Saturday Snippet 2

The place was crawling, builders in vis vests, chips thrown in the fat, gushing, sizzling. Was that really only this time last year? Delilah wiped a hand against her floury apron once more, shivered from the open door, left open by the boxx, tryin to entice em in - passing the door on the way to lidl - if they get the smell they'll be in - he'd said, his face a slightly paler reddish purple than it used to be. Her friends all laid off, one by one, herself and prune were the only ones left. No need for a big staff when they only open weekends. I wouldn't mind but Lidl's closed f*^ks sake, she glared at the soggy cold chips in the bucket. She'd seen the shadow passing earlier, a quick step of blackened tracksuit against the orange black night, another gurrier. She couldn't decide if they were always that bad or had they gotten worse, thought about the "I've had enough" ad, where people were givin out about people who'd had too much to drink. I've not had enough, she thought and stepped behind where the burger grill was - taking her baby bottle of whickey from her hip. In the front a brick came flying through the door - hitting the counter and flipping eventually into the bucket of chips. Her first thought was "The eejits missed the window".

Another excercise from "Group" this time the aim was to write a piece where the action lasted 5 seconds. For another example of something that arose from this excercise - check out Dom Oubliette's blog

The curious incident of the tea bag in the day time

I drink big flasks of tea when on a day off, trying to write. When I have finished said tea, I like to tip the tea bag out into the cup cap type thing and squeeze the last bit of strong semi-warm tea and savour the taste. Sometimes the tea bag doesn't drop out immediately and I have to search around a bit, shake the flask, or even reach in and drag it out. Today I had two flasks of tea, the first one was absolutely unremarkable, tipped the tea bag out as normal. Flask 2: No bag. The tea had tasted perfectly normal. I shook the flask. Still no bag. Looked deep into the flask. Checked the lid again. I don't think I forgot to put a bag in. I think the bag will show up some day, under the couch or in the fish tank - they were the only witnesses to this weird occurance.

I sometimes worry that pointless blog posts take up energy that someone (perhaps even myself) could have otherwise spent reading an important newspaper, or feeding themselves. Hmmmm.

At the White House

No - it's not the political commentary promised in the earlier post - just a bit of "in other news" news - that being that Lucan Writers had a great night last night at the White House Poetry Revival night in Limerick. I read first, mainly because I was the most nervous - my second public reading ever. I think I'll keep count - and bore the audience every time by telling them what count I'm on if I get any chance at all, "This is my 17th time reading in public" - I can imagine kind of underwhelming them with that info. Anyways it was a great night, everyone read really well, the crowd were magic - most of them were talented poets themselves as they demonstrated at the earlier part of the night - and they were super nice.

I have to report now on a strange phenomenon - I have no hangover - yet. I'm feeling fine, domestic goddess like I've done the shopping and started cooking a fabulous roast since driving all the way back across the country, and beginning to wonder if there's some truth in the "Excess" skit by Armando Ianucci, (you'll have to check it on youtube - not because I'm too lazy to stick it in, I did try... really) maybe too much alcohol and too little sleep are actually the perfect way to freshen yourself up. I certainly hope so. Ah it's probably just a sneaky 2 days later kinda hangover.

Happy Birthday !!

A little note to say happy birthday to my other half - who shares his birthday with Jimi Hendrix, and some other comedian (not that Jimi Hendrix was a comedian) (although he might've been good with the audience, I don't know - I never saw him live)

The point is anyway that you are the best in the world my love, and HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!

(Sorry, promise won't use blog for soppy personal stuff anymore - important political and economic commentary only from now on)

End of an Era

I'm now between jobs. For the next 3 days I fully qualify as an unemployed poet, and I fully intend to milk it for all it's worth.

Today was a weird day - saying goodbye to people I've known and worked with for the last 8.5 yrs.

I won't miss the long drives, (120 miles every single day), but here's some nice things I got out of it.

• Everyone's undying pity for how tired I must be


• 38 books read on the road this year (on tape)


• Some great views - (more on that below)


• Getting to see alot of my eccentric nice mechanic man


• Having 1.5 hours to wake up before getting to work, and 1.5 hours to wind down afterwards

So on the great views - one of my routes to work took me past the sugar loaf - a loverly mountain to look at in all types of weathers - see here my amalgamation of pictures taken in different seasons over a few years which I thought would look ALOT more dramatic when I was taking the pics than it actually does...

Also got to watch a pony grow up alongside its mother - getting slightly bigger everyday - it's nearly a horse now. So that's the news - will be reading poetry in a pub in Limerick tomorrow night - fully living the delinquent artist life - well imagining it anyway...

dangerous book, dangerouser writing

I'm reading a very dangerous book in the car - don't remember the name of it, but it's a book about Samuel Pepys' Diary, and it is so very dangerous - because it is only inches from making me fall asleep at the wheel. I've been reduced to listening to the radio in order to stay alive, until I can get back to the library for a changeover. The only interesting thing the book had to say was this: Samuel wrote the diary in order to experience life's events 3 times - once while they actually occured, the second time while writing it, and the third time reading back over it. Presumably he never reread back over it, therefore getting unlimited use of his life, no - just the 3 times. Anyways I guess that's partly what blogs and writing in general are about.

In other news - The Shoestring Collective was on last night. A brilliant, diverse evening of thought provoking art and entertainment. One highlight for me was Kevin Barry's genius reading of one of his short stories from "there are little kingdoms", I'm still giggling today over some of the lines and the way he said them. But he does make me want to quit the writing - like what's the point if there are people as good as him out there - and he's only young, dammit.

Then there's more discouragement in the shape of the brilliant (and also young, dammit) Colm Keegan's "A Night Time Crackle", a story that puts goosepimples on your neck in print, and packs a powerful punch delivered as a short play by the talented Shea Brennan. It's a story that could carry on - only Colm can decide where it goes to next - but I think everyone in the audience would agree on the crackling effect created by the electric words. And to end this demonstration on how not to write a great review about two great writers, I think I shall finish by saying, "goodnight goodnight" - to borrow a phrase from Pat Kenny, a very intelligent man (I'm told) - though that's possibly not the most intelligent thing he ever said - at a guess.

The Economy is saved

Hurrah! rejoice everyone! - the economy is saved, as long as those ingenius people at Kleeneze keep coming out with these amazing products, that you cannot help but buy. Yes at Kleeneze, apparently they really follow the wise old chinese saying "there's no such thing as a bad idea."

The catalogue speaks for itself, and I predict it will become a cult bible, but just in case you haven't been lucky enough to recieve one - here's some of the highlights - astounding inventions that fairly goggle the mind. For Example: I don't know how I've lived this long without a banana gaurd -Which accomodates "Virtually every size and shape of banana".

- Or how messily topped my eggs have been in the past, but no more, I'm gonna get me an "Ultimate Egg Topper" - a gizmo that will fearlessly decapitate all future boiled eggs made in this house perfectly every time

Have you ever seen anything as fiendishly clever as the below?- a match shaped lighter. God how I wish I'd had that in my college days, I'd have been so cool - imagine waving one of those at that REM gig in slane... course I'm dreaming - a match shaped lighter wouldn't have been invented then - this is all cutting edge,

And last - but definitely not least - how about giving your loved one a healthy present this christmas? Not a Gym membership, or even a voucher for yoga classes, No Sir - what your special someone needs is something convenient, that they can use at home, but that will give them hours and hours of entertainment. And the winner is.....

"The Excercise Wheel" - specially appropriate for hamster owners, this little gadget will provide hours of fun, and is invaluable to any high powered game of wheel barrow. And any one who says it's just a broken wheel barrow wheel is just jealous they didn't think of it....

Kleeneze people - I salute you!

Exciting Fame kissed day

Today I shared a plane with Ronan Keating.

Me and 200 other Aerlingus passengers. We didn't have a sing song or anything though - dissappointingly.



Other than that I posted a slightly weak comment on Dilberts blog - quick take a look before he removes it for not being clever or funny enough!! Link on the right --->





I also shook hands twice with 2 people who I will probably never meet again and whom I will not know if I ever meet them again, unless we happen to get around to talking about a food presentation they had with a new supplier to them, one of whose staff they never met again... Since I'm leaving. Although that wasn't mentioned today. I think my colleagues are all in denial or else they are cleverly waiting till there's some problem, and they can say, "Oh that was her fault - we fired her, remember her? yeah she's gone now, so that'll never happen again.

Finally I had a stick of Rock for my dinner - yes Rock - and if that's not Rock and roll - well maybe if I had a roll that'd be rock and roll. Fine I'm going to go out now and buy a roll, and some butter, since the curry I seem to have won still has shown no sign of turning up...

A Saturday Snippet

"She loved all things new.

Not that everything in the house had to be new, just new to her would be fine. Religiously every month she would move everything around her room. Posters moved to the ceiling. Bed shoved into an alcove. She put a lot of energy into finding ways of waking up in a new world every day.

Unsurprisingly her relationships never lasted very long. Her friends from belly dancing quickly found themselves dropped in favour of the scouting group she briefly joined, who were then ousted by a frivolous set of socialites who organised parties with extremely strange themes. She herself hosted one where everyone had to bring a piece of rotten fruit and they sadly sang "If we could turn back time" to the blackened bananas and mouldy grapes.

Boyfriends were easy to find. She wasn't picky, as long as she had never met him before she found any man devestatingly irresistable. That was it. No other requirement, she was the kind of girl who stopped to flirt with the wolfwhistlers, smiling eyes aglow when a new face was shining its radiant attention on her. She didn't care about the beergut, the way he'd lewdly clutch at his groin, or the way his jeering turned to fear as she approached. She was responsible for the demise of that tradition in any suburb she moved into. Naturally she moved around alot...."

Produced every two weeks, the saturday snippet is usually inspired by a random object at the writers group I attend. 10 minutes of scribbling down whatever occurs. This weeks (inspired by a Novel) actually turned out ok - you should see some of the others. I wonder if I'll be brave enough to keep posting, even when they're not of such amazing high quality? Stay tuned to find out.

Tribute to a Black Berry

Ok this is the only photo of berries of any kind that I had handy, (the picture I was gonna use of a blackberry - which the kind people at work have temporarily entrusted me with - is languishing in my camera, which is languishing in my coat pocket, languishing all the way out in the hallway) so this will have to do.

I like reading - as per my earlier posts. I've read in many unusual and fun circumstances, while walking, queuing, driving (mainly just the road signs), went through a phase of reading books in the shower when young, (and not even the handy plastic type - oh no - proper books - sticking the paper back to the tiled wall, ruining the book, but ensuring I got maximum booky time in the day, - terrible really), while knitting etc - so yes - an addict as previously admitted.

What to do then - when as a guest in someone's house, after a few scoops out with the gang, you realise that you have no book? This was the problem I faced last night. Well that was where the amazing blackberry came in handy - bringing me a full chapter of HG Well's The Time Traveller, which I just happened to have on my work email somehow, to soothe me to sleep, and I didn't even have to leave a light on. Great stuff.

Just finished listening to Well's War of the Worlds on the way home from work today, really funny listening to it, published 110 years ago first, it's a real classic, brilliant altogether.

Anyway in an attempt to bring me back to my original point, the coworkers are circling around said blackberry like vultures at the moment, I truly don't think I've ever been in possession of such a coveted item. Who will get it when I'm gone? All I'll say is good luck to them. I'm not bitter, I'm looking forward to a time again when I'll open my work email and won't already know exactly what mails are there, won't already have responded to the quickies, I look forward to that fizz of excitement while I await the pop up "You have new mail"......

One Amazing Thing

There were alot of amazing things I could share with you from the week in Barbados, I think I used that word "amazing" a hell of a lot more than is healthy, but it was really just so different, a world away really, and my first real sun holiday.... Anyway rather than trying to tell you all about all the amazing things (which were faithfully recorded in the most lost notebook in history, which as I type is winging it's way across some ocean or great land mass, safely nestled in the seat pocket of the chair in front of window seat 30K - beside the wrapping of someone's free airplane blanket or maybe an empty bottle of water)

( - here's a pic of the notebook in question by the way - in case you see it around)

- anyway - so I'm not going to bore you with all the amazing things, instead I am restricting the blog to ONE amazing thing. well kind of one thing - one is a generalisation. The thing I am sharing is probably the first amazing thing I noticed on stepping out of the car into my auntie's front garden - the frogs.

Play the video first - which gives you a good feel for how these things sounded. Think Paul Mc Cartney's "we all stand together" song

The other amazing thing was their size. In the below - if you can make them out one is crouched down for a snuggle, the other is looking upwards. Maybe it doesn't seem that amazing, when you're sitting looking at a picture of them, but these things are seriously tiny, they're so small two of them could have worn my ring at the same time, and not just on their fingers...

Not sure if frogs do have fingers or not - answers on a postcard please.