Channel 6

Looks like Ireland’s newest TV channel, Channel 6, is something to look forward to with ingenious programming that includes the likes of FRASIER, BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER, LAW & ORDER, CSI, SEX & CITY and DHARMA & GREG. Humm, just where have I seen all those shows before?

Dave’s Rants has some interesting suggestions as to why it is called Channel 6, seeing that we currently only appear to have four other TV stations: RTE1, RTE2, TV3 and TG4.

Luke Rhinehart: The Dice Man

I generally get most of my books from second hand book stores. I love those shelves of used books and the stuff you can find on them. Most of my favourite writers are now out of print or hard to find. I also admire old paperbacks and do buy books for their covers, even if I never read them afterwards. Given a choice most of the older editions look much better than their modern counterparts. And even if I can’t find a great looking old paperback and opt for current versions of a book, well, then it’s still a good bit cheaper to purchase those than to go for the full priced ones.

And every once in a while I also come across some madcap inscriptions like this one:



I got a good chuckle out of this when I started reading the book on a plane. It’s ironic that this was found in a novel dedicated to living your life randomly and experiencing the thrill of life by making often subversive decisions.

Good for you, unknown reader!

3 is a lonely number

Am I the only one who thinks that if you name your company “3” you gotta be extra careful how you word your ad campaigns?

“Now all 3 customers can roam the UK at no extra cost.”

Then again maybe it is indeed an accurate description of their current client base as I have yet to find a single person who actually subscribed to their network.

The reason why Baywatch was not filmed in Ireland

I got this link via The Blog That Should Not Be: It features a bunch of frozen models wearing some rather ridiculous looking Irish Flag Swimwear. You gotta check it out! It’s hilarious.

A Day at the Matches

Went to see the Heineken Cup Quarter Final Rugby match in Lansdowne Road between Munster and Perpignon on Saturday. For the last couple of years I have heard about the fun that can be had on those rugby events, so I thought it was about time I’ll try and see what it’s all about.

Well, to cut to the chase: a completely disorganised mess is what it’s all about.

My ticket was for the East Terrace 3 section. When I arrived, the entrance was like an overbursting bottle neck with people pushing and shoving to get in. The gates to that section ended up closed and I was asked to move first to entrance ET2, then ET1, then to some seated area.

Needless to say anytime I arrived at those gates the orderlies knew nothing about those arrangements. There was no co-ordination or dialogue whatsoever between the people in charge, some of whom were quite obviously at the end of their tether and reaching a state of panic in front of the masses.

When I finally was allowed to enter the Terrace rude security personnel instructed us to move to other areas when no movement was effectively possible and people (including some obviously frightened young’uns with their dads) were already seriously squashed and unable to move anywhere.

A little bit of info about me: I am 6’4. I’m the guy who blocks other people’s views. I’m simply not used to not being able to watch what’s in front of me. Yet, after just a few minutes into the game I caught myself watching the action on the stadium screen as I couldn’t see a frigging thing otherwise. The only difference between my watching the match in a pub and in the stadium was that I was drenched and frozen from the rain and did not have a pint in my hand.

Needless to say I left just a quarter of an hour into the game. Initially I thought it was just me being overly critical, but most of my buddies – all hard core rugby fans – soon joined me after the first half. They all agreed that this was the worst it has ever been!

This really is a recipe for disaster: With gates being closed down in front of the spectators and quite obviously way more people on the grounds than should have been allowed in, a minor incident could have easily turned into a tragedy of giant proportions.

Well, Munster won 19:10 and will play Leinster in three weeks time in an all Irish semi-final. If last Saturday was Bedlam attending the next match will be a masochistic delight. Based on Leinster’s amazing performance against Toulouse, I’d say they will kick Munster’s arse. And if I watch it, I’ll do so from the comfort of a bar stool.

Bebo.com

According to the Irish edition of the Sunday Times [article not available online] colleges are starting to put an end to the Bebo.com craze. Bebo is a MySpace like networking website that apparently has proven so popular in this country that they have registered 500.000 users, most of them of college age. As a result of its surprising popularity

“NUI Galway, Carlow IT, Waterford IT, Dublin Business School and Queen’s College University, have all blocked access to the site after receiving complaints from students who were unable to access college computers for course-work due to hundreds of other students jamming PC suites to log on to their Bebo profile. (…) There were cases where 35 out of 40 students in a suite were logged into Bebo, which obviously is not defensible as an educational activity.”

OK, personally I don’t care whether or not colleges should ban access to the site. These are after all their computers and they should be allowed to do with them as they please. So no argument here.

What strikes me as odd, however, is the following:

The site has 500.000 registered Irish users????

Let’s see: Last time I checked – well, not personally, but thanks to my friends at the CIA – Ireland had a population of 4,015,676 residents. (Add another 1.5 Million or so for the North.) In 2003 Internet usage was 1.26 Million people, so my guess is that right now it is at 1.5 Million +. One look at Bebo shows that most people are in the 18-22 age brackets. In Ireland there are 342,000 people in the 15-19 age brackets, another 292,000 in the 20-24 age brackets.

And Bebo has 500,000 registered users in this country?!? Wouldn’t that mean pretty much every single person in the targeted age bracket (with or without access to the Internet) is now on Bebo? And yet no-one has ever mentioned it to me and it takes me reading the Sunday Times to first of all even hear about that web site????

Another thing: Bebo is so popular amongst college students, yet the average comment made on it reads like:

“u go gurl haha dat fella dat commented u,u gt ur luks 4rm me haha ye ok woteva treva!!!!!neway ne news avint tlkd 2 in a wee wile i mean properly hehe lvz ya xxxxxxxxxxxxx”

Without going all Lynne Truss, but: WT DE FK? Is that college standard these days?

There I am thinking how very much on top of the game I am as an Irish based blogger with broadband access and interest in RSS feeds and what-have-you, just to learn that Internet usage and development in this country is not driven by the likes of me and that I have instead missed the train altogether. Instead it is sozzled illiterate females that are ahead of the posse. (OK, admittedly there are also guys as members there, but given half a chance I’d rather watch pictures of drunk girls than those of their more awkward, spotty male counterparts.)

Or maybe the numbers reported in this bit of news are rubbish to start with.

Only one way to find out.

Next time I see a bunch of young drunken yobs flashing their, ahem, cameras I’ll simply walk over and say: “Oi, haven’t I seen you on Bebo?” and see what their reaction will be.

Axis of Evil

Just stumbled across this window display from a music shop in Cork that shall remain anonymous. (Ah, what the hell: Russell’s Music store in Parnell Square.)

What on Earth is wrong with those people? No matter what one may think about the current state of affairs – and believe me I have very strong views about this subject, and none of them can summarised with “I wish I was George Bush’ secret love child” - , but what can be achieved with this very general and badly drawn condemnation? As those guys used the countries' flags they effectively insulted ALL the British, ALL the Americans and ALL the Israelis. Hardly a very clever political analysis methinks.

And then the Swastika! Is that a new trend in Irish politics?

But maybe I am misreading this and the owner is a Hindu who uses the Swastika as a positive sign of good luck and just wants to wish Bush & Co every success in combating the “Axis of Evil”……

Aer Lingus Customer Service

So Aer Lingus now concedes that good service has ‘taken flight’?

Hardly any news for anyone who watched what once was a pleasant little airline slowly turn to a slightly better standard Ryan Air clone. Mind you, I still quite like Aer Lingus’ in-flight and airport personnel, but the service received through its offices and call centres ranges from non existent to abysmal.

This reminds me of the time about two years ago when Willie Walsh was still in charge and I had a relatively minor issue with my frequent flyer points that I just couldn’t get sorted. It wasn’t anything huge – certainly not on the level of when I went absolutely ape shit with some Ryan Air staff in Stansted – but it soon turned into a matter of principle for me that I wanted properly addressed.

I noticed that their email addresses followed the traditional firstname.lastname@aerlingus.ie format, so what did I do? Go right to the top and contact Willie Walsh directly who then referred me to his customer service manager who with trembling voice ended up getting everything fixed.

And the lesson: If you can’t get a customer service issue handled to your satisfaction, don’t bother getting state agencies involved, but go straight to the company’s head honcho.

The Hi-B

THE Hi-B
108 Oliver Plunkett Street, Cork
Tel: 021-4272758

The Hi-B is the stuff of legend in Cork City, one of the few bars that has neither changed ownership over the last few decades nor been seriously renovated or remodelled. Owned by a local eccentric, Brian O’Donnell, it is at first hard to find: It is right opposite the General Post Office (GPO), in a corner house, a few gloomy stairs up on the first floor on top of Minihan’s Chemist. Once found, however, it can become seriously addictive. In size and interior design reminiscent of a cosy old-fashioned living room it is frequented by all ranks of life: writers, artists, would-be writers and –artists, bankers as well as homeless people, rich and poor all flock in to subject themselves to Brian’s iron rules. No mobiles allowed, no chewing gum, and order non-alcoholic drinks at your own mercy: “For Chrissakes, this is a public house, not a coffee bar!” The sign behind the bar says it all: The whipping will continue until morale improves.

Ask any local and they will tell you stories of the Life of Brian. How about the time when he drank someone’s drink after seeing him pour some coals onto the fire. When confronted and told: “Sorry, you just drank my pint”, he answered: “Sorry, but you just used my coals.” Or how about when he was complaining to a motley crew of his only four guests one night, that it is impossible to make a living in the bar trade these days, yet when a group of ten new customers came in all at once he threw them all out, as he couldn’t face THAT much extra work all of a sudden?

This may at first sound harsh, but truth of the matter is that this is one of the few surviving pub relics left remaining, where you can enter at any given time and are guaranteed to find an ear to listen to. The weirder the stories you can tell, the bigger the welcome you will get from the locals.

Plus: These days Brian is no longer that often in his own bar so the rules have relaxed a little bit over the last few years. The standard classical and opera music in the background is now often replaced by jazz or 50s crooners.

So go in have a few pints, enquire in hushed tones about some of Brian’s shenanigans, but please, don’t take it personal if you end up getting barred on your first or subsequent visit over breaking one of the unwritten regulations. It’s all part of the game and you may even make it into local folklore.

Needless to say: This is my favourite pub in town.

Count Curly Wee

Do you know that feeling? For weeks, months, even years on end you can walk through life and something really small and tiny is niggling away at you every once in a while that is completely incongruous, doesn’t matter much, but keeps you slightly off centre, yet you can’t quite put a finger on it why.

Then all of sudden somebody comes along and writes a little piece that makes it all fall into place and helps identify the itch that’s been troubling you without you really ever noticing.

And life is good again. Till the next time.

This was the case with me when I read Fústar’s excellent research into Count Curly Wee, a daily comic strip that appears in the Irish Independent for as long as I can remember…. well ever since I moved to Ireland ten years ago.

Humour generally doesn’t age well. (When was the last time you had a knee slappingly funny night while watching a Shakespeare comedy? Or split your sides looking at a Punch cartoon?) Count Curly Wee is quite obviously from a different epoch. It’s hard to believe that its humour was ever considered remotely funny. The drawings aren’t hot either. No-one ever reads it or generally talks about it. It has no admirers and there are no fannish websites about it. (Surely the sign that it simply doesn’t matter at all to anyone!)

Yet, the Indo prints it day in and day out.

And every once in a while I had my WTF moments that didn’t last long and didn’t upset me too much, yet kept niggling at me.

And now Fústar reveals all anyone never needed to know about the strip. And the world is a better place for it.

Introduction

Hi everybody,

Welcome to my new blog!

I am a German, living in Cork (Ireland) and as such one of an ever growing number of foreign people living on this island. I got the inspiration for this blog from Japundit, a site about living in Japan. Should I eventually manage to cover only a fraction of the wonderfully wacky world of fun that the Japundits cover on their pages in an Irish context, then my Mission has been fulfilled.

I want to regularly keep all my readers up to date on events happening in Ireland, news, reviews of Irish related books and films as well as pubs and restaurants, tips and tricks about life in Ireland and travelling around the country or generally highlight stuff I notice in my daily life.

Suggestions would be always welcome for me, so please do let me know what you would like to read about here.