DarrenByrne.com

Okay, so it’s probably the most obvious statement you’re likely to hear this week, but Alisa Miller has conclusive evidence of the fact that Americans are blind to world affairs, and at TED, she lays out her information in a very interesting way.

Is it any wonder the Bush administration found it so easy to instill fear and paranoia in the Americans?

Among the many things we talked drunkenly about in the bar last night, the Cat Laughs featured heavily. We were making plans as to what we should see:

What should we aim to go see? I was thinking Neil Delamere, Maeve Higgins and Rich Hall for definite. After that, I’m easy.  A bit of improv will keep me happy.

We also spent much of last night putting the world to rights, but sadly, by morning, we forgot how to do it.

Here are our drunken poser pics:

And at the end of the night, there were cranes. Well, one crane – one huge crane over Grafton Street.

I love cranes!

I have a manbag! Yes, I am one of those metrosexual, fashion conscious, manbag-wearing men.

No, it does not contain make-up. It does not have compartments full of cleanser, moisturiser or foundation. I do not carry a spare pair of “comfortable” shoes around, nor do I have “overnight” clothes. My diary is not in there; my most recent birthday cards are not tucked away for safekeeping; my list of gifts for people who I might buy gifts for if there was an occassion for which I should by gifts for these people for for…is not in this bag.

It contains my Filofax. It has numerous pens. I have a multimedia card reader in one of the compartments. It houses my glasses (my sunglasses when I wear my regular glasses, my regular glasses when I wear my sunglasses). I have many cables – a standard USB cable, my phone charger, my camera charger, my iPod cable. It plays host to Darragh‘s external harddrive and cable (I should probably return that).

It is full of pages – printed blogs, because I didn’t have time to read them in work, so I read them on the train; a collection of post such as bills and statements which I should file away at home but keep forgetting to do; le craic’s Blog Awards book which I keep meaning to give to Lottie; and lots of random crap, much of which I’m not even sure where it came from.

I have a manbag. I need a manbag! How did the Irish male function pre-metrosexuality? Though I’m sure I’ve just landed myself on Grandad‘s list of “people I hate just because…”, I cannot give up on this vital tool. We spend 12 to 16 years or more carting around our school and college books, copies, lecture papers and notes – it’ hard to become pocket people.

My dad is a pocket person. He carries his keys, his wallet, his phone, his loose change, his lotto ticket, his tissue and his packet of chewing gum in two pockets. Young women say to him, “is that a phone in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?” The answer is depressingly predictable.

In fact, my father only recenty invested in a wallet – an improvement on just throwing his cash, his ATM card and his change in the one pocket. How do these people cope?

In my wallet I have my ATM card, two credit cards, my Cineworld card, my annual Bus and Rail Card (and my stupid CIE card with a grinning fool on it), my student card, my loyalty card to Zumo, my loyalty card to SoBo, my Starbucks card, my Hughes and Hughes gift card, my (apparently out of date) HMV studen card, numerous random business cards, my own Moo cards, several receipts and a note reminding me of a dental appointment (21st August at 12.30).

I have manbag and I could not live without it. As I sit on the DART, attempting to clear out all the crap from it, I realise there is more stuff in it that I need to keep than there is junk I can afford to cast away.

I have a manbag – don’t judge me!