Silly Billy

Moving to China

2009-01-10T12:05:00.008Z

Well, well, well. When I was struggling in a second round interview for a Communications Executive post at IDA Ireland last Autumn, little did I know my escape from the Year Six torpor of RTÉ.ie would come from the Far East! (And given the jobs agency's negative performance in 2008, I really dodged a bullet there.)

Myself and my darling Megan are decamping to Guangzhou, China's third largest city with an official population of more than 9m, in a little over a month's time. I'm starting to get really excited about it now.

We will be teaching Oral English to students at Guangdong University of Foreign Studies, thought to be one of the most prestigious in southern China. Our future employers are giving us a rent-free furnished two-bedroom apartment on campus and on the metro, and it looks like we'll be required to teach for a mere 14 hours a week. [Gar's average day in other words]

In the sub-tropical climes of the Pearl River Delta, we'll be treated to everyday temperatures in the 20s and 30s as well as a relative salary fit for a king. Teacher holidays, a day off for St Patrick's Day, two hours by boat from Hong Kong - need I go on?

So I've been taking great pleasure in dismantling the appendages of my young professional life in Dublin - potential buyer for car secured, book and clothing bonanza for charity in Africa, direct debits directly cut off. Everything that won't fit in 30kg of baggage's got to go. As an aside, I would recommend to anyone to get rid of half their clothes - I still have everything I wear and my wardrobe's now a model of organisation and accessibility.

One other thing that takes up no space whatsoever but is also not coming to China is Silly Billy - as far as I can make out, you can't view any Blogspot pages over there.

Fear not dear readers, myself and Megan are starting up a new one on Travellers Point - check back there or get the link under 'Things To See & Read' in the left-hand menu. It's called '2across: Bill & Megan in the Middle Kingdom'.

Furthermore, you can also keep up with this young Dubliner's thoughts and musings on the other side of the blogosphere at Silly Billy's new home. Goodbye recession, hello sunshine.

Jilted at jury duty

2008-12-02T15:43:00.014Z

First things first, it's definitely a handy number schedule-wise. State-guaranteed time off work, 9.45am start at central location. 15-minute welcoming speech and roll call from the registrar to start - 500 names, all Sweeneys and Murphys, with one Asian-looking teenager that was probably born in the same hospital as me the depressing sum total of any apparent diversity in the proceedings.

Then straight away a 45-minute break before the judge arrives at 11am. Americanos €2.30, unbranded but probably Lavazza, at the 'public restaurant' one floor down from the 'barristers only' café. Day's proceedings slated to finish at about midday.

And so it proved. But they tell you to clear the whole week, when in fact all the juries are decided in one go on a Monday, at least in my recent case. Nonetheless I did get the rest of the day off, which is not part of the official deal.

It was nearly dramatically different, as I was picked to go on the jury for a major three-week trial. From a packed gallery in the court, it was hard to hear and even harder to discern what you were supposed to do. Myself and a lady trooped downstairs and out the door to get back in on the ground floor and rushed through the court to approach the area next to the jury box. The registrar then recaps all the names he's just read and then you approach the box in that order - all of which basically takes place without explanation.

Then on cue you take the steps up to the jury box proper, and swear an oath on the Bible that you will be a faithful juror dot dot dot. Except in my case, I got two steps up to the box with a big red nervous face on before a lawyer across from me says 'Challenge on behalf of xx'. 'You've been challenged, you can go back for the moment,' says the registrar semi-helpfully. And that was the end of that.

At least in theory, for I was on the move back to the gallery and didn't see it, your name card goes back in the box and you can be picked again for any other case they're filling that day or the rest of the week. So you can't even go to the toilet in case you miss your name. As it happened there was only one more jury and I wasn't picked, and we were all free to go at about 12.10pm, more or less bang on time. I'm now clear for at least two years before I can be called again.

As for my challenge, well each party to the trial gets seven of them and they don't have to state a reason. All they've got is your name and occupation (not even the address as I understand it), and about five seconds to get a look at your personal appearance before your hand's on the Bible and it's too late.

One theory is that if you look like the accused or the victim you'll be challenged - after seeing a grainy photo of the victim, a mid-twenties man, it seems like this would be plausible enough in very broad terms. Moreover in the second jury I saw get picked, one man who was rejected could have won a look-a-like competition if the accused had been the target! The lawyers may also have baulked at having an 'online journalist' on the panel, but there's no way of knowing for sure either way.

Aside from these various knock-backs, loads of people made excuses to get off the panels. Some were good - 'I'm from XX [site of the crime], judge' was the best one - but many were terrible - 'I'm meant to be on annual leave next week', 'I'm really busy at work', and 'I'm meant to be graduating on Monday'. Brutal! Do these people have no sense of civic duty?

Ultimately it was an interesting day off, but I have to say my initial enthusiasm for a few weeks off in the run-up to Christmas dissipated in the actual court scenario, which was very stuffy with all the potential jurors, and both cases that went forward for trial were horrible.

If you're pondering your luck, consider that they told us we were there 'in very large numbers', with not too many numbers skipped out of the 500 total. So logistically even if it's in the hundreds each week I'm surprised I don't know of more people who've done it, and wouldn't be at all surprised to find myself being called again another time. Perhaps then I'll have the misfortune to get a more complete experience of this particular public service!

A Home at the End of the Randomers

2008-10-08T20:10:00.037+01:00

It's been a long time coming, but is no less sweeter for it. In about a month, myself and Megan plan to get a place together. It's going to be so special, I just cannot wait.

The list of reasons how this will improve my life is endless. No more living with strangers, no more dead phones, no more sour milk. And it will come together so easily for something so great - in jest, I've decided we will need just a blanket and two wine glasses to make our teeny place home!

But trully it will be fantastic - we already enjoy all of our free time together, and now we will have all our stuff in one place. I've had a few funny instances already of showing up to work wearing whatever's lying around where I rise and hoping no one will notice. My nice new runners with orange shoelaces don't help in this regard!

Of course me being the broody type, I'm already reminiscing about my eight years and one month of single man rentdom. Feeling distinctly upbeat about it all - it's the end of one era and the beginning of quite another that looks very rosy indeed. The move makes me feel better about being 27, proud in fact of what I've experienced and achieved since I packed my bags and left the family home in Scholarstown in September 2000.

So to mark the occasion, I've prepared a little run-down of the happy shacks, drinking dens, boltholes and shitholes that I've called my own over the years.

1. 364 Charlemont, Griffith Ave, Marino
Timeline: Sep '00 - June '01, Sep '01 - June '02
Lineup: me, Ian, Ollie, James (year one), Tim D (year two)

Soundtrack: U2's All That You Can't Leave Behind

John still says he's 'Charlemont 'till I die'! We had some legendary parties here, including the notorious 'fish face' incident (sorry AO'C if you ever see this) in which Gar shagged a classmate of mine on the windowsill of my tiny single room - in the middle of the party. I was left half a bottle of Jameson by way of compensation!

I also remember listening to David Kitt's debut 'Small Moments', consuming large cups of tea/coffee/soup/cereal in Gar's giant Homer Simpson mug and a having lots of conversations that we thought were highly intellectual but which I realise now were more about the delight of self-actualisation in the making.

2. C 29 Batiment B1 RC, Ponsan Bellevue, Cité Universitaire Paul Sabatier, 115 Route de Narbonne, 31400 Toulouse
Timeline: August '02 - December '02
Lineup: me, with Julie-Anne in the next building. And Rachid the happy-go-lucky chocolatier sleeping on the floor for an extended period

Soundtrack: Coldplay's 'A Rush of Blood To The Head'

Yes, the address is a bit of an eyesore, but so was the accomodation. I remember being tickled by what I could now call my first intercultural joke in another language - I nicknamed the residence Ponsan Mauvaisevue and got a hearty laugh from French, Irish, Polish and German people present.

Great fun though, and perfect for getting out to class and out of the house to experience southern France. My room was so tiny, with a bidet I filled with cold water to act as a fridge and a mini-kettle that proved so popular it became known as 'Le Salon du thé de Bill'. The wine from a then-alien Lidl was comically cheap with a surprisingly high hit-rate.

2. 71 Shanliss Way, Santry
Timeline: January '03 - July '03
Lineup: me, Ian, Ollie, Julie-Anne
Soundtrack: Damien Rice's 'O'

The one with all the wine! Came back from France a permanent oenophile. My room greatly improved to a back-garden facing double, but I had a hot water tank next to my pillow which gave me serious sweats. Around the time I gave up smoking for two months it was like the scene from Trainspotting, I was crawling on the ceiling! Also home to 'the poetry corner', a cosy reading spot with armchair and lamp where Ollie would read stories from the hearth!

3. 59 The Maples, Clonskeagh
Timeline: August '03 - August '04
Lineup: me, Tim, Liam
Soundtrack: Muse's 'Absolution'. And the theme tunes to 'Gladiator' and 'Lord of the Rings'

The home of drinking, DVDs and Dominos. Anybody who says students drink the most never came to this place and saw 'Moosehead Mountain'! Some great parties as well as plenty of late nights after the pub. Gin and tonic was so prevalent it may as well have been invented here!

I had a spacious double with an ensuite bathroom, happy out. Also home to the craziest hooch collection yet seen, a box of party hats and the occasional ferret. As well as the largest collection of DVDs a 'coffee table' has ever held and a host of computer game consoles and other gadgets. Just don't mention 'Top Gun'.

4. 123 Morehampton Road, Donnybrook
Timeline: August '04 - December '04
Lineup: me, Maria and some seven others
Soundtrack: Keane's 'Hopes and Fears' and The Killers' 'Hot Fuss'

Like Bono's 'The Million Dollar Hotel', but without the money. Four floors of down and outs, miscreants, Finnish booze junkies, a middle-aged alcoholic with a non-stop cough, and even the occasional homeless person in the sometimes unpadlocked laundry shed. Watched lots of Channel 4 News and left-wing movies. And lost my shirt on gourmet ready-to-go meals from Donnybrook Fair. But never let it be said that 13 people (including couples) cannot share one kitchen. It happened.

5. 45 Lr Churchtown Road, Churchtown
Timeline: December '04 - April '05
Lineup: me, Micheal the waiter, Becks the waitress, Don the sap. And an alsatian.
Soundtrack: The Arcade Fire's 'Funeral' and U2's 'How to Dismantle An Atomic Bomb'

Still probably my best ever bedroom - I got the master, complete with writing desk and fireplace. The family owners had just moved out so the greenery was impressive, even if the narrow back garden was dominated by my housemate's huge dog and terminated with the Green Luas Line.

Very comfortable place and location - 14 mins to St Stephen's Green - but we had to leave after the landlord flipped over the mess the dog made and kicked us out so she could redecorate. Prior to that she issued us a four-page handwritten cleaning list under the headings 'Immediate', 'Urgent' and 'General'. Monica eat your heart out.

6. 14 Cumberland Row, Britain Place, Dublin 1
Timeline: April '05 - April '06
Lineup: me, Guillaume, Kavo, Leona

Soundtrack: Sigur Ros' 'Takk...' and my burgeoning stock of music DVDs

The one with all the Chinese students. Only six apartments in my block-within-a-block, but there must have been more than 20 different faces going in and out. This two-bed was the best-looking modern apartment I've lived in, and I benefitted from another ensuite. Great to be so central as well - I'm surprised my Cineworld Unlimited card didn't warp from overuse. Although the hobos and junkies were never too far away.

The rolling stock of flatmates was good and bad. 'Word of the Day' conversations around a dictionary and wine and cheese with Guillaume tops the list, along with music and beers with Kavo, the provider of bootlegs. On the downside, there was the first girl I can't remember the name of with her individually washed & dried petticoats that ultimately resulted in an upaid ESB bill for a whopping €450, and Leona the loud and fussy country lass who thought she was charming but definitely wasn't.

7. Apt 4, Seabury, Sydney Parade Avenue, Sandymount
Timeline: April '06 - April '07
Lineup: me and Agnes
Soundtrack: Radiohead bootlegs from '97 and '03, as well as Muse's 'Black Holes and Revelations' for jogging

My 'spoil yourself' period! €675 a month for plush Dublin 4 two-bed with house cleaner, call-to-your-door driving lessons, the King of Belgium's coffee from Sandymount village, the cheeses of Tesco Merrion and regular-ish jogs on adjacent Sandymount Strand. The DART was super-handy for getting in to town, and of course the 15 min walk to work was hard to beat.

Agnes the fortysomething French waitress was good at sharing vegetables and smoking indoors, but bad at the sight of crumbs on the table - she thought they were the end of the world, zut alors! We took delight in the size of this 1970s pad, which was built before Ireland knew what an apartment was and consequently about twice the size of the ground floor of an average house. It even had a separate sun room we used for drying clothes and a full size dining table. And where was the last place you saw that had 'visitors' parking'?!

8. 177 Moyville, Rathfarnham
Timeline: April '07 - Present
Lineup: me and Mick, and two screaming children one night a week
Soundtrack: Radiohead's 'In Rainbows' and Caedmon's Call

The bargain after the splurge! To make room in my discretionary spending for Lenny the green Ford Ka, I downsized to no-less-leafy D16, where I ended up with half a three-bed house for €450, all bills included.

Sure, my housemate's quite loud, but he also keeps to himself and generally never complains about anything. Plenty of Friday night dashes to the cinema or pub to avoid the marauding small people, but few problems otherwise. Great access to all the old spots of my childhood and adolescence, and many fun trips up the mountains for a Guinness or two with Gar and Gargan.

Most notable also for all the fun times with Megan in the last seven months and 25 days, which brings us back more or less to where we came in. Four years of friends, four years of randomers, and now a home at the end of it all. A toast to the good times of the early and mid-twenties, and roll on the late twenties!

Tasty feast with a few nice wines

2008-09-01T16:01:00.013+01:00

It's great value when you think about it, although it would be expensive to do it that often. For €75 a pop, myself and Megan attended Meet the Winemaker with Jerome Poisson at Rhodes D7 last week. The price included a champagne reception and five-course meal, with a different glass of wine to try with each dish.

Firstly, three cheers to Gar for getting us a perfect table alongside the wall, in good reach of the waiters but with some distance from the larger groups of tasters. A mixed table would certainly have been less fun, and we got great service.

The star of the evening was definitely the food. I was once told that I would eat tomato and basil off a sock, and the very light dish we opened our feast with did not contradict this theory about my taste for the combination.

Sea bass is my new favourite fish, after trying it out recently and then greatly enjoying the crispy starter at this event. I was less enamoured with the main course, a slow-cooked beef that broke into strings as you ate it and seemed to have had most of its juices systematically removed. Like a poorly-chosen Chinese takeaway dish, you were sick of the sauce before you were full. Nice mashed potato and veg though.

The Franco-Irish cheese plate was reliably tasty, but it came way too late in the day for me to give proper justice to it. I think wine and cheese, or better wine and meat and cheese, works best as a stand alone light meal rather than something tacked on as an extra course. Finally the chunk-filled brulee-type sweet dish was neither good or bad, as I often find with dessert.

The wine itself was a mixed bag. Champagne is a great way to start anything, so no complaints there. Both the white wines were gorgeous in different ways - the Sauvignon Blanc was bright and sweet, while the Chardonnay had a delicious oak-edged and tang-free taste that probably made it the best glass of white I've ever had. (Not that I've had many, such is my taste for red.)

As for the reds, there was a big clanger - the merlot was disgusting. It made my forehead come out in a sweat and was essentially undrinkable for anyone with a brain. The second red, which cost a fortune our sources told us, was absolutely delicious, but fell short of eclipsing the memory of its mucky predecessor. Finally, the dessert wine was, well, dessert wine. They're all the same I think.

Mercifully the speeches were not overdone, and I could certainly forgive the Chile-based French-speaking winemaker for his schoolboyish English. Indeed it's kind of fun to spot an error in English that can be traced back to the way it is said in French, e.g. 'my proper vineyard' surely came from 'mon propre vignoble', meaning 'my own vineyard'.

Mr Poisson also came over and spoke to us, and seemed happy enough with Megan's two-line assessment and my polite smile. Although he did get in his excuse about the expense of the nicer wines a bit early, i.e. almost before we had finished telling him which ones we liked.

After disappearing into the night, I found no need for breakfast and had no urge to drink more wine for some days afterwards. As an experiment in attending wine tastings, I really enjoyed it, though doing the same again in another setting such as a stand-up tasting in a shop somewhere - with an actual requirement for informed opinions - would be another story altogether...

In memory of the Lighthouse

2008-07-05T12:08:00.009+01:00

It is going to be such a shame when the Lighthouse closes down again. Yes, it's got €1.75m from the Department of Arts, Sport & Tourism as well as the Arts Council and the Irish Film Board to pay for its reopening last May. But let's face it, as a 'commercially operated cultural cinema which presents a diverse and individual programme of the best Irish, independent, foreign-language, arthouse and classic cinema,' well, it's fucked.

Set back from Smithfield Market square at a sort of sub-square in front of the underground car park, the Lighthouse's potential for attracting passing customers essentially consists of a painted pane of glass obscured by a nut stand. At 6pm on a Friday evening, this huge swell of passing trade amounted to two scumbags testing out a radio-controlled monster truck. 'Ya hear it changing gear and then it just takes off,' the one without his hand on the controller tells a passer-by who had asked for no elaboration.

But back to the cinema. You walk in and think you're in an art gallery, such is the abundant use of white paint and sharply defined corners. There's a café/wine bar on the ground floor, and then the screens are on two underground levels accessed by a nice sloping staircase. I bump into a woman I'm sure I recognise from the paper as the co-owner on a mezzanine half-way down. She directs me to Screen 2 like your average €9 an hour; it may go without saying at this point that I've seen about five customers, all for coffee upstairs.

The auditorium itself is really nice, coloured seats with longer headrests and more leg room, perfect for slouchers like yours truly. Myself and seven others enjoyed the only moderately funny but entertaining 'Hors de Prix (Priceless)'. Two trailers, no adverts. Yes, you read correctly. It's worth going for that alone.

At first glance there seemed to be no goodies around, but I did notice a small amount of popcorn, as well as wine and comfy-looking stools, on sale to no one in particular in a corner of the basement level. It struck me that this would be a great place in which to get drunk while admiring the architecture in splendid isolation.

Which is where we came in. I'm not sure what length of a business plan they've got, but 'profit in year three', as they say, for a second arthouse cinema in trashy, sport-obsessed centre-right dominated Dublin? I don't think so. There just aren't enough cultural cinephiles out there. I suspect the Taoiseach isn't the only one who won't say the word 'recession', if you know what I mean. But in the meantime, it's an unspoilt structural and cultural gem. Go, see, do.

Read more
History of Lighthouse Cinema
Feature in The Ticket by Michael Dwyer

The little green gremlin

2008-05-12T21:45:00.004+01:00

Parnell Street, the Saturday evening before last. I gladly sidle into a loading-bay spot outside a takeaway on the street's west side. The mission: a quick bite to eat, then the securing of wine and other goodies for a dash to Megan's friend Ann Marie's house.

Shortly thereafter, the food had been enjoyed and the supplies duly collected from the shiny new Tesco (which by the way regrettably falls somewhat short of my south Dublin tastes as regards the selection of wine and cheese!).

Back we go out on the street to jump into the car. Busy talking, we almost walk by a fantastically streetwise aqua-coloured car. I make my usual gentlemanly gesture of unlocking and opening the passenger door, absent-mindedly fiddling the key left and right without noticing that the door is unlocked. (Megan never forgets to lock it on her way out.)

Megan opens my door from the inside, and we get ready to set off. I put the key in the ignition while Megan settles the shopping on the passenger seat floor. I notice a Dublin city street guide on top of the glove department, and wonder if Megan got it for her upcoming house hunt.

I turn to put on my seatbelt and notice that it has got some kind of padding sleeve on it. 'What the hell is this,' I think aloud as myself and Megan turn to each other and then toward a gleaming silver stereo adorned with a CD deck and several rows of useful buttons. My super-basic radio has three presets, buttons for tuning, volume and power and a wonky tape deck. We were in the wrong car.

Sheepishly dashing to the other 00-D green Ford Ka at the next shopfront loading bay on the street, we wonder how we made our mistake. In our defence, save for a pair of very discreetly positioned 'L' plates and a different reg number, the car had been identical from the outside. The funniest part was realising that Megan had clicked the lock on the other Ka out of habit on her way out, while I just bailed in a panic, leaving the driver's side unlocked. Perhaps the person thought on their way back to their car that they had left the passenger door unlocked, only to find it was locked and the driver's door was open! Enough to drive anyone mad.

The other funny thing is there's another aqua-coloured Ka, 01-D this time, belonging to a guy I've never met who works in Radio. I did draw level with him at the gate once, and he was wondering why I was smiling at him until I pulled away and saw his surprised expression in my rear view mirror as he realised that we were driving the exact same car! Anyhow his is parked in RTÉ every single day and I've never mistaken it for my own. Though I have once been accused by a colleague of going out drinking on a Thursday night and leaving my (i.e. his) car at work as careless evidence of same!

How to buy books cheaply online

2008-04-22T23:44:00.024+01:00

In the world of online book sales, it pays to plan ahead. Having received three books for Christmas, I decided to order a fourth online so that I would have it to read when I was finished the others.

Given that the first present was 'Ross O'Carroll-Kelly's Guide to South Dublin', however, it was clear that I wouldn't be sorted for reading material for all that long.

I had had some success with Abe.com (above right) before, when the only copy of European Cinema by Elizabeth Ezra to be found in Dublin was on Eason.ie for some usurious sum like €70 or €80. Thankfully I went looking around the start of the semester, so the book was able to limp home from somewhere in the UK in time for presentations and essay.

This time around I didn't even bother browsing shops for Niccolo Ammaniti's 'I'll Steal You Away' (below left), the next novel by the author of 'I'm Not Scared', which was made into a sunny Italian coming-of-age/crime thriller by Gabriel Salvatores I particularly enjoyed. Great writer, though he probably sells fewer copies of his books here than Ross O'Carroll-Kelly does in Italy.

The Abe site allows you to trawl discount book sellers all over the place, so if it's a well-known book you can even pick how you would like it bound or the picture on the cover of a particular print. This is because of the Ryanair-style pricing in which everything is 50c or $1 and it all depends on the postage.

So order placed, processed and dispatched on one day, 15 January. The nearest seller is Lakewood, Washington. The confirmation e-mail says: 'Approximate Shipping Speed: 10 - 28 business days.' Grand. Except that by 7 March, still no sign of the book.

A customer service response by email states: 'International Standard mail usually takes 3-6 weeks to arrive, but can in some instances take as long as 8-12 weeks due to customs delays.' They suggest I get back to them after 12 weeks have elapsed, so I emailed them again last week. I got a much more conciliatory response agreeing my order should have arrived by now, and offering me any book I want from their stock as they have no more of 'I'll Steal You Away'.

But then this morning, a day after I reply suggesting a book, the first one arrives after some 14 weeks and one day. The next thing to arrive is an e-mail from them saying 'Delivery Status Notification: Failure' regarding my book request. I tried mailing them once more to make sure I wasn't going mad, and then decided it was a sign the matter was closed.

So the moral of the story is, for bargain books online, get ready to wait. It at least is something I couldn't get here, and for the princely sum of Stg£6.18 (€7.71 in today's money). I admit I could have done nothing and just got my book eventually. But come on, 99 days - a man once swam from Cape Cod to France in 73 days. The final irony is that I've since started reading the Harry Potter series from scratch - more about which another time - so I won't even be reading this one for some time yet.

Update
23 April 1651

It seems one of my emails to them did get through after all, and now I'm being sent the fifth Harry Potter book in apology. They also asked for positive feedback on the abe site about the seller, a request to which I obliged readily. If I was a gambler I would start a sweep on the number of weeks book number two takes to get here!

Update 2
14 May 1321

Replacement book in hand, arrived yesterday after just 20 days. Perhaps the first one was randomly selected for a customs check or something, as this was twice as large and came from the same place. The conclusion remains the same: if in a rush, don't buy discount books online!

The coincidence coin

2008-04-10T19:45:00.006+01:00

Although, like everyone else, they happen to me all the time, I don't pay too much heed to coincidences. Still, it's great when they work in your favour.

Despite working full-time and all over the clock in rolling news, I was away for both the death of John Paul II and that of Charles Haughey, which from an Irish media standpoint were the stories of 2005 and 2006 respectively. (An aside: Agence France Presse always refers to the Haughey era as 'corruption-tainted premierships' - a catch-all phrase that rings so vaguely it would fit Mugabe equally as well, indeed it probably has.)

In the case of Haughey, I was halfway up the side of Sydney's Harbour Bridge (right) telling an older couple all about how the media had been planning for this event for at least the previous 18 months, and I had managed to circumvent a tonne of boring extra work. They thought this attitude was great!

Yet I must be improving, given that I dedicated two months' work to a special election website last year, and tapped up plenty on the recent coffee-starved morning of Bertie's bowing out that is already the story of 2008.

There's a flipside to this coincidence coin too, in that I have stayed at home when bad things happen in other parts. To start, I was questioned by Tim over a pint in O'Sheas [Clonskeagh] in November '03 about why I hadn't taken any city breaks despite saying that I would once I had a decent salary. I replied by saying I was looking into a solo trip to Istanbul. The next day, truck bombs killed dozens of people in the city in Turkey's biggest ever suicide attack. The following Spring, I had half-made plans with Ollie to visit Madrid in the same month as the train bombings.

I can think of a few other not-so-near misses, like London being first on my list for a trip in 2005, though I didn't have a specific date in mind and ended up going some months after the 7 July attacks.

But ultimately it's a fast move in my world from the thought of an apparent connection to the realisation that, for better or worse, it was simply random. And I'm sure the foregoing says as much about my newsjunkie tendencies as it does about coincidence!

Little shopping, mostly horrors

2008-04-01T20:42:00.012+01:00

Nestling in at the IFI, Sunday afternoon. The movie was The Orphanage (right), a horror that could have been a great drama about living with the echoes of child abuse. Instead it played off the emotional potency of tragedies involving children, exploiting a ready excuse to round up the usual clichéd devices and dole them out at regular intervals.

You can picture the scene: a desolate vista of emotionally distraught characters whose lives have been permanently ruined by traumatic events in the past.

Except that actually describes Saturday afternoon, in Belfast. It was the most grisly tourist happy fun bus I've ever taken, even if the guide's patter was unintentionally hilarious at times. Myself and Megan had a great time seeing Jonatha Brooke perform candidly in front of a fraction of her usual crowd, but I have to say it seems the ten years I put off visiting Belfast to allow for the bad old days to disappear made for an overly optimistic timeframe.

I couldn't decide which eyesore was worse. There's the sectarian 'peace line' that uses corrugated fencing to separate the Falls Road and the Shankill Road, with the road between the two closed all weekend. The two roads themselves, which basically consist of a series of tit-for-tat, violence-glorifying acts of painted vandalism wedged in between dilapidated buildings and angry-looking men with no hair. Or the five-metre blast wall outside the old courthouse right in the centre of the city, a car bomb retardant that is so thick it doesn't even stick out at first glance because it looks big enough to be a subsidiary court building.

Of course the times are changing, as the tour bus lady says proudly and cheerfully, because we've got a 24-hour Tesco 'right here in the city' (on the side of a dual carriageway). You had to laugh at its inclusion alongside the rest of the travelling shop of horrors, and I can vouch that 6.55pm on a regular Friday evening was more like that of a Bank Holiday evening in Dublin, with only restaurants and pubs open.

So while one must be seen to be politically correct about Northern Ireland, I think they know most of us down here don't go there too often. We were practically cheering at the sight of Dublin unfolding before our eyes on the drive back down an empty A1/M1. For fans of Shakespearean imagery, it was grey and wet when we left Belfast, giving way to bright, bright sun due south. Enough said.

Fallas in Valencia

2008-03-24T23:33:00.016Z

This is a short photo essay about the Offering of Flowers (Ofrenda de las Flores), a two-day event at the centre of Valencia's Spring festival.

The first thing you notice about the Fallas festival is the city's willingness to more or less close down for the duration. At least a dozen streets making up the whole centre of the city were cordoned off and most of the shops were closed.

Pageantry forms a big part of the event - locals dress in clothes from different eras of the city's history to parade through the streets.

Each member of the parade carries flowers to take to the cathedral at Plaza Virgen.

A great many marching bands are also involved.

As the parade reaches the central square, each participant leaves a bunch of flowers which is used to make up a strikingly-rendered veneration of the Madonna and Child. And to think Nordies hanging off 12 July pyres is all Ireland has by comparison!

The seal on the Virgin Mary's back changes each year - in 2007 it was a dove.

It is obvious even from the street that the event is a highly mediatised one. However, with some exceptions, there is an admirable lack of commercial logos along the route.

It's impossible not to notice the ninots, or papier maché sculptures, satirising local politicians that border the parade route. Apparently they are set on fire at the end of the Fallas festival.

Once the parade has passed the Plaza Virgen, the mood lightens completely. The bands start playing upbeat tunes and jumping around the street jazzy-style.

The line between participant and parade-watcher gets blurred as well.

Proceedings keep on going out to the suburbs after the main parade finishes.

A final note about the cathedral itself - it's the host of the Holy Grail, the cup which is said to have been used by Christ in the Last Supper. No immediate sign of Da Vinci Code backpackers. Seemingly it's described as being made of wood in one of the Indiana Jones movies but is actually stone.

Keeping an eye on the competition

2008-03-17T15:45:00.011Z

Blog one, post one: back to the beginnning. In June 1986, golfer Sandy Lyle (right) was hitting the headlines because of his marriage difficulties. Not yet five, I had just finished Junior Infants at St Colmcilles, where the sunlight streaming onto the corridor's red floor in the old prefab gave me my earliest memory.

At that time, my parents had white paned double doors leading from the kitchen into the sitting room, where my mother was sitting with a tabloid newspaper held aloft. I entered unnoticed by my Mum, who I didn't know was there anyway because I was too small to see over the armchair. All I saw was the tabloid’s backpage. To my mother’s amazement, she heard a little voice from behind say 'MY LOVE LIFE IN SHATTERS'. A journalist was born!