A New Year's Wish!

Well, another year done and dusted and like you I'm sitting here scratching my head and wondering, as I do every New Year's Eve, where the hell all the time has gone to? Well wherever it went, it left in its wake a few things to be thankful for, a few to be sad about and even a few things to bring hope and to look forward to in the New Year. Looking back now, there were indeed some personal highlights too ... highlights like:

• Finishing the ole booookie booook
• Creating this 'ere blog as a result
• Reaching my target of reading 50 books for the year.
• Saying: "Congratulations on winning the World Cup!" straight to Joachim Loew's face!
• Picking up a new finger-picking style for my ukulele and ...
• Duetting with an ole pal in celebration of the fact! :)

Yes folks, just a few outstanding achievements that the world would have missed had I not flagged them right here, right now! And come to think of it, if I can write a list even half this length this time next year, I'm sure it will have been another bumper year that bubbled with achievement!

So, what are my plans for 2015, I hear you all ask with dead-pan faces?

Well, I suppose if I'm honest, my goals for the year to come remain as ambitious as ever and include, to wit: getting a cover on said book of mine (if I have to do it myself, then so be it!); selling the rights to a few of my songs to some major movie company and then heading for the Hamptons; reaching the 99, 100 and then 200 'number of posts' mark on this here ole blog; taking at least one nice photograph with my new wide angle lens; winning Wimbledon and getting back in some kind of string band again!

Ah, getting back in a band. That's a real wish. One regretful thing in 2014 was the end of the line for me ole group of ukesters, Ukeristic Congress, the demise of which has left a real void in my vocal cords and has me itching to get playin' again.

On a much sadder note though, 2014 was a year when four fine people I knew died well before their times and I remain deeply sad for their loss and for the sadness their passing brought to the people closest to them. Nothing can ever make up for that and all I can say is that their memory will live on and that I am personally thankful for having met them during the course of their lives and mine. I hope too that they are resting well and in peace - dear ST, L'B'C, JC and MvdH.

So we've come to the end of another post, the last one of the year. Nothing beside remains but to wish you all the very best for the New Year, to thank you all for stopping by the blog this year and to add my shoulder to the wheel of your hopes and dreams for 2015. Or as T.S. Eliot might have it:

“... last year's words belong to last year's language
And next year's words await another voice.”

Happy New Year!

Shona Bhliain Nua do gach duine!


More soon ...

The Ghost of Christmases Past ... and Presents!

My, it's been a couple of weeks but since you've been away I've been rummaging in the archives again and this time I unearthed yet another forgotten relic from my distant past. It were a book about vets what I read when I were a lad, because, as few of you know, I once had big ambitions towards becoming an ole MRCVS - that is until I discovered the job was less about tiddling fluffy kittens and more about being knee-deep in cowshite at two in the morning every day of the week. So, maith an fear James Herriott for putting me straight.

No, to be honest, I forgot about being a vet a long time ago and the book I found, Vet in Harness, did little to bring back the memory of ever wanting to be one. Instead, it reminded me of Christmases past because that's when I would have got it as a present (and many others in the series) and the memory of me sitting in an armchair by the roaring  fire in the sitting room (only ever lit at Christmas), riveted to it, remains a fond one. And, of course, thinking of that set a ghost train of other Christmas memories in motion and before I knew it, images of old cameras and slide projectors and Cluedos and Frustrations and deoderant sets and leather footballs and crap records and rollerball pens and digital watches came to mind - and thus we have yet another mood board for you all to add to or subtract from!

When I look at some of the bigger presents that Santy brought all those years ago, I suppose, they probably do contain clues to the sort of ideas and ambitions I was harbouring for myself back then. It was no fluke, for example, that I got as 'big' presents, a camera one year and a slide projector another, because back then I saw myself as a budding photographer and I had real ambitions to one day rise to the professional challenge - that was until some point in time when I had to acknowledge that I didn't really have what it took. The other presents might contain clues too, clues about other roads I could have taken and about other things I had in mind to do or be. Though I'll never know for sure, maybe these other great gifts were indicative of pursuits in life that I wouldn't have minded taking a bit further - like being a rock star, a weightlifter, a detective, a professional footballer, a perfumist, a computer programmer, a professional gambler, a strategist and, as denoted by the Parker Pen, a writer. Hmmm, I'm even wondering now did that pen play any part in my opting to go the hack's route? Meh! It's impossible to tell from this juncture because, in the meantime, life went and diluted the direct influences and muddied the proverbial waters. But still, the very presence of that pen perched in its box back there in the distant past might mean that the seeds were sown that far back. And I'm sure it must be similar for you. The clues to how your own future would pan out might well be concealed there somewhere among the bric-a-brac of all your own Christmases past and in the presents that they brought. To your present. Might be worth a look back!

More soon ...

Past presents!

Ukeristic Farewell!

Well I suppose I really should invite you all to the Ukulele Christmas Party on Saturday week in town, but if ye don't play yerself, well, ye might find it all a bit strange. Apart from the festival in Dun Laoghaire in August though this really is the biggest night of the year for ukers in Ireland who, despite coming in all shapes and guises and sizes, all share the common trait of being game ball to pipe up an ole toon or two at the drop of a hat.

I intend to knock out one or two myself but the largest part of my night I suppose will be when my ukulele group of five years standing, Ukeristic Congress, takes the stage to play for the last time. It will be a modest swansong, just a few tunes, kind of a low key farewell that will mark the end of what really was a roller coaster of a ride. Indeed, as I've explained in previous posts, being a Ukeristic was the most exciting thing to happen to me musically - certainly in the hectic half decade that's just past if not in my entire 'musical' life! But I suppose everything has a use-by date and our wee group of tunestrels are no different.

Still, even if the band is over now, the memories will always remain and there are many, many to savour - like writing the songs and recording the CD, playing the near two-year residency in Whelans which turned us into a band, getting on the bill at the biggest uke Festival in the UK, brilliant in itself but where I also had the privilege of playing George Formby's very own banjolele. There were great gigs all over town too - a good few of the Whelan's shows and another in the Working Man's Club particularly stand out.

There were exciting times on the radio as well, us mixing it with bigger and bolder musicians on the Big Train is a fond memory as is the one of the time we had an RTE camera crew following us around town for the entire day - swelling our heads - though the less said about that scene with us feeding sliced pan to the swans on the canal the better! Even that testing time when we arrived to do a gig and forgot to bring the PA might one day conjure a smile!

But all things must pass, as uber uker George Harrison would have it, and it certainly will be with a wrench of the heart and a tear in the eye that I'll be singing the note that marks the end of the Ukeristic road that night. After it I suppose we'll have a pint and toast the future, then snap our cases closed, doff our hats and head our separate ways - onwards, upwards, ukewards and beyond. Fine folk, fine times, sadly missed.



Click the pic to see the Xmas vid!

Beat the Intro!

Yeah, I think it's high time we took a bit of a breather from all the heavy lifting that is bag blog banter just for one post and instead have some organised fun in the form of a ... quiz!!! Seeing as we've recently been talking about why great songs are so great, I've taken the liberty of making a little reel of fine tunes which features the opening notes or beats of 20 well known pop songs from the latter part of the last century. All you have to do is have a listen and see can you get as near to the twenty as I reckon you can and, to make it interesting, well why don't I just plop a cool, crisp pint of eh, Tuborg up on the counter of the bar in The Beggars and tap me fingers as I await the first of you to arrive in with yer awful throat and your list of answers! The accompanying pictures will give you the clues you need and I'll post up the answers in a couple of days.

Answers and more soon ...

Name that tune!

Answers below ...


Answers: 1. The Beatles - A Hard Day's Night; 2. The Rolling Stones - Start Me Up; 3. The Ramones - Baby I Love You!; 4. The Specials - Too Much Too Young; 5. Paul Simon - Graceland; 6. David Bowie - Fashion; 7. The Bee Gees - Stayin' Alive; 8. Bruce Springsteen - Born to Run; 9. Prince - Little Red Corvette; 10. Madness - Michael Caine; 11. The Jam - Eton Rifles; 12. The Beach Boys - Good Vibrations; 13. David Bowie - Life on Mars; 14. Guns 'n' Roses - Sweet Child o' Mine; 15. The Stone Roses - I am the Resurrection; 16. The Beatles - Something; 17. Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark - Enola Gay; 18. Dexy's Midnight Runners - Come On Eileen; 19. ABBA - S.O.S.; 20. Donna Summer - Hot Stuff.

Thirty right answers! Nicely Done, folks.

Songs ... of Praise!

I was going to talk today about all those songs that have connected with me down through the years and about all those life-defining moments and memories they've conjured up along the way. And to begin, I'd like to talk about the classic song, Ben, because it reminds me of the time when we had ... mmmm ... nah, maybe some other time!

But I do do love the songs, it's true - as I'm sure y'all do too - and I particularly love the great ones! Pound for pound, I even think great songs are better than all other entertainment forms put together although that's probably just me being me today. Still, the reason I say it is because great songs do it for me like nuffink else can. A fine tune can pack more, shall we say, emotional triggers, into its core than anything else around and these can be re-played and re-lived again and again for as long as you want and for as long as you live without causing too much disruption to your daily life. Few other art forms are as flexible. No matter how brilliant, say, the best books I've ever read were, I had to consciously find the time and the space to read them - and even if they were a pleasure to behold, I definitely never read any of them more than three times in my life. Yet, I can think of a thousand songs I've listened to a thousand times - and many, many, many of them sound as good on the thousandth listen as they did on the first.

Another great thing about a great song is that you have the sole right to deem it great - every awesome feature, every chord change or solo or lyric or vocal or whatever, is great because you deem it to be so. Hard to argue with that either. Admittedly, it wasn't always like that. When we were all a bit younger we kind of had to go with what the crowd thought was cool in order to preserve some degree of street cred, so in many cases if a genius band in your mind were a bunch of t*ssers in the opinion of others whose opinions carried more weight, then you had to be careful how you batted. Still, I was lucky I suppose, because I happened to love the new wave and the ska music that was all the rage when I were a lad but I had to keep a lot of other stuff quiet - stuff I really loved but which, if it got out, meant I was finished - like Sheila B. Devotion and eh ... The Goombay Dance Band! No matter how odd or naff or uncool these things were, I just couldn't resist spinning them because they were, to my mind, great songs and that was what mattered most! But being older now, (it has some benefits after all!) I am completely free to listen to what I want regardless of the received wisdom and for that I am privileged and thankful. Yahooo. Free at last.

Now, where is that Tavares album o' mine!

More soon ...


Se-ven tears have flown into dee ree-vurr!

Takin' the biscuit!

I suppose you could view this entry as a kind of a post-script to the one below or whatever but since writing it, I read a jaw-dropping article on Artificial Intelligence in the FT Weekend Magazine and was gobsmacked by how some of our smarter brethren, namely yon technology brain-boxes, see our not-too-distant future panning out ... and by how completely far-out their ideas really are. Par exemple:

• " ... when computers match humans in intelligence, humans would cede leadership in technological development, since the machines would be capable of improving their own designs by themselves ... and with the accelerating pace of technological change, it wouldn't be long before the capabilities - and goals - of the computers would far surpass human understanding."

und dann ...

• " ... aided by their brilliant machines, humans could quickly colonise space, cure ageing and upload their minds onto computers. It's just a case of getting past the dangerous moment of the intelligence explosion. If we can make it to the next century and achieve technological maturity, we could have another billion years!"

God knows, any assessment of your own IQ is always a depressing pursuit when there are eggheads nearby but surely this is taking the biscuit. There're people out there talking seriously about uploading their minds onto computers so as to conquer space and live forever while I'm sat at the controls here in dumb-ass central still trying to figure out how they put the figs into the fig rolls.

Sweet divine lord!

More soon ...

Gid orrfff me ... I'm only artifishlee intellimigent!

Life's a ... Have a Guess!

Allow me announce a little known fact. Ahem! Life is all abouuut ... eh ...  containers! Yes, you 'eard me ... it's all about containers innit ... receptacles, repositories, packages, depositories ... bags, boxes, pouches and pails.

I mean, to see what I mean you only have to think of all the containers you use every day - the bed, the shower, the wardrobe, the tin of fruit. The coffee cup, the cereal bowl, the milk carton, the spoon. The garage, the car, the road, the carpark. The kiosk, the pocket, the wallet, the newspaper. The foyer, the lift, the office, the desk. The PC, the G-mail, the Face-ache - even this 'ere ole blog! And more and more and on and on and on. Containers, containers everywhere! And proper order too. Just think of the chaos that would exist without them! The filth in our houses, the anarchy on our streets, the collapse of our lives, the end of civilisation! So, yes, thank heavens for boxes as they keep all things in place!

Everything needs a container, because for anything to exist and to function in this great spinning world, it needs to fit into (or onto) something else that will hold it in place. Secure containers bring order to our worlds, they let us know what to expect and this helps us all to relax - that is - until one person's containers start to get in the way of someone else's containers and the result is surly snot, complete chaos and utter clutter. And nowhere is this more evident than in the cluttertfest that is this here digital world.

Yes indeed, the interweb has created the perfect container for everyone's thoughts and ideas, for their cast-offs and tuppence-worth's, for their stuff and nonsense. But because there is only a certain amount of time and space in a given day, in a finite life, it's hard, and getting harder, to be heard or to hear anything lasting above the din. It's as though the more containers we are given to assert our uniqueness in the digital space, the more we just muddy our own waters and cancel out each other's uniqueness. 

It's pretty damn hard to see yourself as an individual of any real distinction in this bunged-up digital world. I mean, how can you set yourself apart in an environment where everyone is vying for the same finite space, the same flit of attention? The answer I fear is that you can't. Or if you can, your experience will be fleeting.

So what do you do? Do you do a Luddite on it and pray that a meteor storm will knock every satellite out of the sky and send us all crashing back to the year zero where we'll start again as hunter gatherers with no baggage and an equal chance!? You wish! Or do you just muddle through as always and continue to fill your digital bucket or box the way you do, taking comfort in the occasional triumphs that come your way, and in the fact that, even if no one cares or sees or listens to what you do, you are still doing it - in your own inimitable way? Hmmmmmm! I suppose it could be worse. At least, in this way, if yours is only one digital pulse among the quadrillions of other digital pulses coursing round the globe, it's still exclusively yours and you are thus one of a kind and thusly thus - the king of your own castle! And isn't that all that anyone wants?!

Just a thought.

Now, time to get back in my box!

More soon ...

The mystery of life - solved!

How well do ye know your .. eh ... my onions!?

They say there are as many ways to judge a person as there are to skin a cat. Par exemple - by the content of their character; by the company they keep; by what others say about them; by the clothes that they wear; by the car that they drive; by the books they do read; by the gargle they do imbibe - that sort of thingammy! One great judgement barometer, or maybe that should be coolometer, when I was growing up anyway, was by the type of bands a person listened to and, in particular, by the level of weirdness of the albums in the said person's collection. Thinking about that yesterday, I decided I would mood-board up a montage of my own records - so as to put my theory to the test while giving you all a little bit of an inkling into the musical measure of me.

I got cracking, cutting and pasting old pix and images to beat and, after ten minutes, bore the band! So I changed tack and got the notion of blanking out the crucial parts of the sleeves I'd selected - like the names of the bands and the titles of the albums - the grand idea being to spice things up a tad and obscure the obvious a bit! And by doing this I managed to change the nature of the project completely, turning the montage from a personal personality test into ... yippee ... an album quiz for y'all!

Nice one indeed, Cyril, even if I do say so myself!

So why not take a few minutes and see how far you get using the scale of: 0 - meaning 'sharing no musical taste whatsoever with me'  to 54 - meaning 'actually, you are me, or at least an exact clone of me!' So, eh ... let that yardstick be your guide ... and let the games commence!

Annnd ... to make it interesting - why not have a gander and tell me, in the comments, how many you got - you can submit a list if you want, and if you are the brainiest or the cloniest, then a cool, crisp pint of Tuborg could be flowing your way courtesy of ... ah, by now I think you know what I mean! Anyway, I'll post up the answers in a couple of days.

More soon ...

Name that tune! 



(Answers below - Click on 'Click here to read on')

Answers: 

1. Aja- Steely Dan; 2. Blur - Blur; 3. Blood on the Tracks - Bob Dylan; 4. - Grievous Angel - Gram Parsons; 5. Graceland - Paul Simon; 6. The Man Who Sold the World - David Bowie; 7. Remain in Light - Talking Heads; 8. Wrecking Ball - Emmylou Harris; 9. Drums and Wires - XTC; 10. Armed Forces - Elvis Costello and The Attractions; 11. The Band - The Band; 12 Setting Sons - The Jam; 13. Word Up! - Cameo; 14. Brilliant Trees - David Sylvian; 15. Never Mind the Bollocks Here's The Sex Pistols - Sex Pistols; 16. Mutations - Beck; 17. The Clash - The Clash; 18. Velvet Underground & Nico - Velvet Underground & Nico; 19. Astral Weeks - Van Morrison; 20. Fear of Music - Talking Heads; 21. Love Bites - The Buzzcocks; 22. Three of a Perfect Pair - King Crimson; 23. New York Dolls - New York Dolls; 24. Horses - Patti Smith; 25. The Specials - The Specials; 26. This is the Sea - The Waterboys; 27. Screamadelica - Primal Scream; 28. Pet Sounds - The Beachboys; 29. Exodus - Bob Marley & The Wailers; 30. Roxy Music - Roxy Music; 31. Transformer - Lou Reed; 32. The Queen is Dead - The Smiths; 33. The Modern Lovers - The Modern Lovers; 34. This is it - The Strokes; 35. Peter Gabriel (3) - Peter Gabriel; 36. Searching for the Young Soul Rebels ­­- Dexys Midnight Runners; 37. London 0 Hull 4 - The Housemartins; 38. Jailbreak - Thin Lizzy; 39. Cop Killer - Bodycount; 40. Marquee Moon - Television; 41. Power in the Darkness - Tom Robinson Band; 42. OK Computer - Radiohead; 43. Hypnotised - The Undertones; 44. Steve McQueen - Prefab Sprout; 45. Mind Bomb - The The; 46. The Lamb Lies Down of Broadway - Genesis; 47. Rum, Sodomy & the Lash - The Pogues; 48. Let England Shake - PJ Harvey; 49. The Stone Roses - The Stone Roses; 50. Suede - Suede; 51. Café Bleu - The Style Council; 52. Tin Drum - Japan; 53. No. 10, Upping Street - Big Audio Dynamite; 54. Inflammable Material - Stiff Little Fingers 

Officially a Sound Man!

Seven odd years ago I completed a one-year night course in sound engineering and music production at the Sound Training Centre in Dublin. Looking back on it now, it was a really worthwhile experience - a great course run by people who really knew and dearly loved their onions and sat by a great bunch of classmates, many of whom went on to achieve big and bright things in the music business and beyond. Doing the course wasn't without dividends for me either in that it acted as the catalyst that caused me to re-kindle my interest in playing music and to pick up my guitar again after a three year hiatus. Doing that, in turn, led to me discover and fall hook, line and sinker for the ukulele which, in turn, led me to form a band, something that I'd wanted to do for my whole life up to that point. Being in the band, in turn, re-kindled in me the will to sing and to write songs and this, in turn, led me to playing live gigs in front of loads of people and to record some of my own tunes, which in turn led to me getting on the radio and to appearing on the telly and so on and so forth and so fifth. When I think of all the things that came as a consequence of doing the course then, it would be hard, or rude even, to ask for anything more!

One strange thing about the course though was that despite paying whatever amount of grand it was to do it and despite attending it two evenings a week for nearly ten months and despite living and breathing every sound wave and every frequency ever dreamed up, I never really knew whether I was any good at it or even if I'd passed it or not. Yeah, I studied long and hard, I diligently completed all the assignments and dutifully sat all the exams. But the reason I never knew I was any good was because I never got the certificate, the bit o' paper, to tell me either way!

I remember ringing the college several times back then and telling them this but every time I called they told me that my results had been posted out to me and to relax because according to their records I 'd passed. But no letter ever arrived and thus not having the physical proof meant I couldn't tell anyone with complete certainty that I was qualified in sound engineering and music production. 'Try me on capital cities,' I'd say when the subject was broached. For seven long years, I changed the subject at the mere mention of the word jack or cans or toppy or polishing turds while deep inside me my jeerer of an ego mocked and slagged me that I wasn't qualified to put a sticker on a guitar case. Seven years is a long time to be left in musical technological limboland I can tell you!

Fast forward to yesterday though, when I bumped into the person currently living in my old gaff and who told me, by the bye, that she had a bag of letters for me that she'd been meaning to send me for 'god knows how long now'. (7 and a half years, m'dear!) So she ran into the gaff and got the bag and handed it to me and I brought it home and sifted through it to find that it contained nothing of interest beyond old bills and bank statements and junk mail. All valueless - except for one other item. Post-marked 16-08-07, it was a sealed 'Please do not bend' envelope which immediately drew my attention. So I tore it open and found inside ... one letter of congratulations on successfully completing the Sound and Music Technology course from the college principal of the Sound Training Centre; one certificate of attendance at said course  AND ... dan-dan-dannnnn ... one City and Guilds certificate which told me, for good and for bad, for better and for worse, that I'd passed the course - with distinction! Yahooooo!

So there you have it - you are now in the company of a qualified sound and music technology man of seven years standing - with the papers to prove it. And even if demon time has rendered the diploma as worthless as me Telecom shares - one thing for certain is that, because it officially represents the things that put the ukulele in my hand and playing music in my mind, that certificate is going to be framed and back-dated and placed with pride and glory on the finest part of my living room wall!  And for y'all to come and see!

Click to rock to one of my old assignments!

Ten Things We Didn't Know Last Week - #3

Been a couple of days since the last post, the reason for the slackery being ... ukuleles. Always ukuleles! But the new tune is well and truly rehearsed now, in the key of A, so it's time to get back to normal and to catch up on all those vitally important research findings that I've been missing and have missed in the time since elapsed. Such things as:

• The average parent who spends the equivalent of eight days a year (33 mins a night) persuading their children to go to bed. 
• Or the fact that sharks are nine times more likely to kill a man than a woman  - the great white shark being the biggest offender.
• Or that people living in the country swear more on Twitter than urban dwellers.
• Or the notion that drinking honeysuckle tea can help ward off the flu according to Chinese researchers.
• Or that bacteria found in honeybees could be used as an alternative to antibiotics and in the fight against antibiotic-resistant strains of MRSA.
• Or that people who worry about losing their job have a 60% increased risk of developing asthma than those who don't.
• Or, eerily, the 'fact' that the memories of clinically dead people show that 'awareness' continues for up to three minutes after the brain has shut down, well according to scientists at Southampton University at least.
• Or that dry-roasted peanuts cause more allergic reactions than salted ones.
• Or the fact that young people would rather go without a hot meal or clean clothes than be cut off from the internet, according to new research by SSE
• Or the worrying news that charging your phone in your bedroom could make you put on weight. Spanish scientists say that the artificial light from phone screens, street lights, laptops or television stops the body generating melatonin, a hormone which combats obesity. 

So now so, re-illuminate those pipes and get ye a-ruminatin'!

More soon ...

Insert yon fact in said pipe and blow ...

Serious Name Droppin'

Think of these seismic name changes: Cassius Clay becoming Mohammed Ali; Cat Stevens becoming Yusuf Islam; the artist formerly known as The Artist Formerly Known as Prince (or, more correctly, Love Symbol #2!) becoming Prince again.  Peking becoming Beijing, Bombay becoming Mumbai. Mars becoming Snickers. Ballymun Avenue becoming Glasnevin Avenue. Many more besides!

People and places change their names or have their names changed for them for all sorts of rhymes and all sorts of reasons. Some, for example, simply might not like the sound of their existing names - Elton for one didn't like Reggie Dwight and Michael J. Fox just couldn't handle being bland ole Michael A. Fox! Others may feel that a different name better reflects their status in life - as Archie Leach did when he became Cary Grant or as Del Boy Trotter did when he became Derek Duval! Others still think a nattier name raises their profile a notch or two on the ole cool-ometer - why else would Mick Barratt have become Shaky or Bernard Jewry, Alvin Stardust!.

Yes, names change because times change, circumstances change, reasons change and people change. And in the case of this here blog we're not immune. In the past weeks and months the scope and direction of what's been written on these pages has changed a good bit - enough for the name The Dualist to no longer really reflect or complement the content. While I set out originally to write a blog to promote the book I wrote this summer, it's no longer just about that and, as such, I don't feel comfortable writing under a misleading moniker or using a scope that's so narrow.

So from today The Dualist blog will change its name to better reflect the source and nature of its content and will now become simply The Bag's Blog - and it's aim will be to be just that, a bag of blog covering a multitude of sins! That said it will be a bit messy and time-consuming to create a brand new template from scratch to cater for the new name so the address won't change immediately but will come in time - i.e. when I get round to setting it up. Meanwhile folks, many thanks again for taking the time to stop by and have a browse - the exercise would be pointless without your support and encouragement.

More soon ...

Coo ca choo it's ... Barney Jewry!

Added - 23rd October 2014. News in that Alvin passed away today after a short illness. RIP kind sir.

'By-kart' Revisited!

I was spinning along at a brisk 15 kmph on the main road the other day wondering whether to have either the waffles and bacon or the vol-au-vents for dinner that evening when out of the corner of my right eye I caught a glimpse of a man drawing level and then whizzing past me on a Dublin Bike. You could tell by his demeanour that he was enjoying the ride, the giveaway being not so much the grocery items that danced in the basket in front of him as the smile that was plastered on his face as he zoomed along - a face, I was surprised to realise, I'd seen before. Now, I'm good on faces it has to be said, but it also has to be said that I'm rusty enough on contexts and situations, so it took me a few seconds for things to fall into place. But they did.

You might remember a tall tale I told y'all there not so long ago about me trying and failing to help a non English-speaking Asian gent in his efforts to hire a Dublin bike from a station down in Grand Canal Quay. The famous Mister 'By-kart'!

Well, no word of a lie, it was the exact same chap!

So, I thought, he's done it! He's finally done and got his bike! Fan-tastic! I felt a surge of delight for him and his prize and said to myself that I really should be a good tourism ambassador and catch him up and personally congratulate him on his dogged determination and remind him of our previous encounter. So off I sped and within ten seconds I'd caught up with him at the traffic lights ahead. Small problem was that he was in the centre of the road waiting for the oncoming traffic to pass so that he could go right, down Barrow Street, while I was in the left lane headed for Ringsend. But as there was no traffic between us at that moment all I had to do was pull up by the kerb, give him a holler, offer up my best wishes and be on my way.

'I see you got your Dublin Bike in the end,' I shouted over to him and beamed a big smile of congratulations as I waited for his light bulb to switch on and for his thumb to go up. But he wasn't as good on faces, or indeed on situations, as me. Useless in fact and by way of a reply he merely turned his head towards me, scrunched up his face and gawked over at me either in bewilderment or as though I'd just asked him out on a date. Whatever it was, all he said in reply was: paal-don?

So I tried to explain the story to him, about the bikes and about having met him before, but as soon as I spoke, a number 77 bus passed between us and drowned out my words and blocked our lines of sight. Then as I tried to move my bike forward to see around the bus, the ongoing traffic cleared away and he was off on his journey into thin air - without as much as the waving of a hanky or the mouthing of a goodbye. So there he was once again, 'my by-kart friend who wasn't' with his Dublin bike that was, gone, and with them my best wishes crushed to pulp like grapes underfoot!

After that what could anyone do but opt for the vol-au-vents?

The famous Dublin ByKart!

I'm in the mood for ...

Well I've noticed over the past few posts that I keep returning to the formative years and to the times when we were growing up so as to try and preserve, in my mind at least, a picture of the positive things that I remember from those distant days back in the mid to late 1970s. In some ways it seems like a thousand years have passed by since I had direct experience of those times, in others it feels like yesterday. So, to satiate my nostalgic tendencies for a few days at least, I decided today to collate a little mood board for your delectation. Mood boards rock, after all! I gave myself a couple of hours to assemble my version of those times, in their essence and as I remember them, but strictly in the time allocated (already I'm missing at least a thousand icons - Fizzlesticks, Superstars, The Fonz and Tony Hart have just sprung to mind ... as has Roy Castle ... and Bernard Cribbens!). I've also probably got it skew-ways in ninety percent of cases but, hey, feel free to fill in the blanks or create a board of your own times on your screen or in your head. It's a nice thing to cast yer mind back.

Those were yon days!

What in the Name of ...!

I came across a section about rock bands and how they got their names in that new Brewer's Dictionary I was telling you all about a couple of posts ago. Eh, bizarre is the only word to describe some of the entries I read and I suppose the only way to fathom things is to pretend that the writers probably had, well, maybe Prince Char-less or someone in mind as the reader when they were penning their little summaries of each baptism. Otherwise, I'm at a loss! Unless, of course it was aul Carlos himself who wrote each one! Anyway, here be a few and to wit:

• Siouxsie and the Banshees: from the adopted name of band singer Siouxsie Soux (born Susan Ballion) and BANSHEES, known for their shrieking.
• Smiths, The: a name chosen for its commonness to counter the pretentious portentousness of names such as Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark. There were no actual Smiths in the group. 
• Take That: a phrase implying a sexual invitation to the group's young female fans.
• The, The: a name chosen purely for its minimalist memorability, but also serving as an ironic allusion to the pop music tradition for names beginning with the definite article.
• U2: allegedly a pun on 'you too' or 'you two', implying that all fans could share the Irish band's music either individually or as couples.
• Who, The: a name chosen for its potential to bemuse and amuse, especially in a verbal exchange such as: 'Have you heard The Who?' 'The who?' 'The Who'.

Extraordinary!

More before the end of the month ...

And who might these be then? Ho! Ho!

Nice Ta See Ye ... Ta See Ye ...!

Was reading in the paper there the other day that parents who grew up in the seventies and eighties miss for their own families many of the things that were routine for them back in those days. Things like:

• Taping the Top 30 off the radio
• Watching Top of the Pops on the telly
• Buying singles
• Handwriting thank you notes
• Having pen friends
• Waiting for photos to be developed
• Watching Saturday evening TV with the family (that would, no doubt, include The Generation Game!)
• Making solid plans which do not change as a result of mobile communications

Yeah, they all featured in our house too back then, those and a few more that immediately spring to mind like: waiting for the late edition of the Evening Press on a Saturday and the late results that were over-printed on the front page margin; or buying an ice-pop as much for the joke on the stick as for the clump of frozen hydrochloric acid that was the pop; or maybe pegging a piece of Corn Flakes box to the back fork of your bicycle so that it touched the spokes of the wheel and thus sounded like a motor bike when you pedaled; or maybe adding a spoon of Andrews Liver Salts to your orange squash to make a fizzy drink that lasted all of two seconds. Or maybe ... Gott in Himmel ... Lord Peter Flint! Or maybe Simon Groom and Goldie. Or maybe even Terry Scott and his Curly Wurly. And on and on!

Indeed, none of this seems that far off in the past until you start thinking of milkmen in electric floats or coal men like minstrels with the weight of the world on their shoulders or being told to f*ck off away from the jam tarts and the cream doughnuts by angry men in bread vans; or schoolteachers on Raleigh 20s or neighbours on Honda 50s or new tenpenny pieces the size of dinner plates or even shapers in drapes or bootboys in parallels or bluebottles in Chrysler Avengers or Double Diamond working its wonders, its wonders way back then - a lonnnng time ago!

More in a couple of days ...

Nice ta see ye!

Keep Shorty!

So, I was rooting around in my clothes drawer the other day trying to find the pair of day-glo spandex khaks that I've recently mislaid when I unearthed an old pair of sports shorts way down the bottom which, by the threadbare look of them, had seen many, many better days.

I did a little mental arithmetic and was shocked when I concluded that I bought these very same strides in a K-mart in America back in 1988 and archived footage of me from those days supports my claim. In the intervening years I have moved house nine times and, yet, bizarrely, those shorts have followed me everywhere I've gone. It's a long journey to travel, especially for a garment with such short legs, but the sixty-four thousand dollar question remains: what the hell are they still doing in that drawer? And, perhaps, if I lobbed an extra 50 cents onto that amount I could also ask: why the hell are they still there?

When I think about it, I suppose that, in the same way as any pair of shorts or knicks links the boots and socks on the lower end of you to the shirts and tops on your upper end, these particular ones also serve as a certain kind of link, albeit a more metaphorical one. I reckon that, by holding on to them, the sentimental part of me must be sub-consciously trying to preserve a link to the olden days - days when everything was so fab! And just as general wear-and-tear and changes in styles have now rendered the ole pair redundant as a wearable garment, all that's been going on in my own life and times since has had a similar effect, making me either ignore or forget those fine days and the younger man that once lived in them. So, while the old shorts are not in the game anymore, I keep them because, in a strange way, they remind me of the times when they were in the game. And the further away I go from those times, onwards and upwards so to speak, the more likely they are to stick around! 

So if you're doing naught else, have a think about some garment that's been hanging in your wardrobe or buried deep in your drawer for aeons and ask yourself why you still keep it. Could turn out to be the greatest story you've never told! And we're all ears!

More soon ...

Meet my shorts!

Easy for You to Say!

I got a nice present for my four hundred and eightieth birthday from my better half there the other day - the latest edition (the 19th) of Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable - a fine gift and a fine tome, presented to me, no doubt, on account of the unyielding number of references to fables, cables, ables and tables on the pages of this here blog a mine. Brewer's Dictionary has been 'much loved for its wit and wisdom since 1870' according to the blurb on the back cover and is described as both a 'scenic route to knowledge' and as a lexicographical 'treasure hunt' by the kind of people that would know these things. So for today's post, I've decided to put the Brewer to the test and see what it comes up with by way of 'linguistic miscellany'! And off we go with a random flick through its 1480 pages which lands me at the word:

honorificabilitudinitatibus! 

Sweet dee-vine! With, perhaps, the exception of my buddy, Soc, I would nearly chance a fiver that no one that I know has ever heard of that word - or if they have, then they most certainly would be the lucky winner of the FREE pint of Tuborg that coolly fizzes away on the counter in the bar of the Beggars Bush as I type - were it on offer, which it isn't today! Anyway, - honorificabilitudinitatibus - is, according to the tome, a 'concocted word' found in Shakespeare, which, to parpahrase, supports the theory that the works of Shakespeare were actually written by Francis Bacon. One kiddeths one not! And if you don't believe me, the word itself is an anagram of the Latin hi ludi F Baconis nati tuti orbi - which translates as 'these plays, F Bacon's offspring, are preserved for the whole world.' So now! Once again get thee to thy pipes ...! And how do I feel after enlightening you all with such a scintillating bijou of literary gold? I feel like Frank Muir, is who!

Frank whoooo!? :) More soon ...

I say, a fwee pint of Tuborg you say?

Able and Wireless!

Here's a yarn for y'all. A true story too. Me and my band of merry ukulele maestros were playing a wedding yesterday way down in County Wicklow, a good couple of hours drive from our home here in Baile Átha Cliath. We arrived at the venue an hour before we were due to play, unloaded the gear, started setting up the PA and realised - aaaaagghhh - we'd left all the the leads and cables at home!  A simple algorithm: No leads and no cables equals no connection to the speakers equals no sound coming out of the speakers equals no gig equals blind panic equals rapid and random apportioning of blame equals the liberal use of unnecessarily strong language equals resorting to physical violence equals public mortification equals finding appropriate place to hide for rest of life. Equals the humblest ever pie any person will ever eat!

There we were, five hollow-brained musical eunuchs, dressed like spivs, just about to ruin the biggest day in two young people's lives with no way of changing anything and with nothing to offer by way of an excuse. Nada. Zilch. Sweet foot ball!  Lord, I have to say it was the closest I've come to utter panic in a long, long while ...

Then, a bum note from an out-of-tune soprano ukulele sounded the Eureka! moment! It lingered on the air long enough for us to realise that the place we were standing, the place that we were assigned to perform in, had the natural acoustics of a Royal Festival Hall or a Red Rocks Amphitheatre and all it needed was a little boost from a pair of PC speakers, which we occasionally use for monitors at louder gigs, to get the show on the road. So we tried it and it worked and we got started and we played our hearts out and it went down a storm! And the bride and groom were beaming as we finished! And the job was a million cubes of Oxo! Aaah!

So there. I am now convinced there is a God and I am born again!

Us, recently and without cables!

Scary Monsters?

I read author John Gray's superb review in Saturday's FT of Yuval Noah Harari's book Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, 'an absorbing and provocative' work that as well as examining where we, as a species, have come from also 'peers into our post-human future' in this here Scientific Age. I'll certainly be adding this title to my short-term reading list as I was particularly taken by several of Harari's fascinating ideas on where we are headed and how we are likely to get there. To wit and to wisdom:

• The power of the human imagination has turned our species into self-made gods, but gods which lack self-restraint ... and with new technologies increasingly enabling humans to create artificial forms of life and alter their own natures, they don't or won't or can't really know how to best use the technology they have created. And, as the author asks, what can be more dangerous than irresponsible gods who don't know what they want?
• At present we tinker with genes, develop artificial limbs and explore artificial intelligence in order to cure or prevent diseases and enhance human longevity but with the effect of these interventions accumulating and magnifying over time, there is likely to be an alteration of the human species.
• The future incarnation of our species will probably be more different from us than we are from Neanderthals.
• If other species, and eventually humans themselves, are reshaped by new technologies - the process will not be guided by any type of ordered, across-the-board, intelligent design but rather by rival governments, competing corporations and, more scarily, by organised criminal and terrorist networks. Any alteration will thus be unplanned and chaotic and, as a result, our future and our ultimate destiny will be impossible to control.

Sheesh!  A bigger than average dose to put in our pipes and smoke today!

But fluffier stuff soon ...

... deffo on my Christmas list!

Anagram Time!

OK - given the weekend that's in it and the fact I'm from Dublin - rearrange the following to reveal what I will actually be saying, or rather, singing, along with fifty thousand others tomorrow afternoon? (4,2,3,4,2,4).

Answer appears below!

But did they come on? Not  a chance!

If the Sky Falls!

A natural concern of my mine is that if the digital world ever breaks down only an elite few people will be able to fix things - the rest of us won't have a clue. It's all very fine that, say, a sailor no longer needs a sextant to read the stars and thus know his location but what if his sat-nav blew a fuse or fell from the sky? Well, it would be hello fishies for him and his crew, I'd wager! Same with all else.

For every analog thing there is now a digital alternative which renders the original technology, and thus the skill required to use it, redundant. But what happens if a cosmic storm causes the new world order to go out-of-order? How can we fall back on the analog equivalent to get us out of the hole if the skills are gone?

They say there is no-one on this earth who could accurately rebuild any of the civic buildings that were erected only a couple of hundred years ago - no one on the planet has the skills to do it now. If things go on as they are digitally then my bet is that in fifty years there will be no one left on earth with the skills to even fix a puncture.

That's why in my own corner of the world, the wardrobe through which I enter cyberspace, i.e. my office - I refuse to give up on my analogue friends, the ones that have stood me in good stead since I started out, completing exemplary tasks for me with little complaint. I'm sticking with them as ye never know what might happen.

So, take a bow please ... my transistor radio; my filofax; my abacus; my pen and ink; my notebooks; my LPs; my sextant; my video cassettes; my magnifying glass; my candelabra; my ukulele  ... ba dum dum 'n'... my scythe and my thresher; my whiteboard and markers; my books; my windy clock; my plus fours; my WD-40 ... annnnd ... my newspaper!

So there - a  victory for all things analog, though, I admit, I wouldn't have been able to tell you about them were it not for the Wi-fi router that connects my cordless PC to the world! Doh!

Eh ...it's ... it's the principle!

Stand Back, Aesop!

Ye might recall that we were talking about ancient fables only recently on this here blog but a modern day one was put across my path on Twitter yesterday and is certainly worth a read. Indeed, once I'd read it, all I could really say was - Aesop, eat your heart out! To wit:

"An old Italian gentleman lived alone in New Jersey. He wanted to plant his annual tomato garden but it was very difficult work as the ground was hard. His only son, Vincent, who used to help him, was in prison. The old man wrote a letter to his son and described his predicament.

Dear Vincent. I am feeling pretty sad because it looks like I won't be able to plant my tomato garden this year. I'm just getting too old to be digging up a garden plot. I know if you were here my troubles would be over. I know you would be happy to dig the plot for me, like in the old days. Love, Papa

A few days later he received a letter from his son.

Dear Papa. Don't dig up that garden. That's where the bodies are buried. Love, Vinnie

At 4 a.m. the next morning, FBI agents and local police arrived and dug up the entire area without finding anybody. They apologised to the old man and left. That same day the old man received another letter from his son.

Dear Papa. Go ahead and plant the tomatoes now. That's the best I could do under the circumstances. Love you, Vinnie."

Now, go on now and have a nice day!

(Thanks to Jonny Geller for posting and Declan Burke for re-tweeting)

"Only two things that money can't buy - that's true love and home grown tomay-toes."

Ten Things We Didn't Know Last Week - #2

Been a couple of days since the last post, the reason for the slackery being ... ukuleles. Always ukuleles! But the Hooley is over for another year so it's time to get back to normal and to catch up on all those vitally important research findings that I've been missing and have missed. Such things as:

• The reason people gossip - which is because they feel that being in the know raises their reputation among their peers.
• Or the fact that men who walk or take a bus to work are, on average, a half a stone lighter than men who drive.
• Or the fact that women believe they look five years younger than their actual age, according to research by Lancôme.
• Or that readers of paperback books are more likely to recall a book's storyline than those who use electronic devices. 
• Or that the novel Trainspotting was more powerful in the fight against drugs than any warning from the UK's Chief Medical Officer.
• Or that, contrary to folklore, magpies are not attracted to shiny objects but are afraid of them.
• Or the fact that before the white man arrived in America there were an estimated 5 billion Passenger Pigeons there but by 1914 the species was extinct.
• Or the news that Chinese pilots have been told to ditch their regional accents or face losing their jobs.
• Or the revelation that sun-cream which washes off when people jump into the sea is poisonous to plankton ...
• unlike urinating in the sea, which is actually good for marine life - though probably not for other bathers!

More stuff to put in yizzer pipes and smoke, with the exception of that last one of course!

More tomorrow ...

Well I'll be darned!

Me, Myself and Uke!

In honour of this weekend's Ukulele Hooley Festival which takes place in Dun Laoghaire and in a manner quite uncharacteristic of The Dualist in my story, I decided that rather than be in two places at the one time that I would, today, be in one place at the one time but that I'd be there twice - if ye know what I mean! So I brought both my ukuleles with both my mes and we've decided to sing a little song for y'all! It's not often we get the chance to jam together after all! Hope you enjoy.

More in a couple of days ... 

Wonders of science!

From the Puzzle Factory ...

When the mind draws a blank, as it often does here in Bloggerville, it's good to be able to revert to other blank things to get us out of the windy space wherein we do find ourselves! So here is an easy peasy Dualist crossword to help you through your coffee break. But of course we're not scientific enough here to allow you to complete it online simply by tapping the answers into the boxes on the screen. Oh no, nothing so flash. I'm afraid you'll just have to print it out and fill it in by, God forbid, hand! But sure have a crack at it anyway and see how far you get. When you're done take a snap of it and post it below and who knows you could be the lucky winner of a FREE thingammyjig or such like. Let's say, yeah, another pint of Tuborg in the Beggar's Bush with me sitting beside you stopwatch in hand. Yeah that sounds good. So gwan now folks, get a cross addressin'!

More amárach ...

Simplex schmimplex!

One pint of Tuborg a commmmin' up!

Bit of a Giraffe!

There was a piece about comedians telling jokes in The Daily Telegraph yesterday which distracted me for a good half hour. I chuckled at some more than others and to save you the click and scroll here are my favourites.

• 'I thought I'd begin by reading a poem by Shakespeare, but then I thought, why should I? He never reads any of mine.' - Spike Milligan
• 'The wife’s mother said: ‘When you’re dead, I’ll dance on your grave. I said: ‘Good. I’m being buried at sea.’ - Les Dawson
• 'Room service? Send up a larger room.'  - Groucho Marx 
• 'The worst two Winters of the 20th century . . . Mike and Bernie.'  - Victor Borges 
• 'The New England Journal of Medicine reports that 9 out of 10 doctors agree that 1 out of 10 doctors is an idiot.' - Jay Leno
• 'Just because nobody complains doesn't mean all parachutes are perfect.' - Benny Hill 
• 'When I die, I want to go peacefully like my grandfather did – in his sleep. Not yelling and screaming like the passengers in his car.' - Bob Monkhouse 
• 'First the doctor told me the good news: I was going to have a disease named after me.' - Steve Martin 
• 'She said she was approaching forty, and I couldn't help wondering from what direction.' - Bob Hope

Still laughing at the Bob Monkhouse one! To see all 100 of the blighters, clickety-click here.

Bob, gagmeister supreme!

The Jogi Blog!

Back at the desk after a few weeks in the sun. Indeed, it was a very nice break and I had a really nice time seeing the sights, scratching the bites, sampling the delights, and meeting some very interesting people along the way - the most unlikely and uplifting being the chap below! I reckon this is probably the closest I'll ever get to someone whose hands have been on the World Cup. Funny the people you meet while you queue for a pizza!

Meanwhile, the flat line on my 'activity graph' here tells me that a few gremlins spannered their way into the ole blogworks while I was away as several of the posts I had scheduled to appear went way down south and several of the ones I'd intended to share on the various social networks decided instead to sulk and stick to themselves. Naturally it was all mea culpa - I guess I'm still feeling my way round Blogger's badlands here with my size twelve flat feet. That said, if you want to discover what I'd intended for you to see while I was away - all you gotta do is scroll backwards in time! In particular, if you are interested in reading the first five chapters of my book, The Dualist, the reason this blog exists, and which I published over five consecutive days beginning August 10th, just click here. 

Or if you are just curious to know what it was that Herr Loew und Ich were actually talking about - well, all I can say is ...

More tomorrow ... 

Horse and Jogi!

Birthday Wishes for Nabokov's Young Lady

Vladimir Nabokov's controversial novel Lolita was published in the United States on this day in 1958. (It appeared a year later in the UK having been banned up to then). Unsurprisingly, given its theme, the book courted controversy from the very moment it was published (originally in France in 1955) and it was this controversy which prompted Nabokov to include an afterword in the US version of the book where he strongly refuted claims that it was either lewd or anti-American. He also insisted that his detractors based their criticisms not on his treatment of the theme but rather on the theme itself - which, he claimed was completely taboo at the time. Nabokov also said that, despite the fictional John Ray Jr.'s claim made in the Foreword, there is no moral to the story and he added that it was childish to study a work of fiction to gain information about a country, a social class or an author. Frankly, he was having none of it. Indeed in 1962 he told the BBC that Lolita was a special favorite of his. "It was my most difficult book—the book that treated of a theme which was so distant, so remote, from my own emotional life that it gave me a special pleasure to use my combinational talent to make it real." The book is regularly listed in polls of the best novels ever written with a recent Modern Library poll ranking it in 4th place below Ulysses, The Great Gatsby and A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.

Lolita - Nabokov said there was no moral to the story.

Anyone for Ukulele - Take the Quiz!

Quizzes by Quibblo.com

Fantastic Voyages ...

On August 10th 1519 Ferdinand Magellan's five ships set sail from Seville on their mission to circumnavigate the globe but Magellan was killed in the Philippines midway through the expedition so it was his second in command, Juan Sebatián Elcano, who completed the expedition. Nearly 500 years later, on the 10th of August 1990, a NASA space probe named in Magellan's honour reached the planet Venus. I know that linking these two stories is as excessive as the opening scenes of the movie 2000 AD - A Space Odyssey where we see a satellite orbiting the earth immediately after a scene showing prehistoric man throwing his club in the air, but so what! Every once in a while it's probably worthwhile to pause and think about the breathtaking scope of human determination and endeavour and of how, in all likelihood, the latter achievement in this yarn would not have been possible were it not for the former. But I have no idea how Boney M have managed to get in on the act!

More in a couple of days ...

Boney 'M' for Magellan perhaps!

Take a run and jump, Adolf!

Date: Aug 9th 1936. Venue: Berlin, Germany. Occasion: The Summer Olympic Games: Games of the XI Olympiad. Hitler is there still blabbering on about his Aryan master race and all the rest of it. Then this man pops up and gives it to him right between the eyes - the first American to win four medals in one Olympiad - an epic feat eclipsed only by the legend of the man himself. Some victories are eternally sweet.

More tomorrow ...

Sweetest victory!

And in the End ...

No prizes for guessing what I'm talking about here. On this day in 1969 at a zebra crossing in London, the photographer Iain Macmillan took a photo that became one of the most famous album covers in recording history. Oh, alright then ... one teenchy weenchy little clue then.

More tomorrow ...

NW8 one fateful day!

Holidays are here again!

The Dualist will be doing a disappearing act later today as that time has come for us to make the annual pilgrimage to the Mediterranean. We'll be gone for a fortnight and the plan is to inhale a ray or two while catching up with what's still to be read on the bookshelf and simultaneously getting re-acquainted with the local cuisine, the vini locale and the local lingo. Can't wait.

But seeing as I'll be away off foreign - I think it would be a good idea to reveal a little of the book to you all in my absence. So for the next five days starting tomorrow I am going to post the first five chapters of the tome - to give you a feel for what it's about. Naturally, I hope you enjoy them and your comments will be as ever very welcome.

Following the posting of the chapters there will be a few more intermittent posts from my ethereal self, the digital me, until round about August 18 or 19th when I expect to be back at my desk again and whereby normal service will resume.

For now though it's Buona vacanza folks and happy holidays to y'all!

Get me to a beach!

Able for a Fable?

Picked up a copy of Aesop's Fables in Eason's recently and have been dipping in and out of them every so often remarking at their profundity one minute and at their inanity the next. And while I'm not actively looking to them as a moral compass or a guiding light, having already been innately schooled in their messages, I am still all the better for having them in my collection. Ye could do worse. Here be a swift one:

Two Bags: According to ancient folklore every man is born into the world with two bags suspended from his neck - one in the front and one behind, and both are full of faults. But the one in front is full of his neighbour's faults; the one behind full of his own. Consequently, men are blind to their own faults but never lose sight of their neighbour's.

Cue whoops, cheers, pipes and smoke!

More tomorrow ...

PS - Just added an FB 'Like' and 'Share' button there on the right. Please use liberally!

Tall tales!