Batman Cake

This is possibly the coolest birthday cake ever baked. Of course, I don't need to tell you that it is a two tier Batman birthday cake which, wait for it - is actually blue on the inside.

This wonder of culinary creation was dreamed up by Amanda, in response to her six-year-old's call for a Batman themed birthday party. As I'm sure you can see, the results were rather impressive.

I was lucky enough to drop by on Saturday evening to see this creative confection in the early stages of its development i.e. in the oven. Amanda assured me that the acrid smell of burning plastic was, in fact, perfectly normal. Like the peasant hanging around the master's table, I pounced on the crumbs once Amanda started to cut and level the cake, prior to icing. To my amazement and delight, the cut cake took on the appearance of a blue sponge. No no, not a blue sponge cake, but actually a blue sponge; I soon began to wonder what exactly she'd put into the mixture...

Well mysterious mixtures aside, here's a photograph a slice of cake. I think that we can all agree that real beauty is on the inside!

The little bit of spice that makes existence extra nice!

For some bizarre and inexplicable I found myself signing this in the shower this morning, and so I thought that a sign to put it on the Legion. It's a great oul' number, but the only problem with it is I can't find a video for it, so you gotta make do with the audio alone. However, if you'd like to see the video and listen to it in Spanish, click here.

We'll see

This evening, Ida and I sat in watching Charlie Wilson's War; a film which I feel deserves a place in anyone's DVD collection. Even through a rose tinted Hollywood lense, it does go some way to explaining the situation in Afghanistan and how there came to be a war there. At the end of the film, the character of Gust (played by Phillip Seymour Hoffman), relates this story; I think it's worth consideration:

The was a boy who lived in a village, and for his fourteenth birthday he received a present of a horse. Everyone said "How wonderful!" The Zen Master said "We'll see."

Two years later he fell off the horse and broke his leg. Everyone said "How terrible!" The Zen Master said, "We'll see."

Then a war broke out, and all of the young men of the village had to go off to fight; except the boy who could not fight because of his leg. Everyone said "How wonderful!" The Zen Master said, "We'll see..."

Cursing. It's fucking excellent stuff!

Here's two minutes of Stephen Fry extolling the benefits of cursing. It's funny; I nearly wrote "bad language" instead of cursing. But that would have been preposterous, considering that good cursing can really enliven and embellish good language. The clips are all taken from the youthful days of Fry and Laurie; my God were they gorgeous. Enjoy!

Speed reading

Yesterday the English class met for the first time. There were 161 of us in the J M Synge Theatre. Looking around the room, it was clear to see that most of those present had arrived in university straight from the Leaving Cert; making me older than the sum of their combined ages.

The Head of Discipline provided us with some sage words as regards the importance of reading; reading considerately, reading carefully; thinking while you read. She warned of the dangers of "speed reading", whereby one would just skim a text and perhaps miss key elements. She recounted Woody Allen's exploits, who had reportedly sped-read War and Peace in one evening; "It's about Russia" he said.

The politics of transport

At the inaugural Hist debate on Monday, the Chair decided to enlighten the assembled Freshers as to the cultural and political significance of Luas - Dublin's tram system.

The Green Line is like Fianna Fáil; it exists in self-absorption and isolation from the real world. The Red Line, however, is like Sinn Féin; it's a little bit scary and does very well in disadvantaged areas.

Naturally, I live on the Red Line, or Breadline, as Stephen so succinctly puts it.

Sign me up!

Today was the start of Freshers' Week, and as such, I dutifully turned up to college bright and early this morning to get a taste of the excitement. Stalls abounded, offering everything from the Chinese Society to the Visual Arts Appreciation Society, from Rugby Club to the Fencing Club to the Young Socialist's Workers Whatever-you're-having-yourself Party. The array and the sheer amount of choice is dazzling, so much so that several circuits of Parliament Square are required just to scope out what was happening. It appeared to be a bit like an air traffic control queueing system, with people circulating and occasionally dropping finding a stall to slot into.

Much to my delight and surprise, I was headhunted by the Boat Club (rowing). This came as a total surprise, as beneath my coat, I was hiding a skinny frame; a frame far too skinny for rowing, one would have thought. It turns out that this is not so, and they are more than happy to have tall skinny people on board (literally). I later sussed out that they had scouts finding all of the tall people, and trying to persuade them to the boat club, as apparently height is a sought after quality in such circles.

As a giraffe myself, I suddenly felt very at home with all of these tall men (with shoulders!) showing interest in me. Granted rowing is notoriously competitive, and I suspect that I would be shite at it; but then again it presents a challenge. Also, as most freshers are total novices, and therefore unlikely to be any good, there is some consolation in the thought that we are all in the same boat, so to speak. It might well come to nothing, but it's worth a try.

So anyway here's a list of what I joined, and why:

• An Cumann Gaelach: An Ghaeilge a labhairt agus deiseanna a chothú tri sin a dhéanamh.

• The Phil: Possibly the most famous and influential society in TCD; it's notionally a debating society, but I'm unsure of how that stands up to scrutiny. Still trying to determine its dickhead to sound quotient, but I'm sure that will rapidly become apparent.

• The Hist: The oldest society in TCD; it's notionally and possibly more practically a debating society, however that will also require scrutiny. It's possible that dickheads abound here too, we'll just have to wait and see. I've joined both, in order to hedge my bets.

• The Theo: This the the University Theological Society; it could be well worth a look in. Apparently they've secured a devout Creationist, i.e. a person who genuinely believes that God created the world during the course of a six day period, for one of their weekly debates, which to me sounds something akin to bear baiting; this should be a howl.

• Dublin University Kayak Club (DUKC): Kayaking was originally "my sport" before I discovered hiking, so it's time to make a long-awaited reemergence onto the river.

• Dublin University Boat Club (DUBC): See above

• Trinity Arts Workshop: Ever since I was a child, I always wanted to try my hand at pottery. Come to think of it, Santa once brought me a potter's wheel for Christmas. Results at the time were unconvincing, but hopefully that with a bit of tuition and guidance I should be giving Demi Moore and the ghost of Patrick Swayeze a run for their money.

• Knit Soc: When I was working for the Office the Never Works (OPW) I used to knit at my desk in order to pass the time. In fact, I would hypothesize that productivity within government departments could be boosted if all civil servants were provided with wool and needles, especially as we run into the winter season. Anyway, I've joined the Knit Soc, just in case...

• SUAS: Rebecca recommended this, it's an overseas aid education trust, providing education to disadvantaged children in the Third World, or something to that effect; providing schools in Coolock, in other words.

• Voluntary Tuition Programme: I've signed up to teach one grind a week as part of a volunteer programme. It's only an hour, so if my small contribution helps someone who is struggling with their education, then it's an hour well spent.

• Labour Youth: I've finally decided to get political. Selection was made by process of elimination: Fianna Fáil were obviously the first to go, followed closely by the Greens. Fine Gael are basically just Fianna Fáil only in blue, so that left Labour. So yes, it's official; I'm now a communist!

So anyway, that's me now. The next job is to figure of when all of the various training sessions are and try and fit them into a reasonably workable schedule; should be fun!

Legionnaire's Testimonial

My friend Stephen keeps an excellent blog. Yesterday, I became the subject of one of his postings. He said some very nice things about me, which is very unusual for Ireland; great nation of begrudgers that we are. I texted him about it afterwards and he said that it was a "tribute".

In Ireland, generally tributes are only made after death, to ensure that there is no chance of the compliment actually being heard by the receiver; so it's lovely to hear nice things said about oneself without being laid out cold in the front room.

Anyway, if you would like to read what Stephen said about me, click here.

Mind that child

Thanks be to Allah I don't live in Iran

Stop me when this stops sounding normal:

1. It's Saturday night. Normal.
2. There's a party. Normal.
3. There's guys and girls, mixing and chatting together. Normal.
4. There's alcohol. Eh, c'mon! Normal.
5. The police arrive and start making arrests. Could be normal; I've been to one or two parties like that.
6. The punishment is whipping, fines or imprisonment. What the?

Welcome to Tehran. Iranian police arrested 60 partygoers on Saturday; their crime? Points 2 - 4.

It's coming

Next Thursday week, we will have equinox, when it is exactly twelve hours of daylight and twelve hours of darkness. For me, this conjours the image of a spinning coin tipping on it's edge, getting ready to fall; a fall that will bring us into the long nights of winter. And like night follows day, like it or not, winter is coming.

As with all inevitable things in life, we have the option of trying to ignore and then begrudge them once their reality is forced upon us, or we can celebrate them. It's heartwarming to see that people are still celebrating the equinox at the passage tombs of Lough Crew, County Meath. For it is at the passage tombs of Lough Crew that the rising and the setting sun illuminates the inner chambers of the burial mounds, (one facing due east; one facing due west) five thousand years after our ancestors built them. I've never been there myself, but D Reilly assures me that it's worth an early start for.

This is an Irish Times photo presentation of the Spring Equinox, last March; and just listening to it gives me the tingles. Don't get me wrong; I'm far from thrilled at the prospect of another damp, cold, miserable Irish winter, but this is inevitable. It's coming: get over it. So this gives me two choices; I can either try my best at blithely ignoring it, and still end up waking up one day to find that's is dismally cold, utterly inclement and pitch dark at 8.30am; or I can wrap up, put on my coat and boots and climb an ancient hill at dawn to welcome the winter.

If all of this talk of winter darkness depresses you, I urge you to take to heart the simple, yet profound, words of Ok Go: "Let it go. This too shall pass". For on Wednesday, 23 March, we'll have another chance to traipse to Lough Crew; this time to welcome the summer.

Great Lies To Tell Small Kids

Fact.

Good Morning Dublin!

You may remember some time ago, that there was a small outbreak of furore over Spencer Tunick's photoshoots in Dublin and Cork. More so in Cork actually, which featured hundreds of naked people standing around in the rain at Blarney Castle in the dark, as they waited for dawn in what might have been October last year. Not my idea of fun, but then hypothermia just doesn't do it for me...

Anyway, Tunick was back in the news again recently as, shock! horror! he had taken another photograph of hundreds of naked people standing in front of a famous landmark. This got the cogs churning, and I decided to google the Dublin shoot, as I couldn't remember what the result of it was. And this was the result:

I was delighted to find this; I think it's really interesting. Firstly, it's not a run of the mill landmark, like the Sydney Opera house, which frankly, is just a bit boring. It's one of my favourite and least well known places in Dublin - the Great South Wall; four miles of granite that stretches into Dublin Bay and creates Dublin Port. It's lovely to see a place that is dear to me immortalized.

Secondly I love the way the the naked crowd vanishes into nothing as it winds its way out towards the Poolbeg Lighthouse. It both gives an idea of the size of the South Wall and the amount of naked people who appeared to freeze their tits off for the dawning of the day.

And thirdly, and most importantly, I love that the Irish Ferries Ulysses is lurking on the horizon and is about to enter the port. One can only imagine the announcement that the captain made from the bridge that morning. "Good morning ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking..."

Google

I'm not really sure what to make of Google. Is it a benevolent force or am I just giving a major corporation endless ammunition? Who knows? I must certainly did not read the small print, despite ticking the box to the contrary. It probably doesn't pay to spend too much time thinking about these things; ah sure, it's all a big conspiracy really...

I use google daily; it supports my email and it hosts this blog. Incidentally, next week when I register for university, I will be given a @tcd.ie email address, which will also work off the Gmail platform. So whether I like it or not, Google and I are inextricably linked. Were we to part ways in the morning, it would be a rather messy and painful breakup.

Google is constantly modifying it's service and now one can select an image for one's home page. I've chosen this one; I call it the "Three Little Pigs" and I think that it strikes the right note between utter gayness and financial prudence.

The latest thing they they are offering is Google Instant (which isn't available in Ireland yet). This is suggested search technology that instantly brings up multiple results, dependent on the characters typed - now there's no longer any need to hit the search button. Apparently it saves about 3 seconds per Google search, and that makes it "better". I dunno, I'm not convinced.

I quite like to go to Google and frame my question; i.e. think for a moment about what I am going to ask the oracle, rather than just chucking random words at it and rummaging through the results. I have never been a huge fun of suggested searches coming up when I start typing in the search bar. To be honest it kinda creeps me out, for the computer is taking note of everything I do; it is digitally and psychologically profiling me. For example, I often ask Google a question, beginning with "how do I..." and sometimes the suggestions are rather alarming! For instance:

How do I know I'm pregnant

How do I know if I'm depressed

How do I get my PPS number

How do I register with Fás

This would lead us to believe that I am a young girl, possibly pregnant, that I am unemployed, with rather limited prospects and I'm necking Prozac in order to cope with this grim reality. Google, you know me so well!

Dogging

Here's a wonderful little ditty about dogging, sung by a lady that you think might know better. But then again, I'm sure that's exactly the point...

"I quickly had his flagpole up responding to my touch,

And the next thing I was upside-down and staring at the clutch."

For those of you unfamiliar with the term, here's what the Urban Dictionary coughed up:

Dogging actually derives from the term 'walking the dog'. It is a pastime that has evolved from blokes taking their dogs for walks and stumbling across couples at it in bushes etc. They originally only spied on these couples. The 'sport' has now become much more organized and seedy - with regular meeting places, and more or less a free-for-all spirit. This year the newly created Ultimate Dogging Championships was held at Rivington nr Chorley, Lancs. Their were many disciplines including 10 Man Train, Pearly Rain, and Most Extreme Slapper. The TV rights to next year's event are currently in negotiation with a Dutch Satellite TV station.

"I'm just taking the dog out for a walk love"

"Okay, don't be 5 hours this time, and try not to get so muddy"

Oh yes...

The kids are back in school, so that means an Indian Summer, right?

(Thanks Paul.)

Nice Boots Camp

Another fantastic ad, this time for Littlewoods. Nice to see someone else getting into the game, apart from our usual contenders of Specsavers and Boots. Of course, the Nancy soundtrack goes a long way in accounting for it's appeal.

Bye bye Mr Blue Sky

Giant hay bale kills ELO founder.

I kid you not, this is a headline into today's Irish Times. The cellist from ELO, Mike Edwards, was killed on Friday by a renegade hay bale. He was driving in his van in Devon, when all of a sudden the giant haybale burst through the hedge and crashed into his vehicle.

The haybale in question weighed 600kgs and may have fallen off a tractor working on a nearby hill. It picked up momentum as it moved towards the road, eventually killing Mr Edwards. He was 62 and was noted for the ability to play the cello with a grapefruit.

Here's a little stop motion video of Mr Blue Sky. It was somebody's second year short film project. It's rather cool actually. They could do with painting their gate pillars though.

N.B. I've just watched it a second time. It really does have strong religous overtones, what with the bodily ascension into heaven...

Thinking of Aretha

I'm off to see Aretha tomorrow morning. It's time to feed the bees and tuck them away for the winter.

So here's a little Aretha for you. "Think! Think! Think..."

Picture this

I'm currently corresponding with a lovely lady that I met while at Bee Camp in Gormanston. She told me today of her neice's wedding. Here follows the description of it, and the soundtrack. Enjoy!

It was in a yurt* in a field in Kent. The bride designed her own outfit, consisting of a strapless mini-dress, white diamonte studded boots and a beautiful lace veil!

When the ceremony was over, instead of the traditional wedding march they played Stevie Wonder's "Signed Sealed Delivered, I'm yours!" (but you're probably too young too know that one). And instead of a wedding cake, a vintage icecream van drove round the tent giving out ice cream...

*yurt |yoŏrt; yərt|

noun

a circular tent of felt or skins on a collapsible framework, used by nomads in Mongolia, Siberia, and Turkey.

Anglo Irish Relations

In Ireland, we are prone to gripe on about our neighbours from across the water with mumbles of "700 years..." And in fact, at least for the last 200 years or so of that period, a large part of our cultural identity has evolved around the nature of the relationship between Ireland and Britain; in other words - Anglo Irish relations. For example, we had the Anglo Irish War of 1919 to 1921 (also known as the Tan War, or the War of Independence). We had the Anglo Irish Treaty of 1922, granting the Irish Free State, and then in the 1985 we had the Anglo Irish Agreement, between Lady Thatcher and Grandpa Garrett Fitzgerald. So the words Anglo Irish are rather official and important, given our recent history, and they generally deal with "the English" being difficult, mainly over relinquishing parts of their empire.

However during last two years, the words Anglo Irish have come to mean something else; once more, they are a national preoccupation. However this time, the source of the trouble is not the English, but rather one of our own - Anglo Irish Bank. Like many people, I confess to being somewhat cloudy as to who exactly Anglo Irish are, why they got into the mess that they are in, and more importantly, why the Irish taxpayer is paying their debts. If Brian Lenehan were to introduce a levy on the words "Anglo Irish Bank" with one euro to be collected for each utterance, it is quite likely that RTÉ alone would be fined sufficiently to balance the flailing bank's balance books by the end of the autumn schedule. But for all of the bandying about of those three little words, how much do we actually understand about what is going on? Do you, like me, just need someone to sit down and explain it, slowly, in nice plain English?

Well if you do, you're in luck. Thankfully, the Irish Times has presented us with a Crash Course on Anglo Irish Bank.

Leave a stagelamp burning

It was with great sadness that I learned of the death of Mick Lally yesterday. He died, suddenly, at the age of 64.

For me, Mick Lally had always been Miley in Glenroe, "Ah, Holy God" and to be frank, there wasn't much there to talk about. It wasn't until I listened to him being interviewed one morning by Miriam O'Callaghan that I was surprised to learn a bit more about what I would soon see was truly fascinating character. I was subsequently lucky enough to hear him interviewed a second time, this time with Glenroe co-star, Mary McEvoy.

These interviews shed some light on the upbringing of Mick Lally. He was the child of a poor peasant farmer from the Mayo Gaeltacht. But for a relation in had sent money home from America, he never would have had the chance to go to secondary school. Listening to him speak, he never lost sight of that; how all of the opportunity in his life arose due to the quiet generosity of one man.

Fintan O'Toole writes an obituary today in the Irish Times, listing some of Lally's great achievements. Now most of the stuff happened before I was born, or I was too small or disinterested to take notice. The conclusion is that Lally was a giant of a man, both physically and metaphorically; but he was a quiet and humble giant. At sixty four, his death was far too sudden; sure, wasn't he due to be on stage next week. Like that, I only heard him being interviewed a few weeks ago, and he never mentioned dying.

My thoughts are with his family, and with those whom he loved, and who loved him. May he rest in peace.