actually read more than five pages. I don't think you even got to chapter two.
Harry Bosch doesn't even come into the first chapter so you probably didn't even meet no no I did Harry Bosch yeah oh yeah okay you read the black jacket obviously as well I will return to it I promise John Green came over and said it was good
Michael Conley doesn't need me to defend him he's written 50 bestsellers so I just thought you would have given it a little more time considering you had so much time clearly to read yeah alright anything you want to report from the two weeks oh it's too broad to even get into based on the fact that you have no residual memory of the weeks like we've nothing to go off here like so much has happened there was a lot happening the Kerry Donegal big flashpoint yeah McGuinness that pushing the player that was like four months ago
yeah that feels a long time gone there's been so much statements and Janet Burns and all that I don't want to talk about it again but that was big oh was it yeah Leinster got trashed in the Champions Cup final well I saw that that was Saturday I left on Sunday Champions League final I watched the Champions League final Arsenal I mean was that not the most Arsenal performance you know
But the New York Knicks, Joe. Oh, yeah. The Knicks have run on a heater. That's passed me by. Oh, I don't know how. It's like, well, again, it's perfectly clear now because you haven't opened Twitter in three weeks. But my whole social media is engulfed by Knicks content and I'm all for it. I think the algorithm has figured me out. And we might revisit that later in the episode.
There's an email in from Tio Shulavan. As a decade long listener of Joe's. I'm often sad when I hear he's heading off to sunny or climate. But I must say, everyone comes out of this email feeling good, by the way. I must say, I'm really enjoying all the standing presenters, the variety of topics. I, heretofore, knew nothing of the New York Knicks.
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