A Photo

Betty

The nicest compliment anyone has ever paid me was to tell me that I look like my grandmother in this photo. I never knew her, she died when my father was just in his teens. I think she was very beautiful.

3 Haircuts, 1 Weekend

#1
Saturday afternoon in my bedroom, with the kitchen scissors. Not a raging success. It's more difficult than I imagined to cut your own hair.

#2
In the sitting room where the Leitrim Lady tried to repair the damage done by yours truly. A marginally more successful failure, but a much more stressful one (she being less snip-happy than myself). A smaller scissors is apparently key to the operation, as is a steady hand. And a comb, if you want to be fancy and have an even fringe.

#3
In my aunt's kitchen, after a host of concerned aunties have "admired" my Mary Quant look and asked me in front of my by now very embarrassed mother if I had, in fact, cut it myself. "It doesn't look that crooked til you look at your eyebrows" offers my sister, helpfully. Mam fixes it, I blame the entire mess on the Leitrim Lady, nobody buys it.

Playing A Longer Game

And so another Monday finds Rosie battered and bruised at her desk, vowing not to drink again for at least a fortnight and contriving elaborate schemes to get tomorrow off work, as she cannot face the thoughts of five consecutive days of trying to amuse her work experience students very hard work. Not that her day off will be spent in bed, oh no. It will be spent doing all of the assignments that she hasn't bothered her arse to so much as look at for the last month. May's deadline is looming large and the last thing she wants is another panic attack like the one she had before last year's exams.

Why is she writing about herself in the third person? Is it not already weird enough that she keeps a blog?

I'm pleasantly tired after the weekend's fun and frolics. I was unpleasantly tired last night though; panda-eyed and frisky but without enough energy in my body to keep up with my brain. Not a nice way to be - you feel like you're going a little crazy. After Friday night's lapses in common sense and decorum I ended up with two houseguests for the weekend; the unfailingly polite Doc (whose only rival for talkativeness is the Swede) and Jeeps, the strange man with alarmingly straightforward manners. They'd come from London and Berlin respectively to celebrate the New Daddy's birthday with what was originally to be a curry-and-karaoke night and ended up being a free-beer-in-Hogans followed by shite-meal-in-overpriced-restaurant* followed by frolics-in-Rí-Rá followed by Campari-and-shitetalk-til-8am-back-in-mine kind of night. Scrubbed up in suits and dresses we were quite the dapper dozen and my outfit** earned me some much appreciated compliments, though I've yet to be featured in Dublin Streets.

I didn't kiss Jeeps again on the Saturday, partly because there'd been an annoying little butterfly fluttering around him all evening and I had no interest in vying with her for his attentions and partly also because I was beginning to see what the New Mammy had warned me about before I kissed him all of those months ago. I think with maybe one exception he'd had his way with most if not all of the ladies in our company, including the Poet, a college friend of mine that I hadn't expected to run into. "So, how do you know Jeeps?" I asked her, having apologised for him stealing the box of Ferrero Rocher she'd been carrying only to discover that she knew him and that they were actually his birthday present. "He picked me up in a club, and we've kept in touch" she replied, looking embarrassed. "I thought I was going out with him for a while, but he didn't." She did point out that the trail of women he'd left in his wake were rather attractive ones and that we should be flattered to be in such beautiful company.

Hmm.

My eminently wise flatmate the Leitrim Lady took another tack altogether and bollocked me once more for my short-sightedness. Herself and the Swede are both very taken with the Doc and are of the (loudly voiced) opinion that he and I should marry, and soon. "You have to stop kissing people just because they ask you to, you dopey bitch" she admonished. "Learn to play a longer game!"

She's right.

*An hour and a half late in seating us at our (pre-booked) table, no mention that the steaks didn't come with any side dishes (which left 8 of us sitting bewildered with a slab of meat and a €2 ramekin of sauce each) no side orders brought to the table despite my ordering some once this was realised, my "blue" steak a brownish pink medium, tough and sinewy and completely fucking inexcusable at €28. Bad service, bad food, disgraceful prices.

**I wore my diner waitress dress again: candy striped halterneck with a wide swingy skirt that I filled with layers of stiff blue, red and pink netting to make it stand out. Cute Stranger in Hogans - "your dress is fuckin' deadly! I mean it's, eh, beautiful!"

On The Bright Side

No matter how devastating my hangover is, at least I'm not lugging it with me to the airport after two hours sleep.

Happy flying, Doc.

Gang Aft Agley

The Plan was to:

• Meet the Jock and the SWF for a drink.
  
• Keep it close to home (Kennedy's) and stay for three drinks, maximum.
• Be in bed by 11pm and fresh for study by 9am.
  
• Ignore the New Daddy's taunts and resist getting a taxi over to Sin É.
• Remain unswayed by that strange man with alarmingly straightforward manners (again).

It was a good plan, but I'm afraid the execution was very poor.

Dressing To Impress

I was feeling very blue when I got out of bed this morning. So I put on my sunshine yellow skirt and a yellow hairband to match, black top, black boots, baby pink blazer, giant red scarf and blue gloves. Then off I tottled to work.

I feel a little better.

Phuck Off (Review: In The Name Of The Fada)

I made a half-empty promise there recently to review Des Bishop's latest offering, In the Name of the Fada. Thankfully a nice lady in Co. Chorcaí has saved me the bother and written one herself instead. Please adopt a sanctimonious and slightly whingeing tone as you read:

I was reminded by my gaelgóir friends to watch Des Bishop's Irish language programme, In The Name of the Fada, on RTÉ (March 13).
[Strike #1: Gaeilgeoirí don't have non-Gaeilgeoir friends, do they? And if you insist on referring to Irish speakers as if they merit a special category of friend - learn to spell Gaeilgeoir. Or look it up. Whatevs.]

The effervescent, high-pitched tone baffled me.
[Effervescence and Gaeilge, like Mentos and Diet Coke, do not mix. Oh no, wait...]

This new Irish word starting with 'ph' and ending with 'k' in phonetic sounds kept coming into his delivery of newly-acquired Irish; in fact it was used almost twice in some abairtí gearra.
[I believe the word may have been "fuck", Eilís, with an "f". The Urban Dictionary gives a handy guide to its usage.]

I was at a loss and reached for my bíobla na Gaeilge (Ó Domhnall), but failed to find such a word.
[I hear they're bringing out a Lolcat edition! I'm excited.]

However, this f..k focal kept 'adorning' each Irish sentence, and as it was not in keeping with the rich, flowery blas of the gaeilge that I learned, I lost interest and switched my TV to 'balbh'.
[Had they censored the subtitles?]

I was reminded of that old saying 'a little knowledge is a dangerous thing'.
[I suspect you might be proof positive of that, Eilís.]

Eilís Uí Bhriain
Caisleán Uí Liatháin
Co Chorcaí
[source]

Abie Philbin-Bowman has written a review too, in the Dubliner. A scathing review, which is not at all self-promoting or shortsighted. (I suspect that scathing should be in inverted commas too, or air-quotes, or some such shit, for I suspect that's how the piece was conceived in Abie's head). He slates Bishop's assertion that Irish is "becoming associated with forward thinking and innovation"; according to the bould Abie, "Such self-delusion is a vanity project we can ill afford."

Reviews: Why bother your hole writing your own when you can take the piss out of someone else's?

Pinkied Again

Walking home, lost in reverie, spitting distance from the sanctuary of my front door.

"Hi!"

Oh FUCK.

Five stiff and awkward minutes later she left with my phone number and a vague promise to meet her for a drink.

I'm such a sack. Why do I keep doing this?*

*I have form.

One In Four

ONE in four people believe women who have been raped are partly to blame for the crime because of how they dressed, their sexual history or how much they had to drink. (link here)

I heard this on the radio last night and wondered this morning if my tired brain had made it up. I have very frequent and vivid nightmares; I wondered if the story was a fragment of last night's unpleasantness that had followed me into my Wednesday. My cursory reading of the paper this morning saw no mention of the poll, so I assumed that I'd made it up. Then I read Twenty's post.

The figures:

• 10% of people think the victim is entirely at fault if she has had a number of sexual partners.
• 37% think a woman who flirts extensively is at least complicit, if not completely in the wrong, if she is the victim of a sex crime.
• 33% think a woman is either partly or fully to blame if she wears revealing clothes.
• 38% believe a woman must share some of the blame if she walks through a deserted area.

Sam's comment over at Twenty's was one of the (very*) few considered efforts to respond to his understated post :

It is hard to know where to start with cretins like this. Attitudes like this bear some responsibility for some rape victims never reporting the crime done against them. They also betray a pretty pitiful view of men as lower order creatures who mustn’t be riled or stimulated in case they bite and wouldn’t that be your own fault too.

I have not been raped, but like many women I have had cause to be anxious on occasion (remember this bastard?). I didn't report him, I would not have known what to say. I would have been worried that my own actions that night would be called into question and that I would be made to feel worse for having made a fuss. Why didn't I ignore him when he first spoke to me? Why didn't I just get a taxi? What was I thinking going out drinking in the first place? I was wracked with guilt after that night, wondering if there was something about me that encouraged him, something I did, something I am.

I have had my share of lovers. I am an incorrigible flirt, albeit a clumsy one. I wear skirts to show off my legs. I like to walk home.

One in four think I'm asking for it?

I would imagine that some of these people are voicing their opinions on the subject of "date rape"** though I have nothing to say that the questionnaire was phrased in such a way as to imply date rape as opposed to gang rape, marital rape, prison rape, oral rape, anal rape or any other violation. I imagine this to be the case in a vain effort to get my head around the survey's conclusions, because I cannot believe that people can be so sanctimonious, so judgemental, so unforgiving in the face of something so awful. I'm disgusted at myself for wondering this at all, because it means that subconsciously I'm considering date rape as something that could be invited.

*The other cunts would put you off commenting on what is a very readable blog - like a load of smelly and ignorant arseholes would deter you from your favourite pub.

**"Date rape" is a term I very much take issue with. Blakkat has written an articulate piece on the subject, it's a long post but worth a read.

Rosie Makes A Sensible Purchase

H&M Mac

It looks a little like something a child with special needs might wear to school, but it looks cute on me, I swear.

Sometimes It's Good To Be Home

Tramping around the racecourse this evening with the Blonde rolling ecstatically in the grass and the Urchin tugging at her leash, wearing my miniskirt, my wellies and my big coat (which GingerBeard says makes me look like Brenda Fricker in Home Alone II). Watching the sun go down over Naas and my fingers turn blue with the cold. Eating pizza on the couch with my mam and dad, watching Addams Family Values and trying to decide who I'd most like to be - Wednesday or Morticia (Morticia, definitely, she got to kiss Raul Julia). Sharing my brother's Lindt Easter bunny (Santy didn't bring us any Easter eggs this year - instead we've bought bicycles for some kids over in Kenya that my folks are going to visit. I was confused by this too). Dressing the Urchin in the chocolate bunny's ribbon and bell and laughing as the Blonde bodyslammed her into the kitchen presses in an effort to rip it off her. Having five people to cook for instead of one (unless you count Great Friday, when I cooked for everyone I've ever fucking met). Getting used to home being home again.

And having my own little corner of the city to retreat to tomorrow when it all becomes a bit too much for me.

Booze Blues

Day #2 of the hangover's the doozy - the physical symptoms are no more but the vague sense of disappointment prevails. Still, Great Friday was a raging success. The house is pristine apart from the chunk of porcelain missing from the downstairs jacks (how does one break the inside rim of a toilet bowl?) and the stale smell will hopefully be gone by the time my folks arrive back tomorrow. I played the hostess with the mostess until I got as jarred as my guests, at which point I danced like, I dunno, something that can't dance, and then made out with a very very cute boy in front of all and sundry.

Good work.

Now I need to set about planning my next adventure, as without something to look forward to I shall succumb to the booze blues and spend the rest of the week lazing despondantly on the couch, watching Project Catwalk reruns and laughing out loud every time Ben de Lisi cries.

Fat Bottomed Girls

Like many if not most women, I'm insecure about my shape. My teenage preoccupations were with my feet and my teeth (I still tend to hide my smile when I can) but these days it's all about my size. Small breasts, a soft belly and a lardy bum. My weight is one of the few taboo subjects I have. I will occasionally joke about my fat arse and will often joke about my non-existent diddies but I find I can't speak to anyone about how I really feel about my looks without getting teary eyed. It's embarrassing that at 27 years of age I am still so insecure about it.

Twice recently I have raised it in a very matter-of-fact way with friends and I got the impression that both of them were shocked by what I said. The Jock and I were out carousing and she was telling me about a friend of hers that she wants to set me up with for a blind date. She reckoned we'd be a great match, I wasn't so sure. I was pretty confident that I'd like him, but terrified that he'd meet me and wonder why she had set him up with some fat bird. So I said as much. She looked appalled. The second instance was in a text I sent to GingerBeard; I was smarting from another little disappointment and his sympathetic "his loss" text message elicited an angry "why it's really not his loss" response from me (centering around the fact that I think I'm fat and maybe mental). He got angry with me, disgusted that I'd say such a thing about myself.

I paused in front of the mirror this morning as I dried myself after my shower. Let the towel fall and took a long look at myself. Not posed, not poised, just nude. Drank in the curves, the paler-than-pasty skin, flushed with the heat of the shower. Thought of all the lovers I've had who were less than perfect physical specimens but whom I've lusted after regardless and tried to see myself as a lover might see me.

Review: My Dinner

The hand-cut chips with salt, pepper and vinegar... the caramelised onions... the fillet steak, seared and served with a cream and brandy sauce. Enjoyed on the couch, in front of Grand Designs.

It was fucking delicious.

You Had To Be There

Spagett!

I spagetted the New Daddy and my brother last week, hiding behind a door in the hallway of my apartment block. It was funny as fuck, provided you're drunk and have a juvenile sense of humour. Less funny was the New Daddy's counter-spagett, where he hid behind a bunch of tulip lights and bellowed incoherently, then stood on my headphones (yes, those ones) and broke them.

Teh Internets - it's a bad influence.

Housesitter

The invites were sent out, the RSVPs are in. The parents are out of town, the dogs are walked, the siblings are resting on the couch in front of Young Guns. The cauldron of chilli's bubbling on the hob, the curry's cooking slowly in the oven, the guacamole's resting in the fridge. I've emptied Tesco's of booze, paracetamol, bleach and black sacks.

It's almost time for the annual Great Friday Party.

Bookworm

Nana wandered over to the bookshelf, looking for something to borrow. "I don't know" she said doubtfully "they all look a bit dark". I scanned the shelves, looking for something she might like. Murder, apocalypse, suicide, death, abuse, genocide, alcoholism, unrequited love, loss; a catalogue of violence, vice and human suffering. I have a fine collection of books of which I am very proud, but I had honestly never realised that it was so fucking grim. Searching in vain for something that wouldn't further depress an elderly and grieving widow, I lit upon the one I read myself when I need a little soul - The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. And then remembered that Bauby wrote it after he'd suffered a massive stroke and then died very shortly after it was published. So maybe not.

She left with Roddy Doyle's The Deportees in the end, a harmless little book of funny vignettes about, em, racism.

Lá 'le Pádraig

I mentioned my sober and contemplative Paddy's Day - here are a few of the photos I took on my stroll. Town was packed to the gills with tourists, harried looking suburbanites with wailing sprogs and native urban terrorists, all apparently sponsored by Carrolls Irish Gift Shop. The south docks were very quiet, however. The only person we met was an elderly gent out for a cycle, who said he was sad to see all of the old history down there being lost.

Sad? I am and I amn't. There has been a lot of debate recently on the subject of cultural and national identity and what it means to be Irish (tis the season, I suppose) but I don't think I'm articulate enough on the subject to add much to the discussion. But you ramble inarticulately about all kinds of other things! cry the readers. Indeed and I do, but this is one I feel strongly about. So instead here are the pictures, and a little waffle I stole off teh internets about people throwing shoes.

Mucky Tunes: Stereo in the silt down by the Westmoreland Lock.

Ratz From The Flatz: Graffiti at Grand Canal Basin

Shoefiti: Ringsend

There's an interesting article on 'Shoefiti' on Wiki:

Some say that shoes hanging from the wires advertise a local crack house where crack cocaine is used and sold (in which case the shoes are sometimes referred to as "Crack Tennies"). It can also relate to a place where Heroin is sold to symbolize the fact that once you take Heroin you can never 'leave': a reference to the addictive nature of the drug. Others claim that the shoes so thrown commemorate a gang-related murder, or the death of a gang member, or as a way of marking gang turf.
Some claim that shoes are flung to commemorate the end of a school year, or a forthcoming marriage as part of a rite of passage. In Scotland, it has been said that when a young man has lost his virginity he tosses his shoes over telephone wires to announce this to his peers.
Others claim that the shoes are stolen from other people and tossed over the wires as a sort of bullying tactic, or as a practical joke played on drunkards. It may also be another manifestation of the human instinct to leave their mark on, and decorate, their surroundings.

I suspect the motivation in this case to be booze and bollix-acting rather than crack houses, gangland murders or sexual adventures but I suppose you never know. My favourite line in the Wiki piece was this: Others simply say that shoe flinging is a way to get rid of shoes that are no longer wanted, are uncomfortable, or do not fit.

Dubliners are nothing if not practical.

I Don't Love Lamp

Remember the lovely lamp that OneFor bought me after he broke mine in a fit of pique?*

I bought the wrong bulbs three times; my numerical dyslexia not allowing me to remember the simple one letter three number combination for the time it takes me to get from the flat to the hardware shop (5 minutes). I eventually hit on the right ones this evening and bought 2, just in case. Came home, screwed one in, flipped the switch and watched it light up - for all of two fucking seconds before the bulb blew. Tried the second one, optimist that I am. A barely audible pop - the sound of my triumphant bubble bursting.

*sigh*

*It may have just been that he's a clumsy shite. The details are hazy.

Déan Nós

Féach ar seo! Irish nua, snasta, spraíúil, suimiúil, sexy. Mar a deir an eagarfhocal, tá "beocht úr le mothú san aer, loinnir i súile an domhain mhóir, rudaí nua ag teacht ar an saol".

Ní fheadar fútsa, ach táimse excited.

Manchán: Making My Job That Little Bit Harder

Last year I made a television series called No Béarla, in which I travelled around Ireland trying to speak only Irish. I didn't get on very well, especially in Dublin, where I was often abused and ignored. Outside the capital, people were more friendly, but they rarely understood what I was trying to say. What struck me most were the expressions I saw in people's eyes: shame, fear, anger, jealousy and yearning. I wanted to know what lay behind this complex cocktail of emotion...
(From today's Irish Times - The plot to make Irish an alien language by Manchán Magan)

I'd hazard a guess that the abuse, ignorance, shame, fear, anger, jealousy and yearning (really?) were a direct result of Magan's patronising demeanour and confrontational attitude. I remember watching the first series and thinking that although I speak perfectly fluent Irish, there's no way I'd entertain that gobshite if he approached me in the street. It was all the more disappointing because I had seen him interviewed by Páidí Ó Lionáird on Árdán before the No Béarla series was first aired and he came across as engaging, funny and genuinely interested in promoting an intelligent debate about modern attitudes to the Irish language. Then I watched it and thought "oh well, ho-fucking-hum then". I'm sure series II will be a revelation.

I'll review Des Bishop's In The Name Of The Fada in about an hour (I was out at a real life Gaeilgeoir thingy when it was aired last week - well done to the clever schedulers in RTÉ who broadcast it while Des was live on stage at the big gig for Seachtain na Gaeilge). I've higher hopes for that one...

Happy Birthday, Shithead

Too Few Candles (He's Really Old)

I can't pinpoint when it was that GingerBeard and I became friends. For the longest time I could never remember his name; he'd call in to my office to use my scanner - which was just as well as I'd demanded one when they were fitting out my office and then never used it. I'd promise to email him the files and then have to sit there for ten minutes with my colleague trying to remember what his surname might be so that I could send the stuff on. He earned kudos by calling to have things scanned close to lunchtime and then agreeing to pick me up a sandwich while he was out, somehow this progressed to invitations for after-work pints with himself and his mate ("You should come, he has lovely hair. Bouffant style. Wait til you see..."). By now it feels like I've known him for years.

He drives me mental. He takes the piss out me constantly and in public, laying it on particularly thick about my twin Achilles heels; that I'm lacking in sense of both the common and fashion varieties. He mocks my fickle attitude to romance and my inept pursuit of same. He antagonises me when I have a hangover and am hovering dangerously close to tears. He makes valiant if not always successful efforts to cheer me up when I'm having a black day, and he occasionally brings me chocolate. He thinks my blog is ridiculous* but reads it most days and has perfected the art of making "put that in your blog!" sound just like a stinging riposte. He's stubborn as a pig, kind-hearted, annoyingly overprotective, disarmingly funny and touchingly generous. I piss him off royally and unintentionally by doing all manner of things (like laughing at him when he falls off his bike) but thankfully, he always gets over it.

He turns, oh, I dunno, 38 or something today.

*I should perhaps qualify that by saying that he thinks all blogs are ridiculous, and only reads mine and his brother's. I'm not sure which one of ours he thinks is worse.

Knick Knack Paddywhack

I rolled out of bed this morning, dressed myself from head to toe in mismatched shades of green, high-hoed it to Carrolls' Irish Gift Shop to purchase some of those flattering shorts with the fake arse cheeks hanging out the back (póg mo thóin scrawled across them in homage to the Oirish language) had some chugger paint shamrocks on my cheeks and forehead, climbed onto the roof of a phonebox down at College Green, heckled the Americans below as they jostled for a vantage point from which to view the parade and then hightailed it to a packed Temple Bar pub to spill Guinness, sing offensive rebel songs and drink til I fancied Burger King.

Oh no, wait...

I got up, met my brother, strolled into town to marvel at the efforts that everyone else had gone to to celebrate our national holiday and then headed to Da Pino's for a pizza (the remains of which are reheating in the oven as I type - aubergines, broccoli, pepperoni, chillies, sweet peppers and cheese). The weather was beautiful so we walked then from Dame St. out to Ringsend, following the Liffey and taking a few photographs along the way, talking through some of the things that have been going on for us over the last couple of weeks. They've been a difficult few weeks.

Back to my flat then for tea and a DVD (28 Weeks Later - terrifying, brilliant) and then another stroll, this time to Parnell St via George's Dock, where we picked up the Hurler and headed to the cinema to see Be Kind, Rewind (which was very charming, Mos Def more than making up for the annoyance that is Jack Black). We walked home again via Scruffy Murphys, where the lads had a Guinness each and I had an orange juice. I'm bursting with virtue and pizza now, and am going straight to bed before my halo slips.

Film Review: In Bruges

It's not very good, despite all I'd heard. The dialogue is laboured and occasionally very clumsy - to the point where Gleeson and Farrell look hammy (it's a good job one of them is pretty). Whatshisface Fiennes is hammy, positively gammy hammy in fact. There are occasional moments of brilliance (Eric Godon's Yuri and his alcoves for one) but they're few and far between, and all in the preview. I'd hoped for something along the lines of I Went Down but I was sorely disappointed.

Bruges looks nice though.

A Very Hard Sell Indeed

I'd been looking forward to last night's DJ Shadow & Cut Chemist gig for ages. I had such a nasty hangover yesterday that I was struggling with the idea of going out at all, but hell - how often do your heroes come to town? My brother and the New Daddy arrived over at 6pm armed with beer, pizza and not a little giddiness and we set about our preparations; drinking beer, eating pizza and getting giddy.

The Ambassador was packed to the rafters when the two boys took to the stage and the whole place stank of high excitement, testosterone and greasy hair. The atmosphere was electric as they kicked off... but not, alas, for long. To put it mildly, the set was balls. It may have been a masterclass in vinyl but the audience got pissed off with it pretty quickly; choppy and sloppy changes in style and pace, short samples that led to nothing, build-ups that went nowhere. It never got going, people got bored and spent their time in the gruesome pile-ups at the bar or out smoking in the car park. There was a queue for the cloakroom before they'd quite finished their set, one head-the-ball leading the rest in a cheer for a refund. What I'd reckoned on being the gig of the year was a damp squib, a fart in a spacesuit, a big fat disappointment.

Pity the poor cunts who forked out €70 outside for tickets.

How To Lose A Guy In One Date

Make sure that it's a date with me, apparently. More anon, when the dejection has abated and I've bleached the flat of last night's party.

I'm At A Loss For A Title

I don't normally do lazy look-what-I-read-in-the-paper posts (being so self-absorbed that I assume the trivialities of my own life to be far more interesting than anything I read in the papers) but this one was too good not to pass on. From this morning's Irish Times:

A woman (35) in Kansas sat on her boyfriend's toilet for two years. Sheriff Bryan Whipple of Ness City said it appeared her skin had grown around the seat.

She initially refused emergency medical services but was finally convinced by responders and her boyfriend that she needed to be checked out at a hospital.

"We pried the toilet seat off with a pry bar and the seat went with her to the hospital," Whipple said. "She was not glued. She was not tied. She was just physically stuck by her body. It is hard to imagine . . . I still have a hard time imagining it myself."

Her boyfriend told police he brought her food and water, and asked her every day to come out of the bathroom. "Her reply would be, 'maybe tomorrow'."

Police are investigating whether she was mistreated but she has refused to co-operate.

What the fuck?

Giddy Up Again (But Faster This Time, Please)

Refined. Like Me.

GingerBeard's put all of my money (€8) on Refinement in the 12.30 at Cheltenham. Refinement. Suits me, no?

***UPDATE***

The fucking nag came in second; my money was on him to win. I've drawn Denman and Halcon Genelardais in Primal's sweep though, so there's hope for me yet. Meanwhile I've dispatched the Ginger one with another €5 which I probably should have just spent on Creme Eggs, or maybe set on fire.

***AND ANOTHER UPDATE***

Denman did me proud in the sweep but GingerBeard won't tell me what he put my fiver on, so I don't know if I'm rich yet. I suspect not.

Mixology

Wine, vodka, cider and Campari are all fine drinks. One should perhaps not drink them all in a row though.

Giddy Up

Get over to Primal's, he's giving away free money or something.

In other gambling news, I did not win last night's lottery. Mainly because I did not buy a ticket. I didn't buy a ticket because I don't know how, having never done it and I'm reluctant to expose my naiveté in my local shop (where the proprietor already thinks I'm a retard because I always drop my change on the floor). I'm hoping that Disgrace won and has decided that his newfound wealth means nothing to him without me to share it with.

Stupid MEME

Fucking Terence broke my record of no MEMEs on the blog and tagged me with one the other day. I'm the girl who can't say no, so I'll humour him on the condition that he (a) doesn't do it again and (b) removes the word verification from his blog as promised because it drives me mental. Oh, and maybe (c) too - that he buys me a pint should I ever happen to be in Cavan again.

So... The rules. Link to the idiot that tagged you (see above). Post 7 random facts about yourself and then lumber 7 other poor shites with the same MEME by naming them and leaving a comment on each of their blogs. I won't be doing that because I don't want to nominate some grumpyhole who'll verbally abuse me like I did poor Terence. A new game though - I'd like you, dear readers, to add to my list of 7 by posting in the comments any other random facts about me that you know to be true (should you be fortunate enough to know me in the flesh) or that you suspect to be true, if all you have to go on is the blog. The most accurate will win a prize (yet to be decided but it will be an actual prize, I promise you).

1. The first CD I ever bought was The Spin Doctors' Pocket Full Of Kryptonite, which I bought in a little record shop in Chester. I still love it. The first album I ever bought with my own money was Nirvana's In Utero, on tape. A bit of a departure for me - I was mainly into Neil Diamond at the time.
2. When I was 25 I had a fling with a man 9 years older than me, and then another with a man who was 7 years younger. I regretted both but for very different reasons.
3. I vomit instantly if I drink shots, though in my teens I was very very good at it.
4. I write a sex column.
5. My first kiss was with my first boyfriend, and wasn't until I was 15 years old. We ended up together for 2 1/2 years, and I think that first kiss lasted for about 2 1/2 days.
6. I suspect I have dyscalculia (numerical dyslexia). Apparently that's just Irish for "shit at maths".
7. The first concert I ever went to was Chris de Burgh. On the same night, my brother had his very first Big Mac (as compensation for being too young to go to the gig). Only one of those love affairs has stood the test of time.

So, is there anything else you think I might like the world to know about me?

Food For The Soul

I had a shite day today; I spent a large portion of it wiping snots from my nose and mascara from my cheeks. I've had a shite few days, really, so I decided a bit of retail therapy would be just the ticket this evening. What cheerier present to buy for oneself than a ticket for Thom Yorke and friends? (I went looking for Leonard Cohen ones, but they're not on sale until Friday).

I also got myself one for Oxegen. I know, I know... The worst festival the world has ever seen, etc. Well, I missed it last year but I've been every other year and I've always had an absolute fucking ball. My folks live within walking distance and are very obliging when it comes to getting the hell out of dodge and giving me the run of the place for the weekend, so my siblings and I usually set up a festival base-camp and indulge our friends in champagne breakfasts, cocktail lunches, unlimited jacks roll, hot showers, comfortable beds, big dirty fry-ups and dry clothing. Sure, the punters out there are little cunts for the most part. I'm not there to see them, though - this year I'll be there to see Rage Against The Machine, Aphex Twin, The Verve, Interpol, REM, Editors, The Prodigy, Counting Crows, Seasick Steve, The Charlatans, Justice, Ian Brown, Róisín Murphy, Band of Horses and Alabama 3.

Bring it on.

Fire And Brimstone

We brought Grandad to the church last night, and are to bury him this morning. I didn't want to go in to the funeral home to see him in his coffin - dressed in his suit and Aston Villa tie, the bruise from when last he fell still shining on his forehead, rosary beads knotted in his hands. But I was opening doors, escorting an elderly aunt and it seemed only proper to follow her in. Funerals are all about propriety, aren't they? I lasted all of two minutes in there. It wasn't Grandad himself that I didn't want to be around, it was everyone else crowded into the tiny chapel, the dim light, the uncomfortable silence. I sat outside instead, talking weather with the funeral director and golf with my two handsome little cousins.

My air of decorum lapsed between the funeral home and the church; my dad and I took a stroll instead of a lift and the elastic snapped in the waistband of my woolly black tights, meaning I had to spend the rest of the evening trying to walk with my legs crossed lest the tights ended up around my ankles (I eventually tied a great big knot in the waistband, making for an unflattering silhouette but a more natural gait). I'm playing it safe for the funeral mass this morning and wearing jeans and cowboy boots. I've to do a reading (as Gaeilge, so I may as well give a weather report as a reading from the Book of Wisdom, as I think I'll be the only one present who speaks Irish anyway) and the last thing I want is to trip over my own undergarments as I step up to the plate.

I am, however, reassured that no matter what I do up there this morning, I cannot possibly be more offensive than the priest who welcomed Grandad to the church last night. I've written about Fr. Sensitive before, after I enjoyed a particularly misogynistic sermon of his over Christmas. You might expect a degree of compassion from him on an occasion such as this one, but you would be disappointed. As well as getting Grandad's name wrong from the get-go, he indulged in an offensive, insensitive, irrelevant and entirely inappropriate sermon which lasted for the best part of, oh, a fucking lifetime. He spoke mainly about the sanctity of heterosexual marriage and the nuclear family, denouncing promiscuity (repeatedly, loudly and in no uncertain terms) single parent families, "other things" and money, the root of all evil. He peppered his sermon with humanising touches, being holy does not have to mean being boring you know. Why, he himself enjoys the characters in the Premiership and has a friend video the football for him. "Alex liked football too" he admitted, trying to turn his self-indulgent rant into something that was relevant to the man we were there to mourn and failing miserably by again calling him by the wrong name. Had it been anything other than my grandfather's removal I'd have walked out, as would everyone else I spoke to after the sermon. As my brother pointed out afterwards, funerals are the Catholic church's no. 1 PR opportunity, where they can prove their worth by offering solace to a grieving family in front of a crowd that they wouldn't have on a Sunday - an audience, not a congregation. Instead people left the church yesterday evening relieved not to be a part of it.

I Love Lamp

Thought of the Day over at One For The Road:
Rosie better like that fucking lamp I bought... it cost me enough.

Rosie likes.

On Love And Loss

Crash Grandadicoot left us this morning, and I am heartsore.

For Terence

Here's why.

Rosie's Tired Brain Does A Disco Dance

I was tipping along the Grand Canal on my way to work this morning when I got an overwhelming urge to dance across the flagstones, like Michael Jackson in the Billie Jean video. But I am rhythmically dyslexic and the song I was listening to was Thom Yorke's Harrowdown Hill, so I think I must be going mad.

The Answer To All Of My Prayers?

There is much talk these days of how difficult it is to meet someone - romantically speaking - in this, the modern era. Indeed I have done a lot of such shitetalking myself after a few drinks. It is hard (I'm still single) and though theoretically teh internehts makes even dating easy, it hasn't done much for me, I tell you. The 'net may be changing the game elsewhere but online dating still has quite a stigma attached to it in Ireland. The accepted method for acquiring a future life partner here is to (a) meet them through a friend (an excellent option as this can often mean that they come with a recommendation and/or a returns policy) or (b) to take your chances in the last chance saloon of the pub and hope that the complete stranger you've brought home will not look like the Elephant Man/your boss/his sister once you take your beer goggles off. Online dating is (somewhat bizarrely, when you consider the risks associated with option (b) above) thought to be unsafe; dating websites are presumed to be populated by psychopathically lonely losers and blind dates are considered a form of social suicide. So what are modern Irish singletons who have run out of patience with these paltry options to do? Why - return to those hallowed times! When men were men and women wore shoulder-pads. When love was a slow-dance, all left feet and hard-ons. To quote Mr. Calvin Harris, it was acceptable in the eightees.

I was shuffling and shuftying along through the city this morning when I noticed a new horror nested on the corner of Nassau St. and Kildare St. The unattractive sign outside promises pessimistically safe times: No Drugs, No Drunks, No Problems. But for the singleton who's tired of flailing around pathetically to dance tunes, trying in vain to impress the object of their tequila-fulled affections with pop-n-lock(ed) robot dancing, the sign also offers a glimmer of hope. For the club is GR80s (geddit?) and their USP* is their slow sets.

I nearly puked. I cannot imagine anything worse than revisiting the slow set horrors of my teenage years (which were in the 90s, incidentally, but we were a little behind the times. Besides, GR90s just doesn't have the same zing! to it). The way the dancefloor cleared as soon as the first bars of a Mariah Carey/Whitney Houston/Bryan Fucking Adams song kicked in, except for one drunken lunatic who'd been dancing alone and had simply not noticed. The way the floor gradually filled with groping couples, usually comprised of your friends and boys they knew you fancied. The way the drunken lunatic would ricochet off them until he was eventually expelled from the floor, at which point he'd lurch in your direction, go straight for your tits and then try to ask you to dance but be unable to pronounce "want", "to" or "dance". The way your sober, well-meaning and well-mannered but unattractive friend would step in to save you - resulting in an awkward once-around-the-floor where you try to hold him at arms' length to avoid his erection before feigning thirst and/or incontinence and rushing off to the bar and/or bathroom. It took me years of hard work and costly drugs to repair the damage that school discos and nightclub slow sets did to my teenage self-confidence. I suspect that one night in GR80s would see all of my efforts undone. I shall be avoiding that one like the plague.

*Unique Selling Point - apparently it's a dating thing?

Comhbhrón Agus Caoineadh Conor Synnott

I got a call from my brother early this afternoon with the news that Conor's body has been found. It's heartbreaking for his family, his friends, for everyone who knew and loved him.

Cé nach bhfaca mé Conor le roinnt blianta anuas, bhí agus beidh sé i gcónaí i mo chuimhne. Ba chlann ollmhór iad muintir Synnott i gcomparáid leis an dream s'againne; seisear páiste san iomlán agus tuismitheoirí chomh lách, croíúil agus ceanúil le mo thuismitheoirí féin. Ba chúis sceitimíní i gcónaí na saoire i mí Lúnasa dom, mar óna raibh mé i mo pháiste an-óg go dtí go raibh mé i mo dhéagóir soiniciúil rachadh muid ar saoire leo ar feadh coicíse go baile beag iargúlta i gcontae Chiarraí. Áit a raibh chomh fada sin a shiúl ó bhruachbhailte Baile Átha Cliath gur shíl muid nach mbainfimid amach riamh é; turas marfach sa Talbot Solara a thiomáin m'athair. Áit a raibh chomh fada sin ó mo thaithí ar an saol mar Jackeen. Áit a raibh deis agam crochadh thart leis agus lena dheartháir óg a bhí ar chomhaois liomsa, mé leath i ngrá leis an mbeirt acu. Bhí Conor féin sé bliana níos sine ná mé, an chéad crush gur cuimhin liom a bheith agam. Chomh cool, cumas ealaíne aige, cumas grinn, cliste, dathúil, spraíúil, spreagúil. Mé mar dhéagóir óg ag brionglóideach go dtitfeadh sé i ngrá liom chomh luath is go mbeinn i mo bhean. Sílim go raibh mé leath ag brionglóideach sin go fóill nuair a rinne mé iarracht bualadh leis thall i Sydney anuraidh ach ar an ndrochuair níor éirigh linn bualadh lena chéile sa deireadh, ceal ama roimh domsa taisteal abhaile arís.

Níl insint ar an gcroíbhriseadh a bheidh ann ina dhiaidh dá chlann agus cairde. Ní féidir rud ar bith a dhéanamh anois ach cuimhne air, agus é a chaoineadh.

Australia Will Be Full Of Disappointed Hunks

Confidence waned this morning and I wrote a Dear John of my own to the nice folk who wanted to send me off to Australia. I was due in there at 9.20am to do a screen test - a 10 minute pitch to camera about how wonderful I am and why I would make an excellent candidate for their televised adventure (they really liked the answers I submitted on their ridiculous questionnaire). I thought about it, talked about it and went to bed undecided. I woke up at 7.30am and thought "are you fucking mental?" I hate having my photograph taken and am boringly and unattractively self-conscious about my appearance so I honestly don't know why I thought that 5 weeks in front of TV cameras would be a breeze. So I sent them an apologetic email this morning, thanking them for the brief ego-boost and explaining to them that I'm really more of a face for radio. I'm disappointed and relieved all at once. Again.

Dear John

Is there an etiquette when it comes to responding to Dear Jane* letters? Or emails, rather, in this modern world we live in. "Hello" in the subject line of an email never bodes well; it heralds (a) unsolicited and misspelled shite from concerned strangers about the size of my penis (is it just me? All of my gmail spam relates to penis enlargement) (b) a bollocking from a flatmate about a recent misdemeanour or (c) a Dear Jane. I knew what was coming but my morbid curiosity would not allow me to delete it, unread. Almost immediately I began to hammer out a response but I checked myself before sending it. I find rejection embarrassing enough without exacerbating it with an ill-considered and hasty reply. And that got me thinking: How should one respond in such circumstances?

One could ignore it, and maintain a dignified silence. My garrulousness generally does not allow for such things.

One could rally back with a stream of invective; berating the Dear Jane's author for choosing an email over a call, for leaving it for too long before sending the email in the first place, for not having the energy or imagination to pursue something more.

One could be cheery and nonchalant; thanks, but I didn't care too much anyway.

Or one could be honest, disappointed, and a little relieved.

In the end I replied with the words I had rattled off upon reading the email. It's the only way I know how.

*The source of all knowledge informs me that In more recent times, women have come to be subjected to such impersonal break-up letters as well. These are refered (sic) to as "Dear Jane" letters.

Comment Whore

I thought my post about the awards was a little downbeat, but Gimme takes the fucking biscuit. Gimme takes the biscuit, runs with it, stuffs it gleefully into his mouth and then spews the crumbs back out at the crowd, laughing maniacally. I'm oddly grateful for our paths not having crossed on Saturday night. I'm all for honesty, in fact I'm renowned for it. Ask the Jock, she marvels at it every time we have a conversation. But I try not to be deliberately rude or mean; I get no satisfaction from it, I see no need for it. I especially see no need for it when you have a soapbox from which to pontificate and I'm disappointed that his cuntish comment about Róisín Ingle goes unremarked upon by his Johns and Janes. Gimme, sometimes I love your writing. And other times I really really wish you'd keep it to yourself.

Conor Synnott Still Missing

Conor Synnott

I wrote last week about a family friend who's gone missing from his home in Brussels. There's still no news of him and his family have launched an appeal for information and have set up a site with details of his last known whereabouts and contact details for themselves and for the Belgian police. I can't imagine how hard this is for his family. Or how hard things must have been for Conor for him to disappear. Here's hoping that this week might bring some good news for them.

WLTM But Got Distracted, Wandered Off

I dropped by the Blog Awards on Saturday night to pick up my award for Best Use of the Irish Language in a Blog clap politely when I didn't win anything. I was in good company; I went along with OneFor, Rua, Annie, Jenna and Bjarni - none of whom won anything either. It wasn't my kind of gig at all, it felt too much like work and the sheer number of people there put me off searching for the ones I would genuinely like to have met (apologies to Prender, Manuel and the Other Manuel in particular as they were sweet enough to say they'd looked out for me). Also, I was getting funny looks for squinting at everybody's diddies in a vain effort to read their nametags and ascertain whether or not they merited my drunken attentions. I did see a few of those whose blogs I have unrequited love affairs with but I was too shy to introduce myself - there's nothing spazzier than those "you don't know me, but... OMG, I'm your biggest fan!" conversations. Through accident, design, some effort and sheer good luck I've met no less than 7 bloggers in the last few weeks for quiet pints and it's been a great experience meeting each of them. I think that's how I'd much rather do it - not at a mass event with name-tags that I can't read and seating arrangement that I can't negotiate when I'm full of vodka and wearing heels but on familiar ground, when I can give them my full attention and scrutinize their every move in order to decide whether or not they fit with what I had expected.

I had a brilliant night, just not at the awards. As soon as all the crystal had been divvied up Rua, OneFor and I retreated once more to the relative safety of Kennedys, where OneFor and I had already ploughed through approximately 4 rounds of dutch courage prior to heading to the awards in the first place. From there to Whelans (more vodka, accidental meetings, unsolicited and creepy neck massages) and then the long walk home (arguments over directions, whingeing about stiletto heels, offers of piggyback rides and mean digs about my large feet) to the flat (two DJs with ADD, a large bottle of Pancho, a broken lamp, some dancing, no sleep). A text from Rua the following evening - beidh an bua againn sa fíor domhain! I cared not a jot, I'd won a consolation prize.