Stipe Admits That 3-Legged Dog Analogy was "bollocks"

Athens, GA.  In a statement to the world's music press from their Georgia HQ, REM frontman Michael Stipe today admitted that "3 legged dogs don't write very good songs".  Nearly 15 long years and 5 long albums after drummer Bill Berry's departure and Stipe's now infamously stupid contention that "a 3-legged dog is still a dog.  It just has to learn how to run differently", it would appear that the Athens three-piece have realized that that's just bollocks.  With the limp drudgery of "post -Berry" albums Up, Reveal, Around The Sun, Accelerate and newest cacophony Collapse Into Now, being largely ignored critically and commercially Stipe seems finally ready to accept that the whole 3-legged dog analogy should perhaps be revisited.  Flanked by bandmates, Peter Buck, incongruously wearing shades indoors, and Mike Mills, once again sporting his rather stupid looking "still with it" long hair, Stipe nodded sagely before murmuring that the whole experience had been less like that of a 3 legged dog, and more like that of a dog "with only it's two front legs, dragging it's arse slowly, painfully over very rough gravel". New Single Discovererererrrrrgghhhh is out now.

FF Leader Denies Use of Ninja in GE11 Campaign

Micháel Martin, 47, last night described as “nonsense” claims that Fianna Fáil had employed a band of ninja to invisibly deliver campaign literature to doorsteps around the country in a bid to avoid ever having to actually meet angry constituents.  The Teflon shouldered former Minister of Whatever and Class of 2011 TD voted “Least Likely To Be Taoiseach”, shiftily denied the accusations, branding them “absurd”.

Mother of five Sheila O’ Hagen Fitzpatrick, 33, of the well-to-do Cork suburb of Douglas however, is just one of Mr. Martin’s constituents baffled by the mysterious appearance of campaign flyers in her letterbox in the dead of night.  “Oi cud be out on me stoop, loike, pure blazin away till two or tree in tha maarnin, loike and nattin” Ms. O’ Hagen Fitzpatrick is quoted as saying today, “Bat cum tha maarnin loike, der day are, bold as aantin!  ‘Tis fierce altogether, loike.”

While taxi driver, Terry Quinn of Swords, 45, in North County Dublin claims to have spotted the silent but deadly delivery service in action.  “I’d be cummin off da graveyaard shift, ya know, faar in da maarnin, puttin me key in da daar and oudda nowere like, dese flyers just start whizzin past me eaarr, and land at me fee.  I luk up and derr derr scamperin across tha bleedin roof n’ all. Couldn’t believe me eyehz.  It juss happind so fast.”

Dr. Harvey Schmidt, 41, author, former campaign trailer and Director of Media Studies at the Portlaoise Institute For Further And Later Education (PIFFLE) goes one further in his recent book on the subject Ninja By Night, Doormat By Day, in which he claims to have nurtured what he calls the Ninja’s Invisible Postal Service (NIPS) through its infancy.  “The Mohill/Knockalongford bi-election back in ’06 was a doozie.  A fiercely pitched battle that called for something really radical”, Schmidt states in his book, “Our incumbent TD, Paddy “Piles” O’ Shaughnessy, 68 [ed], was deeply unpopular at that time, not to mention inept, flagrantly ineffectual, corrupt and with an almost callous disregard for personal hygiene.  He was vile, so a doorstep campaign just wasn’t going to fly”.  The way to go, Schmidt decided was with “lamposters, busstop billboards and postbox propaganda”.  But how?  “Piles” was “morbidly obese and physically unable, and would’ve been battered down the street like cattle on fair day anyhow.  So stealth became our secret weapon”.  Schmidt admits that the idea of using ninja was a lucky break rather than a well thought out political strategy, but it was a break that bore fruit.  “I wish I could tell you that it came to me in a Eureka moment while sitting on the throne, but the truth is it was a classic case of right place, right time.  The Ronin had just finished protecting a small fishing village, Rooskey I think it was, just down the road there, from a band of marauders and they were sniffing around for their next project.  We met along the campaign trail and it just clicked”, explains Schmidt with a happy nostalgic nod.  “Signs, posters, leaflets.  Stuff would just appear out of nowhere.  It created a real buzz around the campaign, and I really think it was the deciding factor in Paddy retaining his seat, despite an epic level of loathing towards him locally”.

Qi Lin, ?,  former head of the Jade Lotus, the umbrella organisation that now oversees NIPS nationwide, conceded as much to me before committing ritual seppeku for breaking his code of silence.  “The Jade Lotus”, he told me while bleeding out slowly in horrible agony, was just a “ragtag band of masterless Ronin”, before Schmidt and the frankly flabbergasting win at Mohill/Knockalongford “gave them a sense of purpose once more”.  Now dedicated to “the distribution of political pamphleture under the cover of night”, the ninja make their signature services available to the highest bidder.  Who their current master was however, Qi Lin was soon too weak to say.

At a press conference this morning Labour leader Eamonn Gilmore, 56, shrugged off suggestions that Labour TD Paddy “Piles” O’ Shaughnessy had recommended the skills of NIPS as far back as 2007.  Employing Twitter despite being in a room full of journalists Mr. Gilmore described as “laughable” claims that the Labour Party would ever employ masters of death and carnage “to merely deliver flyers.  Let me be clear about this”, he tweeted, “If the Labour Party were in Government, any and all masked and deadly assassins working within the confines of the civil service set about by the previous Government, would be employed and utilised in a manner more beneficial, more viable and more valuable to the People of Ireland, than expertly and invisibly delivering propoganda under the cover of darkness.”  When prompted however, Mr. Gilmore declined to elaborate on what that manner might be.  Asked to comment on the controversy, wooden Fianna Gael leader Enda Kenny is quoted as saying “Ninjas delivering party flyers?  That would be f#*$ing cool”.

O, Non-Alco Beer, Where Art Thou?

While alkohol-frei Erdinger and market stalwart Becks are widely available, few city centre pubs offer much in the way of variety to the non-alcoholic beer drinker.  Asking the question so you don’t have to, Brian Dungan hit the streets and asked the city’s hostelries “Have you got anything non-alcoholic?”

PETER’S PUB

A non-alcoholic beer must legally contain no more that 0.5% ABV.  Ironically, this is also the probability of finding a decent one in a Dublin pub, but Peter’s Pub at Johnson’s Place is leading the charge for change.  Boasting two non-alcoholic beers in it’s impressive bottled beer selection you can take your pick of a 33cl Holsten or 50cl Paulaner weissbier.  Nestled near the rear of the Stephen’s Green Centre, Peter’s Pub is a cosy city boozer.  It’s popularity, size and location occasionally mean it’s punters end up spilling out onto the street.  Still, one of Dublin’s best kept secrets.

THE CLARENDON

With a non-alcoholic beer still setting you back an average of €5 the least you can expect is a decent beverage, and The Clarendon serves only the cream of the crop.  While both are weissbiers the 50cl alkohol-frei Erdinger and it’s market rival, Paulaner, are largely recognised as the best of the non-alco bunch, and both are available here.   With its glass facade jutting onto Clarendon Street it appears imposing, but once inside it’s surprisingly warm and welcoming.  A magnet for the after-work and lunchtime crowd, The Clarendon’s patio area is the perfect spot for watching the city go by.

DAKOTA 

While not the eye-brow raiser it once was, asking for a non-alcoholic beer can still send even the most experienced bar staff on a frenzied search through the back fridges.  Not so at Dakota.  With a clientele that changes by the minute Dakota offers only one non-alcoholic beer on its menu, but it’s the Paulaner so we’ll forgive them.  What the bar lacks in choice however, it easily makes up for in atmosphere.   Whether you’re snuggled into one of its voluminous booths or sitting outside people-spotting on South Frederick Street it’s tough to match Dakota for sheer personality. 

SAMSARA

With weissbiers starting to corner the non-alcoholic market, Samsara on Dawson Street is putting up a resistance, offering the teetotaller two lagers.  Much maligned but still the most widely available of the non-alcoholic beers, the 33cl Becks sits alongside a 33cl Bavaria in the Samsara fridge.  Like everything else at Samsara however, they’re not cheap, with the Bavaria setting you back €5.50.  But the clientele here don’t seem to care.  In a commendable two-fingered salute to the “Big R” Samsara still plays host to Dublin’s monied masses, with a late bar from Thursday to Saturday.  Go.  Because you’re worth it.

THE FOGGY DEW

Saturday afternoon.  The shopping’s done.  The match is on.  But you’ve got the car.  What to do?  Head to the Foggy Dew on Dame Street.  On entering one of Dublin’s most charming pubs, it immediately feels like your local.  And with the choice of the 50cl Erdinger or the 33cl Holsten driving home won’t be a problem. I know what you’re thinking, but once it’s in the glass no one knows the difference but you.  And even then it’s hard to tell.  Go on, do it.  The hard part’s over.  I’ve already asked the question, so you don’t have to.

This article appeared in the March 2010 issue of The Dubliner magazine

That's A Bingo!!

It’s my first time playing Bingo and I’m barely in the door of The Grand Bingo Club in Whitehall when I make my first mistake.  I try to sit at Vera’s table.  Without warning the  ladies at the neighbouring booths round on me like automated gun turrets, while a small black computer thingy that I hadn’t noticed glowers at me like a guard dog from the countertop.  It is warmly, but firmly suggested that I park myself at an empty table nearby.  Vera’ll be along in a minute to look after me.  As I take my seat I’m practically shaking and it takes me a moment to understand why.  It’s not the open, genuine hospitality mixed with near brutal territoriality that has me shell shocked, but the sheer speed of it.  Manager of The Grand, and forty year Bingo veteran, Bill Priestley, however, isn’t surprised, “These eighty year old women with their walking sticks...they can be really aggressive”.

Entering The Grand is less like taking a step back in time, and more like entering a different world.  To the uninitiated it is at once recognisable while also being utterly alien.  A dizzying roll call of colours and numbers throw themselves at you without any apparent adherence to logic, while everyday terms like “checks”, “books” and “strips” sound like part of a different language. Around you games begin and end suddenly and inexplicably, while players chat to each other, paying little or no attention to the caller’s cries. With everything now computerised the comfortingly familiar elements of Bingo, ie. bingo balls, are no longer part of the game.  Numbers are randomly “generated”, while elderly women tap away nonchalantly on PHDs (those handheld computer thingys), allowing them to play half a dozen strips simultaneously. 

Luckily, Vera is indeed along in a minute and takes me swiftly and mercifully under her wing.  For Vera, a Grand regular of twelve years, this place is like a second home.  “I’m addicted to Bingo”, she tells me openly, “I’m married to it”.  And she’s not alone.  “We have 850 people a night playing Bingo.  Regulars come in here, three, four, five times a week”, Bill informs me. “[But] they’re not here for the gambling...It’s [just] somewhere for them to go, innit?”  It’s a lot more than that. 

It would be easy to suggest that the recent computerisation of Bingo Halls is just the game catching up with the modern world, but in reality this game and its venues have been a step ahead for years.  Gaming sites linked by telephone lines.  Social networking.  Actual gameplay taking a backseat to chatting with fellow gamers.  You think that social gaming started with World Of Warcraft?  The Grand Bingo Club has been doing it since the Sixties.   

The roots of The Grand run deep in Whitehall.  Despite its cinema facade, no one, from management to regulars seems to be able to remember it as anything else.  In fact it hasn’t operated as a cinema since 1975, and was a functioning Bingo venue as far back as 1963, then run as a fundraiser by Gael Linn. 

Of Bill’s 850 “nightly regulars” 350 are currently sitting in the 600 capacity room in Whitehall.  ISDN lines “link” similar rooms at Crumlin and Cabra, aswell as a fourth smaller hall in Bundoran, tripling the crowd, the prize money, and ultimately, the takings.   But this network isn’t some modern marvel brought about through 21^st Century technical wizardry.  This is simply an updated version of how Bingo has been played in Ireland for fifty years.  “Well, before, it would just be called over the telephone and repeated in the local hall”, Bill informs me, “So nothing’s changed really”. 

Looking around The Grand “luxurious” is not a word that immediately springs to mind, but with the warm, welcoming buzz to the room, it is easy to see the appeal.  Staff and regulars are on first name terms, while newcomers are quickly made welcome.  There is a close knit, familial feel, a rare connection that technology hasn’t yet managed to sever.  “We tried online Bingo”, Bill tells me, “but they didn’t take to it.”  Which brings him back to the allure of Bingo for The Grand regulars.  Online Bingo is about gambling, he says, whereas with land based Bingo “It’s a social night out.  They’re not into playing Bingo [online] all day, you’d have no life, would ya?  No, it’ll never take away from this”, he waves his hand around the room, “Well, I ‘ope not”.

While it may appear rooted in the past, with an aging clientele, you simply cannot dismiss modern Bingo.  Figures released recently in the UK put Bingo as the most popular leisure activity for women between 20 and 25.  So who knows, maybe this whole social gaming thing will actually take off.

This article appeared in the April 2010 issue of The Dubliner Magazine

You Have To Start Somewhere

[P]articles has been germinating for a while now, though it's unlikely to show on the page.  Part articles, part mishmash of opinion, prose and review.  Anything and everything.  And since I'm still fumbling in the dark there may not be any new content for a while, if ever, so if that's what you're after jog on.

In the meantime, let's see what this puppy can do.  Hmm, I wonder where this is going to show on the page?