DarrenByrne.com

I almost feel like I should apologise for lengthly blog posts. I like to read short, snappy, to-the-point posts and I’m fully aware that I have a tendency to rabbit on in a random, rambling way. I do try to spice my posts up with pictures, odd punctuation(!) and the use of bold type but I wonder if people really read it or do they just scan. Either way, here is my recollections of my highlight-of-the-year-so-far long weekend in Kilkenny.

Darragh Doyle

I’m sure Mr Doyle has had enough praise of late with his epic blog post and subsequent Blog Award, but I can’t write this post without first thanking him for dragging us down to Kilkenny over the weekend, for putting us up (or is it ‘putting up with us’?) in his home, and for guiding us around the maze that is the Kilkenny Cat Laughs Festival. Thank you so much Darragh. You rock muchly!

The Journey Down

After the Wedding on Friday, we went back to my uncle’s house for the night and by the time we finally got up on Saturday, everyone else had already left. So, we pulled ourselves together, packed the car, switched on the GPS and got on the road…to Dunnes Stores just around the corner. After a surprisingly delicious breakfast (I’ve had some very bad experiences in some Dunnes Stores cafés) we finally embarked upon the Cill Chainnigh trail. Firstly stopping off in Graiguenamanagh (home of May’s Monthly Blog Award Winner), where we said a brief hello to Darragh and Niamh, we then headed into Kilkenny City (because if you call it a town the locals will stone you) where we picked up a chilled out and happy (he had just found free wi-fi) Anthony.

Returning to Graiguenamanagh for tea, sandwiches and showers, it wasn’t long before we were sitting in the window of Morrisson’s Dinky Bar in Kilkenny City, waiting for the final member of our motley crew, Mary, to join us. Drinks ensued and we were laughing away long before we hit the first of our comedy gigs. A small regret: Darragh was volunteering for much of the festival so had to depart and leave the rest of us to it. Needless to say this provided him with some great opportunities, not least the opportunity to interview the meek Josh Thomas. But we would meet up with him after the gig.

The Watergate Scandal

In 1972, Richard Nixon‘s staff broke into a hotel room at the Watergate Hotel which was the beginning of the end for the crooked President. Fraud, coercion, illegal wiretapping and political espionage were among the many crimes committed and it all stared at the Watergate Hotel.

The Watergate Theatre in Kilkenny is nothing like that. Random, hectic, zany, bizarre – therein lies the improvisational skills of Ian Coppinger, Michelle Read, Paul Tylak, Brendan Hunt and Michael Orton-Toliver. From singing musicals about the word ‘Meanwhile’ to the simulation of a man giving birth, from Donkeys doing the long jump (because cheese is great) to Super Hero Serial Killers, there was genius and hilarity in abundance.

We headed down to the Rivercourt Hotel, where Darragh was based to have our ‘final’ drink of the night. We were lucky to find a bunch of seats and nestled into them for the next couple of hours, before heading towards the taxi rank. This was looking to be the low point of the night – the queue for the taxis must have been approximately three hundred and seventy eight kilometers long (no exaggeration), and Graiguenamanagh seemed like a distant hope. So, we decided to head up to the Kilkenny Ormond for a final final drink of the night. We, like James Bond (me) , Jason Bourne (Anthony) and Maxwell Smart (Darragh) all rolled into one tipsy group, managed to wrangle our way into the Festival Club, where, after each evening’s carry-on, all the performers would go. We were thrilled to catch up with Mr Ken and have an all-too-brief beverage with him. Meeting him almost eclipsed our photo op with the Improvarios, Brendan Hunt and Michael Orton-Toliver. Two lovely guys who were a fine example of American talent sneaking nicely into a very Irish festival.

The night also saw Des Bishop perform Léim Thart (Jump Around), both as Gaeilge agus as béarla. The man is very funny, and while he might not be my favourite comedian, he is one of the most provocative and inspirational I’ve seen in years. He is one of the reasons I’ve started to learn Irish (all over again).

The great Jason Byrne also posed for a photo-op with us, but I was too nervous to ask for a photo with Máiread Farrell (I’m not joking). I love her on Ray D’Arcy‘s show and she was very funny on the Panel when I saw her earlier this year in the Mermaid Theatre. I need to grow a backbone, or ask Darragh to attack more people for me.

We were the last to leave the club that night and is it any wonder – we had the privileged opportunity to perform on stage at the Smithwick Cat Laughs Festival.

A night that should have ended in a long queue for a taxi a number of hours earlier ended up being an amazing amalgam of meeting great people, dancing madly and admiring others from afar. We left the Ormond around 5am and, magically, a taxi was waiting for us. Mr Reggae Taxi Driver brought us home to Graiguenamanagh in the bizarre fog of Kilkenny and we all flopped straight into bed, already looking forward to what the second day might bring.

For more succinct retellings of the weekend’s events, please visit Lottie’s blog here or Anthony’s blog here and there.

That young couple were sitting at the front of the bus again yesterday and I may need to correct my previous estimations of his age. I was reasonably confident that he was no more than 16 years of age as he fondled and fooled with his young future bridezilla, but I see that he has grown some facial hair since I last saw him. This patchwork of follicles make it very clear that he is far older and not a young teen at all. He’ll certainly have no problems getting served in the bars now. Twat!

Okay, I know I occasion a semi-beard and certainly went a year will a full grown bush on my face, but I’m confident I can pull it off. Why, oh why do people try to grow these things when all they are likely to achieve is something resembling Team America’s master of disguise, Gary. If you are going to look like your friends threw an open bottle of glue and a gerbil at you then this is not a look for you (although why someone might throw an open bottle of glue and a gerbil at you is beyond me. In fact, if you have friends who are likely to throw an open bottle of glue and a gerbil at you, then you may want to stop concentrating on growing a beard and focus on getting some new friends instead). Kids, bum fluff on your face does not make you look older, it does not make you look more mature, it does not give you an air of mystery. Kids, bum fluff on your face makes you look like you have bum fluff on your face. That’s it!

Anyway, on a different note, The Sugar Club are running the Rocky Horror Picture Show on Friday 13th and a friend of mine suggested we go. It’s a dressy-uppy thing, so Dublin City Centre may be invaded by suspender-wearing, fishnet-adorned, wig-wielding oddballs for a time(warp). It should be fun and I think a few of us will be going. Although, I suspect our group are more likely to be seen dressed as Brad or Janet rather than Frank or Magenta.

What an amazing weekend. Truly, it was one of those weekends that you could never possible hope to have as much fun. We laughed, we drank, we got slagged off by Jason Byrne; we watched comedians play football, we watched Des Bishop perform Jump Around (as Béarla agus as Gaeilge), we got a taxi home a 5am.

My weekend began on Thursday night with drinks in Dublin with some friends, moved to Wexford for a wedding on Friday, before GPSing it to Kilkenny where the weekend really kicked off in fine style, sitting in the window of Morrisons bar watching the assortment of funnymen walk by.It’s what all long weekends should be.

Admittedly, we spent a ridiculous fortune, but I feel like I’ve just been away for a week’s holiday. I’m refreshed, happy, slightly less milk-bottle-white than I was last week (yes, the beautiful weather helped immensely).

Back in work in Tuesday morning, all I want to do is talk about the past few days, but alas I have work to do, but I will try to pull some posts together today and this evening.

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!

Well, I didn’t have my giant picnic in the green yesterday evening, but I did get to enjoy another amazing lunch today, listening to Divine Comedy on the iPod and watching the people go by.

Would anyone like to suggest a decent beer garden for this evening after work? I have no interest in hibernating for the evening – I want good company, a nice few cold pints and maybe a bit of decent music (or at least some good conversation).

Finding time to write these blogs can be tough and I do wonder how so many bloggers can write at such length while also having a social life.

Running for the bus on Friday after work, trying desperately to get home early (knowing we had a long journey ahead that evening), my mind was attempting to formulate its thoughts on TodayFM, some old movies and the influence of blogging on the lives of the common man. I used the hour’s bus ride home to write a couple of posts for the weekend and when I got home, I set them to publish at intervals over Saturday and Sunday. Is this how other people do it? Maybe I just need to find my rhythm and routine.

We finally set off (Lottie, Mary and I) at 8 o’clock on Friday evening, heading for Waterford to visit R and her boyfriend, Brian. And what ensued was a brilliant weekend of copious alcohol intake and long conversations (some meaningful, most meaningless) deep into the night. In contrast with many of our weekends away with friends, MarioKart, Singstar, Karaoke, even the TV barely featured. It was a good old fashioned talk-a-load-of-crap sojourn.

R is a girl I was friends with many years ago, when we were all praying for an end to our school days. We met when our two groups of friends combined for nights out and always got on very well together. In 2000, when Lottie and I abandoned Wicklow in favour of the Big Smoke, I lost touch with even my best friends at the time, so it is hardly shocking that my associations with R fell by the wayside too. Early last year, thanks to the forums I frequented, I began chatting with an argumentative, feisty and brilliant girl. It took us a very short time to recognise each other and instantly renewed our friendship. No, we formed a new friendship, in fact. Void of any pretence or veiled intentions – she became one of my best mates.

Last August, I think, she began seeing Brian, a truly lovely guy, who I immediately clicked with. He’s odd, attention seeking, nerdish and bookish and loves his movies – we were destined to hit it off.

So, Saturday night saw us dine out in a wonderful Asian restaurant in Waterford city (it is a city, isn’t it?) to celebrate Brian’s birthday. The food was wonderful, the drink flowed freely and the company was perfect.

Happy Birthday, Sir, and thank you both for having us down for the weekend.

Much as it pains me to do it, I have to give kudos to my good friend Darragh Doyle. He has been working in his current position for only a short while and he has clearly made an incredibly positive impression on those he worked with.

After seeing Iron Man last night, we joined Doyle in The Church for his leaving drinks. His workmates were saying goodbye to both Darragh and another colleague of his and it’s clear from speaking with them (some of whom I’ve met before) that they will all miss him.

So, congratulations, Mr. Doyle, on your new position and I hope you keep in touch with these people who clearly hold you in high esteem (even if they did try to poison you…)

Following on from my self-pity post, I have had a mentally messed up weekend, which I have only emerged from today.

I suspect (as I have no evidence other than how I felt), that my drink was spiked or otherwise tampered with a few nights ago. I had had a few drinks and I know that that could explain some of what happened to me, but to collapse on a street corner, to break down in tears on the phone for no apparent reason, to feel ‘high’ and have the shakes and heart palpitations – I don’t see how I can blame that on a few drinks. It was something I have never experienced before and have no interest in going through again.

Lottie, as you may know, has been in the midst of exams for the past few weeks, so to have me ringing her in bits, desperate for help, cannot be at all helpful. I am so guilty for that, I sincerely am. But that guilt does not compare with the fear that I felt on Saturday, when looking back over what could have happened, what might have been. I have heard many horror stories, far worse than anything I went through, and that has played over my mind all weekend. I just don’t understand why anyone would put anything in my drink. It’s so fucked up. It was suggested today that someone may have been attempting to rob me. Maybe, but no one tried to take anything from me and I was in no fit state to defend myself if anyone had tried.

So, while I don’t see myself having a night out in a bar anytime soon (or at least not without surrounding myself with people I trust), I will certainly be very careful about keeping a close eye on my drink. And I would urge anyone who reads this to be equally vigilant.

Has anyone else experienced this? Have you heard of anyone who went through this…or worse? It’s truly horrible to feel that helpless.

Thank you very much to Catherine in DublinBlog for posting about the Teachers Musical Society’s production of Little Shop of Horrors. On a whim, we decided to go see it last night, it’s opening night, in the O’Reilly Theatre at the Belvedere College.

It’s an amateur dramatics production, but the production values were very high. The set looked great and the plant was very funny without being silly, very animated and interacted well with the ‘other’ actors.

For those who don’t know, the show is about a florist in the crappy part of town and a plant that drinks blood. That’s it! Well, not quite. It has some of the strongest musical numbers from any show and great comic characters who sing out brilliant one liners such as “I know Seymour’s the greatest, But I’m dating a semi-sadist”.

Set in Mushnik’s Flower Shop, it centres upon a love story blossoming (sorry!) between the hard-done-by Seymour, raised by the slave driving Mr Mushnik, and the battered blonde Audrey, beaten up both by life and by her Nitrous-Oxide-Addicted dentist boyfriend. To save the impoverished shop, Audrey encourages Seymour to show Mushnik his “strange and interesting new plant”. The plant, the Audrey Too, immediately begins attracting customers and profits begin to soar. The problem for Seymour is he is finding it hard to feed his rapidly growing genus-horribilis, as all it wants is blood, his blood. So, faced with losing his job and losing “Audrey one”, he finds other ways to feed the plant.

From the opening number, we are treated to some great R’n’B numbers, sung well by four members of the Teachers’ Musical Society, but it is only when Denise King (Audrey) sings that we hear some truly great voices. For me she steals the show. With the beautiful love duet Suddenly Seymour, Tom Flanagan (Seymour) matched her voice to send a shiver up my arm. Shay Byrne (not my father) voices the plant and apart from a few lip-synch (or is it tendril-synch?) issues, he is very good.

The show differs significantly to the movie I grew up with (the movie with Ellen Green and Rick Moranis), but this just lead to some pleasant surprises both in the storyline and the songs. The huge closing number is fantastic and a credit to all involved in the production. Well done and thank you for a great night out.

Little Shop of Horrors runs from now until Saturday 12th April. Tickets are available through TicketOffice.ie. As far as I’m aware, if you show up tonight there will still be tickets available, but you can call 087 7866864 to confirm.

A big congratulations to The Minutes, who, last night, picked up the Vodafone Bright New Sounds Award.

Let me first say that I make no apologies if this post seems like an indie band love fest. The five acts were all superb – they each justified their position in the top five of the initial 20.

My evening started off with a tour of the venue, Tripod on Harcourt Street, while the band, Chaplin, were in the midst of their sound check. Listening as they performed, it was clear that this would be a good night.

At the bar backstage, two hours before kick-off, I enjoyed pizza and a beer with the lads from Starturtle. If there was an award for nicest band of the night, these guys win hands down. Matt, Jonathan and Daragh are great guys. They each have a passion for the music but have their feet firmly stuck to the ground. That said, Jonathan, a teacher in Ballyfermot, looks more rock and roll than chalk and blackboard. And Daragh is no stranger to the classroom either – being that he is probably studying with his classmates as this post is published.

I spent much of my evening chatting with Phil of Norn Iron Music, the manager of Superfreakz. He’s a guy who loves the music and is behind his band completely. It was refreshing to see someone so fervently promoting something he believed in, without sounding like a pushy fool. I think Phil may have felt the disappointment of not winning, far more than than the band themselves.

The show kicked off at 9 o’clock with a three song set from Chaplin and they did not disappoint. The harmonies captured the small crowd’s attention immediately and their drum beats pumped the adrenalin of each and every one of us. Between acts, there was plenty of time to meet and chat with the bands while PJ Gallagher, the one true disappointment of the night, fell through his MC job on stage. He really seemed to be phoning it in.

Sitting with Chaplin after their performance, the lads were buzzing. For a band who say they rarely play Dublin and actually rarely get out of Wexford, these guys were serious professionals. They had the biggest equipment set up of the night, but the size of your equipment isn’t what matters – it’s what you do with it that counts and these guys delivered.

79Cortinaz were a different band entirely. While I didn’t get chatting with the band for long, their music speaks for itself. Picking up where the indie scene of the early nineties left off, the music is funky and energetic. While I could hear a lot of influences from bands past, 79Cortinaz sound was still very fresh.

Phil and I decided to inject a bit of life into the increasingly stoic crowd by cheering on The Minutes upfront, but we were just left looking like a couple of spares. The band, however, could have been playing to a packed Croke Park for the pace and energy they injected into their performance. While they weren’t my choice to win, they certainly deserved the award. Their sound is very ‘now’ and will sell well. I feel The Minutes will hit it big this year.

Up until I heard Superfreakz perform, I had pegged Chaplin as the winners, but Superfreakz got one of the best reactions of the night (maybe they had a lot of friends in the crowd?), and I really thought they were in with a chance of winning. I’m looking forward to hearing a full set from these lads soon.

The last band up were the lovely guys from Starturtle. As the lead singer said, he tries to go for the mysterious brooding look, but after about 8 seconds it falls away as he enjoys himself too much. And it’s clear they do enjoy themselves on stage. I mean this in a good way – their music was a hark back to eighties rock. I wanted to punch the air and rock out. Great sound and I hope to hear them again in a few weeks time.

While Jim Carroll may have had some good points to make about the organisation of the event and the motives behind it, the organisation on the night was flawless. Every one of the bands were happy with how things were run and all said how positive an experience it was for them. It raised their profile, it gave them some great experience and it was great to play at a large venue and event. Personally, I think Vodafone did a great job on this one. I hope they learn from mistakes and aren’t afraid to run another Bright New Sounds next year.

I said I would return to write a post about St. Patrick’s weekend and, true to my words, I present:

Well, I’ve had quite the weekend. Full of old friends and nostalgia, newer friends and dramas. There were fights and resolutions, there was poetry from an unlikely source and some music to play Scrabble by. I discovered things about myself and my life, but more significantly I uncovered some truths about those around me. I can’t say it was standard weekend, but then again Saint Patrick’s long weekend is not standard.

Friday

Much of Friday’s evening is tough to tell a tale about. There were a number of differing events and interactions that were initially negative but on a worldly scale, perhaps a little positive. I’m sorry if this sounds somewhat cryptic, but I think I’ve encountered my first post to require censorship. While I would only write the truth, the truth can hurt and other peoples’ perception of the truth may differ slightly from mine. Therefore, I’ll stay schtum, except to say…I wouldn’t change a thing.

The remainder of this post will not require a degree in cryptology, I promise. Friday night’s official event was an old friend’s birthday party. I’ll call him the Musicman as he was the first person I ever met who instilled in me a true appreciation for music and for making music. Indeed, we had a band in school and wrote songs together. I am forever thankful for meeting this guy. I have covered much of this night in a previous post, so the only thing I’ll add is this…Musicman, why did you abandon the music? Musicman is now a successful scientist (I could go into detail about his career, but I’d just be confusing me and the readers) and will undoubtedly make a name for himself and, most importantly, a fortune in his field. I guess I just envisioned a day when we would both abandon our respective career paths and finally finish that musical we started. It’s a nice dream, so let me dream it.

Saturday

What? No hangover? Fantastic!

I awoke at a reasonable hour and pottered about while The Otter Half studied. Our new bikes are still glaring at us angrily because we have yet to take them outside. We toyed with the idea for a while but then Hugh Laurie had a better idea. We nestled into the couch for some time, watching House MD.

As evening fell, my Otter Half drove me down to the badlands (Wicklow Town) to meet my father for a drink, while she skirted the outskirts of the town in Ashford, to spend the evening with her Grandmother. My dad and I hit The Old Forge, my once-upon-a-time-local-pub, and embraced the thing that God granted all good men – Guinness.

I will admit that there was much imbibing done, but late into the evening the conversation became philosophical, as such Guinness fueled, father-son, once-upon-a-time-local-pub conversations often do. We discussed our lives – our respective pasts, presents and futures. His past was not as rosy as mine (and I thank him and Mother for ensuring this). His present is a hive of confusion, hardship, a hope that his crises are mid-life and not end-life crises. And, depressingly, his future doesn’t seem to feature in his thoughts.

So, in the midst of his sharing old stories with me, he began to recite in an ancient Seanchai lilt a story about youth and friendship and a night out with the lads in nineteen hundred and something something. When he finished his poetic verse, I asked him where he learned it, where he heard it, who wrote it, who first said it. And he replied, “ah, my man, that’s just your father”. He shocked me. I was all set to hear more from this poet…except it was my father, a man who has more in common with Homer Simpson than Yeats. Unsure of how to feel or what to say, we moved on and had another pint, but it’s a moment I won’t forget and it’s a moment I’ll return to.

Sunday

St. Patrick’s Day didn’t really feature in our home. I can’t say I’m much of a fan of the parades and brouhaha anyway, but we did have an enjoyable day. After another few discs of House on DVD, we popped down the town to see what all the drum banging and bagpipery was all about. Apparently we had just missed the procession. Oh damn, what a shame, he said as sarcasm smoke billowed up from the sarcasm fire lit beneath his words.

There’s a new ‘EcoShop‘ open in the centre beneath our apartment. An EcoShop is a shop that cashes in on the gullibility of the economic environment that surrounds it. What? That’s not an EcoShop? Oh, my mistake! Apparently it’s a shop that sells ecologically sound produce.

Well, they suckered me in. I bought a can of cola made from fruit juices (surprisingly delicious), some fair trade honey from Jamaica (so smooth and flavoursome, I doubt I’ll ever return to that homemade Boyne Valley crap again), Green and Black’s version of Nutella (I fail to see the earth-saving relevance of this product, but it tastes great on a bagel) and some cocoa (which I have yet to sample). The whole thing is very overpriced but it’ll undoubtedly be a roaring success. This once niche market fits nicely with the keep-up-with-the-Jones nature and attitudes of Greystones.

We concluded our evening with a few games of Scrabble, some music and a nice few drinks. The perfect relaxing end to my weekend.

Okay, well, there was an abundance of alcohol consumed on Saturday night. So I can be forgiven for forgetting to tell the story of the yellow balloons.

Like the star that led the wise men to the manger that fateful night, Elly provided us not-so-wise men with some bright yellow helium balloons to guide our way. As analogies go, that one is a stretch.

As the evening progressed and cream eggs were violated, the balloons took centre stage (or centre table at least). It was inevitable that they would go walkies. The first was pilfered by Elly herself, and seeing as she was the one to provide the I guess we can’t be too judgmental. It was much much later, as Ben and I were being gently ushered from the building, that we noticed something lurking in the distance…

Our anger got the better of us and we had to confront these balloon thieves. It wasn’t pretty…

Then, Ben tried to steal their shoes in retaliation…

In his defense, they were just the right shoes for him. He has problems telling his left from his right…

It’s nerdiness. It’s nerdiness on acid, on LSD, on pain meds. It’s nerdiness taken to a level not normally known by the consensus, the populus. Up until three weeks ago I was blind to this world, but now my mind has been opened.

Firstly, thank you Elly. Thank you for organising the piss-up, thank you for being so luverly, thank you for introducing me to some great people. And some odd people – hi Ben. While the early part of my Friday evening may have seen me nestle into my comfort zone and chatting with old friends, my developing evening saw me annoy and irritate Alexia, Red Mum and Anthony, but my developed (read drunken) evening saw me bend the ear of Laura and Sam and become intoxicated by Ben’s suggestion of SubWay.

My WWMD sticker and knowledge gained at the blog awards gave me a level of credibility; I have been granted a pass into the world of the modern Irish blogger. I arrived this evening, into a group of people who knew each other, who know each other, and while I make all efforts in my life to portray myself as a confident guy, one who can take on any situation head on, without resistance – I think I hid my crackling nerves well; I think I hid the fact that I was desperate not to feel out of place and desperate not to embarrass myself. And then I asked Elly about her jar of condoms. It all went downhill from there. (Please ignore the self indulgent in-joke and keep reading).

I met Anthony and Sam, who were fawning over Anthony’s iTouch, and while I attempted to be nonchalant, while I attempted to look as though I was not drawn in by the silly gadget, while I attempted to wipe away the drool caused by the kiddie’s toy…I was incapable of functioning without at least touching it. It’s beautiful. It’s sexy. It’s now on my wish list. If I hadn’t been bowled over by the perfect multi-touch system or the user friendly, net friendly, add-on friendly interface, the simple fact that it rendered the song lyrics on screen as the track played would be enough to hook me. It’s a faded, empty, throw-away phrase, but this is the future. Clichéd phrases need to come from somewhere, and this is no different. Apple’s latest invention is not just pretty, it shows us what the future is, what the future could be. The iTouch is gorgeous, but the functionality is only glancing at what we are likely to see in the next year or two or twelve from a company that has revolutionised the music industry. We will very soon see the iPhone (and its imitators) replace all of the gadgetry we carry with us. I can easily see a day when, the same device allows us to interrupt the taking of a 10 mega pixel photograph of our cat, with a phone call from our solicitor telling us that he is in the process of sending us an email with a Word document attached, where we can make changes and send the reply without ending the conversation. After we’ve finished the telecon, mailing and amateur cat photography we’ll continue using the device to learn the correct drumming pattern of Journey’s Don’t Stop Believing (well some things can never die).

But I digress. I am trying to prove that tonight was not about geekery, but about the interactions of people, of friends, of strangers. I’m not sure I’ll be able to sufficiently prove that though, as I’m not sure there’s much to separate. Has the term ‘social geek’ already been coined? Often the term geek or nerd inspires an image of a quiet, inward, social misfit, but none of that was evident on this night out. This was a group of confident, socially aware, funny and above all intelligent people who quickly put me at my ease and I already look forward to meeting them again. More and more I am seeing a world I didn’t know existed and could never have understood had I not become part of it. Three weeks ago, I could not have imagined how much fun it would be Twittering in the pub, or exchanging website addresses. Viva la Social Geek! Viva la Drunken Bloggery!

——

Incidentally – I do now Twitter!

The photos above are by Elly and thank you for allowing me the use of them.

And I am sad that I didn’t use my time better to talk with Suzy of Maman Poulet fame. It was lovely meeting you again, if ever so briefly again!!

I wrote this on my way home on Friday night. I had forgotten all about it until now, going through my PDA (I tidied up the many drunken typo’s)…

I am on the Nitelink after a particularly unbalanced evening.

For my part, most of the evening was great fun. It was an old friend’s birthday – fantastic to catch up. I can’t quite explain why, but I feel an unusual sense of pride in knowing that his life has turned out well – he has a funny and beautiful girlfriend and a great group of friend who seem to hold him in high esteem. Many of the group are swing dancers, which all seems very interesting and I would love to give it a try, were it not for my knees, which are probably in worse condition than the newly exhumed Padre Pio’s or maybe Grandad’s.

I thought it funny that I found myself comparing meeting these ‘swingers’ to meeting the bloggers at the Blog Awards two weeks ago. Perhaps it was that I was, once again, in the Alexander Hotel. Perhaps! But I think it had more to do with the air of comradery which billowed from the room. In the same way that the bloggers were overwhelmingly positive, motivated by a common medium but varied interests, these swing dancers exuded positivity and clearly had much more to them, than a simple love of dancing. As a person who loves to watch the lives of others, an evening where a larger group interacts on a variety of levels is very stimulating and is fascinating to watch.

Two rather drunken dudes, sitting two seats behind me are discussing their future. I would guess they are between 24 and 28 years of age. The have both had their obligatory YIA (Year in Australia). Both have had two great nights out separately and have now just met on the Nitelink for the first time in many months. One says he’s started saving for a house, but it’s very expensive and he’s been trying to cut back on the non-essentials, including drinking. Dude 2 suggests Dude 1 should give up drinking for a year and he’d probably save a fortune. Dude 1 replies, “‘Stop Drinking’ is a very big word”. How true!

After that, it trails off into some odd notes about the night. I’ll try put some semblance of meaning to them later and write a post about my eventful weekend.

So, following on from Saturday night….

Okay, admittedly, yes, well, Sunday……didn’t begin well. I was unsurprisingly heavily hungover. Now, my general way to cope with hangovers is denial; this coupled with the fact that I wanted to appear somewhat alert for everyone I was visiting led me to go into hyper mode. That may be why I had no real problem with being woken up by my little brother and my camera:

Okay, so maybe I had a bit of a problem with being woken up, but I quickly came to.

I was greeted, when I finally ventured downstairs, to a big fry up. I know a lot of people in a hungover state would turn their noses at this, but I believe there is nothing better that a big greasy fry to make you feel better.

While I was sad to be heading off (I really had a fantastic weekend), I couldn’t wait to get home to herself. And screw you if you think that’s too mushy!

My journey home was a damn sight better than my journey down. I got the 2.30 train from Limerick and all I wanted to do was nestle into my seat, knock on the iPod and drift away. But, as is the norm with me, someone decided to start talking to me. Okay, so, generally, I’d be more than up for chatting with random strangers. It can be fun and it’s great to meet new people. But as soon as this guy said hello, my hangover said “What the fuck? No, no way! Don’t you dare engage him in conversation!!”. But, I fought my hangover and started chatting to this dude, who turned out to be a great bloke. In fact, we talked non-stop from Limerick to Heuston, from Heuston to Connolly and then from Connolly down to Sydney Parade, where he almost missed his stop because we were deep in conversation.

So, I’d like to thank him for making my journey a quick and interesting one.

But….at long last I arrived home to Lottie and I can’t remember the last time I was so happy to see someone. It’s always nice to get away, but it’s wonderful to come home.