I’m feeling proud, if not a little smug. I would prefer to feel a little smug, a small soft bovine creature from the wastes the Peruvian uplands. The reason I’m feeling this way is by exercising my right to vote. My right to vote for a selection of pasty faced men in ill fitting suits and over made up women, power dressed out of their minds. It was a long and tortuous route to my polling station in the uplands of Co Waterford. All transport leaves Dublin exactly on or before 5p.m. This can be detrimental to the working traveller. Did the previous government frown upon the movement of tax payers, preferring to trap them in one area by default? The choices were limited. I could either, Skip off work early, find some transport, get up early and find some transport back OR go home sit on my big lazy hole and mutter things like
‘Shor the same fellas always get in’
‘I’ll still have to get up and go to work no matter who runs the place’
‘There’s no difference between any of the parties these days (except the PDs who are evil, (GET BEHIND ME HARNEY!). Its not the first time she’s heard that sentence (saucy bitch) Just imagine Mary Harney, a tub of Hagen Das and a bottle of coke each…………….Ahhhh bliss.’
Where was I? Oh ya I was on my way to change the Government, rock the system or more realistically vote for some crazy bog man with a jaunty haircut. Some people have no rights to vote was my mantra as I trudged for the last train, trying to forget that I was going to be up at 5am to catch a train back to big old smelly fun dangerous handy interesting expensive Dublin. Did you notice how Enda’s hair looked green in his posters? Was he trying to capture the punk vote? I expect this didn’t work as all the Punks are anarchists. Maybe that’s what Kenny is up to. Pretend to be all normal and crazy in a very politician way and just when he wins……Whip out a sledge hammer and really smash the system. Leave the Dail in splinters.
I eventually got to my polling station miles from everywhere and realised there was no candidate in mid-Waterford promising to make the streets around my Dublin apartment safer or link up the Luas lines(which is a real no-brainer) or make a transport system that means I can actually get home to vote. I think a vote for sheep farmers was about as close as I could get. Maybe they will equip new Luas lines with wool stuffed seats? Democracy is about as good as it gets, but not as good as Mary harney, a packet of rancheros and two cold cans of fizzy orange…………….Ahhhhh Mary Baaaaaaaa!
Bobby Peru
Saturday 26 May 2007
Wednesday 16 May 2007
Foraging
Foraging. That’s what we ladies are programmed for. I’ve worked it out.
Some time ago I was watching a programme presented by an excellent anthropologist whose name escapes me. I know him as the one with the cuddly face, curly hair, black-framed glasses and soft moustache under his Jewish nose (the rest of him is Jewish so, I suppose, his nose is as well). He was pointing out the different attitude of children in front of videogames: the boys (the hunters) attacked aggressively; the girls (the gatherers) observed collecting information. (Could this, by the way, explain why women read instruction manuals and men don’t?)
And then it struck me: women, the foragers stalking the modern jungle. From bush to boutique, from digging for roots to routing for bargains. Men seem to be content chasing something that moves, like a ball, or even just sit looking at other men chasing a ball and dreaming of their hunting days.
So it was that one sunny Saturday my faithful foraging companions- The Chef and Catwoman- and I went loitering deep into the jungle with intent.
We met in a clearing near Trinity Collage nice and early to beat the gathering crowds. First indispensable stop was a watering hole. The Chef’s expert eye spotted in the undergrowth berries in a little coffee shop window. And under the berries was pastry and over them was jelly. We entered. The small turquoise room had an old fashioned, sober, continental air about it. After a swimming pool size cappuccino we headed for the biggest tree in the forest: Brown Thomas. We had a good scout around and there we found dresses with matching bags (oh, temptation!) and price tags matching a month’s wages (oh inflation!). As we left, the posh side of the jungle was starting to fill up with primates of all shapes and sizes. After a couple of scrawny looking shrub-like shops we landed the perfect going-to-posh-wedding frock for Catwoman who nonetheless declined dipping into that feminine logic which makes us, the fairer sex, so interesting.
Lunch in Wagamama was scrumptious. The Chef, condemned to a perpetual diet by indulgence earlier in life, only looking on from behind a bowl of boiled rice.
We then developed the theory that a belly full to capacity gives a clear advantage in fitting a frock that would withstand wedding libations. It was then that shoppers’ luck struck.: my perfect dress, perfect fit perfect half price discount.. In my moment of delight, I started making all those girly high pitched noises and hand gestures that go beyond the confines of language and culture: the gatherer found and extraordinarily juicy fruit. And she communicated as much.
A couple of fruitless spots later we paused for a lemonade and a thought.. Result: the lemonade in Munchies is too sweet and Catwoman was to retrace her steps back to her perfect dress discarded in the morning. The Chef, with heroic restraint, only picked up what she originally was looking for (a top to go with a shirt, for the record). This didn’t stop her shearing in our primeval girly giggles at the prospect of looking for accessories.
A forager’s work is never done.
Pinzimonio
Some time ago I was watching a programme presented by an excellent anthropologist whose name escapes me. I know him as the one with the cuddly face, curly hair, black-framed glasses and soft moustache under his Jewish nose (the rest of him is Jewish so, I suppose, his nose is as well). He was pointing out the different attitude of children in front of videogames: the boys (the hunters) attacked aggressively; the girls (the gatherers) observed collecting information. (Could this, by the way, explain why women read instruction manuals and men don’t?)
And then it struck me: women, the foragers stalking the modern jungle. From bush to boutique, from digging for roots to routing for bargains. Men seem to be content chasing something that moves, like a ball, or even just sit looking at other men chasing a ball and dreaming of their hunting days.
So it was that one sunny Saturday my faithful foraging companions- The Chef and Catwoman- and I went loitering deep into the jungle with intent.
We met in a clearing near Trinity Collage nice and early to beat the gathering crowds. First indispensable stop was a watering hole. The Chef’s expert eye spotted in the undergrowth berries in a little coffee shop window. And under the berries was pastry and over them was jelly. We entered. The small turquoise room had an old fashioned, sober, continental air about it. After a swimming pool size cappuccino we headed for the biggest tree in the forest: Brown Thomas. We had a good scout around and there we found dresses with matching bags (oh, temptation!) and price tags matching a month’s wages (oh inflation!). As we left, the posh side of the jungle was starting to fill up with primates of all shapes and sizes. After a couple of scrawny looking shrub-like shops we landed the perfect going-to-posh-wedding frock for Catwoman who nonetheless declined dipping into that feminine logic which makes us, the fairer sex, so interesting.
Lunch in Wagamama was scrumptious. The Chef, condemned to a perpetual diet by indulgence earlier in life, only looking on from behind a bowl of boiled rice.
We then developed the theory that a belly full to capacity gives a clear advantage in fitting a frock that would withstand wedding libations. It was then that shoppers’ luck struck.: my perfect dress, perfect fit perfect half price discount.. In my moment of delight, I started making all those girly high pitched noises and hand gestures that go beyond the confines of language and culture: the gatherer found and extraordinarily juicy fruit. And she communicated as much.
A couple of fruitless spots later we paused for a lemonade and a thought.. Result: the lemonade in Munchies is too sweet and Catwoman was to retrace her steps back to her perfect dress discarded in the morning. The Chef, with heroic restraint, only picked up what she originally was looking for (a top to go with a shirt, for the record). This didn’t stop her shearing in our primeval girly giggles at the prospect of looking for accessories.
A forager’s work is never done.
Pinzimonio
Friday 11 May 2007
Wednesday 9 May 2007
Monday 7 May 2007
The Times They Have Changes
As Bob Dylan tours Europe we can see that a lot has changed since his 1961 debut at the Gaslight club, for instance he no longer yodels. Dylan at he time had friendly competition with the likes of Jimi Hendrix, The Beatles and The rolling Stones, now 65 years old he has to compete with Youtube and Justin Timberlake. He recently released Modern times, which got him a Grammy and his first number one since 1976’s Desire.
As his tour starts, fans don’t know what to expect with Dylan's constant changing and nit-picking of the songs and his faded voice but Dylan still has it, according to Regina hackett of the Seattle PI Dylan “still spares no mystique”. Being a young fan and having a ticket for his April show I often wonder if he is powerful ‘live’ or a disappointment, I know he wont be as animated as AC DC but listening to his last record I know I wont be let down. As Dylan said himself “Time will tell who has fell and who’s been left behind”.
Snag (Guest, From Paris)
As his tour starts, fans don’t know what to expect with Dylan's constant changing and nit-picking of the songs and his faded voice but Dylan still has it, according to Regina hackett of the Seattle PI Dylan “still spares no mystique”. Being a young fan and having a ticket for his April show I often wonder if he is powerful ‘live’ or a disappointment, I know he wont be as animated as AC DC but listening to his last record I know I wont be let down. As Dylan said himself “Time will tell who has fell and who’s been left behind”.
Snag (Guest, From Paris)
Tuesday 1 May 2007
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