just a thought (6 Days Ago)
It is one of my regrets that I did not give blood in the window between leaving the Witnesses and having gay sex.

TRiG.
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(17 replies, Latest reply: 4 Days Ago)

What goes where (4 Weeks Ago)
So, I have six blogs, which is, you might think, a little over the top.

1. The one. My h2g2 journal. The oldest. Mainly, this is about things I'm doing or have done. "I was away last weekend, and *this* happened." That sort of thing. Also occasional thoughts and whimsies.

There are also two journal convos which I keep going, adding new comments occasionally, namely F1749279?thread=3591664 "The ever-changing names of TRiG", where I keep track of my name changes on h2g2, and F1749279?thread=7220122 "I've been reading", where talk about books.

2. Timothy Talks. http://voice-of-timothy.blogspot.ie/. I created a Blogger blog so I could have pictures and videos in my posts. I never really did anything interesting with it. I'm not posting anything new to that blog now.

3. GreenTambourine. http://greentambourineboy.blogspot.ie/. This one was created under a different name ("The boy with the green tambourine", for some reason), and was used to come to terms with being gay back when that was still difficult for me. I now have no further need of that outlet.

4. PoliticalTambourine. http://politicaltambourineboy.blogspot.ie/. Ditto. Why I felt the need for two linked blogs is another question. This one never got much love (or much content).

5. Timothy Richard Green. http://timothy.green.name/blog/. Yes, I simply named my blog after myself. Clever, no? I created this when (a) I wanted to move away from Blogger, and (b) I felt no further need to separate the gay stuff into their own little section, away from the rest of my life. So I started this blog by sucking in the archives from my three Blogger blogs, and then closing them down for good. Since then, I've posted to it various stuff that felt like it wouldn't fit on h2g2. Perhaps some of it would fit, and I should move it.

6. TRiG's links. http://timothy.green.name/links/. This is where I link to interesting articles I've read elsewhere, and talk about them a bit. I try to actually say something, and not be just a set of links. Sometimes I fail. I really should link to h2g2 more often.

So, that's me. How about you?

TRiG.
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(19 replies, Latest reply: 4 Weeks Ago)

St Patrick's weekend (Mar 23, 2013)
St Patrick's Day fell on a Sunday this year, which meant that Monday was a bank holiday. The previous weekend I'd been to Dublin to visit two friends. I stayed with my friend J, who I'd met in Galway but has since moved to Dublin. I slept on his couch and chatted to his housemates, who were friendly. Fun, but I didn't get to see my friend T, because she was ill. So on St Patrick's weekend I went up again.



I took the train up to Dublin on Saturday morning, and, because T wouldn't be around till the afternoon, I went for a walk. I strolled through residential areas behind Collins Barracks (the barracks is now a branch of the National Museum of Ireland), when I suddenly came across a small park and the United Nations Veterans House. It's a place for soldiers and police who had served with the UN. I hadn't even known that police did serve with the UN. I couldn't get into the park, but I did take a couple of photos. A man passing stopped to chat, and told me it was open on weekdays, and that there was access through door from the a churchyard behind. He (and his small boy, who looked about four) gave me directions to the church. He said that you pass Lilliput Stores on the way, so you can grab a coffee and take it with you to the area.

Lilliput Stores was impressive. This was an area with few shops (there were shops not far away, on the main road, but this little section was almost purely residential), and the houses all had that built-in bootscraper by the door which signifies the housing originally built for workmen. The shop was tiny, and full of people, and sold figs and yams and high-quality chocolate and very very good take-away coffee. It was a little cornershop with big ideas, and I loved it. And I bought some figs and some Green & Blacks dark chocolate along with my coffee.

The church was managed jointly by the defence forces and the Office of Public Works. It was originally the church of the British army in Ireland, and the old graveyard around it was a very peaceful place to stroll. Up at the back was a memorial to the Easter Rising, with the names of the fallen and the declaration carved into a curved stone wall. (I found it interesting that the wording pledged that the soldiers would conduct themselves honourably, and explicitly mentioned rape as something they wouldn't do. Was it common knowledge that soldiers raped? I suppose it was. I don't know how well that pledge was kept to, but at least rape was never used as a matter of actual policy, as it has been in some wars.)

I took some photos, then got chatting (by way of a very friendly dog) to a small group of people who were also enjoying the sun. A graveyard may seem an odd place to relax, but I got the impression that this one is commonly used as a park. I like graveyards anyway, for many of the reasons mentioned by Bryarly Bishop in her video on the subject: http://youtu.be/sDlWj2Jz8lM.

And then it was time for me to head to Pearse St Station to meet T. We had a grand time wandering around Dublin city centre, starting with the funfair by Merrion Sq. Both she and I have an inordinate fondness for waltzers, perhaps because they're so simple, and because they're so much more exciting than they look. (I mentioned that I'd love to take a kid who'd never been on a waltzer for a ride on one, because they really do look quite tame.) Also, they feel safe: the faster they spin, the more you're pressed into your seat.

At some point, we went for food: tortilla wraps somewhere near the top of Grafton Street. We lamented the fact that they didn't serve hexaflexamexicans. http://youtu.be/GTwrVAbV56o

I'd been warm that morning in the church graveyard, but the day was getting cold fast. When the rain came down, we took shelter in the Natural History Museum A22691469. It was, of course, packed with other people who'd had the same idea. Also, a snake exhibition had just finished. There was one snake in a box in the lobby: it had been part of the exhibition; we had a brief chat with the young boy who owned it and with his dad. We went for a short wander around the museum, T looking for an eagle she'd once seen there before, but it was getting close to closing time and we were kicked out again.

We had a few more funfair rides, then went for food, and experimented with bubble tea (which we'd noticed on our previous expedition, when we went for the food), from Taiwan. Interesting, but weird. (I think I would actually have preferred it *without* the tapioca.)

That evening, we went to a percussion event in the Chester Beatty Library. The library is in Dublin Castle, and is a very important collection of ancient manuscripts collected by an American millionaire and left to the Irish people. If you're interested in Biblical or Quoranic manuscripts, or eastern jade snuffboxes, it's a wonderful place to visit. It also has a rather nice roof garden. This event, though, was held in the foyer to the library, in an area which used to be a courtyard but is now roofed over. An odd choice of venue, but it worked. There were two Irish musicians, who played mainly percussion but also fiddle and flute, an Irish dancer, and two Brazilian musicians and dancers. And it was excellent! The bodhrán made sounds I wouldn't have thought were physically possible. The male Brazillian dancer demonstrated capoeira, the dance-cum-martial-art. He also played a strange instrument that looked like a longbow and sounded like a combination of a rattle and a piano (actually, it sounded beautiful). The Irish dancer tapped on the stage then came down and tapped on the tile floor, right down the aisle. Then he stood by the wall, kicking both the wall and an iron drainpipe, which reverberated wonderfully. It was, I admit, a lot better than I expected it to be.

And when we finally emerged, I had, of course, missed the last train home. Staying with T would be possible, but awkward. Her place is tiny (and full of cats). J was out of town that weekend, visiting family. It being the weekend it was, finding a hostel bed was ... unlikely. We were probably twenty minutes in Busáras, the main bus station, before we managed to find a member of staff. At one point, a chap in uniform came in and was mobbed with requests. "I don't work here! I'm a driver! I'm just passing through and coming in to use the toilet!" Poor guy. Eventually I decided to take the Galway bus as far as Kilbeggan, and a taxi from there. Tullamore is not well served by buses.

The bus was delayed, so there was time for us to stroll down the road for pizza before I left, promising to come back tomorrow.



On Sunday, I stayed in Tullamore, and for what I'm pretty sure is only the second time in my life, went into town to watch the parade. (I have vague memories of the first time: standing on Bury Quay with my family, watching the parade crossing the Clara Bridge. My mother was wearing a red dress with green patterns on it, and it suddenly occurred to her that someone might think they were supposed to be shamrocks.)

The parade was interesting. Lots of kids. The rugby team went past, hosting their trophies aloft and cheering, the youth members (and I had no idea they had so many) actually playing a little bit with a couple of rugby balls. A few young girls in Irish dancing costume (there were only about four of them, and they looked frozen) did a few steps as they passed. A tractor came by pulling a flatbed truck advertising a local pub. On the flatbed were (a) a DJ dressed as St Patrick, (b) three dancing couples, all wearing sheep-head masks, and (c) a pen containing three live sheep. This was to advertise Hugh Lynch's pub as a "party venue". I don't know whether this confuses you, but it certainly confused me. Only as it was leaving did I hear the DJ announce something about the pub hosting a live sheep-shearing competition later that day, which made the whole thing a *little* more comprehensible, if no less strange. (Apparently sheep shearing is a party thing around here. Who knew?)

I didn't do much else that day. The last train home from Dublin was quite early, so it wasn't worth the effort of going up.



So I went to Dublin again on Monday instead. We met in Conolly Station, and again, we visited a funfair, this time the one in front of Custom House. There were chairoplanes. There were chairoplanes which took you up quite high, so you passed over the top of lampposts and (this freaked me out a little) looked down on the roof of Custom House. (It looked a little like http://youtu.be/D5CJubZ5psU except that the seats were in pairs (so we could chat), and it brought you up before spinning. Also, the top wasn't so elaborately decorated.) There was an angry frog (boingy, boingy, whee!), which looked like http://youtu.be/X8J3xRxcKOI. And there were waltzers, where, as always on waltzers, I laughed my head off the entire time. And then it started to rain, so we grabbed a go on the dodgems, which are at least under shelter.

It was light rain, so we then walked the long way around to the beer festival in St George's Dock. (We didn't go in, because you had to pay. We thought maybe there'd be some free stuff on the fringes, but there wasn't, so we kept going.) We had crepes in a place called Lemon. Some very good crepes. We had a savoury each (mine had lots of cheese and mushrooms in it), and then bought a crepe suzette served on two separate plates. Neither of us had had one before, and we both loved it.

Then we walked through Trinity College grounds, to the medical garden ("Warning: Most of these plants are poisonous"), where we had a long look at the plants and discussed their usages (T was surprisingly knowledgeable), and how few of them were actually poisonous (many of them were kitchen herbs), then we exited by the Science Gallery and separated, she round the corner to Pearce Street Station and I to walk up to Busáras to take a tram to Heuston Station. This time I made my train home comfortably (and I got a seat easily, as it was considerably less packed than it had been on the way up).



I can't afford to do that sort of thing every weekend. This weekend I'm staying home. And tomorrow I'll have to do what I intended to do last weekend, and prepare my speech for the Toastmasters competition on Thursday night.

TRiG.
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(2 replies, Latest reply: Mar 24, 2013)

Bother it! Househunting (again) (Feb 22, 2013)
So, how many times have I moved house recently?

At the beginning of November 2011, I moved back into my parents' house. They were going to China for six months, and wanted a housesitter. That was rather good fun, actually.

Six months later, they came back, and wondered why I hadn't got my hair cut in the interim. Then I moved out, renting a room in a shared house.

At the end of November 2012, I moved out again, this time to mind the house of a family friend who was going on holiday for three months. I wasn't that fond of the place I was in anyway. It was okay, but pricey for what I was getting. And I like my privacy. I like living alone.

In the middle of January 2013, I found a place to move out to. Again, a room in a shared house. Seemed fine. Quiet street. No traffic noise. Short walk from the town centre and my place of work. All good. I started paying rent there from the 20th of January, but Dolores extended her holiday so I didn't actually move in till the beginning of this month. (Incidentally, I went to Galway for a dentist appointment on the 31st of January, and got my hair cut. It's a bit of a change. I use a lot less shampoo, but my ears get cold.)

We're now most of the way through February, and I've decided I don't like the house. First, I was told it was a non-smoking house. There are even signs up in the place saying so. It isn't. Cigarette smoke curls under the bedroom door of an evening. Second, any sound anywhere in the house echos throughout, even though it's a fairly new build. Third, the lock on the front door needs a key to open from the inside, which is a rather nasty fire hazard. Fourth, I really really like my privacy. And fifth, some previous tennent must have paraded elephants across this mattress. (I do actually own a memory foam mattress, from the first time I moved out of home, but it's now in my parents' house. I could bring it down here, but given the other problems, I think I'll not bother.)

So I'm looking to move out again. Not just yet: I have two Toastmasters talks coming up, so I'll be preparing them. Then I'll be moving. One day I'll find somewhere worth living.

TRiG.
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(10 replies, Latest reply: Feb 24, 2013)

Boris (Feb 15, 2013)
> The mayor has supported the idea of a new man-made four-runway hub airport, dubbed "Boris Island", located at Shivering Sands in Kent.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-19570653

A man-made airport? Really? Whatever next?

TRiG.
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(1 reply, Latest reply: Feb 15, 2013)

Haircut! (Feb 1, 2013)
I was in Galway yesterday for a dentist's appointment. While there, I got a haircut. Blade 6. My previous haircut was at the beginning of November (or perhaps the end of October: I'm not quite sure) 2011. It's a bit of a change.

TRiG.
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(6 replies, Latest reply: Feb 3, 2013)

Revisiting a changed life (Dec 23, 2012)
For various boring technical reasons, I was last night rereading some blog posts I wrote a few years ago when I was first coming to terms with being gay. It was a slightly unreal experience. I've changed so much since then.

http://timothy.green.name/blog/2012/12/tidyup/

TRiG.
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I have discovered (Sep 20, 2012)
I have discovered one of the problems with being out of college: I no longer have an excuse to buy stationery. And this time of year the shops are full of wonderful refill pads and notebooks, softback, hardback, spiral bound. I wants them all!

TRiG.
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(15 replies, Latest reply: Oct 13, 2012)

DM (Sep 16, 2012)
So, I was hanging out with two friends today, who enjoy teasing and insulting each other. One referred to the other's having spent time with a dungeon master. I hadn't quite caught the full remark or its context (we were walking at the time), so I asked for clarification: "Is that the RPG type of dungeon master, or the BDSM type of dungeon master?"



It seems I'm not the only one to occasionally confuse the two: http://notalwaysromantic.com/theyre...bout-different-kinds-of-rings/23334.

TRiG.
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(3 replies, Latest reply: Sep 19, 2012)

Discworld Convention (Sep 1, 2012)
I'm home from the International Discworld Convention in Birmingham.

And I've built the website for the Irish Discworld Convention in Limerick.

See you all there?

http://idwcon.org

I'll try to write a little about the awesomeness of the convention once I've finished the site. (It's in working order. You can buy memberships. Go try it now. But you can't buy the Gala Dinner yet, and it doesn't look quite as nice as it should. And there's no list of members online yet. I'll be doing all that shortly.)

TRiG.
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Weirdness from my spam filter (Aug 18, 2012)
This is from the spam filter on my blog.

The white people the laws of physics to light
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(4 replies, Latest reply: Aug 18, 2012)

A rather good weekend (Aug 14, 2012)
I've had a vague notion in the back of my mind for a while now that it would be a nifty idea to have a website with the timetables for all the trains and the buses (public and private) in Ireland, so you could mix and match to find your way around. Recently, one of my workmates told me that the site now exists: http://getthere.ie. Handy.

It told me that the best way to get from Tullamore to Sligo of a Saturday was to take Kearne's Coaches as far as Enfield, and then the train from there. Kearne's run to Dublin, and pass right by my parents' house, where I was staying while they were away, so I caught it easily in the morning. In Enfield, I had an hour, so I wandered down the rather pretty Royal Canal and ate my sandwiches there before heading back to the station and catching my train.

I had a good chat on the train, which is always nice. Politics and the state of the HSE, mainly. Also conspiracy theories, which one of my fellow travellers was rather into. She said her house was full of declassified documents.

In Sligo, I checked into the Railway Hostel, on the basis that it was handy, unpacked my rainbow flag, and headed down to the town hall where the Pride Parade was mustering. One of the streets on the usual route had been closed for a family fun festival, but we were marching down it regardless, which promised to be fun.

It was.

I recognised some Scottish guys I'd met the previous year. They'd said then that they come to Sligo every year. I chatted to them a little again.

Just before we started, one of the stewards told us that the chant of the parade would be, "We're here; we're queer, and so are some of you!"



In the parade itself, I walked mainly near the drummers (they formed a sort of mini samba band, and I must admit I'm fond of samba bands), but also walked up and down the length of the parade, taking a lot of photos. The drummers had to pause as we went through the festival, for some reason. Perhaps the organisers didn't want that volume. We collected a bunch of kids at that point: ten-year-olds running in to join us. Conversion!

The parade ended back where it started, and we hung around there for a bit (taking more photos, in my case), before gradually moving on to the Glasshouse Hotel bar. (We didn't move en masse: people gradually drifted around the corner to the hotel. I drifted with a small group of locals who had adopted me.) Hung out. Chatted. Ate (a rather excellent Thai chicken with coconut rice, in my case).

There was to be a drag show later, but they decided to head back to a house for a while before going back. And I had been, as I said, adopted, so I followed along. They were a pleasant bunch. One girl was from DIT LGBT Society, the others were all local. The locals were two opposite-sex couples (both girls being bi, and I think both boys being straight), and a couple of other lads who came and went.

It was fun. One of the couples were both Hitch-hiker fans, and he was also a Pratchett fan. And she knew Oglaf, and was even aware of h2g2.

By the time we went out again, the drag show was over, so we forced our way through the crowds (there was yet another festival on that evening, with a free outdoor concert: a happening place, Sligo, it seems) to a pub where we sat in the beer garden and chatted for a little longer. Then we went our separate ways: home, or, in my case, back to the Railway Hostel.



In the morning, I got up in plenty of time for the free hostel breakfast: two bowls of cereal, and a chat with a couple of Spanish people who were in Sligo for the weekend. They were currently living and working in a hostel in Boyle, while looking for other work. We talked about the economy, and travel in Ireland and in Spain, and language. And a conversation I'd had with Superfrenchie at the Manchester hootoo meet came back to me: English is a stress-timed language, while Spanish and French are syllable-timed languages. And that means that the duh-duh-duh-DUH-duh-duh-duh-DUH effect of Auden's "Night Mail" could not work in those languages, though they can no doubt do something similar.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zmciuKsBOi0
http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/night-mail-2



And so the bus to Dublin. The train would have been more comfortable, but also more expensive. In Busáras I met a friend of mine from Galway who has recently moved to Dublin for work. He and I made our way to the Iveagh Gardens, wandered around for a bit, popped out to get take-away coffees, and headed back to find that quite a large audience had gathered for the play. One of the stewards was encouraging people to sit up at the front, so we did. Also, it was an easy place to describe: another friend of mine was running late, and "very front, to the left of the stage" is an easy description to put in a text message.

The Tempest, performed free in the garden, started with a roar. There was no warning, no "please turn off your phones", nothing. A roar, and panic on a sinking ship. The chap sitting behind me in the rather natty sailor suit turned out to be the captain. Other crew members were scattered throughout the audience. On stage, two crew members struggled with what was, frankly, a wooden ladder lying on its side (I think the rocking was supposed to indicate the motion of the ship); behind them, Ariel, dressed in white trousers and blue paint, with feathers in his hair and on his hands, danced mockingly. As the captain continued to forcefully bellow out his orders, declaring his love of and loyalty to the king while ordering him below out of the way, and the crew struggled with the sails, actually stretching out long sheets over us, the comic relief took their turn on stage.

The lawn in the Iveagh Gardens is lower than the paths and banks: the corner behind the stage was raised, and had bushes and trees which were made use of. Most of the action was in the corner itself (on stage) and on the banks behind the stage (the wings, perhaps), but the actors certainly made use of the freedom to roam a little wider betimes, never more so than in that opening scene, when they were scattered throughout the audience.

The acting was top class, as was the staging. Prospero wore a rich cloak and carried a wooden staff. Miranda was dressed in rags. Caliban had cut-off trousers and a tattooed chest. He was barefoot. The royal court dressed in business suits; the king also had a bowler hat. Ariel I've already described. He truly was a spirit of the air, and was indeed constantly moving, twitching, dancing, balancing on the firewood, even at one stage swinging out of the rope used to tie Caliban, and hanging upside down from the tree. He had an excellent singing voice, surprisingly deep for such a slight frame. And yes, he really was very cute.

Caliban is, of course, supposed to be hideously deformed. Let's just say that he wasn't. He did speak with a noticeable accent, unlike anyone else in the play, which actually suited quite well since he was supposed to have been taught language late in life. He is also, of course, a very fluent speaker, despite all the jabs at his stupidity.

The play was, all in all, delightful, and I'm very glad I went. After, Evenstar42 took us to the same Vietnamese place in Temple Bar she'd taken me after the Dublin hootoo meet, and then to a gelato spot before retiring to The George. I was glad to see that my friends got on with each other, and I left them still talking and drinking in The George when I left to catch my train home.

I walked to Heuston, but I must have been moving slower than I thought I was. I should have had plenty of time, but when I got to the station I had only a couple of minutes. I high-tailed it to the ticket machines. There were four of them, and the first three were out of order. The last refused to take my money: I had only a €50 note, and they don't like giving that much change. So I ran to the ticket desk, which in Heuston is off to the side, a bit out of the way.

"Have I missed the Tullamore train?" I asked. He sighed a little, gave me my ticket and change, and told me to run and to ignore the ticket barriers. The digital clock above the ticket desk read 20:30, which is the departure time of the train.

Ianród Éireann's bye-laws, as printed on the timetables, say that platform gates will close five minutes before the departure of the train. Nonsense. As the chap in the ticket office had said, some of the gates were actually open, so I could just run through without using the ticket at all. And there were still doors open on the train, so I didn't delay the train at all.

Galway had beaten Cork in the hurling semi-final earlier that day, and the train was full of Galway shirts. The ones in my carriage were cheerful, but not rowdy.

TRiG.
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(1 reply, Latest reply: Aug 14, 2012)

What's up? (Aug 6, 2012)
So a NASA craft landed on Mars. And I know nothing about it. Didn't follow the news at all. Haven't looked up video of the landing. Couldn't even name the craft without looking it up.

What on Earth is wrong with me?

Stress, probably.

I have a holiday at the end of this month. Discworld Convention in Birmingham. And then a few extra days off afterwards. I'm looking forward to it. I think I need it.

TRiG.
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(14 replies, Latest reply: Aug 13, 2012)

I hadn't intended to spend the weekend crewing on a barge (May 29, 2012)
The weather here has been simply glorious. I had to spend the weekend out of doors. On Saturday, then, I walked into town, popped by the optician to ask whether I could drop in my old glasses (no, they're no longer collecting them), bought myself some sun cream, ate, and walked by a circuitous route back to the canal. My plan was to walk the canal line from Tullamore to Daingean. It's a long walk, largely through farmland and bog, which I've walked twice before.

Walking past the harbour, I saw a friend of mine climbing into a van on the other side. I waved, and he yelled to me to come over and talk to his friend who'd just moved into a narrowboat. By the time I'd got to the bridge and back, Cormack had gone, but I did have a brief chat with his friend on the boat. He'd moved in just the previous day, and was so far loving it. That narrowboat has been in the harbour for months being renovated. It was good to see it fully restored and kitted out.

Then I set off. It's uphill all the way to Daingean, with several locks. I was making good progress when I met a barge coming through a lock and stopped to help swing a lock gate. The helmsman invited me aboard to help with the next few locks. They were going the wrong way for my purposes, but nevermind. I had no particular purpose in mind in Daingean anyway. It was just a good goal to pick for a long walk. So I stepped aboard.

C was bringing his boat from his home in Athy to Shannon Harbour to attend a barge rally in a few weeks' time. He was heading down early, partly because he'd be out of the country for the next couple of weekends, and partly because he wanted some work done on the boat in the dry docks at the harbour. He wanted to put a wheel into the wheelhouse, so the boat could be managed from inside instead of from a tiller out the back. D and his three small children were helping. Well, D, an engineer who'd be doing the work on the boat, was helping. And the kids didn't get in the way. It was a fun crowd, and I enjoyed myself. And I was helpful with the locks. I also shared my factor 30 with the kids.

Going through Tullamore on a boat gives you a different perspective on the town. I liked it.

Then we got stuck in a lock. The Irish canals are significantly wider than most British ones, and this barge was no narrowboat. It was almost maximum size for the waterways. It filled the locks. It overfilled the last lock in Tullamore. Stuck on the bottom half way through the lower gates. D lept out and ran back to the top gate, where he opened all four racks. With that much water pushing down at us, the engine on full blast, and D and a passerby hauling on a lock gate to force it fully open despite the rubbish caught behind it, we barely got out into the open canal.

Phew.

Once we were out past the railway bridge and out of town, it was very slow going. The canal hasn't been dredged in years. A fully laden barge simply could not have made it through. We were barely clearing the bottom. The canal passes a couple of ruined castles on that side of Tullamore, and then passes over two aquaducts.

We got as far as Rahan, and moored by The Thatch, a famous pub in the area (it has a slate roof). I've walked to Rahan before. It's closer than Daingean. So we stopped at the pub and watched Eurovision while we waited for D's wife to collect him and the kids. Go Jedward!



Well, the kids were fans, anyway. Fortunately, the pub was loud enough that we couldn't hear them very well, even if they did put the volume up slightly for their performance. Actually, it occurs to me that I shouldn't make rude remarks about Jedward, as I've never actually heard them sing. I couldn't hear Roman Lob from Germany either, but I still appreciated the performance.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9r1aevXWSZs

D and the kids left (after many energetic rounds of thumb war and arm wrestling (and I'm now proud to report that I can beat a combined team of an eleven-year-old and a nine-year-old using two hands)), and I was left ready to walk home. D's wife had offered me a lift, but I said I'd come out for a walk that day anyway.

Then C offered a further trip. I could stay the night on the barge: there was plenty of room. And the next day I could help him to Shannon Harbour, where he'd left his car, and he could give me a lift home. It was a tempting offer. It was getting a little cold for walking home. He offered me a meal too. And it would be an adventure. If I turned it down, I'd regret it. So I stayed.

It may, at this point, be appropriate to describe the barge. The wheelhouse was unfinished: the inside walls were covered with insulation foam. The steps down lead into the spacious galley, which contained a gas fridge, cupboards and work counters, two sofas, a folding kitchen table, a coffee table, shelving, and pictures, with the walls and ceiling done in a pleasant tongue-and-groove. forward there was a narrow corridor with a cabin to each side, followed by a shower room to starboard and a toilet to port, then the large (but low-ceilinged) bow cabin. Basically, it was a floating three-bedroom apartment. And with a larger kitchen/living area than many apartments. Beautifully done.

We ate, had a couple of glasses of wine, and retired. I woke early, but stayed in bed till I heard him moving about. We set off without much delay: a brief ham and cheese sandwich and cup of tea for breakfast, untie, and depart. This time, we had a lock-keeper on hand as we passed through the locks, which helped. They were ready for us as we came to them, and he managed the gates on one side while I did the others.

We stopped in Pullagh to take on water, and to have lunch (another sandwich, this time with coffee). It was weird seeing Pullagh in the blazing sunshine. I've always associated that village with persistant rain, perhaps because it's so exposed in the middle of the bog. No shelter at all. It's actually a pretty little place in good weather. Leaving Pullagh, the bank collapsed under me as I pushed off, and I landed in the canal up to my knees. Probably a good thing I was in bare feet.

For the last lock, Belmont, a double, we were on our own. So this was the first time I used a lock key. It was rather good fun. We had an audience, too, who helped with one of the gates. He'd have been a lot slower without me. With an assistant, he didn't need to tie the boat at all. The lock was ready for us, and as we pulled in I could easily jump off to close the gates behind us. And as we left the lower lock, I jumped down onto the wheelhouse roof.

The canal is remarkably windy in places. It's constantly curving down there. It's much straighter up near Tullamore, where I know it. There's also a lot of emptiness. The canal is cut through bog. Beautiful and bleak. Lots of broom and gorse.

The canal becomes very shallow just above Shannon Harbour, and we actually ran aground at one point. A bit of wiggling with the motor got us off in the end. I was trying to use the pole to shove us off, but there wasn't really anything to push against, as it's all soft clay.

We moored just above the lock into Shannon Harbour, and walked down to get the car.

A couple of friends of mine had a juggling/street performance show in a local talent competition. The final was on Sunday, and I'd intended to go to it, but we were just arriving in Shannon Harbour at the time.

C drove me home, and dropped me near my parents house. They were away climbing Lug, but they'd left some quiche for me, so I popped in and ate the lot. I was hungry. Then I walked home, had a long shower (I'd been wearing the same clothes for two very hot days), and fell into bed.

It was almost a perfect weekend. My feet got sunburnt, which puts a bit of a dent into it.

TRiG.
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(6 replies, Latest reply: May 30, 2012)

People drink the wierdest things (May 19, 2012)
I was in a coffee shop the other day. I'd ordered a take-away coffee. Just a coffee, nothing fancy. It was mid-afternoon, and I needed a quick stroll out of the office. Going for a coffee is a good excuse.

As I waited, I observed the staff in some confusion. Apparently someone had ordered a hazelnut cappuccino, and due to crossed wires somewhere, two had been made. I volunteered to take it if they wanted to get rid of it. It was, after all, more expensive than the drink I'd ordered, and I'm always willing to try something new. So they decanted it into a takeaway cup and gave it to me.

It was a hazelnut cappuccino. There was absolutely no doubting that it was a hazelnut cappuccino. The taste of hazelnut in the cappuccino was not weak. This was a cappuccino which tasted of hazelnut.

This coffee shop has an impressive array of flavours that they can add to hot drinks, and I've tried and liked most of them - in hot chocolate. Adding them to coffee had, honestly, never occurred to me before. And this experience did not leave me eager to try the experiment again.

Why do people flavour coffee? I don't get it.

TRiG.
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(21 replies, Latest reply: May 30, 2012)

In Dublin airport (Mar 23, 2012)
My flight's at an unearthly hour of the morning, so I'm staying the night in the airport. Just took the bus out from the city centre, spending the entire trip ogling a pretty boy who got off at the previous stop.

Scotland tomorrow!

TRiG.
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(3 replies, Latest reply: Mar 24, 2012)

St Patrick's zeugma (Mar 20, 2012)
I spent the weekend taking long walks and photographs.

It was good.

TRiG.
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(5 replies, Latest reply: Mar 21, 2012)

World, stop confusing me! (Mar 9, 2012)
So, this morning I discovered I agree with Pat Roberson.
http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way...a-the-way-we-treat-beverage-alcohol

And this evening I discovered I agreed with the Daily Mail.
http://www.pinknews.co.uk/2012/03/0...ays-marrying-shows-its-irrelevance/



Did someone find out what the universe was about, and thereby replace it with something even more bizzarly inexplicable?

TRiG.
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(2 replies, Latest reply: Mar 9, 2012)

My Conversations (Mar 4, 2012)
After being on this site for goodness knows how long, I've just got the point of the "My Congersations" pop-up window. It's actually quite useful in a browser sidebar (as long as you remember that it loads in a named window, not necessarily the tab you're currently in).

TRiG.
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(3 replies, Latest reply: Mar 6, 2012)

Travel annoyances: National Rail / Irish Ferries (Feb 16, 2012)
So, I went up to the station yesterday to buy my tickets. Tullamore station has a booking office, which sells tickets, and a parcel office, which sells tickets when the booking office is closed. The booking office was closed. And neither the parcel office nor the machines sell Sail & Rail tickets. The booking office shouldn't have been closed, but someone wasn't in that day, so it had closed early.

Today I took a slightly late lunch and tried again. The office was open. Good start. First, the lady there asked me exactly which sailings I would be on. She told me that Sail & Rail tickets are no longer open. The crossings have to be booked, and the reference number written onto the ticket. Lovely. Then she told me that the sailings I wanted, which I'd carefully checked on the National Rail website, were not operating.

I like the National Rail website, because I can plan my whole journey on it. It has both the Irish and the British trains, and the ferries. But the Jonathan Swift is off at the moment. The Irish Ferries website tells us "Dublin Swift Fast Ferry - will operate a single round trip daily from 16 to 22 Feb inclusive with the revised time of 14.00hrs ex Dublin & 17.15hr ex Holyhead." (Irish Ferries seem to be a bit uncertain what that boat is called. Sometimes it's the Dublin Swift and sometimes the Jonathan Swift. I prefer Jonathan, so that's what I call it.)

So the 08.45 sailing I'd planned on taking is not operating. Does the National Rail website tell you this? No it does not.

So I booked myself onto the 08.05 Ulysses sailing instead. Or, rather, I asked the lady in the booking office to book me onto that sailing. This took time. In fact, it took almost half an hour. As she sits at the ticket window, her computer is behind her, so when she was booking the ferry crossings I could watch her using the Irish Ferries website. It was a painful experience.

But I do now have my ticket. I think I'll buy them online in future. I have a credit card these days, so such things are now possible. Buying them at the station has never before been this much hassle. (Buying them in UK stations is often a bit of an adventure, because half the time your first job is to convince the person behind the counter that such a ticket actually exists.)

My train leaves Tullamore at 05.40 and reaches Heuston at 07.00. There's a bus at 07.15 from Heuston Station to North Wall Terminal 1. It usually gets you there in time for the 08.05 sailing, but they don't guarantee it. It's designed to meet the 08.45. And besides, although it's a standard Dublin Bus, it's run by special arrangement with Irish Ferries, so it might not even be running at all. So I'll have to take a taxi across Dublin instead, to be on the safe side.

The 08.05 sailing is the Ulysses, the largest passenger ferry in the world. It's a comfortable ship, but considerably slower than the Swift. In fact, it gets to Holyhead three minutes after my train leaves. So I've done some more checking on the National Rail website, and picked out another train. This one gets me to Manchester Piccadilly at 15.57. Let's hope that this is accurate. Perhaps National Rail know more about trains than they do about ferries.

In other news, the lady at the booking office mentioned that Irish Rail are no longer processing Sail & Rail tickets for Stena. The Stena times rarely suit me anyway.

So, 05.40 train. I may pack, and get an early night.

TRiG.
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(3 replies, Latest reply: Feb 16, 2012)

Through glasses, darkly .... (Feb 8, 2012)
There are cycles in life. Longer cycles and shorter cycles. I get my eyes tested every two years, and the last test was on Saturday. And it seems my eyes have not degenerated at all since they were last tested. But I did get a slightly different prescription. The optician said my eyes have a tendency to not look quite straight ahead, so that for me focusing requires conscious effort, which could be tiring. So she ordered lenses with a prism in them, which would help that. This, she said, would make a long day of staring at computer screens less tiring.

And then I went out to pick frames. It seems fat arms are in fashion. I cannot stand glasses with massive arms on them. I want something that looks light. So I had limited choice, which is probably a good thing, as I'm indecisive. In the end, I went for the first pair the lady picked out for me. They're a slightly unusual shape: square on the outside but rounded by the nose. They're dark and thin-armed and look good.

They phoned me this morning to tell me my glasses were available for collection, and since the optician is just down the road from the office, I popped around to pick them up. Fitting was quick: they needed no adjustment at all. And then they told me that I'd be getting a free set of prescription sunglasses, so I had to pick a second set of frames. This was quick, as I was given limited choice for the free set. They're chunkier, and plastic rather than metal, but sunglasses look like that anyway. They'll be fine with dark lenses in them. I've never had prescription sunglasses before, and am rather looking forward to them.

She told me they'd take a while to arrive. I looked out the window at the grey February sky and said I was in no hurry.

I have quite bad eyesight, and therefore fairly strong lenses. And the wider the frames, the chunkier the glass has to be. So I've always been recommended to get small glasses, the type that barely cover your eyes. This means that the frame of the glasses is present in my peripheral vision. I don't see it: my brain tunes it out. But new glasses, with a different shaped frame, take a while to get used to, and for the rest of the morning there was a black blur around the edge of the world. It had gone by lunchtime.

TRiG.
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(No replies)

Is this appropriate? (Feb 8, 2012)
I've been given a new employment contract.

It's printed in comic sans.

TRiG.
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(17 replies, Latest reply: Feb 9, 2012)

So, the plan for this weekend was to finish my upgrades to the h2g2 Aviators website (Jan 28, 2012)
Instead, I'll be spending the weekend trying to work out why my computer won't boot, and then probably reinstalling Ubuntu. And then reinstalling my LAMP server, and then reconfiguring everything. The Aviators site will have to wait.

Bah!

TRiG.
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(16 replies, Latest reply: Feb 6, 2012)

Odd (Dec 27, 2011)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1462769/


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(13 replies, Latest reply: Jan 4, 2012)

Meh! (Dec 27, 2011)
Okay. What joker subscribed me to e-mails from Ron Paul? "Dear Fellow Conservative", indeed.

TRiG.
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(5 replies, Latest reply: Dec 28, 2011)


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