Irish Round Towers Go Radio Gah Gah
Posted by ender at
12:00 PM on June 26, 2009
Every now and then, the Internet brings forth startling discoveries and staggering examples of original research bordering on such genius that they leave one completely gob-smacked, boggle-eyed, in need of a lie-down and perhaps even, a tiny little yellow stained leakage in one's summery cotton y-fronts, as one grapples with the ramifications of what has just been 'revealed'.
The following is not one of those times. Though it may leave you with a profound appreciation of Darwinian evolution, chimpanzee typists, and/or the long term effects of hallucinogenic substances on the human mind.
Continue reading "Irish Round Towers Go Radio Gah Gah"
| Comments (1)Psychic Piracy [Part 4]
Posted by davidluke at
4:22 PM on June 8, 2009
(image by Lazlo-photo, used under a Creative Commons sharealike license)
In this, the fourth of the series, Dr. David Luke explores the extraordinary realm of 'dream psi' and how the counter-culture experiments of the 1960's are coming back with a sexy vengeance. Or something.
Continue reading "Psychic Piracy [Part 4]"
| Comments (0)Psychic Piracy [Part 3]
Posted by davidluke at
10:05 AM on May 26, 2009
(image by Lazlo-photo, used under a Creative Commons sharealike license)
Gyrarr. Yarrr. Etc. Etc. Dr. David Luke returns with the third part in his exploration of psychic piracy. This week the venerable doctor examines 'the unconscious reservoir of psychic information'. Oh yes.
Continue reading "Psychic Piracy [Part 3]"
| Comments (1)Psychic Piracy [Part 2]
Posted by davidluke at
8:26 AM on May 15, 2009
(image by Lazlo-photo, used under a Creative Commons sharealike license)
Yaaaar! We be back with more brain piracy, psychic mularkey and general cerebral oddity. This week, Dr. Dave looks at (amongst other things) the rather curious history of EEG, why certain tribes survived that Tsunami and several women through a telescope.
Continue reading "Psychic Piracy [Part 2]"
| Comments (1)Psychic Piracy [Part 1]
Posted by davidluke at
7:07 AM on May 8, 2009
(image by Lazlo-photo, used under a Creative Commons sharealike license)
In the first of a new series of articles, long-term Blather.net collaborator (we've been collectively barred from every pub in Hackney) Dr. David Luke gives us the skinny on the extraordinary abilities that may lie just within our cerebral reach. So, sit yourselves down, strap yourselves in and get ready to have your third-eye squeegeed clean...
Continue reading "Psychic Piracy [Part 1]"
| Comments (0)Gardai recover stroked Bronze Age jewellery from Strokestown
Posted by ender at
2:51 PM on April 8, 2009
Hats and Fedoras off to the Gardai in Roscommon and Dublin, who (obviously having had their morning Weetabix last week) noticed something fishy about a haul of stolen goods they had recovered from a Dublin house.
Continue reading "Gardai recover stroked Bronze Age jewellery from Strokestown"
| Comments (8)Depeche Mode's 'Sounds of the Universe'
Posted by damien at
11:18 AM on April 7, 2009
Depeche Mode's eagerly-anticipated 12th studio album 'Sounds of the Universe' has been dividing fans and reviewers alike. A good deal of criticism has focused on Ben Hillier's production, with the album provoking extreme reactions, with some maintaining that this is the final nail in the DM coffin and others declaring it a work of seminal genius. And we can see why; it's a radical departure from the stadium-filling rock band who gave us 'Personal Jesus'. But is it any good? Well, having now listened to the album obsessively over a four-day period whilst travelling across the UK and Ireland I can cheerfully report that this is, without any question, Depeche Mode's best album in 20 years.
Continue reading "Depeche Mode's 'Sounds of the Universe'"
| Comments (13)Forbidden Fruit
Posted by Marie-Catherine at
10:26 AM on March 16, 2009
(image by killer turnip, used under a creative commons license)
What was happening to him? He regretted his knowledge. He regretted having ever tasted the fruit. It appeared that knowledge was as much a burden as a gift. Maybe he had to share this burden to make it lighter and more enjoyable. That might be it; he needed some creature like himself conscious and curious of the world to challenge his thoughts and ideas and stimulate his mind.
Continue reading "Forbidden Fruit"
| Comments (0)Diary of a Frenchwoman in Dublin
Posted by Marie-Catherine at
7:00 AM on February 10, 2009
Ha'penny Bridge, Dublin,by Dave Walsh Photography
As every French person knows, Paris is a woman, impudent and provocative. Paris the beautiful, the magical, the enchanting. Predictably, as soon as I returned there a few weeks ago, her magic enveloped me again - from her lights to her majestic buildings and bridges, her magnificent cathedral, her many different quartiers, each with their own charm, her immense Louvre, sheltering one of the greatest art collections in the world, and of course her twinkling Eiffel tower. Nothing compares to Paris.
Continue reading "Diary of a Frenchwoman in Dublin"
| Comments (1)The Audacity of Despair
Posted by barry at
5:14 AM on December 1, 2008
(Picture: Daytona Beach News-Journal, reproduced at pierretristam.com).
"Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time" - Barack Obama.
'U.S. policy is not about one individual, and no matter how much faith people place in President-elect Barack Obama, the policies he enacts will be fruit of a tree with many roots...the best immediate indicator of what an Obama administration might look like can be found in the people he surrounds himself with and who he appoints to his Cabinet. And, frankly, when it comes to foreign policy, it is not looking good. Obama has a momentous opportunity to do what he repeatedly promised over the course of his campaign: bring actual change. But the more we learn about who Obama is considering for top positions in his administration...' - Jeremy Scahill.
Continue reading "The Audacity of Despair"
| Comments (2)Hug an American
Posted by damien at
10:21 PM on November 5, 2008
(photo by DigitalKatie)
On the occasion of the election of Barack Obama to the office of President of the United States of America, this is a Message from Blather.net High Command to our European brethern: it's time to let the Americans out of the shit-house. 8 years. 8 agonizing years we've been giving Americans abuse. But no more. We hereby announce the commencement of Blather.net's Hug an American Campaign.
Go find an American. Any American. Hug them. Say thanks. Go home and sleep properly for the first time since 2001.
Photographic evidence and reports of American Hugging can be posted in the comments below. That is all.
| Comments (11)Black Market Nukes! Part five: Naming Names in Pictures
Posted by barry at
8:51 PM on November 3, 2008
[photo: the Brad Blog]
Those of you who have been following this series will know that Sibel Edmonds (pictured) had her FBI contract terminated when she discovered evidence of wrongdoing in her workplace. The Office of the Inspector General (OIG) at the US Department of Justice later investigated, and concluded that 'many of Edmonds's core allegations relating to the co-worker had some basis in fact and were supported by either documentary evidence or witnesses other than Edmonds' [1]. I'm quoting there from an unclassified summary, but the actual OIG report remains classified. Also there is a State Secret Priveleges gag order on Sibel Edmonds to prevent her speaking about her work at the FBI (on national security grounds), but she says it's not so much national security that is being protected as corrupt U.S. officials she has overheard on wiretaps, who are in the business of stealing and selling American nuclear secrets and technology.
Who are these officials?
Continue reading "Black Market Nukes! Part five: Naming Names in Pictures"
| Comments (0)Black Market Nukes! Part four: The Tinner Circle
Posted by barry at
4:42 PM on October 30, 2008
[passport of Urs Tinner, picture released by the Malaysian police]
Previously in this series, Friedrich Tinner and his sons Urs and Marco, a family of engineers, were mentioned as part of the A.Q. Khan nuclear proliferation network. The Tinners had a factory in Malaysia producing centrifuge parts [1]. When A.Q. Khan's international activities were exposed in 2003, so were the Tinners, who were based in Switzerland. They were taken into custody there, and expected to (eventually) stand trial. But the Swiss President made a rather shocking announcement on 23 May 2008...
Continue reading "Black Market Nukes! Part four: The Tinner Circle"
| Comments (1)Black Market Nukes! Part three: Couldn't You Keep That To Yourself?
Posted by barry at
12:02 AM on October 16, 2008
Let me sli - ide down along the side of this picture here and get into position to welcome you our readers back once again to Blather's very convoluted yet very informative 5-part series Black Market Nukes! To kick off this, the third part, which in one respect involves Valerie Plame (pictured), I should remind you of the main point of part one of this series. I wrote of how an ex-FBI employee, Sibel Edmonds, revealed that she worked on a project in which she listened to wiretaps and translated them. She listened to phone traffic between the Turkish embassy and the Turkish lobby group the American Turkish Council (ATC), involving dealings in the nuclear black market. But this FBI investigation she was working on was shut down, and her contract was terminated. It seems the FBI team went too deep, got too close to an uncomfortable truth...
Continue reading "Black Market Nukes! Part three: Couldn't You Keep That To Yourself?"
Black Market Nukes! Part two: The Path of Khan
Posted by barry at
12:38 AM on October 9, 2008
In part one, ex-FBI employee Sibel Edmonds listened to wiretaps of Turkish agents in the USA, who were stealing American nuclear secrets and selling them on the black market. The FBI investigation was surprisingly shut down, and US Attorney General John Ashcroft slapped a State Secret Priveleges gag order on Edmonds to prevent her from speaking out about it when she blew the whistle. But she's recently defied that gag order.
She claims that one of the buyers of these stolen nuclear secrets was Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), Pakistan's intelligence agency [1], who were working with Pakistani scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan, the man responsible for Pakistan's nuclear bomb. Part two of this series follows the trail of A.Q. Khan and his nuclear black market network.
Continue reading "Black Market Nukes! Part two: The Path of Khan"
| Comments (0)Haunted Dublin book - Chilling accounts of the supernatural
Posted by daev at
6:42 PM on October 5, 2008
 |
Only €14.99 + P&P!
AVAILABLE NOW!
By Dave Walsh
Introduction by Barry Kavanagh
Paperback: 93 pages, including 40 photographs by Dave Walsh
Published by Nonsuch Ireland
Published October 2008
Haunted Dublin, by author and journalist Dave Walsh, gathers together in one succinct volume, well-known legends with rare and chilling accounts of the supernatural in the city. With poltergeists and apparitions, lore, myth and the downright scary, this fascinating work will delight and unsettle those brave enough to explore this hidden world.
LAUNCH PARTY! From 6pm on October 30th, Halloween Launch Party at the Dice Bar, Queen St. Dublin 7.
Booze, books, costumes and mayhem! Outlandish outfits recommended!
Blather Google Map showing location »
Continue reading "Haunted Dublin book - Chilling accounts of the supernatural"
| Comments (5)Black Market Nukes! Part one: Found in Translation
Posted by barry at
8:12 PM on October 1, 2008
Who's that riding around with a nuclear bomb in his motorcycle sidecar? This is the first in a projected 5-part series of articles for Blather.net on the subject of black market nukes. As you may or may not know, there is an international network of people selling blueprints and material for nuclear weapons on the black market. If you follow the news keenly, you may stumble across a report from time to time, but it seems this issue is not as much in the media spotlight as it should be. I'm going to try to draw various strands of the story together for you. I'll be writing about A.Q. Khan, the father of the Pakistani bomb and 'the merchant of menace'; Khan's associates the Tinner family in Switzerland; 'certain Turkish entities', as George W. Bush called them; the CIA front-company connected to the outed agent Valerie Plame; and first and foremost, the story of the FBI whistleblower Sibel Edmonds (pictured), the subject of this first part.
Continue reading "Black Market Nukes! Part one: Found in Translation"
| Comments (0)Blather Gets 'Lively'
Posted by damien at
12:51 PM on July 26, 2008
Ahoy hoy. Have a rummage around our virtual Blather HQ. Bejaysus, you can even see Daev's bed.
(Google account required). Built with Google's Lively.
| Comments (11)Blather meets Fred Einaudi
Posted by damien at
1:20 PM on July 24, 2008
Blather.net sat down with mercurial artist Fred Einaudi to get the skinny on his provocative and apocalyptic art, the finer points of using oil on canvas and a plan to annihilate loud motorbike drivers.
Continue reading "Blather meets Fred Einaudi"
| Comments (3)Why is UFO activity on the increase?
Posted by damien at
4:44 PM on July 14, 2008
(image 'adolescent paranoia' by Dr. Joanne)
WAR!
Old-school blather readers will know that Blather.net spent many of its formative years talking about, looking for and worrying about that most insidious of modern phenomena - the UFO. Indeed, as Daev recently detailed in our book 'A Load of Blather' had there not been a rather oddly intense period of UFO activity towards the end of the 1990's (perhaps born of 'pre-millenial tension') Blather.net may never have come into existence at all (at all). But as the years passed, our interests have shifted and we found ourselves moving on to talk about other things (paranormal or not) and UFO stories became increasingly rarer as time went by.
FAMINE!
The cynic in me might comment that this was most likely because we'd gotten a bit older and were now concerning ourselves with such matters as 'saving the planet' and 'getting laid', but every once in a while a UFO story does catch our attention. This morning, our friends at the excellent 'Damn Data' sent us a story (from some low, common rag known as the 'British Daily Telegraph') which duly caught our eye; a story posing a question which had bubbled up to the surface of my own addled mind only a week or two ago - why is there such a sudden and dramatic surge of UFO activity reported in the media in recent months?
Continue reading "Why is UFO activity on the increase?"
| Comments (11)A Load of Blather: The book launch and the Lisbon Treaty
Posted by daev at
12:20 PM on June 14, 2008
Photo: ©Kim Haughton
The first text message to appear on my phone on Friday morning was from a friend of mine, Duncan. It read "I am reading your book ostentatiously on the bus giggling." The second was from Damien. It simply read "destroyed". All over Dublin, survivors of the First Blather Book Launch were dragging themselves out of bed. Others were only just making it to bed. One brave soul had partied all night, and then had to a performance review at her job at 11am. Bless their stamina.
Continue reading "A Load of Blather: The book launch and the Lisbon Treaty"
| Comments (7)Blather Meets Molly Crabapple
Posted by damien at
7:19 PM on May 13, 2008
Burlesque dancer, blogger, artist and purveryor of scandalous filth. Meet Molly Crabapple - the 24-year old brains behind the now world-famous Dr. Sketchy's Cabaret Life Drawing classes and the acclaimed webcomic series "Backstage". Blather.net relentlessly stalked Molly acrosss the internet and hounded her until she talked to us recently caught up with Molly and got her to answer some questions.
Continue reading "Blather Meets Molly Crabapple"
| Comments (0)Diggin' in the Dirt: Niall (sausage the fifth)
Posted by ender at
11:00 AM on May 5, 2008
In the final part of Blather.net's in-depth investigation of the infamous fifth-century thug and womaniser, Niall of the Nine Hostages, our grave-robber in residence Ender Wiggan digs deeper into the genetic history of the indigenous Irish population in an effort to finally find out "who's yo' Daddy?".
No really. Who *is* your daddy?
Continue reading "Diggin' in the Dirt: Niall (sausage the fifth) "
| Comments (2)A Load of Blather: Unreal Reports from Ireland and Beyond - €9.99
Posted by daev at
7:07 PM on April 20, 2008
 |
| Click for larger cover image |
"[Blather] provides a low-key, entertaining weirdness unmatched elsewhere" - Fortean Times Read the full review here (pdf) »
Only € 9.99 + P&P!
By Dave Walsh, Barry Kavanagh, Damien DeBarra, Sue Walsh and others
Paperback: 144 pages
Publisher: Nonsuch Ireland
Published May 20th 2008
See photographs and read about the launch party on June 12th, 2008 at the Dice Bar, 78 Queen Street, Dublin and read Damien's account of the night here »
Listen to an interview about A Load of Blather with Dave Walsh on Phantom 105.2FM »
Eleven years, three convictions, two deportations, ten thousand pints, six barring orders and a legion of leather-clad groupies later, Dave Walsh, Barry Kavanagh and Damien DeBarra (the cheap tarts that brought you Blather.net) bring you their latest labour of love: A Load of Blather: Unreal Reports from Ireland and Beyond, the first book that anyone has been nuts enough to let them publish. Shamelessly re-working articles which have been online for years anyway, this magnificent tome is a veritable smorgasboard of smut; bursting out of its trousers with a great heaving cavalcade of paranormal events, superstitions, mysterious happenings, conspiracy theories, hordes of rampaging kangaroos in the Dublin hills, and the previously untold story of General Michael Collins' forays into outer space. There's even a bit about talking cows in there. If the lawyers haven't cut it out. There's guest articles too, from the likes of Sue Walsh, Oliver Bayliss and Dr. Stewart Roberts.
Continue reading "A Load of Blather: Unreal Reports from Ireland and Beyond - €9.99"
| Comments (5)I, Patrick. (Puke the Sixth)
Posted by ender at
9:30 AM on April 18, 2008
Scribbling furiously with the bloodied broken stump of a leprechaun's finger, under an apocalyptic cloud of molten ash and flames; blather.nets 'end of days' emissary, Ender Wiggan, concludes the I, Patrick saga, concerning the real life and times of the blow in from Britain.
Continue reading "I, Patrick. (Puke the Sixth)"
| Comments (0)How I Helped Write the (Fictional) History of Clontarf
Posted by damien at
4:32 PM on April 7, 2008
'No Thoroughfare on The Tram Road: History of Clontarf and its Environs' by historian Val Lynch is a charming local history book which many northside Dubliners may have seen knocking around in newsagents and shops. Being from the area myself, I have an obvious interest. Whilst I am all for local history (something which we here on blather.net have always been fans of) one does have to worry when such books simply repeat stories about local legends and folklore. In the book I've just mentioned, there is an excellent example: the story of the 'Mysterious Underground Tunnels Under Clontarf'.
The fact is, this entire story is complete nonsense. How do I know? Because I was part of the group that made the whole thing up.
Continue reading "How I Helped Write the (Fictional) History of Clontarf"
| Comments (2)Tasmanian devils - Cedric to the rescue!
Posted by daev at
2:23 AM on April 6, 2008
This time two months ago, I was in Tasmania - and I saw my first Tasmanian Devils up close. While generally deeply interested (perhaps obsessed) by wildlife, encountering Tassie devils was high on my list - and these photographs are the fruits of my labours. Now, a Tasmanian devil superhero named Cedric has made news this week, after scientists found that his genes may save the species from extinction.
Continue reading "Tasmanian devils - Cedric to the rescue!"
| Comments (9)Blather.net's Map of the Weird
Posted by damien at
10:33 AM on March 28, 2008
For the last eleven years (yes, that's eleven) we here at Blather have been keeping track of every lake monster, UFO sighting, satanist, pornographer, ghost, exorcism, banshee attack, ABC sighting, religious quack, police state action, alien abduction and friendly neighbourhood Kangaroo that we can scribble down in this here site. But the truth is, there's such an abundance of these bloody things that keeping track of them has become somewhat problematic. Until now.
So allow us reader dear, to present 'Blather.net's Map of the Weird', a first public presentation of what will become an ever-growing, all-encompassing cartographic apocalypse of filth, depravity, smut and forteana.
Continue reading "Blather.net's Map of the Weird"
| Comments (8)Diggin' in the Dirt: I, Patrick. (Puke the Fifth)
Posted by ender at
10:42 AM on March 17, 2008
And a happy St. Patrick's Day to you to be sure, to be sure. Join us for the latest thrilling instalment of the tale of the young St. Patrick, as the young Welshman (yes, he was Welsh) saddles up with a galloping gang of leather-cloaked horsemen with half-shaved heads, armed to the teeth with swords, spears and assorted cooking implements of destruction who set off about Ireland with the express intention of learnin' us Paddies some manners. Or something.
Continue reading "Diggin' in the Dirt: I, Patrick. (Puke the Fifth)"
| Comments (1)Diggin in the Dirt: I, Patrick. (Puke the Fourth).
Posted by ender at
8:02 PM on March 14, 2008
Blogging live from a 5th century Romano-British whorehouse on the west coast of Wales, Blather.net's chief bodythief, time-travelling mercenary and ambassador to the Medieval period, Ender Wiggan, enthralls us once again with the fourth part of his epic series on the life of the young St. Patrick. This time, St. Patrick has some trouble back in the office.
Continue reading "Diggin in the Dirt: I, Patrick. (Puke the Fourth)."
| Comments (0)Diggin in the Dirt: I, Patrick. (Puke the Third)
Posted by ender at
8:45 AM on March 12, 2008
Welcome back for part three of the latest blather.net "Diggin' in the Dirt" epic, "I, Patrick. Puke the Third", coming to you this week from the darkest bowel of a 5th century Irish slave ship. Ender Wiggan, our Graverobber in residence, takes you through the story of how the slave became a general, who became a... no, wait. That's not quite right. The slave who became a call girl, who became a... arse, hang on. I can do this...
Continue reading "Diggin in the Dirt: I, Patrick. (Puke the Third)"
| Comments (0)Diggin' in the Dirt: I, Patrick. (Puke the Second)
Posted by ender at
3:57 PM on March 10, 2008
Join us once again as Blather.net's resident graveyard-worrier, Ender Wiggan, regales us with his second part of the epic six-part series "I, Patrick", in which the young Welshman (that would be St. Patrick) gets kidnapped, sold into slavery, generally wishes he was never born and discovers the singular hospitality to be found in early 5th century Ireland.
Continue reading "Diggin' in the Dirt: I, Patrick. (Puke the Second)"
| Comments (0)Diggin' in the Dirt: I, Patrick. (Puke the First)
Posted by ender at
3:00 PM on March 8, 2008
With March 17th fast approaching and Dublin City Council already making preparations for cleaning up the deluge of white foamy piss and green/orangey puke overflowing the gutters in the streets, Blather.Net's Archaeologist of the Damned and Resident Graverobber, Ender Wiggan, unearths the truth behind the blow-in from Britain; in whose honour the annual national stereotype perpetuation festival is held. The first of a six-part series, "I Patrick" is a vast, sprawling epic tale of war, slavery, religious fundamentalism, rape, murder and dying empires. Or, it could just be a load of begorra, begob, musha man divil alive paddywhackery.
Continue reading "Diggin' in the Dirt: I, Patrick. (Puke the First)"
| Comments (1)Happy Humpback Whale Christmas from the Southern Ocean
Posted by daev at
12:54 AM on December 25, 2007
Grey-headed albatross - vulnerable species, 2.2m wingspan! © 2007 Dave Walsh
I'm writing from the Greenpeace ship Esperanza, currently en route to the Antarctic.In the last few weeks we've threaded our way south, around Papua New Guinea, down past New Ireland (we didn't stop in, but I hear the Guinness may be good) and into to the port of Auckland, New Zealand, which is almost becoming a second home for me. I've now sailed out of there five times on Greenpeace ships since May 2004.
On Wednesday we left Auckland, and headed down the east cost of New Zealand. After a quick stop off at Bluff (right at the bottom of the South Island), I'm currently writing you from remarkably good weather in the Southern Ocean. Down here, "good" is a relative term - the wind is howling outside, the ship is rolling around a bit, which makes sitting at a laptop a pretty strenuous exercise. But the sun is shining, it's not too rough out here, and all around us, several species of albatross are doing their thing, wheeling about in the wind, using the updrafts from the waves to burn as little energy as possible.
Continue reading "Happy Humpback Whale Christmas from the Southern Ocean"
| Comments (5)Zeitgeist: The Movie, 9/11, Andrew Keen and the impossible search for 'the truth'
Posted by damien at
4:10 PM on December 17, 2007
In February 2007, Blather.net issued a challenge to the 9/11 Truth Movement. We said: "It's time to up the game. Time to get better. Time to write better blogs, make better movies and ask better questions. We're sorry, but Loose Change and the 9/11 conspiracy theorists are just not doing that right now." But now, it seems, somebody has upped the game: one Peter Joseph. His film, 'Zeitgeist: The Movie', is a gripping triumph of film-making. But more than just adding to the 911 debate, his movie is something else - an artefact which simultaneously validates and rubbishes the claims of Andrew Keen: that the web is in the hands of idiots who are systematically destroying 'the truth'.
Continue reading "Zeitgeist: The Movie, 9/11, Andrew Keen and the impossible search for 'the truth'"
| Comments (4)Anarchy on the High Seas
Posted by daev at
4:32 AM on December 3, 2007
© Dave Walsh
Dave and Mir tell of pirate hideaways from on board the Esperanza:
The other day our ship, the Esperanza passed near the island of Sonsorol, one of the sixteen states of the Republic of Palau. But when we say "near" it's very relative - the ocean is a very very big place, and we didn't actually see it. Still, Sonsorol was there, just a tiny dot in the chart, so small. It could have been just a rock. But it is also the place of an utopian anarchist dream.
Continue reading "Anarchy on the High Seas"
| Comments (1)Blather meets Out There Radio
Posted by damien at
10:00 AM on September 26, 2007
'Out There Radio' is the brainchild of Messrs. Joe McFall and Raymond Wiley. Broadcasting from Athens, Georgia and touching on every form of conspiracy theory and fortean phenomena imaginable, 'Out There' is an excellent podcast, covering ground that should be quite familiar to readers of Blather.net. We recently caught up with Joe McFall and invited him to introduce himself and 'Out There' to Blatherskites.
Continue reading "Blather meets Out There Radio"
| Comments (2)Conspiracy of Silence; UFOs in Ireland
Posted by daev at
12:14 PM on September 22, 2007
I wrote this review of Conspiracy of Silence; UFOs in Ireland by Dermot Butler and Carl Nally about a year ago for Fortean Times - and completely forgot to publish in Blather! Of course, that's all because blather.net is part of an Irish government conspiracy to suppress the proof that extra-terrestrials are visiting this very parish, I'll have you know.
Continue reading "Conspiracy of Silence; UFOs in Ireland"
| Comments (8)Waking the Dead: The Mummies of Saint Michan's Church, Dublin
Posted by daev at
11:21 AM on August 25, 2007
Once again the Blather team lead their readers into a dark corner to show them disturbing things. This time, Dave descends below Dublin's oldest church, St. Michan's, to see the famous "mummies" - ancient cadavers that have dried out rather than rotted, and to pull the Crusader's finger. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust - you've been warned, potentially unsavoury photographs to follow...
Continue reading "Waking the Dead: The Mummies of Saint Michan's Church, Dublin"
| Comments (17)Blather.net: 10 Years Old! Happy Birthday to Us!
Posted by daev at
5:15 PM on May 12, 2007
Dear reader (excuse the familiarity - we don't know you from Adam) - please sit down, as you may find this hard to swallow. Blather.net is ten years old. Yes, ten years or if you like, 3653 days. This means that this website is racing towards puberty, and will no longer stand for the wearing of shorts pants, at least not in the depths of the Hibernian winter. As the legal drinking age in this country is eight-years-old, we've already been hard at it, building up a fierce resistance to the hard stuff, so the website won't (or shouldn't crash) during the celebrations. Do you get the smell of porter?
Continue reading "Blather.net: 10 Years Old! Happy Birthday to Us!"
| Comments (23)Waking the Dead: Charles Fort's Grave - Albany, New York
Posted by daev at
12:35 AM on May 10, 2007
You just can't keep us out of graveyards here on blather.net. This season sees us dashing around the New World, inquiring into the whereabouts of the corpse of that irascible iconoclast, Charles Hoy Fort, father of fortean studies and teleportation.
It's 11am on the 29th day of April and I'm surrounded by dead people. I can't see any of them. The year, 2007, Gregorian, 5767 Hebrew, 1428 Islamic, 1386 Persian. In the Julian calendar it's 13 days earlier... sort of. In any case, it's heading for midday, Eastern Standard Time, if you believe in that kind of thing.
Continue reading "Waking the Dead: Charles Fort's Grave - Albany, New York"
| Comments (2)MayDay!
Posted by sue at
12:14 AM on May 2, 2007
Late at night, somewhere in Ireland, a shadowy figure will be crossing the land. He or she will be holding in their hand, a bag, or box of eggs. They might bend to dig and bury an egg in a field, or creep closer to an outhouse and lay one gently inside straw or hay. The moon is almost full, so the light is good, and the ground is dry. It is a good night to be out in the fields with malice in your heart...
On the 9-11 Conspiracy Theories
Posted by damien at
10:18 AM on February 20, 2007
The 9/11 Conspiracy Theories are getting too stupid, too widespread and far too pervasive. In their frantic dash to prove the complicity of the Neo-Cons, the 9/11 Truth Movement has given the Bush administration exactly what it wanted in the first place: a population mired in minutiae and utterly convinced of its own impotence.
The Call to Adventure
I've been avoiding this issue, if the truth be told, for months now. I started dabbling with the 9/11 conspiracy theories that have been evolving this last two or three years, a few months back, by listening to podcasts, reading articles and yes, watching the movie Loose Change - the home-made student film on 9/11 which sits at the very centre of most of the recent conspiracy theories.
Continue reading "On the 9-11 Conspiracy Theories"
| Comments (43)UFO over Archway in London
Posted by damien at
2:24 PM on February 13, 2007
Be the holy! It's been a while since Blather found itself in the middle of a UFO flap. That is, we mean, in the actual *middle* of one, with a spate of UFO sightings in the area of Archway, near to Crouch End in north London, where this particular BlatherGoon resides. The sightings appear to have taken place on February 1st at 5.30pm with the Police recieving a brace of phone calls to report the objects...
Continue reading "UFO over Archway in London"
| Comments (16)Dave on Greenpeace Anti-Whaling Expedition to Southern Ocean
Posted by daev at
10:27 AM on February 7, 2007
Yep, that's right. I'm back on board the Greenpeace ship Esperanza again, currently in the middle the of icefields of the Antarctic. We're here to track down and confront the Japanese whaling fleet, which, under claims of "scientific whaling" plans to kill 945 whales in the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary, then sell the meat commercially. Clever but unsavoury.
Continue reading "Dave on Greenpeace Anti-Whaling Expedition to Southern Ocean"
| Comments (5)Waking the Dead: Burke and Hare
Posted by damien at
8:49 AM on January 29, 2007
178 years ago today, an Irishman named William Burke was executed in Edinburgh, Scotland. You may never have heard of him, but at the time of his death he was infamous: 'This day, Wednesday 28th Jan, 1829, William Burke underwent the last sentence of the law, for the murder of Mrs Docherty, one of the victims of the West Port Tragedies. At an early hour, the spacious street where the scaffold was erected, was crowded to excess ; and all the windows which could command a view, were previously bespoken, and high prices given for them.'
Continue reading "Waking the Dead: Burke and Hare"
| Comments (0)Happy Christmas from Blather.net
Posted by damien at
2:02 PM on December 18, 2006
And so, the ninth year of Blather.net draws to a close. We have, as always, tried to live up to the lofty standards set by our founding father in achieving 'entirely new levels in everything which is contemptible, despicable and unspeakable in contemporary journalism'. Like Flann Almighty before us we have 'no principles, no honour, no shame'. Our objects have been 'the fostering of graft and corruption in public life, the furtherance of cant and hypocrisy, the encouragement of humbug and hysteria and the glorification of greed and gombeenism'. Do you get the smell of Porter?
Continue reading "Happy Christmas from Blather.net"
| Comments (3)Blast from the past: Cannonballs from the sky
Posted by daev at
4:32 PM on November 15, 2006
In October 1997, a mystery cannonball tore through the walls of a Missouri mobile home. Nobody knew where it came from, or who fired. We wrote some crazy stuff about it, here on blather.net. Now it's come back to haunt us... The owner of the mobile home, Kathy J. Mickelson, emailed blather.net, telling her side of the story. The "cannonball" was no such thing - in fact, it was a massive spudgun.
Continue reading "Blast from the past: Cannonballs from the sky"
| Comments (6)Angry Dreams
Posted by barry at
8:05 PM on November 10, 2006
Occasionally I have dreams during which I get extremely angry with people whom I feel no anger to in 'real life' - and wake up somewhat disturbed and embarrassed. It happened again last night (I was in a theatre in Venice pelting the collective Blather readership with Monster Munch, while shouting and laughing hysterically) [What were you doing there anyway, you contemptible scum?]. I decided to use the web to investigate the phenomenon of angry dreams.
Continue reading "Angry Dreams"
| Comments (7)The War at Home: the story of Zachary Bowen and Addie Hall
Posted by damien at
8:00 AM on November 10, 2006
A couple of years ago I was lucky enough to meet Greg Palast, who I interviewed for a piece on Blather. The reason the piece never appeared is quite simple and enormously embarrasing: I lost the tapes. Despite the amateur-hour antics, one thing has stayed with me from that day: Palast's description of how the horrors that Timothy McVeigh had witnessed as a soldier during the first Iraq war had followed him home to the U.S. and led him to commit a horror of his own: the Oklahoma City bombing.
I mention this because the recent story of how decorated soldier Zachary Bowen murdered, dismembered and cooked his girlfriend Addie Hall, may also have its origins in what Bowen was exposed to when on service. To paraphrase what Palast said to me that day, isn't it foolish of us to expect that the warzone will not follow a soldier home?
Continue reading "The War at Home: the story of Zachary Bowen and Addie Hall"
| Comments (5)Diggin' in the Dirt: NIall (sausage the fourth)
Posted by ender at
4:40 PM on November 8, 2006
Blather's grave-robber in residence 'Ender' returns to deliver the latest in his epic series of articles on the legendary Irish warlord and shagger of many women, Niall of the Nine Hostages. So, strap on yer fedora and grab hold of yer trowel as this time we explore the controversial genetic evidence which, it was recently suggested, points to the fact that one in five Irish people are directly descended from Niall...
Continue reading "Diggin' in the Dirt: NIall (sausage the fourth)"
| Comments (0)UFOs in Newbury, UK
Posted by damien at
12:09 PM on November 5, 2006
Starting this September just gone, residents in Newbury, Berkshire, England have been reporting anomalous lights in the local sky. According to Newbury News 'triangular lights' were seen by the the local Greenham Common by a spate of people. And now a new set of sightings, this week just gone, over the M4 road have left locals puzzled and generated a rash of calls to the media. Apparently, the Met office and the Police can't explain it. But, if the truth be told, the UFO sightings are only the beginning of the story for an area rich in Fortean history: a quick perusal of the archives reveals an area abundant in spectres, ghosts and unexplained phenomena.
Continue reading "UFOs in Newbury, UK"
| Comments (2)To Hell or Howth: The Hostel of the Red God
Posted by daev at
9:49 PM on October 30, 2006
Halloween Special: This is an expanded version of an article I had published recently, as part of the programme for Conor McPherson's play The Seafarer, currently being staged at the National Theatre in London. I was asked to write a piece dealing with the mythology of Howth and places in the Dublin landscape. I soon discovered a sinister relationship between some of these places...
Continue reading "To Hell or Howth: The Hostel of the Red God"
| Comments (7)UFO YouTube
Posted by damien at
8:20 AM on October 14, 2006
In addition to whacky music videos, horse porn, mind-bendingly dull video blogs, Chuck Norris fight-scenes and flesh-crawlingly cute kittens on record turntables, YouTube is also a portal for all class of UFO shenanigans, allowing as it does, for the easy sharing of 'UFO movies' from around the world.
Theoretically, this should be a goldmine of Forteana: the very cream of what the UFOlogical community has to offer. However, YouTube's strength is also it's weakness: the ease with which you can upload a file means that many people don't bother to explain the provenance of the footage. The result is a mixed bag. No matter, it's been far too long since we had any hot UFO action around these parts, so I decided to strap-on my bullshit detector and wade in to the thick of it.
Continue reading "UFO YouTube"
| Comments (18)Robert Anton Wilson Needs Your Help (updated 6th October 2006)
Posted by daev at
12:17 PM on October 3, 2006
If I was to name two writers who have inspired me to keep blather.net running over the last nine and a half years, it's been Flann O'Brien, and Robert Anton Wilson. For the last decade or so that I've been reading them, Wilson's books have awed and inspired me. They've also made me guffaw with a deep belly laugh that few other writers have drawn from me. now, Bob, or as he's also known, RAW, needs our help.
Continue reading "Robert Anton Wilson Needs Your Help (updated 6th October 2006)"
| Comments (5)An apology from Ryanair
Posted by damien at
5:32 PM on October 2, 2006
Well mince me in a grinder, cover me in salt, slap me between two slices of bread and call me an 'in-flight meal' but Ryanair have apologised to my Mother. I'll repeat that: Ryanair have *apologised* to my Mother...
Continue reading "An apology from Ryanair"
| Comments (11)Why did Ryanair refuse my mother a wheelchair?
Posted by damien at
3:18 PM on September 17, 2006
Yeah, I know: it sounds like a joke headline. Unfortunately, it isn't. On Friday night my mother was flying from Pisa to Dublin, and unable to walk due to a sudden hip injury, she asked Ryanair for a wheelchair at the airport They refused, and I'd like to know why.
Continue reading "Why did Ryanair refuse my mother a wheelchair?"
| Comments (13)Waking the Dead: Necrophiliacs arrested in Mississippi
Posted by damien at
11:29 AM on September 8, 2006
Reading like the plot of a low-budget horror movie, the press was awash with the ghoulish story of the twins Nicholas and Alexander Grunke today, who were arrested after illegally excavating the corpse of Laura Tennesen: for the express purpose of sexually violating her remains.
Continue reading "Waking the Dead: Necrophiliacs arrested in Mississippi"
| Comments (8)Waking the Dead: Bitton Train Graveyard
Posted by damien at
12:43 PM on September 5, 2006
Bitton Train Graveyard can be found just outside Bristol city. The rusted remains found there are a fragmentary glimpse of another age, a lost time, when the singular vision of a man called Isambard Kingdom Brunel re-shaped the very landscape and cities of England.
Continue reading "Waking the Dead: Bitton Train Graveyard"
| Comments (2)The Pyramids of Güímar, Tenerife
Posted by daev at
8:28 PM on August 3, 2006
(Canary Islands, Spain) Dave finally gets his arse in gear, and posts photographs from his visit to the mysterious ancient Pyramids of Güímar in the Canary Islands.
Continue reading "The Pyramids of Güímar, Tenerife"
| Comments (11)
