Year: 2003
Almanacs of TERROR: Reference Books of Mass Instruction
Out with the old, in with the new. Dangerous magazines for sale! As the annual arbitrary feast of New Years approaches, I have decided to unearth my secret cache of 223 pristine copies of the 1981 Old Moore's Alamanac, a splendid aid to many an inquisitive farmer. They are currently buried 15 hands below the surface of my neighbours sheep nursery, beside an old racehorse I once borrowed, and the mortal remains of a gentleman by the name of Lucan. During the Cold War, I kept the magazines safe in a lead casket, burying them in case of a nuclear summer. One never knows when the invasion may start, or when the call may come. But in these times of hysteria and uncertainty, I feel it's time to dig them up and sell them to the highest bidder. They're fully greased and operational, and the sale of them will help...
Ghost Hunt 2003: Adventures in the Dublin Mountains
On December 28th, the Blather Editorial Committee and friends launched an expedition into the remote reaches of the Dublin mountains... The Sunday after christmas, six Blatherskites went-a-roaming around the Dublin hills, through Massy's Woods and the Hellfire Club, which contain some weird old buildings and megaliths, and are rife with tall tales of 18th century satanism, large spectral black cats and ghosts... It might not be remote from the city, but it's not the kind of place you'd want to spend the night by yourself... for more about the area, read these articles: Mr. Slaphead reports from the Blather trip to Massys Woods, Dublin » Elimare's report » Mr. Birdbath comments on the matter » Ireland's Hellfire Clubs Part I: No Smoke Without Fire » Ireland's Hellfire Clubs Part II: Hellfire and Harlots » Accidental Satanists » The spectral soul seen frequently in these parts In the old walled garden...
Feck Off! A Blather Primer to Irish Slang
Getting to grips with Hiberno English at home and abroad... An earlier incarnation of this article appeared on smug.com in December 1997, under the nom de guerre of Rev. Hellshaw. I've re-edited and updated it slightly since then. On my tiny island home of Ireland, populated by a paltry 4 million and equipped with just four TV stations (not including the north), we suffer continuous bombardment by the British and American media - the former having a far more direct and immediate influence. The Republic of Ireland was part of the British Empire until the end of the War of Independence in 1921, though it took us into the 1940s to full extricate ourselves, and gain full sovereignty. And I'm not about to get into any kind protracted discussion about Northern Ireland... The two island have swapped residents in both directions for as long as they have been dwelt upon....
Fortean Falls: Ice From The Sky, And Global Warming
Weird rains of toads, fish, blood, straw, sand etc. are well-documented. But are falls of large ice chunks a sign of global warming? Since 1997, blather.net has been falls of all kinds of weird shit. We've documented fish falls, meteorites, people, cannonballs, frogs and loads more. Charles Fort's Book of the Damned (1919), New Lands (1923), and Lo! (1931) record many of these reports of weird organic and apparently manufactured "rain" from all over the world, with all sorts of interesting ingredients, including alabaster, ants, ashes, beef, beetle larvae, berries, bitumen, blood, butter, charcoal, china fragments (naturally vitrified?), cinders, coal, cobwebs, coins, crabs, crayfish, eels, fish, flesh, gelatinous matter, grain, hay, ice, iron balls, jelly fish, limestone, lizards, mud, mussels, oyster shells, periwinkles, quartz, resin, salt, sand, sandalwood, seeds, silk, snails, snakes, spawn, spiders, carved and shaped stones, turtles, and of course, toads and frogs. More » But then there's...
The Ark of the Covenant in Tara? Apparently.
Jesus Christ! Moses! In Tara! Co. Meath! Who would have thought it? What a fright for a Tuesday! I came across a website claiming that The Ark of the Covenant is at Tara in Ireland » Which in turn led me to: Licence to Dig The obstacle in question is obtaining a "license to dig" from the Irish Minister for the Environment, who is called Martin Cullen, who has the authority to be able to grant me the license, without which I cannot dig a small area of flat grass, measuring 2m x 2m, at Tara. Tara is a protected National Heritage site and one cannot move a blade of grass without a license from the minister. More » Of particular amusement on this page is the equating of 'Torah', with Tara. Nice. There's been a lot of bizarre claims about the Hill of Tara - an ancient seat of...
The Chap: Sartorial Anarchy
A publication devoted to dressing well, quality drinking, pipe smoking, and supreme decadence. Welcome to the cult of couth. Founded in 1998 by a pair of 'rum coves', Mssrs. Gustav Temple and Vic Darkwood, The Chap attempts to reel in the maddening acceleration of the 21st century, coshing 'laddism', while promoting 'chapism'. My first encounter with a printed version The Chap was at the hands of a Ms. F, a noted and bibiophile and 'chapette'. I opened its pages to find in-depth articles on the Semiotics of Hair, Supermarket Dressage, the Tweed revolution and so on. Visit The Chap website » The Chap & The Internet There is a question that many of us are asking ourselves these days, and it is this: 'What is the Internet and can it be of any use to a gentleman?' The answer generally perceived to be the most accurate is: 'Leave the beastly...
Lucy Dell
Guest blatherer Oliver Bayliss goes down to the dell to find something rotten...Read the comments, for recently discovered notes The South of Warwickshire is considered one of the most scenic areas of England, maintaining its picturesque appeal without succumbing to parody. While the North of the county is dominated by the Isengard landscapes of Birmingham and Coventry, the South remains peaceful, cultured and preserved, with Shakespeare’s birthplace of Stratford-Upon-Avon lovingly at its heart. Historic castles towns such as Kenilworth and Warwick offer civilisation at its most decorous between the blonde wheat fields and nicely understated hedgerows. Even the roughest streets of Leamington Spa would appear to a passing Londoner so clean and lacking in human rubble as to suggest that a royal visit must be due the following day. Of course, dotted about are the rampant pustules of Little Chefs, KFCs, Slug and Lettuce pubs and Blockbuster Videos that one...
The Centre for Fortean Zoology: Jon Downes Interview – Cryptozoology, The Owlman and Other Monsters…
Dave Walsh talks to the Director the of the CFZ about Owlman and other mystery creatures You've got to love the Centre for Fortean Zoology, really you do. I had let my subscription to their journal Animals & Men lapse for a while... shame on me. I signed up again a few weeks back, and have the current issue sitting in front of me. For an organisation that seems to exist on a budget of fresh air, they never fail to impress. And the staff, while they could be considered eccentric, are all erudite scholars. Fronted by the singular editorial personality of Jonathan Downes, Animals & Men covers not only cryptozoology - the science of hidden, or as of yet scientifically undescribed species, but also out of place animals, and animal-related anomalies. The current issue has news snippets on weird invertebrates, the Chinese Wild Man of Shennongjia, 'Lucky, the Walsall...
A Tale of Two Presidents
So. They 'got him' as Bremner so eloquently put it... Indeed, it would appear that after thirty years of genocide, butchery, torture, gassing, billions of dollars of funding and almost twenty years of looking the other way, the armed forces of the United States got their hands on one Saddam Hussein. Frankly, I wonder why they didn't save themselves a whole load of hassle by not giving him all that support in the first place. I found it quite amusing that Saddam, when he was finally apprehended, was accompanied by a briefcase containing $750,000. I am quite sure that the irony of this wasn't lost on him either. Yesterdays' frenzied news broadcasts gave us images of two of the most famous (or infamous, if you like) men in the world: the President of the United States and the deposed President of Iraq. Two more different pictures you could not have...
GooglePrudery: Booted for Dissing Dubya
It's official: We're Too Hot For Google. Blather.net has been suspended by Google Adwords for having 'Unacceptable Content'. We're pure evil we are. I just hope me ma doesn't find out about my alleged google bombing! This bit posted on December 10th 2003 Google must have found out that we're 97% Evil... they've suspended our Adwords adverts! Blather's Barry Kavanagh has coined the phrase 'GooglePrudery' in honour of this great occasion, now that we've been branded 'bigoted demagogues' (his words). Mild-manned gentlemen that we are, we were some shocked this morning (dropped the toast and marmalade) to find a big fat email from Google.com in the inbox. Did some knife tricks with the letter-opener, to find that Google had suspend our recent series of blather.net advertisement, due to 'unacceptable content'. Ye Gods. Here's what the ads look like: Blather.net- from Ireland Paranormal stuff, bizarre stories Weird, cult Irish magazine www.blather.net...