A Doubtful Egg

One Of Those "No Way" Moments (VI)

2012-02-03T20:19:00.000Z

I recently purchased a copy of Nobuhiko Obayashi's House, a film described on the back of the DVD box as "one of Japanese cinema's wildest supernatural ventures". Seeing as Japanese cinema can be pretty wild at the best of times, I am intrigued to see what this "bubblegum teen melodrama [which usually interests me not at all] and grisly phantasmagoria [now yer talkin'!]" was actually like. But what I want to share with you is a quote taken from the booklet accompanying the film, spoken by the vice-president of Toho Studios, Isao Matsuoka, when presented with the film's initial script.

"I don't understand the story at all. This is the first time I have seen such a meaningless script. But maybe it's a good thing that I don't understand. Please do not try to make it into something I can comprehend."

Now there's an attitude that's sadly lacking in cinema today*! Although the booklet does point out that it was more reflective of the studio's financial desperation than of Mr Matsuoka's visionary qualities...

*If anyone can point me in the direction of contemporary films to which the above description applies, I'd be grateful...

Season's Greetings

2011-12-23T10:18:00.001Z

Naturally of an atrabilarious temperament (I love that word!), and having spent far too many Xmases serving food to drunken work parties all desperately pretending by shouting and singing that they were having a jolly old time, the spirit of the season is something I recoil from like a hound who once licked an electric fence. However, there is something to be said for a time of year when, rather than shoving through crowded streets to buy junk we don't need to the sound of advertisers' jingles, we take time to contemplate life, with its attendant joys and travails, in the company of people we care about. In that spirit, I hope that anyone who may read this is having a good holiday, and I attach a piece of music which has nothing to do with Christmas, but which I think is really beautiful.

Two Photographs

2011-08-20T00:02:00.000+01:00

Please excuse the slightly gruesome nature of the second photograph (although it's little different from the wreckage left after a satisfied gourmet pushes away a plate of devoured chicken wings).

The little things...

2011-08-13T16:26:00.000+01:00

Wexford Sights (XXXIII)

2011-07-11T20:50:00.001+01:00

"I ... was waiting for a bus and I happened to look at the pavement and I noticed that the experience of looking at the pavement was the same as the experience of looking at a [Mark] Tobey [painting] ... the aesthetic enjoyment was just as high." John Cage.

I can't say I fully agree with the sentiments expressed in that statement, but the above image, the surface of an old tree, does remind me of an abstract painting...

A Photo for Jams

2011-06-06T09:25:00.000+01:00

The Error of Pessimism II

2011-05-22T20:58:00.005+01:00

[Warning: Some of you may find the photograph below, of a dead bird embryo, upsetting, so if you're squeamish, please don't look...]

I was walking in the woods earlier this afternoon when I saw the dead bird embryo next to its egg on the path in front of me. There was another nearby, but this one looked so vulnerable and pathetic that I had to take its picture. I imagine that it fell (or was pushed) out of a nest high above. After seeing this, I was depressed for hours, but the aesthetician in me (if such an ungainly word exists) liked the colour and composition of the photo enough to feel like posting it. And this is as much a part of Nature as the sweep of a landscape bathed in sunlight, or the beautiful intricacy of a flower. The photograph is below the video (so that the potential reader has a chance to read the warning before seeing it).

The Error of Pessimism

2011-05-15T10:07:00.001+01:00

John O'Byrne wrote the following letter into The Irish Times on Saturday, May 15th, on the gloomy article written by Morgan Kelly on Ireland's economic future (see here):

Madam, – The Cambridge economist AC Pigou, writing in 1920, is worth quoting in the context of Morgan Kelly’s doom-laden economic prognosis and solutions. “The error of optimism dies in the crisis but in dying it gives birth to an error of pessimism. This new error is born, not an infant, but a giant.” Our leading economists appear to be afflicted with giant doses of this condition.

It's a shame he didn't think about the absurdity of quoting a comment on the error of pessimism from 1920, seeing as the following thirty years brought the Great Depression; the rise of fascism and Uncle Joe Stalin in Russia; the Second World War; the Holocaust; the invention of the atomic bomb and its use of Hiroshima and Nagasaki; and the Cold War. Sometimes pessimism is just another word for realism.

(This is not a return from hibernation, by the way; I read the letter this morning and became so incensed that I felt the need to respond.)

Hibernation

2011-04-05T13:47:00.000+01:00

Due to health and other reasons, A Doubtful Egg is going into hibernation for a while. Whether that "a while" will be a few weeks, or forever, remains to be seen. Thanks to everyone who came to visit or left a comment here.

Wexford Sights (XXXII)

2011-03-18T19:28:00.001Z

Last year I wrote a brief post about a robin that flew headlong into a window in my house and died before my eyes. I thought that history was about to repeat itself earlier today when I saw the above-pictured bird slamming into the glass in our kitchen. Thankfully, it was unhurt, and is pictured in my partner's hands (she insisted that I point out that she was gardening previously, and that her hands are not normally that dirty).

An Amusement (XXVIX)

2011-03-05T20:16:00.002Z

Terry Gilliam on Walerian Borowczyk's astounding 1964 film Les Jeux des Anges (which translates as The Games of Angels, I believe):

"Walerian Borowczyk was a twisted man whose films were infused with a unique cruelty and weirdness. He started out making extraordinary animations, graduated to directing classics such as Goto, Island of Love and La Bete, and then ended up directing Emmanuelle 5, which I think is a perversely fitting end. Les Jeux des Anges was my first experience of animation that was utterly impressionistic. It didn't show me anything specific, just sound and movement from which you create a world of your own."

What more encouragement do you need?

Wexford Sights (XXXI)

2011-03-03T16:30:00.000Z

The sunrise in the field behind my house.

Wexford Sights (XXX)

2011-02-25T19:18:00.000Z

Pictured above is a section of a fallen tree on Oulart Hill in County Wexford. I went up there after casting my vote, a depressing experience if ever there was one. We'll know sometime tomorrow who the next ~~puppets of the IMF~~ Government will be. It's likely to be led by Fine Gael, in which case, God help the poor and low-paid in our society.

Two Landscapes

2011-02-24T18:14:00.006Z

Ireland goes to the polls tomorrow to elect a new government. It's an election-free zone here because, to be honest, I can't think of anything to write about it except for the following. I have not seen a single candidate since the election was called three weeks ago except on a poster, and here is a comment I left over at the Cedar Lounge Revolution blog (and I hope they don't mind me reprinting it here): "David McWilliams (who may not be the most reliable source) claims that by the end of 2012 the interest payments alone on our debts will be E12 billion (out of a tax take of E30 billion). I think that a whole lot of people just haven’t grasped what “financial constraints” means in this context ... I am really frightened over what is going to happen in the next five years; a 2013 Lockout won’t be the half of it. Is it possible to have any optimism at all in these circumstances?"

Anyway, above are two landscapes. The top is of the Hook Lighthouse, possibly the most photographed building in the whole of the South East of Ireland (it's also been the subject of an awful lot of really bad amateur paintings). It was a really grey, stormy day, and spectacularly beautiful (if a little scary at times, especially when you're trying to manhandle a tripod and keep your balance on uneven ground). The bottom picture is of the rust on an old winch, which was quite close to where the first picture was taken.

Here's a film. The quality is poor at first, so stick with it...

Thanks...

2011-02-24T10:02:00.000Z

I just discovered that someone nominated one of the little pieces written here for an Irish Blog Award. To whoever it was, I say thanks. The article was about the spin being put on clerical sex abuse in Ireland (and elsewhere) by the Catholic Church, and can be found here. My health and work schedule has made blogging a very occasional pleasure for me, so it's encouraging to know that at least a few people to read (and enjoy) the little fizzles I put here. Thanks again...

An Amusement (XXVIII)

2011-02-17T15:22:00.002Z

There are times when one comes across a horror which is hard to describe, something that even Freddy Krueger of A Nightmare on Elm Street fame would view as being too much to inflict on an unsuspecting world. Just when I thought I couldn't find another reason not to vote for ~~the Celtic Tories~~ Fine Gael, they unleash this atrocity on County Wexford. In the cartoon series Futurama, the mad Professor Farnsworth has a device that measured the coolness of things in MegaFonzies; it goes without saying that the following putrid item has a negative score so great that the coolest, funkiest, most happening track imaginable would, if placed next to it, transform almost immediately into James Last's dullest album. Enjoy! (Acknowledgement to Maman Poulet for this; see here).

As a test, I'm going to put the following song (which is, apparently, what "the kids" are listening to) next to the above and see if, after a while, it doesn't transform into Dana's 'All Kinds of Everything'...

A thing with handles...

2011-02-16T11:33:00.001Z

In my previous post I took a poem by William Carlos Williams and used an online translation service to mutate it, by translating it into French and back to English, then translating the results into Russian and back into English, and so on. The results are often quite interesting! Here's the opening verse of Emily Dickinson's 'Hope is the thing...'

Hope is the thing with feathers

That perches in the soul

And sings the tune without the words,

And never stops at all

Here is my mutation (after running it through Italian, French, and Russian) (the spacing is my own):

'A thing with handles (with apologies to Emily Dickinson)'

by A Doubtful Egg and an online translation service

The hope -

a thing with handles,

that the Persian fish in a shower

also does not sing

air without words,

and never stopped all

The Education of Rainwater...

2011-02-15T20:22:00.004Z

William Carlos Williams' poem 'The Red Wheelbarrow' (1923) is one of the simplest and most beautiful in the language.

so much depends
upon

a red wheel
barrow

glazed with rain
water

beside the white
chickens

Because I'm really bored and fed up with reading about elections, I decided to run it through an online translation service, translating it into another language, back into English, into a different language, and so forth. I ran it through Italian, German, Japanese, Russian, Norwegian, Swedish, Dutch, Mexican Spanish, Finnish, and finally French. After running a very simple poem through ten different languages, you end up with the following:

'The Broken Wheelbarrow (with apologies to William Carlos Williams)'
by A Doubtful Egg and an online translation service

The owners
kjøretøyhjul gjeldt
red that had
to enter
the education of rainwater
of flisingiin
the rather white chicken
declares to half
in the
detail

Wexford Sights (XXIX)

2011-02-03T09:10:00.000Z

Life and death in a small corner of County Wexford.

Wexford Sights (XXVIII)

2011-01-31T20:35:00.001Z

It was bitterly cold this morning; although the chill was not nearly as fierce as last month, it was still enough to leave a thin coating of ice on the inside of our kitchen window. The above pictured scene was what I could see through the same window. Around this time last year, on January 11th, 2010, a young mother of two froze to death in a flat in Ballymun in Dublin because the council turned her heating off (see here and here). Whoever made that decision should at the very least face charges of criminal negligence causing death (or whatever the proper legal term is). Welcome to NAMAland: where the rich spend their winter in the sun after their gambling debts are paid off by the State, while the poor freeze to death in their homes and it takes a year before the media even notices.

An Amusement (XXVII)

2011-01-25T16:39:00.006Z

While doing a bit of rambling through the dusty pages of old newspapers on th'internet, I stumbled across this absolutely hysterical piece of hagiography about Brian Lenihan Jr by none other than Senator Shane Ross, called 'Breeding and Brains of Brian' and published in the Sunday Independent on May 11th, 2008. I encourage you to read the whole thing (here), not just for how startling wrong it was about the man who, less than six months later, destroyed Ireland's future by guaranteeing her insolvent banks, but for Ross's breathless, fawning adulation of The Hero he seems to admire so deeply; the thrusting capitalist hard man who gives two fingers to those fearful, scowling bureaucrats who dare to reign in his natural dynamism by, horror of horrors, exercising caution! Like Conan the Cimmerian in a bad suit, Lenihan the Mighty would pull the beards of those pesky trade unionists; sweep through the halls of the stultified mandarins, leaving paper and dust swirling behind him; and release the awesome, volcanic power of the Irish Entrepeneur! Long would profit and growth reign in the Halls of Erin! Well, not for those who'd have their meagre wages or welfare cut back to the bone in the name of competitiveness, but it's their own fault for not being dynamic enough! Hmmm... it didn't turn out quite like that, did it?

Here's a few choice quotes. My absolute favourite is: "His intellect could one day propel him into the ranks of the immortals in the FF pantheon of Ministers for Finance." Well, he's certainly earned his place in the history books, and not just in Ireland; people the world over will speak of Brian Lenihan Jr in a cautionary tale of what happens to a country when a person, for reasons still not fully known, does something as gargantuanly stupid as guarantee a bunch of utterly insolvent banks with debts running to many multiples of the country's total income.

"Lenihan not only has brains to burn. He has pedigree. He is both mentally and politically fit for the Finance portfolio. He is an egghead by accident and a politician by blood. The Lenihans are a formidable political family. Brian's grandfather, Paddy Lenihan, was a TD. His talented aunt, Mary O'Rourke, and his equally able brother Conor have both held high political office; but comparisons with his father, Brian Snr, a giant in Fianna Fail folklore, are inevitable."

"Brian Senior, although an intellectual powerhouse himself, tended to hide his light under the nearest bushel. Brian Junior does the opposite. He shines it, blindingly, into your eyes. Lesser political mortals do not like being dazzled. Brian's brazen intellect could prove his Achilles' heel. His agile mind has not always made him flavour of the month in the parliamentary party. Some FF colleagues think that he talks down to them. He does not suffer fools gladly. Nor is he eager to mix with them ... His intellect could one day propel him into the ranks of the immortals in the FF pantheon of Ministers for Finance, but could simultaneously hold him back from his ultimate target: the Office of Taoiseach. And make no mistake, that is where he is heading."

Update: It's nice to see that, in these turbulent and uncertain times, the Sunday Independent is still printing fawning articles about Brian Lenihan (even after he was voted Europe's worst Finance Minister for two years in a row by the Financial Times). Last week we had some surreally weird drivel from the decayed brain of Eoghan Harris (here) and this week there was a torrent of gush from Brendan O'Connor. Choice quotes:

"He cribbed a bit at the beginning about being made the Finance Minister that was going to oversee the worst financial and economic crisis in the history of the State. And who could blame him? But then, he got up and started fighting. He fought his way into the brief and he fought his way through it -- admittedly with mixed results." [Quite possibly the understatement of the decade, if not the century. Can Mr O'Connor point out to me the positive aspects of Lenihan's policies since May 2008?]

"Cowen was the leader and Lenihan was the one in charge of the economy, which was tanking. But somehow the people loved Lenihan and not Cowen." [The people? What people? Does that include people outside the offices of the Irish Independent?]

And the bould Shane was back at it again last week, crying out that Brian should show some gumption and annoy the "mandarins" by appointing outsiders to forthcoming vacancies on bank boards. "So Brian should tell the mandarins in the Department of Finance to stuff it; insisting that he is going to appoint a banker who knows something about banking, an honourable man who is not a Fianna Fail supporter and has never been a member of the golden circle." I find this utterly laughable; the idea that Brian Lenihan, the Minister whose every decision has benefitted the golden circles and privileged insiders, the man responsible for the guarantee and NAMA and the Credit Stabilisation Bill, who comes from one of the country's most conservative and worthless family dynasties, whose father was a close supporter of uber-crook Charles Haughey, is somehow, in his last days in office, going to rock the boat!

But let's put a bit of perspective on this: here's the story of someone who was, indirectly, a victim of the decisions of the likes of Brian Lenihan, and the ruling caste to which he belongs.

Wexford Sights (XXVII)

2011-01-19T16:31:00.001Z

I don't really have anything to add to the above photograph, which was taken in the forest on Oulart Hill recently. It's a place that I love for two reasons: firstly, there are spectacular views of the surrounding landscape, the light through the trees is often breathtakingly beautiful, and in the summer it's full of mushrooms; secondly, there's rarely anyone there, so I can let the hound off the lead to gallop about the place without having to worry about encountering other dogs or people (not because he's aggressive; more that he's wildly friendly, and believes the best way to introduce himself to other dogs is to hurl himself at them, which some people find disconcerting).

Below is a picture taken just a few minutes ago, on the beach near my house. It's a bit blurry, even though it was taken with a tripod, but I like it all the same.

Some Amusements

2011-01-12T20:38:00.004Z

Happy New Year, y'all!
------------------------------------------------------------
I recently picked up a copy of John Carpenter's Halloween on DVD, not because I particularly like it but because, as one of the most influential horror films ever made (although, sadly, not in a positive sense), it's worth having in my collection. For fans of correct English, though, the horror begins on the box itself, as the blurb on the back opens with: "Fifteen years ago, Michael Myers brutally massacred his sister."

Massacred? Massacred?! [A Doubtful Egg's voice rises to a shrill, outraged scream. He takes a deep breath and mutters "calm blue ocean calm blue ocean calm blue ocean" until the red mist subsides.]

Obviously, you can no more "massacre" an individual person than you can "murder" a crowd (although you can murder several individuals within a crowd or commit mass murder). A massacre has a very specific meaning: to kill many people, usually in a fairly indiscriminate and bloody fashion (you can "murder" or "massacre" a song as well, of course!). The copywriter obviously wanted to make the blurb as sensational as possible, and plain ol' "killed" (or even "murdered") just didn't seem strong enough. Will the next edition try to outdo this one by saying that Michael Myers brutally genocided his sister? Puh-leeeze!

-------------------------------------------------------------

There's nothing more amusing than watching a Fianna Fail TD (in this case, our Great Leader, Brian Cowen) coming out with a statement so blatantly untrue that you begin to question your own sanity when you hear it. Forget fridges and double-decker buses; the Moon's circumference is over 10,000 kilometres, and it would be easier to swallow that in one mouthful than to swallow Cowen's story about his contacts with former Anglo chief Sean FitzPatrick at this point. To call his attitude towards the people of Ireland "contempt" is far too understated, I think.

-----------------------------------------------------------
A quote from Michael Innes' novel, Stop Press (1939):

"Timmy's voice and the rattle of the train's subterraneous plunge were alike drowned in awful and bewildering clamour. A pandemonium of sound, latrant, mugient, reboatory, and beyond all words, reverberated between the walls of the tunnel."

If you know what latrant, mugient, and reboatory mean without referring to a massive dictionary or the internet, my hat goes off to you (because I certainly didn't!).
-------------------------------------------------------------

Ice on the river on Xmas Day, seen from the bridge just outside New Ross (on the Enniscorthy road).
--------------------------------------------------------------
And to finish my ramblings, here's a song that I find myself humming every now and again:

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I woke up this morning, stumbled out sans coffee, and checked my messages, only to discover that the title I'd thrown on this this post last night (in a state of exhaustion, and with my mind focused on watching Mario Bava's dreamlike Gothic Operazione Paura (known in English by the the rather silly and inappropriate title Kill, Baby, Kill!) was both illogical and contained a blatant misspelling. Boy, is my face red! Feel free to pour thick, steaming ladles of abuse upon me...

Season's Greetings (Or Whatever)

2010-12-24T17:23:00.000Z

I don't do the whole Xmas thing - I'm not a Christian, and I hate all the vulgarity and hysterical consumerism that has sludged up around December 25th - but it's a nice time to take a break from things and enjoy a bit of peace and quiet (well it is for me, as I (thankfully) don't have children). But whatever y'all plan on doing for the season - whether it's soulful contemplation or funnelling tequila - I hope you enjoy it, and feel better afterwards than before. And here's a song which, curiously, rarely gets played on commercial radio. Funny, that.

Winter Music

2010-12-21T17:56:00.002Z

I went out this morning at around 7.45 to clean the ice off my windscreen, and as I did so I felt a slight tickle on the tip of my nose. "I hope that's not what I think it is," I thought to myself as I flung a saucepan of lukewarm water over my car. Twenty minutes later, the snow was falling so heavily that I couldn't see the trees at the end of the field behind my house and I was sending an e-mail to work informing them that I wouldn't be travelling today. If anyone ever uses the words "white Christmas" or "winter wonderland" in my presence, I'll probably run amuck and need to be restrained by several burly police officers...

The Dust Blows Forward And The Dust Blows Back...

2010-12-18T19:18:00.000Z

A true original has left us...

Dear Brian (A Letter To Our Minister For Finance In The Wake Of The Budget)

2010-12-13T10:59:00.003Z

Dear Brian,

At the end of your budget speech on Tuesday last you said: "A Cheann Comhairle, there is every reason to be confident about the future of this economy and this country if we only have confidence in ourselves." An admirable sentiment, I thought. The only problem, of course, is that I don't believe you. In fact, I find it impossible to believe anything you say at this stage, because you have been utterly wrong so many times, to the point where the only credible options are that you were totally unprepared and incompetent in the face of the catastrophe that has dominated our lives since 2008, or that you are complicit in a strategy designed to protect a wealthy handful at the expense of the many.

How else can we explain your comment on the astonishing 2008 bank guarantee, when you made the debts of Ireland's most amoral, despicable scumbags, the greedy, worthless vermin who sat on the banks' boards and ran their institutions into the ground while lavishly rewarding themselves, into a debt carried by the homeless, the unemployed, the disabled, and everyone else who lives in this godforsaken country - how could you say (with a straight face) that it was "the cheapest bailout in the world so far", when now, two years later, it has led directly to the arrival of the IMF? When the banks' losses will strangle any hope of economic activity in this State for years, possibly decades? Did you actually believe it when you said it, or was it a barefaced lie?

Well, how about last year's Budget speech, when you said: "As we begin to emerge from the unrelenting economic gloom of the last eighteen months, we need to rediscover our optimism and our self-belief. Now more than ever, we need that confidence on which business thrives. The measures contained in this Budget, some of them unpalatable, will engender that confidence." There's that word again! But those measures didn't engender confidence, unless you count being priced out of the bond markets a resounding success and having to call in the IMF a triumph of forward planning. If you were so wrong then, how can we possibly believe that you are right now? Especially when you have been voted Europe's worst finance minister for two years running by The Financial Times, hardly a bastion of lefties and liberals (and you were second-worst in 2008, the year you took the job).

I wish, Brian, that you would tell me (what I believe to be) the truth for once, and break the habit of a lifetime. I wish you would come out and say, some evening, on Prime Time: "We guaranteed the banks to protect our friends who were customers of those banks, because we were too deluded to believe the evidence that was right in front of our eyes, that our banks were not just bust, but so bust that they had the potential to sink the State. We gambled because we thought we could bluff our way out of it, and because Fianna Fail never really bothers to think through the consequences of its actions. We did it because that's what Fianna Fail has always done: it rescues the powerful and dumps their debts on the weak, because I'd prefer to see a crooked banker stay rich than upset the cosy status quo which pretends that the people running our top institutions have any more morals than a Sheriff Street drug dealer. And even though none of my policies have worked, and I'll be remembered as the finance minister who screwed up the country so badly that the EU and the IMF had to come in to fix it, I don't care even slightly because I'm set for life with my huge pension, and maybe a comfy position in Europe. So why should I give a toss if the peasants are rooting through dustbins for food and emigrating in their droves because anywhere is better than here?"

But that's not the Fianna Fail way, is it? Telling the truth, I mean. After all, doesn't the old joke say: "How can you tell a Fianna Fail TD is lying? His lips move." You are a part of that privileged group, along with the consultants and lawyers and semi-state directors and bankers and stockbrokers and top civil servants and all the others who comprise the golden circles in our country, who view Ireland as their own personal fiefdom, who believe that the misery and poverty of others matters not a jot as long as their bellies is full and their pockets bulging, that there is no limit to what they should be paid, that the coffers of the State are there for them to indulge themselves with, and that anyone who behaves otherwise is deserving of contempt.

Well, Brian, I'm one of those little people you so despise. I'm on a low income, and have spent the last two years in a continual state of anxiety and depression thanks to you and your mates and your 'tough decisions'. The phrase 'tough decisions', which gives right-wing economists an erection (as long as the tough decisions aren't being applied to them), is one that your Government has trotted out continuously, but it's blatantly obvious that your supposed toughness only extends to abusing the vulnerable and helpless. Where was your steely resolve when dealing with that shower of scum who ran our banks? The people who have wrecked our economy (thanks to your guarantee) while telling you lie after lie about the state of their balance sheets? According to Morgan Kelly in October 2010, "apart from some token departures of executives too old and rich to care less, the senior management of the banks that caused this crisis continue to enjoy their richly earned rewards." Where were the sackings in 2008? Why weren't conditions included in the guarantee which made all previous pension arrangements with the banks' senior figures null and void, and any future pension arrangements subject to Department of Finance approval? How about a clause stating that any senior banker who knowingly lied to the Department would be imprisoned? Where were the speedy investigations for fraud? When Michael Fingleton, that piece of human excrement, walked away from his ruined bank with a pension worth millions, you wagged your finger and tut-tutted your disapproval, but when it came to cutting welfare you punched like Mike Tyson. Obviously, a fair fight interests you less than kicking the crutches out from under the disabled.

But let's get back to those tough decisions, the ones that will destroy so many lives (and this is a certainty: a whole generation will have their futures annihilated by your party's actions, but I guess it's not the first time, eh? After all, wasn't it your dear old Dad who said that there's wasn't enough room for everyone on this small island?). The problem I have with them is not simply the fact that they are barbaric; it is the fact that you've ploughed the same furrow for the past two years and it hasn't bloody worked! You've cut E14 billion out of the economy since 2008 and our problems have just gotten worse and worse. Of course, they haven't gotten worse for you or your cronies, because you've made sure that you're insulated from the deprivation you're inflicting on the poor with your huge salaries and lavish expenses.

As I face next year, my wife and I are going to have to cut our own spending again, reducing our food bill, our fuel bill, and cancelling expenses we can no longer afford (like health insurance). All our bills will be going up at the same time as our earnings are being cut further. And every penny that we can no longer spend will provide another blow to local businesses, many of whom are already struggling to survive. A large unexpected expense (like, say, a new car) could quite literally reduce us to bankruptcy. And we're lucky, in that we have fat left to trim. How do you feel about those people who'll have to choose between food and heat this winter because of you?

Of course, I could get another job but hey! There aren't any! Because people aren't spending money! And there we're back to that whole confidence issue again, aren't we, Brian? To fix the economy, we must have growth. To have growth, we must have jobs. To have jobs, people must spend money. To spend money, people must have money in the first place. But where are the jobs going to come from? There is no plan for stimulus in this or any budget you've proposed. Your savage cuts (and let's repeat: people will die as a result of your actions) would be almost bearable if every penny taken was being used to give Ireland world-class infrastructure, a top-notch universal health system, education facilities to rival the best, and so forth. But it isn't. It's only going to fill a hole left by Fianna Fail's appalling mismanagement of the last ten years, and if this country ever emerges from this pit, it will be even more behind its European partners than it was at the height of the boom. You're going to hobble the economy for a decade and hope that something turns up out of the blue to save you, the classic Fianna Fail policy. In terms of inspiration, it's up there with Homer Simpson's "let's hide under a pile of blankets and hope that somehow everything turns out alright." What's your plan for when more and more and more people start seriously defaulting on their mortgages as a result of these cuts, Brian? If 200,000 people can't pay back mortgages worth on average E300,000, that's E60 billion that our banks won't get back, isn't it? On top of the E50 billion that we've already pumped into these zombie institutions, and whatever other losses are hiding in the balance sheets that they've repeatedly lied about.

But that's not even the crux of the problem, Brian. The real issue, as many commentators have pointed out, is that Ireland simply cannot afford to repay the debts that you have saddled her with, regardless of how much taxes you raise or cuts you make. We're like a 35-year-old on E50,000 per annum who owes E50 million; no matter how much he cuts his spending he'll never have enough to pay it all back! Even if he were to hand over all his income and live on rainwater and twigs, it would still take decades longer than he'll probably live to hand over all the money. So this budget doesn't even bring any certainty; astonishing as it may seem, you're just kicking the problem into next year, in the anticipation of ... what, exactly, I don't know. Finding a giant stash of leprechaun gold in the Wicklow mountains? Or are Department of Finance alchemists working desperately on turning bullshit into gold, in which case you could clear off the national debt with your collected speeches? Or, cynical as it may seem, maybe you're just delaying the ultimate catastrophe until your party is safely on the opposition benches? All I know is that there's been over two years of this now: two years of stress and dread and sleepless nights, and thanks to you there's no end in sight, just the certainty of further chaos and hardship for the nation.

Every day, I am so happy that I don't have children, and I cannot imagine the stresses that parents must be feeling right now. I wonder, as you're sitting around the dinner table this Christmas with your family, will you spare a thought for those whose pay or welfare you've reduced, who'll be having nightmares about the New Year? Or (the ultimate hypocrisy!) will you salve your conscience by giving a fraction of your enormous salary to charity? Would the sheer obscenity of such a gesture bother you? I doubt it, because, like your cabinet members, shame is an alien concept to you. If it wasn't, Brian Cowen and his whole cabinet would have resigned on September 30th 2008, the moment the bank guarantee exposed once and for all that the previous ten years were nothing more than a giant Ponzi scheme in which most of our top institutions were complicit, but instead he'll be remembered as both the second most worthless Minister for Finance (the prizewinner is your good self) and the second worst Taoiseach (the worst, obviously, being his immediate predecessor, Bertie Ahern) in the history of the State.

You say, Brian, that we all partied in the Celtic Tiger years. I don't who this 'we' represents, but it doesn't represent me. I spent most of the Celtic Tiger earning a modest wage and spending prudently. Like many people, I was ripped off continually by my fellow countrymen, a fact which never seemed to bother the government of the day, your government. I never bought bank shares or had a credit card, and the crooks and morons running our banks never shared with me their profits, even though I'm now paying their colossal debts. I didn't buy an apartment in Bulgaria, and you probably spent more in expenses than I earned in a year. Even now, my only debt is my mortgage. But my standard of living will be destroyed by this and future budgets. And the people who partied the most are definitely not the people who are going to pay the most (unless you're an Irish Times reader who believes that not being able to afford a golfing holiday in South Africa is as serious as being made homeless).

When you were sick recently, Brian, you no doubt received the best of care from the finest specialists, and it probably didn't bother you in the slightest that you were being jumped ahead of all those people who are poorer than you and cannot afford the most expensive private health insurance. Nothing reinforces that feeling of power like knowing that the peasants are waiting months and years for treatment that you can get instantly, does it? Nothing feels quite like sitting in your chauffeur-driven Merc as it cruises past people eating out of dustbins, or queuing for hours to collect their pittance from the dole, less in a year than you earn in a month, does it? And that's what it's all about, behind all the waffle that you excel at. The Ireland you seem to envisage is one where, to paraphrase Alan Moore, the top 10% will be better off and the bottom 10% better off dead. It will be a truly shameful legacy, and I hope that the electorate (and historians) treat you and your government with the contempt you deserve.

Yours,

A Doubtful Egg.

(The above, very funny, image was borrowed from here. Copyright presumably belongs to its creator, and I hope they don't mind me using it. An excellent selection of Brian Lenihan's statements here. )

Wexford Sights (XXVI)

2010-12-09T18:46:00.003Z

Earlier, as I went out on yet another icy morning, I saw a jet crossing the sky behind my house, its exhaust fumes lit by the rising sun. The photograph, lacking depth, makes it look like a falling star, and the following remarkable tune sprang to mind.

Then I went inside and read this and this. The average bonus for AIB staff will be E16,700, nearly E100 more than what will be earned in a year by people on the new minimum wage* (which is quite possibly what those who clean the offices of the people receiving the bonuses are paid)). The original fallen angel must be laughing his Satanic little head off at this morally poisoned, irredeemably callous little sewer of a country...

(*E7.65 x 40 hours x 52 weeks: E15,912)

While Waiting For An Egg To Boil....

2010-12-04T10:08:00.000Z

I have an (hopefully not doubtful) egg boiling on the stove to fortify myself for the day ahead, as everything is still covered in snow. However, there seems to be a bit of a thaw occurring, so hopefully the white blanket on the land, which has definitely outstayed its welcome, will shortly be but a memory.

I recently got visitor statistics on my blog, and am astounded to discover that my most popular post ever, which has so far received over three times as many visitors as the second-most popular, is this. Who'd have thunk it?

I think my egg is done!

Wexford Sights (XXV)

2010-11-30T10:07:00.009Z

Rather than opening a new post every time I take a photo of something covered in snow, I'm putting them all into one post, which I'll update as I go along. From the top:

Ice hanging from a holly branch that looks startlingly like a short-bladed knife;

the shadow of icicles;

reeds in the snow;

two sparrows on a fence post;

a slightly out-of-focus blackbird with a bite to eat;

icicles hanging from the gables of my house;

the local crossroads this morning (as I was walking to the local shop to get supplies);
bird prints in the ice;
winter trees;
three pictures of the hound indulging himself;
two crows consider the snow from their vantage point on a wire;
three night pictures from around my house (the silence of a nocturnal snow-covered landscape is quite breathtaking);
the field behind my house;
two pictures of bird footprints.

My apologies for the wobbly focus in some, but my camera seems to have a problem focusing in bad light.

Here's a curiosity: if there's one thing you probably don't associate with winter and snow, it's surfing. The following song from 1964, by the Trade Winds, is about how difficult it is to be the only "surfer boy" in New York in winter, and uses surfing as a metaphor for being uprooted and moved from your old life (or something...). There'll be no surfin' there; and no one even cares!

Another appropriate song:

Wexford Sights (XXIV)

2010-11-28T13:53:00.002Z

Wexford Sights (XXIII)

2010-11-27T17:37:00.000Z

Really heavy snow last night meant that I couldn't travel to Dublin, as the roads were dangerous, for the protest being held against the Government's despicable strategy of crucifying the poor to pay the gambling debts of the rich. It's estimated that at least 50,000 people were there: that's The Irish Times figure; an ICTU official on Facebook reckons it could have been as high as 120,000. It's possible that conservative, establishment sources (such as The IT and RTE) would deliberately underestimate the figure, just as it's possible that ICTU would overestimate it! I wonder how many were would have turned up if not for the weather. So I wandered around with my camera and took a few pictures instead (although my partner will be quick to point out that she took the one of the droplet on the branch). Hopefully the weather'll clear up for the next protest!

Wexford Sights (XXII)

2010-11-26T18:52:00.000Z

I'm far too depressed to write anything lengthy, but with the aim of keeping this blog at least partly alive, I might as well post something for November. The top picture is of a redshank, captured using the furthest possible zoom on my camera; the bottom is of a dead dog washed up on Tinaberna Strand a few weeks back. Here's a song:

Some Thoughts On The Guardian's 25 Best Horror Films

2010-10-23T15:21:00.001+01:00

Generally, I think these contrived lists are a waste of time, but seeing as I have a longstanding interest in macabre cinema I thought I'd have a quick read through what The Guardian considers to be the 25 best horror films ever. (Can you believe that, in their opinion, the best film ever, in any category, was Chinatown? To use a vulgar acronym: WTF? Even ignoring the fact that the director raped a 13-year-old, it's baffling to me that this film would be chosen over so many more worthy options!)

But on to horror! What follows is their list, and my thoughts on each one.

25) Les Vampires (1915): I haven't seen this one, so I can't comment.

24) Carrie (1976): I hated Carrie on the first and only time I ever watched it: it's a mean-spirited, nasty piece of exploitative junk, showcasing more than anything else its director's callousness and unpleasantness, with a silly shock ending that makes no sense, and De Palma seems to take far too much pleasure in killing off his cast. The only thing that redeems this film is Sissy Spacek.

23) The Evil Dead I and II (1981/1987): I'd agree on the second one, easily the funniest slapstick horror ever made, but the first film is pretty weak.

22) The Blair Witch Project (1999): I really liked this when I saw it in the cinema, and admire greatly both the directors and the actors for creating such a convincing ghost story out of practically nothing, but I still can't get over the feeling that it was a little too low-key to work effectively.

21) Audition (1999): I saw this again recently and can agree that not only is it pretty stomach turning at times, it's probably one of the most troubling and intelligent gore movies you're likely to see. Highly recommended.

20) Dracula (1958): In terms of influence and audaciousness alone (for the time), you can't argue with this one (although I think Hammer made better films). If we're going for 1960s Gothic, though, I'd have included Mario Bava's Black Sunday instead.

19) Les Diaboliques (1955): I haven't seen this one, so I can't comment.

18) Bride of Frankenstein (1935): I'm one of the rare people who doesn't care for this film as much as I do for the original, which I feel should have got the nod (and why not include both). This film is deeper and more complex in some ways, but is hurt by unfunny comedy and sentimentality, as well as the feeling that James Whale didn't really care for the material.

17) Halloween (1978): Again, you can't knock it for influence (although its influence has been entirely negative) but I really don't like Halloween. It's very well done, and if you're only going to watch one slasher film, make it either this or the first Nightmare on Elm Street. But if you've seen Halloween once, watching it again becomes a chore as you sit around waiting for likeable characters to take their turn to die.

16) The Cabinet of Dr Caligari (1920): No arguments here! A classic.

15) Dead of Night (1945): This film's popularity baffles me. It's the dullest, most uninteresting anthology of ghost stories I've ever seen, with only its bizarre ending rousing me out of a bored reverie. Despite what The Guardian says, it's not creepy; there's never the slightest frisson of either fear or mystery. Yawn...

14) The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974): No arguments here. The TCM is an assault on the senses that's pretty well unforgettable. One might object to the misogynistic nature of the violence (a distressingly common complaint of 1970s horror films) but it still deserves a place on this list.
13) The Haunting (1963): The best haunted house film ever! Should be higher on the list too.
12) Ring (1998): An innovative and damned creepy contemporary ghost story from Japan. Well worth watching.
11) The Innocents (1961): Up there with The Haunting as the best ghost story ever.
10) Peeping Tom (1960): I saw this years ago, and don't remember much about it except that I thought that it's one of those films that is more interesting to write a thesis about than to actually watch. And at this stage of my life I'm not too keen on watching yet another film about a predatory male murdering women.
9) Vampyr (1932): The Guardian says: " This really is a film that exemplifies the idea of dreaming with our eyes open". And they're right. A great film.
8) Let The Right One In (2008): I haven't seen it, but seeing as teenagers and vampires are two things that, by and large, bore me rigid, I probably won't either.
7) Nosferatu (1922): The exception to the rule above!
6) The Exorcist (1973): Definitely the most overrated horror movie ever! A friend and I rented this on video when it first became available in the late 1990s, expecting to be scared witless. Instead, we were bored out of our minds by the pretentious, exploitative stupidity of it all, and by the end were laughing hysterically and shouting "the power of shite compels you!" every time the priests appeared. Nasty, conservative nonsense. I remember The Exorcist III as being excellent, though (of John Boorman's Exorcist II: The Heretic, let us not speak.)
5) The Shining (1980): Definitely the second most overrated horror movie ever! It has a budget and a look most horror films can only dream of, but is emotionally frigid, full of things that are supposed to be scary but end up being ridiculous (the elevator full of blood), and in the later half degenerates into the Crazy Jack Psycho Pantomime. Watch The Haunting instead, or 'The Shinning', a hilariously accurate parody by The Simpsons.
4) The Wicker Man (1973): I really liked this the first time I saw it, and it's head and shoulders above most of its contemporaries, but I've never been able to watch it again. The inevitability of Edward Woodward's demise (from the moment he lands on the island, he's a dead man), combined with the film's slow pace, seem both sadistic and tiresome to me now, without any deeper philosophical resonance that would make the unpleasantness bearable. From that era, I'd have gone with Michael Reeves' Witchfinder General.
3) Don't Look Now (1973): It's an awfully long time since I've seen this film, but I remember it as being excellent. Shame on The Guardian, though, for printing a picture along with their review which gives away the twist ending! Not everyone has seen these films, you know!
2) Rosemary's Baby (1968): Ignoring the whole "raping a 13-year-old and then fleeing to Europe rather than face the consequences" aspect of Polanski's career, I guess that Rosemary's Baby is an important enough film to warrant inclusion. I'd have gone for Repulsion myself, though.
1) Psycho (1960): It's hard to ignore Psycho's importance and it definitely warrants a place here; however, I have a big problem with the film's structure. The first 45 minutes or so - up to the scene with Norman Bates and the car - are absolutely incredible, and the notorious shower scene remains one of the most disturbing things I've ever seen, primarily because, unlike in so many horror films where characters are expendable meat whose deaths mean nothing, one gets the sense of a real person being killed. However, the film has built to this horrifying climax as Norman watches the car sink into the swamp, and this viewer is left drained and shaking, but there's another hour and a bit to go. Essentially it starts again! But it never reaches the same heights as before, and the rest of the film I've always found a bit anti-climactic. Also, if you're a person who objects to films in which beautiful young women are killed horribly with household implements, this film is pretty hard to tolerate. I much prefer The Birds.
So that's the list. It's rendered worthless, though, by the exclusion of one film, one of the most influential and important horror films ever made. Can you guess what it is? Hint: It's included in a post I wrote last Halloween which recommended some good 'orror.

A Very Short Poem

2010-10-20T20:26:00.000+01:00

The following was written by Sir Charles Sedley (1639 – 1701), described by Wikipedia as "a notorious rake and libertine, part of the "Merry Gang" gang of courtiers which included the Earl of Rochester and Charles Sackville, Lord Buckhurst. In 1663 an indecent frolic in Bow Street, for which he was heavily fined, made Sedley notorious. In this escapade Sedley and Lord Buckhurst stripped off on the balcony of a tavern in Bow Street and assumed various indecent postures with each other before Sedley washed his penis in a glass of wine with which he subsequently drank the king's health." It's entitled 'To Julius' and seems to sum up his view of life:

"Thou swear'st thou'lt drink no more; Kind Heaven send Me such a Cook or Coach-man, but no Friend."

I'm posting this because I want to draw attention to the fact that I've modified my last post to include a short video of the hedgehog that lives in our garden, if you want to see it. I suppose it's lucky not to be a wallaby, as can be shown from this article. One of the surprising things revealed by this is that one needs a license to own a dog, but not a python or a crocodile, and these can be sold on the web without any restriction whatsoever!
Anyway, here's a song:

Wexford Sights (XXI): Down The Garden At Night

2010-10-07T09:47:00.005+01:00

I was watching the wonderful Das Cabinet des Dr Caligari last night when the hound started scratching at the front door to go out. After I'd let him out I went back to my film, but then heard an unholy racket coming from down the garden. The hound was barking with an enthusiasm unusual for that time of night, so I ventured out with the torch, as it was pitch-dark. He was down by the hedge at the bottom of the garden, staring into the undergrowth and letting out yelps of frustration because he was prevented by his electric collar from diving in at whatever he was smelling in there. I shone the torch in and saw a tiny hodgeheg - sorry, hedgehog - curled up in a ball; one could see the spines stretch and contract as it breathed, no doubt terrified of this huge creature threatening it. I dragged the hound back into the house, and got my camera. It's not the best photo in the world, but I'm chuffed with it!

An update: The hedgehog was back last night, and so I took the opportunity to get a better picture. As it was already in a state of terror from our dog's barking, I don't think it made a difference to the frightened creature that I flipped it over to get this picture (I try to avoid hurting or scaring animals unless it's absolutely avoidable (as in putting down mousetraps, and even then I feel guilty as hell when I dump their tiny lifeless bodies in the bin):

And finally: the hedgehog was out in broad daylight today, and I got this short film, which is, I promise, my final word on hedgehogs (unless he does something unexpected, like burst into song or devour our house).

And to go with that, here's a cute Russian cartoon (like a lot of YouTube videos it's framed in widescreen and doesn't fit my Blogger page, but if you go to YouTube there are several versions of it available):

Wexford Sights (XX): More Mushrooms

2010-10-02T21:07:00.000+01:00

The appalling financial news emanating from Ireland this week has depressed me so much that it's hard to focus on it, so I'm trying to concentrate on one of the few positive aspects of life in this benighted country: the extraordinary profusion of different types of fungus (which I've already documented in previous posts). And they can be so transient: the black-rimmed, frilly mushroom in the bottom photograph popped up in a patch of waste ground up the lane beside our house, and two days later it had disappeared, probably flattened by a tractor. But here's a picture more relevant to a whole lot of people living in Ireland today:

Another Rant

2010-09-23T20:19:00.002+01:00

For those lucky enough to be unaware of him, Kevin Myers is a columnist for The Irish Independent newspaper whose idea of 'opinion' is ugly, reactionary bilge, filled with coarse, hysterical hyperbole and belligerent, sarcastic denunciations of anyone who disagrees with him even slightly. Usually, his bullying drivel is hardly worth commenting on - he's one of those writers who seems to feed on tiresomely pointless provocation - but this week's column contains a particularly poisonous misrepresentation of the facts, even for him, so I feel I cannot let it go unchallenged.

Like so many right-wing loudmouths, Myers has a venomous hatred of 'liberals' and 'political correctness', which he uses to refer to anyone he happens to object to at any particular time. In this article (see here) he asks: Just whose moral guidance would you prefer? That of the Pope, or Stephen Fry? His central point seems to be that Fry is a hypocrite for protesting about the Pope's visit to Britain, because he hasn't protested about visits from other heads of state who espouse equally intolerant doctrines, including Jacob Zuma from South Africa (until we get to the end of his article, where he goes into an all-purpose rant about secularism and about how we need a "moral compass", which should be provided by the Pope and other religious types).

Can you spot the central flaw in his argument? It is that the heads of state from South Africa, Russia, Saudi Arabia, or wherever, cannot be said to have any global influence, however odious their domestic policies, and certainly cannot have any influence on policy in the UK. By contrast, the Pope is the head of an worldwide organisation which encourages its followers to put loyalty to itself before loyalty to the state, and which, if allowed, would enthusiastically force everyone in the world to bend the knee to its doctrines, just like it did in Ireland for all those miserable decades. It is also an organisation which views homosexuality as evil, and encourages its followers around the globe to do likewise. Stephen Fry is gay, so is it not fair that when an organisation of global reach labels him, because of his sexuality, as evil, that he protest against it? (This is, of course, not the only reason he objects to the Church; see the video below for his very eloquent defense of his position.)

But that's not what inspired this article. It is Myers' breathtakingly inaccurate and hateful assertion, while talking about the church's opposition to contraception in AIDS-ridden Africa, that:

I could equally declare that the legislators who removed the legal ban on sexual relations between men in the USA brought about 400,000 deaths by AIDS. You might not like it, but that is the indisputable truth: after liberalisation, homosexual men began to behave largely as conservative opponents of that liberalisation had warned they would, to much liberal derision (mine included). As it turned out, the consequences were far worse than predicted. Of course, no letter-writer to 'The Guardian' would ever dream of declaring what was actually true -- that sexual liberalisation helped bring about a human catastrophe. Why? Because liberal laws on sexuality are deemed to be 'good' laws, no matter their consequences, whereas Catholic laws on human sexuality are necessarily 'bad' laws, even if their consequences are largely identical.

Where does one begin with such a vile and misleading comment, assuming that Myers is talking about the devastation caused by AIDS in gay communities in places like San Francisco in the early eighties? To claim "that sexual liberalisation helped bring about a human catastrophe" is preposterous, for he wilfully ignores that, in the late seventies, almost nobody knew that AIDS existed! AIDS was a catastrophe for many, but it was not a "consequence" of lifting the ban on homosexuality, any more than being killed by a out-of-control car is a "consequence" of walking on a footpath! There was no reason to believe, in the 1970s, that removing the ban on homosexuality was anything other than admirable and enlightened; as I said before, nobody could have predicted AIDS was around the corner. Conservatives objected to such sexual liberalisation not out of concern for gay men's health; it was because (for whatever reason) they opposed the very idea of homosexuality being accepted by society. Besides, being criminalised has never stopped gay men from having sex, has it? Although it has certainly made their lives more painful and difficult. But, and correct me if I'm wrong, it wasn't until 1982 that the connection was made between the abnormally high illness rate in seemingly healthy gay men and their lifestyle.
Is Myers saying that it was wrong to decriminalise homosexuality on the grounds that legislators should have taken into account a disease which they had no reason to suspect existed? Or that gay men should thank conservatives of the time for objecting to this law, on the same grounds? What kind of nonsense is this? The media at the time liked to portray AIDS as a "gay plague", but in 1982, "[h]ealth authorities soon realised that nearly half of the people identified with the syndrome were not homosexual men. The same opportunistic infections were also reported among haemophiliacs, heterosexual intravenous drug users, and Haitian immigrants" (see here). And what happened in gay communities once the nature of AIDS was understood? They put rubber sheaths over their members and went back to enjoying their sexuality, in the knowledge that they could not be thrown in jail for doing so. And more power to them, I say! I'm open to correction here, but the same laws still exist in the US today, don't they? But the AIDS epidemic among gay men, as it existed in the early 1980s, is now merely a cautionary and tragic history lesson.

To claim that the Catholic Church's objection to the use of condoms in Africa, in an era in which the method of transmission of AIDS is understood fully, is anything other than reprehensible, is misguided to say the least. Condoms are not infallible - nothing is - but in the battle against AIDS they are a vital tool to prevent its spread, and should be encouraged, along with abstinence and faithfulness to one partner only. To fail to do so is not just irresponsible; it is despicable. And I do not object to the Catholic prohibition on condoms in Africa simply because it is the official position of the Catholic Church, based as it is on their twisted and puritanical view of sexuality, and because as a secular atheist and occasional Guardian reader I automatically and instantly object to anything the Catholic Church ever says on any subject. Being able to think for myself and weigh up evidence, I disagree with it because I believe it is a dangerous and ill-advised strategy (and, by the way, it's not a 'law') that will result in people dying needlessly.

Let us also point out the most laughable aspect of Myers' article: that we should turn to the Pope for moral guidance! I'm sorry, but the words "fifty" and "year" and "cover-up" and "child rape" just do keep coming to mind, don't they? And these words are indelibly linked with "Catholic" and "dominance" and "Ireland" in my mind, seeing as we were under the thumb of the Vatican for such a long time. No matter how often the Pope wants to lecture a secular atheist like myself on morality, the beam in his own eye will always be greater than the mote in mine! And Myers seems to be taking the approach of a lot of Catholic apologists here, in that he chooses to completely ignore this major aspect of the Church's recent history. No matter how thoughtful or laudatory the Pope's teachings on other matters may be, and by all accounts he is a fine theologian, this festering, poisonous moral lapse at the very heart of the church will invalidate everything he says until such time as he and his fellow clergymen make full restitution for their crimes.
A while back I wrote a post (here) about the tactics the Catholic Church uses to justify its appalling record on child abuse, but there was one I missed which is becoming more and more prevalent. This is, as Kevin Myers demonstrates, to attack anyone who objects to the Church or the Pope as an intolerant secularist, and to claim that secularism is somehow responsible for the supposed decline in moral values in society (because Ireland in the 1950s was such a fucking moral place, wasn't it?). Ignoring the fact that, by and large, the Catholic Church has shown nothing but intolerance throughout its 2000-year history for anyone who questioned its dogmas or, more crucially, its power, most atheists and secularists that I know are entirely tolerant of other people's faith. I should know; my partner is a Catholic! Some are not, I admit, but any intolerance on the secular side can be matched above and beyond the call of duty on the religious side. It's a smear campaign, of course; Catholic apologists will dig up the most fervent, fanatically anti-religious types and insist that they are entirely representative of anyone who has any kind of issue with the church, thus enabling them to dismiss any valid argument brought against themselves as "secular intolerance". Well, I have no problem with religion of any kind as long as it respects my choice not to worship at its altars and doesn't insist that its beliefs are enshrined in law, but this view has never been shared by the Catholic Church, which has always sought to force everyone within its orbit to behave according to its strictures. But here's the man himself, Stephen Fry, discussing why he believes the Catholic Church is not a force for good in the world (and my apologies for borrowing one or two of his ideas in the above). Tell me if you spot any secular intolerance.
An update: a letter to the Irish Independent here.

The Purple Mushroom

2010-09-15T08:37:00.004+01:00

My partner was walking in the same glade where I took the previous mushroom photos (in the last post but one), and noticed this little beauty poking through the undergrowth. The image has not been treated in any way: it really is that colour! Imagine the appearance of a soup made from those (assuming, of course, that they are not bowel-shatteringly poisonous...) (I am aware that there is an extreme rude meaning to the phrase 'purple mushroom', but I'll not go into it here.)

Cycling in County Wexford

2010-09-13T20:40:00.004+01:00

Being too poor to afford membership of a gym or a swimming pool, I recently got on my bike (as they say) and took up cycling the local roads as a form of exercise. This activity, although physically rewarding, is not without perils. The following guidelines for cycling safely on Ireland's inconstant country roads applies only to daylight perambulation; cycling by night on the same unlit roads is only for those who feel they have little left to live for; unlike in well-lit urban centres, the enveloping rural darkness will not be illuminated by the brightest clip-on torch on your handlebars, and even the most brilliantly lit cyclist runs the almost inevitable risk of ending up as a nasty stretched stain on the tarmac.

When venturing forth in daylight, you must firstly, of course, take into account the weather. The last few months have, by and large, been exceptionally pleasant and warm, but you know in your heart, as sure as rain follows the sunshine, that ... er ... the rain will follow the sunshine, and you stands a good chance of being soaked through on your excursion. Rain gear in a backpack is a must, for if you wear it and the sun is glowing like a 1000w bulb, you will rapidly become lathered in sweat and pass out with heatstroke. Of course, when the deluge starts with little warning and visibility is reduced to a few feet by the sheets of rain, by the time you've leapt off your bike, opened your backpack, wrestled your coiled-up rain gear out of it, picked up the map that fell out and began transforming into illegible clotted paper sludge, and got your over-trousers and plastic jacket on, you'll be sodden anyway. Besides, for me, wearing glasses means that my visibility will be minimal in any case, rendering progress difficult. I remember once in Dublin, the rain was sheeting at such an angle that it went over the tops of my spectacles and beat directly on my eyeballs like little lasers. What fun... Surface water will also render certain parts of the roads slippy and lethal, especially if hurtling downhill. "A bad wet death", as Sergeant Pluck would say, could be the outcome, so caution is advised. On rainy days it can be hard to tell whether the puddle you're heading towards is simply a skin of water on the tarmac or a submerged pothole; you'll find out as it severely dents your front tyre and hurls you over the handlebars into the ditch.

The heat which we've recently enjoyed has been wonderful; the only drawback while cycling, aside from the risk of dehydration (bring ample water) and occasional blindness (wear sunglasses if you can), is the propensity of insects to fly into your face or, more disconcertingly, into your open mouth. Trying to maintain control of your bike while going downhill with an angry wasp lodged in your throat is not recommended. And on sunny days, the luxuriant vegetation creates deep pools of shadows which may hide potholes, so constant vigilance is mandatory.

Next, there is the roads. One has two choices: the main roads (where one risks being killed by speeding motorists) and the side roads (where one risks being killed by speeding motorists). The main roads have the advantage of being wide (more room for cars to pull out when passing you) and having (relatively) good verges. They also tend to be straighter, thus giving the passing motorists more time to see you, and either take evasive action or throw rubbish and insults out the window as they fly past. One may at times have to pull out to avoid roadkill, which can range from the standard mashed rats and rabbits to the rarer badger, cat, and, occasionally, stray dog (I passed a handsome and very dead sheepdog lying stiff and cold on the main road to Wexford two days ago, a sight which depressed me inordinately). Side roads, on the other hand, are quite often appallingly surfaced, with open potholes, crudely filled potholes, crumbling verges, hidden entrances, and overgrown hedgerows, which lash the bare arms with briars and nettles as you cycle past. They are also fiendishly winding and home to hairpin bends, a fact which doesn't prevent the locals from driving at ridiculously high speeds. There is also the ever-present danger of half-blind elderly motorists pulling put of their hidden driveways right in front of you, then muttering vaguely "what was that?" after you've smashed into the side of their car, gone head over heels through the air, and been embedded in the road like a hairy pancake.

It must also be remembered that on rural roads local dogs will chase your bike and sometimes try to latch on to your leg; amusing if it's a terrier, not so amusing if it's an rottweiler. Make sure your water-bottle is clipped to your bike and has a nozzle; that way you can spray them in the face, something most dogs hate. Never oiling your brakes can also work; the unmerciful screech as you slow down will frighten off all but the most determined. In the case where neither works and the horrid little brute is trying to tear a chunk out of your exposed calf, a boot in the face will usually do the job, although it's not to be admired.

Remember at all times that you are an unexpected sight on most Irish roads, especially of the main ones. The average God-fearing Irish(wo)man cannot conceive of travelling anywhere except by car, and believes that bikes and buses are for people who are too young, too old, or too poor to afford one. Women on bikes in particular can occasionally be subject to crude exhortations or outright abuse from passing boneheads, which explains why they are a very rare sight indeed (except on Sundays, when various sporting groups take to the roads). And remember a story of what happened to a friend of mine several years ago: while she was out cycling with a companion on a bright summer afternoon in the hard shoulder, a motorcyclist decided to give them as scare by driving between them. Unfortunately, he misjudged the distance between the two, hit off the girl on the outside, lost control of his motorbike, and slammed into my friend, throwing her over the handlebars for some distance and knocking her unconscious. She was fine afterwards, but still bears a small scar on her forehead as a result of this irresponsible dimwit. Happy cycling, y'all!

Wexford Sights (XVIX): Mushrooms

2010-09-12T16:44:00.009+01:00

There's a wood near me which is little visited and therefore fairly undisturbed, and the recent rain, combined with the still-warm weather, has lead to an eruption of mushrooms, some of which are shown above. I wonder which of them are edible; I imagine the red one isn't! Note the slug in the bottom two photos, heading towards the mushroom with breakfast in mind, no doubt. The top image is of an unusual (to me) tree fungus, a mushroom growing around a lump on the bark which looks disconcertingly like a gnome's urinal. The place was also alive with industrious spiders, one of whom I captured brooding at the centre of his web.

Wexford Sights (XVIII): After The Rain

2010-09-05T14:29:00.005+01:00

Some photos taken after the recent rain. The top and bottom images are of spiderwebs adorned with little droplets of water. I'd have posted more, but the macro lens on my camera is acting up. An addition, as I sit here on this dark windy night wondering if the internet single will last long enough to post it: there's a guy called James Kirby who goes under the moniker of V/Vm, and specialises in deranged remixes of popular songs, transforming them into often nightmarish reflections. He's best known for his very creepy version of Chris de Burgh's awful 'Lady in Red' (found on YouTube here), but the following made me laugh out loud in the way that it so brilliantly undermines the original:

If you're interested, there's more on V/Vm here.

Wexford Sights (XVII)

2010-08-27T20:53:00.008+01:00

It's fruit-pickin' time here in Chez Doubtful! There is a little-visited field near our house that is home to a dense tangle of briars on which hang the juiciest and most succulent blackberries, and this afternoon my wife and I filled several shopping bags with as many as we could carry (this barely made a dent on their abundance!). Tomorrow we make jam! We were not the only ones craving these tasty treats, though; hundreds of hungry insects were also there in force, making the most of Nature's plenitude. Above are a handful of pictures I took while there, including a strange funnel-like spiderweb in the gorse that I found fascinating.

Of course, in case this is all simply too rural and idyllic for some, here's something decidedly hip and funky from LA:

Put the Needle on the Record (VIII)

2010-08-26T10:09:00.006+01:00

Graham Dalley at the Barn (Hollick & Taylor, 1966)

I would have bought this LP, no matter what its musical content, on the strength of the cover art alone. There’s something both hilarious and sinister about it, almost like an homage to the great Surrealist photo-montages, except that it decorates an LP whose music can only be described as the easiest of easy listening. Is Graham Dalley the head on the platter, as I am led to believe based on perusing the photos on the back, or the great bearded face behind? Why is the severed head so jolly, actually winking at us in spite of its dismembered state and the apple in its mouth? There’s something supremely decadent about it all. I mean, look at the raised eyebrows and sleazy grin of the great bearded face; there’s no way that a person wearing such an expression is up to anything wholesome or tasteful! Perhaps the metal tray is actually a large collar, and the rest of Mr Dalley is on the other side of it, which makes the bearded face’s expression all the more ambiguous. Why is the plattered head's ears stuffed with parsley? So many questions ... Is it making allusions to John the Baptist? Was Graham Dalley convinced that he was merely the herald of an even greater visionary, one whose music was so smooth and eventless that it would bring about world peace and happiness? Is the giant face in the background a rock-and-roll Herod? It's all more Dali than Dalley! (Thanks go to Claudia for that particular observation.)

“Hold on, hold on,” you may interject at this word-in-edgewise point, “Can you please cut the horse-crap for a sec and tell us who the hell Graham Dalley was?” Well, the short answer is that I don’t really know, as the internet, source of all entirely reliable and well-researched facts, is sadly bare of any in relation to Mr Dalley (it does mention singer Alan Hemus, one of the record's two vocalists, but as a comic book illustrator rather than a singer, so I doubt that it’s the same person, and the other vocalist on this recording, "dark-eyed songthrush ... of Old Hongkong [sic]" Renee Barce, has vanished from popular gaze.) Based on the evidence of this record, he was a jobbing bandleader who no doubt shunted his gear around the UK in the 1960s, playing bland, inoffensive versions of popular songs such as ‘Zambezi’, ‘The Folks on the Hill’ and ‘Sayonara’ in middle-of-the-road restaurants, of which The Barn in Birmingham was one (hence the bizarre LP cover; although I suspect that this record, which purports to be a live recording in the Barn, was made in a studio and the sound of happy, toe-tapping diners that bookend each song were edited to fool the gullible). Or, according to the liner notes: “It was a great night out. The food and the wine and the mood and the music; you’re going to store it all away in some sweet corner of life’s memories to hold against less magical moments when you want to recall the rosy glow of friendliness and warmth which is the essence of our fare. At any rate, that’s how we hope you feel.” Hmmm ... Here's the man himself in action:

So if an overwrought version of the Beatles' 'Yesterday' played in that style is your thang, then this album is for you. Good luck finding a copy, though; I got mine in the damp-smelling back room of a tumbledown antique shop for €1, and have no idea where one would find another.

What interests me about this music is that it gives an insight into what people were actually listening to in the 1960s. We tend to have this notion that everyone was grooving to the Beatles and the Stones and - well, whoever is included on The Best Sixties Album In The World Ever! style compilations - whereas in fact the majority of people were probably more comfortable with music like this rather than the caterwaulings of scruffy ruffians like Mick 'n' Keef or The Who ("Isn't that what those mod hooligans listen to before smashing up Brighton?" Their song 'My Generation' was probably aimed at the sort of people who listened to Graham Dalley and his peers). It is sometimes misleading to assume that whatever is popular in our era, especially based on what has lasted the test of time, gives an accurate idea of what was actually listened to in 1966 (or whenever), because society was much more constrictive and conservative than it is now. When you pull out the record sleeves on these LPs, you will often see adverts for other records, usually by people that nobody other than cultural historians will be able to identify. The Inimitable Ronnie Rolande! Mark Wynter! Max Jaffa! Los Zafarinos Ole! Ivy Pete and his Limbomaniacs! But I suppose the (not-terribly-original) point I'm trying to make is: how much of the music that's listened to today will be 2040's Mark Wynter and Graham Dalley? Assuming that there's still a habitable planet at that stage, of course ... And to finish, here's something about as far from Graham Dalley as is probably possible:

An Amusement (XXV)

2010-08-23T20:19:00.004+01:00

The following is something I find quite bizarre: someone took the Beatles' song "I'm So Tired" (from The White Album) and not only played it backwards, but wrote out lyrics based on the reversed vocal sounds. It's a fine example of this. The chorus ('I'd give you everything I've got for a little piece of mind') has become 'and I'm no simpleton without my history with you'. I've included this for two reasons: firstly, because the song (when unreversed) contains one of my favourite couplets ('although I'm so tired, I'll have another cigarette/and curse Sir Walter Raleigh; he was such a stupid git!'), and secondly, because it's a rather apt title considering I visited my consultant today and he confirmed that it is more than likely I have Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, which is a bit of a nuisance.

A Curiosity

2010-08-18T17:46:00.004+01:00

While relaxing out on our back step and enjoying a ruddy goblet of plonk, my partner noticed this strange little structure on the leaf of our (now sadly deceased) fig tree. Can any of my more horticulturally minded readers shed some light on what it is? It's about 5 millimetres across, and is the only one on the leaves that we can find.

Wexford Sights: Stained Glass (V)

2010-08-13T14:53:00.006+01:00

The above images are of two windows in the very attractive late 19th century Catholic church in Oulart, a small village just off the R741 on the way to Wexford. Unusually, they are signed and dated; a small legend on the bottom of one (see the fifth picture) identifies them as being by Earley & Co, a Dublin company, and made in 1942. Again, they show the heavy influence of Harry Clarke, not surprisingly as Clarke's studio kept running for years after his death (until 1973) and would probably have been in competition with Earley & Co. My apologies about the slight blurriness in some of the images; my camera is having slight problems with focusing! I quite like these windows; the colours are very strong, and even imitation Clarke can be preferable to a lot of the blandly "modern" glass (or the Victorian hackwork) which one encounters so often in churches.

Wexford Sights (XVI): The Saltee Islands (II)

2010-08-12T21:08:00.005+01:00

More photos from the Saltees, except for the last image, which is of a seal which followed our boat into the harbour.

Wexford Sights (XVI): The Saltee Islands (I)

2010-08-12T20:17:00.009+01:00

The above photographs were taken last Sunday on the Saltee Islands, just off the south coast of County Wexford. On a rock at the far end of the island is a huge gannet colony; the noise, smell, and sight of this is quite breathtaking. The photo of the cave is worth clicking on to enlarge, as in the thumbnail you may not see all the birds around the entrance...

Click on the link to see a map of the island.

An Amusement (XXIV)

2010-08-11T11:57:00.005+01:00

While in Arklow recently, I picked up a copy of Delmore Schwartz's Selected Poems: Summer Knowledge in a charity shop. This in itself was a surprise, as Schwartz would be very obscure by Irish standards and was quite out of place amidst the Roddy Doyles and Cecelia Aherns. But when I got it home I found in the back a postcard and a letter, written by different hands, which are both a fascinating glimpse into a life and a reminder of the little losses that occur to us as we shuffle along this mortal coil. I've changed the names and a few details to preserve the anonymity of the people in question.

First, the postcard. On the front is a picture of the Flatiron Building in New York, and a watermark on the back dates it to 1987. The text reads as follows:

[Written across the top:] This card is belated by about three months. Please excuse.
[Main text:] Hi Alan, How are things in Chicago? Sorry for not getting in touch sooner but we were very busy getting settled in initially so I'm really only starting to write to people now. Everything is going great here in NY - my social life is really just starting to take off right now, I was at a great party last Friday night with people who are working with me and got pee-eyed [sic] - twas a good laugh all the same. I have about three different jobs at the moment - two part-time and one full-time. I'll be in touch soon.

The message isn't signed, but the writer's name and address are written on the top of the card. Which is just as well, because stamped underneath the recipient's address is: Returned to Sender: Moved - Not Forwardable.

The letter is handwritten in pencil on a small sheet of cheap white paper which looks like it was pulled out of a notebook of some kind. It has no envelope, and is marked with small brown stains and smudges which resemble burn marks, as if it was held too close to a candle. Neither the recipient nor the writer are identified. The full text is as follows (I've stuck as closely as possible to the original style of writing):

Sitting down, Pink Floyd playing, looking through slides, sorting the damn things out, it brings it all back, boy did we have some good times, [illegible word], the buildings of Bogota, high ideals [?], the truck, Cartegena, Armero - I can hardly look at these - the Palacio, Gerardo, La Candelaria, the trips with Murphy & Co, Sonny, Frederico, I even came across [illegible word], La Universidad, [illegible word; possibly Bermuda]. Remember it all for five minutes, don't know if it will ever be the same again - we were a good pair. Go back now to high living, dollars and the unfulfilled American dream, enjoy it.
Nos Vamos Amigo [Written beneath and underlined]

Curiously, the book has the name of the postcard's recipient (who I've called Alan) written above the title page, which suggests that it belonged to him and was borrowed, or gifted, to the writer of the postcard (who I'll call Brendan). The letter is a mystery, as I don't know whether it was written to Alan or Brendan (or possibly was in the book already if Alan bought it second hand). The mention of Murphy & Co certainly suggests an Irish connection that would tie in with the writer of the postcard, but that's obviously pure speculation. What is clear is that she (my partner and I have little doubt that it was written by a woman) travelled to Colombia with the intended recipient of the letter and some others, and that he (?) has returned to the US. What is clear is that Brendan was in the US in the 1980s, and at some point returned to Ireland (but perhaps he didn't; perhaps the book returned with a visiting relative or friend). Perhaps he was on a student visa, or had emigrated. At this stage, it's 23 years since the postcard was sent, and more than likely the same length of time since the letter was written, so it's all well in the past now.

I had a moment's hesitation before writing this, as I wondered if I was violating the privacy of the people involved by publishing their correspondence. After some thought I decided that if you value your privacy, you shouldn't leave your correspondence in books that you bring to the charity shop. Before selling books, I always check them for old letters, photographs, and the like, for that very reason. Besides, I feel that I have changed the details enough (without changing the sense) to protect the identities of those mentioned. Anyway, here's an apt song:

The Perils Of Renting DVDs...

2010-07-21T13:57:00.012+01:00

"I hate subtitled films! I want to watch
The Fast and the Furious, not Sergei
Sludganovsky's Dreariness: A Life in Mud!"

My better half recently went into a video shop in County Wexford to rent Michael Haneke's The White Ribbon, or Das weiße Band, Eine deutsche Kindergeschichte (if you want to use its German title). (Am I showing my age by saying "video shop"?) When she brought it up to the counter, the clerk said: "You know that's a foreign film?". What was the correct response?

A) "Thank you, I know that." (optional: "Even if I didn't know about the film, which won the Palmes d'Or at Cannes, I did actually read the DVD box. And, if you wish to be pedantic, practically all your stock comprises of foreign films, seeing as the US is not part of Ireland. What you mean is that it's a foreign language film, and therefore subtitled, something which may throw members of the Plain People of Ireland into paroxysms of rage after they get home and discover that, in addition to having to do a little light reading while watching their film, it may expose them to dangerously high levels of Art, entirely undiluted by thick levels of populist, pandering entertainment (something that no God-fearing Irish citizen wants))."

B) "Jaysus, I'd better put it back then, coz reading is for pansies, which is why I brought it all the way to the counter in the first place, being too lazy (or unable) to read the DVD box. Besides, European films don't have nearly enough car chases, flatulence-based humour, big guns, superheroes, happy endings, or vapid, unconvincing romances. Now where's that copy of Iron Man 8?"

C) "Oh Christ no! Nooooooooooo!" (This is screamed at the top of your lungs. You then hurl the DVD across the shop, punch the clerk in the face, and run from the shop yelling "I need a priest! I touched it!", fearing that if you don't have your hand blessed, it may wither off from contact with such a gross evil. After this, you organise an angry mob with pitchforks and torches, carrying signs declaring "Being Irish, we only want English films!" and "No subtitled films except Godfather II and Avatar!")

Okay, I know that I've (not unusually) gone a bit over the top here, but this attitude really annoys me. The clerk in the shop has obviously been informed by management to warn people if it's a subtitled film, which says a lot about Irish attitudes to cinema (as does the pathetically inadequate stock in every DVD shop). Why do so many Irish people have such an aversion to films with writing along the bottom of the screen? To be honest, I don't really care...

But hark! let us abandon the world of the local DVD shop and head to the cinema! What do we find? Well the SGC in Enniscorthy is showing Toy Story 3 (unnecessary sequel), Shrek: Forever After (unnecessary sequel), Twilight Saga: Eclipse (unnecessary sequel, primarily for teenagers, I believe (the whole Twilight phenomenon has, thankfully, passed me by)), Predators (unnecessary sequel), The Karate Kid (unnecessary remake of a silly 1980s film), and The A-Team (unnecessary remake of a silly 1980s TV show). So is the Wexford Omniplex, the Arklow multiplex, and the Gorey multiplex. Those three are also showing The Rebound (which sounds vacuous) and Inception (the only thing that looks bearable). In addition, Gorey and Arklow are showing The Tooth Fairy (Gorey and Arklow), and Get Him To The Greek (Arklow), which look unbearable, as well as His & Hers (Gorey), which is at least Irish, but such is my antipathy towards Ireland at the moment that I'd rather shave my face with an angle-grinder than sit through a film about this country. Looks like the cinema ain't an option this weekend, unless I'm struck by lightning and lose two-thirds of my brain (or a freak time-travel accident regresses me to the age of 14). Thank God I picked up a copy of Woman in the Dunes in the Oxfam shop for a euro!

Wexford Sights (XV)

2010-07-19T21:23:00.012+01:00

After reading this, I had to go out into nature and stare up at the sky, thinking of the joy I'll feel when, hopefully, at some point in the next five years, I'll be sitting on a plane with a one-way ticket to anywhere other than here. It wasn't all rage-filled musing, though; as I looked up to the sky I was thinking that behind the glorious blue expanse above me, somewhere out in the immensity of the Universe, is this. I was also amused by the stand-off between a frisky young cow and our not-as-brave-as-he-thinks-he-is hound; although cows have gifted us with the pejorative phrase 'bovine', they can be pretty fearsome when they run at you! But back to the original link: why in the name of all that's tiny and ferret-like would anyone pay tuppence to hear Bertie Ahern speak? William Burroughs's phrase 'the talking asshole' from Naked Lunch is a very succinct description of him ("Did I ever tell you about the nation that taught its asshole to talk? It would blather on about 'de economy' and 'de peace process' day and night..."). To be honest, I'd rather listen to this:

I Haven't Felt This Way Since "Funky Town"! (XII)

2010-07-17T18:14:00.003+01:00

A change from stained glass this time! Above are pictures of what I believe is a ringed plover, taken on the beach in Ballinoulart. It was difficult to get any photos of them at all; partly because of the way they dart about unpredictably, but also because of a certain hairy creature who thinks it's the best fun in the world to chase them up and down the beach (the bottom photo was initially a nicely composed shot of a bird, but then...). Anyway, on to the music.

It's hard to imagine a performer whose music means more to me than Miles Davis; certainly, his music from 1945 to 1975 is full of moments that are so profoundly beautiful and powerful that they leave a clumsy writer such as myself speechless. To put it simply: an album such as In A Silent Way makes life worth living when few other things do, and there's not a whole lot of music that you can say that about. The following is a pretty fierce and vital set from 1970's Isle of Wight Festival (the music starts at about the 3.55 mark if you want to skip the introduction). Enjoy!

Wexford Sights: Stained Glass (IV)

2010-07-16T20:20:00.008+01:00

Today's images come from the charming and well-preserved Catholic church in Crossabeg, a few miles north of Wexford town. These images (of St Cillian and St Aidan) are just to the left of the altar and, although quite traditional, are unusual for their very strong Celtic motifs: the use of The Book of Kells-style spirals is not often seen in stained glass (at least, not in Wexford and by me!)

Wexford Sights: Stained Glass (III)

2010-07-15T13:42:00.008+01:00

I know, I know: more stained glass! These come from the Catholic church in Kilmuckridge, a small village on the R742 about twenty miles south of Gorey. The top picture here is the interesting one, as it's an image of St John the Evangelist as rendered by noted glass artist Michael Healy, best known for the superb glass at Loughrea Cathedral (a brief biography of Healy can be found here). His Evangelist is quite the fin-de-siecle aesthete! The other two windows are by artists unknown (to me); the "St George Slaying the Dragon" is finely coloured.

Wexford Sights: Stained Glass (II)

2010-07-14T16:32:00.017+01:00

Today's images come from the Catholic church in Monamolin, a tiny village just off the R741 before Ballyedmond. The church itself is decidedly uninteresting, except for one feature: the two windows above, both of these images (of St Aidan and St Brigid) are products of J. Clarke & Sons Studios in Dublin (as can be seen from the signature, unusual in stained glass, in the bottom left-hand corner). Joshua Clarke was the father of one Harry, Ireland's best-known stained-glass artist, and it's possible that the young lad may have contributed to these windows (although they are entirely traditional, if of very fine quality). Note the Celtic patterns in the border; see here for further information on the Celtic influence in stained glass at the time (as well as an amusing and depressing description of what stained glass artists had to put up with from patrons)). Pictured below is the more modern window behind the balcony facing the altar. In reality, it's a fine example of how the luminous quality of the coloured glass can make what's a rather ordinary composition quite impressive (scale also helps, of course!).

(Once again, if you're not a stained-glass person, here's a link that's quite interesting. Click on the 'zoom out' buttons on the bottom: it certainly gives a sense of perspective!)

Wexford Sights: Stained Glass (I)

2010-07-11T19:32:00.011+01:00

Stained glass remains a sadly underrated and under-utilised medium in art, primarily because of its high cost to produce, its association with decorative and ecclesiastical settings, and the very low quality, aesthetically speaking, of most stained glass work. Location also presents a problem: anyone wishing to see a lot of Harry Clarke's work, for example, must travel to destinations all over the country and beyond, and holding a retrospective would involve removing (often enormous) windows from functioning churches (which also means seeing them out of context). I love stained glass; the sheer beauty of the colour as the sunlight pours through a fine window is a magnificent experience. Anyway, seeing as I have an awful lot of photos of stained glass windows from all over County Wexford (only those in the remote north and west parts have escaped me so far), I'd like to share some of them with my faithful readers. None of them (aside from one or two of the Harry Clarkes) come even close to great art, but they are interesting (to me at least), and that's good enough for me.

The above image is from the Askamore Catholic parish church, a remote place in north-west Wexford. This window dates from the 1930s, and is fairly typical of the period, but I have no idea who executed it, as there's no signature (possibly Earley & Co?). It shows the clear influence of Harry Clarke in the texture of the drapery, and the shape and seemingly arbitrary multi-coloured panes around the central figure have the unfortunate tendency of making it look like a jukebox. It is behind the balcony that faces the altar; obviously at some point the balcony was raised, partially blocking the window, and pews have been placed across it, as can be seen from the top photo. It's a shame, because not a bad little window, but that's not the worst example of this; in Tagoat church, a large three-light window has had an pipe organ placed in front of it, blocking a large section of the composition. (I'm also intrigued by the sentence fragment: "My Jesus Mercy"?) The rest of the windows are more modern, and much less interesting (colourless stained glass is about as interesting as white sliced bread, to be honest).

The images below come from the Catholic church in Craanford, about ten miles or so from Askamore. These windows are the only stained glass in the church, and are behind the altar.The colours are superb, especially when the light hits them right, but there is little in the way of inspiration or excitement; they are simply decorative illustrations in glass made by businessmen to fill a niche in the market. I've included them because they are typical examples of the kind of glass favoured by late Victorian churches and turned out by commercial companies such as Mayers of Munich. In the church-building boom of the Victorian era, stained-glass manufacture was very lucrative!

And if you find this all too boring, here's something a wee bit funky:

Wexford Sights (XIV)

2010-06-17T21:20:00.009+01:00

Just a series of photographs taken within the last month or so. From the top:

Myself at Ballinoulart (my surly expression can be explained by the fact that I was suffering rather badly from hayfever);

the windmills at Ballinoulart;

two geese at the Slob bird sanctuary, in south County Wexford (aren't geese the most hilarious birds around?);

a close-up shot of the tip of a budding fern;

a field of rapeseed just south of Gorey.

I'm currently reading an odd and very long book called The Death Of My Brother Abel by a guy called Gregor Von Rezzori, about a guy in a hotel room rambling on about why it's hard to write the book he's writing about his life, Europe, and other sundry matter; it's either a masterpiece, or self-indulgent waffle of the highest order (I haven't quite decided yet). The last film I watched was David Cronenberg's messy and unpleasant debut Shivers, and the last piece of music I listened to was Lili Boulanger's Clairières dans le ciel (picked up, as are most of my current purchases, in a charity shop for two euro). I don't normally like classical songs, or leider, but these are very beautiful. Here's a sample (which is not the same as the issue I have, as the vocals are performed by a contralto rather than soprano as scored).

Wexford Sights (XIII)

2010-05-07T21:26:00.008+01:00

Yes, yes, I know: more bloody photography instead of anything more substantial! In the interests of giving more bang for the buck (so to speak), I could write:

When I arrived at Tinaberna Strand this afternoon to walk the hound, I found that some pustulent scumbucket had dumped a load of rubbish in the car-parking area (pictured below). I've always thought that a good way to deter this behaviour would be to force those who indulge in such despoiling activities, if caught, to eat all the rubbish that they dumped. It could be a TV series: Eating That Rubbish, presented by Marty Whelan! ("And here in the RTE studios we have the O'Nobody family from Waterford, who dumped several bags of household waste at Tramore! Let's see how many of the tin cans and soiled diapers this family of four can consume before they have to be hospitalised! The rubbish has been compacted, sterilized, and treated to avoid any fatalities, but it still tastes bloody awful! For every kilo consumed we'll donate 10 euro to charity!" And so forth...) I understand that people may have difficulties paying bin charges, but why can't they dump their trash in front of the council's offices in protest? You know, do something positive about it rather than wrecking beautiful stretches of countryside? But if you don't approve of the horrible cruelty of the above concept, here's another way of encouraging people to save stuff rather than dumping it (I have no idea who these people are, but I particularly love the rubber-glove bagpipes):

Wexford Sights (XII)

2010-05-03T18:55:00.010+01:00

The joys of a powerful zoom lens: a grey heron waits for his dinner to swim by, photographed as my partner and I walked along the towpath by the River Barrow at Graiguenamanagh in County Kilkenny. (The crude red squares on the top photo show the distance involved.) The heron is rather like the following filmmaker, catching his images:

Wexford Sights (XI)

2010-05-02T10:29:00.008+01:00

It's a sure sign of summer when the dunes of the local beach become overrun with millions of snails, chowin' down on the plants and the prodigious quantities of rabbit droppings that litter the area (the snail in the second picture can be seen heading for one). I apologise for the fact that the third picture is slightly out of focus (always a risk with a macro lens), but I like the unexpected appearance of the ant. Above is a photo of our hound rolling vigorously on what I later discovered, by the appalling stench off of his fur, was horse manure. Asked if he had ever listened to Stockhausen, Sir Thomas Beecham replied, "No, but I once trod in some." So here's a fine piece of music to accompany both the beautiful snail shells and my dog rolling in some Sir Thomas Beecham (sorry, I couldn't resist...)

Midnight in Dublin

2010-04-25T19:29:00.009+01:00

“Loneliness is a desire for what is not there with you. You can be lonely for an infinite number of things, people, feelings – whatever creates a void in your life with its absence. Sometimes your loneliness has nothing to attach itself to. You’re just lonely, flat out ... Loneliness is energy. Powerful as hell. People make themselves sick on loneliness. They drink themselves into the floorboards. They do all kind of damaging things to themselves to combat their loneliness ... Life is capable of driving you out of your mind.” (Henry Rollins)

[Note: The deliberately shaky photo above was taken at the St Stephen's Green Luas stop at midnight, facing towards Grafton Street. And I must point out that I have no idea what the song I've included below is actually about, but I like the melody, and I feel that the combination of image/text/song work together nicely...]

An Amusement (XXII)

2010-04-23T20:02:00.005+01:00

Like, I would imagine, a lot of people, I'm familiar with the animated character Betty Boop without actually seeing any of the cartoons in which she appeared. They're very much of their time (some shockingly so; 1935's 'Making Stars' is a reminder of early Hollywood's racist stereotyping), but what surprised me is just how strange and imaginative they are (the very surreal 'Bimbo's Initiation' is like a Disney version of Jan Svankmajer's 'The Flat' (the first half of which I've also included)). I'm off to watch some more, but I'll leave you these three to enjoy (they're each about seven minutes' long.) 'Ha! Ha! Ha!' dates from 1934, 'Betty Boop MD' from 1932, and 'Bimbo's Initiation' (Bimbo's a male character, by the way) from 1931.

Some Random Pictures...

2010-04-22T19:54:00.006+01:00

The sunset, as viewed through the trees across from my house; weed growing in a stream by the sea at Morriscastle; and the hound expressing himself (he was fed up because I'd spent the whole day tiling our bathroom rather than bringing him for a walk). While I was cutting tiles outside a guy pulled up and offered to tarmac our (admittedly weed-strewn and potholed) driveway for E2,500 (reduced from E4,500!). Sadly, I don't have a spare E2,500 lying about. (Times must be hard, not to say desperate, if building contractors are going door-to-door to drum up business!) And because I'm too tired and lazy to write anything interesting, here's some fine music (it's Part 1 & 2 of the same performance, and if you want more, there's lots of footage from the same concert on YouTube):

I Haven't Felt This Way Since "Funky Town"! (XI)

2010-04-16T21:44:00.006+01:00

Here are several versions of what might be one of the best songs ever written, Cole Porter's haunting (and slightly unsettling) 'Night and Day', ranging from the inspired to the downright odd. I had no idea Ringo Starr recorded it, nor do I know anything about the Japanese girl-group version except that it has a very weird video. If it weren't for a slightly messy ending, the version by Everything But The Girl would definitely get my vote, as its pared-down approach and Tracey Thorn's wonderful voice really allows the song's melody to shine. And I love the ukelele version!

Sister Q - Night and Day by ChibiLune

Wexford Sights (X)

2010-04-11T18:19:00.009+01:00

Johnstown Castle, near Wexford Town, is noted for (among other things) the several peacocks that wander its ground, calling hoarsely in their melancholic way and largely ignoring the slack-jawed yokels like me gawping at them. The above photos completely fail to capture the astonishing, iridescent ultramarine of their throats, a glorious colour that I could stare at all day. The bottom photo is of the comparatively duller female (which still has that extraordinary green in its neck). An amusing anecdote relating to these noble birds: a few years back, when Wexford's opera house was being renovated, the opera festival was held in Johnstown Castle; some of the performances were enlivened when the peacocks decided to join in, adding their own plaintive squawks to the proceedings and no doubt annoying the more serious opera lovers! Considering the ego and vanity of the average opera singer, it was a match made in (comedy) heaven. And, unrelated to all that but suggested by the name, here's an interesting song:

Happy Birthday, Charles...

2010-04-09T18:57:00.003+01:00

Whatever you think of his poetry (not reading French, I must make do with translations) or his views on life in general, the greatness of Charles Baudelaire (born 189 years ago today) cannot be denied. And I find the above photo is absolutely mesmerising; a face that has peered into the abyss and reported back what it saw.

Tristesses de la Lune [Sorrows of the Moon]

The moon tonight dreams vacantly, as if
She were a beauty cushioned at her rest
Who strokes with wandering hand her lifting
Nipples, and the contours of her breast;

Lying as if for love, glazed by the soft
Luxurious avalanche, dying in swoons,
She turns her eyes to visions - clouds aloft
Billowing hugely, blossoming in blue.

When sometimes from her stupefying calm
Onto this earth she drops a furtive tear
Pale as an opal, iridescent, rare,

The poet, sleepless watchmen, is the one
To take it up within his hollowed palm
And in his heart to hide it from the sun.

[From Les Fleurs Du Mal (first published in 1857), translated by James McGowan and published by Spoon River Poetry Press in 1985. McGowan's edition is well worth seeking out; his translations are quite free in regard to the originals, I believe, but capture wonderfully what I understand to be Baudelaire's spirit.]

A Rant

2010-04-08T11:07:00.007+01:00

[The following is a rant brought on by some of the more disgraceful comments of the Vatican recently (referring to the attacks on the Pope as 'petty gossip', equating such (entirely justified) attacks as 'anti-semitism', and so on; see here). There's probably nothing here that hasn't been said better elsewhere, but these are my opinions, and I stand over them.]

There was once a well written and entertaining TV series called Absolute Power about a PR firm, starring Stephen Fry. In one episode, the firm is employed by a group who turn out to be fanatical neo-Nazis, and before sanity prevails one of the PR men is carried away by the possibilities of trying to ‘spin’ the Nazis. “It’s the ultimate PR challenge!” he exclaims (or something along those lines). (Later he says: "What the hell was I thinking?") This is, of course, presented as satire; what is interesting is that something very similar is happening right now. The Catholic Church is currently involved in a deliberate and utterly cynical attempt to ‘spin’ decades of covering up clerical sex abuse. The only alternative is mass resignations (do you believe that there is a single person over the age of forty in the church who’s not implicated in the scandal in some way?) and criminal investigations, which would profoundly weaken the church’s political power and influence. It is not, of course, that the ruthless, intelligent men who head the church actually believe the horse-crap they’re peddling; it is more to provide the deluded faithful with ways to justify to themselves the status quo as exists in the Catholic Church, and to give them fuel for argument when inevitably they are presented with the sheer horror of what the church, the supposed guardian of morality, has actually done. It is also on the principle that if you tell a lie often enough, people will begin to believe it. There are several basic lies the church is telling:

The priests who covered up abuse at the time were only following orders (usually used by the priest themselves; the most notable exponent of this line is Cardinal Sean Brady). (Also known as The Nuremberg Defence).

[This didn’t work in Nuremberg, and it doesn’t work now; especially as child abuse, and its cover-up, is an absolute wrong that cannot be justified under any circumstances. Human beings have the moral obligation to refuse to carry out acts they know to be abhorrent and against humanity, especially if they are already illegal under civil law.]

The priests at the time who covered up abuse didn’t understand the gravity of what they were dealing with. (The “It Was A Different Time” Defence).

[Nonsense. Most priests are well-educated, intelligent men; the aforementioned Sean Brady, for example, was possessed a doctorate in canon law. And there has never been a time, outside of the most depraved and barbarous societies, when it was considered appropriate behaviour to rape a small child, or to beat them to a pulp!]

Abuse occurred in other sections of the community, so why is the church being singled out by the media? (The “We’re Victims Too” Defence, also known as the “It’s The Liberal Meedya’s Fault” Defence, also known as the “Let He Who Is Without Sin” Defence.)

[This defence can hardly hold water considering the power and global extent of the Catholic Church. That an organisation this large, and one whose primary focus is morality, should commit such an appalling cover-up of such foul crimes means that it should be investigated until the entire truth is known, for the good of humanity. The church has never shied away from publicity when it thundered against divorce and contraception in Ireland, so it can hardly complain when its own crimes mean the spotlight is turned back on it!]

Even if clergymen made mistakes, they shouldn’t resign now, as it would have no purpose, and they are merely being pursued out of a spirit of vengeance. We should forgive them. (The “Head On A Plate” Defence).

[Since when is demanding that someone in a position of power be held accountable for a crime “vengeance”? And a system of justice based solely on “forgiveness” would destroy society as we know it.]

The church has recognised its past faults, and has changed now, so no further action is required. (The “We Are Where We Are” Defence).

[The church's actions show that it is still more interested in protecting itself than standing up and being held accountable for its crimes. I see no change in the church’s basic attitude than hasn’t been forced upon it.]

There are good people in the church, including those who may have covered up the abuse many years ago, so by attacking the church you’re undermining their good works (the “If There Is One Righteous Man” Defence, also known as the “Good Nazi” Defence).

[Firstly, morality is not a matter of double-entry bookkeeping, as PJ O’Rourke once said. You don’t get one bad act permitted for every good one (unless that good act involves taking immediate action on the bad one, so as to reverse its effects and prevent it ever happening again). Besides, having such a moral obscenity festering at the heart of the church invalidates any good work the church has done or will do in the future. As a cynic, I think it’s fair to say that much of the good work done by the church, like helping the poor in the Third World, has been done with as much of an eye to consolidating the church’s power and influence as it has been through sheer altruism. The church has always been enthusiastic about helping the poor in poverty-stricken ghettos; it has been noticeably reluctant to enquire as to why those people are so poor, or how their poverty could be alleviated, while at the same times snuggling up with murderous and brutal dictators.]

As I’ve tried to demonstrate, none of these pathetic excuses can stand up to even the most simple logical examination. But it’s worth repeating the facts that everyone knows at this case, just to remind ourselves of what the church actually did. For upwards of fifty years the institution of the church in Ireland (and a certain number of the laity involved with the church) knew that there were horrendous and widespread physical and sexual abuses being perpetrated upon children by its members, both in industrial schools and in the wider community. Not only did the clergy do nothing, but they engaged in a deliberate cover-up to prevent knowledge of these activities coming to light, by moving offending priests from diocese to diocese without informing anyone of their predilections (thus allowing them to abuse again and again), by forcing victims to sign oaths of secrecy, and so on. When information about the true scale of abuse first began to appear in the media, the church fought both victims and investigators every step of the way, often using bullying legal tactics to try and silence the traumatised victims of abuse, while putting in place measures designed to protect its assets in the event of compensation claims. Its first and only consideration has always been to protect itself above all else, and it has no compunction about destroying life after life to do so. These are not assertions; these are hard facts that can be backed up by volumes of documents. And now that it cannot hide any more behind lies and evasions – now that the facts are indisputable – it is seeking to spin its way out of accepting the only course compatible with honour: mass resignations, including the Pope himself; removal (in Ireland) of schools from church control; and handing themselves and all relevant documents over to the authorities for the immediate instigation of criminal proceedings.

Let us also not forget, and I remember very well, being a child of the seventies, just how the church dominated Irish life, and used its influence to force its own twisted, puritanical sexual morality onto everyone in the country. A homosexual? A single mother? An unmarried couple? A woman who wished to use contraception to avoid being continually pregnant? A person who questioned the church’s authority? A couple whose marriage had broken down irreconcilably, and who wanted a divorce? The Catholic Church in Ireland did everything in its power, which was practically unlimited, to ensure that your life was absolutely intolerable. It thundered from the pulpit every week about sin and guilt, lecturing people on how they should live their lives according to the church’s teaching. It used its power in the schools to enforce religion; seeing as the church controlled the schools and the local bishop, as patron of the school, could refuse a child’s entry, very few people with children could publicly challenge the church’s teachings if they wanted their child to be educated at all. Yet all the time that we were being lectured and bullied by priests, by the men who stood up and said “We are the very epitome of morality. We set the standards that everyone should follow!”, they were covering up the most monstrous, despicable crimes, in a conspiracy that went right from the Vatican down to the diocesan bishop. They all knew. And they did nothing. Nothing, that is, until they were forced by events to do so, in which case, rather than admit their culpability and beg forgiveness, they went on the attack. If one wants to see the true face of the church, see it in this action: in 1987 the diocese of Dublin took out insurance to protect itself against compensation claims from victims, but didn’t bother to put any rules in place to protect children from predatory priests, or report its concerns to the civil authorities. Yet this was the institution that would claim to be our moral guardians! And I see no evidence that they has changed in any meaningful way between then and now, except with extreme reluctance.

Reading the Murphy Report and the Ryan Report, one is reminded of the words of Primo Levi: “[One feels the shame] that the just man feels at another man’s crime; the feeling of guilt that such a crime should exist, that it should have been introduced irrevocably into the world of things that exist, and that his will for good should have proved too weak or null, and should not have availed in defence.” That men like Cardinal Sean Brady and Desmond Connell do not admit to this shame, but instead seek to weasel their way out of their responsibility towards justice, should utterly destroy in the eyes of the right-thinking person any shred of moral authority which the church claims to possess. Until the church openly says: “It was us, and us alone, and we are sorry, and therefore we resign all offices and hand ourselves over to face the full rigours of the law”, there can be no forgiveness for them. To quote from a man who knew a thing or two about religion, Jesus Christ himself (gettin' all Biblical on yo' ass!): "Do not do what [the teachers of the law and the Pharisees] do, for they do not practise what they preach. They tie up heavy loads and put them on men's shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to lift a finger to move them ... Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of dead men's bones and things unclean. In the same way, on the outside you appear to people as righteous but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness." (Matthew 23, 2-4 and 27-28)

An Update

2010-04-06T20:35:00.015+01:00

The national embarrassment that is RTE's Greatest Irish Person Ever list (which I wrote about here) continues to baffle and enrage. The voting has closed, and the five who will have TV programmes made about them have been selected, but RTE have put up the top ten names to maintain a certain level of mystery. And here are the luminaries (in alphabetical order): Bono (a pompous rock star who lectures governments on donating some of their tax revenue towards poorer countries, while his wealthy rock group is based in Holland to avoid paying Irish tax); Noel Browne (an interesting politician who was very controversial but didn't actually achieve a whole lot in comparison to, say, Daniel O'Connell, Charles Stuart Parnell, or Eamonn de Valera); Michael Collins (one of the founders of the modern Irish state and a man who actually deserves to be on the list); James Connolly (a Marxist revolutionary whose importance cannot be denied, whether you agree or not as to the morality of his actions); Stephen Gately (a vapid and inconsequential figure of no importance whatsoever); John Hume (a Nobel Prize winning Northern politician who deserves a place on this list); Phil Lynott (an entertaining but inconsequential rock musician); Padraig Pearse (an ultra-Catholic revolutionary whose importance cannot be denied, whether you agree or not as to the morality of his actions); Mary Robinson (an interesting politician who did achieve a lot for women in Ireland, but who is not as significant as, say, Daniel O'Connell, Charles Stuart Parnell, or Eamonn de Valera); Adi Roche (a token woman included in an attempt to avoid the charge of gross sexism, and a figure of no major importance in the greater scheme of things, commendable though her Chernobyl work is. The fact that a wealthy philanthropist is chosen over all other female candidates bar one (a brief selection: revolutionaries Maud Gonne, Mary McSwiney and Constance Markievicz, cultural icon Lady Augusta Gregory, writer Kate O'Brien, actress Maureen O'Hara, opera singers Catherine Hayes or Margaret Burke Sheridan, peace activists Mairead Corrigan and Betty William, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1976, or Rosemary Nelson, a human rights lawyer killed by loyalist paramilitaries in 1999) says something about our priorities). So that's Ireland's greatest figures from nearly 2,000 tears of recorded history, as presented by our national broadcaster. No writers, artists, or scientists. Some of our most significant historical figures absent. Not a single figure that died before 1900. Only two women. Only four figures that actually deserve to be on it. Here's a really good song (one of my favourites, actually) whose title just sums it all up.

Doggies At Play!

2010-04-04T18:47:00.009+01:00

There's so much depressing stuff happening in Ireland at the moment that I felt the need to post something that may bring a smile to your face. Earlier today I was over at my parents-in-laws' house with our demented hound. They have two young Jack Russells, one of whom is a little scamp who had absolutely no fear of this huge boisterous dog chasing him around the garden (the other was a lot more timid, and rarely got involved in the action). It was extremely hard to get good photographs of them at play; they moved so fast, careering around the grass wrestling and playing and mock-biting each other, that getting them in shot was always a challenge (I must have at least two dozen pictures of empty patches of grass with a blurred tail in the top corner!) I tried to choose the pictures that were most representative of the action, rather than the most technically correct. What was interesting to watch was that in the beginning our hound was trying to use his size to dominate the little terrier, but the latter was not to be cowed and towards the end was giving as good as he was getting. All in all, it was a great afternoon's entertainment, and I hope you find the pictures amusing!

A Recommendation

2010-04-03T10:29:00.008+01:00

To borrow a phrase from fellow blogger and friend McSeanigall: if you own two pairs of shoes, sell one and buy the 3-DVD set of Bela Tarr's Sátántangó (1994). My partner and I watched all seven hours last night (rather apt for Good Friday, although I'm no Catholic) and were left in awed silence at the audacious brilliance of Tarr's vision. Glacially slow, bleak, and breathtakingly beautiful, this film, using the fall of communism as an allegory for the human experience, is the absolute negation of everything that Hollywood stands for and an epic testament to the power of cinema to be about more than just storytelling. I haven't seen Tarr's earlier films, but his Werckmeister Harmóniák (2000) is a very remarkable (and shorter) introduction to his work, if a little obscure and confusing (I recommend avoiding The Man from London (2007), which I thought was very poor, a clear mismatch of form and content). I don't often say this, but I think Sátántangó is a masterpiece, as well as being the best film I've seen in absolute ages (and definitely one to be watched in a single sitting!). You may not like it, but it's one of a kind. (I dithered over whether to include a clip or not, as with this film the context is everything - besides, how can a single excerpt sum up a seven-hour film? - but the following shot is characteristic of Tarr's style. Do remember that such a brief snippet will never recreate the cumulative effect of his extremely long, often very static, single takes.)

Wexford Sights (IX)

2010-04-01T10:19:00.005+01:00

I was reluctantly awoken on this chilly morning by an awful hullabulloo coming from the sun room. I could hear the hound clambering about and barking, so I made my sleepy way to the source of the noise. In one of the corners of the ceiling was a tiny, terrified bird, clinging to the exposed wooden beam while the hound danced and barked with delight. The sun room door was open to the garden, and the bird must have flown in by accident. I grabbed the hound's collar and dragged him into the kitchen. As I did so, the bird launched itself from its perch, flying the whole length of the room at full speed and slamming into the large window at the end with a loud thump. I saw it fall, and ran down to where it lay on the floor, its little tongue protruding as it gasped for breath. Then it was dead. The impact must have broken its neck. I took it outside (so light in my hand) and placed it gently on the windowsill, then got my camera. Das vedanya, little birdie...

Wexford Sights (VIII)

2010-03-26T09:55:00.009Z

Yesterday, while walking on Tinaberna Strand with the hound, my eye was caught by a crude tombstone and head which some creative soul had carved into the low sandy cliff facing the sea. It was a strangely gloomy combination to see on the desolate stony beach, and put me in mind of Louis le Brocquy's ghostly ancestral heads, primitive tribal sculpture, or, less respectably, Lucio Fulci’s unpleasant, sloppy, crude zombie movies (they may be artistically questionable (to put it mildly), but his Zombie Flesh Eaters is one of the only films that has given me nightmares, which is strange considering it’s not very frightening (or even that good)). I imagine that in a few days the wind and rain may have dissolved it, something that makes me like it all the more. And, in an attempt to demonstrate that sometimes art can be found under your feet, below is a photo taken during the recent icy weather. It’s of the frozen water which filled the indentations made in mud by a tractor’s tyres.

In these straitened times we need good art more than ever, something that is explained by the excellent article by Fintan O'Toole here. The following is a song I heard first many years ago and only rediscovered this evening, when for some reason it popped into my head when I was lazily browsing on YouTube. It's the B-Side to Scott Mackensie's silly and dated novelty "If You're Going To San Francisco", which my father bought as a 45 way back when in the sixties, and is a far superior song. It has a strange melancholy that I find quite haunting, although maybe it's because I associate it with my childhood.

One of Those "No Way" Moments (V)

2010-03-23T19:31:00.014Z

What do James Joyce and Stephen Gately have in common? The answer to the above is that they both on this list, a depressing stupid and populist exercise that makes me despair for the intellectual life in this country. Put out by our national broadcaster, it claims to be a shortlist of the 40 "greatest figures in our country's history". When I read it first, I wondered if it was a bizarre joke. But I don't think it is, and this is what sent my Rage-O-Meter from 1 (placid, fairly contented) to 60 (throbbing, violent anger, complete with red mist before the eyes). What is so depressing to me is that nobody who perused this list at RTE seemed to think that there was anything wrong with it. Apparently, the list was compiled after a poll of a 1000 people done by MRBI, but that doesn't mean they have to view it as set in stone (and why shouldn't they poll all TV licence holders, seeing as we're paying for it!)!

Curiously, out of, say, 2000 years of recorded history they were unable to find a single figure from before 1763, and only four who died before 1901. Obviously there was nobody in that period of any real significance (which means I must have imagined the existence of St Brendan, St Patrick, St Columba, Brian Boru, John Scotus, St Columbanus, Hugh O'Neill, Edmund Burke, Patrick Sarsfield, Henry Grattan, Jonathan Swift, Oliver Goldsmith, Robert Boyle, John Field, and many, many others). There are no scientists at all (so much for the knowledge economy!), and by the way, a fine list of Irish scientists can be found here. Douglas Hyde, founder of the Gaelic League, and Michael Cusack, founder of the GAA, are absent, as are Jim Larkin of the 1913 Lockout, Home Rule politician James Redmond and Michael Davitt, founder of the Land League, all hugely important figures. Obviously, it would have made more sense to have separate lists for political/historical, cultural, and sports figures, which would have avoided the rather odd notion that golfer Padraig Harrington should be mentioned in the same breath as, say, Charles Stewart Parnell.

But as an artist, I'm primarily interested in the figures included who reflect the richness and diversity of our cultural heritage. And here they are (italics mark the figures that, in my 'umble opinion, actually deserve to be there): Bono, Joe Dolan, Ronnie Drew, Colin Farrell, Stephen Gately, Bob Geldof, Seamus Heaney, James Joyce, John B Keane, Ronan Keating, Phil Lynott, Christy Moore, Liam Neeson, Daniel O'Donnell, Louis Walsh, Oscar Wilde, and WB Yeats.

[A Doubtful Egg takes a moment to pound his head violently off of his desk, in the vain hope that when he looks up, the list may have changed to reflect reality as we know it].

I must first apologise to the shade of John B Keane, who's a fine playwright, but to include him ahead of Beckett or Swift is ludicrous. But as for the rest ... There are no visual artists; obviously Jack B Yeats, Sean Scully, or Francis Bacon, internationally renowned painters, were not up to scratch (and let us not forget Harry Clarke, Evie Hone and Mainie Jellett, who may not be in the same league as the aforementioned but are still important artists from an Irish perspective). From the world of film, I'm not sure if Liam Neeson and Colin Farrell are more important figures than Peter O'Toole and the erratic but often excellent Neil Jordan (although, to be honest, none of them belong on the list at all). Ronnie Drew and Christy Moore may be fine musicians, but are they really greater than Paddy Moloney of The Chieftains, the hugely respected and influential Liam Clancy, 19th century harpist Turlough Carolan, or John Field, the man who invented the piano nocturne that was so brilliantly exploited by Chopin (and let us ignore the list's total neglect of Irish classical music)? Phil Lynott, by all accounts a very nice guy, was not a musically significant figure by any standard. And for a nation that bangs on about how wonderfully litherary we are, by God, there are only five writers out of seventeen names. Em, Samuel 'Nobel Prize' Beckett? Jonathan Swift? Flann O'Brien? Thomas Kinsella? In fact, just go here to find some of the names that were considered less important than Joe Dolan...

And then we hit the dregs. Inexplicably popular singers Daniel O'Donnell, Ronan Keating and the abovementioned Joe Dolan? You must be joking. They might as well have thrown in Johnny Logan while they were at it. Bono? A puffed-up gas-bag whose meagre natural talent has been swamped by the tsunami of his ego (they could have gone for the equally pompous gas-bag Van Morrison, if only for the fact that his early works have a stronger claim to greatness than anything U2 have produced). Bob Geldof? Aside from Live Aid, I'm not sure if what he's actually accomplished can bolster the claim that he's History's Greatest Irishperson (and, as someone who leans strongly to the left, I'm always very suspicious of extremely wealthy men talking about making poverty history). Louis Walsh? A sleazy, greedy impresario who'll peddle anything to gullible fools as long as he can squeeze a few pennies out of them. And the absolute nadir, the most stupid thing I've ever seen on a list: Stephen Gately, whose only memorable accomplishment was dying (tragically young) while the tabloids were still interested in him, is being considered as one of Irish history's greatest figures. What is interesting, and very depressing, is that the list seems to view "culture" as being synonymous with "entertainment", with the exception of a few household names like Joyce and Wilde thrown in to dodge claims of out-and-out philistinism. That there are individuals out there who consider these figures and some of the others (Paul McGrath? Michael O'Leary? Adi Roche?) to be the greatest Irish people of all time, and that our national broadcaster would feel this view to be so prevalent that they would have no qualms about putting out this list, is deeply unsettling, and I would encourage everyone to boycott it. (I'm not even going to get into the discussion about the excessive number of sports figures or the comparative lack of women.)

Most astoundingly of all, it truly beggars belief, and shows our nation's attitude to blatant criminality in the elites that own and run this country, that on the list is Charles J Haughey, "Don Charleone", possibly the worst Taoiseach this country has ever had; a poisonous snake of a man who bankrupted the country for a decade while swindling his way to riches, and encouraging a culture of outrageous corruption which has led to the economic disaster that we now find ourselves in. The only list he deserves to be on is "Ireland's Most Shameful Politicians". And whoever compiled this list should be ashamed of themselves. If you've made it through that rant, here's an Irish song by two different singers:

Some Squelchy Life...

2010-03-21T17:46:00.010Z

While wandering through a forest in Wexford today with the hound I came across a large pond liberally scattered with frogspawn, and with this in mind, took the above pictures. In the interest of being topical, I could point out that the creatures shown here have more backbone than the average Irish cardinal or bishop. And to complement the above photos is an appropriate song (I'd like to point out that one-time Doctor Who star Jon Pertwee does an absolutely brilliant and hysterically funny version of the following song, which is unfortunately only available if you can find the original vinyl release from 1966, but it's worth the search!)

A New Dawn...

2010-02-27T18:08:00.006Z

When I stumbled into our kitchen in my standard unfocused and bleary-eyed early morning state, with my semi-conscious brain only able to process the word "coffee", a sight out the window brought about a sudden infusion of pleasure. It was the rising sun, captured poorly by my partner's excellent camera in the picture above. Many hours later, I'm recovering after a day spent struggling with my new art pieces on the computer. At times I seemed to be heading straight down a festering and rubbish-strewn darkest-of-dark alleys, but in the end it turned out to be a very productive day indeed, with one very promising piece printed off and suggesting fruitful lines of inquiry. Much of this was done to the soundtrack of Mary-Anne Hobbs's radio show on BBC Radio 1 - suffice to say that if edgy contemporary dance-based electronica is your thing, you could ask for no better guide. Click here is you feel like sampling. And now I'm finishing up for the day, and what I see out the same window is this:

And, in light of that, here's a tremendously obscure song whose title tickled me when I stumbled across it earlier today. Enjoy...

A Night at the Circus

2010-02-20T15:29:00.005Z

I love a good circus. Put me in a large tent with a person breathing fire or riding a tiny bicycle across a tightrope, and I'm a happy camper. Something about the combination of daredevil acts, attractive women in leotards, the sense of tradition (after all, circuses have been a form of entertainment for centuries now) and that magical, almost otherworldly feeling that one gets within the tent of a really good circus, captivates me every time. I even like the clowns, if they're good. I rarely get the opportunity to go, however, but try to catch whatever circus happens to be passing through Wexford if I have a spare night.

Last week Circus Vegas were in town, so my wife and I decided to chance it and went. Now, what do you expect when you go to a circus? Acrobats, jugglers, clowns, magicians, trapeze artists, and the like? Of course, you say. You would not say: "I really wish that every second act is some singing duo doing popular hits of the day rather than anything interesting!" But that's what we got at our evening of Circus Vegas. When it started, the duo came out; he a shiny, slick blond guy who looked like a televangelist, she a full-figured dark-haired diva, accompanied by four lissome young women who gambolled around them during each outing, singing 'Viva Las Vegas'. "Grand," me and my partner thought simultaneously, "but I hope there isn't too much of this singing lark." Then, at every bloody interval, out they came again, singing song after song after song (I think they did about eight altogether). It was like watching a particularly bad version of The X-Factor where the same people do every song, and it's certainly not what I go to the circus to see! After the third or fourth appearance my partner and I groaned together and considered leaving, but decided to stick it out until the end as we'd paid for it.

There were, in total, four good acts: an excellent juggler at the beginning; a fine illusionist who sawed his assistant in half, stuffed her into a tiny box and made her vanish, and lots of other very un-PC activities; an accomplished trampolinist who was also a fine comedian; and two Argentine guys who ran about on a huge spinning treadmill (including once blindfolded, which was quite terrifying). And that was practically it, for the nearly two hours that we were there. There were no clowns worthy of the name, only two people who came out in fat suits and did little bar run around the ring, and another few in Disney costume who again did nothing worth mentioning. We had the usual session of dreary audience participation, a troupe spinning flaming ropes who were impressive but not exactly brilliant, and those blasted singers over and over again. And one could sense the audience's lack of response to the whole thing; if I was of a more confrontational nature I would have demanded my money back. Perhaps it was an off night for them, or half their acts had come down with food poisoning the night before, thus necessitating a lot of filler, but based on that evening there is no way I'd see them again, or recommend them to anyone else, without hearing first that they'd seriously upped their game. They have a website here, but it doesn't look like it's been updated in quite some time.

It must be hard to run a circus in these recessionary days, and I don't mind a shorter than average show if they haven't enough acts to fill the bill, or one without loads of props. But I expect value for money at least, and I don't feel I received it at Circus Vegas. So please, if anyone from the circus reads this: less singing in the ring floor, and more swinging above it (with or without a safety net), and I'll definitely attend!

Being Disappointed By Giant Blue Men...

2010-02-07T12:18:00.011Z

Why are films featuring giant blue men so dreadful? Admittedly, there's only two I can think of: the execrable film adaptation of Alan Moore's Watchmen (see here for further thoughts on this) and Avatar, James Cameron's 3D epic, which I watched last night. While the visual effects were very fine (and owed a lot to 70s illustrator Roger Dean) the story was so resoundingly awful that it depressed me inordinately. I mean, $280 million dollars was spent on this! Here are a few of the more immediate problems:

1) Our hero. Like Captain Kirk in the recent Star Trek movie, he is an impulsive, irresponsible idiot who never does what he's told. Teenagers across the globe may sigh and murmur, "oh, what a free-spirited rebel!", while older curmudgeons like me may point out that, outside of movies where they are protected from all harm by the script, which proclaims them to be The Hero, guys like that are a bloody nuisance, and in a war zone are an active threat to everybody around them. And they certainly don't prosper in the military, where the most important rule is "do what you're told!"

2) The aliens. Aren't they just a gigantic compendium of every single cliche that's ever been concocted around ethnic peoples, a kind of pick'n'mix of the most admirable features of American Indians, aborigines, and whoever else, while totally ignoring any negative aspects of their culture? And like a lot of "noble savage" movies (Dances With Wolves is a good example) the filmmakers seem intent on showing that they still need a white man to show them the way to rebel!

3) The music. What's with that stupid bloody new-age fake world-music drivel that played every time something spectacular involving the aliens was happening? I love music from all over the globe, but this aural pablum bears as little resemblance to decent world music as a cardboard cut-out does to a human being. It was about as predictable as:

4) The alien heroine. She's feisty! She's independent! She can't stand our feckless hero on first acquaintance! But as sure as night follows the sunset, she ends up loving him for his free-spirited charm! They fall out of love when he reveals that he betrayed her people to the military! He redeems himself in her eyes, and they're more in love than ever! I throw up!

5) The evil corporations. I love films produced by huge multinationals which tell us that corporate greed is evil, and we need to abandon our technological ways to get more in touch with nature. Especially a film that is made using cutting-edge computer techniques and equipment, and continually fetishises hardware and technology, in an industry that wastes huge amounts of energy, in a city that's a model of unsustainable growth (LA). Will the producers of this film adopt the communal, innocent ways of the aliens in Avatar? Will James Cameron leave his mansion for the jungles of Central America and a more simple life? What do you think?

6) The heavy-handed political subtext. Films like Avatar, which pretend to be, like, y'know, making a point, but are instead simplistic drivel, are worthless as political commentary. Some reviewer wrote of how it was an achievement to get middle American audiences cheering the defeat of the US military, but the aliens are so impossibly nice and admirable and wonderful in every possible way that there's no way such an audience will mistake them for any real-life situation. Or do the Afghani warlords remind you of the Nav'i (or whatever the blue creatures are called)? One could see it as a metaphor for the European settlers' treatment of the native Americans, except:

7) The ending. The aliens, armed with bows, arrows, and lashings of pluck, drive the technologically advanced humans off the planet? Exactly like the way the native Americans drove the settlers back to Europe and set up their own idealistic state! Which never produces dreck like Avatar! (Wait, have I got that right?)

8) The climactic battle. Another piece of evidence that Our Hero is a simpleton. Basic rules of combat state that, when attacking a more heavily armed and better-equipped enemy in a jungle setting, you don't charge them head-on a la Braveheart (unless you're the kind of general who enjoys killing his own troops for no reason). Instead, you use the cover to launch sudden guerilla attacks from the trees, and riddle the jungle with tripwires and spear-traps. A few kids with stones, sling-shots, and a good aim could break the advancing soldiers' helmets (humans can't breathe the air in the forest) without getting near them. One doesn't need to be a military historian to know this; it's the technique used by the VC in South East Asia, and even by the bloody Ewoks in Return of the Jedi! Without the deux ex machina (that he had no way of predicting), his strategy was pretty poor. (How about dropping thick wooden poles through the rotors of the helicopters, for one thing?)

9) The lazy writing. The aliens' giant home tree just happens to sit on a vast store of the mineral the humans are mining? One of the scientists helps our hero escape from the military stockade, yet nobody can figure out who it was? One of the aliens is psychic, but doesn't know what our hero is up to when he first comes in contact with them? The fact that some of these incredibly hostile aliens can understand English whenever it suits the plot? The fact that every twist in this film can be predicted from half a mile away? Sigourney Weaver reprising her role from Gorillas in the Mist (the tough scientist who cares)? The body-armour suits reprised from Aliens? The feisty ethnic woman who dies in a blaze of glory (reprised from Aliens)? Enough! Enough!

10) The length. Two and a half hours of this? The 3D visuals are amazing for the first 90 minutes, but then the novelty wears off, the better to concentrate on the bad writing.

As I said before, watching this film is so depressing because, in spite of the huge budget, nobody seems to have put even the tiniest bit of thought into the script. The characters are lifeless and formulaic, the plot is predictable, it's a lazy smorgasbord of new-age cliches about ethnic stereotypes, and it's far too long. And these flaws will be even more glaring when watched on a small TV with no 3D. Here's a cartoon from 1928 that's a lot more imaginative, considering the nature of animation at the time:

An Amusement (XXI)

2010-02-02T21:04:00.007Z

This is one of those filler posts when I can't think of anything to write, yet feel the need to put something up here to show that I am still floating about the place. I'm working more on my "crumpling paper" stuff and on my art, so I've not a whole lot to say here. I've been watching a lot of the very silly yet intriguing Aeon Flux cartoons; they're nonsense, but weirdly compelling and enjoyable nonsense, up there with Sapphire and Steel in the "what the hell is going on here?" stakes. Yesterday, as I wandered through Gorey, I spotted a perfect photo op: in the gardens of a hospital was a white statue of Jesus, arms raised, and on each hand perched a black crow. Unfortunately, I had no camera with me. Ah, life... But if you're looking for something interesting, I suggest you click here. Or watch this:

And here's some music to go with the above (play both videos together; they're about the same length!). Enjoy!

One Of Those "No Way!" Moments (IV)

2010-01-27T12:51:00.019Z

I read recently on Northern Irish news website Slugger O’Toole that Enniscorthy, a town not 20 minutes from where I currently rest my head in County Wexford, has unanimously passed a motion to erect a memorial to the Edentubber Martyrs (see here). When I mentioned this to my partner, her reaction was quite possibly what yours would be; she said: “Who?” Well, during the IRA’s disastrous border campaign in the late 1950s, these five guys accidentally blew themselves, and the cottage they were in, to pieces with the bomb they were planning to plant in the North. As two of them were from Wexford, Enniscorthy Council have decided that they are worthy of a memorial. Seeing as I have serious problems with the IRA’s actions in Northern Ireland – whatever their reasons, it was, in my view, little more than a brutal murder campaign which achieved nothing bar filling graves and increasing hatred and grief – I believe that we should, at the very least, think twice about putting up monuments to men who were members of a still-illegal organisation, and whose actions were in direct violation of the laws of this state, then and now. Especially as such activities are mythologised by Republicans in order to recruit the next generation of volunteers (or, if one were being cynical, cannon fodder). Would the council be so keen to remember these men if their bomb had actually gone off where it was supposed to, and had (maybe) killed an RUC officer? Or a civilian? Not only that, but shouldn’t even a hardened Republican think twice about erecting a monument to guys whose only accomplishment was to accidentally kill themselves? Will they erect a monument to Gorey IRA man Edward O’Brien, who accidentally blew himself up on a bus in London in the nineties, killing himself and injuring three others (see here)? If an IRA man was on going on his way to shoot an RUC man, but got killed by a lorry while crossing the road, is he a martyr?

The only difference between the border campaign in the fifties and the vastly more prolonged, violent, and destructive campaign in the seventies and eighties was down to a question of timing; in the fifties, the conditions weren’t right for bloody mayhem, whereas by 1969 the chaos in the province was an ideal launching ground for paramilitarism (students of the period: I know this is a simplistic analysis, so if you disagree, please let me know). Therefore, in my opinion, a memorial to the Edentubber dead (they certainly weren’t martyrs!) is a tacit vote of approval for the bloody struggle which made Northern Ireland the jolly place it was for over thirty years (before the opposing factions decided that blowing up and shooting people wasn't an effective way of getting things done). If these men had survived, it's quite likely they would have stayed active and perhaps organised planting more bombs, in places such as Enniskillen. Rather than celebrating the Edentubber dead, we should be hoping that, in the future, measured discussion rather than murder is seen as the option of choice, and that their day is firmly in the past. I just have a problem with seeing men who are willing to kill others in cold blood (including me, and you, and anyone else who happens to be in the wrong place at the wrong time when the shrapnel is flying) as heroes, no matter how supposedly noble their motives.

Besides, before we consider uniting Ireland, we should take a long hard look at the 26 counties first. I would say that, thanks to Fianna Fail’s catastrophic stewardship of our economy, we couldn't afford a united Ireland even if it was offered to us. Yes, let’s have one nation under the gombeen! Citizens of Northern Ireland, welcome to NAMA-land! Join our pathetically badly run little state, and share with us our incompetent government, intent on making the poor and low-paid pick up the bill for the recklessness of property developers and bankers! Enjoy our shambolic health service, our awful roads, our worthless telecommunications infrastructure, and our overpriced goods and services! Share with us our corrupt banks and golden-circle business elite, not to mention our schools, still controlled by an organisation that protected paedophiles for half a century! Shoppers of the South: give up the bargains to be had north of the border, and take pleasure in being ripped off in a nation once agin! Let’s have a united Ireland that our young people can emigrate from! Hmmm, perhaps we should sort out the problems down here first before adding Ulster to the equation...

Anyway, here's a piece of music:

Wexford Sights (VII) and An Amusement (XX)

2010-01-20T12:49:00.009Z

I suppose it's a little deceptive to call this a Wexford Sight; what is pictured in the above image, a close-up of a frozen puddle outside our driveway, was only a "sight" for a handful of days before someone drove over it (and eventually, of course, it melted). And such an ice composition was probably replicated all over the country. But I like the above image, and it's my blog, so there you have it. And if, like me, you're a sucker for fun geometric things, you won't want to miss out on this; I plan on doing hours of exploring there! Enjoy!

This Week's Blinding Thought (VIII)

2010-01-15T16:34:00.005Z

As I wandered along the beach recently (the first time I've been able to get there since the ice that made the road lethal finally melted) I saw something lying in the sand that, in the fading light, looked like a deformed skull. Closer inspection revealed it to be, not the controversy-sparking remains of a visiting alien whose saucer was brought down by the recent cold spell, which froze his navigation system (or something), but a burst and mangled football. It seems an apt image for what I'm about to write, though!

Last night I watched Dorian Gray, the contemporary retelling of Oscar Wilde’s classic novel (which I’m currently reading). All in all, it was pretty poor; Ben Barnes was an epicene and prissy Dorian (it occurred to me while watching that, in appearance alone, a fantastic Dorian would be Noel Fielding from The Mighty Boosh) and the storytelling was clumsy and hamfisted, a parody of Wilde’s elegant original (curiously, the filmmakers jettisoned both the blatant homoeroticism of the original, as well as its intellectualism, as if scared that too much talk about ideas might scare away the punters; as with A Rebours, the dandy’s search for pleasure and sensation is more about aesthetics and the flaunting of restrictive social mores than simply getting your leg over a lot, something the film ignores entirely as far as I can see). Colin Firth is a passable Henry Wooton, but his relationship with Dorian is reduced to saying “g’wan, lad” while Basil Hallward (the painter who executes the eponymous Picture) says “careful, now...” (It’s hilarious the way Henry’s seduction of Dorian to the Dark Side of Life begins with offering him a cigarette; I knew it! First a cigarette, then you’re an absinthe-swilling opium fiend getting the arse whipped off you by a transvestite midget in an East End dive! They’re evil! Eeeeeee-vil!). The ending is also a travesty, but at least the portrait itself, when revealed, isn’t too ridiculous (although the bits where it growls and maggots fall out of it are laughably silly) and Rebecca Hall is both charming and attractive (I quite like the 1945 version of this film, and the portrait in that is better too!). But the most idiotic moment in the film comes when, at a high society party, Dorian plies a wealthy young woman with drink and has his wicked way with her upstairs, then does the same with her mother while the young woman hides under the bed. What’s most interesting about this is how it fundamentally misunderstands just how Victorian society functioned, and does this so badly that it renders the film worthless. Ignoring the effect that an unwanted pregnancy would have on a young heiress’s life, and the fact that at a society party, with respectable adults everywhere, it would be impossible to ply her with enough drink to make her consent to rumpy-pumpy (especially with her mother present!), I ask you to read the following extract from Stefan Zweig’s The World of Yesterday (published in English in 1943, two years after the author killed himself while fleeing Hitler’s Europe and on his way to South America) about the sexual climate in 19th Century Austria (and I imagine that Victorian Britain would have been the same):

“While [social morality] winked one eye at a young man and even encouraged him with the other to ‘sow his wild oats’ [with shopgirls and other lower-class women whom the toffs didn’t give a toss about] ... in the case of the woman it studiously shut both eyes and acted as if it were blind. That a man could admit desires, and was permitted to experience them, was silently admitted by custom. But to admit frankly that a woman could be subject to similar desires ... would have transgressed the conception of the ‘sanctity of womanhood’. In the pre-Freudian era, therefore, the axiom was agreed upon that a female person could have no physical desires as long as they had not been awakened by man, and that, obviously, was officially permitted only in marriage. But even in those moral times, in Vienna in particular, the air was full of dangerous erotic infection, and a girl of good family had to live in a completely sterilised atmosphere, from the day of her birth until the day when she left the altar on her husband’s arm. In order to protect young girls, they were not left alone for a single moment. They were given a governess whose duty it was to see that they did not step out of the house unaccompanied, that they were taken to school, to their dancing lessons, and brought home in the same manner. Every book which they read was inspected ... A girl of good family was not allowed to have any idea of how the male body was formed, or to know how children came into the world, for [she] was to enter into matrimony not only physically untouched, but completely ‘pure’ spiritually as well. ‘Good breeding’, for a young girl of that time, was identical with ignorance of life ... [M]iddle-class usage strove frantically to uphold the fiction that a well-born woman neither possessed sexual instincts nor was permitted to possess any as long as she remained unmarried – anything else would have made her an ‘immoral person’, an outcast from the family...”

I Haven't Felt This Way Since "Funky Town"! (X)

2009-12-22T20:13:00.006Z

I first heard Tim Buckley's Happy/Sad album over ten years ago in England, on a winter's night not unlike this one. While I dislike the second side intensely, the first side, featuring 'Strange Feeling', 'Buzzin' Fly' and the following song, captivated me immediately, and a decade later, still do. For me, the following song is the purest, most haunting, musical poetry, and I don't feel like saying anything else about it. Enjoy...

Wexford Sights (VI): Hoarfrost

2009-12-21T17:39:00.009Z

As the roads around my house were too dangerous to drive on this morning, I was unable to go to work and was thus at something of a loss. As I stood outside the door of our shed, watching the sun rise on this, the shortest day of the year (and from tomorrow on it's acceptable to say that there's a grand stretch in the evening!), I noticed that the top of the old wooden fence that separates our house from the field behind us was covered in a fine topping of hoarfrost that glittered in the early morning light. Not wishing to waste an opportunity, I ran indoors and grabbed the camera. What fascinated me was the way that the lines of frost followed the grain and irregularities in the wood, creating an eye out of knotted whorl and a delicate coconut bonbon out of an exposed nail-head. Underneath is the nail-head in the third photo above, after the frost had melted in the weak light of the sun, and hoarfrost in the undergrowth behind our house.

And while we're at it, seeing as we're looking at photos of ice (and as an icy fog is descending on Wexford even as I type this), here's a rather challenging piece of piano music by an underrated Russian composer:

Wexford Sights (V): Sunsets in December

2009-12-19T17:47:00.010Z

It may be bitterly cold here in County Wexford (by local standards, of course; when it drops to below +5C here in Ireland, we complain furiously about the chill in a temperature that probably would barely register with the average Scandanavian) but the sunsets recently have been breathtakingly beautiful. Of course, it's so difficult to capture a sunset in a photograph, but here are my attempts (taken on Tinaberna and Ballinesker strands). Such glory (the sunsets, not the photographs) is a welcome distraction from the sickening story from Listowel that has dominated headlines here in Ireland (see here and here for more details). And finally, here's a picture of our faithful hound being his usual demented self!

And here's a piece of music I quite like:

It's An Odd Boy Who Doesn't Like Sport!

2009-11-28T15:05:00.005Z

The whole noisy controversy surrounding the recent France vs Ireland match, which has certain excitable types on the web and beyond worked up into a veritable frenzy, puts me in the mind of the whole sweaty, repetitive, tracksuit-wearing topic of exercise. Not that I care about the result of the match – I’ve never had the slightest interest in soccer and the weird tribal activity that surrounds it – but this week sees me starting an exercise regime in our local gym and I felt that, in addition to providing a contemporaneous opening to my little article, it demonstrates the total indifference towards sport that has coloured my perception of exercise since my teenage years, and which has left me the physically feeble and puny specimen that I am today. My energy levels are so low that it is affecting my work, and seeing as I have no underlying health problems that could otherwise explain my lassitude, I’ve come to the conclusion that twenty-plus years taking no serious exercise have left me as weak as a rotten twig. This must change. Above pictured is the Egg digging his small vegetable patch, a little garden of plenty to keep all at Chez Doubtful fed next year (for at least a day or two, anyway), the sort of physical activity which, like exercise, has been foreign to me until recently. But no more, as I have transformed from the kind of indolent aesthete who disdains any activity which doesn’t have a fluffy, delicate pastry at the end of it, to a weight-lifting, jogging, sweating, “feel-the-burn” type of keep-fit enthusiast that would bring Charles Baudelaire out in a rash by his very presence.
You know, in school, those guys who are always picked last when teams are being selected for football (or whatever)? That was me, back in my teens (and the end of every year is a celebration for me as it is 365 days further away from secondary school). I was small, frail, wore glasses, read science fiction, and couldn’t see why the hairy hell I should be interested in charging around a muddy field after a ball while some stubbly, hungover adult with a grubby tracksuit and a whistle shouted at me. Doing it was pointless and uncomfortable, while watching other people do it was tedious in the extreme. I also hated the whole competitive aspect of sport; in any match that I did end up watching, I would always take the side of whichever team happened to be losing, and I always felt sorry for whoever didn’t win in the end. So once I shook the dust of my school off my heels, burned my uniform, and flung myself into the boozy, badly dressed, bearded, anarchic world of art college, the part of my time devoted to physical exercise (never that large even in school) shrank down to a tiny point and imploded. And this remained the state of affairs for nearly two decades.
Of course, the side effect of this neglect of the body was a conspicuous lack of energy. My endurance was pitiful, my physical strength laughable, and work colleagues found it hilarious that the most frequently uttered phrase on my lips was “I’m tired!” But my contempt for exercise was such that it never occurred to me that this could aid me in increasing my vitality; besides, working as a waiter kept me on my feet, and cycling around the town no doubt gave me the bare minimum of aerobic exercise needed to prevent total collapse (I am also blessed with a naturally slim physique, so I rarely put on weight). However, as I proceeded into my thirties, and especially once I fled, laughing, the by-then tiresome world of catering, this disregard for my body’s condition began to take its toll on my constitution, and certainly within the last two years it has combined with anxiety and depression to seriously affect both my work and my life. When I read accounts of other people’s lives, I marvel both at their achievements and at their energy, and I began to seriously ask myself: why can I not maintain such a work rate? Why do I get headaches and exhaustion after the slightest exertion? I went to several fine physicians, who prodded me and bled me and gazed knowledgably at various fluids that I produced; they concluded that, slightly high cholesterol aside, I’m as healthy as a well-fed flea. But the real shock was when I went to the gym in a nearby town and did a fitness test, which revealed that I am (unsurprisingly) grossly, even dangerously, unfit; testing my lung capacity, they pointed out that 80-year-old men could do better than I. This clearly cannot stand!
The reason I went to a gym is because exercise is a tricky thing to do down the country. Communal sports (like football) are impossible, as I hate the competitive, tribal behaviour that accompanies them and my endurance is such that I wouldn’t last ten minutes in such a fast-paced environment. Jogging is both excruciatingly boring and hard to do safely, as well as being conditional on the weather; the torrential rains we’ve seen recently add little to the experience. Cycling, which I’ve always enjoyed, is too dangerous on Irish country roads; one quite literally takes one’s life into one’s hands amid the tyre-bursting potholes, hurtling lorries, and careless speed-freak drivers. Besides, for someone as unfit as I, a trained assessment of my capabilities and limitations was necessary before embarking on any life-changing courses of action; I could just picture jogging for six months on the nearby beach and due to my appalling jogging techniques, my kneecaps one day exploding off my legs like mortar shells and greviously injured a passing walker. And so, finally, after several years of prevarication and dawdling, I began my set programme of cardio-vascular exercises, weights, and stretches, which should, in a few months, have me on the road to full fitness, increased vitality, and the ability to crush bowling balls to powder between my thighs (one never knows when that skill could come in handy!). So, as this is my absolute priority for the next few months, I hope y’all wish me luck. And, after two sessions this week, my first response is: “Damn, I’m knackered!” My feeling about sport hasn’t changed, of course, and here’s a song I particularly like on the subject:

Wexford Sights (IV)

2009-11-21T19:53:00.008Z

I've not been writing much recently, due to personal circumstances, so here's a few photographs of a small river near a hydroelectrical station, taken on a forest walk near Castlebridge in Wexford. Some were taken with a long exposure, which I feel captures the velocity and force of the water, which I have rarely seen as turbulent as it was today, due to the extraordinarily heavy rainfall we've had recently. Of the photos below, the top is a delightful (and accidental) shot of my partner's parents' new puppy, and the bottom is of a dead fox washed up on a beach near me. I could make a point about this, life and death and all that folderol, but I'm too tired... (A Doubtful Egg apologises for being such a sour old git, and promises that, once my new regime of healthy exercise (a first for me) and proper eating begins to pay off in terms of both more energy and a sunnier outlook on life, posts here and over at the neglected "... crumpling paper ..." blog will contain more substance and entertainment.)

The NAMA Vote

2009-11-14T10:02:00.004Z

Seeing as NAMA is one of the most important (and grotesque) pieces of legislation to appear before our Dail, I think it's important to make a list of those who weren't able to make the time to be present to vote, a list I haven't yet seen anywhere else (at the time of writing; if it does exist, please let me know, and do likewise if I've made any mistakes, so I can make the necessary correction).

On the government side, Martin Cullen (FF), Beverley Flynn (FF), Jim McDaid (FF) and Michael Moynihan (FF) didn't vote, nor did Noel Grealish (PD) or Finian McGrath (Independent). All the Green Party were present, and voted in favour.

On the opposition side there was a breathtaking 10 members absent from Fine Gael, including party leader Enda Kenny (!) and George "Economic Superstar" Lee. Other FG non-voters were Sean Barrett, Michael Creed, Lucinda Creighton, John Deasy, Olwyn Enright, Charles Flanagan, Olivia Mitchell, and Alan Shatter. Also missing were three members of Labour: Kathleen Lynch, Brian O'Shea, and Ruairi Quinn. All (four) members of Sinn Fein were present, and voted against. The Ceann Comhairle Seamus Kirk also didn't vote, but he's not supposed to unless there's a tie.

Those who voted in favour: 81.

Those who voted against: 65.

Those who were absent on the government side: 6.

Those who were absent on the opposition side: 13.

Ceann Comhairle: 1.

Total: 166.

The list of those who voted is here. The bill now goes to the President to be signed into law, and once that's done the real fun commences. And to get that unpleasant taste out of my mouth, here's a really enjoyable and entirely irrelevant pop song.

Two Songs

2009-11-06T20:57:00.006Z

Where are protest pop songs (such as those presented below) today? Cthulhu knows we need them! (This isn't a rhetorical question, by the way; seeing as I'm hopelessly ignorant about a lot of contemporary pop and rock, I'm genuinely curious. The UB40 song is included because it might be the first politically aware pop song I ever heard.)

A Very Belated Accompaniment

2009-10-31T20:14:00.007Z

This time nearly a year ago I wrote a short piece about Sappho and walking in moonlight (here). I only wish that I had had the following photo (taken this evening on Morriscastle Strand) to illustrate it with back then, but better late than never. (I hope this displays properly on your computer; it's quite dark!)

Here's the same scene without the shadowy figure (my partner, who was very obliging about having to stand still quite a few times while I cursed and tried to get the shot right).

And finally, here's a jolly pumpkin in the window of Chez Doubtful! (I'm off to watch some more horror films now...)

As It's Halloween...

2009-10-28T20:12:00.010Z

Seeing as it's Halloween, and therefore everyone's blathering on about 'orror, I felt that I should stick my oar in and make a list of a few interesting films for the discerning fan of cinema's dark side. However, my definition of a good horror film is based on its power to unsettle or disturb me rather than by its ability to frighten me. After all, anyone can yell "boo!" in your face and make you jump; for me, the really good stuff gets under your skin and stays there, like a bad dream. This is why I found The Exorcist or The Silence of the Lambs laughable rather than terrifying; they were so overwrought, obvious, and just plain silly that these days I couldn't even sit through them. But the following ten films have a real sense of flair and imagination, a genuine brush with the downright eerie and disturbing, and/or a nightmarish descent into the dark depths of the soul, and are highly recommended for those who haven't yet seen them. And if you have seen them, why not watch them again? (These are just off the top of my head; this list could change as I rifle through my video collection!)

1) The Haunting (1963 version)

Definitely the best haunted house film ever made, and one of the spookiest, most intelligent horror films of all time (which was remade as a ludicrous atrocity by Jan de Bont in the 1990s; for shame!).

2) Carnival of Souls (1962).

This is one of the oddest B-movie horror films from the era and a wonderfully imaginative, strange little film. Often touted as an influence on George Romero, but I can imagine that a certain D. Lynch was also paying attention when this little gem first appeared.

3) Night of the Living Dead (1968).

The original, and still one of the best, of the modern-era horror films, as well as being the best zombie film ever made. Thought-provoking, visceral, and with the most audacious endings in the genre.

4) Deep Red (1975).

Everyone's favourite Italian madman/auteur, Dario Argento, has been off the boil for some time now (since the late seventies, many would say, and even then his ouevre was an acquired taste: lots of style and nightmarish imagery, but let down by terrible acting, preposterous plots, and gaps in logic excessive even for the seventies) but if you're only going to watch one, make it this one: a very weird and convoluted murder mystery with some extremely startling moments and a general atmosphere of twisted decadence. May be too grisly for some, though.

5) Vertigo (1958).

Some might argue against including this as a horror film; however, I've always seen Vertigo as a ghost story (which just happens to have no real ghost). Certainly, it has moments which are truly haunting, and is one of the bleakest, darkest, and most disturbing films I've seen. (It also makes no sense whatsoever...)

6) The Innocents (1961).

This film version of The Turn of the Screw scared the bejaysus out of me when I saw it one evening many years ago, and it ranks up there with The Haunting as one of the best ghost stories on film.

7) Witchfinder General (1968).

Michael Reeves' extraordinarily dark and pessimistic tale of nasty doings in the Cromwellian era remains the best film Hammer never made, and has the performance of a lifetime from Vincent Price (although I have a great fondness for the Corman Poe films as well).

8) Brain Dead (1992).

The ultimate zombie splatter comedy, with possibly the best line ever from a kung-fu priest ("I kick arse for the Lord!") and a no-holds-barred approach to zombie dismemberment that's both utterly revolting and totally hilarious. The best horror comedy since The Evil Dead II ("groovy!"). Strong stomachs are definitely required for this one!

9) Black Sunday/The Mask of Satan (1960).

A wonderfully filmed Gothic tale has atmosphere so ripe you could slice it with a cheese knife and serve it on crackers, and the deathly beautiful Barbara Steele. The other best film that Hammer never made...

10) King Kong (1933).

Need I say more? (The original Kong, like Frankenstein, might not be scary any more, but they're still the best monster films ever. And I hated the recent remake of Kong, which was three times as long and, despite 70 years' worth of special effects' advances, still lacked the charm and pathos of the original (insofar as that which can be possessed by a film about a giant gorilla). When 1933 Kong falls to his doom, I still get a lump in my throat; when 2005 Kong finally plunges to earth, I yell "About bloody time!" )

Having recently watched The Devil Rides Out, with a magnetic Christopher Lee fighting the forces of Satan, I'm keeping the horror vibe going by watching the little-known but recommended Night of the Eagle (from 1962, I think, and about witches) and The Haunted Palace with Vincent Price (based on Lovecraft's Charles Dexter Ward). Happy Halloween, y'all! And here's a suitable song and video:

Turning 100...

2009-10-20T20:32:00.002+01:00

One hundred posts here at Chez Doubtful ... If you're in the mood for something interesting, please watch the following and see what you think (be warned that it's 18 minutes long). I think it's fascinating, and more information can be found here. (The Dailymotion video isn't as good as the one found at the link, but that video wouldn't embed properly, and the YouTube videos have an annoying habit of putting the title onscreen, thus spoiling any surprise.)