ledyob

It has been a while, even by my standards. Incredibly i find I have nothing particularly intersting to say, i could fluently moan about my work. But nobody likes complaining , not that i don't do it from time to time, everybody complains. it's just not nice to have to listen too,andif you are going to do it  you should  be ina position to buy your unfortuante company a drink . As that's not on i 'l keep my mouth shut. 

I have done a bit of work on the bike and was even considering a series of 'before", and "progress" shots but seeing as i don't have access to a digital camera and that i never even took a 'before' picture i feel this is unlikely to happen. My continuing lack of privatetrasport means that i am still getting the train and sometimes even a  'bus' euhghghgh. If anything wil motivate you to strip down and repaint a rusty bike frame in a  draughty steel shed  then it's Bus Eireann. The train isn't so bad tho' the empty carraiges on Irelands' only non radial line (for those of you who have been paying attention,or can rememeber that farback ) are condusive to aspiring to be a Hopperesque figure, made slightly more difficult by a freezing 20 minute platform side delay  in Limerick junction, which makes the task of appearing to be experiencign internal conversation difficult when you are pressign every possible part ofyour body against the under table heater. the figure in "Compartment C, Car 293" looks far to comfortable to have either previosuly lost  or have the prospect of losing large amounts ofbody heat in Limerick Junction, infact she looks far too comfortable to ahve ever even heard of LimerickJunction


I did enjoy the new fare structure advertised ( in that they were printed on an A4 sheet and blu-tacked  to the ticket office wall) in the Limerick junction ticket office, it's sort of rya air meets Irish semi-State  or rather the other way round  and no i'm not sendign up semi-state organsiations I have very affectionate feelings towards many of them ,particualrly thosewho have  been good enough to employ me.


Limerick Juntion to Limerick

Single       Return         Weekly Return          Monthly Return
E8.50          E11.30          E15.00                          E15.00



AS you might have guessed there's no one on this train either.

Bob Dylan's Theme Time Radio Hour. Every Tuesday  at 8.30 BBC Radio 2. Then on Wednesday Mark  Lamarr's Reggae show.  Radio " . It is available Miss lillabularo on Streaming Playback thing which if you so desire can be listend too at any time in the week after the first broadcast, i have had some sucess in taping these shows using thsi feature,  but there may be some much more clever of downloading the file which i would be pleased to hear about if anyone knows .

Also yet another life lesson..... never shop angry, why on earth did i bad-temperedly toss these items into my shopping basket. It's not even feel good stuff, just a random selection of things that were on the shelves.

"New Technology  Nitrile rubber gloves", "extra  toughnesss, no loss of touch sensation". What do they expect these things to be used for?

Took a very pleasant train ride from Waterford to Limerick  last saturday morning. The Waterford to Limerick rail line is something of a  neglected pleasure for  the good reason that it was closed for two years and since it reopened last year it  has been plagued by regular engineering issues. I believe its' still under pressure of closure due to passenger numbers which given  its realiablility issues and recent period of non-existance is not entirely surprising but i do hope it can survive as a viable railroad and not lapse into the "excellent concept  pity a bout the reality "   school. 

Arriving into Tipperary Town station during the day , allows you to get an impression of the size of the former Infantry barracks, at one time the largest barracks in the Brisih isles.  Hence the WWI soldiers tune " It's a long way ot Tipperary ".The only buildings left now are a watertower, the officers mess whcih is a public health clinic (i think)  and the married quater terraced housing . The former main parade ground is now the local GAA pitch , and what i think was a rifle range is the secondary pitch. If this seems like a dose of ironic justice , the irony is doubled when you realise that the pitch was laid on top of the parade gound without removing the cobbled surface which is about threee feet below  the playing surface, so that the pitch is  bone dry  in summer , and a muddy morass in the winter. Who has the last laugh there? i'm not sure.

Anyway the  train station location is obviously to  serve the barracks, which makes sense of its unusual location  by being only half an hour frmm Limerick, and hour and a half from Cork, and two hours form Dublin.  Thsi was especially  useful when mustering troops during WWI apparently and also i'd imagine durign the war of independence when you could catch the train down to Cork  for a a cack at  few micks and be in back to the barrcks for your tea.

So continued health and life to the Waterford Limerick line, at least until i get my car back on the road. Which is actaully looking possible  as dry weekends  are beginning to make an appearance  again and as a result  I feel a creeping degree of willpower.

Douglas Coupland reckoned that turning 30 often causes people to regret wasting their youth on such things as careers and education and to indulge in a period of silly hair cuts and ill-advised wardrobes in an atempt to pretend that it's not all too late. Instead i'd like to think my return to motorcycling has more to do with a nostalgia for simpler (read cheaper) times of my late teens, than any quater-life crisis.

( Cut for length )

Edit: [Don't think this posted. Trying again.]

" Now the New Year reviving old Desires,
The thoughtful Soul to Solitude retires,
   Where the WHITE HAND OF MOSES on the Bough
Puts out, and Jesus from the Ground suspires."

Too true Omar, too true. 
The Christmas period was fairly quiet for me this year. No more then three occasions of going out.  but it was a sort of conspiracy really as no one else , not even my younger sister, was doing so either. Also i suppose everyone being older and married  doesn't really encourage the "standing outside and freezing while trying so shout louder than everyone else for a taxi "behaviour. and so it was  with a relatively clear head every morning i was in a position to rediscover a former teenage passtime 

A Henrietta st. conservation plan was featured on the RTE main Evening news on of the 13th of December. 

 

Very determined to get Christmas shopping done before Christmas eve, I actually made a start on Staurday. It wasnt'  to be tho as i had the vast misfortune to catch a glimpse of a Record Fair Poster, damnation. Now i had to go over and empty my wallet for a load of records. I decided to delay arrving there as long as possible by eating a partially heated (yuck) crepe served by a particualry frosty French waitress. 

But  I couldn't escape my fate and havign first gone and withdrawn sufficient funds (witha receipt  to give myself a scare)  I enetered the fair promising to limit myslef to the reggae section. Which had, in defernce to musical tastes in limerick, been put right at the back of a table  necessitating me practically lying across three boxes of a a wobbly trestle table in order to thumb. I began carefully at first but after a few minutes i got completely absorbed ( i was even sweating) and  my head down elbows out technique caught up with me as  i unknowingly and gradually nudged a 20kg box of vintage vinyl towards the end of the table until eventaully taking the hint and fell ar*e over tit an expensive three feet to the ground.

"S*it...... I'm sorry"  (envisioning either doing a runner or taking out a second mortgage)(  and yes i do curse at strangers)
"Naw not to worry mate , Vinyl en masse , virtually indestructible"


Proprieter scoops up pile of records with me still dreading the sound of a crack or of little bits of plastic falling to the floor.or even an 'Oh dear"  from him

Well i had to buy something now, so with the heart rate returning to normal  i made my selection and forgetting to even check the state of the groove proceeded to cash out.  When, to put the sunshine back in my step  (ehhhh?), i recieved, what I, and i think anyone who ever buys a record anywhere besides HMV et al.,  always looks for from the person behind the counter as they eye your selection. I got the 'nod' , i got approval on my selction. 


Venerable Proprieter:  "Justin Hindes that's a great record, you'll enjoy that"
Me:" Phhhp pah emmm welll yes i already have some others ... i mean , you know some tracks and i thought.... i'd try some other... emmm   records of his"
VP: " yeah its's really nice"

and he was right  it is soooooo nice, two disk . I gorged excessively on it all eveining  ...  yum.  For desert  i had "Saturday Night Fever" two disk Dj version soyou can go from one disk to almost any other (with two turntables of course). Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.

and if stayin in on Saturday sounds boring well i had my Christmas party on Thursday night and on Friday  news that a large customer is closing down  .
Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.
  

Having ben tagged by lillabularo   on Thursday and with an entire weekend of being 'it'.  Here in response is my realively comtempory   To prove that lightning does indeed strike twice, havng succesfull established thier restaurant as one of qaulity and note .Keats recieved news that his uncle had died and left him a pub in London. Always eager for a new challenge our heroes decamped to that great capital. Keats, whose health had improved little offered Chapman a share of the business in return for his managing the day to day operations. They found the West End  pub to have a brisk day-time trade, in the evening becoming a hang out for the pre theatre crowd, even attracting a coterie of the avant gade set. With Keats' intellectualisim and informed opinions  on the arts  and Chapmans' everyman charisma behind the bar and great repetorire of comic songs as a balance to Keats formality the pub quickly became even more sucessful.  In short time becoming the place for those in the world of the visual arts to associate with like minded. Indeed it was not even the starving artist who was to be found in Keats & Chapmans' establishment but also the great and good , Cahpman was quick to quip to in resposne to a casual enquiry after the charicatures of famous artists and customers on the walls that on many a night of the week he felt close to a Turner prize! It was however Keats' who most fully blossomed in his role as landlord, his erudition and life experience led him ot adopt the role of pater familiaris and friend to many younger artists. Although a noted tee-toatler, the controversial artist Tracey Emin was a regualar in the pub and indeed close confidante of Keats' who supported her throughout her career and had hosted several funtions to celebrate her exhibitions. It was a depressed Ms. Emin who called into see Keats,just after the warehouse fire that destroyed  many of her more famous works such as "Everyone I have Ever Slept With 1963-1995". A tent inscribed with the names of all of her s*xual partners. Keats comforted her as best he could and dismissed the public derision of the worth of her art. Later that evening Keats relayed recent events and his conversation with Ms. Emin to Chapman, as he polished the glasses behind the bar inpreparation for the evening trade. Chapman sympathised.... "Is it not posssible to recreate the piece?" he asked Keats. "No" sighed  Keats" I'm afraid it  was a seminal work"

partly in guilt by beign in his house and fullof guinness and not able to comment coherently when asked to give an opinion on a selection of  three photos for submission for photographic competition, please check out Dave's very tasty photoblog. actually do it for you own pleasure co it's really nice

Also although i don't owe her anything and in fact have never met her, so it's purely for your own pleasure check out swearing ladys' blog