Welcome to Ireland, now get lost

Good piece by Matt Gross in today's New York Times on being "Lost in Ireland". It is interesting how different the piece is from something that would have been written a few years ago. Now, rental cars from Dublin airport are "cheap", roads are surprising good, but the radio is non-stop depressing gloom and doom about the economy.

I was surprised to see Johnny Fox's pub on the list of places he visited. In my experience, this pub in the Wicklow mountains is not somewhere you can find without a good map or GPS. More than once, I have had to follow the Dublin Bus which I know drives past it. But perhaps the best way to find it is to first get lost?

CNN's circular road trip around Ireland

It's always good when you get the impression that the person writing about a road trip actually went on the road trip themselves, and didn't just write it from a guide book. This CNN road trip around Ireland by John D Sutter is good, for this reason.

For the record, here are my own recommendations on driving around Ireland (follow the links at the bottom of the page for more)

They shoot horses, don't they?

Echoes of the depression in this story in the Irish Times today about the fate of Irish horses left behind after the boom: http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/features/2010/0928/1224279819356.html. It includes this nugget of information:

If a horse has a “clean passport” – meaning that it hasn’t received drugs in its lifetime which make it unfit for human consumption – it can go to a meat factory, where it will be humanely killed. Its meat will then go into the food chain destined for Europe.

Therapy? are still on the go....

This is a band I first saw at the Buttery in Trinity College Dublin circa 1993. Although a friend pointed out that they derived from Big Black (and she gave me a cassette to prove it), they were excellent and who could forget their cover of Joy Division's Isolation. The best thing to come out of Larne since the ferry to Stranraer.

Latest news here: http://www.therapyquestionmark.co.uk/news/

Mick Lally Dead

Sad to read today that Mick Lally died. He was familiar to generations of Irish people who watched Glenroe on Sunday evenings: http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/breaking/2010/0831/breaking16.html

Boston versus New York music listening compared

This handy widget (hat-tip to Momus) allows you to compare the Last.fm music listening tastes of Boston residents versus New York residents.

Results? Well, sadly it seems that while Boston residents listen to Coldplay and Eminem, New York residents listen to MGMT and Jay-Z. Radiohead tops both lists however.

Franklin Park Zoo has free admission today (9 July 2010)

Franklin Park Zoo has free admission today....

And I suspect it's a lot warmer than it was when I took this photo:

Petport at Boston Logan Airport

Nice idea, though it may more accurately be called "poop port"

Alcohol-free festival a surprising failure in Ireland

This story could have come from the Onion but is in today's Irish Times: http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/features/2010/0705/1224274032535.html

Where to buy your Roslindale real-estate from a Russian Spy

David Harris on Wicked Local Cambridge points to the website of Ann Foley, one of the alleged Russian spies arrested today. A quick search of her website shows some Roslindale properties. Fancy a nice dacha up in the Roslindale steppes?

Trout Records in Dublin

Who can resist a shop called "Trout Records". Photographed in George's Arcade, Dublin:

Is it a stereotype if it's true?

At this point I think the more accurate stereotype is of a hyper-sensitive Irish person complaining about caricatures of drunken Irish people:

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/features/2010/0526/1224271139965.html