Monthly Archives: February 2010
4000 year old swizz
I love this story in the Irish Times today about how scientists have reconstructed the phyiscal appearance of a 4000 year old Greenlander based on a few hairs which were frozen and from which they gleaned DNA. Here’s the pic: … Continue reading
The perfect house
The perfect house should have: A moat filled with piranha and a drawbridge made from balsa wood (and obviously a secret entrance) A football pitch in the grounds with slaves in goal so you can go and blast shots at … Continue reading
Poor old dreams
“Twenty”, said Dirty Dave this afternoon in Ron’s, “I’ve got to the age I am, an age I won’t disclose as I know the minute you go home you’ll tell the readers of your blog all about this conversation and … Continue reading
George Lee
I find the stick he’s getting over his resignation a bit weird. Sure, he might have given it longer. He probably did expect to be more involved, however naive that was. And he probably has damaged Fine Gael (though not … Continue reading
Filthy fuckers
I had forgotten the animal magnetism of Dame Street on a Saturday night. Those muscular thighs in short dresses, the staggering, stumbling gentlemen and the overall atmosphere of ‘Will I vomit or fight someone’ was not something I’ve missed, I … Continue reading
I’m not paying for this
Via Election.ie today’s Sunday Tribune is running a story saying the Church wants its legal fees, arising from the Ryan Report, to be covered by the taxpayer: While the orders are close to a final agreement with the government to … Continue reading
Haiti fundraiser
We had a fundraiser in Ron’s last night for that old earthquake thing. “Hatin’ for Haiti’ was a resounding success. Each person had to get up and rant about something they disliked intensely. Jimmy’s prolonged tirade about the fat old … Continue reading
Stupid bombs
America, the land which produces the most pornography in the world. The country which is involved in more wars than any other. A land so huge and massive and populated that even when you think there is nothing that can … Continue reading
Delivery men
A delivery man called to my door earlier. He had a delivery. He delivered the delivery to me, took out an electronic device and said ‘Sign here’, pointing to the screen. I signed. It looked a bit like this: This … Continue reading
The song place
It is late at night. Correction, it is early morning. The Dublin sky is that mix of blue and grey, viewed with a haze of last night’s induldgence, adding a film of moving dirt to everything. Walking home up the … Continue reading
It is late at night. Correction, it is early morning. The Dublin sky is that mix of blue and grey, viewed with a haze of last night’s induldgence, adding a film of moving dirt to everything. Walking home up the canal. And you think about the night before.
The bars, the club, the party afterwards where the man is leading his circle in the party in the flat. He is standing on the chair, his gym built muscles in his vest prominent due to the dehydration of a night clubbing and dancing and, every so often, remembering to take a drink. Of water. He is performing.
Makin’ mad love to my girl on the heath
Tearin’ off tights with my teeth
And they, his disciples, are enraptured. He is the conductor, they the orchestra. They wave their arms with his as he intones in time with the music, a middle-aged, southside hairdresser channeling the Brixton rapper in his best Lahndaaaahn accent. And when the words finish and the drums build and it finally kicks back in they lose themselves in the music. They are pliant, they would do anything he asked them now.
You sit amused, smoking at the back of the tiny flat above the shop on the bridge which was open 24 hours and from which you got your Rizla. In the end it is too much, you slip out and this is why you find yourself walking up the canal, laughing at what you’ve just seen.
The impression, though, is indelible. Every time you hear that song that is what you see. The man on the chair, conducting, rapping and watching with a gleam in his eye as his underlings, his biddadble dogs, do as his arms tell them.
Till the end of days that is the image associated with that song. That is the song place.