Add Some Personableness To Your Tweets

Just joined Tweeter. Don't ask me why.

The first thing I did was to add some personableness to my tweets. Via the medium of a photograph of myself. 

My first tweet, therefore, was to inform my fellow tweeters that I'd just added some (implies more to come?) personableness to my tweets. That's what you do on Tweeter. You tell people what you're doing.

I feel like I've made an assured, if unremarkable, start. Don't ask me why.

Danny Baker

"I'm knocked for a loop"

So began Danny Baker's remarkable tribute on Thursday to John Martyn (you can find it here). Baker had just been told the sad news before he went on air. He was audibly shaken and admitted that he felt like just going home.

He didn't have any John Martyn cd's with him so he sent someone down to HMV to get some. Whilst we waited he played some Nick Drake and told us how he didn't normally play John Martyn as his music was simply "too personal", "too good".

The entire show was given over to John Martyn, the man and his music. It was an extraordinarily moving two hour tribute. All the more so given that it was totally off the cuff.

Baker once again proved what a towering broadcaster (as opposed to a broadcasting tower) he is. You have to wonder why he's working for BBC Radio London, rather than one of the main BBC stations. He certainly should be. Possibly it's for precisely the same reasons that he rarely played any John Martyn on his radio shows. He's simply too good. 

Baker kept saying he "was knocked for a loop" (did he invent that phrase especially for the occasion?). He admired Martyn's indefatigable spirit. He'd never met him. Never wanted to. Never meet your heroes. He thought the man was unsinkable. He couldn't believe he'd been sunk. That one of the great immortals was dead. 

Go Easy

I phoned my neighbour, Niall, last night to see if he fancied pints. 

Standing in a bar drinking pints of black blood seemed like the thing to do on the day that John Martyn died. Unfortunately, Niall said yes so I was obliged to drag my white ass out into the rainy night at half past nine of the clock.

Later, before climbing fourpintishly into bed, I put on Bless The Weather, my favourite John Martyn album. As I lay listening to the opening track, the beautiful Go Easy (advice John never, ever heeded) , there may have been a manly sob and I coughed to cover it up. That's all I remember until morning.

I woke feeling bad. I climbed eightpintishly out of bed, thinking:

Guinness : what the fuck do they put in that shit?

John Martyn

I was just thinking the other day, 

I'd love to see John Martyn play live. 

He lives in Kilkenny, perhaps he plays around there.

Or rather he lived there. Very sadly, the great man passed away earlier today aged only 60.

I pretended that I thought I'd met him in a pub in Galway a few months ago. I wrote about it here. But it was only an impostor who did nothing to disabuse me. Or I him.

I did actually meet him in the Lake District nearly twenty years ago. We chatted for a while and he was erudite, urbane, pissed and had a distinct air of sadness about him. And I never saw anyone drink quite like that before or since. 

The last I saw of him that night he was heading to his hotel to get his guitar. He promised to come back and play us a few tunes. 

Of course, he never did. He was way too pissed. But, still, he didn't want to say no to us.

Hireling Traitors

I watched the Celtic v Dundee United game last night on BBC Scotland. It was only the League Cup but it was one of the most exciting games I've watched in a long time. The game itself was scoreless after extra time and Celtic won by the remarkable score of 11-10 on penalties.

The post match interview contained the usual cliche typically enlivened by the Celtic manager:

Chic Young : No team deserved to lose tonight did they?

Gordon Strachan : Agreed. Especially no us.

The game started on BBC1 but then had to switch to BBC2 to accommodate the English News. Then, during penalties, we were kicked off BBC2 to accommodate Newsnight. And, to make matters worse, on both occasions they didn't get the timing right so there was a period of about 30 seconds when the game was on neither channel. Many things can happen on football in 30 seconds. Especially during a penalty shootout!

My point is this. When unionism starts to impact my enjoyment of watching the famous Glasgow Celtic ... it's gone too fucking far!

Strange Game

I went out walking at lunchtime and, mercifully, no birds suddenly appeared every time I was near. But I saw something else strange.

There was a group of men, on a large green field, hitting a ball about with sticks. The field had rugby posts but the posts had football nets. They were picking the ball up, running with it and then hitting it into the air. It all looked most singular. I approached a spectator and asked him what this game was.

"Hoorlin", he replied.

"Hoorlin?", I asked. "How do you spell that?".

"H-U-R-L-I-N-G", he explained.

I told him I'd never heard of it and asked if it was a new sport. 

He told me that the game had been played for "over a hundred years in Ireland".

I assured him that I'd lived in that free state for nearly ten of those hundred years and that I'd certainly never heard of it.

He turned back to watch the game and I walked on. Thinking:

The Cheeky Bastard. Over a hundred years! He must think I just stepped off the boat!

Liam Neeson

If you let my daughter go now

That will be the end of it...

But if you don't I will find you

and I will kill you

These are the best lines from Neeson's new film Taken. They're the ones being used to promote the film. I suspect that these lines are the film.

Neeson says them like I wrote them above. He stresses the "will's" so you sure as shit know then that he means it. He will find you and he will kill you. No question about it.

However, if you were to just let her go now that's fine. He's not bothered. That will be the end of it. No questions asked.

I feel sorry for Neeson. Picasso would have been a shit painter if he'd had to work with material like that.

Animal Collective

Before listening to Merriweather Post Pavillion by Animal Collective leave all your pre-conceived notions of conventional enjoyment at the front desk. They'll give you a little tag with a number 'pon it.

Merriweather Post Pavillion. This name itself reminds me of my youth and faintly evokes the smell of wintergreen on cold winter mornings. The first time I heard this album I became disoriented and thought it actually was my youth come a knocking. Relieved, I realised that I'd been drinking heavily. 

I came to Animal Collective by way of, band member, Panda Bear whose 2007 album Person Pitch is a big favourite in my house so long as I'm the only one in it.

The two albums are similar in that they share a definite Beach Boys sound underpinned by a general discord and seeming cacophony that soon make them sound absolutely nothing like the Beach Boys. There's something very unsettling about this music. 

It reminds me of Richard Yates great book Revolutionary Road. The book of the film. On the face of it all is swell in suburbia as your beautiful young wife hands you the first martini of the day and kisses you gently on the mouth. But, even as she shoos the kids outside and asks you how your day was, you can feel the first little sulphuric, argumentative bubbles inexplicably rising. Nothing is ever quite as it seems. Read the book. You might enjoy it but it's certainly no fun at all.

Similarly, Merriweather Post Pavillion starts in the brightest of moods and you allow yourself to be swept along by the dreamiest of melodies only to be rudely awakened by a dozen competing alarm clocks jolting you into the first Monday of the year. It's a school day and you have a shocking hangover. 

Next, you're chilling out to a soothing, repetitive sound scape allowing yourself to believe that the chaos in your ears is organised and you're making sense of it all finally. But then the chaos moves on apace, mutates and you have to learn to stop worrying and love that now.

Merriweather Post Pavillion is a deeply complex, experimental but ultimately rewarding album. It's the red-headed step child of Revolutionary Road. 

You enter that place full of high hopes and energy.  You emerge tired, battered but relatively happy. What choice do you have?

Sand Pit

Cork man Ted Cunningham, who is sixty years of age, had 3 million pounds in the cupboard below his stairs.

Ted says he got the money from the sale of a sandpit. The guards disagree with his analysis. They think the money was from the Northern Bank robbery.

The trial is going on and both parties are holding fast to their stories.

Northern Bank or sandpit. It's a tricky one all right. 

Tourettes Syndrome

The air must have been blue yesterday when Tim Howard allowed Steven Gerard's shot to, seemingly, go through him. Howard, you see, is a Tourettes sufferer.

Not to make light of this serious (and not in the least bit hilarious) condition but my mate Charlie has been trying unsuccessfully to "get" Tourettes for years now. To help him cut down on his swearing.

Trick Photography

Whilst watching the Wizard of Oz last night with the kids the tin man blew steam out of his head. 

My daughter asked, "How does he do that?"

"He ... doesn't exist", I replied, helpfully.

My own Dad, always used to answer such questions with two words, "Trick Photography".

At least he was trying.

Toe Nails

Never cut your toe nails on a Sunday! It's bad luck.

God has lapsed all His other rules about Sunday. Back in the old days He didn't let you do anything except praise Him. But these days He be cool about work and shit.

Except cutting toe nails. That's still bad luck.

Non Sequitur

I [1] decided today [2], as a surprise for my kids [3], to cut the hedge in the shape of some lesser known Disney characters.

I had nothing to cut the hedge with so I went to the garden centre. I can never find anything in garden centres. So I said to the fourth assistant (didn't like the look of the first three) I saw:

"Secateurs"?

"Non sequiturs", the cheeky bastard replied.

I stormed out furiously. The hedge would have remain hedge-shaped.

[1] it was Peter Cook in actual fact.

[2] years ago, before he died.

[3] etc

Going Forward

Thankfully, most sensible people have stopped saying "going forward". It took a while for this irritating neologism to fall out of favour but I think we're nearly there.

People still want to say it. You can feel it coming as they babble bullshitishly but usually they can just about check themselves and say "in the future" instead.

Unfortunately, though, we now have everyone saying "in the future", unnecessarily, when it's patently obvious what the tense is.

The Killers

And I’m on my knees looking for the answer...

Get up knob'ead, you won't find it down there

Are we human or are we dancer?

Me, personally? Just the former. I believe some people are both.

Free biscuits

Going through the checkout at the supermarket today I noticed there was an open box of biscuits lying there. They looked like they were there to be eaten (rather than purchased).

I said to the lady, "Are these biscuits to be eaten?".

(meaning: by me, rather than purchased)

"Yes", she said. "Help yourself".

"Thanks", I said. "Any tea?".

I normally have tea with biscuits. On this occasion I didn't really expect tea. Biscuits were unusual at the checkout, tea would have been surreal.

She said, "We don't have any tea". 

I walked off eating my biscuit, tea-lessly. I think the problem is, I don't use emoticons in real life either.  

Haggip Story

In M&S at lunchtime for to buy some haggip. The boy McGenius, who wishes he was Scotch, came with me.

We both bought two and they were unbelievably cheap (€2.49) considering they contained both pig pancreas and lung.

Pig?

Yea, I know.

We couldn't go through the queue together. That would have been too weird. Genius went first and I let a woman through before me. She was a very nice woman. Here's five reasons why:

1. She put the "next customer" thing behind her stuff for me.
   
2. She, on a whim, bought some (tulip) bulbs.
   
3. She apologised to me for buying the bulbs on a whim (i.e. slowing down the queue).
   
4. She said to me "I couldn't resist them. They remind me of Spring". Nice, huh!
   
5. She didn't insist on getting the exact change from her purse to pay (i.e. slowing down the queue)

She was a big boned woman. One might even say "handsome", at a push. I looked at her and thought:

"Could my nascent idea that people are becoming nicer these days (i.e. with the 'credit crunch' an' all) actually be true?".

Before leaving, she said to me:

"Why don't you buy some bulbs to go with your haggis?".

I laughed loudly, my mind frantically searching for meaning in this unexpected non sequitur. 

Robert Burns

In anticipation of Burns' night on Sunday, I'm listening to Eddi Reader's towering versions of the great man's songs.

Whilst I work here on a tricky problem involving partial type indicators for inbound roaming I can simultaneously identify with the life, loves and struggle of a sixteenth century tenant farmer. It's a strange, but not entirely unpleasant, combination. There are more parallels than you might imagine.

Well not really but Burns words have an undeniable resonance and relevance to my country (from which I'm in exile [1]) even now. Especially now!

Time to get rid of this piece of shit phone, I'm thinking. It's just suggested gaggis and haggip before making me spell haggis. 

What a dope. WTF is a gaggis? 

[1] Well ... not really.

Hospital Chic

I decided to take the bandage off my face this morning. 

Frankly I didn't like what I saw. The wound was healing fine but, without the bandage, I felt my face looked a little ... under dressed.

I realised I'd come to like the "hospital chic" look. So I put a fresh one back on. Then I added a thin strip of medical tape above my left eye. It's a good look.

Now, calipers ...

Westward Ho!

I won't lie to you. I thoroughly enjoyed Nicholas Crane's Britannia series.

A long time ago, back in the Elizabethan times, Ireland was part of Britain. It wanted to be part of Spain but Britain said "No Way" and the nine years war settled the matter for a good few hundred more [1].

When the BBC heard this news they were jubilant. "We can include Ireland in a programme about Britain!", they cried. Of course they do this as a matter of course anyway but normally there's a bit of shoehorning going on [2].

Anyway, Crane retraced the journey taken by 16th-century author William Camden and last night he was in Ireland (or Éire as he called it [3]). He was on Inisheer hearing stories about faeries who look just like you and me. That's the worrying thing about these boys apparently. They don't even have the decency to look like faeries.

But back in those days the Irish didn't have any concept of heaven being up there and hell down there like we educated people do today. Apparently, back then, and don't laugh too much - they were only simple folks, they used to believe that when you died your soul followed the setting sun. You headed Westward. Can you imagine! What fantasy!

[1] This could all be wrong.

[2] I note with interest that Oz and James "Drink to Britain" series visits Dublin next week.

[3] This may have been a mistake as Éire has recently been adopted as a unionist term denoting "Fenian savages"

No Drop

I have a little woman in the village who I get to run up my trousers. She charges €6 per leg.

Often I don't particularly need it done but I like to give her the business anyway.

After she'd finished today she said to me, "These trousers won't drop properly".

I looked down at them. I had no idea what she meant. "I've no idea what you mean", I said.

"There's no drop", she replied, by way of clarification.

"Is that bad?", I asked. "Having no drop".

"It's depends", she told me.

I asked no more questions. She was clearly in one of her moods. Perhaps her husband, Jim, had gone off fell-walking again.

I'm now wearing trousers that apparently have no drop. But no drop of what?

Arctic Charr

On the day that I order a dozen Arctic Charr my freezer starts making an odd whirring noise.

The day I take delivery, the freezer packs in altogether. My plan to collect fish in the freezer is in tatters.

I act quickly, setting aside one Charr. I plan to cook it in a Marseilles L'Omble Chevalier sauce.

I pick up the remaining eleven and put them in my coat pockets. As I step out into the chill night, a million stars burn brightly above me. I take a fish from my overcoat and give it to the first neighbour. I repeat this ten more times. 

Each neighbour accepts their fish wordlessly and stares briefly into the glassy, dead eyes. Before closing the door leaving me alone once more in the night.

Michelle Gonzalez

Does anyone know Michelle Gonzalez? She looks lovely. She skyped me today, thusly.

Isn't that nice? "You seem interesting". I don't mind telling you I was quite flattered by her words.

But then I realised that it isn't actually as nice as it seems. It turns out she's one of those prostitutes who live on the intanet.

Damn shame. I always wanted to seem interesting. 

Blog tips

I started this blog in Sep of 2008 and for the first couple of months my traffic was really low - down in the few hundreds of visitors a day. It was pretty depressing I can tell you and there were times when I even thought about quitting. 

Fortunately, I decided to keep on posting but also to do my utmost to drive traffic to my site. I took a look around at what some of the successful blogs were doing and came up with ten tactics that helped to double my website traffic in a month.

1. Develop relationship with successful actors, especially Ned Beatty

2. Be cheeky about religion

3. Steal Marion Webster's word of the day and shoehorn into postings

4. Pretend to like classical music

5. Review music you've never so much as even heard

6. Steal Robin Cooper persona from Time Wasters Letters/Diaries

7. Talk about South Africa as if you were actually there

8. Effect magnetic relationship with animals à la Dr Doolittle

9. Speak to people in real life. They'll almost always say something stupid

10.Throw shoes at the American military

Using these simple techniques, I took my blog from a few hundred hits a day into the thousands in less than 30 days. I’m convinced that these actions I took at the early stages have helped me create a loyal and targeted readership that continues to benefit from my blog today.

No Fisting

I'm wearing a big bandage on the side of my nose as a result of the blasted plastics guy.

When I say big I really mean small. But it feels big and everyone comments on it. Opinion is divided more or less 50-50 as to what happened, between:

1. Bar room brawl
   
2. Struck by wife

Whilst pouring myself some coffee in the kitchen this morning an Italian guy looked at it closely and asked if I'd been struck by my wife. I replied in the negative and explained that I'd been attacked by a plastic surgeon. In a hospital of all places.

He say to me, "Ah, ok, so I no fist you today, eh!"

"No fisting today", I replied. "Thanks all the same though".

Stan Bollander

Watched the end of Homicide (Season 1) over the weekend.

When my wife left the room to reset the gráillings I took a couple of quick snaps of Stan the Man from the telly. 

She almost caught me though. I had just taken this picture when she walked back in. She looked at me strangely and said:

"The gráillings are reset. What were you doing there?"

I covered up brilliantly though. Despite the fact that I was reposing on the couch I managed to think on my feet and replied:

"Just checking something."

That seemed to satisfy her. "Did I miss anything?", she asked.

"Not much. Stan was just leaning over two dead bodies whilst simultaneously discussing the case with Munch. It was almost like the Big Man was in two places at once".

"He is unbelievable", she said.

Snooker Loopy

After a good dinner of John Dory (he'd had a good innings), sauteed potatoes, minted peas washed down with a rather fine bottle of Chablis I settled down to satisfy my audio visual requirements. I watched some tv. 

The snooker was on. It was reassuring in these days of reality-talent-DIY-cooking shows to see something so simple as a tv-shaped game of snooker on the telly. Everything looked the way it did twenty odd years ago when I used to watch it avidly. 

Ronnie O'Sullivan, the greatest player in the history of the game, was playing a blinder. He was virtually unplayable. There was no sign whatsoever of a celebrity panel voicing their opinion on proceedings. The winner was decided by who won the most frames and there was no ability for viewers to change the result by voting for their favourite. 

All very strange. Is it any wonder poor Ronnie is bored off his tits?

We're Irish

"Centra - For The Way We Live Today"

We being?

Thus began (and ended) the first post 'pon this very blog site. I'd named the blog site after the Centra slogan because the pure cheek of it bugged me and, worse, I couldn't get the bloody jingle out ma heid. Why I even bothered created a blog in the first place is an altogether more vexing question.

I'm getting annoyed at advertising again this week. It is indeed the devil's own work generally, that's clear, but sometimes it rises above it's own Satanic standards and does that little bit extra. 

Dunnes Store - "The difference is ... we're Irish"

Is that the only difference?

O'Briens Sandwich Bar - "We're 100% Irish"

What even all your Polish staff?

If in doubt, and in the absence of anything else to say, appeal to people's sense of nationalism. Times are tough, we need to stick together. Look after our own. In these financially straitened times the economic recession card would appear to be a good card to play. There's clearly big money it.

John Mortimer

John Mortimer, apparently, according to him, wanted Alistair Sim to play Rumpole of the Bailey.

But he was dead and couldn't take it on.

There's always an excuse, eh!

Beedle Bard

Putting the kids to bed you read:

"Delighted by the removal of this second obstacle, they hurried towards the summit as fast as they could, until at last they glimpsed the..."

Between pages you muse about the day. A bizarre 4-2 reverse up in the North East leaves you sick to the stomach if you dwell 'pon it. And it's Sunday. Must I go through this same shit again, week 'pon bloody life draining week?

"Daddy, turn the page.", she says.

You realise you've lost focus. Even though it's only J.K. Fucking Rowling you're obliged to make an effort. For the children ... the babies. So you continue:

"...fountain, glittering like crystal in a bower of flowers and trees". 

Your eyes close momentarily. The prose ... the prose it's ...  so ...  fucking ... turgid. How did she get away with it? You flick ahead to find the end of the chapter. Three more pages. It might as well be three hundred...

FOUR HANDS

He said "next up RACHMANINOV, SIX MORCEAU FOR PIANO (FOUR HANDS)" 

Then, by way of warning, added "DON'T TRY THIS AT HOME".

I was on my sixth bottle of Lowenbrau (can't do the accents) Oktoberfestbier, abv 6.1. A thing of inordinate beauty.

Believe me, I needed the warning. 

Lovely Vinegar!!!

My kids love vinegar.

I do too. When I was a kid I used to put it on crisps and sometimes I used to get a bit frenzied with vinegar. I'm still capable of vinegar frenzy today. Less said about that the better though.

But, when I was a lad, we didn't actually have vinegar. We could only afford non-brewed condiment. I'm not quite sure what this is and I doubt if you can even get it any more. 

If I had to stab a guess I'd say it was vinegar but without any appellation. So they weren't allowed to use the name of the vinegar region. In those days, though, we didn't know any better. We just got on with it.

Whore House

"This time", he said, "We won't scrape it", adding, "We'll cut it".

"We?", I replied.

As usual, he ignored me.

As he did so I screamed and shouted "FUCK!".

"Sorry", he said, adding, "Mind your language. You're not in a whorehouse now, son".

Next he said, "Can't you relax a bit, you're bleeding too much".

I told him it was rather uncomfortable.

"Good", he mused, adding "Just relax, and you'll bleed less. Good boy".

It only took about ten minutes but it felt like an hour. As I left I said goodbye to the women in the waiting room. They ignored me. Too busy watching tv. I looked up at the screen and wondered if mine eyes were deceiving me. They'd only put the bloody racing back on!

Horse Racing

In the waiting room they had the racing channel on. Horse racing.

I thought this was a bit strange but I didn't say anything. Instead, I watched the 2:35 from Uttoxeter which was won by the favourite Here's Johnny by a short head.

Then I picked up my paper and started to read it. What did I care if the racing channel was on? It was a odd, sure, this was a hospital and not a turf accountants. I looked around and there was myself and six older women waiting. Waiting and watching yesterday's racing from Uttoxeter.

I was reading my paper. I put the whole racing thing out of my mind and read about the war. I wasn't annoyed about the racing. Then I realised. I was annoyed that no-one else was annoyed. Why were these women not complaining about the racing being on? Frankly, it was simply inappropriate for a hospital waiting room.

I stood up. "Is anyone watching this racing?", I asked.

"No, switch it over, son", said the woman next to me.

"What do you want to watch?", I asked.

"Anything but bloody racing", she replied.

I found Sky News and looked around the room. Everyone looked at me approvingly thinking:

He must work here.

Then a nurse called my name. "The plastic surgeon is ready". She said.

In Bruges

Here are some well known strap lines from famous movies that I found on the fishin' net:

"The Fiery Cross of the Ku Klux Klan" - The Birth of a Nation 

"A Monster Science Created - But Could Not Destroy!" - Frankenstein 

"The strangest story ever conceived by man." - King Kong 

"Only the rainbow can duplicate its brilliance." - The Adventures of Robin Hood

(that one clearly needed work)

"From the Moment they met it was Murder!" - Double Indemnity 

But here's my favourite. A copy of this movie was left lying on the stairs in my house this morning. I stood on it, slipped and fell down the stairs. I picked up the dvd furiously, about to give it a piece of my mind. But then I saw the strap line and gave it a hug instead.

In Bruges - It's in Belgium.

Trap 1

A friend of mine was in trap 1. 

To embarrass him I asked, "Everything ok?". He wasn't embarrassed though. He replied, straining slightly, "Sure, fine. How's the family?".

The big eedgit had turned the tables on me. I told him the family were all fine and then went to leave.

"Over - the - jet lag?", he forced out, giving a slight yelp. 

"Yes, pretty much over the jet lag", I answered, already out the door and walking back to my desk.

Prefab Sprout

He was at it again.

He didn't say Mr Prefab Sprout. He said "some Sprouts of the Prefab variety". Honestly, what a dolt!

He played "The King of Rock'n'Roll" which sounded great. 

Last time I was back in Edinburgh I met an old mate who is a massive "Sprouts of the Prefab variety" fan. He's also a big football fan and there's nothing he enjoys more than combining his two loves. Thus, one day, in 1989, whilst excelling in a holding midfield role he also reviewed "The Sprouts" latest album "Protest Songs".

As he played a square ball having intercepted a forward pass he told me about the mordant wit that inter played throughout the album. As we went up for a corner, he on the six yard line me holding back to time my run, he eulogised over the extraordinary romanticism of certain songs which never spilled over into sentimentalism. 

He was a great player. A tanner ba' player as they used to be called. He just seemed to have so much time on the ball. I remember at one point, he beat 2 players with a brilliant turn, and whilst still in possession of the ball, he told me how much he admired the Gershwin-esque genius evident on the albums' penultimate track "Til The Cows Come Home". He then slipped the ball through the legs of a 3rd player before spraying a perfectly weighted ball beyond the opposing left back and into the path of the right winger, Roger Chesterton. Podge took one touch before crossing the ball perfectly onto the head of our star striker Walter Winterbottom. Wally couldn't miss.

But he did. He missed the ball completely. The idiot.

Standing Up

When someone comes over to your desk for a chat about something should you stand up?

It's a difficult one. 

On the face of it the answer must be No. It's not necessary. Just stay seated and let them stand. Why should you both suffer? Often they will perch themselves on the side of your desk (brushing important papers to one side) or, if there's a chair, they might take that. 

If they take the chair though, invariably the chairs' owner comes back and then they have to say "Ah, I was just keeping it warm for you" and when you think about it that's really not an altogether pleasant notion. Someone using their ass to warm something up for you.

It's a difficult one and no mistaking.

I put this quandary to someone today and she said standing is unnecessary. In fact she said that when she wants to get rid of someone she stands up. She learned about it on some time management course. If the visitor doesn't take the hint after that she will grab her cup and simply walk away. To get a cup of tea whether she wants one or not. A gross misuse of company resources one might argue.

Company Handbook, Section 15, article 5.1.4

Only drink tea if absolutely parched.

The worst thing about all this is that if your boss comes over to your desk you would probably stand up, wouldn't you? Admit it. If you didn't stand up there would certainly be a little voice in your head nagging "I should stand up, I should stand up...". 

If you submit to that little voice I would urge you to do it quickly. There's nothing more stupid than standing up half way through a conversation for no apparent reason.

Ma Kelly's

Ma Kelly runs a Shebeen in Limerick.

A Shebeen, if you don't know, is a house which is also a pub. The way Ma's works is like this. 

You pay to get in and it's not refundable. If you ask for your money back you get a doin'. 

You pay 30 euro if you're a light drinker and that gets you ten pints and some twiglets. There's a different package for the heavy drinker. You pay 50 euro at the door and this gets you 18 pints plus unfettered access to the fridge which is fully stocked with both cheese and pickles.

But Shebeen's are not legal even though there's actually no law against them as such. Since they're not pubs they're not covered by the "Intoxicating Liquors Act of 1968". 

However, at Limerick District Court yesterday, they did manage to dig up some old law or other and charge Ma's son Francis (pictured above at the Shebeen entrance) with running a Shebeen. (A charge he strenuously denies.)  But since they had to re-institute this old statute the only amount they could fine him in was in a currency that no longer exists. Punts. He was charged 50 punts which they converted using a computer into Euro. 61 Euro.

Young Francis was said to be so shocked by the sneakiness of this fine that he headed straight back to Ma's Shebeen for a couple of pints to calm his nerves. He's barred from every other pub in Limerick you see.

Only in Ireland.

Billy Jo-el

I always think a fail safe indicator of a bad DJ is if they introduce a record with:

Mist-er Billy Jo-el.

Especially if it's David Bowie or Jackie Wilson they play. 

But even if it is actually Mist-er Billy Jo-el why the Mister?

I think they're trying to play the deferential, "I am not worthy" card but it's just plain fawning and borderline creepy actually.

This one DJ, who I just got badly exposed to in the car there, actually did play Billy Jo-el and added the Mist-er. At the end of whichever uptempo fiasco it was, he said (and I kid you not):

"Mist-er Billy Jo-el, one of the finest storytellers of our time".

I was too stunned to reply to him. But he continued anyway. Here's what he said next:

"Perfect musical accompaniment for summer days painting the garage door".

Yup, that's what he said. Again, I had no reply. But he wasn't finished. He killed the debate stone-dead with the virtually sectionable:

"For back in the days when we had the weather anyway".

This time I was ready for him.

"I'm no meteorologist", I informed him, "but I believe we do still have the weather".

Clever eh! That shut him up and he went straight to the traffic.

Plug In's

You need to download the Last FM plug-in for Skype. But that's not all. 

Next you need the Last FM plug-in for WMP. Or whatever player you're using. Finally, enable the plug-in's in Skype and WMP, respectively.

So, now, as long as the plug-in's are running (constantly, forever ... watching you) on your computer you're good to go. Hurrah!

Go where?

I'm glad you asked. 

By following the above manifest tasks you can allow - and wait for it! - you can allow your contacts to see what music you are currently listening to via the medium of your mood bubble[1]. You can hear it but they can see it![2]

Why you would want to do this is a difficult question and certainly one for greater minds than my own. Perhaps a university study could be done on the subject.

Oh yes, one small drawback to mention. It doesn't work.

[1] wonder how long until your mood bubble can actually gauge your mood.

[2] one of my contacts was listening to Bill Evans so I immediately knew he was in a mood to be seen listening to jazz.

Peggy Lee

I remember when I was a little girl our house caught on fire.

Sorry I mean when I was a little boy. No I don't. I'm not talking about me. I'm talking about Peggy Lee.

Peggy says, Is that all there is? She watched the entire world go up in flames and wondered:

Is that all there is? To a fire.

When I was 12 my Daddy took me to the circus. 

I mean Peggy's Daddy did. It was very exciting but afterwards she wondered:

Is that all there is? To a circus?

Then she fell in love with the most wonderful boy in the world. She loved him so much she thought she would die. But she didn't. And when she didn't she wondered.:

Is that all there is? To love.

The song, for this is a song I'm blogging about, ends, as so many things do, with her death. Peggy looks back on her show business life, in which her incredible talent was, if anything, enhanced by her lack of vocal range resulting in a laid back, sexy, laconic, iconic style, and wonders: 

Is that all there is? To life.

If that's all there is, my friends, then lets keep dancing. Let's break out the booze and have a ball.

What a tremendous idea, Peggy. It's Tuesday 13 January and the Israel/Palestine war is 17 days old today. Let's break out the booze and listen to this existential masterpiece. I'll prolly skip the dancing though. 

Archery Lesson

I have a friend [1] who is forever using the term 'soi-disant'. No in real life, obviously.

I always thought this was a fancy [2] way of saying 'so-called' but apparently it's not. It's a fancy way of saying 'self-styled'. I now know this because I cheated and looked it up.

Anyway, using French terms is hopelessly arch. Unless you're actually speaking French of course.

But nothing ... nothing is quite as arch as using the word 'arch'.

[1] it's Andy.

[2] By fancy I mean French

Modern World

Apparently Ronnie O'Sullivan thinks snooker is too boring. 

He suggests that it needs "someone who's more up to date in the modern world" and "a bit more dynamic" to run the game.

He might be right. But then, by way of a suggestion, he says two words. Simon. And Cowell.

Can you believe it!!! 

Is that fatuous fuckwit Simon Cowell dynamic and up to date with the modern world?

[thinks] 

Yes of course he is. None more so, in fact.

Well fuck the modern world. The modern world is rubbish.

Deliriously Happy

Already this year, on several occasions, I've thought:

Oh Lord, I can't do this thing again. Not for another year.

I don't mean any of the big things like kids, wife, job, real ale, jazz. I'm deliriously happy with all that stuff.

Yes, deliriously so.

It's the little things. The nugacious little distractions that can't help but repeat themselves. The little devils in the detail.

But I can't tell you what they are. It's probably your fault.

Prince Harry

Look here now! 

He was talking about insurgent Iraqi's and the Taliban. And terrorists in general.

Don't you know about these things?

The terms 'raghead' and 'paki' don't mean Arab and Pakistani. There's a war on terror going on in case you hadn't noticed. During wars on terror language evolves faster.

For crying out loud, this is the third in line to the British and Irish throne. Do you think he'd be using language like this if it wasn't strictly necessary? 

Single Parents

Single parents, I suppose, just get on with it. Whatever needs doing they just do it.  

They themselves personally.

When the latest crisis arrives they don't look around thinking:

Must I do everything in this house!

They might do that once or twice but would soon be disabused.

Anne Frank

Really enjoyed the BBC adaption of this. Tried to watch it a few times with the eldest dotter but the adult themes proved a bit too much for me so I let her watch it alone.

The kids were out last night playing with the traffic so I watched it with my wife. It was very moving and I'm not ashamed to say I shed some manly tears. Not for the first time in this fledgling year. J was positively blubbing however and I was obliged to give her a small cuddle. At 7:30 in the evening. What next?

Utterly failing to comprehend the dire circumstances her people find themselves in, Anne asked, "Why does everyone hate us?".

It was a very hard question to answer 60 odd years ago but perhaps less so these days.

Scotland's Shame

Been listening to Mogwai's latest album this afternoon. It's called The Hawk Is Howling and it's very good.

It has some great song titles as well. Like:

I'm Jim Morrison, I'm Dead

The Suns Smells Too Loud

I Love You, I'm Going To Blow You Up.

Scotland's Shame.

These are all beautiful, melodic soundscapes that showcase the band at their very peak. And the song titles are not plucked out of thin air. Each is actually about that, if you know what I mean.

The first track is really about Jim Morrison introducing himself from the grave. The sun really does smell far too loud and so on. 

Scotland's Shame is an update on the Robert Burns' poem A Parcel of Rogues:

O, would, or I had seen the day

That Treason thus could sell us,

My old grey head had lain in clay

With Bruce and loyal Wallace!

But pith and power, till my last hour

I will make this declaration :-

'We are bought and sold for English gold'-

Such a parcel of rogues in a nation!

The unionist demagoguery daily spouted by Gordon Brown and his Darling Alistair are laid to waste on this stunning instrumental track which is, to quote Pierre Hidalgo, "a polite reminder of the limitations of language".

Cold Turkey

This morning, my three year old dotter, was very tired. She said to me:

(can't do the accent)

"I'm tired. I wish it was bed time".

I think this every morning. I love my bed and I spend the entire day longing to climb into it. Sleep is a great thing. It's just the vast hinterland in between that I struggle a bit with.

But this is the first time she has expressed this sentiment. Youngsters should bound out of bed with an absolute lust for life and immediately wake up their parents. This is what she normally does.

I fear we may be to blame. During our trip to Seattle she developed something of a coffee habit. It's not entirely our fault. It's not exactly mandatory for kids to drink coffee over there but it's certainly frowned upon socially. If you're walking about the streets and your kids are not carrying a 'baby- cino' cup people look at you funny. We didn't want her to feel like an outsider.

But back here in Ireland it's illegal for kids to drink coffee. So she's gone cold turkey. It's a harsh lesson but I think she'll benefit from it.

Father Peyton

"The family that prays together stays together"

No matter what problems you face as a family - financial hardship, spousal abuse, incest - they can be resolved by the power of prayer.

This was the message of Father Patrick Peyton who would today have celebrated the 100th anniversary of his birth. Had he not died 18 years ago.

Father Peyton not only preached this message, he lived it. As a young man he cured his own TB simply though the power of prayer. He offered to dedicate his life to Our Lady if she would cure him. He promised to cure others in return. 

Even in those days his power of prayer was way ahead of medical science. Since then the power of prayer has, of course, become even more sophisticated and can be used for treating many other forms of illness and social rectitude. Medical science has largely remained in hubris.

After surviving TB, Father Peyton went on to perform 3 major miracles. In Argentina, Peru and Bolivia. He travelled extensively throughout South America praying to millions in Spanish, a language he did not even speak, curing thousands of diseases, some of which were unknown to medical science and have never again presented themselves. An extraordinary man indeed. 

So, why may we ask is this great man merely a "Servant of God". Why has he not been canonised and classified as the Saint he truly is. Well apparently the process has begun. There's a lot of paperwork involved and the Pope may even need more proof.

More proof! Can you believe it? How much fucking proof do they need?

Humming Birds

"Why do birds suddenly appear"

"Every time you are near" [1]

I went out for a short constitutional at lunch and was singing this song. But I wasn't just idly singing it. Birds were actually appearing every time I was near. Little hummingbirds fluttering about my ankles and neck.

What were they doing? 

If you asked me what it was like and I was only allowed to describe it as either pleasant or unsettling. I would go for the former. I mean the latter.

[1] Strange song. If I was going out with someone and they made birds suddenly appear I would find someone else to go out with quickly.

Human Shield

The debate always go like this.

How can you justify bombing civilian areas, indiscriminately killing women and children?

We are bombing strategic targets. Hamas are using women and children as human shields.

How can you justify using women and children as human shields?

We are not. This was a school. They have killed 50 people.

I don't want to hear another debate like this. It's pointless. We had the same debate during the Lebanese crisis in 2007. It goes on and on and you can see both sides and you know both are lying and telling the truth. 

Here's the thing. If Hamas are using women and children as human shields then the Israeli's should not be bombing them.

I hope this has clarified the issue. Any other questions don't hesitate to call.

Value Chain

On the radio this morning a union rep was discussing the impending job losses at Dell in Limerick.

He said, "bla bla bla bla ... value chain going forward". 

He finished with "bla bla bla bla ... this is a very sad day indeed for Limerick".

When the unions are starting to sound like management mouthpieces you can't help but agree.

Radiohead, Jazz?

I was on the phone today with my good friend Bob who is known round these parts, inexplicably, as ageing hipster. We were discussing jazz and I made the following remark to him which I can transcribe exactly as I was using my Dic-ta-phone.

Jazz is a broad church. Peggy Lee, Frank Sinatra, Julie London et al (are) certainly a form of jazz. Benny Goodman, Count Basie, Duke Ellington another (form of jazz). Cannnonball Adderley, Ornette Coleman even Radiohead another (form of jazz) and another (form of jazz) and another (form of jazz).

If you'll allow me, jazz in it's purest form is the American take on classical music. No album defines the genre better than Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue which could be taken as either classical or jazz. Or neither. In fact it would be more accurately described as American Classical Music.

I honestly felt that I'd added value to our conversation but he replied most violently as follows:

Radiohead? Fuck off.

This'll be going into your blog, won't it.

I assured him that this was a private conversation between gentlemen and that it certainly wouldn't be going into my blog. That seemed to calm him down a bit.

Some people, eh...

Master Chef

The question is this. Can I take another series of Masterchef?

On the face of it the answer must be a resounding no with both the en and the oh capitalised. NO.

It's utterly unbearable. It's one thing listening to Torode and Wallace repeating the same old schtick. I can just about put up with that for the comedy value.

The biggest problem is the contestants who ludicrously seem to place success on Masterchef above all other aspects of life on earth. Or indeed any other planet. 

It's always about their "journey". This seems very important to them. I don't know how this works but I'm willing to bet that the BBC fully reimburse them for their travel expenses. So I do wish they would stop banging on about the flippin' journey and just get on with cooking.

"This is the most important thing in my life", is another common refrain. Often this will come from a single mother struggling to bring up her young children. She deeply cares about using locally sourced fresh ingredients. Flavour is very important to her but she realises she needs to work on her presentation and finesse. These are the most important things in her life. 

Er, aren't you forgetting something here? To borrow from Marvin Gaye:

What about the babies? Who will love the children?

And busty Dawn from Wales certainly set my pulse racing last night. Three times she groaned "I really want it" and you believed her. I don't suppose "getting it" should present a significant problem for her but I have to say that she might be better served concentrating on her woeful culinary skills.

So, when I say NO I actually mean YES. For all of the above reasons and many others, I will indeed be watching another series of Masterchef. In a funny sort of way I love it precisely because I hate it. 

The Economist

People in Seattle are very law abiding.

If you need to find the nearest Dunkin Donuts ask a police officer.

If you need a breakdown of city laws then simply mooch into your nearest Starbucks and ask the first person you find.

The police have a very easy job in Seattle because, largely, the city is self policing. If you were being unkind you might describe Washington as a Nanny State.

For example, in Starbucks, I noticed that a December issue of The Economist was still there. The copy was marked "Property of Starbucks" and there was a sign saying "Magazines and papers for Starbucks customers. Please do not remove". 

And nobody had. And thus, as I sipped my final latte in Starbucks on Sunday morning, I was able to flick through an interesting article on oysters. I had absolutely no need to involve the police although a doughnut would have been nice.

A few hours later in the departure lounge, flicking through the December issue of The Economist, thinking:

What a wonderful city Seattle is. But I can't wait to get home.

Dog Handlers

This is the back of a van that I took a picture of on the way to get coffee.

I wasn't carrying any coffee and felt conspicuous. People were staring and pointing. I had to get to the coffee shop quickly but I took the picture anyway.

I'm not sure what to say about it. They say a picture paints a thousand words and I think this one paints even more than that. Maybe about one thousand and thirty words are painted by this picture.

At first I thought this picture was painting words for the dogs. It's a dog handlers van and I imagined that the message "You are not forgotten" was for the dogs. To tell them that all was not lost. They would be handled soon. 

But then I realised that this was a stupid idea. Dogs can't read and they know this in America.

The message is not for the dogs. It's for the vets, of course!

Cardboard Rocket

I saw this cardboard box on sale in a shop. It's a space rocket.

I asked the nice lady, "Do you think this will be the final reduction on the cardboard box?"

She replied to me in the form of another question which was "The space rocket?".

I answered her like this. "The cardboard box, yes".

She told me that there was already a $30 reduction.

I told her that I thought $59 was a very good price but I doubted whether they'd let me on the plane with a space rocket. Even if it was a cardboard box.

Lakeview Terrace

The clear air turbulence over the Denmark Strait towards Iceland yesterday was as nothing by comparison to this gripping, harrowing but ultimately silly movie.

I found the film deeply disturbing but I was more than usually deeply disturbed in any case. Other factors contributing to my deep sense of disturbment were:

• sleep (lack of)
  
• altitude (very high)
  
• guilt (I was ignoring the kids)
  
• pink pen (missing) 
  
• Greenland (in general)

This was my third movie of the night.

The first one was The Clearing which had Robert Redford, Helen Mirren and Willem Defoe in it. It tried to be an edgy European-style psychological thriller but failed dismally and wasted an hour and half of my valuable kids' sleeping time. I ended up wondering, not for the first time, if there were many worse actors than Robert Redford. There can only be a few hundred max.

Next, I watched Raising Arizona for perhaps only the third time and thoroughly enjoyed it combining it, as I did, with colouring, drawing, puzzles and post-prandial brandies.

The last movie was Appaloosa which I watched over Ireland on the way to France to catch a connecting flight back to Ireland. Crazy but such is the burden we bear. Appaloosa is pretty much a meat'n'potatoes western although it did have some funny moments and the relationship between Ed Harris who directs and stars as Sheriff Virgil Cole and his floosey girlfiend played by Renée Zellweger is strange and unpredictable to say the least. The star of the film though is Viggo Mortensen who steals the show with his cool, sophisticated portayal of Cole's deputy, Everett Hitch. The baddie, Bragg, is played supremely unconvincingly by Jeremy Irons. Baddies are suppose to be many things but hammy effete thesp's is most assuredly not one of them. They would have been as well giving the role to Pierce Brosnan and sticking Irons into the ludicrous Mamma Mia. If they'd wanted to.

Welcome back to me!

Talk Talk

You can talk and talk. And talk and talk.

(If you want...)

You can put the world to rights and (rarely) find an unexpected hidden truth or a drink sodden mot juste.

All you do is Talk Talk.

Hint
It's not hidden!

Conversation between real people is a fickle mistress to be absolutely sure.

Here's the thing...

You'd be just as well watching "The King And I" and be together that way. A quiet, beautiful companionship.

I'm saying. Don't talk so much.