Some floppy-haired ginger Nordie accosted me at the LUAS stop this morning, feeling for some reason compelled to inform me that the ticket machine had dispensed an unpropmpted childrens ticket along with his adult pass. My thoughts were elsewhere at the time, so I merely commented that the superfluous ticket would allow any pregnant passenger to ( Read more... )

Have developed an acute fixation with newsagents. Soft-lit oases of ephemera amid the earnest sullen facades of serious retail outlets, offering nothing of enduring value. In Drumcondra recently, the proprietor of one such establishment (a middle-aged gentlemen whose joviality was so effusive that it almost seemed like an imposition) appeared moved ( Read more... )

An alarming proportion of my friends and acquaintances seem to be garnering a (frankly disturbing) degree of acclaim on the music circuit. Don's group were accorded a two page spread (accompanied by the obligatory moody group shot) in the Times' cultural supplement last week (preparatory to the imminent release of single and album), and John " ( Read more... )

Apologies for prolonged hiatus. Suitably non-incriminating alibis will be proffered with great alacrity as and when they occur to me. Back for good now.

I happened to be prowling the neighbourhood the other night when the streetlights were activated. It was quite magical, witnessing this Promethean bequest of light from some unseen benign entity. There's something cosily companionable about the pallid glow which engulfs a city at night. I can't sleep in the countryside, the silence and darkness is ( Read more... )

At the instigation of shieldkitten, 20 random facts pertaining to myself. The original guidelines decree that a number of users be tagged commensurate to the total number of minutes devoted to the composition of the list, but since it took me over 24 years to compile the following (a fact which would, by my calculations, entail the enlistment of a number of ( Read more... )

...proclaims the weathered notice upon the wall of the government building. No vestige of the original blu-tack or sellotape is apparent, and the sign appears to adhere to the wall through sheer force of habit. Intrigued by what I fleetingly suppose to be some abstruse philosophical nuance lurking behind this incongruous use of the plural, I ( Read more... )

Today, I wore three different pairs of shoes. Not one of them sullied by the simplifying presence of laces ( Read more... )

That's what this is, I think.

Despite being on the verge of sleep at 3 a.m. last night, I forced myself to watch the director's cut of The Last Emperor, in order that I might sleep through Sunday. This being a bank holiday weekend, a similar stratagem is planned for Monday ( Read more... )

I might reinstate my moustache. It'll be something to do at any rate.