Month: May 2003
The Real Dublin
Forget Ulysses. To learn more about Dublin... I've been living in Dublin for over 10 years. I love the place. I hate the place. I always want to know more about it. I'm fascinated by what was here before the city. I like to know about the physical landscape of the city, the undulations and rivers that lie beneath the concrete and tarmadadam, below the yuppie bars and council flats. One book in particular opened my eyes, Christopher Moriarty's Exploring Dublin. Exploring Dublin examines the physical landscape, the flora and the fauna within the two canals that encircle Dublin's city centre. He talks about underground rivers like the Poddle, tells weird tales of boozey entomology, and illustrates the rich wildlife (non-human) that lives within the city. The reader is drawn into not only the rich relationship between pre-civilization Dublin, and how it formed the shape of the modern city, but...
Raven Watch
Meet the Raven. One serious bird. Around four years ago I was just about to sit myself down to breakfast in the company of my parents when my Father, who was near the Kitchen window, roared out an expression which I can't print here. Sufficeth to say his expression was spherical and in the plural. Having nearly smashed the carton of Orange juice all over the wall with fright I asked him what on earth he was shouting about. He didn't answer but only motioned, never taking his eyes off the window, for me to come over and see what he was looking at. I came over and pleasantly allowed my jaw to move up and down in an action resembling a yo-yo. Outside in the garden was the usual collection of birds that frequented my mothers' birdtable. There were sparrows, finches, and the odd unwelcome magpie. However, this particular...
Urban Nature
Animals in downtown Dublin... Amidst the HORROR that is the Irish Financial Services Centre, I keep having interesting brushes with Nature (TM). Last year, there was the starfish in George's Dock Now, when I'm heading by George's Dock, there's nearly always a blackbird or two playing in the fountain by IFSC House. And a big old drake who sits in almost the same place every day give or take a few inches, not at water level, but about 15ft higher, at 'ground' level. A few weeks back, a mother duck was fussing around the dock with a flotilla of ducklings... Read the p45 Urban Nature thread June 17: At my house in Dublin 7 Lots of fun in the back garden at the moment. Two young sparrows chasing the mother around, fluffing up their feathers, beating their wings, demanding food from the ma. They're nearly as big as her, but...
“Who ye gonna call boi?”
Oddly enough, trying to put together a list of suitably haunted houses/breweries is proving to be quite doggedly difficult. Further to our entry yesterday (offering our services to those troubled by spectral visitations etc) we thought we'd follow up with our findings. Oddly enough, trying to put together a list of suitably haunted houses/breweries is proving to be quite doggedly difficult. We?ve been trawling the lower depths of the web for a while now and are finding it quite a frustrating experience. There are some astonishingly bad websites out there... Anyhoo, we shall begin by posting links to whatever ?haunted? locations we can find that have weblinks attached. You can make your own mind up as to whether or not they represent a serious earthly representation of the undead, or whether they are simply the idiotic ramblings of a drunken bogwarrior. Loftus Hall, in county Wexford, has a small but...
Blather Paranormal Investigators Inc.
Is your PC possessed by a malevolent imp? Is your kettle making vile, satanic suggestions to you? Do you just get the feeling that you?re not alone? So. Here I am and I?m bored. The chairman of the bored. And my mind gets to thinking about haunted houses (look, pickings are slim all right?) and especially all of those uniquely creaky old mansions that seem to dot the Irish landscape. And I?m wondering, is there a reputable guide to such locations? If there is, please let me know. I never had much time for tales of dismembered ghosties and legless wailing beasties until, a couple of years ago, I took a trip to the Isle of Man. And well, how do I put this?? Well, one way of putting it is that I was lucky enough to be witness to a rather singular paranormal experience. Another way of putting it...
Obeee doo, I wanna be like youhoohoo
We're more like chimps than chimps would like to admit. From New Scientist The latest twist in the debate over how much DNA separates humans from chimpanzees suggests we are so closely related that chimps should not only be part of the same taxonomic family, but also the same genus. Check out this article. This may freak a few people, it claims that chimps are really human. Or something. Also recommended - the p45rant row on the matter Added on 05/21/2003: Of course it's the usual thing with these blasted people. 'Chimps are humans yadda yadda...but I wouldn't like living next door to me, with their eternal goddamn tea-parties'. Breaking news on 05/21/2003: Let's look at this a different way Humans genetically close to chimps By Daithí Breathnach Blather science correspondent Humans are so closely related to chimpanzees that they should properly be considered as members of the chimpanzee family,...
Fingerprinting visitors to the US of A
Inky fingers means tourist... From BBC News Visitors to the United States will soon be fingerprinted and digitally photographed under a new hi-tech security system, a top US official has said. Not news to me. I've been working in biometric-related business for the last year, and it's definitely happening. However, it only effects visitors who require a visa to enter. More as it happens. Update 14th January 2004 Well, it has happened. And it's getting crazier.... The Irish Government position on the matter » European Biometric Forum » 'The overall aim of the project is to ensure the secure, user-friendly, socially acceptable and ethical use of biometrics in Europe.' And then there's the passenger prescreening system, CAPPS II ...EU Commissioner Bolkestein for assuring us on December 16 2003 that European passenger name records would not be fed into the US computer assisted passenger prescreening system CAPPS II. Three weeks later...
Brainwarmer: Elliot Smith’s Guitar
I try to review, find they're defunct. Bah. Here I am about to review this wonderfully weird recording. I visit http://www.corporatecollapse.com/and discover that Brainwarmer are defunct. So far the album is kinda like Bongwater meets Laibach, by way of Nashville. According to the Associated Blog: Due to the usual drug overdoses, onstage pyrotechnics, and personality conflicts with David Lee Roth, the eclectic improvisational band Brainwarmer called it quits today. More as I understand it. later: Aha: http://www.corporatecollapse.com/brainwarmer/ But the MP3s are missing!
The Bilderberg group ride again
According to some rather cryptic reports that are washing around on the web, the nefarious Bilderberg group are having their AGM... According to the beeb website, the Bilderberg group (the quintessential 'they' in every conspiracy theory for the last two hundred years) are having their annual shin-dig. Informers tell me that this years agenda includes blood-shortages in the vampire community, rubber chicken stocks, successful baby-seal clubbing methods, effective strategies for oppressing indigenous third-world peoples and the general take over of the world through a programme of insidious mind control, subversion of democracy and black propaganda. The agenda was also supposed to contain several talks on the subject of annexing Iraqi oil supplies, but were thrown out of the final line up on account of being an "absurd anti-Semitic brain fever on the part of the tree-hugging, saddam-lovin', cheese-eating surrender monkeys". Key note speakers are rumoured to include Vlad Tepys the...