The Crazy is Catching

lipstick want.

The day that Henry Rollins* says to me

Thanks, I appreciate your mind.

is the day I die happy.

*Cakeface hates him. My mission in life is to change that.

fuckyeahlemonmeringuepieandsunshine

you can file this one under..

Watching ‘10 Things I Hate About You’ late at night….

“All welcome”

Two words I am slowly growing to hate. Two words people tag onto the end of notices hoping to hide the fact that “all” are very much not welcome. If you announce something – a pig race or a cocktail party – in a public sphere then the percieved wisdom is that it is open to the public. But then, at the end, is your qualifier. Yes, it’s a public event but it’s not for the public. It’s for locals, regulars, people you see every day and it is very much not open to the scary, all-consuming “all” that is our brave new world. 

Moving home has opened my eyes to the provincialism that still exists in the badlands of our fair isle. Local notices say things like “we have decided every house in the parish must pay €5 toward the upkeep of the church each week. Further discussion will not be entered into. Everyone will use the church at some stage in their lives”. God is still bothering people in Deliverance-land. Curtain twitching busybodies rule with muslin-clothed iron fists and privacy is best kept for holidays away from the villages of squinting windows. 

It makes me yearn for a city. An anonymous world where people don’t raise an eyebrow at a surname that isn’t “local” and when a poster is tagged to a telegraph pole everyone is welcome, regardless of what part of the “all” matrix they fall into. 

I guess I’m glad when a neighbour signs for a parcel or helps with a flat tyre but, most of the time, I daydream about Bruce Springsteen-Born to Run-ing my ass out of here.

FAO: the mens in my life.

Whaddya think of this?

Keep the Lights On

Wave Machines had some technical difficulties during their set yesterday at Castlepalooza that distracted from the fact that they’re sort of awesome. Though it was nice to learn that their favourite colour is red during the impromptu q&a session. The more useless information I know, the happier I am.
Anyway. Listen here, website here, follow here. See for yourself how dancetastic great they are.

We’re not a flag waving nation. Not really. Counties wave flags on match days and fans carry the tricolour across Europe for soccer games but they’re not pitched in our gardens. It’s a complicated relationship, all tied up in history and war and that space between the two. Seeing it perched atop crumbling old Charleville Castle this weekend was heart warming, in a way that forgot the history, the flag waving hoorahs and the sometime fear we have of being too closely associated with the the green beside the white and gold.

Festivals? I go for the food, mainly.

Steak from Killeigh, Offaly

Lemonade, slightly “irished-up”…