The Blather house band. Listen to a song or read a goddam description.
Buy the CD with paypal.
3 euro including postage.
Or buy the downloads from cdbaby.
]]> Buy the CD with paypal.
3 euro including postage.
Or buy the downloads from cdbaby.
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Dublin is the perfect haunted city, with its narrow cobbled streets concealing layers of interwoven history and folklore, left behind by generations of Viking, Norman and Irish inhabitants. Walking through the streets of a dark October evening, as Halloween or Samhain grows closer and the moon slips behind some flimsy clouds, the 'other world' seems closer, more tangible.
Haunted Dublin brings together the city's most infamous hauntings with stories that have never before been seen in print, including some of the author's own chilling experiences. Meet phantom dogs in Dublin's suburbs, black cats and Satanists in the Dublin Mountains, and the headless ghost of Buck Jones, which haunts the streets around Croke Park.
From the murderous black pig that tormented 18th century city dwellers, to modern day poltergeists in Tallaght; from bodysnatching to banshees, Haunted Dublin will intrigue you... and scare the bejasus out of you.
Chapter List:
View the Haunted Dublin photograph collection »
All Nonsuch books are made from paper that is FSC (Forest Stewardship Council) certified or PEFC (Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification Schemes) certified, and from manufacturers have achieved ISO14001 status.
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"[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.
]]> This scandalous pile of slanderous filth can be yours for a mere €9.99, a pint of blood and your firstborn child. Ok, we'll settle for the money. Seriously, we need the money. Those drugs don't buy themselves, no more than than the villa in Sardinia is going to build itself or the Blather private jet is going to refuel itself.€9.99 - sure you'd barely buy two pints for that! And here's the deal. We make more money if you buy the book from us. Yes dear, it will be on Amazon and in the shops, but we get less money into our grubby little hands if you buy it that way. Buy it straight from us and Blather.net makes some cash!
"When blather.net was spawned back in 1997, Dave Walsh, Damien DeBarra and Barry Kavanagh exhumed the lofty manifesto of the original Blather, founded in 1934 by Flann O'Brien. It would also be a "publication of the gutter" achieving "entirely new levels in everything which is contemptible, despicable and unspeakable in contemporary journalism". Blather.net would have no principles, no honour, no shame. It would support the "fostering of graft and corruption in public life", the "encouragement of humbug and hysteria", and the "glorification of greed and gombeenism". "
"Over ten years later comes A Load of Blather, gathering together the best of the best reports on paranormal events, superstitions, mysterious happenings, conspiracy theories, the hordes of rampaging kangaroos in the Dublin hills, and the previously untold story of General Michael Collins' forays into outer space. Look no further - this is Blather."
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 »
Chapter List:
Introduction: Blather Doesn't Care
Unidentified Feckin' Objects
Slow Walking Banned in Dublin
Lepreporn
Angry Dreams
There are No Kangaroos in Austria
Fear and Loathing in Telemark
The Tomb of God
Lucy Dell
F*cking Magic
Wyrd!
The Blather Guide to Easter
The Dalkey Baby and the House of Horrors
Cannonballs from the Sky
Mayday!
Norway's Psychic Princess
The 9/11 Conspiracy Theories
Superstitions of Christmas
The Anthropology of Roads
Clontarf-Based Science Team Find 'the Clitoris'
Ancient Irish Astronauts
Most of the Internet is about Bobby Darin
IRA Announces Massive Redundancies
That Whole Father Pat Noise Phenomenon on Dublin's O'Connell Bridge
The Taoist Problem Page
Entire Irish Nation Gathers on Beach to Futilely Shake Fists at Sellafield
Irishwoman Deafened by Ticking of her own Biological Clock
How to Fly a Building
Ireland's Greatest Wits
Epilogue: Thundering Myeloma
Note: Postage may need to be re-negotiated for any orders over three books
Read what Fortean Times had to say about A Load of Blather here (pdf) »
What our readers are saying about A Load of Blather:
"Just to let you know the book arrived safe and sound and is GREAT! An absolute hoot!" - Russell Clarke
"Saw the pics of the launch! It seams like it was great fun! Sorry I missed it! Loved the book! Was laughing outloud in the plane!" - Florencia
"Ah...thoroughly enjoying my read, there's just not enough of it!" - Lee
All Nonsuch books are made from paper that is FSC (Forest Stewardship Council) certified or PEFC (Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification Schemes) certified, and from manufacturers have achieved ISO14001 status.
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Pay with paypal. 7 euro plus postage.
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Pay with paypal. 7 euro plus postage.
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Pay with paypal. 10 euro plus postage.
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"Yeah, that was going to be a masterpiece, a magnum opus. I still think those first two issues are among some of the best comic work of that period" - Alan Moore, in the blather interview.
Only two issues came out, back in the 80s. Buy issue one of Alan Moore's legendarily unfinished Big Numbers. At 13 euro plus postage, it's pretty much the going rate for this rare comic. Pay with paypal.
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This 1995 catalogue for Allen Spiegel Fine Arts was designed by Dave McKean. A collector's item for the McKean-inclined. 10 euro plus postage. Pay with paypal.
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Worried about invading Martians? We have two individual issues of Alan Moore's exquisite and hilarious comic, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen for sale. A must for collectors. 5 euro plus postage. Pay with paypal.
Why are we selling this? Check out Blather's lengthy Alan Moore inteview.
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William F. Pepper
Orders To Kill - the Truth Behind the Murder of Martin Luther King, Jr (Amazon.com)
Orders To Kill - the Truth Behind the Murder of Martin Luther King, Jr. (Amazon.co.uk)
Orders To Kill - the Truth Behind the Murder of Martin Luther King, Jr. (Powell's Books - new or secondhand)
This is the 1998 Warner Brothers edition, updating the first edition with new material. Reviewed for Blather by Angelique Stevenson:
Author William F. Pepper was the man who influenced MLK to oppose the Vietnam War. Quite some time later, convinced that his friend's supposed assassin was innocent, he became James Earl Ray's attorney. This book tells the story of Pepper's investigations into the assassination.
]]> *History*, up until now, had it that Ray was the assassin because he pleaded guilty. It is also *officially* assumed Ray was a *lone gunman* but in fact, when Ray pleaded guilty he made a point of stressing that that didn't mean there wasn't a conspiracy.Ray pleaded guilty because he was coerced and threatened by his then-lawyer Percy Foreman. Three days after his plea, he fired Foreman and requested a trial, which was denied to him. Under the US constitution, he should have been granted this trial: his sixth amendment rights had been infringed because Foreman had previously represented the chief witness for the prosecution.
Unable to get Ray a trial, Pepper came up with the idea of a TV trial. In this 1993 programme, Ray was aquitted. The evidence pointed towards innocence. However, the US establishment would not grant him a real trial.
Who really killed MLK? It was well known and publicized by the 1970s that there was an official campaign of harrassment and surveillance against the Nobel Prize winner by the FBI and the US Army. Did they have any reason to stop at murder? MLK was killed for what was regarded as revolutionary activity. This book explains the why and how of the assassination - and names the man that probably pulled the trigger.
After this book was originally published, Ray received the support of the King family. MLK's son, Dexter Scott King, provides a foreword to this edition. Unfortunately, the publication of this edition coincided with Ray's death on April 23rd, 1998.
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Stunned silence. Someone ventures "well, some of them must be real, musn't they?".
"Well", I reply. "I can't prove to you that none of them are create by paranormal means. I can assure you that a great many of them are definitely made by a bunch of lads with some boards and rope.
The silence is now stony. Feet are shuffled. I feel like a complete wanker for bursting someone's bubble. I might as well have run around a primary school shouting "there's no fucking Santa Claus!".
The funny thing, the modern phenomenon of human-made crop circles came about in a pub too. Or after the pub, at least. It was one night in 1976 when two middle-aged men Doug Bower and Dave Chorley went for a stroll around rural England after their weekly beer session. They decided to make a crop circle so that "people would think a flying saucer had landed". Yes folks, it was that straightforward.
A later generation of crop circles - inspired by Doug and Dave - are at work today. The Circlemakers.org group that includes Rob Irving, John Lundberg and Mark Pilkington are of this generation, and have just released possibly the best book I've ever seen about crop circles, The Field Guide: The Art, History and Philosophy of Crop Circle Making .
For me, crop circles are about art - public, outdoor, transient art. Art for its own sake. The UK - despite the drivel spewed up by some of its more annoying celebrity 'conceptual' artists does bring forth some truly fine public artists - Banksy would be another of my favourites. Andy Goldsworthy is another.
The Circlemakers could have easily written up a book slagging off the hordes of crop circle believers that have spent decades running around the fields of England claiming "vortexes" or extraterrestrials were behind the circle makers. That would have been the approach of any group taking pride in their pranks. But no, this book is different. Despite the fact that crops circles have usually been the work of a bunch of people with basic surveying gear, some rope and a few planks, the Circlemakers are actually sympathetic to the two sided phenomena.
Back in the days of Doug and Dave, they started out simply enough. Crop circles were, of course, circular. It was kept simple, until the likes of meteorologist tried to squeeze the circles into explanations of bizarre weather phenomena. This annoyed the hell out of Doug and Dave, so they tried to come up with more Byzantine circles to confound Meaden. Soon, the circles evolved into much more complex designs. Without the fandom, the circles would have just stayed as circles.
Irving and co. recognise this - they realise that the circle makers create for the fans, and that without the fans, there would be no impetus to create. The Field Guide recognises this symbiotic relationship and celebrates it. This isn't to say it's warm, fuzzy and entirely tolerant of the "croppies". Several chapters recount evidence of how some of the more fervent "investigators" hid, altered, or ignored evidence that might their only personal doctrines of extraterrestrial involvement.
Beautifully produced by the Strange Attractor Press, The Field Guide has quickly become one of my "recommended" books on the nature of human belief - up there with the likes of The Mothman Prophecies or Patrick Harpur's Daemonic Reality. It's even got a beginners guide to to making crop circles!
Visit the website: The Field Guide: The Art, History and Philosophy of Crop Circle Making » (and see sample pages!
Buy the book: The Field Guide: The Art, History and Philosophy of Crop Circle Making »
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Liam Fay
Beyond Belief (Amazon.com)
Beyond Belief (Amazon.co.uk)
'Beyond Belief' is a concatenation of Liam Fay's religious writings in the Irish music and current affairs magazine Hot Press, a publication not particularly renowned for pulling its punches. Fay himself is infuriatingly graced with a seldom witnessed talent; the ability to heave his readership rolling into the aisles with life-threatening paroxysms of laughter, by passing corny remarks which made by anyone else would be intolerably dull.
]]> Apart from the humour, there's a plethora of useful material in here to occupy the Fortean reader, which serves to present rather more diversity in Irish contemporary belief than people outside of Ireland would probably be aware of. Fay uncovers countless forms of religious oddity, 'Jesus of Coolock' - the Messiah's appearance on a bedroom door, The Tridentine priest who performs Christian versions of Ozzy Osbourne hits, a lonely Tridentine bishop providing premium rate confession phonelines, exorcisms on the grounds of RTE (national TV & radio broadcasting company), trips to Knock (site of an alleged miracle), Croagh Patrick (a mountain climbed yearly by the faithful), Lough Derg (an infamous site of religious penance), Born-again Christian 'cultbusters', Hari Krisnas, and a dancing Catholic priest (remember the dancing priest in 'Fr. Ted'?), Fr. Neil Horan, featured on the cover of the book clothed in his dancing costume, including a kilt embroidered with the Star of David. Horan spends much of his time promoting his interpretations of the Book of Revelation, convinced that Armageddon is upon us in the form of World War III - and if it doesn't happen in the next five years, that the entire Bible is a fraud.
A particular highlight is the obligatory trip to Knock, and Fay's
purchase of sundry souvenirs; 'My copy of Roget's Thesaurus lists
merely 47 synonyms for the word 'rubbish'. Dr. Roget obviously never
visited Knock.'
On clerical onanism: 'Masturbation is an integral part of every
celibate's life,' says Father Pat Buckley. 'Most priests would masturbate
regularly, as would most bishops, and I'm sure, even the pope.'
Two hilarious chapters are taken up with Fay's incognito forays into the heart of Dublin; first as a gin swilling, condom buying, swearing Catholic priest (and a photo call with Ireland's most rabid anti-abortion campaigner). Later on, he takes to the streets as a evangelical preacher, attempting to convert the masses with his inflammatory handouts - photocopies from ancient manuscript on good housekeeping.
Although some of Fay's wry comments may mean little to readers not intimately briefed on Irish current and historical affairs, 'Beyond belief' is an essential addition to the untidy book stacks of anyone interested in contemporary religious belief. Oh, and did I mention that there's a entire chapter devoted to country singer Daniel O'Donnell?
- daev
Barnaby Conrad
Absinthe: History in a Bottle (Amazon.com)
Absinthe: History in a Bottle (Amazon.co.uk)
Absinthe: History in a Bottle
(Powell's Books - new or secondhand)
Why are we selling this? Read the related Blather article, How to Drink Absinthe
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Last Words: The Final Journals of William S. Burroughs (Amazon.com)
Last Words: The Final Journals of William S. Burroughs (Amazon.co.uk)
"How I hate those who are dedicated to producing conformity"
- Last Words
This tender and moving book, lovingly edited by Burrough's longtime companion, James Grauerholz, may come as a surprise to those who know Burroughs as a scary old homosexual junky who penned *Naked Lunch*, the man who shot his wife in the head when performing a 'William Tell routine' or appeared as the heroin-addicted priest in *Drugstore Cowboy*. More true to life, Burroughs was one of the last true gentlemen, a radical of any era, a painfully sensitive and an untouchable writer.
]]> *Last Words* is collection of his diaries from November 1996, until his death, at the age of 83. Entries often begin with accounts of his dreams, thoughts about his cats, or memories that seep in from his distant past, which Burroughs playfully chops up over a period of days, in a relaxed 'cut-up' fashion.
- daev
Paul Devereux and Peter Brookesmith
UFOs and Ufology: The First Fifty Years (Amazon.com)
UFOs and Ufology: The First Fifty Years (Amazon.co.uk)
It was with some hesitation that I chose to purchase Paul Devereux and Peter Brookesmith's 'UFOs & Ufology'. I had read Bob Rickard's review in Fortean Times 106, where he gave it an 'Excellent' rating, and I have deep respect for both authors - I've cited Devereux's endeavours in Blather before. But when I went to pay IEP£20 for their new publication, I was a little taken aback. I held in my hand a 'coffee table' sized tome, with an almost abstract rendition of 'extra-terrestrial' in front of a saucer. 'Potboiler', I muttered, and left it down. Eventually, after a few minutes thumbing through the pages, pacing and beard stroking, I was away with a copy under my arm.
]]> Apparently you shouldn't judge a book by its cover. I didn't - I bought 'UFOs & Ufology on the strength of the authors' previous work. However, I hope that people do buy this book because of its cover - because if they buy it hoping for yet another reassurance of the reality of flying saucers and alien visitation, perhaps they might actually learn something.The authors trace UFOs from their earliest historical mentions, discussing their meanings in different cultures, right up to describing how and why 'flying saucers' suddenly made news in 1947. put forward their own theories, and still have room to explore the various hypothesis outside their own ideas. Any Roswell believer who doesn't have questions raised for them by the chapter on *that* alleged incident needs a boot in the ear. The tenuous links between crop circles and UFOs is explained, and the abductionists, such as John Mack and Budd Hopkins are heavily criticised, but not without well expressed reasons. Devereux's own field -- earthlight research -- is clearly explained, as is its relationship to the overall UFO phenomenon. While the authors pull no punches, they are not dismissive either. They never debunk the idea of extraterrestrial life, yet do a damn fine job of explaining why there is yet little evidence to support it.
Probably the best overview of the UFO phenomenon that money can
buy.
- daev
Also see: Paul Devereux's website
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