Everything Else

“LET ME VENT SOME OF MY FRUSTRATIONS WITH THIS FUCKING DR PHIL AND OPRAH

I’M WORKING, BUSTING MY ASS TO MAKE A LIVING THAT NO ONE HAS EVER GIVEN ME A DIME I HAVEN’T EARNED ( I’M A WHITE MALE BUSINESS OWNER) AND I GO HOME AFTER A HARD DAY AND IMMEDIATLEY HIT WITH WHAT OPRAH AND DR PHIL HAVE SAID

I DONT GIVE A DAMN WHAT SHE HAS BEEN MULLING OVER ALL DAY SINCE SHE HEARD IT ON OPRAH.

WHY DON’T THE TALK RADIO CHANNELS GIVE US A PREVIEW OF WHAT DR PHIL SAID SO WE KNOW WHAT KIND OF SHIT WE ARE GOING TO GET WHEN WE HIT THE DOOR????

IF I KNEW WHAT THE TOPIC WAS….I COULD TURN THE PICKUP AROUND AND HEAD FOR THE NEAREST BAR.

THANKS

– WAYNE SIEGERT, Thursday, February 7, 2002″

1. Transport: Good for short trips, can also be intensely depressing, but it’s a bland depression. I mean, when I travel on the tube and think, as one inevitably does: “humanity shouldn’t live like this” or “this is a grim post millennial existence” I chastise myself. Thinking this on the tube is like thinking “I am getting wet” in the rain. These are the moments that spawned a million awful articles, albums, and ideas. The blandest resistance imaginable. Plus the tube is convenient!
2. Food: Supermarkets are cheaper than Dublin, crap sausages though. Marks and Spencers is pleasantly everywhere, things like sandwiches and lunches are about a third of Dublin prices here.
3. Multicultural cities: I trained for my job with a group from very different backgrounds. It might paint a falsely backward picture of Ireland to say that I’ve very rarely spent time with people from other religious or racial backgrounds, but it’s true. I suspect it’s true for many Irish people. What’s interesting is after discussing this at a really big training event one guy, a Londoner with Indian parents turned to me and said “don’t think you’re not a minority too, you’re the fucking Paddy!”That felt very odd as I’d kind of self identified as being exactly the same as the English people, but of course I’m not, in whatever sense race matters or differentiates.
4. Work: I’ve never done a job before where I worked this hard, I am completely shattered already.
5. Alcohol: 3 weeks in a hotel means you drink so much that you then have to swear to go off booze for a month.
6. Dublin: I am missing it already! Not the places by any means, but the comfort zone I had there, my friends and family and the ease of not really doing anything with my life that mattered.
7. Bertie Ahern: The first person I thought of when I read this was my mother, who absolutely fucking hates Bertie. I mean just point blank despises him to the point where other members of the family would say “He seems a good guy really” just to wind her up. My mum is staunchly Fine Gael and she thinks of Fianna Fáil in the same partisan way a football fan might hate their local rivals. So when I heard Bertie was set to go I was more interested in what my mum had to say than Gerry Adams, Tony Blair and the rest. Her take: “I’m so pleased!”
8. Uniqlo: I love this shop, it surely will be in Ireland soon.

That’s all for now, hopefully I’m back on the blogging train now, but it’s never easy to be sure at the moment!

What the hell has happened to the Nitelink?

It is so boring and menacing and devoid of fun these days that I might even consider sitting downstairs on future trips. That’s right, downstairs, where everyone has seemingly had a lobotomy!I must warn Dublin Bus: if the grand old lady of nocturnal transport gets any worse there are simple puns on the word “Nitelink” just waiting to be given their chance!

Back in olden times, say 2001 or 2002, the Nitelink was a magical place. You’d pay your few shillings, grinning from ear to ear as you marched up the stairs. Invariably it would be full of delightful Irish rogues, drinking, joking, and singing traditional Oasis songs. Every journey was like going on a journey. You never knew what kind of character you’d meet. Take this lad here, a genuine blues musician from the 1800s. Or this guy, who randomly abuses an innocent passenger. Salt of the earth.

Nowadays though, things are different. You trudge onto the Nitelink, making sure your headphones are blocking out all external sound. You know in your heart that “banter” no longer comes with the 4 euro ticket fee. People eat sandwiches and burgers and other crap, and they smoke like chimneys. Sharp faces reflect each other like knives. If you open a window to breathe an instant “CLOIZDA” rises up from behind you. So, thinking “what would Gandhi do?”, you pretend not to hear until your verbal assailant gets up and closes it themselves. At least I made them get up, you say to yourself passive aggressively.

The problem is clear. Nobody on the Nitelink is on drugs anymore! Could this be a time thing? I haven’t got the 4.30 Nitelink in ages. Is that one more fun? I mean, I can remember the days when you would sit upstairs on the Nitelink precisely because it was a laugh. Either I’ve changed or it has. Or maybe both.

What are we going to do about this? Traditional Irish heritage has been thrown in the bin. Caitlín Ní Houlihán has been mauled and left for dead by the rabid cubs of the Celtic Tiger. Now it seems the greatest institution of all, the Nitelink, is little more than a Quintuple Cinnamon Brie Skimmed Latté on wheels. It’s enough to make you want to vomit.

Except you’d probably be kicked off.

(Photo above from here)

From the Limerick Leader: “Audience walk-out at ‘offensive’ rapper”

MCs ‘Nailerz’ and ‘Pobs’ did their best to shock the audience. A particularly menacing looking Nailerz lyrically documented several feud-related incidents that have taken place in Limerick, as well as documenting his own brushes with the law and reserved much of his vitriol for crime journalist Paul Williams who he claimed “put a picture of my three-month-old daughter into his book”. Naillerz subsequently claimed that he is to sue Mr Williams.

This is a weird subculture isn’t it? Nailerz (above) is affiliated with Stab City Records, who have a host of Limerick accented rap tunes on their Bebo page. I don’t even know what to say about this except that it makes you realise the value of offensive rap music where the people are skilled at rapping. When people condemn rap music they often act like the songs are not music at all, but gigantic stark signs that read “I hate women”, or “Fuck the police”.

I can sort of understand that viewpoint since if the music doesn’t move you that’s how it may seem, a worthless exercise in hatred. I like plenty of rap music that people might dismiss for this reason. But that is a bit how I feel listening to these Irish rappers. It’s two dimensional, there isn’t really any personality to the tracks, just anger and swearing. The point seems to be anger and swearing more than music.

On the other hand, I think that if these guys are spending time making music they probably aren’t all that bad. Plus it goes without saying that this Irish rap is frequently hilarious too. I mean, beyond the analysis it’s just bizarre hearing a thick Limerick accent rapping over beats. “Stephen Carey…used to drink a flagon with him every Sahirday night”.

Ultimately I don’t know if they’re lying about their violent exploits, but either way I wonder if myself or anyone reading this blog has anything in common with these guys and girls. I mean, isn’t there just some gigantic divide here that you can’t comprehend?

Here’s the only video I could find:

Avery: Former Liverpool player Jamie Redknapp believes the club will not win the title under Rafa Benitez because of his rotation system. (The Guardian)
Avery: good analysis by redknapp
Ronan: yeah saw that. negative for Redknapp. He wants Kevin Keegan in no doubt
Avery: Former Liverpool player Jamie Redknapp believes Derby County will go down this year because they have an appalling defence. (Various)
Avery: Former Liverpool player Jamie Redknapp believes he is dashingly good looking (News of the World)
Ronan:Former Liverpool player Jamie Redknapp believes there is a real danger of recession (Financial Times)
Ronan: Former Liverpool player Jamie Redknapp says he is not convinced Osama Bin Laden will ever be brought to justice (Time)
Ronan: Former Liverpool player Jamie Redknapp admits many men leave the toilet seat up (U Magazine)
Avery: Former Liverpool player Jamie Redknapp believes that the UK could indeed incorporate aspects of Sharia Law into its “unwritten” constitution (Daily Mail).
Ronan:haha
Ronan: Former Liverpool player Jamie Redknapp has backed Barack Obama in the race for the Democratic Party’s US Presidential nomination (New York Times)

“I’m expecting a nice ROUND NUMBER of cards this year”. As you say “round” be sure and emphasize it’s “zero” you mean. People will literally die laughing!

I haven’t had cause to use this for 3 years, so it’s definitely hilarious again. Actually though maybe it’s funnier when repeated drily year after year, if not worth the sacrifice.

Flicking through Myspace, somebody’s bulletin is entitled “For The Ladies”. I know.

It’s 2008. Is there any acceptable non-ironic context in which this phrase can be used? I mean, without being preceded by “there was a long queue” or followed by something else.

I think the answer is a resounding “no”.

Setting - Scottish Borderlands, Chevron Hills, 1379 — Beginning with a descriptive prologue the reader will at once see that Lady Maude Darnley has reason to have acquired her reputation as being cold, difficult, and despising the male species. Fergus, the healer who found and nursed her physical body back to life, now seven years later, lay dying and disturbed with the knowledge that he hadn’t completed the healing. Fergus knew he had no choice but to send his apprentice, the minstrel Ronan Fitzgerald to complete the task he’d left undone and without telling him exactly what he had to heal after having sworn an oath to Lady Maude’s father that he would never reveal to another living soul that Maude had been violated.

Ronan Fitzgerald had been a traveling minstrel, with a gift for healing, and promised Fergus that he would go to Lord Darnley and do what was asked of him. His introduction to Lady Maude was less than auspicious as with her cutting tongue she did her best to drive him away. Ronan saw beyond the rapier sharp tongue and having an innate sense that made him such a good healer, he saw beneath the bravado and recognized her terror by listening, really listening to the music he heard her play. As he came to care deeply for her, and with the clans ready to annihilate one another at the least provocation, Ronan would have to reach her before her terror would drive her completely over the edge and her father calling an all-out war against the Kirallen’s.

THE LINNET is a powerful story of bitter rage and survival. Maude who was depicted in the previous novels (BORDER BRIDE and LAIRD OF THE MIST) as cold and self-centered, in this last of the trilogy is fully exposed and dissected. Ronan, the wandering minstrel, whose loyalties were with the Kirallen’s is forced by his oath to Fergus to go to the Darnley’s where he happily discovered that there is more to the Lady Maude than most people knew. Intrigued, even though at first attracted by her beauty, he fell in love with her strength and bravery and prays that what skill he has can show her the way to love and trust.

While the author does an admirable job with the characterizations and motivations in this book I, didn’t find as much action and adventure in this as the first two novels. What I thought might prove to be a key suspense and motivational factor of a proposed betrothal between Maude and a neighboring laird, it was never developed and just lay there. However, the love story with Ronan was lovely, as Maude learned to trust again, but unlike the first two novels of this series, it does not rate a WOW but simply a good read.

I’m scared too.

One of my earliest memories as a child is seeing somebody on daytime TV talk about migraines. I assumed they were basically worse than cancer because the woman in question had done these psychedelic paintings to symbolise how she felt, with big wavy lines coming from her artily embellished head. They were horrific.

It was enough to make 4 year old me hurriedly ask my mother if there was a risk of me ever getting migraines, in the first “why do good things happen to bad people” realisation of my life.

“No” she said. “Definitely not”.

20 years later I know that she lied to protect me (probably the right course of action in fairness.) I also now know that the average human being is NOT inspired to psychedelic artistic feats by migraines either (what a weirdo that person was!) Instead I just want to sit here with my freezing feet and hands and bore my brain out with a sharp needle.

I have done absolutely zero today (except watch that Lost trailer a few times)

1. Barack Obama supports West Ham. (Can’t believe they didn’t rhyme “Obama” with “Hammer”. You’re slipping “The Sun”. But the above photo captioned “political football” does restore my faith/cynicism)
2. Fell asleep on DART, woke up in Sandymount, had a lie in till Sydney Parade, crossed the platform, went back North, just about woke up in time to get off at the correct stop.
3. Watched a crappy quality version of “Cloverfield” for the second time. Although it doesn’t merit a lengthy review I enjoyed it in a sort of “70 minutes of excitement” way. I’m a big “Lost” fan and it certainly manages to tease you with “what the monster looks like” for long enough. You do get a good look at it in a majestic scene at the end though (hope my saying that doesn’t constitute a spoiler.) Well, I say majestic but many are bound to find it an anti-climax. If you’re really curious just Google around and I’m sure you can find the scene. I saw it before watching the film (why does JJ Abrams make me turn into a massive TV/movie geek when I barely pay attention to either medium from one end of the year to the other?) I warn you though, the clip looks pretty shit and makes no sense when isolated from the movie.
4. “Balloons Not To Blame”-Sven-Goran Ericsson
5. Monosodium Glutamate-Still the best hangover cure.
6. I need to start using ear plugs when I go out or DJ, had some nice bells ringing as I read last night.
7. In Former Communist Russia, Cancer Kills You
8. Holocaust Memorial Day yesterday, some interesting stuff here, and a book you should read if you haven’t here.
9. I actually wish I was working a regular job rather than waiting for one to start right now. I am so unbelievably bored.