So that one screw (not warden, not sexful thing) cost me a grand total of €215.
The tyre was bollixed, requiring a new one. Eastern european blokey in the shop had two options. One slightly cheaper than the other. I asked him what the difference was.
“First one more cheap than second”. Clearly he’s got a new job since I encountered him last. Then, when the other eastern european blokey was lashing on the new one he called me over.
“See brakepads here?”, he said.
“No”, I said.
“That’s because are gone. Need new ones”.
I was quite happy not knowing. Anyway, with some time to kill while he did the repairs I took myself across the road to Crumlin Shopping Centre. Now, I know it was never quite Harrods but fuck me, it’s like something out of a zombie film. As I walked in I was the only person in sight, bar the security guard outside the Dunnes off-licence. 75% of the shops are closed, shutters down, windows whitewashed.
Those that are left look lost, last refuges of the damned. It is broken, a place beyond redemption, beyond saving. The best thing they could do is knock the whole thing down, salt the earth and build a big fuck off fence around it.
Meanwhile the behemoth down the road thrives, until the next Mecca is built.
thats depressing right there
I’ve just spent hundreds on my car, and the little orange light is on. And there was a brief smell of burning today, three times before it went away and I lapsed back into denial. Gah.
My husband’s engine blew up on the way to Galway last year, and had to be COMPLETELY REPLACED. And now his (new) head gasket’s on the way out. Warranty only for three months. Cars. They suck.
That shopping centre is depressing alright. But then, so is Crumlin, I imagine.
It looks like it’s a planned run down and closure to me. The leases must be up. Maybe they had planned a big redevelopment before everything went tits up.
Radge – there is no behemoth down the road. Or up the road. Which makes it worse, I think.
Perhaps, HM. Would make some kind of sense.
Jo, Crumlin in general isn’t depressing. That really is.
I was only out that way about 2 months ago, first time in years and even though I didn’t go in it was depressing as fuck seeing it from the outside. I remember when it was thriving with business, cousins working in Dunnes which was always packed etc. Now though, christ. And it looks like Dunnes might be next to go too, where are the products?
There’s about 5 different Dunnes sections. A couple of them, at least, were closed. They have a main supermarket and a clothes section, which is just as depressing as it sounds
Sounds as if your mechanic learned his trade in Con Man School.
Whenever I see empty shopping centres like that, with boarded up shops, sad symbols of broken dreams and shattered lives, a small bit of me dies and I really, really want to put on a pair of rollerskates and go zooming around for ever and ever and ever.
Dreams – I has them!
I was living on Kildare Road when Crumlin Shopping Centre first opened.
It was packed to the rafters all day every day for ages, and had a genuine air of excitement about it.
Sad to see it going.
Wasn’t it one of the first shopping centres in the country?
Or was it the very first?
I could be wrong but I think Stillorgan was first.
Loco – he’s a good, honest, hardworking conman though.
I think Mickey Marbh was the first.
Stillorgan was first, opened in 1966 if memory serves me. Still going strong I believe although, suprise, suprise, a planned redevelopment has been shelved.
Lots of fun to be had here twenty http://www.wordle.net/create
That’s very disconcerting having your local centre with all the shops closed. Mittons butchers, one of the good people. Jack, the owner, comes into the cricket club for a pint now and then, one of the good guys. So many shops closed in that shopping centre; that’s awful stuff.
I was talking to the owner of a Spar shop in one of the housing estates in Blanchardstown on Friday and business has just stopped. I was asking him – because the last month for me has been dreadful – how he was finding things. He owns some places in town and say’s that the spars, mace, londis etc corner shops in town are going to be closing down in droves over the next quarter.
Speaking for myself, my mortgage is crippling me, I haven’t a bean to spend but when I do I do try and keep it local. Puh. It’s all shit. Spare any change?
The new page takes ages to load and I’d be quicker writing the comments on paper and sending them by post because it takes forever. Anyway enough bitching. So ye got a puncture on yer bicycle?
“That’s because are gone. Need new ones”.
You Ilish, velly good softwale!
Murty – trying to figure out what it is that’s slowing down the load for some people.
heh
Crumlin, of course. My bad. For some reason I read it as the old Dundrum Shopping Centre which is probably in a similar state of decay.
Radge, the old Dundrum SC has had a new lease of life, with lots of new businesses moved into the old shops.
Obviously the redevelopment ran out of money, so the old SC has been revitalised. I think that’s great.
I used to live near Crumlin SC when it was thriving, and it was always fun to visit the kamikaze bar upstairs, hatchets compulsory.
Ah, the good old days!
I seem to remember the Kentucky Fried Chicken on the outside was a lively spot where you’re chances of getting shot were pretty high.
Ahhh that is the plan anyway. I’m sure you are aware of the lease agreement high case court a squillon years ago. When Dunnes bought the place they tried to boot out the former Crazy Prices (could have been called somethinbg else beforehand, can’t remember) but were unable to because of the lease agreement Crazy Prices had with the previous owner of the centre. It was something of a landmark case, it is still refered to in many lease distutes today. Anyway, when Tesco bought out Crazy Prices they inherited the lease and there is little Dunnes can do until the lease agreement runs out. Dunnes had planned to knock it down and rebuild a shopping centre with apartments over it. I don’t know if they would still press ahead with that now in the recession, although they did not renew the lease with the two guys that ran the swimming pool next to it when that expired last year so that may well be an indication that they are still intending to progress with their plans. And futhermore dispite Dunnes being a private company all indicators would suggest it is preforming well so perhaps they will settle for a new shopping center and one of Bens gyms, foresaking the planned apartments. They have been granted planning permission. But even if it was not their intention to re-build a shopping centre, the fact that they actually own the premises since the 70′s ish and it is a site of somewhat substancial size I would imagine the prospect of selling would be a rather lucrative one.
Sad though, I remember going down there on a Saurday morning with my grandad to do the weekly shopping, getting a dressed orange in the Barron Johns whilst he skulled a few sneaky pints, walking back up the Crumlin road and renting a video for that night in the video shop beside Potters. I also remember the Christmas before my grandmother died, in a horrendous state of health she made me walk her down there as she wanted to sit on one of the benches a while and watch the people go by. To this day if I ever have to go in there I cannot walk through the main door on the Crumlin Rd.
Hope you got more and a tyre for your 215 bucks. Hate fast fit, robbing fuckers.
Adrian Chiles has to be one of the ugliest cunts on TV.
€215 ? You could buy a replacement H50 for that !
n1 nonny.
when i think of ben dunne i think of coke. bit like hugh grant. so what do people think of when they see hugh grant? not the fact that he’s a cunt. nope. 5 dollar blow jobs from a hooker called divine
Very interesting post Nonny. But what’s a ‘dressed orange’?
By the way, I’m the same itchy. Can’t think of Ben Dunner without remembering the fool standing on the windowsill of a Florida hotel having a conniption and the excruciating interview RTE did afterwards with the hooker. I think it’s because we all have the same low opinion of a man who can’t hold his coke, heroin or drink.
That’s sad, nonny. What IS a dressed orange? Orange with a guinness head??
It can be fizzy or diluted Orange but they dip the top of the glass in sugar or syrup, they put a couple of straws and an umbrella in it. Also, if you are really lucky they put one of those little plastic stabby swords in it with cherrys on it. The stabby sword doubles as a weapon of mass destruction when placed pointing upwards on a soft furnished pub chair. I only heard about the latter as I would never do such a thing. He was a really lovely guy that barman. Never found out why that pup closed, anyone know?
TIME TO START LEARNINNG MANDARIN BOYS AND GIRLS – AS IN THE LANGUAGE, NOT A ‘DRESSED ORANGE’ : )
sorry *pub
SHIT. I THOUGHT NONNY AND MAGGOT WERE AN ITEM BACK IN THE DAY.
uncap.
sorry about the caps
So that’s a dressed orange. Well, I won’t be ordering one of thosedown the Dockers any day soon. Mind you, back in the day when I started drinking I used to order babycham. Do they still make that?
On another note entirely, I have been very suspicious of RTE’s seemingly preferential treatment of Fianna Fail throughout all the IMF debacle and the election coverage. Then I see this:
http://businessetc.thejournal.ie/tv3-slams-ministers-decision-to-approve-rte-channels-2011-2/
The two things couldn’t be connected. Could they?
Nonny, there were a few murders there, if I remember rightly, and everyone was afraid to go in there.
As I said, patrons then had to run the gauntlet of walking past the Kentucky Fried Chicken if they made it out alive, so it was doomed.
weird. i was only thinking today, after reading that the tribune is gone, that rte are going to the only thing around because we’re funding the horrible cunts. rte should be attacked with tanks.
bought my first records in Golden Discs there,back in the day….was also there on opening day,we ran up on the lunchbreak from school on Parnell Road,..Alvin Stardust did the tape cutting,imagine!,also met my first girl-friend there one thursday evening,who passed comment as I sat outside G Discs,posing with my new purchase,U2′s Boy…..them were the days indeed,and she was lovely…
Ahhhh Johnny that is so sweet, Loved Golden Dics alright, it was called something else beforehand, I found a box of singles in my Gandads house when cleaning and he told me what the shop was called before but can’t remember. My uncles used to get their records their. They would be getting ready to go on the razz on a Saturday night, I’d be either polish their shoes or sitting on the top bunk, singing my heart out to their latest purchase. A love of the Specials, Depeche mode, Blondie, Elvis, UB40, Madonna, Abba and general 80′s was born. When they annoyed me I used to flick the needle when they were recoding record. Heh heh heh
I can’t believe people got murdered in that nice mans pub. Never knew that.
*recording
I shall never forgive you Itchy.
grim….
i’m just kiddin’ with ya maggot
mary hanaffin looks bollixed. she also just stated that “ireland is not banjaxed.” 3 pensions mary hanaffin. cunt.
AGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
mary fucking hanafin
My tonsils are in Crumlin, in the same hospital where they stitched me twice, sans aesthetic, for “ a bang in the head” aged 6 and again 7 ( explaining lots of things ). Also. wore the communion coat in St. Agnes’s ( Agnus?) and was always too frightened to ever walk down Captain’s road. In the very early 60’s , my culchie Granny used to walk us into the village for the shopping, pushing a heavy springy black pram, in which I’m sure I got a go on the way home. The cop station, which may be gone now, was just newly built.
After the stitching of the cuts, me da would bring me across to the submarine for coke in a glass, his own pint and the smell of mankey velour.
@ 20 , unless they were carbon fibre brake pads, that tyre is low profile go faster boy racer thing
Sniffle … jayze its hardly leaving your heart in San Francisco though. ‘I left my tonsils in Crumlin General’…. doesn’t really work for me.
THe soundtrack for that slideshow
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uYC2s38vCbw&feature=related
Ah it was always pretty shite even in the good times. Did a few runs from KCR to the Abrakebabra there in the 90s. Worst burgers ever.
There’s a chicken hut there now. It has AIDS
If it was one of those KwikFit/FastFit/CuntFit places, there’s a good chance you got ripped off.
I went for a tyre one time. Got it sorted. Your man brought me over to tha car to show me oil leak from suspension and told me I needed all my shocks replaced and that it was dangerous to drive them in that state. Quoted me 600 lids and basically inferred that it would be madness not to get them done straight away.
Paid for the tyre and went on my way. Dropped into my mechanic to run it by him. He agreed that oil leaking from shocks could be dangerous except where the’re gas operated shocks, like mine were, so your man was either lying or exceptionally stupid.
Beware these shams.
My brother was a barman in Barron John’s.
I suspect that he was the lovely man Nonny mentioned earlier.
He’s always been lovely to me anyway.
Free pints, mmmmm…
(Maybe that’s why it closed?)
Never use Quickie Mechanics type places. Find your man and stick with him. Drew motors off Pembroke Road is a decent proper, tits on the wall mechanic.
“Tits on the wall” Beautifully said HM..
I fancy a bunkup. That feeling comes in waves over me. Strange. The sky here at the moment looks like cum also.
I loved the cafe in Crumlin, great breakfeasts and a good price. The women there used to literally throw them at you with a scowl. Smiling not allowed but it had character and one or two weren’t bad looking.
Think the centre was waiting for the shops’s leases to run out before a change came in but thats obviously fucked.
The FG happy man sad man in a previous post is Derek Keating, a Dub mid west candidate.
He used to be in FF and changed party. a bit like like a rapist deciding to stop raping and become a murderer instead.
gay byrne opened it in the early 70s it used to be so busy. stillorgan was the first shopping centre to be built.