tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34744132192921489322024-02-28T15:43:08.580-08:00Regular JoeStories I love. But seldom get paid for.Josef O'Sheahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16395589504706311414noreply@blogger.comBlogger79125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3474413219292148932.post-66694383636963761132019-01-17T03:45:00.000-08:002019-01-17T03:49:40.749-08:00LOGO<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />Josef O'Sheahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16395589504706311414noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3474413219292148932.post-20919697578996377272017-10-02T07:42:00.001-07:002018-05-01T07:19:34.116-07:00Ten Best Pubs In Cork<br />
<b>* As a recent returnee to the City By The Lee - I've found a lot of changes - most for the positive on the pub (and food) scene - and lots of new, local craft breweries reviving Cork's ancient tradition of being a brewing, mercantile port, which exported it's beers & ales to the four corners of the world.</b><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A Pub - In Cork </td></tr>
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<b>But where to go when you are looking for a pint? Well, there are plenty of "Ten Best Pubs In Cork!" lists on various websites - they're all useless, like. </b><br />
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<b>Seriously - this is the only list you need - accept no other list of the Best Pubs in Cork. Pour scorn on them. Shun them in the street, your workplace and your place of worship. For they know not what of they talk about. </b><br />
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<b>Here - in descending but not too particular order - are the Ten Best Pubs in Cork - accept no feckin' substitutes. </b><br />
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<b>I have avoided the obvious - and stayed off the main drags. There are plenty more great bars and pubs around Cork - but most of these do not appear on other lists and I believe they deserve a wider audience.</b><br />
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<b><u>Cork's Ten Best Pubs - By A Man With Bitter Experience</u> </b></h2>
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<b>10 The Castle Inn - South Main Street</b></div>
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Push through the slightly wonky door of The Castle on South Main street and say hello to 1952. Seriously. You can talk of "Time Warp" pubs, but it's rare to pass through an actual dimensional portal to the Pinting Past. The Castle - with it's blinding fluorescent strip lighting, scuffed floors, walls, ceilings and serving staff - plus advertising posters that somebody forgot to take down in 1962 - is not TRYING to be cool old school, it just found the right decade and decided to stay in it. There's often an open fire going, there's a snug that people go into and never appear to come out of and it gives you the feeling that you could locate yourself in here and survive a nuclear winter. Or a bad break up. Reassuringly, unapologetically scruffy. The Proustian scent of ancient Beamish, yellowing fly-paper and Christy Ring's Brylcream. Lovely.<br />
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<b>Pros</b> - Real Old School - no fakery.<br />
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<b>Cons</b> - The fluorescent strip lighting. Like you are about to be interrogated by the Stasi.<br />
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<b>Most likely to Meet</b> - A man in a tweed jacket - perusing the racing pages.<br />
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<b>9 The Idle Hour - Albert Quay </b></div>
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Once a sailors & dockers pub, on the quays down where the city ends and ships still dock, The Idle Hour is a very traditional, plank-panelled Cork boozer that can get pretty lively at the Weekends but is perhaps best enjoyed when you have an actual idle hour of a lazy afternoon. A welcoming sanctuary, sitting on the quay, looking out over the docks.<br />
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<b>Pros</b> - Location - on the Waterfront.<br />
<b>Cons</b> - Not a lot - can get very loud at the weekends but throw yerself in. </div>
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<b>Most Likely to Meet - </b>God knows - a curious shop.<br />
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<b><u>8 Tom Barry's - Barrack Street</u> </b></div>
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You can't compile a list of Cork pubs and leave out Tom Barry's Of Barracka. The joy here is the mix of a cosy, plank-panelled pub with a fine beer-garden out the back. Tom's sits close by the walls of a city centre, 17th century Star-Fort, on one of the oldest streets in the town. They also do fab pizzas from their own brick oven in the garden. During the day, they leave out copies of the Irish Times crossword. At night, it gets pretty lively with lots of students. </div>
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<b>Pros</b> - Gorgeous cosy interior, cool garden.<br />
<b>Cons</b> - Not a lot - pretty close to perfect.<br />
<b>Most Likely To Meet</b> - Students. Locals. Sound heads.</div>
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<b><u>7 The Abbey Tavern - Gillabbey Street </u></b><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqPCbKa8rX-EDPk7IOCS1z0-WwmFEKaMbUEtVCwCTHXeYVAG4VnZVcPPGkfH9iR5s3vTmXYjCIw-kgM0dFGUIeI2sHflRh58UjOSk_LCSAKI_2W9aYqWsJ1GTKPIsHnRF5j8H18jWUq-HH/s1600/AbbeyTav.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="960" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqPCbKa8rX-EDPk7IOCS1z0-WwmFEKaMbUEtVCwCTHXeYVAG4VnZVcPPGkfH9iR5s3vTmXYjCIw-kgM0dFGUIeI2sHflRh58UjOSk_LCSAKI_2W9aYqWsJ1GTKPIsHnRF5j8H18jWUq-HH/s320/AbbeyTav.jpg" width="320" /></a>A real hidden gem. A warm, welcoming pub, in the shadow of the soot-black gothic fantasy of St Finbarr's Cathedral. The Abbey is a little off the beaten track but well worth finding. Nice little smoking area and a great wine-list too.<br />
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<b>Pros</b> - A little quirky with lots of dark comfy corners & banquettes.<br />
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<b>Cons</b> - Not exactly a buzzing neighbourhood - but that's part of the charm.<br />
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<b>Most Likely To Meet</b> - Student or professor from nearby UCC.<br />
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<u><b>6 Abbot's Ale House - Devonshire Street - Northside, Like. </b></u><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiG3H-vLaK1L2TE65-wXMVHPam1InXTk_gvoVa6MDy73pvXB6KNShKtSFzkZT1i3bcrnjIatIxUflodG_-PWeM5y_mbqulcRzkJeUq6NdQUog3dtQJ6JZc6J3lJvhhhHeJ2mMtW2fKefCZW/s1600/Abbots.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="900" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiG3H-vLaK1L2TE65-wXMVHPam1InXTk_gvoVa6MDy73pvXB6KNShKtSFzkZT1i3bcrnjIatIxUflodG_-PWeM5y_mbqulcRzkJeUq6NdQUog3dtQJ6JZc6J3lJvhhhHeJ2mMtW2fKefCZW/s320/Abbots.jpg" width="320" /></a>Big changes here recently - the pub has moved downstairs - and what you will find is one of the best - if not the best - hard-core craft beer pubs in Cork or indeed Ireland (also great small batch whiskeys). The barman is very friendly & really knows his stuff - you can have a little sample of some very quirky beers and on many nights, there'll be a couple of guys playing music in the corner - a little gem. This place is pure Cork - quirky, unexpected, not obvious - requiring you to take a little chance.<br />
Worth finding.<br />
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<b>Pros</b> - Probably the best selection of craft beers in Cork.<br />
<b>Cons</b> - Not many - a little on the claustrophobic side.<br />
<b>Most Likely to Meet</b> - Craft beer fiends.<br />
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<b><u>5 Cask - McCurtain Street</u></b><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEja73sGqD1uTXr14MoHWTDbsDXlPl4Ytp9Ht6xQzjUrdwYi19V-0JN2H_MZpEyCALJbqlouHtbPRgeQWUDYrB8qZcG3qJ_1QnZnAtL5JFFmqsQ1flbbWAHMDkRLWQ2GInj72Q695_d5heYd/s1600/cask.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="682" data-original-width="1600" height="170" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEja73sGqD1uTXr14MoHWTDbsDXlPl4Ytp9Ht6xQzjUrdwYi19V-0JN2H_MZpEyCALJbqlouHtbPRgeQWUDYrB8qZcG3qJ_1QnZnAtL5JFFmqsQ1flbbWAHMDkRLWQ2GInj72Q695_d5heYd/s400/cask.JPG" width="400" /></a>Yes! It's a cocktail bar. And a little bling-y. But if you are looking for authentically good cocktails in a gorgeous setting, this converted Victorian wine-vaults on McCurtain Street is a little special. Hey, if I just gave yiz ten auld lad/craft beer bars I'd be letting ye down.<br />
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Cork doesn't really do bling - the aesthetic/vibe is more shabby than chic - but Cask is a recent and very welcome addition to the scene, adding something that had been lacking in the city. Very busy/Party vibe at the weekends. But not what you might expect. A lot of thought has gone into this gaff.<br />
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<b>Pros</b> - Gorgeous spaces - great cocktails.<br />
<b>Cons</b> - If you were snobby, you might accuse Cask of being try-hard. But it's really not.<br />
<b>Most Likely To Meet</b> - Dolled up Old Dolls, Lads who look like they've lifted a weight or two.<br />
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<b>4 Henchy's -Wellington Road/ St Lukes</b><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiL07ex2h-Ap4JK0P0sONiSlR0PGAbeP6cFOKjkhCMl1CBmwwSovUfb7E3HZtrmdp5TWbNUq8tWMQKVK7Ssub0qICjhztiqNjNF60Pmxwv1GbLxfyWmkxhAt0X595thlgvWLItIYDvesPYV/s1600/henchys.webp" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="1000" height="160" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiL07ex2h-Ap4JK0P0sONiSlR0PGAbeP6cFOKjkhCMl1CBmwwSovUfb7E3HZtrmdp5TWbNUq8tWMQKVK7Ssub0qICjhztiqNjNF60Pmxwv1GbLxfyWmkxhAt0X595thlgvWLItIYDvesPYV/s320/henchys.webp" width="320" /></a>Everybody will tell you - St Lukes is the gentrified, hipster heart of Cork - which means they have ....a bakery.<br />
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But it is a lovely part of the city, climbing up the steep hill towards the Victorian terraces of Montenotte. And Henchys is a lively, cosy, welcoming shop. Lots of live music, a great crowd of locals and a very traditional Cork pub vibe. You can walk up here from McCurtain Street in ten or 15 minutes. Well worth it.<br />
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<b>Pros</b> - Lots of little snugs, nooks and crannies - a great place to get lost for an afternoon.<br />
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<b>Cons</b> - Can get loud at the weekend. That's about it.<br />
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<b>Most Likely To Meet</b> - The odd eejit back from Sydney or Silicon Valley, banging on about the Victorian Terraced house he's renovating for buttons. But mostly locals.<br />
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<b>3 El Fenix - Union Quay</b><br />
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Right on the river in the city centre - a great shop altogether, very Cork, tiny, quirky, friendly, great live music on a regular basis and just a fab place to lose a few hours in. A session pub.<br />
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<b>Pros</b> - Reassuringly under-lit.<br />
<b>Cons</b> - Cork folks will tell you it's a bit of a trek from Patrick Street - we are not a people who like to walk much. Or at all.<br />
<b>Most Likely To Meet</b> - Old Punks, Indie-Heads, Rude-Boys, Crusty-Types, Struggling Musicians.<br />
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<b>2 Coughlan's - Douglas Street</b><br />
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Pronounced "Call-ans" - A real survivor, Victorian bar that has been given a new lease of life as one of the best small music venues (or the best judging by its many awards) in Ireland.<br />
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By day, a great old pub with wrap-around beer-gardens, by night, lively music venue.<br />
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Again, a little hidden away - but well worth finding, especially if you love your live music.<br />
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<b>Pros</b> - Many & Varied.<br />
<b>Cons</b> - None that come to mind.<br />
<b>Most Likely To Meet</b> - Anybody, really.<br />
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1 Callanans - George's Quay.<br />
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If I had to pick one pub to represent the best traditions of Leeside hostelries, it would be the quintessentially Cork-esque Callanans. It don't look like much from the outside. It don't look like much from the inside. There's no real indication that it's changed an inch since 1966. But this is Cork. A plank-panelled, lino-floored pub, with simple bench seating, a tiny little snug, a friendly and welcoming family-owned vibe and always somebody to have a chat with.<br />
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It's the kind of place the creatives behind a beer ad would spend big money trying to fake and yet not get even close.<br />
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Right on the river, next to a bridge in the heart of the oldest part of Cork. Opens at 7.30 every night, cheapest and best pint of Beamish stout in town and an extensive food menu that runs all the way from Salted to Dry Roasted peanuts.<br />
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<b>Pros</b> - Perfection.<br />
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<b>Cons</b> - Only opens at 7.30pm but they do say hunger is the best sauce.<br />
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<b>Most Likely To Meet</b> - Literally anybody.<br />
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**** And that's it! Thanks for reading and feel free to tell me that I'm a ferocious langer for leaving your favourite one out****<br />
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<b><br /></b>Josef O'Sheahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16395589504706311414noreply@blogger.com16tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3474413219292148932.post-35278793590907071352017-07-11T03:53:00.000-07:002017-07-11T03:53:13.309-07:00The Magic Box Syndrome - Wizards & Websites <br />
* Something a bit different from my usual run - this is about my work (or at least one of the things I do) and how Wizards and Warlocks are a big part of the digital content/biz website world.<br />
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So bear with me as I lay out some truth about digital content, Websites, Wizards and Magic Boxes of Mysterious Mystery.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZTYrj9RBkDkqkgAMsZyzIz4X_mdIhsRZh3axXE1goE7-FQntP4XQSEaTWjddWI5lyuJW9w1vqUoi6IXa5BGS9CosucCx325BqNIbtvhHhHamMdXpeSx33BXnsJCSkxWOktpPznb_6z8Ht/s1600/MagicBox1.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="576" data-original-width="768" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZTYrj9RBkDkqkgAMsZyzIz4X_mdIhsRZh3axXE1goE7-FQntP4XQSEaTWjddWI5lyuJW9w1vqUoi6IXa5BGS9CosucCx325BqNIbtvhHhHamMdXpeSx33BXnsJCSkxWOktpPznb_6z8Ht/s320/MagicBox1.png" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Another Satisfied Customer </td></tr>
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<br />You are in business, selling window-blinds, doll's houses, fountain pens or plumbing supplies.<div>
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You know you need a website, cool landing page, maybe an e-commerce platform, drop-down menus, snazzy UI interface, the whole nine yards! </div>
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So what do you do? You find a Wizard.</div>
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQdZvge8f2eLskJ0nk5zagr3Wy2nVQ4H6glWSCo7YPcEu33lbvYkLTDFwM7Uc4DlQrpqXXDxlUfUJZXan2W_Kaggx29eUMQisREfqfVPUyqbCd34rgzIFcDBFiomOl5JnCX-bTKiYrQ3a4/s1600/wizard1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="700" data-original-width="560" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQdZvge8f2eLskJ0nk5zagr3Wy2nVQ4H6glWSCo7YPcEu33lbvYkLTDFwM7Uc4DlQrpqXXDxlUfUJZXan2W_Kaggx29eUMQisREfqfVPUyqbCd34rgzIFcDBFiomOl5JnCX-bTKiYrQ3a4/s320/wizard1.jpg" width="256" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">What's the Budget? </td></tr>
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<div>
I've been doing a lot of work recently in the area of digital content - from working on copy and content for established sites to getting stuck in at the start up phase, devising content & tone-of-voice, working up the brand-storytelling aspect, populating sites with copy and content - the basic building blocks of an online presence for any business or organisation. It can be very interesting work, and I'm able to call on more than two decades in newspapers and broadcasting to do it. </div>
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But I am not - sadly - a Wizard. Nor do I know how to build a Magic Box of Mystery. </div>
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Who are the Wizards? They are the guys who actually build/design the site. </div>
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Often, the people who want a biz website have little or no idea how you go about actually designing or populating one - why should they? (although they suspect their teenage kids could do it for twenty quid). </div>
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But they do know it's (probably) insanely complicated, requiring arcane skills, endless hours of dungeon-based toil and magic ingredients ranging from Eye of Newt to Toe Of Coder.</div>
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So they find a company or individual to design it for them. Now, the good ones will actually explain that it's really not that complex, take the client through a step-by-step explainer and generally try to take the mystery out of what looks like - to many "civilians" at least - like witchcraft. </div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">The less, er, straight-up or even clued-in Wizards will throw smoke-bombs, fling glitter into the air and incant magical phrases such as "future-proof front-end flexibility", "<span style="background-color: white;">Asynchronous JavaScript" and (seriously, this is an actual word I have heard used) "Automagically".</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> </span></span></div>
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Most of the time - it's not being done to deliberately bamboozle clients - this is just the way most of these dudes talk. </div>
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And this is not, believe me, a rant against website designers - I'm kind of in awe myself of what they can do - having close to zero technical skills myself. </div>
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But there is a disconnect. And it's not healthy. Clients go to website designers, they make their wish and the Wizard says; "Until I have have worked my magic, BEGONE, MORTAL!"</div>
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQhLKMu2sHIbfHUC3BzAF1oSa-MWHFBDRXn2qNNt5vhdOQkgDA3v0Aa7X21z5bAm_6bRCGQLbnZPxRX1cHEdxNeweROYrMvtC09DkszG7PMmDC0Le5HiglZ21-2OdhBWusYvzc9ls83EO6/s1600/riddler.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1067" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQhLKMu2sHIbfHUC3BzAF1oSa-MWHFBDRXn2qNNt5vhdOQkgDA3v0Aa7X21z5bAm_6bRCGQLbnZPxRX1cHEdxNeweROYrMvtC09DkszG7PMmDC0Le5HiglZ21-2OdhBWusYvzc9ls83EO6/s320/riddler.png" width="213" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Your Typical Designer </td></tr>
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<div>
Six months later, after great time and expense, the client is presented with the Magic Box Of Mystery. </div>
<h4>
<br />"Great! How does it work!?"<br />"You don't need to know, it's a magic box".<br />"Er, ok, what abou...."<br />"MAGIC BOX!" </h4>
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Or - the job of overseeing the actual build gets left to "one of the lads in marketing, that's their kind of area". </div>
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And here's the thing from the point of view of the copy/content side of things - it's often a case of budget is no object for building and designing the site, after all, <i>Wizards and Magic Boxes don't come cheap! Seriously, if it looks really complicated, it MUST be really expensive! </i></div>
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But words? <i>Anybody can knock up a few sentences on a lap-top! Sure I could do that myself! It's not as if you are bringing me a Magic Box!</i></div>
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However, think of the actual copy/content on your website this way. You go to a fancy restaurant, great decor, designer table-ware, comfy seats. But if the food is flavour-less or worse, over complicated, will you be recommending it to your friends or rushing back? </div>
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What can happen is the budget (and 90% of the time and effort) gets spent on the design and the actual content is an afterthought.</div>
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To torture my restaurant analogy to death - you don't spend all the money on hand-blocked wall-paper and then hire some guy off the street to grill fish-fingers.</div>
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Good website design is an art. And there are some incredibly skilled people doing it. But the actual words, content, copy, the ability to create an engaging tone-of-voice and tell your story, they are just as important. Probably more important in the long-run, given the way attention spans are going. </div>
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It's great to have a snazzy magic box. But you don't want your audience watching it open, only to reveal a dead rabbit inside. </div>
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* Hey, thanks for reading! </div>
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ENDS </div>
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Josef O'Sheahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16395589504706311414noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3474413219292148932.post-15173532753634745952017-04-27T03:14:00.001-07:002017-04-28T04:34:53.725-07:00<div>
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<h2>
<u>
My Cork Manifesto - Part II - How We Do It </u></h2>
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My last Blog was Cork City and how its people have forgotten our story...... now I want to talk about ideas for the future. </div>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhiW4l-H5Y6TEvCzXRSIqPl9Q6R90cYKiNewDFDY_Tyw9oOLkksIzoWh-POdZ-SY8Ft3ZRL5oaFZiYWeySOSz9p8VMMML3CvhMBIfr1KVo5FV0lInJvs27EaXEBvT-G_CG9kY3J_A6_JFhj/s1600/CorkRiver.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="170" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhiW4l-H5Y6TEvCzXRSIqPl9Q6R90cYKiNewDFDY_Tyw9oOLkksIzoWh-POdZ-SY8Ft3ZRL5oaFZiYWeySOSz9p8VMMML3CvhMBIfr1KVo5FV0lInJvs27EaXEBvT-G_CG9kY3J_A6_JFhj/s400/CorkRiver.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Down By The River - Cork City Centre </td></tr>
</tbody></table>
As a recent arrival home after many years away, I've looked at this most idiosyncratic of Irish cities, not really Irish at all, but a old mercantile port, an Atlantic City with ancient (and now renewed) connections to the rest of the world.</div>
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh86O8Ji7UGsRKBJxTpuLJm_zEJdmrFu1Y30DgyZBMZWHx1MzSQ4swKLeHBpRPKK24gxQ3z2Ha_bKQo8ERPS2d9N2ka1-oxX17CXmndFfPVZKvLKMetL2-k1q4G5T2cqe_jI6qrIqOkRszp/s1600/ROadBowling.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="261" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh86O8Ji7UGsRKBJxTpuLJm_zEJdmrFu1Y30DgyZBMZWHx1MzSQ4swKLeHBpRPKK24gxQ3z2Ha_bKQo8ERPS2d9N2ka1-oxX17CXmndFfPVZKvLKMetL2-k1q4G5T2cqe_jI6qrIqOkRszp/s400/ROadBowling.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Road Bowling - A Cork Sport </td></tr>
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You can marvel at that staggering work of insight by clicking <a href="http://josefoshea.blogspot.ie/2017/03/my-cork-manifesto-put-it-to-testo.html">Here</a>. But now I want to talk about re-branding or re-imagining Cork - and respond to those who have (fairly) put it up to me; "Alright, Genius - how do we do it?"</div>
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<br /></div>
<div>
I've come home at a very interesting time for Cork. There's a real sense of change in the air, a buzz, an energy. But are we poised for a Great Leap Forward or (yet another) left turn into a dead end?<br />
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I'm Barrack Street born and bred. City Centre, South Parish. I've come back and see how Barrack Street is a perfect microcosm of Cork now - a bit shabby, a little stuck-in-transition - but with amazing history (a spectacular 17th Century Star Fort, right on my door-step) and lots of green shoots - such as three great bars and one great coffee shop. It could be poised for take-off, like the rest of the city - with smart investment - of the cash and imagination kind. </div>
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<br /></div>
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I wouldn't claim to have all the answers. I do care.I want to stay here, see my daughter grow up here and play a part in seeing Cork city survive, thrive and reinvent itself as what it should be, a great destination city, a great place to work or start a business, a fantastically livable, compact, culturally-rich and energetic place.</div>
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I look to cities like Barcelona, Porto, Hamburg - thriving cities with a lot in common with Cork, Second-City mercantile ports that suffered for years after losing their trade, their way and their sense of themselves, only to be renewed and to find their mojo again. </div>
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In 2004, as Berlin struggled to reinvent itself following the fall of the Wall and reunification, it's Mayor Klaus Wowereit declared; <i style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">"Berlin ist arm, aber sexy!" or - "Berlin is poor, but sexy!".</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"> </span></div>
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It was a brilliant piece of branding in many ways. It turned the city's perceived problems into pluses and acted as a rallying cry for Berliners. Sure, we've been battered by history. We're shabby, we are not shiny and rich and modern like Frankfurt or Munich. But we are Us. And we have a story to tell.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div>
So - what do we Leesiders do? (and by the way, this is not some great, unique wisdom from a genius prodigal son. I've had many conversations since I have returned, I know a LOT of people are thinking along these lines and there is already a whole lot of energy and activity going on).</div>
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But! I suggest we start by; </div>
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<b><u>Telling Our Story</u></b></div>
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We are an open, diverse, connected, culturally rich, sometimes quirky, always surprising north Atlantic port. We have always welcomed outsiders. They built the place, for feck's sake.<br />
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But we have not been great at projecting our worth and our assets. The city has tended to leave "The Tourists" to West Cork and Kerry, and held itself above such tawdry pursuits as drawing in people to stay and spend a bit of dosh. Thankfully, this is now changing with some strong initiatives coming down the track. The rapid growth in the number of cruise ships coming into the harbour is a very positive sign, even if the jury is out on how much the day-trippers actually spend in the city.<br />
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We have so much to offer as a top tier, compact destination city. Look at the great restaurants, pubs, cultural attractions and the, er, characterful people that we have. Let's all agree to tell a new story. Confident (and not chippy), open, ready to welcome all and show them a great time or a fantastic place to stay, live, work, play, start a business and raise a family. </div>
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Write the fecking thing down (I already did, see my last blog), Agree on a style-book for every Cork institution that has any dealings with the outside world whatsoever. Tell the One Story. Project the One Brand, We are not the "Real Capital" - we are Cork, we're not better than anybody but nobody is better than us. And we have an amazing story to tell. Come and see for yourself.<br />
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(Also - help our schoolkids to learn and explore the true story of Cork. A module for all primary school kids telling the great, surprising history of their city and county. Start with the upcoming generation, make it a focus for regional confidence, and yes, pride). </div>
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<b><u>Loving The River</u></b></div>
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<b><u></u></b><br />
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjysha9EXWQJmALwy4HASlF5TnvTa9k9vZmxqJuMhsBMfMF65BnwQjo20OGETLeHLube1j7G3lAP4CAslC40RAFsBjRvxmRfy3ag39dxp6aczOqJvmbd1X2qZScF-wfJLsj6Rx0HWxwbOvM/s1600/susentcork.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjysha9EXWQJmALwy4HASlF5TnvTa9k9vZmxqJuMhsBMfMF65BnwQjo20OGETLeHLube1j7G3lAP4CAslC40RAFsBjRvxmRfy3ag39dxp6aczOqJvmbd1X2qZScF-wfJLsj6Rx0HWxwbOvM/s1600/susentcork.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Sunset On The Quays, Cork</td></tr>
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The two channels of the Lee surround us and embrace us. Our energy has always flowed down the river, past the docks and out through our epic harbour. It is our history and our destiny.</div>
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Yes, the flooding that strikes the city centre has to be addressed. But leaving politics aside, are giant concrete walls really the answer?</div>
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One of my favourite spots in the city is the little boardwalk outside the Electric bar & restaurant - where you can sit with a coffee or a pint, look down the river towards the docks or up towards the Gothic excess of St Finbarre's Cathedral. We should have ten, twenty spots like that along our open river quays. Seats, tables, greenery, cycle lanes, walks.<br />
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Build housing and hotels on the docks (I know this could be about to happen) - open marinas, put greenways down the banks to the harbour - use the rivers as transport arteries. Bring them back to life.<br />
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It's shocking how little we use our great river, port and harbour. Think of the Ras Mor - the mad dash down the river by hundreds of little boats every year as part of the Ocean to Sea festival. Is the city ever more alive or more in touch with its maritime heritage, its true beauty and soul? </div>
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We should embrace the river, play along its banks, boat, sport and swim in it. In 1992, using the Olympics as the impetus, Barcelona - then dowdy and pretty overlooked - reinvented itself by turning back to its port and re-developing it's docklands - Cork needs to do the same. Urgently.<br />
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvn7ki7sa1YyvEG3ZSTLCoWySMoURSvTS-KWYGLZVyoVbrXAp6AEEGtP5loP7-0GoWKQPFSqZHYXGo3DqN3BOHsRZX3xB3gNaX6ONfhhWgiXXQaEW_56Sl92z2ClGi2kLfYtDieQoJhfXJ/s1600/BatmanBai.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="168" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvn7ki7sa1YyvEG3ZSTLCoWySMoURSvTS-KWYGLZVyoVbrXAp6AEEGtP5loP7-0GoWKQPFSqZHYXGo3DqN3BOHsRZX3xB3gNaX6ONfhhWgiXXQaEW_56Sl92z2ClGi2kLfYtDieQoJhfXJ/s320/BatmanBai.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">He's Not Really c</td></tr>
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<b>Get The Word Out</b> - We have traditionally been terrible at networking with our Cork diaspora - and they are <i>everywhere, </i>in London, Berlin, New York, Silicon Valley and on and on. Get them involved and energised. If they are true born sons and daughters of Cork, they are going to be patriotic, they are going to want to back there city & county (if only for the simple reason that they might want to come back to a better place). Here's a simple idea. A website for Cork ex-pats - "Cork Connects" - give them a place to talk and network, and - a practical and easily doable step - give them a information pack that talks about their home place, why it's such a great place to visit, to invest in, to live in. If you have a Cork guy working high-up in Silicon Valley - give him this simple tool, a digital package with details on investing and living in Cork, testimonies from the companies and entrepreneurs already here - so he can say to his boss, his colleagues, LinkdIn contacts whatever; "Here you go, look at this great place, It's my hometown and here's all you need to know about it".<br />
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<b>Feck The Politics</b> - As JFK (probably) said - there's two types of people in the world - those that want to move forward, and those that want to sit in the pub moaning; "You can't beat City Hall". We've had more than our fair share of the latter down the years. Stay where ye are, lads, we're moving on.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0j_ztqSLqK-t5SaahOK_nOUFr0OSlrjjrfpKZ1OzV3ICv9lbU-TglE1pf7kja-Bc2Q-hI-6q45tDaZmsQm9njjb-4cAB11GNDYf5aHGZ8hyetGRDETzDK0qCc9beEpQqV-xfJYXNxOgLL/s1600/JFKCORK2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="327" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0j_ztqSLqK-t5SaahOK_nOUFr0OSlrjjrfpKZ1OzV3ICv9lbU-TglE1pf7kja-Bc2Q-hI-6q45tDaZmsQm9njjb-4cAB11GNDYf5aHGZ8hyetGRDETzDK0qCc9beEpQqV-xfJYXNxOgLL/s640/JFKCORK2.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A Crowd In Town - JFK, Patrick Street, Cork June, 1963</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div>
<b>Regionalism - Recognise the Real Enemy - Limerick.</b><br />
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Regionalism is happening fast in the UK - they are about to elect a powerful new mayor for the new "Metro Region" or the West Midlands. There is the (admittedly stalled) Northern Powerhouse, directly elected and increasingly powerful Mayors in many regions. It will happen in Ireland - it has to, given the ridiculous/destabilising gravitational pull and over-crowding of Dublin.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyxrf_rCS1_DTDi8p6xK1QtgaySEvqeSdukULGC0GDeTELs2OnZ-Anlm9Cl9riqNdLDKzkPzZewo9_FK6bnDOGmFc1jmbLf4g5qCgBEqcCOVNJZ6RacFtOjQtuxjFXW3khfU-nqK93XTbK/s1600/UCClogo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyxrf_rCS1_DTDi8p6xK1QtgaySEvqeSdukULGC0GDeTELs2OnZ-Anlm9Cl9riqNdLDKzkPzZewo9_FK6bnDOGmFc1jmbLf4g5qCgBEqcCOVNJZ6RacFtOjQtuxjFXW3khfU-nqK93XTbK/s320/UCClogo.jpg" width="240" /></a>The new reality is that Dublin is not our enemy, or or rival. It's Limerick (and possibly those feckers in Galway). The Treaty City has come on in leaps and bounds recently, thanks to some smart thinking and progressive institutions like UL. This will be a fight to be the capital of Munster, or the South. Of our Atlantic Coast. Cork must be ready to position itself as the natural claimant, the entry point for everything from the Wild Atlantic Way to major FDIs, and the Tech sector.<br />
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<b>Visible Branding - Street Furniture</b><br />
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When you are in Cork City Centre - there's not a lot to tell you that's where you are.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0Tf0z3EmzaWfPTkLEEHS-8nZ6_2ltVEAWkyp-QyPfP6fyCskBXSkwv2gDGz8N7KpiGEqRzAkAUAbLMPUYnhOUbYlgCQrJ_CYHyr1EdOCV71FZLJ8zs7fqyTJYUqEEbK3RRPJlwLYAtIhz/s1600/london+street+map.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="263" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0Tf0z3EmzaWfPTkLEEHS-8nZ6_2ltVEAWkyp-QyPfP6fyCskBXSkwv2gDGz8N7KpiGEqRzAkAUAbLMPUYnhOUbYlgCQrJ_CYHyr1EdOCV71FZLJ8zs7fqyTJYUqEEbK3RRPJlwLYAtIhz/s320/london+street+map.jpg" width="320" /></a>We already have some great, striking imagery/brands associated with the city - the UCC Skull and Crossbones being a pretty good example, Groups like Re-Imagine Cork/Mad About Cork have done great work in putting interesting/colourful imagery around the city centre. But we really could do more - more colour, more graphics, more murals & distinctively Cork Branding. Also - uniform, prominent signage - such as the obelisk style street maps they use in London.<br />
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We need to see murals/street art of Michael Collins, Christy Ring, Road Bowling, Hurling - Cork "brands" (if you pardon the marketing speak) across the city - open up sites and invite artists to do their thing. Use the city as our wide canvass, tell our story, splash some colour.<br />
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Spend enough time in Cork City and you will see bemused tourists wandering around gazing at maps and trying to work out where the hell they are (the two rivers don't help). It wouldn't be hard to fix, but it needs to look good.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Bit Mad - Looks Great - Cobh Colour </td></tr>
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<b>And Finally</b> - <b>Make Cork Beautiful - </b>Conserve and restore the Huguenot/Georgian/Victorian and even Art Deco fabric of the city (again, look to the Electric Bar as a great example of repurposing a building while keeping and enhancing its character . Make more people aware of the <a href="http://www.corkcity.ie/services/strategicplanningeconomicdevelopment/granttaxincentivesschemes/">Living Cities Initiative</a> and schemes like it (seriously, 90% of the people in Cork I've talked to have not heard of this). Come up with a unified style-book for our streets, buildings and public places. This should not cost a fortune, but <br />
make it more financially attractive for people to do the right thing by the fabric of our city. And more importantly, tell them how to do it.<br />
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When I think of Cork (city, Cobh, County and villages) I think of startling colour schemes on houses (such as in the village of Ballydehob) which are actually visually interesting and pretty unique (if a little bonkers). </div>
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And we could start by bringing in a special grant to tackle the worst thing to happen to Cork since Collins was assassinated - Pebble-Dash.<br />
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* Hey Thanks for Reading</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Getting A Crowd in The City Centre - People Wait for JFK On Brian Boru Bridge - June 28th 1963 </td></tr>
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<br />Josef O'Sheahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16395589504706311414noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3474413219292148932.post-70645855410826793412017-03-21T14:01:00.001-07:002017-10-04T06:01:18.144-07:00My Cork Manifesto - Put It To The Testo <table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Solar Eclipse & Shandon, by Marcin Lewandowski</td></tr>
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<b>* So - a little something different - and perhaps madly niche - unless you know and care about my home-town, the southern Irish port city of Cork</b>.<br />
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<b>A small island between two rivers running into a vast natural harbour. Picture the Venice of The North, but with slightly fewer Renaissance palaces.</b><br />
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<b>I have recently returned home after many years abroad - in Dublin and most recently London.</b><br />
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<b>And in the great tradition of prodigal sons just returned to their native lands, I am now the world's leading expert on everything regarding the town I haven't lived in for half my life.</b><br />
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<b>For those that don't know Cork, or just think they know it, my hometown can be a peculiar place. It's people are often traduced as arrogant, difficult or just plain delusional.</b><br />
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<b>But what outsiders (mostly Dubliners) see as "typical Cork arrogance" is (as more thoughtful Leesiders would tell you) a disguised insecurity, A defence mechanism. And it's not us. It's the result of a city that has forgotten its true history. And a people who have, despite being world-class talkers, struggled to recall and to tell their own story</b>.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfWu042nFWdMg08HYuQuyrLo2LY6vJOLrbULCogw2ttJpYVtMfzo_97Us41OdOcvmB5ff02IUGXwEADQ0ppZEWMLo7a_ECUVR73yCO8QETHy0d8lDKKmPX3hrH3S6Oq_MOyZwbEx0cJdi1/s1600/CorkMap.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="226" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfWu042nFWdMg08HYuQuyrLo2LY6vJOLrbULCogw2ttJpYVtMfzo_97Us41OdOcvmB5ff02IUGXwEADQ0ppZEWMLo7a_ECUVR73yCO8QETHy0d8lDKKmPX3hrH3S6Oq_MOyZwbEx0cJdi1/s320/CorkMap.jpg" width="320" /></a><b>So in typical Cork style, I'm going to confidently lay out my grand vision, my Leeside Manifesto, a flight of fancy or the story Cork needs to tell about itself.</b><br />
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<b>You don't have to agree. But thanks For Reading<i>.</i></b><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><br />* Cork - in fairness, like - is not an Irish city. Never was.</span><br />
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That's not a conscious choice or a state of mind.<br />
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It's a fact dictated by geography and history.<br />
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Look at a map of southern Ireland and you will see Cork County, bordered on almost all sides by mountains. The city itself is in a steep river valley backed by more mountains, way down on the south coast of the island. .<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Cork City Quays Circa 1950s </td></tr>
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Cork's history, since it started trading with France and Spain in the 14th Cent and then, later, with the wider world, made it a mercantile port, a place which exported the bounty of rich land behind it, with more in common with ports like Hamburg and Porto than Irish cities such as Kilkenny or even Galway.<br />
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The energy and destiny of the city has historically flowed down the river, out through the huge harbour and by centuries old sea-lanes to the far corners of the world.<br />
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Through it's long history, even though we have recently forgotten, Cork has not been an <i>Irish</i> city. It has always been an <i>Atlantic City</i>.<br />
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When sail ruled the waves, Cork exported vast quantities of the staples - sea-biscuits, butter, salt pork and beef - which sustained countless numbers of merchant and navy sailors for hundreds of years. And - in a darker chapter of our history - also made vast fortunes for the merchant clans who victualled the slave ships sailing the Atlantic.<br />
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At one stage, Cork butter was a world commodity, internationally traded, prized and priced in the same way grain, pork belly and beef futures are today.<br />
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Corkmen were sailors and sea-traders. It's in our DNA - so many Corkmen served in the British Navy that in the pre-WWI era of the fearsome Dreadnoughts - the British navy was said to be "steel on the outside - Cork on the inside".<br />
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For most of its long history, going back to the Vikings who settled and traded where the river meets the sea, Cork has been a city of outsiders coming in, to build, trade and define what this port was.<br />
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It's architecture and streetscape is a mish-mash of foreign influences. A faint echo of Viking, traces of Elizabethan Planter, the distinctive doll houses of French Huguenots and later, and most profoundly, Quaker, Presbyterian and Protestant merchants, sea traders and servants of Empire. These "outsiders" built the city. And for hundreds of years ships sailed up the river and docked right in the heart of the town.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiptQ9-lEsZ-hz4ZJI6DobktZDb_XjvGulUBCwV06s3xET-pmcPsb3b2gPLBzWsHMy9BnuSpa_P5Xfq2WkAGEuLhpRl7qhSGIclkwJUVWLcO9G6tLSObCG5JoWJw0ej_uo8sQ5NJX4tCktN/s1600/CorkFloods.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="216" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiptQ9-lEsZ-hz4ZJI6DobktZDb_XjvGulUBCwV06s3xET-pmcPsb3b2gPLBzWsHMy9BnuSpa_P5Xfq2WkAGEuLhpRl7qhSGIclkwJUVWLcO9G6tLSObCG5JoWJw0ej_uo8sQ5NJX4tCktN/s400/CorkFloods.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The City Floods Regularly - A Chance to Make Your Own Entertainment</td></tr>
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So Cork was always an open, diverse, welcoming city. It had to be. Open your front door of a morning and you would find a ship in from Holland, France, South America or anywhere in the vast British Empire parked there right in front of you. You had to get used to seeing strangers around the gaff.<br />
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But that all changed with the worst thing that ever happened to Cork - Irish independence. Overnight Cork was cut-off from the Empire. (<i>And by the way, the Rebel County thing? It has nothing to do with Tom Barry or Michael Collins and the fight for Irish freedom, but all to do with the Derek Zoolander of the War of the Roses - for more on that bizarre, Very Cork slice of history - see</i> <a href="http://josefoshea.blogspot.ie/2015/03/perkin-warbeck-male-model-who-fought.html">Here</a>)<br />
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Ireland retreated and turned inwards, established trade, cultural and psychic barriers against the outside world. Cork City and its port went into its long decline and the once great mercantile city turned inwards on itself, literally, putting its back to the river and the increasingly sleepy docks and losing the energy and connectivity that once flowed through the river, harbour and the wide Atlantic Ocean.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXT791IIeuiPvQrD8c0tsDArkPqw-O5lfuYeCafPRFntnY7r1iRhRTXwFFGrtYc7H6wt_Xbg4v35CYrdMI3cADwNh4YEnr_CrF2aUHJdvNGG8LRoaLpjZMxI1R5t-l0cx_udmWnEh2CG3q/s1600/jacklynch.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="179" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXT791IIeuiPvQrD8c0tsDArkPqw-O5lfuYeCafPRFntnY7r1iRhRTXwFFGrtYc7H6wt_Xbg4v35CYrdMI3cADwNh4YEnr_CrF2aUHJdvNGG8LRoaLpjZMxI1R5t-l0cx_udmWnEh2CG3q/s320/jacklynch.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Jack Lynch ; Hurler, Footballer, Politician, Male Model</td></tr>
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We became a little bitter. We made grim jibes about being the Real Capital. How dat lot up in Dublin never did nothin' for us.<br />
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We left. Or worse - we forgot. <br />
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So the story of Cork became the story of lost mercantile greatness and fading, shabby grandeur. Slow, inexorable decline and the bitter word. Or worse, a chip-on-the-shoulder, put-on arrogance that has annoyed the rest of the country and baffled anyone from the wider world.<br />
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We still retained that distinct sense of Corkness. Our customs and language have always been a little....off. We have Bonfire Night in the middle of the Summer (St John's Eve, a strange echo of pagan times that we share with those on the Celtic fringes of Northern Europe). I could do a whole other blog on how Cork people have a weird way with language, syntax, vocabulary. Have a conversation with a Leesider and you will be doing a lot of; "Wait, what!?" The humour is surreal. The attitude is a little ...Mediterranean? Anarchic? Individual?<br />
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But we lost a lot. We held on to the small stuff, the little quirks, but couldn't retain the real sense of ourselves. Our story.<br />
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However, now, if we can only see it, we have come full (or full-ish) circle.<br />
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How's this for a symbol? The Hibernia Express undersea cable - the most modern fibre optic cable connecting north America & Europe and the first new one in almost a decade - came ashore in Cork in 2015. Another one is on the way.<br />
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Trace the line of these cables and they follow the copper telegraph cables that first spanned the Atlantic. Trace them back further and they overset the sea-lanes and trade routes taken by ships sailing to and from Cork for centuries.<br />
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In recent years, home-grown and international tech, pharma, agri-biz and bio-science companies have brought an incredibly diverse population back into the city and county.<br />
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Cork is connected once more. Diverse once more. Open once more. It's a compact, brilliantly livable city. We need to get that message out to people in Dublin, London, San Francisco, Paris and Berlin. Imagine a compact, open, affordable city where you can live, work and play on the most beautiful, uncrowded, unspoilt Atlantic Coastline in Northern Europe. With the best food, the best schools and the best quality of life you could hope to find. <br />
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It should also be a great destination city for those looking for something a little different, a little intangible, a little eccentric.<br />
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And that, my fellow Leesiders (and ye children of a lesser God) is the story we need to tell about the city today. Shout about Cork. From the rooftops, with one, clear, unified voice.<br />
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An Atlantic City, open and connected to the world. A port city where the energy and focus flows in and out with river and tide through the harbour.<br />
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It's time we defined ourselves once again. And told our own story. It's a good one.<br />
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And by the way, New Rule. The next Langer who utters the phrase "De Real Capital" gets strung up by the balls from that Goldie Fish atop of Shandon.<br />
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HEY! If you loved this (and why wouldn't ya) Read my <i>Cork Manifesto Part Deaux - The Mainfestoing!</i> - <a href="http://josefoshea.blogspot.ie/2017/04/my-cork-manifesto-part-ii-how-we-do-it.html">Here</a><br />
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**** Hey! Thanks for reading. <br />
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<br />Josef O'Sheahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16395589504706311414noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3474413219292148932.post-37442742031936802802016-01-14T04:29:00.000-08:002016-01-14T12:33:15.352-08:00Original Ziggy - The Doomed Brit Rocker Who Inspired Bowie * The death of David Bowie, coming like a lightning bolt from the blue, has gotten the world talking about his influence and legacy.<br />
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It's made me think about the people who influenced him - and in particular, a long forgotten British Rock n'Roller, one of the originals, who was the inspiration (or at least partly) for Ziggy Stardust.<br />
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This is the story of Vince Taylor. And I think the story is worth telling.<br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Vince Taylor is from the Stone Age. The least fashionable era of British Rock and Pop Music, when the early pioneers who heard the very earliest Yank Rock N'Roll - often on radio stations serving US servicemen in Europe - came up with a weird, mid-Atlantic take on the music.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">They they look and attitude of Elvis, Carl Perkins, Eddie Cochrane and Gene Vincent and came up with a strange, ersatz copy, in the way the British-made cars of the era aped the Fins and Chrome look of Yank cars of the era on a smaller, more homely scale. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">They were the likes of Cliff Richard and Johnny Kidd. And one of the biggest at the time - Rock n'Roll wildman Vince Taylor - is now virtually forgotten.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">But every time you hear Bowie sing Ziggy, you are hearing the story of Vince, the Black Leather clad, chain-swinging maniac who was the first British Rock star, exploding at that moment between grey, post-war austerity and the birth of Beat Music and the Liverpool Sound.</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.spiderbomb.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/Vince_Taylor.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://www.spiderbomb.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/Vince_Taylor.jpg" height="320" width="313" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Good Rocking Tonight - Vince Taylor in '59</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">And when David Bowie created Ziggy Stardust, he had in mind the long-forgotten Rock n'Roll star called Vince Taylor, the original Live, Fast, Die Young wildman of Brit Rock.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">As he explained in a BBC Documentary in the '90s - Bowie used to hang out with Taylor in London in the mid-60's when the singer was well past his brief, blazing hey-day. </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; line-height: 24px;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">By this stage, Taylor was pretty much out of his mind on drink and drugs. Bowie recalled how, Taylor would always carry maps around with him. And one day in a bar close to Charing Cross Road, Taylor took out one of the maps and started pointing to locations where UFOs would soon land.</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; line-height: 24px;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">The old Rocker had formed a theory that Jesus Christ was really an alien. Taylor had started doing gigs in old pubs dressed in white robes and telling bemused, sparse audiences that he was, in fact, Jesus Christ. Taylor was convinced that there was a strong connection between himself, aliens and the Lord. </span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 24px;">Bowie resurrected</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 24px;"> Vince Taylor in the early 70s, when Taylor’s flipped-out Rock n'Roll religion became one of the main ingredients of Ziggy.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Taylor was born in London, raised in the US and returned back home as a teenager just in time to catch the Rock n'Roll wave. As the wildly gyrating, black leather clad front-man for Vince Taylor & The Playboys, he shone very brightly, very briefly. His later life was a sort of slow descent, booze, drugs, bankruptcy, bad choices, ever diminishing crowds.</span><br />
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Vince, real name Brian Holden, was born in Isleworth, Middlsex just before the war. His father moved the family to the US in 1946 and in 1955, his sister married Joe Barbera, one half of the animation duo who produced huge cartoon series such as Captain Caveman and Wacky Races.<br />
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They moved to California, where the teenage Brian was exposed to early Rock n'Roll and started singing in bands. Inspired by Elvis and Gene Vince, he changed his name to Vince Taylor and decided to move back to Britain.<br />
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It was perfect timing. The late '50s saw Rock n'Roll explode in the UK and Vince, with his Black Leather & Swinging Chain Wildman act, was soon enjoying the first of a string of hits. With Elvis, Gene Vincent and Eddie Cochrane on the other side of the Atlantic, Vince Taylor was as close to the real thing as most teens and the music industry could get.<br />
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He was a big draw during the brief heyday of British Rock n'Roll. But saw his career fade in the UK. He remained popular in France and The Netherlands, as a sort of Anglophone Johnny Halliday, a throwback to the glory days of black leather and greased back hair.<br />
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He died of cancer in 1991, aged 54 and is buried in Lausanne, Switzerland.<br />
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Vince is now virtually forgotten, except for those - like Bowie - who remembered him in his heyday.<br />
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A b-side of his from '59 - Brand New Cadillac - has been covered by many artists - including The Clash on London's Calling.<br />
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But as Van Morrison put it in his 1999 song "Goin' Down Geneva"<span style="background-color: white; color: #252525; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20.3636px;">: "Vince Taylor used to live here/No one's even heard of him/Just who he was/Just where he fits in".</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #252525; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20.3636px;">**** THANKS FOR READING***** </span>Josef O'Sheahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16395589504706311414noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3474413219292148932.post-55859377345208107272015-12-15T11:52:00.002-08:002017-12-21T05:17:01.740-08:00Have A Very Cool Yule - Christmas Songs That Won't Embarrass You (And You Might Love)<h2>
<br /><br />It's Christmaaaas! As The Man Once Sang.......</h2>
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And if you're one of those people who thinks; "If I have to listen to that basterin' Mariah Carey song one more time, I'll strangle every last person in this Tescos" - you might appreciate some of these Christmas songs - that range from the indie-tastic to the just lovely. It's a very personal selection, but you might find a few you haven't heard before and appreciate. </div>
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So, in no particular order, My Cool Crimbo Choons Selection includes.<br />
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* 17 - <b>Christmas Card From A Hooker In Minneapolis</b> - Tom Waits </h3>
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Could not leave this one out - Tom Waits has the bookend for Fairytale of New York - slow, mellow, dark, heartfelt. </div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>*16 The Wexford Carol - Alison Krauss + YoYo Ma </b></span><br />
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Just....gorgeous - an old Irish carol - brilliantly done by Alison Krauss and YoYo Ma - gives "all the feels" as The Kids are fond of saying.<br />
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* <span style="font-size: large;"><b>15 Bob Dylan - Must Be Santa</b></span><br />
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Croakin' Bob goes kinda Polka/Zydeco - great rollicking song that will put a smile on your face.<br />
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* 14 Gaudete - Steeleye Span </h3>
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Very haunting. This sacred carol is believed to have been written in the 16th Century and Gaudete is ecclesiastical Latin, meaing "rejoice". English folkies Steeleye Span had a top 20 hit with this in 1973 - a very strange song to hear in amidst the glam-rock. This acapella version is from Steeleye's 30th anniversary reunion concert. </div>
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* 13 Solstice Bells - Jethro Tull </h3>
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Great bit of '70s Proggified Christmas tunage from Jethro Tull.<br />
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* 12 Merry Christmas (I Don't Wanna Fight No More) - The Ramones </h3>
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Lovely blast of Christmas cheer from the lads. </div>
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<br />* 11 - Father Christmas - The Kinks </h3>
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"When I was small I believed in Santa Claus - Though I knew it was my dad.."</div>
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Another rocker of a Christmas song - great for Parties - a classic from the Kinks. </div>
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* 10 - Frosty The Snowman - The Cocteau Twins </h3>
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'80s Indie heroes The Cocteau Twins did a jangly version of this classic back in the '80s - with a b-side version of Winter Wonderland. Vocalist Elizabeth Fraser and guitarist Robin Guthrie came up with a slightly woozy but very sincere take on this classic. </div>
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* 9 Christmas Wrapping - The Waitresses </h3>
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Another '80s indie-classic - from early '80s Akron, Ohio New Wavers The Waitresses (best known for I Know What Boys Like) - any Christmas song that starts with "Bah Humbug" has got the right Christmas Spirit - but the lyrics capture a kind of love-hate relationship with the festive season - and the brass bits are gorgeous. One of my all-time faves, </div>
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* 8 A Christmas Duel - The Hives And Cyndi Lauper </h3>
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Again - a great opening line to this sort of indie-rock take on the spirit (at least) of Fairy Tale of New York; "I got no gifts this year - and I slept with your sister". </div>
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What follows is a rowdy, very Phil Spector/Motown Christmas song - lovely stuff. A real Midnight In The Pub Christmas Eve sing-along. </div>
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* 7 Back Door Santa - Clarence Carter</h3>
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He's a bluesy, back door Santa - he makes his runs about the break of day - Ho, Ho, Ho. Smutty Santa - he don't come but once a year. One for the office party</div>
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* 6 Santa Claus Is Ska-ing To Town - The Granville Williams Orchestra</h3>
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A very rock-steady take on the old fave, with Granville Williams doing the honours - check out the great Trojan Christmas Box-Set for a whole load of Ska/Reggae etc Christmas Songs. Including Yellow Man's Santa Claus Never Comes To The Ghetto and Johnny Clarke's great version of I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus. </div>
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* 5 Troika - from Lieutenant Kiije - Prokofiev </h3>
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This VERY Christmassy song was actually written by Prokofiev for a 1934 Soviet Propaganda movie about a soldier - go figure. I love it. </div>
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* 4 - I Believe In Father Christmas - Greg Lake </h3>
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A lovely Christmas song from '70s Progster Greg Lake - this is a song with a message, but pretty subtle. It was also once chosen by the Archbishop of Canterbury as his fave Christmas Song, thanks to what he thought was its very Christian Message. And he should know, in fairness. </div>
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* 3 The Pogues & Kirsty MacColl - Fairytale of New York </h3>
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C'mon! I'm hardly going to leave it out?! It's just about perfect. </div>
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* 2 Christmas In Hollis - Run DMC </h3>
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This is just a bit of a nostalgia trip - remember hearing this a LOT the year it came out and Run DMC were very, very cool. </div>
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<br />* 1 2,000 Miles - The Pretenders </h3>
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If Santa put a gun to my head - this would be the one Christmas song I would choose as my favourite, a beautiful pop Christmas Carol, dedicated to (and about) a band-mate who had died way to young. It's got everything about Christmas, family, yearning, nostalgia, the bitter-sweet thing. It's just perfect. </div>
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* Hey! Thanks for Reading. </div>
Josef O'Sheahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16395589504706311414noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3474413219292148932.post-57176121884511464682015-10-27T13:46:00.001-07:002018-02-07T06:52:58.230-08:00No Gods, No Masters - The Remarkable Margaret Sanger <div style="background: white; margin-bottom: 11.25pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 11.25pt; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">* If you follow US politics, you might have heard of Planned
Parenthood – the nationwide women’s health agency that is now under huge attack
by the Republican Party, militant pro-life activists, Fox News, the Christian
Right and assorted other wingnuts.</span></div>
<div style="background: white; margin-bottom: 11.25pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 11.25pt; vertical-align: baseline;">
<a href="http://margaretsangernationalhistoryday.weebly.com/uploads/7/0/5/3/7053692/8968589.gif?306" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://margaretsangernationalhistoryday.weebly.com/uploads/7/0/5/3/7053692/8968589.gif?306" height="320" width="203" /></a><span style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">What you may not know is that Planned Parenthood can trace it’s
lineage back to a remarkable Irish-American woman, a suffragette and early
advocate for women’s health rights and family planning.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: #222222;">She was the redoubtable Margaret Sanger, the daughter of two Irish
emigrants. Her father </span><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #252525;">Michael Hennessey Higgins</span>, left Ireland
as a child, served as a drummer-boy in the Union Army fighting the Civil War at
15 and grew up to be a radical free-thinker, socialist and “Walk Away”
Catholic.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">She was born Margaret Hennessy Higgins. And 99 years ago, on
October 25<sup>th</sup>, 1916, she was arrested for operating a birth control
clinic in Brooklyn, New York (America’s first). Convicted and sent to jail for
a month, she was totally unrepentant and went on to devote the rest of her life
to women’s health. </span><span style="font-family: "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Today - at least two candidates for the US Presidency have added their names to a letter - signed by 25 Republican Party law-makers - calling for a bust of this great woman to be removed from America's National Portrait Gallery's "Struggle for Justice" exhibit. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: #222222;">They label her a racist and a "baby murderer". But you could argue that what they really hate about Margaret Sanger is that she stood up against ignorance and religious dogma, to fight for the rights of poor women. And helped found what would go on to be Planned Parenthood. </span></span></div>
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Sanger's legacy has come under attack from the extremists who want to deny women birth control and access to affordable health care today.<br />
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For her supporters, those who want to destroy her name and erase her legacy today are the direct descendants of those politicians and law-makers who put Margaret in prison in 1916, to silence her, to intimidate her, to punish her for daring to stand up for the health rights of ordinary women.<br />
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The woman born Margaret Hennessey Higgins refused to be silenced back then, those who honour her work and her life can show the same strength today. </div>
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* Born in 1879 in New York, Margaret was one of 11 surviving children to her Irish catholic parents (both had fled to North America as children during the Great Famine). Her mother underwent 22 pregnancies and died (a devout catholic) aged 49. </div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Sanger's Father - Irish-born Michael Hennessey Higgins</td></tr>
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Her father Michael was a remarkable man, a boy-soldier with the Union Army in the Civil War, he had tried to become a doctor before having to settle for being a stone-mason (his speciality was angels for fancy tombs). Michael Hennessey rejected the Catholic Church, became a radical, a free-thinker and encouraged his children, including Margaret, to think for themselves, work for social justice and reject dogma and ignorance.</div>
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Margaret became a visiting Nurse, working with some of the poorest families on the Lower East Side in New York, in 1911. She also threw herself into radical politics, campaigning for social justice, for voting rights for women and for access to health care. </div>
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It was whilst working amongst the poor that she came across cases of women who were facing severe health problems due to multiple births, and also women who died because of back-street abortions. </div>
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Margaret had already, in 1914, launched a regular newsletter, titled That Women Rebel - No Gods, No Masters - promoting birth control and women's rights.</div>
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She wanted to provide information for women - but also to provoke a challenge to the federal anti-obscenity law that banned any promotion or mention of contraception. </div>
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In her work day life as a nurse, it was after one particularly harrowing case in 1915 that she resolved to import contraceptives from France and distribute them through the first family planning clinic in the US. She set it up in 1916 and was arrested after a month. A book she published on the issue of family planning was also banned and led to another prosecution. </div>
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Sanger had witnessed a young women she knew personally die from the affects of an attempted self-induced abortion. </div>
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<span style="color: #252525; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20.3636px;"><i>Later on, she wrote of that night; "I threw my nursing bag in the corner and announced ... that I would never take another case until I had made it possible for working women in America to have the knowledge to control birth".</i></span></div>
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A few years earlier, she had written a series of extremely frank and informative sex columns for a popular left-wing magazine, titled "What Every Woman Should Know". </div>
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Sanger (she had married and had kids herself several years earlier) refused to be silenced, refused to be barred from what she saw as her life's work. </div>
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She did dabble in the fashionable (at the time) theories of population control and the quack science of Eugenics, the belief (then very widespread in intellectual and scientific circles) that you could "breed" superior human beings through selection based on race, IQ, physical characteristics etc. This is the stick that is now being used to attack her legacy, the implication being that Sanger wanted mass sterilisation and the elimination of "inferior" races.<br />
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Eugenics - viewed from a modern perspective - is gruesome, quack science. It was widely championed at the time by scientists, politicians, intellectuals (GB Shaw was a big proponent) and even religious leaders such as the Catholic Archbishop of New York, Irishman Patrick J Hayes, who hosted an international conference on Eugenics in NY in 1921. But it was used by Hitler and the Nazis to justify the mass sterilisation or euthanasia of people they considered sub-humans,<br />
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Everything that we know about Margaret Sanger - her humanity, her devotion to the health and well-being of all women, her promotion of science and knowledge, her rejection of crushing dogma and the many hypocrisies and shibboleths which were designed to keep women ignorant and powerless, tell us her belief in Eugenics was, at worst, as mistaken and misguided with her as it was with the many other prominent figures who briefly embraced its dubious promise. </div>
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Sanger lived a very long life, worked with trade unions, on worker's rights, on social justice, on health provision for the poor and for the rights of women. </div>
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She was instrumental in changing laws, in changing attitudes and changing the lives of millions of women for the better, whether that was in getting the right to vote or opening the way towards affordable, available contraception. </div>
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Her life was far, far too long and eventful to go into here, but there is much to read online. </div>
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Margaret Sanger was by any measure a remarkable woman. If anybody deserves to be remembered in their country's National Portrait Gallery, especially in a section titled "The Struggle For Justice", it is her.</div>
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Josef O'Sheahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16395589504706311414noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3474413219292148932.post-2364225615860042392015-09-25T04:22:00.000-07:002015-09-26T02:41:52.567-07:00Wings Over Monasterevin! The Nazi Paratrooper Who Landed in Co Kildare <span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">* Another strange story - this about the German paratroop legend/Nazi War Criminal who rescued Mussolini, attempted to assassinate Churchill, Stalin and Roosevelt, and ended up farming cattle in Co Kildare. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Yes, <span style="background-color: white; color: #252525; line-height: 20.3636px;">Otto Skorzeny was some man for one man. An insanely daring soldier and leader of men, an ardent Nazi and the man who (temporarily) saved Benito Mussolini from the retribution of the Italian nation. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #252525;"><span style="line-height: 20.3636px;">He masterminded and personally carried out one of the most spectacular commando missions of the Second World War. But Otto Skorzeny was not a hero. He was a fascist, a killer, an SS officer, mercenary for military dictators and - by any measure - thoroughly evil.</span></span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #252525; line-height: 20.3636px;">He was also - for a while - Ireland's least likely beef farmer. </span></span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Wartime Snap of Skorzeny - Note the Duelling Scars</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #252525; line-height: 20.3636px;">* The Gothic Hunting lodge, Martinstown House, is today a luxury B&B set in the classic horse racing country of the Curragh of Kildare. In the 1960s is was home to Standartenfuhrer Otto Skorzeny of the Waffen SS, Hitler's favourite paratrooper. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #252525; line-height: 20.3636px;">How the man who was born in Vienna in 1907 and helped set up the Austrian Nazi Party in 1931 ended up farming cattle in the Irish midlands is something of a complicated story. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #252525;"><span style="line-height: 20.3636px;">But then Colonel Skorzeny was a complicated man. An unapologetic Nazi to the end, he combined farming in Ireland with running an international mercenary agency - serving, amongst others, the apartheid regime in South Africa - and stood by his love for </span></span></span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #6a6a6a; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: x-small; font-weight: bold; line-height: 16.5455px;">der Führer</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #252525; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 20.3636px;"> right to the end. </span><br />
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<span style="color: #252525; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="line-height: 20.3636px;">He was the man who was (according to Soviet intelligence) chosen to carry out Operation Long Jump - the German plan to assassinate the Big Three (Churchill, Stalin & Roosevelt) while they were together at the Tehran Coference in 1943. He was also the man who held the military HQ in Berlin from rebel officers after the Valkyrie plot to assassinate Hitler in 1944 came close to succeeding.</span></span></span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">"Der Furher Was A Wunnerful Dancer!"</td></tr>
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<span style="color: #252525; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="line-height: 20.3636px;">But it was the daring and successful Operation Oak - the ridiculously dangerous paratroop mission to rescue deposed Italian dictator Benito Mussolini in September 1943, that made Skorzeny internationally famous. </span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #252525; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="line-height: 20.3636px;">The SS officer had been shot down - twice - on two previous missions to locate and rescue Mussolini. The first time, he was the only survivor, the second, his plane was shot down by Allied fighters and crash-landed in the sea. Skorzeny and his crew were miraculously rescued by a passing Italian warship.</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #252525; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 20.3636px;">In the end - Skorzeny led the paratroopers who landed a plane on a tiny mountaintop fortress at Gran Sasso, grabbed Il Duce and flew him off to run a puppet fascist state in Northern Italy, until the Italian partisans finally caught up with him.</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #252525; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 20.3636px;">At 6ft 4in and 18 stone, he was known to his men as "Scarface", thanks to a prominent duelling scar picked up in his youth. </span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #252525; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 20.3636px;">After the war, he was captured by the Allies and was due to stand trial at Dachau (site of the concentration camp) but escaped in 1948. <table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://static.origos.hu/s/img/i/1507/20150715kommando26.jpg?w=620&h=350" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://static.origos.hu/s/img/i/1507/20150715kommando26.jpg?w=620&h=350" height="180" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Skorzeny With Mussolini Moments After He Was Rescued</td></tr>
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<span style="color: #252525; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 20.3636px;">He fled using the underground railway for ex-Nazis (and this is where his story gets very Frederick Forsysth) that was (allegedly) set up with the help of high-ranking Vatican officials and ended up in Argentina or Brazil. Later on, Skorzeny would help run the ODESSA network - helping to find gainful work for former SS soldiers with the fascist governments of Spain and several Central American and Middle Eastern Countries.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="color: #252525;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 20.3636px;">In Argentina, he became a </span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #404040; line-height: 1.375;">bodyguard for Eva Perón, with whom he was rumoured to have had an affair.</span></span><br />
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<a href="http://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/624/media/images/79908000/jpg/_79908321_skorzeny_papers.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/624/media/images/79908000/jpg/_79908321_skorzeny_papers.jpg" height="223" width="400" /></a><span style="background-color: white; color: #252525; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 1rem; line-height: 20.3636px;">He worked as a freelance mercenary/military adviser for dictators in Europe, Central America, the Middle East and (later on) Africa. </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #252525; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 1rem; line-height: 20.3636px;">But his "other" passion - farming - saw him buy Martinstown House and it's 160 acres of prime farming land in Co Kildare in 1958 and play at being the landed gentry.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #252525; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 1rem; line-height: 20.3636px;">Visa issues - and the fact that he was an international war criminal who had only been granted a partial amnesty - meant that Skorzeny could only reside in Ireland for six months of the year. </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #252525; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: 1rem; line-height: 20.3636px;">But while he was a figure of alarm for the Irish government - he was regarded as something of a </span><span style="line-height: 20.3636px;">intriguing</span><span style="font-size: 1rem; line-height: 20.3636px;">, almost </span><span style="line-height: 20.3636px;">glamorous figure by the Irish newspapers and much of the public (he was not, however, overly popular in the locality in Kildare, being something of a stand-offish character. And the whole, y'know, Nazi war criminal thing). </span></span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #252525; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="line-height: 20.3636px;">He did became a local celebrity in The Curragh, driving around in his distinctive white Mercedes saloon, popping into the Post Office to collect exotically-stamped mail from his "friends and former colleagues" all over the world and even dining out in the best restaurants in Dublin. </span></span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #252525; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 1rem; line-height: 20.3636px;"> On one occasion, he was said to have spent an enjoyable night at a glittering social affair in Dublin, chatting to a young TD called Charlie Haughey - who would go on to be Ireland's Taoiseach (prime minister) and who always had an eye for strong leaders who were - somehow or other - worth a bob or two. </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #252525; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 1rem; line-height: 20.3636px;">Of course, Skorzeny wasn't short of friends in Ireland. Our little republic - staunchly Catholic, ready to do the Vatican's bidding and not prone to asking too many questions - ended up as a bolt hole for a number of high-profile ex-Nazis include the successful businessman Albert Folens of Irish schoolbook publishing and Waffen SS fame. (Folens was a Belgian nazi/collaborator who at one stage led the Flemish SS legion). </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #252525; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: 1rem; line-height: 20.3636px;">Skorzeny kept up his "international consulting role" right up to his death in fascist Spain in 1975, with one of his last jobs being for the </span><span style="line-height: 20.3636px;">apartheid</span><span style="font-size: 1rem; line-height: 20.3636px;"> </span><span style="line-height: 20.3636px;">regime</span><span style="font-size: 1rem; line-height: 20.3636px;"> in South Africa, helping to recruit "security and counter-terrorism experts" to fight in the internal and external wars being fought against African liberation movements. </span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #252525; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 20.3636px;">His ashes were returned to Vienna (after a Catholic funeral mass in Madrid). And Kildare lost one of it's most notable beef farmers.</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #252525; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 20.3636px;">** For More on Skorzeny, you can check out this good piece from BBCNI <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-30571335">Just Click Here</a></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #252525; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">And this is an excellent piece by Irish journalist Kim Bielenberg - "How My Grandfather Tried To Assassinate Hitler" <a href="http://www.independent.ie/lifestyle/how-my-grandfather-tried-to-assassinate-hitler-26508145.html">Click Here</a></span><br />
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<span style="color: #252525; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 20.3636px;">***Hey, thanks for reading!*** </span></span><br />
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<b style="background-color: white; color: #252525; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20.3636px;"><br /></b>Josef O'Sheahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16395589504706311414noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3474413219292148932.post-45209989781729710652015-08-15T01:06:00.001-07:002015-08-22T00:54:28.385-07:00The Last Man To Hang - And The Crowd Sang "Champagne Charlie". <span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">* I have written before on the grisly subject of public execution. And the recent commemorations of the Fenian <span style="background-color: white; line-height: 16.5454540252686px;">Jeremiah </span><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="line-height: 16.5454540252686px;">O'Donovan Rossa brought to mind one of his comrades, the alliterative "forgotten Fenian from Fermanagh", Michael Barrett.</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="line-height: 16.5454540252686px;">The execution of 27-year-old Barrett, on May 26th, 1868, was the last public judicial killing in England. And the story around it gives us a flavour of how these events were huge public spectacles, carried out in a riotously macabre atmosphere, halfway between a sporting event and a street-party. </span></span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="line-height: 16.5454540252686px;">Charles Dickens, a noted attender of public executions, was, regrettably, otherwise engaged. And Karl Marx, who had followed the newspaper stories of "Irish Fenian Outrages" avidly, only wrote about how the actions of the condemned man and his accomplices would turn the working classes against the cause of Ireland.</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="line-height: 16.5454540252686px;">Marx, a strong supporter of the cause, despaired that the terrorist acts carried out in Britain by the Fenians would prove counter-productive.</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', Arial, Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>"The London masses (wrote Marx), who have shown great sympathy towards Ireland, will be made wild and driven into the arms of a reactionary government. One cannot expect the London proletarians to allow themselves to be blown up in honour of Fenian emissaries.”</i></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 16.5454540252686px;">On May 26th, 1868, 27-year-old Fermanagh man Michael Barrett was taken from his cell in Newgate Prison in London and brought to the scaffold erected outside in the public space. It was three days before a bill to end the practice of public execution would pass through Parliament.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="line-height: 16.5454540252686px;">As the noose was placed around his neck and the last rites were read by a Catholic Priest, the crowd sang patriotic songs, including Rule Britannia and the most popular music hall song of the day, the jaunty "Champagne Charlie".</span></span></span><br />
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<a href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/1/1d/Fenian_guy_fawkesr1867reduced.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/1/1d/Fenian_guy_fawkesr1867reduced.png" width="295" /></a><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="line-height: 16.5454540252686px;">But the crowd was not turbulent or violent, as they had been for previous high-profile executions. Even though anger against the "Irish barbarians" in their midst was running high, the Times newspaper noted (with some caution); </span></span><span style="background-color: white;">“<i>The crowd was most unusually orderly - </i></span><span style="background-color: white;"><i>but it was not a crowd in which one would like to trust.”</i></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="background-color: white;">Public executions were the spectator sport of the mid-Victorian age. Special trains would be laid on to bring vast numbers to the hanging of particularly notorious criminals. The press reported them avidly, special broadsides, pamphlets and souvenir newspaper editions would be printed immediately afterwards, giving those who could not attend a full account of the event. They were popular days out for the Quality, the well-dressed gentlemen & ladies who would pay money to rent good views from rooms overlooking the execution spot, a chance to go "slumming" amongst the teeming masses. Ladies would often dress in elaborate black satin and silk "mourning dresses" to mark the occasion. </span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Six months previously, another crowd had watched the hanging of the Manchester Martyrs, three Irish Fenians who had tried to liberate some comrades from a horse-drawn police-van. A policeman had been shot dead. </span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Barrett was convicted of another, greater outrage, the bombing of Clerkenwell Prison, another botched attempt at liberating comrades, in which a huge "infernal machine" (a bomb) had been placed against the wall of the prison. </span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">It blew a 60 yard gap in the Prison wall, but demolished nearby tenements, killing 12 people. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="background-color: white;">The terrible death and destruction whipped up a wave of anti-Irish feeling and led even reformers such as Charles Bradlaugh to observe; </span><span style="background-color: white;"><i>“The worst enemy of the Irish people could not have devised a scheme better calculated to destroy all sympathy,”</i></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="background-color: white;">In the popular press of the day, individual Fenians like O'Donovan Rossa (and his U.S. sympathisers) as well as the Irish in general were depicted as brute apes, monkeys sitting atop gunpowder barrels.</span></span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhca7y2LXrB02GkMR0-aLmBIkYCWe1tKyREUfI3XV07nydasMzkoyzG5g_up7JaVmRbeQz3o1kovQ7zV8oPU9PpxjUKSERZTlIyjzTAe0lGXfeXEeCo_acYyQRCV6s4LG0fhR8V_-3pmKQm/s640/clerkenwell.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhca7y2LXrB02GkMR0-aLmBIkYCWe1tKyREUfI3XV07nydasMzkoyzG5g_up7JaVmRbeQz3o1kovQ7zV8oPU9PpxjUKSERZTlIyjzTAe0lGXfeXEeCo_acYyQRCV6s4LG0fhR8V_-3pmKQm/s640/clerkenwell.jpg" width="400" /></a><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Such was the outrage at the Irish Gunpowder men, the authorities were pressed to act fast. And even though the public hangings were about to be ended, the last to hang would be a young Fermanagh man, son of a farmer, an Irish Fenian. </span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Barrett has protested his innocence, claiming to be in Glasgow at the time of the explosion. The Crown brought forward witnesses to say he had been in Clerkenwell. One Fenian, Patrick Mullaly, escaped prosecution by turning Crown Witness to say that it was Barrett himself who lit the fuse. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="background-color: white;">The young man was a Fenian. But there was strong evidence to say he was in Glasgow at the time the bomb went off, and the Crown case rested on some very questionable eye-witness evidence. No matter, the Disraeli government was under severe pressure from all sides over the "Fenian Panic". Some man had to hang. </span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Barrett made an eloquent speech from the dock, proclaiming his innocence of the act but affirming his readiness to die for the cause of Ireland. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="background-color: white;">On the morning after the hanging, the </span><i style="background-color: white;">Reynold’s News</i><span style="background-color: white;"> observed</span><span style="background-color: white;">, <i>“Millions will continue to doubt that a guilty man has been hanged at all; and the future historian of the Fenian panic may declare that Michael Barrett was sacrificed to the exigencies of the police, and the vindication of the good Tory principle, that there is nothing like blood.”</i></span><span style="background-color: white;"><i> </i></span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Of the hanging itself, it went off without the kind of mob-violence often seen at these events, when drink, excitement and the prospect of seeing a criminal dance at the end of a rope often got the better of the vast crowds that would assemble.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Lucida Grande, Arial, Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white;">A lengthy sketch in The Times the following day said; </span></span><i style="background-color: white;">A very wide open space was kept round the gallows by the police, but beyond this the concourse was dense, stretching up beyond St. Sepulchre’s Church, and far back almost, into Smithfield—a great surging mass of people which, in spite of the barriers, kept swaying to and from like waving corn. Now and then there was a great laughter as a girl fainted, and was passed out hand over hand above the heads of the mob, and then there came a scuffle and a fight, and then a hymn, and then a sermon, and then a comic song, and so on from hour to hour, the crowd thickening as the day brightened, and the sun shone out with such a glare as to extinguish the very feeble light which showed itself faintly through the glass roof above where the culprit lay. It was a wild, rough crowd, not so numerous nor nearly so violent as that which thronged to see Muller or the pirates die. In one way they showed their feeling by loudly hooting a magnificently-attired woman, who, accompanied by two gentlemen, swept down the avenue kept open by the police, and occupied a window afterwards right in front of the gallows. This temporary exhibition of feeling was, however, soon allayed by coppers being thrown from the window for the roughs to scramble for. It is not right, perhaps, that a murderer’s death should be surrounded by all the pious and tender accessories which accompany the departure of a good man to a better world, but most assuredly the sight of public executions to those who have to witness them is as disgusting as it must be demoralizing even to all the hordes of thieves and prostitutes it draws together. Yesterday the assembly was of its kind an orderly one, yet it was such as we feel grateful to think will under the new law never be drawn together again in England.</i><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="background-color: white;">They had gotten what the came for. Revenge for the Clerkenwell Bombing, the spectacle of one of the Fenian Bogey-men hanging from a rope. They had even got to sing "<i>Champagne Charlie</i>" and seen the quality, the well-dressed society men and women who would pay local householders to secure a good seat by a window over-looking the gallows. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="background-color: white;">It was the last spectacle of its kind in London. Michael Barrett was the last man to hang in public. One of the last sounds he heard before the trap-door opened was thousands of Londoners, singing the music hall ditty of the day, "Champagne Charlie". </span></span><br />
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<em style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 16px; text-align: -webkit-center;">"Champagne Charlie is my name<br />Champagne Charlie is my name<br />There's no drink as good as fizz, fizz, fizz<br />I'll drink every drop there is, is, is<br />All round town it is the same<br />By Pop! Pop! Pop! I rose to fame<br />I'm the idol of the barmaids<br />Champagne Charlie is my name...." </em><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="background-color: white;">If you want to read the full times report of the hanging - you can find it here:</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="background-color: white;"><a href="http://www.arthurlloyd.co.uk/Timeline/Execution.htm">Times Report of The Hanging of Barrett</a></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="background-color: white;">***HEY THANKS FOR READING***** </span></span><br />
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Josef O'Sheahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16395589504706311414noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3474413219292148932.post-46338222682131740032015-07-31T03:19:00.002-07:002015-07-31T03:25:38.361-07:00Jeremy Clarkson Is An Anti-Irish, Non-Racist AssClown Who Sucks Donkey Balls<br />
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* He hasn't gone away, you know. And I realise we should just ignore the F**ker but it's hard to, when Amazon drive a dump-truck up to his house and unload a pile of money.</h4>
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Yet! While I have no photographic or anecdotal proof that Jeremy Clarkson Sucks Donkey Balls, and can provide no witnesses or veterinary experts to back up my claim, it is my strong belief that Jeremy Clarkson does indeed, Suck Donkey Balls.<br />
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And the Other Two would do so if he told them to. <br />
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So here's my calm, considered argument as to why Jeremy Clarkson is a Non-Racist Who Sucks Donkey Balls. Thank you for feeling my pain. (And apologies for the Wonky Donkey Lay-Out)<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Jeremy Clarkson </td></tr>
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* Imagine this. One of the highest-profile, best paid and (apparently best loved) personalities on American TV comes back to their hotel after a day's shooting, finds he can't get a steak and proceeds to punch a subordinate in the face, while calling them a "lazy black c**t".<br />
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How long, exactly, would that fictional TV presenter's career last after that moment?<br />
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Can you imagine the media-storm, the pressure on President Obama to weigh-in, the howls of opprobrium from the liberal media (and the cries of "witch-hunt" from Fox News)?<br />
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Do you think the African-American subordinate in question would come under a lot of pressure to laugh it off as "just a bit of banter" or would have major media figures (and friends and colleagues of the presenter) lining up to say "it's not really racist" or "we know X and he's just not that type of guy - he must have been a bit tired, is all".<br />
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He would be out on his ass in 24-hours. And Amazon or Netflix sure as hell wouldn't be banging on his door to give him a multi-million pound contract.<br />
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So what's different in Jeremy Clarkson's case? We know the facts - he rolled home to his hotel from a strenuous day of pulling faces and making lame jokes about cars to find he didn't have a hot steak waiting. So he took out his anger on a young Irish subordinate, Oisin Tymon, punched him and called him a "lazy Irish c**t".<br />
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Now - replace "Irish" with "Black" (or worse), or "Paki" or ...well you get the idea.<br />
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Clarkson did this and almost got away with it. He almost kept his high-profile, highly-paid job in mainstream broadcasting because, well, because it's not really racist if it's a white Irish guy, and Jezza's a bit mad like that, and he's built a brand by "saying the things other TV personalities won't say" and sure it was just banter and that nice Hamster Hammond thinks he's a great guy... and on and on and on.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A Donkey</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">So - the Non-Racist in question can write things - in a national newspaper - which suggest that <span style="background-color: white; line-height: 28.8000011444092px;">airport delays could be solved by "a bit of racism" </span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 28.8000011444092px;">.</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; line-height: 28.8000011444092px;"> </span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; line-height: 28.8000011444092px;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">"Nobody is waved through any more", he wrote in The Sun. </span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 28.8000011444092px;">"The result is plain for all to see. There’s a two-hour wait. And the problem is: the only possible solution is to introduce a bit of racism."</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">He added: "Nobody likes a racist. Nobody likes prejudice. It has no place at work, at play, or in government. But at Heathrow airport? Hmmm."</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">And of course, Clarkson generates money. A LOT of money. For himself and his employers. Seems a lot of people are willing to pay to see a guy say the things some/all of us might occasionally be guilty of thinking but cannot say out loud and hope to hang onto our jobs/respect of other people.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">So will his new Amazon venture work? I think not. For a number of reasons. Including; </span></div>
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<a href="https://bbctransmission.files.wordpress.com/2015/03/logo.jpg?w=458&h=258" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://bbctransmission.files.wordpress.com/2015/03/logo.jpg?w=458&h=258" width="320" /></a><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">* Top Gear was fabulously well-resourced, a behemoth of behind the scenes talent and money. Will Amazon be able to replicate that? Can they afford to send multiple camera crews to Tibet or wherever for two weeks to film the trademark stunts and specials? Can they find (and pay) the talent to make it happen? </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">* Top Gear is a brand - A brand which is owned by the BBC - Clarkson and Co will not be able to use it, so from the very start, what they do will be a shadow of that brand - an imitation... "High Octane", "Turbo Charge" or "Glop Tear". </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="line-height: 28.8000011444092px;">* Top Gear was/is that increasingly rare thing on mainstream TV - Appointment-To-View, Sunday Night Telly - so will it feel the same when you can download (from Amazon's bizarrely user-unfriendly VOD site) and binge-watch? </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">* Top Gear Appealed to 30-something and up demographic - they have proved to be pretty resistant to Video-On-Demand. Yes, they will pay for HUGE dramas like House of Cards or Orange Is The New Black - but that's drama - which follows a definite arc and makes you come back for more. Not three guys randomly messing about with cars. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">* There will still be a real Top Gear - with Chris Evans - who offers the attraction of being just as annoying as Clarkson when he puts his mind to it (actually, Evans is a real petrol-head and I think he could do a great job - he has the right personality and skill-set. And if rumours of Jenson Button joining him are true - that's your hard-core, younger petrol-head demo right there). </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">So maybe it will work, maybe it won't. But you wonder about the ethical and moral fibre of Amazon - and if they would pay the same money to employ our fictional US host, the fictional asshole I imagined at the start of this rant. </span></div>
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* HEY! Thanks for reading. </div>
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Josef O'Sheahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16395589504706311414noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3474413219292148932.post-13968067627075152022015-07-13T04:59:00.000-07:002015-07-13T05:07:39.100-07:00Cpt T. Mayne Reid - The County Down Cowboy Who Inspired Roosevelt & Nabokov <br />
* This is it folks! My most obscure story yet, and that's saying something if you've read past blogs, covering everything from tractor development in Ulster & hamster hunting in the Yemen to the strange sport of Road Bowling.<br />
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But I do find this story intriguing. So I'm compelled to share. It's the true tale of the Ulster Presbyterian Cowboy who lit up the lives of schoolboys all over the world with his romantic tales of adventures in exotic lands from Tibet to Texas. It's the story of the now totally forgotten Captain Thomas Mayne Reid.<br />
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* He was, in terms of sales and reach, the most successful Irish author of the 19th Century. His breathless tales of adventure (and botany) amongst the plains Indians of North America or the Lamas of Kathmandu were translated into scores of languages and inspired everybody from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Vladimir Nabokov to Nobel laureate Czeslaw Milosz and US president Teddy Roosevelt.<br />
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In his time, he was considered a serious rival to Jules Verne. Edgar Allan Poe sang his praises. The two met in Philadelphia and became great drinking buddies.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.endlessbookshelf.net/mayne-reid.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://www.endlessbookshelf.net/mayne-reid.jpg" height="400" width="300" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Original Frontispiece For His Best Known Work</td></tr>
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He fought, bravely, for the young US nation, built a Mexican hacienda in suburban London and married well, before dying of "severe melancholia", broke and forgotten. But his fame would live on for generations of schoolboys, including a young Vladimir Nabokov. who at 11 years of age, translated his best known novel "<i>The Headless Horseman" </i>from English prose into French <i>alexandrines (</i>a type of poetic metre favoured for romantic epics).<br />
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He was Captain Thomas Mayne Reid of Ballyroney, Co Down (and all parts North, South, East and West).<br />
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Born the son of a Presbyterian Minister in Ulster in 1818, he studied first for the church and then worked as a schoolteacher in his native land before becoming restless and heading for the United States in 1840.<br />
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He arrived in New Orleans and embarked on a colourful life as fur trapper, frontier school-master, and society writer for a Philadelphia newspaper (where he met with Poe and became a fast friend and drinking companion).<br />
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When war broke out with Mexico in 1846, he was commissioned as a lieutenant in the US Army, fought at Vera Cruz and was badly wounded while leading the charge at the battle of Chapultepec (where he would have witnessed the execution of scores of Catholic Irishmen, deserters from the US army who crossed the lines to fight with the Mexicans as the brave but doomed San Patricio Brigade - for their story, see <a href="http://josefoshea.blogspot.co.uk/2014/05/irish-rebels-against-usa-el-batallon-de.html">here</a> )<br />
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It was after the war, while recovering from his wounds, that he started to write seriously, while living in Ohio with an army buddy called Donn Piatt, who would go on to become famous in his own right as a Union General in the Civil War, wealthy publisher, patron of the arts and builder of gothic castles in the prairie lands of the West.<br />
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It was in London, in the early 1850's, that Reid began to find success with a line of adventure novels for boys, with titles like <i>The Scalp Hunters, The Headless Horseman, White Squaw And Yellow Chief.</i><br />
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In total, he would write around 75 novels and many short stories and sketches - many were published in part-work in periodicals or sold as what would become to be known as dime-store novels.<br />
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These were florid, sentimental, wildly adventurous tales of cowboys and Indians, tales of the Prairie Lands and the West (only then being opened up), of Mexican banditos, brave cavalry officers, trappers, prospectors and explorers.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e6/Thomas_Mayne_Reid_Vanity_Fair_8_March_1873.jpg/220px-Thomas_Mayne_Reid_Vanity_Fair_8_March_1873.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e6/Thomas_Mayne_Reid_Vanity_Fair_8_March_1873.jpg/220px-Thomas_Mayne_Reid_Vanity_Fair_8_March_1873.jpg" width="251" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Caricature from Vanity Fair, 1873</td></tr>
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One curious feature of the novels is his fascination with botany and natural history. Quite often, Mayne Reid would include the latin names of the plants or animals that featured in his stories, lines such as; "the cowboys heard a noise from just over the bluff, and began to crawl through the sage brush (<i>Artemisia Tridenta</i>).. far off in the distance, the sound of restless buffalo (<i>Bison Bisonus</i>)..".<br />
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One reviewer pointed out that the Irishman had missed his calling and should really be writing for a scientific journal.<br />
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His novels were hugely popular and found an audience around the world, especially in Poland and Russia where he was still a hero to schoolboys right up until the 1960s.<br />
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Reid became very famous and very rich. But he appears to have had a poor way with money and business. He sunk a large fortune into building an authentic Mexican Hacienda in North London (now, sadly gone) and found that as his style became very dated in the US and Europe, his money ran out quickly. He died in 1883 in London (at the age of 65 and is buried in Kensal Green Cemetary, his gravestone bearing a line from The Scalp Hunters; <span style="background-color: white; color: #252525; line-height: 20.3636360168457px;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">"This is 'weed prairie'; it is misnamed: It is the Garden of God."</span></span><br />
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He influenced a generation of schoolboys. President Teddy Roosevelt called him "one of the greatest inspirations of my life" and credited him with sparking a love of the outdoors and wild places which helped push the grown up Teddy into establishing the first National Parks.<br />
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Sir Arthur Conan Doyle - writer of the Sherlock mysteries - credited him as a major influence and inspiration.<br />
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Nabokov, in his autobiography <i>Speak, Memory</i>, name-checks all of the great writers who inspired him. But one gets more prominence than Blok, Pushkin, Flaubert, Kafka, Tolstoy etc. And that is the writer who "totally captivated me as a boy, a writer of Wild West Romances, Captain Thomas Mayne Reid".<br />
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Nabakov even admits to re-reading The Headless Horseman, his favourite, in adulthood and spends quite a while in his biography analysing the Mayne style and quoting his favourite lines (such as the description of a glass decanter glimpsed behind a Texan saloon-keeper; "an iris sparkling behind his shoulder".<br />
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He is almost totally forgotten now. But Thomas Mayne Reid inspired a generation of schoolboys to do everything from explore the world and run for president to put pen to paper.<br />
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**********<br />
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* This is from the Spectator Magazine of London, from the long obituary published shortly after the writer's death.<br />
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<i style="background-color: white;">"The real cause of the popularity of Captain Mayne Reid's novels, which, as regards one or two of them, may last long, is that they gratify not the boyish, but the human love for pure romance, for stories in which there are practically fairies, though they are called Mexican ladies, and genii, though they are dressed as American filibusters, and devils, though they appear as Don Rafaels or Antonios ; and probabilities are set aside, and every- thing happens as it is convenient it should happen, and nobody cares a dump whether there are any laws, human or divine, or not. Adventures are adventured, and the adventurers fall into frightful dangers, and get out of them again by wonderful means; and laws, literary or other, are simply a burden. That is the secret of the "Arabian Nights," and it is that of Mayne Reid, as is also that of the indefinitely abler novels sold in such scores of thousands by Jules Verne"</i><br />
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<i style="background-color: white;">ENDS </i>Josef O'Sheahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16395589504706311414noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3474413219292148932.post-12201031603830911352015-07-09T07:32:00.002-07:002015-07-25T03:27:09.928-07:00Sam Beckett & The Tour de France* Watching the Tour de France cycle race at the moment - and it got me thinking about Irish writer Samuel Beckett, his love of cycling and sport and the sporting connections of some other great Irish writers. So I decided to write this....<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Arts/Arts_/Pictures/2012/8/21/1345568378325/Samuel-Beckett-second-fro-013.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Arts/Arts_/Pictures/2012/8/21/1345568378325/Samuel-Beckett-second-fro-013.jpg" height="240" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">That's Young Sam Beckett - Second From Left</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Sam Beckett was many things, great Irish writer, French Resistance Hero, personal school-run driver for the young André The Giant (a true story, as any Pub Bore like myself will tell you). <table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">After two years of chats with Beckett - Andre Got A Bike</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Beckett was also a sports maniac - a first class cricketer for Trinity College, a fearsome amateur boxer, rugby-player, motorcyle racer and life-long Irish rugby supporter (it was said that publishers and others who dealt with him knew better than to bother Beckett when Ireland were playing). </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">He loved bicycles, often mentioning them and using them as a motif in his works. And his best known play, Waiting For Godot, was apparently inspired (in part or name at least) by the Tour de France, and a hopeless old French pro-cyclist who was famous for always being last and always being late. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">The literary scholar Hugh Kenner, in his essay "<i>The Cartesian Centaur</i>" says that Beckett once, when asked about the inspiration for Godot, talked about "a veteran racing cyclist, bald, a 'stayer,' recurrent placeman in town-to-town and national championships, Christian name elusive, surname Godeau, pronounced, of course, no differently from Godot."</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">This Godeau was always the last to finish, sometimes trailing in hours behind the rest of the field, forcing frustrated race officials to miss their evening meals as the sun went down and they waited. And waited. And waited. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 16px;">Another story is that one day while walking through the streets of Paris Beckett stopped to ask members of a large crowd what they were doing. The weary spectators</span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 16px;"> replied, "We are waiting for Godot," explaining that he was the oldest cyclist in the Tour de France, and had not yet passed by.</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEZE8U64ke8DYJzdUfcJIIcMvpDpjDAglAJwSKIfP9XTgZdEKL9ve3blmeHB01uFhXIIeoe1Nr5woxs8LRKVVNopbUW4WL1_pNh3BM6QolH-K05OfB7BjCD8Y5MERMQGgJO_ZBrFUGD83Z/s1600/roger-godeau.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEZE8U64ke8DYJzdUfcJIIcMvpDpjDAglAJwSKIfP9XTgZdEKL9ve3blmeHB01uFhXIIeoe1Nr5woxs8LRKVVNopbUW4WL1_pNh3BM6QolH-K05OfB7BjCD8Y5MERMQGgJO_ZBrFUGD83Z/s320/roger-godeau.jpg" width="212" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Original Godot</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="line-height: 16px;"></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="line-height: 16px;"></span></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="line-height: 16px;">That story may be a little too on-the-nose. But there really was a French pro-cyclist called Roger Godeau and (depending on who you believe) Beckett really did spend a pointless afternoon waiting for him once, while watching the famous Paris-Roubaix road race. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="line-height: 16px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="line-height: 16px;">The story gets even more sauce if you believe that - when Waiting For Godot had it's premier in Paris in 1953 - theatre goers who also knew their pro-cycling "got" the little joke about always waiting for this Godot character (and a few even laughed out loud - not a reaction normally associated with the famously downbeat masterpiece).</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="line-height: 16px;"><br /></span></span>
Godeau's nickname was "Popeye" (fans reckoned he looked a little like the cartoon sailor) and I often wonder if he was aware of the inspiration he provided to one of the greatest literary figures of the 20th Century?<br />
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And having done a little research into his record, it seems Roger did actually have some wins to his name and may not have been as hopeless as the Beckett story suggests. But why let that ruin a good tale?<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://cdn.spectator.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/Gayford.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://cdn.spectator.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/Gayford.jpg" height="258" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">"We've got a horse for ya!" - Bacon & Freud </td></tr>
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Another unique Irish artist of the 20th Century - the painter Francis Bacon - was a fiend for the horses - a hopeless gambler who knew the bookies of Soho very well and dropped many fortunes on beaten dockets. His appetite for roulette tables and race-horses was legendary - as was that of his best friend and fellow artist Lucian Freud.<br />
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Bacon's devotion to horse racing may be explained by his father's occupation - he was a noted race horse trainer on the famous Curragh in Kildare.<br />
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The two artists would bounce around the dives of Soho in the '50s and '60s, poring over a battered copy of the Racing Post and gambling away every penny they had. One bookie - a man called Alfie McLean - eventually agreed to take paintings from the two when they couldn't pay their debts. By the time Alfie died in 2006, he had 23 paintings by Freud (including many portraits of himself and his family) and around 8 Francis Bacon canvasses. Which were later auctioned off for just under £100m.<br />
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Brendan Behan loved the GAA and one of his most famous fashion accessories was a Rosette supporting the footballers of Co Down (for non GAA fans, the supporters of a team will often shout "Up Kerry!" or "Up Dublin!" depending on their county allegiance. Behan was a Dubliner who couldn't resist the surreal sentiments of a rosette that contradictorily proclaimed "Up Down!".)<br />
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Sometime soon - I'll explain how James Joyce's Ulysses is actually a searing indictment of anti-Semitism in the Gaelic Athletic Association.<br />
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But for now, we'll leave it there.<br />
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** Footnote - the reason why I know about Beckett & Godeau is because I was once sat next to a Beckett scholar at a dinner party. In the spirit of joining in, I mentioned hearing this story and he basically looked at me (and my lack of a great college education) as some random idiot who was talking through his ass. And then voiced his opinion of me loudly.<br />
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So - instead of braining him with a wine-bottle - I went home and spent about two weeks researching the whole thing, so as to get my facts right for the next time I ran into Prof. J Smug-Condescending-Bastard.<br />
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I still haven't met the man again. But I come from a long line of patient, vengeful men.<br />
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And if you are reading this, Mr Professor, I'll be out there in the long grass. Waiting for you. You bastard.<br />
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**** hey! Thanks for reading!******* <br />
<br />Josef O'Sheahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16395589504706311414noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3474413219292148932.post-91816615904661188132015-06-09T04:25:00.000-07:002015-06-09T04:27:06.635-07:00A Little Bit Of Me On The Radio, Talking About Dining In Public ToiletsHi,<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://presspack.rte.ie/wp-content/blogs.dir/2/files/2013/05/Marian-Finucane-2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://presspack.rte.ie/wp-content/blogs.dir/2/files/2013/05/Marian-Finucane-2.jpg" height="200" width="160" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Marian Finucane</td></tr>
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I was on Irish radio recently - the Marian Finucane show on our national broadcaster, RTE.<br />
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I was talking about an amazing dining experience I had recently - we got the chance to have lunch in the Peer's Dining Room of the House of Lords, it's basically the most exclusive (and then some) dining room in London and normally host to the great and the good - including US presidents.<br />
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You can listen to the radio bit <a href="http://www.rte.ie/radio/utils/radioplayer/rteradioweb.html#!rii=9%3A20792572%3A0%3A%3A">Here</a> - there's a small preamble about the Irish Navy rescue missions in the Med - then me, talking about the House of Lords and then about the latest trend to hit London dining - restaurants and bars in former public toilets (seriously).<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2012/01/23/article-0-116A41D0000005DC-627_634x419.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2012/01/23/article-0-116A41D0000005DC-627_634x419.jpg" height="211" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Peers Dining Room</td></tr>
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The Peer's Dining Room in particular is an amazing experience and they are looking to open it again in September - if you are in London or can get there, I would recommend keeping an eye on the website - <a href="http://www.parliament.uk/">http://www.parliament.uk/</a> and regularly checking out the section on the Peer's Dining Room.<br />
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<br />
<br />
Joe<br />
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<br />Josef O'Sheahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16395589504706311414noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3474413219292148932.post-68294404534216681272015-06-08T06:47:00.001-07:002015-06-29T04:44:46.389-07:00Summer In London? Try Something Different. * Hi - regular readers might know that I am based in London at the moment - still doing/available for work in Ireland, but enjoying one of the great cities of the world, especially now that the summer has arrived. And London does summer very differently to Ireland - it's an actual season, with lots of sun and very little chance of having your kids battered senseless by hailstones while you cower in a park in Dublin or Galway.<br />
<br />
ANYHOW! We have a lot of visitors who come to stay with us (popular, natch) and they always ask me about things they can do in London that are a little different from the usual touristy activities.<br />
<br />
So here - in a bid to educate others but also have a handy one-stop guide for annoying visitors who "forgot" to get a six-pack of Tayto coming through duty-free - is my off-the-top-of-my-head guide to doing summertime in London differently....<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://i.imgur.com/lF4Gxjo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://i.imgur.com/lF4Gxjo.jpg" height="223" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">"Sarf of the River at this time of night? You're 'aving a laff, aintcha!?"<br />
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LONDON! City of a thousand gourmet burger bars, botoxed Russian billionaires and prices so steep, you'll want to exit the Euro!<br />
<br />
It's a fantastic city, and great in the summertime, if you can avoid the tourist hordes (don't go to Oxford Street and NEVER stand on the left on the Underground's escalators)<br />
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But what about the London that only smug blow-ins and locals (if you can find one, seriously, endangered species) know about?<br />
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I love exploring the city - and I love its more hidden spots, where you can see London from a different angle, get a real sense of a madly hectic, ever evolving city where people fondly remember the last wave of immigrants who used to live round 'ere before the current wave of immigrants. Seriously, just look at Brixton - posh-ish suburb in the '30s, Irish enclave in the fifties, Afro-Caribbean in the '70s and '80s and now full of South & Central Americans, hipsters and Africans (also a lot of Aussies, but that's more the Clapham end so don't go up there).<br />
<br />
So in no particular order, and if you are gonna find yourself in London this summer I would recommend;<br />
<br />
* Pop Brixton<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.feedingfranklin.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/pb3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://www.feedingfranklin.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/pb3.jpg" height="190" width="320" /></a>Yes, yes, it's a "pop-up market" in a very hipsterish part of town - but don't let that put you off - this brand new addition to Brixton's thriving street-life is a collection of re-purposed shipping containers and cleverly designed walkways, outside seaingt areas and public spaces that is REALLY buzzing at the moment and offers lots of colour, good food, drink and great atmosphere - really worth putting at the top of your list if you are coming over the summer - more info <a href="http://now-here-this.timeout.com/2015/05/29/boxing-clever-pop-brixton-is-south-londons-newest-foodie-hotspot/">Here</a><br />
<br />
<br />
Also Brixton is also worth visiting for the great old reliable......<br />
<br />
* The Brixton Market<br />
<br />
<a href="http://brixtonmarket.net/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/brixton-village.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://brixtonmarket.net/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/brixton-village.png" height="240" width="320" /></a>Would seriously recommend this place if you are down in South London - just take the Victoria Line South to the very end, come out, turn left then left again down Electric Avenue (say hello to Eddy Grant) and you will find a series of huge, indoor arcades stuffed with weird shops and some of the best eating and drinking you will find in London. It's very trendy, but still very "local" and always surprises - take a few hours and wander around - great food, loads of outdoor seating and lots of colour.<br />
<br />
Brixton's great for a wander - but being gentrified at an alarming rate - so get down there fast.<br />
<br />
* Visit Eltham Palace<br />
<br />
Bizarrely located in a pretty nondescript, dowdy part of Suburban East London, this Medieval royal palace, a childhood home to Henry VIII - has an amazing secret. The fabulously wealthy and glam society couple Stephen & Ginny Courtauld bought what was a derelict site in the 1930s and built a stunning art deco country house within the ancient moated grounds - grafting it onto the remains of the Medieval Great Hall.<br />
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.sarahgawler.co.uk/blog/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/Deco-0012.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://www.sarahgawler.co.uk/blog/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/Deco-0012.jpg" height="266" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Entrance Hall At Eltham Palace - Art Deco Glam </td></tr>
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It's a stunning example of British Art Deco that was only their home for a brief few years before and during WWII (when the couple and guests would sit on the lawn on a hill high over the city, looking at the Luftwaffe pounding away at London).<br />
<br />
It's now run by English Heritage and may seem like a bit of a trip out of the city centre - but it is gorgeous (with great gardens) and can be done in a morning or afternoon.<br />
<br />
More info <a href="http://www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/places/eltham-palace-and-gardens">Visit Eltham Palace</a> <br />
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* Franks Bar - Peckham<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Frank's Some - View </td></tr>
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Hardly a secret to those in the know in London - but this bar and street food place on the top floor of a very dingy multi-story carpark in Peckham (another hipster hotspot) is well worth a visit for good food, drinks and vast panoramic views over London. Try and get there early-ish if it's a weekend and the sun is out because it gets RAMMED! Also - the toilets are a bit music-festival. So not for the squeamish. Their site is <a href="http://frankscafe.org.uk/">Here</a><br />
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* Have Lunch In A Toilet<br />
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Latest craze amongst novelty-obsessed diners in London? Having drinks, dinner etc in a former Victorian Public Convenience.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://assets.inhabitat.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2013/03/attendant-cafe-finished-interior.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://assets.inhabitat.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2013/03/attendant-cafe-finished-interior.jpg" height="266" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">"Excuse me, where are the toilet...oh, right!" </td></tr>
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Seriously, there are now about 15 mostly high-end cocktail bars and cafes in porcelain palaces that once only had menu options Number 1 and Number 2.<br />
<br />
The Attendant Cafe (geddit?) up on Foley Street in W1 offers high end coffee and sandwiches in a urinal based setting - really, you sit in former urinals.<br />
<br />
These are all underground and all magnificent tributes to the love lavished on public toilets by the Victorians.<br />
<br />
And "Story" down by Tower Bridge is a Michelin starred eatery in another disused Victorian WC.<br />
<br />
See more about <a href="http://www.the-attendant.com/">Attendant</a> - on their website.<br />
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<br />
* The Grenadier Pub, Belgrave Sq<br />
<a href="http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/02153/grenadier_2153931i.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/02153/grenadier_2153931i.jpg" height="200" width="320" /></a><br />
Down a mews-lined laneway in Belgrave, right in the heart of the embassy district, this is a small, lovely old London pub - a real star of the pub scene - if you find yourself in this neck of the woods and fancy a lovely pint of beer in a very unusual, quiet setting, check it out. Hard to find - would recommend you downlond the CityMapper app <a href="https://citymapper.com/">https://citymapper.com/</a> - a great, free way to navigate your way around the city.<br />
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* Gordon's Wine Bar - Villiers Street near Charing Cross<br />
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A real London Institution - a subterranean wine-bar open for 125 years - in the winter, a real cave, in the summer, a large, long outdoor seating area that's very popular with Londoners, post-work crowd etc - it's down near Charing Cross Stn, in a very busy part of London - and it can get VERY busy at the weekends, but definitely worth popping in for a glass of vino if you are in the area. And if it is too jammed - a tip, go to the nearby Sainsburys, get some drinks and go to the small park in front of <br />
Gordon's just by the river - you can have a little alcoholic picnic in a lovely setting for little money (but just keep the bottles discreet, strictly speaking, you are not supposed to be drinking there - but everybody does).<br />
<br />
* The Cutty Sark - Greenwich.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://belowtheriver.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/cutty-sark-pub-SE10.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://belowtheriver.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/cutty-sark-pub-SE10.jpg" height="192" width="320" /></a>Greenwich is a bit hard to get to - and very packed with tourists - but go to the market for a bite to eat (great Lebanese falafel stall there) and then walk down the river path in front of the Royal Hospital to the Cutty Sark pub - pub itself is so-so - but the long row of tables right on the river bank give you a great view of the river and the city - the nearby Trafalgar Inn is also worth a visit.<br />
<br />
<br />
* The Festival Hall On The SouthBank<br />
<br />
<a href="http://c8.alamy.com/comp/BCJC86/people-relaxing-on-terrace-bar-of-royal-festival-hall-london-united-BCJC86.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://c8.alamy.com/comp/BCJC86/people-relaxing-on-terrace-bar-of-royal-festival-hall-london-united-BCJC86.jpg" height="222" width="320" /></a>Right - here's a good one - if you are down by the South Bank - the London Eye - in front of the Festival Hall main entrance there is LOADS of seating, right up over the river with views of the Houses of Parliament etc - and you can bring your own drink (or get drinks from the bar outside - or cheaper pints from the festival hall bar inside) - I LOVE this place on Fri afternoons - you see lots of colour and lots of people and can watch the boats going up and down the river and a Waterloo Sunset.<br />
<br />
There is also an amazing terrace upstairs in the festival hall (see pic) which you can access for the price of a pint in the bar - gets busy at weekends - and they won't let you smoke up there - same goes for the nearby roof terrace (just look for the big yellow sign) so they can feck off.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/01435/brockwell-lido_1435359i.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/01435/brockwell-lido_1435359i.jpg" height="206" width="320" /></a>* Brockwell Lido<br />
<br />
Go for a swim in the city - this is near Brixton - a lovely, 50m outdoor pool that's very popular with Locals and visitors alike in the summer - again, tends to get jammed at sunny weekends so get there early - great food as well and a lovely cafe.<br />
<br />
There are Lidos all over London - well worth checking out to see if there is one near where you are - the Serpentine Lake is one I plan to visit this summer.<br />
<br />
* Hampstead<br />
<br />
Yes, very posh and very expensive - but get the Tube up there and wander around - you can walk on the heath (good views over the city) visit the Lido or just hang in the cafes - very fashionable crowds and great place to have a goo at the quality.<br />
<br />
* The French House, Soho<br />
<br />
Soho is changing fast - and not for the better if you believe the anti-gentrification/keep Soho raw crowd. It's very busy but I would recommend the French House for drinks and the Bar Italia for coffee - to get a sense of the Old Soho that is very, very quickly disappearing.<br />
<br />
* Artusi - Peckham<br />
<br />
If you love your food - this relatively recent arrival on the scene is now reckoned to be one of the best in London - it's in a lovely part of Peckham (!) Bellenden Road, and there's a great pub called the Montpellier around the corner - book ahead though, it's jammers. Link - <a href="http://artusi.co.uk/">Artusi</a><br />
<br />
If you can't get into Artusi - check out the Begging Bowl Thai resturant nearby - cheap-ish and reckoned to be one of the best in South London.<br />
<br />
* AND FINALLY - THE WILTON MUSIC HALL - Tower Hamlets/East End<br />
<br />
<a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9d/The_Front_Door_of_Wilton'_s_Music_Hall_(2010).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9d/The_Front_Door_of_Wilton'_s_Music_Hall_(2010).jpg" height="320" width="213" /></a>A rare survivor in a very unglam part of town - this is a mid-19th century music hall that - through a weird quirk of fate - survived being knocked down.<br />
<br />
There are great music events on here all week and it's got fantastic history and surroundings - real, old London, down by the docks - see more <a href="https://wiltons.org.uk/">Here</a><br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
* I realise I am only scratching the surface here - but hopefully there are a few suggestions you'll think worth following up - thanks for reading!Josef O'Sheahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16395589504706311414noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3474413219292148932.post-87218555041018190662015-05-13T07:34:00.000-07:002016-11-15T08:13:34.805-08:00The Ballerina, Her Mother And The Genteel Art of Forgery.* This story is perhaps my most obscure yet. But the idea of a genteel daughter of the Anglo-Irish peerage pulling off one of the most brazen art-frauds of the early 20th century appeals to me. Also, the fact that her daughter was the great, ferocious Doyenne of modern English ballet - Dame Ninette De Valois also adds a bit of colour. I really think Ealing Studios, or perhaps P.G. Woodehouse could have had a lot of fun with this one .........<br />
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* The gentlemen of Sotheby's Auction House on New Bond Street in London were in something of a pickle.<br />
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They had been consigned one of the greatest collections of antique Irish and British glass ever put together, the famous Harding Collection, for sale in their venerable auction rooms.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Ninette - 1925</td></tr>
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But the collection of 17th and 18th century glass, previously estimated to be worth in the region of £16,000 (just over £1m in today's money) had failed to generate any excitement amongst the buyers. In fact, the Harding Collection was under something of a cloud. There had been whispers in the showrooms on New Bond street, dark mutterings about pedigree and provenance. Some had even gone so far as to utter the one word that could send a shiver of fear through the genteel staff of the world's greatest auction house, a business which had traded on its impeccable reputation since 1744.<br />
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That one word? "Fake!"<br />
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There was a huge sum of money on the line. The reputation of the great auction house, the ridicule facing a gullible, sadly departed philanthropist and millionaire. There was also the scandal that could wreck the career of the greatest ballerina and choreographer of the age, the fierce Irish dancer who had starred under Diaghilev at the <i>Ballets Russes,</i> worked with WB Yeats at the Abbey in Dublin and charmed the British Royals.<br />
<br />
Dame Ninette de Valois was about to create one of the great dance dynasties, the company that would become The Royal Ballet. But in the early 1930s, one lady could still wreck all of that.<br />
<br />
And that lady was her mother.<br />
<br />
Elizabeth (Lilith) Graydon-Stannus, born into the Anglo-Irish aristocracy at a country house in Lacken, Co Wicklow in 1876 was an artist, entrepreneur and star of the British Art-Deco movement. She had become an expert in highly-collectible antique Irish glassware, established her own glass-works in amongst the post-war bohemians of Battersea in London and watched her daughter Ninette become one of the most celebrated prima-ballerinas and choreographers in the world. Ninette had changed her name from Edris Stannus to the more French sounding Ninette de Valois when she made her professional debut in London in 1911. Aged 13.<br />
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5c/Ninette_de_Valois%2C_1914.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5c/Ninette_de_Valois%2C_1914.jpg" width="234" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Ninette Aged 16 - Already a Seasoned Pro</td></tr>
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Ninette was a child prodigy. But also fiercely determined. She went from child dancer to prima-ballerina to Godmother of British dance through the 20th century. The Irish woman made a star of Fonteyn and sensationally brought Nureyev to London.<br />
<br />
Her mother Lilith was, if one contemporary is to be believed; <span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">"<span style="background-color: white; line-height: 17.3999996185303px;">"The greatest villain in the manipulation of the history of Irish Glass"</span></span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 17.3999996185303px;">. </span><br />
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Ms Graydon-Stannus might have begged to differ.<br />
<br />
To her mind, she was not copying or faking rare and highly valuable antique glass - heaven forfend! She was merely "creating" and "improving".<br />
<br />
Or as she once declared herself; "My endeavour is to create. Not to copy!"<br />
<br />
And if the buyer, usually very rich but perhaps not expert collectors, were under the impression that they were actually paying for the real thing, well, these things happen, darling!<br />
<br />
What Elizabeth Stannus did - as far as we can tell - was mix straight up forgery with very clever and sophisticated "reproduction" and "improving".<br />
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In some cases, she would take genuine old Irish glass pieces - decanters, goblets, etc - and "improve" them by getting her highly skilled workmen to do additional engraving and cutting, turning a commonplace, boring piece of glass worth £10 into a rare jewel worth £100.<br />
<br />
Or, she would find old moulds, the ones used to produce the original pieces, and use them to churn out scores of new-old copies.<br />
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Elizabeth even went so far as to melt down old Irish glass to use its unique look and qualities to create highly convincing "reproductions" (even if that particular word was nowhere to be seen on the label).<br />
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It was clever, sophisticated and totally against the rules of the antiques business. It was fraud.<br />
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The real kicker is that Graydon-Stannus was something of a great artist herself - her highly colourful, beautifully designed Art-Deco pieces were very popular in their day and are hugely desirable to collectors today (look for the Gray-Stan mark in your local junk-shop).<br />
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She could produce modern classics - but she also had the skills and the, er, nerve to copy, fake and fool. And in her marvellously genteel way, charming the American visitors to London, hob-knobbing with the artistic elite of 1920s London, she set out to rake in the cash.<br />
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There has also been speculation that Lilith didn't stop at forging Irish antiques - she may have also tried her hand at famous contemporary names such as Lalique.<br />
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Strangely, it was the lady herself who gave the game away. In a speech to the Royal Society of Arts in 1926, she vehemently rejected growing claims that she was faking. But admitted that she owned old Irish moulds and had been working on reproducing the look and design of Old Irish Glass.<br />
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Lilith had literally written the book on Old Irish Glass - her handbook of that title had been considered at the time to be the bible on the subject, but today, the copy in the Bodleian Libraries in Oxford has a sticker on the front that says; "Use With Caution! Contains Many Factual Errors!"<br />
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The errors contained inside are mostly images and drawings of old Irish glass pieces, that had either been hacked-about or "created" by the lady herself.<br />
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Her reputation went into sharp decline. But it was too late for well-heeled buyers like Walter Harding, who visited her shop in Battersea in the 1920s and bought up almost her entire stock of "Old" Irish pieces.<br />
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When Harding - a millionaire philanthropist from Liverpool - died in the mid-1930s, his collection came up for sale in Sotheby's in London. Expected to fetch at least what he had paid for it, £16,000 (or almost £1m in today's money) - it sold for just £900 (£57k). Word about Elizabeth and her creative ways had obviously got around.<br />
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It should have been a huge scandal, perhaps resulting in legal action. Curiously, it was not. Some have speculated that her daughter Ninette - using her connections at the very top of British society - had the affair hushed up. There were rumours of some of the more irate customers being paid off, of favours being called in and mother being quietly packed off down the country.<br />
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The affair quickly died down. Sotheby's went on making money, Ninette went on building her Ballet empire and Lilith? Well, she is accused of many things, including creating such a mess of the history of Antique Irish Glass that many of her fakes may still be doing the rounds as the real thing.<br />
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But where's the harm? After all, new, old, fake or "improved", aren't they all simply lovely things?<br />
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Now, would you be interested in a lovely Jacobean wine goblet, at all? Fresh in from a gorgeous old Irish house..... so perfect! It looks as if it could have been made yesterday, darling!<br />
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**HEY! THANKS FOR READING!******* And by the way, if anybody is interesting in paying me to make a doc/write further about this, I will work for food. Also, antique glassware.<br />
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<br />Josef O'Sheahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16395589504706311414noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3474413219292148932.post-21434694701765641272015-05-07T02:02:00.000-07:002015-05-07T02:13:59.181-07:00Easter 1916 - The Gorgeous Wrecks & The Cricket Bat That Died For Ireland. <div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">* This is a piece I wrote for the Irish Independent newspaper - a personal take on the events of 1916 - the Easter Rising or Rebellion that hit loyal, peaceful Dublin like a thunderclap on a sunny Easter Weekend. I learnt about it in school - at the hands (and sometimes fists) of the Christian Brothers. But in recent years, I have tried to approach the events from a different angle.......</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://flag.blackened.net/revolt/graphics/jackwhite/jack_white.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://flag.blackened.net/revolt/graphics/jackwhite/jack_white.jpg" height="320" width="222" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Captain Jack White - Free Lovin' Irish Revolutionary </td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-size: large;">* The Christian Brothers</span></span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%;"> who taught me about Irish
history presented Easter, 1916 as a heroic epic, the founding myth of our
Republic.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">They were muscular men, a generation or so on from the
Rising, the War of Independence and our brutal Civil War, the latter being a
subject that was still too raw to even mention in the classrooms of Cork in the
1980s.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">They revered Pádraig Pearse, a teacher and strict
disciplinarian after their own hearts, and believed in his doctrine of blood
sacrifice, linking it to the men of 1798 and even further back to our original
muscular Christian, brave, martyred Brian Boru.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%;">Brian Boru - the High King of Ireland and scourge of the Vikings! - was presented in the same way we learnt about the early Christian martyrs, the Roman </span><span style="font-size: 18.6666660308838px; line-height: 19.9733333587647px;">Legionnaires put to death for refusing to chuck their fellow Christians to the lions.</span><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">In many ways, in their admiration for Pearse and mania
for discipline, they were the paramilitary wing of the Catholic Church. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">To my young, over-active imagination, Pearse was a
cross between the hot-tempered Brother who tried to “bate” Irish into us and
John Wayne at the Alamo, running his young volunteers through the <em><b><span style="background: white; color: #6a6a6a;">tuiseal ginideach</span></b></em> even
as he fired his rifle from the burning wreck of the GPO. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">In our homes, Michael Collins was revered, his
portrait hanging alongside a picture of John F Kennedy and the Pope, Cork’s own
Blessed Holy Trinity. DeValera was mentioned only in dark whispers, a bogey-man.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The events of 1916 didn’t seem real to us, even though
they happened when our grandfathers were alive. And there was no connection made
to the Troubles, to the nightly news reports about the Hunger Strikers, names
such as Bobby Sands, heard as we sat around the table for our tea.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">It is only in recent years, having gone back and
looked at the events of 1916 for myself, that I have been able to find a way
into the Easter Rising via some of the small, forgotten stories behind the
Great Myth. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">As a history nut, and having written a book about long
forgotten Irish men who did everything from run the French slave trade to
invading Imperial China, I see the small stories of individual men and women as
a valuable way to approach Great Events from a different angle.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">And 1916 has a wealth of small stories which can give
us a sense of what it must have been like to live through those times, the
sudden chaos, the trauma and the conflicting emotions and loyalties.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">(The video below is only six minutes long and sets the scene well.)</span></div>
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/n5hslg8qEt8/0.jpg" frameborder="0" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/n5hslg8qEt8?feature=player_embedded" style="clear: left; float: left;" width="320"></iframe></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%;">One episode, a tragic side-show to the doomed struggle
on O’Connell Street, gives us a striking picture of the confusion and tragedy
of Dublin, Easter 1916.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">It is the story of The Gorgeous Wrecks, how, on Easter
Monday, April 24, a small party of volunteers occupying Clanwilliam House by
Mount Street Bridge fired on a detachment of Home Defence Force volunteers.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The Home Defence men were a sort of Dad’s Army, mostly
elderly Dubliners, loyalists, veterans of the British army and colonial wars.
They wore armbands with the inscription “Georgious Rex” (King George) and their
creaky, grey-haired ranks were known affectionately to Dubliners as “The
Gorgeous Wrecks”.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The Wrecks had been out on an Easter Monday parade in
full uniform and just stumbled into the volunteer strong-point. The 17
volunteers in Clanwilliam house opened fire, killing four of the Wrecks and
wounding others before they realised, to what some later said was their horror,
that these were not British Army regulars, but the Dad’s Army that Dubliners
were accustomed to seeing parading on high-days and holidays. The jolly old
Gorgeous Wrecks.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">We could hardly find a better snapshot of a peaceful,
loyal city of the Empire suddenly overwhelmed by sudden, shocking violence and
confusion. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">I am also drawn to the story of The Cricket Bat That Died
For Ireland.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://thecricketbatthatdiedforireland.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/cropped-cropped-1902-151.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="210" src="https://thecricketbatthatdiedforireland.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/cropped-cropped-1902-151.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Bullet Still In the Cricket Bat That Died For Ireland</td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">This </span><span class="il" style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="background: #FFFFCC;">bat</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space" style="font-size: 14pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 14pt;">– now in the National History Museum –
was in the shop window of Elvery's Sports in Sackville Street when it stopped a
bullet from a British gun (the spent bullet still lodged in the</span><span class="apple-converted-space" style="font-size: 14pt;"> </span><span class="il" style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="background: #FFFFCC;">bat</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space" style="font-size: 14pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 14pt;">is a
.303). To me, this strange, very Anglo-Irish memento</span><span class="apple-converted-space" style="font-size: 14pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 14pt;">vividly represents the destruction and
chaos of the Rising.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">Contemporary accounts tell of street urchins looting
bats, balls, lacrosse sticks and polo mallets from Elvery's and parading them like
trophies around the edges of the fighting. One of the many surreal sights of a
battle being fought in the heart of a busy, mercantile city.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">Recently, I also came across the story of Captain Jack
White, the son of an Ulster-born British Field Marshall and a decorated hero of
the British Army himself.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">Jack followed a strange path from Winchester Public
School and the Royal Military College at Sandhurst, fighting in the Boer War
and then throwing in his commission to embrace radical socialism, free-love and
the cause of Ireland.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">It was White who brought his military experience to
organising The Citizen’s Army. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">He did not fight in 1916 but when he heard his
great friend James Connolly would be shot, he tried to organise the Miners of
South Wales to come out on strike to put pressure on the British Government to
commute the sentence.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">White, who later went on to fight for the Republicans
in Spain, battled sectarianism at home and tried to organise a socialist party
in Ulster, was (in his own words) a miss-fit, one of the many men and women who
saw the ideals of Connolly and brotherhood turn to dust in the years after 1916.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="background: white; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">In the stories of Jack White, The Gorgeous Wrecks and
the Elvery’s Cricket Bat, we can see past the epic myth, the cold revisionism
and the strange, current need to treat </span></div>
<div style="background: white; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">Easter 1916 as some sort of profound,
teachable lesson for modern Ireland.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="background: white; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">Thanks to the internet and the great efforts of
historians (academic and amateur) to put a wealth of history online, we can all
now go back and look at the events of 1916, and look at the people and smaller
events that never made the history books or the heroic myth.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">These are the stories that I would tell about The
Rising.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">*** You can read more about the cricket bat <a href="http://thecricketbatthatdiedforireland.com/">Here</a> - an excellent blog about its history and significance. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">**** HEY THANKS FOR READING**** </span></div>
Josef O'Sheahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16395589504706311414noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3474413219292148932.post-42164389929368776622015-04-13T02:15:00.001-07:002015-04-14T00:22:10.463-07:00The Pursuit of Happiness -The O'Shea Institute of Sociological Spoofery Comes Out On Gay Marriage.* Everybody else has a Same Sex Marriage Referendum Blog. So Why Can't I?<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhffVxWCIA2mr8XjTpZzzQyJ1UOeKtgPKeowdyRhkrEB6sVI5ZHTQAROBtGLwI2pSqYy30gH04AZ2_oNZgFa5Qt45Y_9z-AXmcO8A-XX02PlWoZVsfMjJ9h0pJfCxP6rdAiDWaL3enr80-I/s1600/boyGeorge.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhffVxWCIA2mr8XjTpZzzQyJ1UOeKtgPKeowdyRhkrEB6sVI5ZHTQAROBtGLwI2pSqYy30gH04AZ2_oNZgFa5Qt45Y_9z-AXmcO8A-XX02PlWoZVsfMjJ9h0pJfCxP6rdAiDWaL3enr80-I/s1600/boyGeorge.jpg" height="241" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">"Is That A Girl or a Boy?" </td></tr>
</tbody></table>
* Around the time I was leaving school and leaving home, two people that I knew took their own lives.<br />
<br />
One was a middle-aged man, a friend of the family. The other was a young guy in my peer group, somebody I knew from around town, a quiet, friendly guy I would see at music gigs.<br />
<br />
By the time it happened, I was already gone from my small city on the south coast. It was only years later that I really thought about what happened, and realised that both these men (well, one almost a boy) had almost certainly been gay. And they had looked at their lives in late 1980s Ireland and decided that they were not worth living.<br />
<br />
But it was never talked about. Their deaths, the reasons behind them, the existence of gay people in our lives. I only really knew one Gay guy in our entire city. I hung out with him (shared an unhealthy obsession with The Smiths), but we never talked about why he, every weekend, he had to fight some twisted bastards who saw the blue streak in his hair, his clothes, his manner, and tried to pound him into the ground. I didn't really know how to talk about it and I think he didn't want to take the risk that I would stop being his friend. Around the time I left, he left too. Went to London to try and make a life.<br />
<br />
It just wasn't talked about. It was never mentioned on the radio, on TV, in the newspapers. The first time I vaguely became aware of "otherness" was seeing Boy George And Culture Club on Top of the Pops and hearing my dad, like millions of other dads who witnessed the strangeness of that apparition, splutter; "Jesus Christ, is that Queerhawk a boy or a girl?".<br />
<br />
It was only later that I found out that Boy George was working-class London-Irish. And as tough as that particular breed of people comes. Tough because he had to be.<br />
<br />
My parents grew up in a cold, grey, utterly repressed and terrifying Ireland. I only found out recently that a Great Aunt, who helped to raise us, was forced to give up two children of her own because she was not married to the man she loved. They literally took the children from her in the hospital. Years later, she plucked up the courage to track down one of her daughters. When she went to her house, she had the door closed in her face. The shame was still there. On and on it went, down the generations. Those who could, left. Many who stayed endured misery and a kind of madness. Many - gay, straight, whatever, self-medicated via alcohol.<br />
<br />
Ireland was a strange, cold place for so many. In 1990, in one of my first interviews as a student journalist, I talked to Richard Branson, who had shocked the country by offering condoms for sale over the counter at his Virgin Megastore in Dublin. Seriously, in the midst of the AIDS crisis, you basically couldn't buy condoms in Ireland unless you had a letter from your priest/doctor. Richard Branson is a polite, media-savvy man. But you could see he just wanted to shout; "What the F**K is WRONG with you people?"<br />
<br />
For most of the '90s, I worked in a newspaper industry in Dublin that apparently employed no Gay men and women. Not one. LGBT people were invisible. Non-people.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2010/10/19/1287504802616/Senator-David-Norris--006.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2010/10/19/1287504802616/Senator-David-Norris--006.jpg" height="192" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">David Norris. A Brave Human Being. And Great Craic. </td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Homosexuality was still illegal in Ireland until 1993. It took the European Court of Rights and the fearless campaigning of a great Irishman called David Norris to force the Government to decriminalise it.<br />
<br />
As recently as 2002, the newspaper I was working for had a front page "splash" - with Government Minister Brendan Howlin declaring; "I'm Not Gay!". There had been a whispering campaign against this popular politician, one which some say cost him the leadership of his party. So he felt he had to say it.<br />
<br />
So on May 22nd, my country votes on Same Sex Marriage. The polls suggest the referendum should pass, though some are worried about the Irish habit of saying one thing to the pollsters and doing another in the voting booth. And there's Donegal, of course. Going on past form, Donegal may take the chance to bring back the death penalty or vote us into the Russian Federation.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Can't Argue With That </td></tr>
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But the vote is still very much in the balance.<br />
<br />
There has been a loud, sometimes strange, often hysterical campaign against granting this basic civil right to Irish men and women. The veteran and respected journalist Bruce Arnold this week said we shouldn't vote Yes because we feel sorry for gay people.<br />
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Let that one sink in for a moment. "Banish your empathy, people of Ireland! It is merely a weakness of the flesh!"<br />
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The Catholic Church, once the power in the land, now grimly marching towards some dark, obscure place, says No.<br />
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The self-appointed experts say Say Same Sex Marriage will destroy the fabric of Irish society, lead to child abuse, compulsory gay adoption, cloning, cataclysmic genetic experiments in Leitrim, brother marrying sister and plumber marrying florist. Your basic frogs, blood and Elton John albums raining from the sky, scenario.<br />
<br />
The arguments against Gay Marriage have mostly been high, wild and crazy. And have been shouted endlessly on the airwaves and in print by a class of people who up until very recently had total control of our society and yet now claim (in their newspaper columns and on endless TV and radio appearances) that they are a persecuted minority without a voice.<br />
<br />
One leading politician and Noted Idiot said this weekend past that he was against Gay Marriage as he didn't want "any Elton John scenarios". We'll leave that one to future historians to work out.<br />
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What they are really saying - actually, screaming - is; "We are terrified. We once ruled this land. We imposed our morality on a cowed people. And now they are turning their backs on us, on Mother Church, on the old ways. We have lost our power."<br />
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Divorce didn't destroy the fabric of our society. Allowing gay men and women to live out in the open without fear of criminal prosecution didn't destroy our country. Giving them the same rights to marriage as enjoyed by the rest of the country won't either. You really would have to be in full flight from reality to think otherwise.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Rock On, Bishop Michael Burrows<br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Some people of faith have stood up for the Yes side. Church of Ireland Bishop Michael Burrows has said; " <span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">'The rights of gay people have become, very properly, the great justice issue of our time just as the abolition of slavery and the emancipation of women were in the past'.</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Of course, being a Godless Protestant, he would say that. </span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">So I think back to those two human beings that took their own lives that year I left school. And the countless lives that were lived in misery, fear and waste because the Catholic Church and others has had such a bizarre obession/problem with human sexuality. With love, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Y'know, your basic Christian-values stuff.</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">I think Ireland has changed greatly. Since Gay people have been allowed to live openly amongst us, the famous, probably mythical block known as "Middle Ireland" has seen them for what they are. Brothers, sisters, friends, neighbours, sons, daughters, barmen, brickies, politicians and cab-drivers.</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="background-color: white;">I think most people see same sex marriage for what it is. A basic civil rights issue. And more importantly, a Happiness Issue. We want our friends, neighbours and family to have that chance of being happy.</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="background-color: white;">I think we will vote Yes with a significant majority on May 22nd because most Irish people will look at the real issues with clear eyes and decide it is the right thing to do. The human thing to do. And yes, the Christian thing to do. </span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">So hopefully, we will choose happiness. Knowing we were mired in misery for too bloody long. </span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="background-color: white;">One final question - how could any country that loves the Eurovision soooo much (and guys, that's another thing we need to talk about), possibly vote against Same Sex Marriage? </span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="background-color: white;">Think about it, people. And VOTE! </span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">***HEY, thanks for reading!*** </span></span><br />
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<br />Josef O'Sheahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16395589504706311414noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3474413219292148932.post-2618216709591705492015-04-02T06:24:00.003-07:002015-06-27T03:39:18.503-07:00In Deepest Yemen - With The Heavily-Armed Hamsters <div style="background-color: white; color: #111111; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24.4444446563721px; margin-bottom: 15px; padding: 0px;">
* A Few Years Ago......I went to Yemen by mistake. </div>
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It may sound strange, but at the time I was writing travel pieces (still do, available for hire, cross my palm with silver). But being a freelancer, I was at the bottom of the pile when it came to press trips. </div>
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There were three kind of travel junkets in newspapers. The first, were the ones you never heard about. You would just realise that somebody got a free fortnight in the Bahamas or Australia when the news-editor turned up after a being off with a deep tan. In January. The second, the week in Spain or Italy, went to the staffers. The third, the Weird Ones, went to us freelancers.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Yemen At Bottom Of Map</td></tr>
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And so it was that I ended up going to Yemen. A place that is now in the news thanks to tragic events. The Iranians and the Saudis have joined in an already volatile situation - bombing and killing in a bid to find out which version of Early Medieval mysticism is the correct one.<br />
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And every time I hear about the conflict there, my heart sinks a little - because going to Yemen was an amazing if accidental experience.<br />
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I took the trip on a last-minute, "Yeah, Sure why not?".<br />
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<span style="line-height: 24.4444446563721px;">It was the weirdest place I have ever been too (and I talk as somebody who once bounced around the highlands of Uganda and Rwanda for ten days. AND trekked thru deepest Leitrim). But it was ....stunning, other-worldly. In parts, it was as if we stepped out of our Toyota Jeep and straight into the 13th century. </span></div>
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And I did drugs with heavily-armed hamsters. AK47s and all. Talk about an Idiot Abroad.....</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Me With My Bros - Highlands of Yemen</td></tr>
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<span style="line-height: 24.4444446563721px;"><span style="font-size: large;">'You're going WHERE?" </span>It was the standard and understandable response when I told people I was about to go to Yemen for some sight-seeing. There are places where we go on holiday (Spain, France, Italy), places we go travelling (Peru, Vietnam and Tibet) and places which, for even the most committed global wanderers, are fated to remain forever off the map. Yemen was definitely one of those places for me. The only thing I knew about it was that it was somewhere near Somalia (in the news then because of recent piracy in the Arabian sea) and Chandler from Friends once had to go there in a bid to escape from his annoyingly-voiced girlfriend, Janice. Also! Bonus Strange Yemen fact, English comedian Eddie Izzard was born there.</span></div>
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A quick Google later and that vast caché of knowledge had expanded to include: where it is (at the bottom of the Arabian peninsula underneath Saudi Arabia); some economic facts (very little oil, poorest state in the Gulf region); and a little bit of history. Yemen was the land of the Biblical Queen of Sheba (one of the rulers of the ancient Sabaean Kingdom) and was known to the Romans as Arabia Felix, or 'Happy Arabia', because of the riches generated by the spice and incense trade.</div>
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The Republic of Yemen is slightly smaller than France, has a rapidly expanding population of around 21 million, and many of them are daily users of a narcotic plant called Qat (more of which later). Yet even knowing all of this this could not have prepared ne for the culture shock of landing in the ancient capital Sana'a at 7am on a Saturday after a 12-hour flight via Cairo, or the hypnotic calls to prayer of the muezzins bouncing off the mudbrick high-rises.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://blogs.voanews.com/photos/files/2011/11/reuters_yemen_rock_palace_07Nov11-878x576.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://blogs.voanews.com/photos/files/2011/11/reuters_yemen_rock_palace_07Nov11-878x576.jpg" height="417" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">An old Yemani Royal Palace - Made Out of Marzipan. </td></tr>
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It's one of the weird side-effects of 21st-century travelling. You leave your familiar surroundings in Dublin one grey morning and within half a day, you are standing, bewildered, in the middle of a crowd scene from Arabian Nights as women in full-length black sharshafs shove past you, with only their dark eyes showing through narrow slots in their veils. Sana'a itself, once you start to get your head around it, is a lofty 2,000m above sea level and appears, at first glance, to be the capital of one of the dustier planets from Star Wars (especially when the moon looms hugely out of the high desert sky). Five or six-storey mud brick buildings, with roofs and floor levels picked out in black, white or red stone and whitewash framed arabesque stained-glass windows, crowd inside ancient walls.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Capital Sann'a - Mud-brick Sky-Rise</td></tr>
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Like much of the rest of the country, it's dusty and crowded, weird and wonderful, and incredibly beautiful all at the same time. The Yemeni tourism ministry had arranged for a driver and a guide to meet myself and my two travelling companions, a young Englishman and a fiftysomething Englishwoman with a lot of experience of the Middle East.</div>
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"Hello, where are you from?" (the standard question from all Yemenis and one that we would hear at least 20 times a day over the coming week, there not being a lot of foreigners around). When we informed our guide, a local man who had lived in Canada, that we were "one Irlanda and two English", he made an executive decision. "It's better if you say you are all from Ireland -- too many questions about Bush and Blair," he said. Score one for the former colonies (Irish and Yemeni) and a week of stiff upper lip declarations of Gaeldom from my English travelling companions.</div>
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Of course, the fact that Yemen has long been on the British Foreign Office list of countries you should not travel to -- under the reassuring headings of 'Terrorism', 'Kidnapping' and 'Hostages' -- may have also informed our guide's advice. At the time we visited, there had been several incidences of tourist kidnappings. And botched rescue attempts by the Yemeni army. There was a long list of incidents such as the one in July, 2007, when eight Spanish and two Yemeni nationals were killed and a number of others injured in a suicide bomb attack in Ma'rib, 100km east of Sana'a. We could only travel outside Sana'a, with an official guide and, every 100km or so, there are army checkpoints that record your passing through and inform the next checkpoint down the line when to expect you. "If we don't show up in a couple of hours, then they will come looking for us," explained the guide, with the nonchalance of a man who was never going to be suspected of being a close personal friend of George W Bush..</div>
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Within hours of landing in Sana'a, we were going through our first checkpoint as we began our long climb up into the Haraz mountains. And after the exotic otherness of the ancient capital, this was where the great secret of Yemen was revealed. While the east of Yemen is classic Arabian desert, the western half is spectacularly, jaw-droppingly beautiful mountain country. We climbed from a high desert plateau into endless jagged mountain ranges, with every mountain top and foreboding rock crowned with a heavily fortified village that appeared to be made out of blocks of marzipan. Every mountainside is terraced in the style that would be familiar to people who have travelled through the former Inca empire in Peru. At the top of each mound rising above us were yet more impossibly beautiful castles in the air under milky-blue, Alpine skies.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Village of Al Hajjara - very typical of mountaintop villages in Yemen</td></tr>
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Our four days in the mountains went roughly like this: get up at 6am for breakfast, climb into the Land Cruiser, drive vertically for six hours (stopping off for lunch in fly-blown mountain villages), walk for two hours from one village to another over knife-edge ridges, then find a ramshackle guest house for an evening meal and bed. The hotels/guest houses were mostly primitive, but usually clean and very welcoming.</div>
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There were some hitches. At the mountain village of Manakha, the four brothers who owned the local hotel we stayed in played music and performed a traditional dance while we sat cross-legged on the floor eating rice, flatbread and spicy goat meat (which I love). There was a collection of dusty old rifles in the corner. I picked one up (an ancient British Lee Enfield), thinking it was an ornament. When I pulled back the bolt, I saw the live round in the chamber. My shock produced a few laughs from our hosts.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Yemani Man With Jambiyya - Pic BY Ashley Jonathan Clements</td></tr>
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<span style="line-height: 24.4444446563721px;">Now, no man in Yemen is ever seen without his traditional J-shaped Jambiyya dagger in his belt, in the way that our granddads would have never gone outside the door without their caps. And the traditional dance performed for us that night was, as far as I could make out, the famed 'Brandishing the Fearsome Daggers Under the Noses of the Terrified Tourists Dance'. But in a country where you regularly see guys wandering around the markets with AK47s, it wasn't that scary -- at least not until they picked up their rifles for the big finale. Thankfully, nobody was seriously injured and when midnight came, we retired to our bedrooms on the third floor.</span></div>
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And that was when the fun began. As well as the knives and guns, most males in Yemen spend virtually every afternoon chewing Qat, a mountain bush that apparently has mild cocaine-like affects. It's chewed like tobacco, which makes the men, chawing on huge wads of green leaves in their cheek pouches, look like heavily armed hamsters. I actually tried some with the Homicidal Manaka Brothers, sat in the room with about 14 guys chewing away for a while. And all it did was keep me awake for 48 hours. Which would prove to be a bit of a problem. Late that night, as we settled down to sleep, our armed and by now drug-addled hosts decided to put a fourth floor on the hotel, using a cement mixer, pneumatic drills and hammers. At about 4am, my fourth attempt to get them to stop saw me come as close as I ever want to be to starting a knife-fight with a tooled-up, drug-crazed dance troupe. I was standing there in my shorts, screaming threats at any man who picked up a drill. Remarkably fool-hardy given they had a stack of AKs next to the shovels.<br />
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<span style="line-height: 24.4444446563721px;">All very colourful (and true, I swear), but not representative of a country where I always felt safe and the people were gentle, friendly and delighted to meet foreigners.</span><br />
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But there is a reason that people still live on the highest rock of the highest mountain. And men often carry around automatic rifles. A reason that we have been reminded of in the past couple of weeks, with the Saudis and Iranians (and all the rest of the neighbours) joining in the civil war to fight a proxy, sectarian war. The utter bastards.<br />
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So now Yemen is about bombs and terrorism. But when I see the headlines, I remember how, when I went into the highlands, a <span style="line-height: 24.4444446563721px;">pocketful of cheap pens (the man from the tourist ministry told us to buy some in the capital) would win lots of smiles and Kodak moments from the kids who popped up from behind every boulder and wall.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Down With The Kids In Yemen</td></tr>
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<span style="line-height: 24.4444446563721px;">Unfortunately for those kids, Yemen was in no way ready for mass tourism in the way that, say, Dubai had established itself. Despite having all of the scenery, history and culture that Dubai lacks.</span><br />
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<span style="line-height: 24.4444446563721px;">Yemen is now a country in agony. And it makes me sad. Because it is just so unbelievably beautiful and interesting. </span><br />
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<span style="line-height: 24.4444446563721px;">It should be a world class travel destination. It is a dream l</span><span style="line-height: 24.4444446563721px;">ocation for mountain trekking, wild, spectacular, friendly and almost totally deserted. And in a world of increasingly jaded travellers, Yemen could be that rare beast, an unspoilt, unexplored desert and mountain paradise, travel Nirvana for the truly adventurous.</span><br />
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Or course, this is an outsider speaking. What really matters to the people there now is peace and stability. I hope they get it.<br />
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*Hey! Thanks for reading* </div>
Josef O'Sheahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16395589504706311414noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3474413219292148932.post-12614445008371563082015-03-12T12:52:00.000-07:002015-03-12T13:22:18.426-07:00Perkin Warbeck - The Male Model Who Fought A Tudor King* This is a quirky story from history that has long intrigued me, partly because the outlandish plot to usurp the first Tudor King of England was hatched in my home-town, the southern Irish port city of Cork. It's also the real reason why Cork is still called "The Rebel City", a title that has nothing to do (as most people think) with Michael Collins and the 20th century fight for Irish independence. In fact, the title is not so much about Michael Collins as Derek Zoolander.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #545454; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: 18.2000007629395px; text-align: left;">"some dudes brainwashed Derek to off the </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #545454; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: x-small; font-weight: bold; line-height: 18.2000007629395px; text-align: left;">prime minister of Micronesia!"</span></td></tr>
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It's a strange one - the tale of a late medieval male model who suddenly found himself thrust into centre-stage in the European power-politics of the day. It's the story of a charismatic, foolish young man who found out there was more to life than being really, really, ridiculously good-looking.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.art-science.com/Ken/Genealogy/PD/images2/ch23_Warbek.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://www.art-science.com/Ken/Genealogy/PD/images2/ch23_Warbek.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Perkin - The Tudor Zoolander </td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">* In the autumn of 1491, a Flemish merchant's ship docked in the southern Irish port of Cork. The city had been welcoming trade from the continent for centuries and the small ship, loaded with fine silks, furs and other luxury goods, would not have excited much comment. </span><br />
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On board was a Breton silk-merchant called Pierre Jean Meno and his young apprentice, the son of a poor but respectable burgess of Tournai called <span style="background-color: white; line-height: 22px;">Jehan de Werbecque. The apprentice was 17-year-old Perkin Werbecque.</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; line-height: 22px;">These were turbulent times in Ireland, Britain and beyond. Ireland was still a stronghold of the York family, who had been defeated by the Plantagenets in the recent, insanely complicated dynastic struggle known to us as the Wars of The Roses (My kingdom for a horse, and all that).</span></span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Wars of The Roses - Florist Against Florist</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="line-height: 22px;">The Yorkists still believed they could take back the crown from the usurper Henry VII (father of Henry VIII of...er...</span><i style="line-height: 22px;">Wolf Hall</i><span style="line-height: 22px;"> fame). But they lacked a candidate to unite around, the York family men being prone to having large steel blades inserted into various parts of their bodies.</span></span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://history-behind-the-white-queen.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/69204901_princes_in_the_tower_795781.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><img border="0" src="http://history-behind-the-white-queen.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/69204901_princes_in_the_tower_795781.jpg" height="179" width="320" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;">Edward & Richard - The Royal Brothers Who Disappeared In The Tower</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="line-height: 22px;">Henry VII was the first Tudor monarch, having invaded from France and seized the throne from the Plantagenet King Richard III (whose body was recently found under a car-park in Leicester) who in turn had taken it from the 12-year-old Edward V, one of the two Princes In The Tower, who had disappeared while being "protected" by Richard in the Tower of London (try to keep up).</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 22px;">So! Confused times. And into this, or at least into the small port of Cork, many miles across the sea from London, walked the handsome young apprentice, Perkin Warbeck. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 22px;">His job, while in Cork, was to be a sort of Male Model. He would don his master's finest silk clothes, stroll about the town and basically act as a human mannequin, telling those who asked where they could find the merchant with the exquisite cloth. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 22px;">And Perkin was, by all accounts, a handsome and charismatic kid. So charismatic, that the rumour soon went around the city that this beautiful, finely dressed young man with a funny accent must be an aristocrat. In fact, as the whole of Cork was soon saying, he was really the Earl of Warwick, one of the many missing Yorkist noblemen with a claim to the Crown Of England, Wales and Ireland!</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; line-height: 22px;">Sure, he didn't exactly speak English. But look at those clothes! That fine face and noble carriage! He HAD to be a nobleman!</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">As the tumult went up and the mob gathered, Perkin denied that he was the Earl. No, he was in fact....Richard, Duke of York, one of the disappeared "Princes In The Tower" and the one true King!</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Historians have long argued how, exactly, Perkin pulled this one out of his silk-clad arse (although they tend to dress up the language a bit). Was he a foolish young man, who knew all of the stories about the tragic Princes which had scandalised Europe, and gotten a little carried away with all the attention? Or had he been sent by the French king to ferment trouble for the current King of England, whose grasp on the crown was shaky at best?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">But whatever the reason - this was SENSATIONAL! The Duke of York, in Cork! The streets ran wild with Yorkist sentiment. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Cork had some previous in the Pretender Game. Just a few years earlier they had welcomed another unlikely claimant to the Throne of England, a young man called Lambert Simnell, who had arrived in Cork, was proclaimed Earl Of Warwick (who apparently made more comebacks than Sinatra) and managed to lead a rebellion into England which was finally defeated in battle, but not before Henry VII had gotten quite the shock. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">For the vocal support of both Simnell and Warbeck, Cork would be dubbed a "Rebel City" by King Henry VII, a moniker that has stuck to this day. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Having seen Simnell come a cropper, the people and city fathers of Cork were a little less hasty when it came to Warbeck. He was given a bit of a party and then sent on his way back to France with plenty of "Good luck to ye now, and if it all works out well with the whole Claiming the Crown thing, make sure to get back to us!". </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">The French King Charles VIII did welcome Warbeck/Richard and - together with Margaret of Burgundy - backed his claim. Further headaches came for Henry VII when the Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian (the real Big Cheese) also recognised the good-looking guy in silk. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">It looked like serious trouble for Henry. But he was a smart operator with a very good spy network in Europe who informed him of two salient facts. Firstly, the support for Warbeck amongst his kingly rivals was luke-warm at best. And secondly, Emperor Max had money problems and his attention on Italy. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Henry wisely bided his time. When Warbeck and his small band of supporters tried to invade England at Deal in 1485, it turned into a fiasco and Warbeck was forced to sail first to Ireland and then to Scotland to try and find a safe haven and regroup.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">In August 1497, after more adventures and another failed attempt at invasion, he was persuaded to give himself up at an Abbey in England, where he had tried to claim sanctuary. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Henry was remarkably lenient with the young man, keeping him at court so he could keep an eye on him. But after he tried to run away several times, the King's patience ran out and Perkin was tried and executed in London on November 23rd, 1499. He was 28.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">At best, Perkin Warbeck was just the dupe of powerful men involved in the long-running dynastic squabbles of the era. They said he went to his death with dignity. And dressed in a simple white linen smock. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">**** hey, thanks for reading!***** </span></div>
Josef O'Sheahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16395589504706311414noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3474413219292148932.post-84946058476440111852015-02-17T11:24:00.001-08:002015-02-17T11:27:11.674-08:00Jesus Was A Crossmaker - The Sad Ballad of Judee Sill * Back, way back, when people still bought CDs, I was in Tower Records in Dublin, passing a bit of time when I came across a double album on sale. It was a reissue - The Judee Sill Collection. I'd never heard the name (and the spelling was a bit strange) and the picture of the waif-like woman on the cover, wearing what looked like National Health Glasses, didn't promise a lot. But, curiosity piqued, I stumped up the five bucks and brought it home for a listen....<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Judee Sill </td></tr>
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* It might be a bit unfair to call Judee Sill a forgotten singer-songwriter, as a small but fiercely devoted band of fans still keep the flame burning.<br />
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But Sill, who had a sad, strange life and recorded some beautiful, haunting, playful, inventive music through her tumultuous time, is not a name you hear very often these days.<br />
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Sill is often described as looking like a librarian. Her voice was quiet and fragile yet powerful. And her lyrics are often inscrutable, or at least Dylan-esque in their complexity and depths. The music was heavily influenced by Bach. The vocals were often layered and over-dubbed - her own voice, on top of itself several times. It's early 1970s, woman singer-songwriter, but very orchestral, complex and lush.<br />
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The clip down below - of her singing The Kiss - might remind you of other folk-influenced female singer-songwriters of the early '70s. But you can't say it's typical, not when you listen to something as upbeat and playful as perhaps her best known songs, like Jesus Was A Crossmaker or Crayon Angels.<br />
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Her voice is incredibly warm and affecting, quietly optimistic. Which is something given her struggles through life.<br />
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She was signed to the Asylum label in the early 1970s - the label that David Geffen would use to launch the careers of the greatest singer-songwriters of the era.<br />
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But Sill only recorded two albums (now considered lost classics) before addiction, mental illness and a terrible series of bad choices took their toll.<br />
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Sill was a chronic heroin addict from her late teens. And had a string of arrests, including several for prostitution and armed robberies of convenience stores in Ventura, California, before she was into her early twenties.<br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">"<span style="background-color: white;">I did heroin with gusto because I wanted to escape my torment and misery,' she told Rolling Stone in 1972 of her three-year addiction. 'But then I figured if could maintain that kind of habit that long, the willpower I'd need to kick it would be a cinch.'</span> </span><br />
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She did kick heroin - but that was only one of the many problems which threatened to derail her life and constantly thwarted her attempts to build a career.<br />
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Sill was bisexual - and also had a talent for finding the worst men possible (for her at least) going through a string of co-dependent, drug-addled relationships and marriages, all before she briefly tasted success as an Asylum recording artist.<br />
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Her childhood was pretty chaotic - her dad, Millford Sill was, variously, an importer of exotic animals for movie work, part-time bar owner and full-time drinker. Sill grew up in her father's bar, and when he died early in her life, her mother married an animator best known for working on Tom & Jerry cartoons. It was a chaotic, bohemian, substance-driven. Her father, brother and mother all died when she was still in her teens.<br />
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However, she kept a strong sense of faith and spirituality throughout her life - sometimes saying that she wrote songs that "were aimed at persuading Jesus to give people a break".<br />
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By the time she died from drug abuse in 1979, she had long been forgotten. Her once intense relationship with David Geffen broken, which left her very bitter about the music industry.<br />
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Judee Sill could have been a Joni Mitchell, today she is not even a Nick Drake - another fragile singer-songwriter of the era who died tragically young but is today revered.<br />
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Few people really remember Judee Sill, which is a great shame, as she had a kind of genius.<br />
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I would heartily recommend checking out her two released albums and the collection of recorded but not released in her lifetime songs.<br />
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Also - there's a very good BBC4 radio doc about her - which you can listen to by clicking on above. <br />
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*** THANKS FOR READING****Josef O'Sheahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16395589504706311414noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3474413219292148932.post-23110157192096236892015-02-08T04:42:00.000-08:002015-02-08T06:10:15.193-08:00Danno O'Mahony - Champion of The World <table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/b/bf/Danno_O'Mahony.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/b/bf/Danno_O'Mahony.jpg" height="400" width="275" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Some Man - Danno O'Mahoney</td></tr>
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* For a time in the mid-1930s, Danno O'Mahony was arguably the most famous Irishman in the world. And he was certainly one of the few West Cork men who made his living in tights.<br />
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Danno had a vast army of admirers. And a legion of sworn enemies. Their black ranks included Ed "Strangler" Lewis, Steve "Crusher" Casey, Bronko "The Red Menace" Nagurski, Chief Little Wolf and The Infamous Flying Dusek Brothers.<br />
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All had sworn to defeat Danno. Some reckoned they did. But while the big man was often floored, Danno always rose from the canvas, puffed out his massive chest, danced forward and executed his killer move - the Irish Whip.<br />
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He was one of the biggest stars of the Golden Age of Pro-Wrestling - a time when Grunt n'Grapple was as big as boxing and taken (almost) as seriously. It was the great American Blue-Collar past-time - and Danno, the handsome farm-boy from West Cork - was one of it's biggest names.<br />
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On April 26, 1935, just months after Danno had swapped an Irish army camp for the life of a sports-star in the US, he faced Ed "Strangler" Lewis at the Boston Garden in front of 20,000 wildly cheering fans. Danno won the first fall after twenty minutes of grunting, groaning and grappling with his signature Irish Whip.<br />
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But Strangler, in a red rage, rose and threw Danno from the ring. Ten Boston-Irish cops tried to stop Danno, blood streaming from a cut above his eyes, from getting back in to murder the Strangler.<br />
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The Irishman hurled them aside, leapt over the ropes and executed a fall so hard, the Strangler was laid out unconscious on the canvas. Danno was pro-Wrestling's World Heavyweight Champ.<br />
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The Boston Globe called it a "thrilling match with a great climax".<br />
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Danno sailed back to his native shore, arriving in Cobh on a transatlantic liner to a huge reception, caught on newsreel and shown around the world.<br />
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Danno was born on a farm outside the West Cork village of Ballydehob in September, 1912. His father, Big Dan, was (as the name might suggest) a mountain of a man, 6'5'' and almost as wide, a famous sportsman in the locality.<br />
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Young Danno left school at 13, worked on the family farm and then joined the Irish Army. He quickly became a star athlete, setting several national records in strength events, including an Army record for the hammer-throw that wouldn't be broken until 1990.<br />
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Professional wrestling was a huge sport at the time, in the US but also in Europe. When the legendary promoter Paul Bowser decided he needed a new star - and an Irish one to get in the huge, East Coast Irish-American crowds - he approached the famous Irish Olympian (and 1928 Hammer Gold Medallist) Pat O'Callaghan with an offer. O'Callaghan, a qualified doctor, turned him down. But he did recommend a fellow Corkman, a private in the Irish Army who could "fit the bill", the young giant Danno.<br />
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Bowser used his connections with Boston Irish politicians to get Danno "excused" from the Irish Army (it's said the Boston Police chief wrote a personal letter to the Irish Minister for Defence, Frank Aitken) and the Cork kid was soon on a boat heading for London, to actually learn how to wrestle with one of Bowser's English contacts..<br />
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When Bowser finally met with Danno in New York, he realised that in the huge, handsome Irishman with the charismatic smile, he had hit gold.<br />
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On January 2, 1935, after a rough Atlantic crossing and a smoother ride from New York to Boston in a private plane, the kid who had recently been an Irish Army private on eight quid a week signed a five year, pro-Wrestling contract said to be worth $100,000 dollars.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Danno In Scary Pose </td></tr>
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The West Cork boy was living in one of Boston's finest hotels, eating steaks and training every day, ready for his big professional debut in the Boston Garden.<br />
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Pro-wrestling was then, as it is now, "sport entertainment".Wrestlers had clearly defined personae, they were mostly either Heroes or Heels, they represented immigrant groups or crude racial stereotypes. Danno O'Mahoney (the promoters added an "e" to his surname) would be a champion of the blue-collar East Coast Irish, the Gorgeous Gael, the kind of wrestler you could take home to meet your mother.<br />
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He was wildly successful over a short period of time, regularly wrestling in front of crowds of 20,000 or more. It was the first Golden Age of Pro Wrestling, when the biggest stars were household names across Europe and the US and newsreel cameras brought the latest big bouts into the cinemas.<br />
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One of his first bouts, against the hated "Heel" Ernie Dusek at the Boston Garden on Jan 5 1935 drew a crowd of 20,000. The local papers said "at least of 14,000 of these were screaming Irishmen, out to support their boy". Danno seemed to freeze at first, hardly surprising given that a few months earlier he had been a private on a remote Irish Army camp who had never really wrestled in his life.<br />
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However, after a few hesitant rounds, Danno gave the Irish crowd what they wanted - using his patented "finishing move" the Irish Whip. This move, still seen in pro-wrestling today, involves catching your opponent by his outstretched arm and using his own momentum to "whip" him into the ropes, ready to be clotheslined on the rebound.<br />
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Ernie Dusek got laid out. Which was too much for his cornerman and brother Rudy, who jumped into the ring and attacked Danno. Then Ernie got off the canvass and joined his brother. Danno responded by "punching everything that moved" including the ref (Sam Smith) and the Boston police who were usually on good money from the promoters and could always be guaranteed to join in the fun/mayhem.<br />
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"Danno threw punches at the police, as the crowd roared their approval" was how one local paper reported it. Danno was eventually crowned champ and the huge crowd went home happy. It was Friday night entertainment, they got to see the giant Irish lad lay into the cops and beat the Duseks. Boston had a new hero.<br />
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Danno had a brief but glittering career, was World Champion several times - but in pro-Wrestling, such titles were always contested by rival organisations and the behind the scenes strokes and fixing meant that careers could be made and destroyed very quickly.<br />
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Perhaps his greatest occasion was a title unification fight with rival Ed Don George on July 30th, 1935, a match that drew over 40,000 fans (including Massachusetts Gov James M Curley) to the Braves Field Baseball Park. The gate was reported to be $60,000 dollars.<br />
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However, the bout had a very poor finish, the crowd were unhappy and the press started to turn on the promoters who were so obviously fixing fights and carving out monopolies.<br />
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Danno also had visa problems which affected his career. He married, moved to Los Angeles, opened a restaurant and then joined the US Army during WWII.<br />
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<a href="http://l7.alamy.com/zooms/b294302ad8244e758b7e41ca988f4f45/a-statue-of-danno-omahoney-in-ballydehob-county-cork-c2a93g.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://l7.alamy.com/zooms/b294302ad8244e758b7e41ca988f4f45/a-statue-of-danno-omahoney-in-ballydehob-county-cork-c2a93g.jpg" height="320" width="205" /></a>After the war, he decided to move back to Ireland and his native West Cork for good. But in 1950, at the age of just 38, and only a couple of months after returning home, Danno O'Mahony died from injuries sustained in a car crash.<br />
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He was hugely, briefly famous across the US and Ireland. Today, he is still remembered in his home town, where there is a statue of him standing at the crossroads as you drive in from the Cork City side.<br />
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From West Cork fields to performing in front of tens of thousands across the US, Danno O'Mahony had pro-Wrestling to thank for a life less ordinary.<br />
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**** Thanks for Reading**** <br />
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<br />Josef O'Sheahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16395589504706311414noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3474413219292148932.post-56347135840339206752015-01-29T07:11:00.001-08:002015-01-29T07:11:45.465-08:00The Cold War Bulgarian Umbrella Killers Of London<br />
* The newly opened public enquiry into the horrible killing of Russian dissident Alexander Litvienko in London is already throwing up plenty of details that will be embarrassing to the Kremlin in general and Vladimir Putin in particular. Assuming that Vladimir Putin can actually experience embarrassment.<br />
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But Litvienko was not the first Eastern dissident to be assassinated in London. And one of the previous cases has eerie similarities with the polonium poisoning case.<br />
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So read on.......<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/olmedia/165000/images/_166046_markov300.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/olmedia/165000/images/_166046_markov300.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Georgi Markov</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"> <span style="background-color: white;"><span style="line-height: 22.5px;"> * Two secret agents track a man through the streets of busy streets London. They have followed him in and out of cafés, on the Underground and along pavements, trying to engineer a chance encounter. The Eastern European spies have already tried at least once to get close enough to administer a deadly poison to their target. This time, in one of the busiest spots in central London, they are successful. The poison is delivered. The target - a writer and journalist who has been deeply critical of the regime in his native country - has barely noticed anything. But soon he will tell his colleagues and family about a sudden rash, a rapidly developing illness. He is taken to hospital where doctors are mystified as to the cause of his rapid and unstoppable decline. He insists he has been poisoned. He raves about KGB assassins sent by political masters in the East, his former homeland. </span></span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="line-height: 22.5px;"><br /></span></span></span>
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="line-height: 22.5px;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Within four days he is dead.</span></span><span style="color: #555555; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 22.5px;"> </span></span><br />
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If you have been following the case of Alexander Litvienko, this scenario will sound very familiar. Exotic poison, assassins from behind what we once called the Iron curtain. A brazen political killing on the streets of London.<br />
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But this is actually the story of Bulgarian writer and dissident Georgi Markov, killed on the instructions of a communist secret police in London in September 1978. I remember reading about it when the real story started to emerge in the early '80s and the impression that it made on me. This was a fictional spy thriller come to life. They had killed him with - of all things - a poison tipped umbrella.<br />
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Markov had been a writer, a dissident who moved to London to escape persecution in his native Bulgaria and worked for the BBC and (more infuriatingly for the Communists) the US-Funded <i>Radio Free Europe, </i>a network of polyglot stations, broadcasting directly into the Communist Bloc with news, political views and music that the regimes there did not want their people to hear.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/3/39/Bulgarian_dissident_Georgi_Markov.tiff/lossless-page1-128px-Bulgarian_dissident_Georgi_Markov.tiff.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/3/39/Bulgarian_dissident_Georgi_Markov.tiff/lossless-page1-128px-Bulgarian_dissident_Georgi_Markov.tiff.png" height="320" width="242" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Markov In London<br /><br /></td></tr>
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On<span style="background-color: white; color: #252525; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20.3636360168457px;"> September 7th in '78</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #252525; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20.3636360168457px;">, Markov was walking across</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #252525; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20.3636360168457px;"> Waterloo Bridge in London, going to catch a bus to his job at the BBC. As he stood at the bus stop, he felt a sharp sting on the back of his right thigh, as if he had been bitten by a particularly big bug. </span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #252525; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20.3636360168457px;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #252525; font-family: sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20.3636360168457px;">He quickly looked around and spotted a man picking up an umbrella and hurrying away to grab a taxi.</span></span><br />
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Markov was a little shook but continued on to the BBC, where he told colleagues about what had just happened to him and showed them a little red raised bruise on his thigh.<br />
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That evening he developed a fever. Shortly after he was rushed to hospital - where doctors were unable to establish the cause of his sudden and rapid deterioration. Markov insisted he had been poisoned by the man with the umbrella. Four days later he was dead, aged 49.<br />
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It was established that the cause of death was a metal pellet the size of a pin-head, a hollow ball, filled with the deadly poison Ricin. Even if the doctors had known the nature of the poison, they could not have treated him. There was no known anti-dote for it at the time.<br />
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Investigators later deduced that the pellet had been fired from the tip of an umbrella, using a pneumatic system similar to an air-rifle.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://thevieweast.files.wordpress.com/2011/09/umbrella_gun_diagram.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="120" src="https://thevieweast.files.wordpress.com/2011/09/umbrella_gun_diagram.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Diagram Of Suspected Umbrella Gun</td></tr>
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The police and secret-service agents investigating the death then discovered that just ten days before the fatal attack on Markov, the exact same method - a poison-tipped umbrella - had been used in an ultimately unsuccessful attempt on another Bulgarian dissident on the Paris Metro.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2012/05/12/article-2143522-005CEA1500000258-804_634x580.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2012/05/12/article-2143522-005CEA1500000258-804_634x580.jpg" height="292" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Actual Pellet Taken From Markov's Leg</td></tr>
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It has long been believed that the Bulgarian secret police, backed by the KGB, used a Danish man of Italian heritage - Francesco Gullino - to carry out the actual attack on Markov. Gullino was said to be an art dealer turned drug smuggler who had been captured by the Bulgarian police and given the simple choice - work for us in the West or spend the rest of your live in a Bulgarian jail.<br />
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Gullino - codenamed "Picadilly" by the British secret service - has never been apprehended and is believed to be still travelling, under several false identities in Europe to this day.<br />
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There are many strange similarities between the case of Markov and that of Litvienko, poisoned with radioactive polonium in a London coffee shop. <br />
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The family of the Russian must hope that they get a better shot at final justice than those who loved Markov ever did.<br />
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****THANKS FOR READING*****<br />
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<br />Josef O'Sheahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16395589504706311414noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3474413219292148932.post-12629730009751346592015-01-19T12:15:00.001-08:002015-07-03T02:24:08.777-07:00Captain Jack White - The British War Hero Turned Anarchist Who Drilled The Citizens Army * Regular readers may, by now, be familiar with my obsession with the lesser told, quirkier stories from history in general and Irish history in particular.<br />
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With the Centenary of the Easter Rising on the horizon, we are going to hear a lot of familiar stories, the headline names of 1916 and lots about what that armed revolution means to modern Ireland (not a hell of a lot, in my humble opinion. Whatever those men had in mind for this island, what we have now comes nowhere close. It was just another chapter, now long past.)<br />
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But I'm drawn to the figures and stories on the periphery of the Rising, The ones mostly forgotten now, or written out almost from the start because they didn't fit the conventional narrative...<br />
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And so I've long be interested in the story of Captain Jack White. A hero of British imperialism, turned radical socialist, then anarchist, a man who lent his life to a series of lost causes. A man who was, in his own word, a misfit.<br />
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So here follows a brief history of a fascinating man......<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://flag.blackened.net/revolt/graphics/jackwhite/jack_white.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://flag.blackened.net/revolt/graphics/jackwhite/jack_white.jpg" height="320" width="222" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Captain James Robert "Jack" White </td></tr>
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* A handsome man with an unmistakeably military bearing. Dressed in civvies but holding a rifle. Captain James Robert White, always known as Jack, is largely forgotten in Ireland, Britain and Spain now. But for a long while, he was at the centre of great events.<br />
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Through his life, he believed in socialism and the collective cause and destiny of the working classes. And he believed in their right to organise, arm, drill and fight.<br />
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It was Jack who organised the Irish Citizen Army, after seeing the strikers in the 1913 lockout - the bitter struggle between the unions and the employers - getting knocked about by the police and strike-breakers.<br />
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White - who by then had left his official soldiering days with the British Army far behind him - saw the need for a disciplined force, a Citizen Army that could, as he said, "put manners on the police".<br />
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White was the true born son of the Empire, He was born in 1879 on the family estate in Co Antrim in the North of Ireland, the only child of a full British Field Marshal - Sir George Stuart White VC, GCB, OM, GCMG, and so on. Sir George had won Britain's highest military honour, the Victoria Cross, fighting the hill tribes in Afghanistan, in the year his son was born.<br />
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Jack was educated at Winchester (from which he was expelled) and the Royal Military College at Sandhurst. He began his fighting career aged just 18 with the Gordon Highlanders fighting the Boers. And he was awarded the Distinguished Service Order for an act of great bravery and initiative.<br />
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However, it was also in South Africa, during that bitter war, that Jack first showed signs on a very un-imperialistic streak. During one furious battle (as he later recalled), a 17-year-old soldier in White's section lost his nerve and stayed shivering in his trench. A senior officer called to the young Lieutenant White; "Shoot him!". When Jack did not move, the officer moved towards the youth with his own side-arm out. Jack is said to have drawn his gun, covered the officer and coolly told him; "Do it - and I will shoot you".<br />
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There was further some service with the army in India, but it seemed Jack White and the British army were destined to have a parting of the ways.<br />
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He returned to his native Ireland and became interested in radical politics, then a huge draw to many young members of the aristocracy with questions. He dropped out of society, travelled to Canada to work as a lumberjack, taught in various schools and joined a radical commune influenced by the writings of Tolstoy (Jack actually wrote letters to HG Welles and Tolstoy to explain his new course in life, Tolstoy is said to have written back approvingly).<br />
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The commune, in the English countryside, also welcomed practitioners of Free Love. It was pretty radical stuff for the son of a full British Field Marshal in the 1900s.<br />
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It was this romantic search for something new, something better, that eventually brought him to Dublin, where he met with the Scottish born, Irish socialist leader James Connolly. The two men, who could hardly have been from more different backgrounds, struck up what became a very strong and enduring friendship.<br />
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White got caught up in the labour battles around the time of the 1913 Lock-out. He saw the ranks of the union men broken up by police batons and decided it was time for them to fight back.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://irishvolunteers.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/Captain-Jack-White-and-Irish-Citizen-Army-at-Croydon-House-Dublin.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://irishvolunteers.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/Captain-Jack-White-and-Irish-Citizen-Army-at-Croydon-House-Dublin.jpg" height="240" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Captain Jack White (carrying the flag) with the Irish Citizen Army</td></tr>
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White organised, drilled and commanded the Irish Citizen Army. Which would go on to fight in 1916.<br />
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White did not fight in 1916. He had been organising a Volunteers brigade in Derry, but was very disillusioned by the sectarian, anti-Protestant views he encountered there. He also managed to fall out with his fellow protestants who put sectarian beliefs before the unity of working people. It was to be a motif throughout his life. It seems that Jack White was always on the search for purity of belief and deed. And he would always be disappointed in his fellow men. Those who put nationalism, religion, class prejudice, a thirst for power or control, above what he saw were the simple tenants of socialism. When he appealed to the Irish Volunteers for unity with their fellow protestant workers, they often accused of him "looking out for his own" and questioned his commitment to the glorious cause of Irish freedom.<br />
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But White could be just as difficult with his fellow Protestants he believed that true Protestantism should be behind those who wanted a better, fairer world for all. Not just Orangemen and the sons of land-owning British Generals.<br />
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To the Protestants, he was always a "Shinner". To the Republicans, an Orangeman, a toff, ex-British Army and the son of a General. Not for nothing did White call his autobiography, written in later life when disillusion had largely taken hold; "Misfit".<br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">When Connolly (his great friend) was sentenced to
death after the Rising – White tried - in vain - to organise the Miners of Wales
to go on strike to save his life. </span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">He later travelled further to the left,
joined with Sylvia Pankhurst’s Workers Socialist Federation in England, organised
a communist republican group in Ireland in the 30s before joining the
anarchists in Spain during the civil war.</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Jack White volunteered for the Red Cross in Spain and helped organise the Connolly Column and was thrilled to see Irish protestants and Catholics, all socialists and communists, fighting together for the people. He also distributed handguns to the women of towns and villages around Madrid and drilled them in how to protect themselves. White may have been high-minded in his politics but he was always a practical man. When a fascist is advancing on you, better to have bullets over banners.</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Once again, White eventually became disillusioned with the in-fighting and betrayals, becoming avowedly anti-Stalinist and leaning more towards the Anarchists, the only keepers of the pure flame. In this, he was following a similar path to George Orwell, another ex-Imperial policeman.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"> </span></span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">He returned to the family home in Co Antrim, shortly before the outbreak of the second world war. There was a brief reappearance in Public life when he tried to stand as a "Republican Socialist" candidate for Antrim in the 1945 general election, but by then those who knew him at all regarded him as little better than an eccentric, rowing pointlessly against the tide of the times.</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Jack White died of cancer in a Belfast nursing home in 1946. His family, embarrassed by his revolutionary past, burnt almost all his papers and writings shortly after his death. </span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">He was a remnant of a strange, romantic, heady time, when many upper-class English men and women, bred to Empire, decided on a radically different course and fought for universal socialism and the rights of every man.</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">In his beliefs, he was a radical, a puritan, a believer in the essential brotherhood of men and their desire for a just and equal world, He believed, passionately, that you only had to give people the means to fight and the cause to fight for and they would follow.</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">He was destined to be disappointed. In the end, disowned and hated by Republican catholic and protestant unionist, Jack White was, as his own epitaph said, the eternal misfit.</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 13px;">*** Thanks for Reading! And Don't Forget to Share If You Enjoyed - Tip Your Blogger***** </span></span><br />
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<br />Josef O'Sheahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16395589504706311414noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3474413219292148932.post-75107404516387923682015-01-13T12:18:00.000-08:002015-01-13T12:18:14.918-08:00Hot Potato! Alan Partridge, Charlie Hebdo and C4's Modest Proposal For A Famine-Com<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="line-height: 107%;">* This Saturday in London, a group of </span><span style="line-height: 19.9733333587647px;">protesters</span><span style="line-height: 107%;"> intend to march to the HQ of broadcasters Channel 4 to voice their anger over a proposed sit-com - set around the Irish famine.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="line-height: 107%;">The march is being organised by the </span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 18px;">Campaign for the Rights and Actions of Irish Communities - the rather </span><span style="line-height: 107%;">ironically </span><span style="line-height: 17.1200008392334px;">acronymed CRAIC.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="line-height: 107%;">The protest was organised before the Charlie Hebdo outrage in Paris. And it may seem crass to draw comparisons. But you might think it's a little strange that as the world shouts for freedom of expression and artistic licence to take on even the most controversial subjects and issues, a fair proportion of Irish people are vehemently opposed to a comedy script that hasn't even been fully written yet.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="line-height: 107%;">It's not as if </span><span style="line-height: 17.1200008392334px;">humorists</span><span style="line-height: 107%;"> haven't worked with subjects like millions of starving Irish people or the holocaust before. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Irish satirist Jonathan Swift once made a “modest proposal” that the starving Irish could ease the burden by selling their children as food for rich Lords and Ladies. He was joking, of course.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4b/Jonathan_Swift_by_Charles_Jervas_detail.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4b/Jonathan_Swift_by_Charles_Jervas_detail.jpg" height="320" width="284" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Auld Swifty - He Also Did Fart Jokes</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Jewish comedians such as Mel Brooks, Charlie Chaplin and Joan Rivers satirised the Nazis. And the late Rivers got into serious trouble in 2013 by observing of the German supermodel Heidi Klum; “The last time a German looked this hot was when they were pushing Jews into the ovens.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Answering the outrage generated by her Holocaust joke, Rivers said: “My husband lost the majority of his family at Auschwitz, and I can assure you that I have always made it a point to remind people of the Holocaust through humour.”</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://barkbarkwoofwoof.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/mel_brooks-hitler.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://barkbarkwoofwoof.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/mel_brooks-hitler.jpg" height="240" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Der Furher Was A Wunnerful Dancer! </td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Monty Python were accused of sacrilege because of “The Life Of Brian” while the Blackadder team mined comedy gold from the horror of WWI trenches.<span style="border: 1pt none windowtext; padding: 0cm; text-transform: uppercase;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Comedians and satirists have always played with fire when it comes to grim historical events. But it could be argued that the best, like Swift, have used humour as a weapon against evil. As well as making us laugh. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="line-height: 107%;">Anyhow! I talked to Irish comedian, satirist and impressionist Mario Rosenstock, and Professor Gary Murphy about this, ahem, hot potato. </span></span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://now-here-this.timeout.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/alan-partridge.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://now-here-this.timeout.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/alan-partridge.jpg" height="291" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Knowing Me, Knowing Potato Blight</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<h3>
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%;">* The Great Famine! It’s no laughing matter. Unless you
are Channel 4 or Alan Partridge.</span></h3>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%;">In one classic, 1997 episode of the BBC comedy </span><i style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%;">I’m Alan Partridge</i><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%;">, the hapless TV
presenter sat down with two Irish TV executives, played by </span><i style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%;">Fr Ted</i><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%;"> writers Arthur Mathews and Graham Linehan.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Alan blundered into the subject of the Famine, asking
a clearly uncomfortable Linehan (playing TV exec Aidan Walsh); “So, how many
people were killed in the Irish famine?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The Irishman replies; “Two million. And another two
million had to leave the country”.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Patridge observes; “Right. It was just the potatoes
that were affected? At the end of the day, you will pay the price if you are a
fussy eater. If they could afford to emigrate, then they could afford to eat in
a modest restaurant”. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">If you thought that joke was in desperately poor
taste, you may be one of many thousands who signed an online petition this week
to demand that Channel 4 drops tentative plans for a sitcom set during the
Famine. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Irish comedy writer Hugh Travers has been commissioned
by the British broadcaster to write a pilot script for a “black comedy”,
working title <i>Hunger</i>, set during the
period around Black ’47.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">It is to be produced by Deadpan Pictures, a spin-off
of the Wicklow-based production company Grand Pictures, the people behind hit
comedy <i>Moone Boy</i>.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">“This
is in the development process and is not currently planned to air,” said a C4
spokeswoman. “It’s not unusual for sitcoms to exist against backdrops that are
full of adversity and hardship.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">Hugh
Travers, best known for the RTE radio comedy-drama <i>Lambo </i>(a fictionalised account of the moment the late Gerry Ryan
confessed to killing a lamb on The Late Late Show) told one newspaper about his
thought process.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">“Why
the famine? Well, they say ‘comedy equals tragedy plus time’. I don’t want to
do anything that denies the suffering that people went through, but Ireland has
always been good at black humour”.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">Travers
may be shocked by the furore generated by his development script.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">But
another Irish comedian and comedy writer, Mario Rosentock, believes one factor in
the outrage generated is social-media in general and Twitter in particular.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">“Quite
clearly, people are only too ready to jump on the outrage bandwagon,” says
Mario.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">“They
can use this 140-character outlet to make a name for themselves, to get
noticed. Twitter is like going into a bar and shouting at the top of your voice
until everybody shuts up. And the best way to do this is to be rude or outraged
about somebody, some TV show or whatever”.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.rte.ie/presspack/files/2013/09/Mario4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://www.rte.ie/presspack/files/2013/09/Mario4.jpg" height="213" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Mario Rosenstock as Himself</td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">The
radio and TV comic says he wants to wait and see how the script turns out but
he does not believe that the Famine should be off-limits for comedy.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">“With
a subject like the famine, the tone is going to be very important, it’s the
overriding factor in any comedy like this,” says Mario. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">“You
look at shows like Blackadder, set in the horror of World War One, and they got
it right, even up to that ending, where they went over the top, and suddenly
it’s very powerful, it’s not about comedy anymore”.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">“And
just who is doing the jokes is also a very important factor. It kind comes back
to the debate about how black comedians can use the N-word, but white comedians
cannot.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">“It’s
largely because they are saying it about themselves. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">“The
fact that it’s an Irish writer, an Irish production company, and not English
writers and producers doing this, I think that allows them, if that’s the right
word, to at least look at the subject.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">“In
this case, the receivers of the injustice, some people would argue the genocide,
are the ones who are writing something funny about it, or attempting to see the
funny side of it.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">DCU
Professor of Politics Gary Murphy believes that, on a basic level, no area of
Irish (or wider) history should be off-limits for satire or comedy.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">“It’s
part of the human condition. We have been through all sorts of trauma, from
famine times, a bitter, terrible civil war, right up through the troubles.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">“And
if we can’t occasionally make fun of our history, this human condition, well
what’s the point of it all, really?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">“It’s
also a dangerous road to go down. Once you start putting events off-limits,
where do you stop? Do you not lampoon the Troubles, or the War of
Independence?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">“It’s
our story. And if comedy should do anything, it should enlighten that story.
These terrible events should be up for discussion in all forms. And comedy is
as much a form of political expression as any other”. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">Professor
Murphy believes some of the negative reaction to the Channel 4 project comes
from professional historians and commentators.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">“We
can get too po-faced about our history, saying we can only talk about these
events in dry history books or serious commentary. It inhibits free speech and
imagination.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">The
academic believes that we may also be doing a disservice to the people who
actually lived and suffered through the famine. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">“We
can only assume that people then had a sense of humour, not withstanding the
unbelievably grim conditions, that’s just part of the human condition. And this
idea that only historians can feel their pain, or because it was so terrible -
and you can make the strong argument that the British Government just let the
Irish to rot - that we can only talk about it in the most serious tones, well I
find that very limiting.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">But
should any subjects be off-limits for comedians? Mario Rosenstock says it’s an
issue that he wrestles with and gives the example of Scottish stand-up Frankie
Boyle’s notorious routine about the disabled son of glamour model Jordan.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">“I
don’t understand how Frankie Boyle, a man of his intelligence, needs to make
jokes about Jordan’s disabled son. Yes, what he is doing there is showing us
that he can do it, that it’s freedom of speech. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">“But
you can’t honestly say it’s funny. Nobody with a heart can say it’s funny. As a
sentient human being you can’t go and laugh at that”.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">******Hey! Thanks for reading!****** <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Josef O'Sheahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16395589504706311414noreply@blogger.com0