Dublin

i think as you say silby it’s practically uneconomical for you not to go next time. as your accountant etc.

and yes, thanks facepalms - i’m resolved to it being a week before christmas in dublin and am girded to experience revelry at close quarters but it’s good to have an alternative bolthole if it becomes too much.

i was in fact thinking of drinking in a pub mainly.

Good man there.

The Swan is a good shout tbf

last chance

no agenda as yet, abu hamza may come up idk

in the swan. good shout everyone. was standing room only with some intercultural barstool #bantz. shrill english woman accused a toothless miserable toper at the bar of stealing her barstool and said she’d complain the barman. he suggested she could complain to whoever she wanted and that the barman was right there and suggested her sort were fucking bastards to no one in particular after she’d gone back to complain to her friends.

now have barstool.

by god its already a hit

Fizzles, get a spice bag!

juan de lads

batter sausage or gtf

and some curry chips

hot whiskies all round. this is the stuff.

Innumerable persons with whom I had conversed had represented to me that spiritous liquors and intoxicants generally had an adverse effect on the senses and body and that those who became addicted to stimulants in youth were unhappy throughout their lives and met with death at the end by a drunkard's fall, expiring ingloriously at the stair-bottom in a welter of blood and puke.

Such reasoning only appears to hold water on occasion because there is strength in numbers. Don't believe their lies. The crowd is untruth.

you've had the pints etc

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Darragh_MacAuley

fizzles is a pintman now

fizzles losty

cracking night.

turns out mixtures of spirits and beer is good for you. who knew.

me

insider knowledge.

https://giphy.com/gifs/orson-welles-gif-xhlH4jx4li8Ra

cobblestone fyi

this is actually bollocks now tbh

stoneybatter is the new d4

thank god that's over.

What happened to mixtures of spirits and beer being good for you?

turns out not

should’ve got a spice bag

this didnt feel heavy heavy at the time but i am fierce glad i had set up a self-kindness day today

the verdict is that dublin is a good pub town iirc nb for obv reasons my ability to rc is vmiq

i felt extraordinarily tired all day. second visit to the really excellent chester beatty library and then watched leinster bamboozle a leaden-footed bath in the rugby, a game in which the weather turned from mild and wet into fucking freezing and wet.

now down in donabate with a dog, a cat and a fire, so pretty happy.

aviva is one of those structures that seema to amplify bad weather, the cold in particular imo

i thought you were kipping on the south coast!

on the coast south of dublin.

http://a65.tinypic.com/34zk47q.jpg

dunno if this will work but while watching a good programme on rte on the abovementioned chester beatty library they made mention of this scandal: search for "the caretaker"

http://www.rte.ie/radio1/doconone/

it’s an interesting documentary. several good anecdotal scenes - the quite congenial sounding interrogation at Dublin airport for instance.

that interview with the academic who sent the reference to the judge is bizarre. You know the people of Dublin might not be in a position to properly appreciate documents of that sort, right? best sell them on the private market where they can be better appreciated.

I would like to have known what the change in the culture of trust involves. As someone says, the position of cataloguing represents an enormous amount of trust. You get to say what does and doesn’t exist. I will ask a librarian friend how they manage it.

it would have been interesting to know more about the timeline of events and decisions James made but i guess without his participation that’s difficult.

good documentary strand generally that as well.

Me and my wife are planning of possibly visiting Dublin in the first week of July... Neither of us have ever been Dublin, so any tips on what's happening there in July, and what sites/places to visit in general, are welcome.

We haven't a book a hotel yet or anything, so I'd also appreciate recommendations on where to stay. We can afford a hotel but nothing too pricey or fancy.

will be back later with recs. might have to tease out yr idea of what pricey and fancy are!

Suggested itinerary:

Arrive in Dublin
Leave Dublin immediately

ah jaysus

ah no, it depends what you're into of course

All the obvious ones:

- Chester Beatty Library
- national art gallery
- the national museums
- get on the dart and go up the coast to somewhere like howth
- go to the gpo and other obvious places

I was going to recommend the Jackson court hotel where we stayed over ten years ago but fuck’s sake, it’s like €734 for four nights in a double room that week!

I've been there only once, but apart from all the things to do in the city, we had a really great day buying a cheap day pass on the DART train (like €10 for unlimited rides) that runs up and down the coast outside Dublin. We climbed the hill at Bray, visited the Martello Tower at Sandycove that's in the opening of Ulysses, and had great seafood at Howth (a village with an insane amount of seafood places).

I'd say Airbnb would be your best bet accommodation-wise tbh

hotels in Dublin are absurdly expensive

Isn’t air bnb in Dublin fucking tons of local people over though?

yeah, me included

but I use it in other cities so can't really complain...

On the food front, if you want to sample some Irish produce I'd recommend:

Klaw (oysters)

Fish Shop (fish!)

Forest & Marcy (modern takes on classic Irish dishes)

Delahunt (Beautiful old building with a nice cocktail bar upstairs)

Hatch & Sons (good spot for a simple lunch if you're around the city centre)

If you're splashing out:

The Greenhouse (Probably the best lunch in town. And it's got a Finnish chef)

Thanks for the recommendations. I'd definitely be up for taking the train and seeing the coast. I guess this Howth is worth a visit, since two people mentioned it already?

As for restaurants, I don't eat meat or fish, but my wife does, and she loves seafood. So we'll have to settle for places with at least one vegetarian option on the menu. How easy/difficult is Dublin in general for vegetarian? (I'm lacto-ovo, not vegan.)

hmmm, most of the fine dining-ish places are not very vegetarian-friendly....

let me have another think

Also, we're both into literature, visual arts, comics, stand-up, pop music, so anything along those lines would be of interest.

Well there's the World Science Fiction Convention in Dublin Aug 15-19th, if you want to delay your trip - I did look in to going, but for the same sort of outlay I could have had a week in New York - so sorry Dublin.

https://dublin2019.com/