Severe Jam Damage

@ Whelans the Village.

The email was terse as usual. It was an order, not a request.

‘Mick Harvey @ Whelans tonight.
The Barfly is back!’

It had been a while since I’d seen the oul souse, so I agreed to meet him at the bar. He was propped up in the window leering at the passersby.
‘Get down outta that, or the manager will be over to bar us for scaring off his customers.’
As it happened it didn’t much matter, the place was empty - a building site actually. The gig was moved next door to the Village.
‘Sure we’ve plenty of time, lets have another beer.’

I needed beer, the last time I was in the Village I’d been to see Warren Ellis - another of the Bad Seeds - with the Gurrier and his troops. The venue still held bad memories for me, images of the Gin Lady mixing cocktails, and that thing hidden in the Bastard Kesey’s trousers. I shuddered and kept drinking.

By the time we managed to crawl upstairs it was standing room only.
‘Ya fuck.’

I got more beers in and the Barfly disappeared into the dark shadows. Fucker was always doing that, leaving me standing with two pints. A familiar shape loomed in front of me. Blather and his missus, figured they’d be here. It was exactly the sort of seedy shithole they liked.
Blather was babbling, I couldn’t make out what he was saying. Snatches of sound from his lips ‘Fortean…’ then ‘Apocalypse’ and finally ‘Paddy Casey’. This last with tears in his eyes.
‘What about Paddy Casey?’ I ventured.
‘He gives me a pain in the bollix.’
‘Ahhh, Um.’
I turned away for a bit, waiting for him to leave of his own accord - grown men shouldn’t cry over half-rate singers. On stage there was a girl with a guitar.
‘Christ, not another one.’
But then she started singing and we all fell in love with her a little bit.
‘Fuck me’ said the Barfly who had appeared at my shoulder.
‘No thanks’ I replied.
‘No, I mean her, she’s fucking AMAAAAAZING.’ His eyes were twisting in their sockets, rolling like a galleon on the high seas.
‘What’ve you taken?’
‘Nothing, I’m in loooooooooooove.’
I’d seen him like this before and in the past it had never turned out well. I bought more beer, in an attempt to get him so blind drunk that he’d be unable to storm backstage and accost the poor girl.
‘Want More’ chanted the Barfly.
‘Shuddafuckup, Micks coming on stage.’

Half an hour into his set I was singing and dancing around. The Barfly was in a strop.
‘Want the girl’
‘What have I told you before? You can’t HAVE the girl.’
‘Not fa-eeeeeeeeeh!’ as he stumbled across the floor and fell crashing to the ground. Behind him the Goth stood in an old ratty coat.
‘Answer your goddamn phone!’ he shouted. ‘I’ve been sat next door for the guts of an hour.’
The Barfly grunted, pulled himself up extracted a shard of glass from his hand. He was covered in beer and broken glass.
‘What’s that on your face?’ I asked, trying to quell the impending violence.
‘What?’ said the Goth pulling at his cheeks.
‘That… thing? Is it… fuck me… is that a smile?’
‘Uh yeah. It’s new do you like it?’
‘Eh, I’ve seen better.’

An hour and numerous pints later the band finished up.
‘That was great!’
‘It was very samey, not enough Bad Seeds’ said the Barfly.
I was too drunk to get into a fight with him about it.
‘Going home now.’ I said and stumbled down the stairs.
Behind me the Goth and the Barfly were making plans to sneak backstage and kidnap the girl. I left them to it.

Outside Mulligans this afternoon. Enjoying the sunshine and trying to cure an awful hangover.
C and P this one’s for you.

…
Blast.
I don’t know why the template won’t work properly with the pic.

Four full days in Barcelona should have been enough to see all of the sights. Of course that kind of thing is dependant on the fact that you get up early in the morning to beat the crowds and aren’t out carousing until the early hours of the night before. I’ll leave it up to you to decide which way we holidayed.

Saturday was our first full day in the city and we decided to use it getting orientated. The fourth member of our group wasn’t going to arrive until Sunday morning so we thought it best just to go for a wander and acquaint ourselves with the local hotspots. A wander south down to Port Vell and then we got lost in Barceloneta. One quick turnaround and we were back to the Port and up Via Laietana. At that point we entered the Barri Gotic and damn if we couldn’t escape the Placa del Pi. Not because it was so nice, but because everytime we turned around there we were - back in the square. Eventually we decided to follow the tourists on the Segway C6’s just to get onto a road that didn’t lead back to the Placa del Pi. This took us up past the Orfeo Catala and eventually to the Arc de Triumf where the sun finally broke through.

We did get to see the Sagradia Familia, although as it was Easter Sunday afternoon the place was jammed. They had also closed the stairs, so the only way up was in the lift and there was a two hour wait for that. We decided our time could be better spent so we didn’t go up.

We didn’t get into any museum’s unless you count the Museu de l’Erotic where there were a number of photos taken - although only a few are publishable. And we did pass by the door of the Palau Nacional up on MontJuic. The magic fountain display was due to start at 7 o’clock in the evening, but since the sun was still splitting the sky we thought it would be hard to see the lighting, so we just walked up to the top of the steps, taking pictures along the way.

On Monday - our final day - we were in pretty bad shape (although not as bad as we would be on Tuesday morning in the airport.) so we decided that a trip in cable car was in order. We had not counted on the incredibly bad service though. At the ticket office there were five people ahead of us in the line. The ticket seller sold two tickets, then went on a smoke break. When he came back to his booth he fumbled around again and went for another smoke break - having sold NO tickets. After about 25 mintues we got fed up and walked back for a wander round the Barri Gotic again. As it was a late start that day we found the cloister of the Catedral de Seu a lovely quiet space for our aching heads, well except for the honking of the guard geese.

There was a bunch of stuff we didn’t get to see. The Picasso museum, Parc Guell, La Boqueria, Casa Batlo and Casa Mila (although we did drive past this we didn’t go in.) All of which sort of gives me a reason to go back.

Oh dear god, 10 o’clock at night and the taxi driver had brought us to Beirut. We were staying in an area called ‘La Raval’ aka ‘Barri Xino’ aka ‘Chinatown.’
The taxi driver didn’t know where our street was, he kept driving around and around and around the Rambla del Raval making sure we were a target for any of the locals on the hunt for clueless tourists. Eventually he just dropped us on the side of the road while we waited for the lady who had the keys to our apartment to come hobbling out of some side street.
We followed her back down the dingy road and she took us in a doorway to our home for the weekend.

The apartment was grand, all we needed it for was a bed and a shower. It had two bedrooms, one on the ground floor, the second upstairs in a sort of loft.

That night we went out for drinks - sans coats of course sure and aren’t we on holliers in Spain?
The locals were all wearing winter coats and boots, no wonder they were staring. At Las Ramblas we stopped at a restaurant and got screwed by the waiters for the price of a bottle of wine. (20 euros for a bottle of Faustino VII!!) That, for those who are wondering was the LAST TIME we ate or drank anywhere near Las Ramblas.

La Raval wasn’t as bad as we had first thought - it never is really. I’d put it on a par with Smithfield to be honest, one of those places that anyone who hasn’t lived there doesn’t feel comfortable after dark, but perfectly ok for the locals. There were a bunch of half decent restaurants and some groovy laid-back bars on the Rambla del Raval, we were a 10 minute walk from Port Vell to the south (and Las Ramblas and the Barri Gotic if we were heading east) and there was a good selection of restaurants for breakfast and kebab shops still open at the end of the night. Although the only one we managed to stagger into was the Taj Mahal where we met Orlando Bloom - a Scottish guy named Thomas I think - and one of the shop (owners? managers? kebab makers?) was famous for some ad campaign about kebabs. (True story, Clarice took a photo with the poster on the wall behind him.)

We later realised that all those horror stories our ‘friends’ had been telling us about muggings and robberies were happening to the tourists who stayed on Las Ramblas or in L’Eixample. Our neighbourhood may have been where the thieves came back to at night, but we liked to think of it as a ‘Don’t shit on your own doorstep’ scenario.

Anyway by the last night we were comfortable enough in the area to agree that if we came back to Barcelona we’d probably stay around there again. This train of thought may have been helped along by the lovely bar girls in Ambar who were serving us what could almost be classed as triple measures. Ambar by the way was mentioned in my ‘Le Cool’ guide book and was 3 minutes away from our apartment. We didn’t try it until the final night - possibly just as well for, as Lelly said later, “If we’d found that place on the first night I’d be coming home in a body bag.”

More to Follow…

By Eli, age 33 and 51/52ths.

Today is Wednesday. It is pissing down with rain. I am eating chocolate covered toffee popcorn. I like it. It is yummy. At lunch today I ate Chicken Kiev. There was lots of butter on the chicken. I might have a heart attack later. I also had some potatoes. They were burnt. The chef tried to hide this fact by seasoning them with cumin and onions. They were not nice. Silly chef!

I am wearing a cardigan. It is a black cardigan. It is not very warm. I am sitting beside the window. I am cold. There is no heat in the office. I have to go to the pub tonight. I will probably get drunk. It is fun sometimes. Do you like to get drunk? This is my report for today, which is Wednesday.

Myself and Miz D ended up in the Mez last Wednesday night. I had met her after work and given the fact that both of us work in companies and have roles that require formal dress we were both still in our work gear. (ie, skirts and blouses.) At the door I was stopped and the gorilla asked to look in my bag.
‘What is it you’re looking for?’ I asked.
‘Bottles’ says he, ‘Have you got any?’
‘Eh, no’ I replied.
Now this is a first for me. I’ve been stopped before of course, for years I couldn’t get into places without ID, and there has always been the issue of doormen stopping to see just how drunk you are. But I’ve never been asked for a bag search for ‘bottles’. Not unless I was going into gigs and then it was mainly in Canada where they frisked you as well.

So what kind of place searches ladies handbags for ‘bottles’? What kind of place expects people to be sneaking in their own drink?

Is it the kind of place that overcharges for drink? The kind of place that short changes the customers perhaps?
(I ordered a bottle of Heineken and a gin and tonic and was charged 11 quid, but the barman only handed me back change of 6 from a 20.)

The Mezz, not going on my list of cool hangout spots in Dublin.

I headed out into the wilds of Wicklow this weekend. I’ve been getting out and about in the car a bit more on the weekends now. The lovely sunny days are helping of course. I drove down through Roundwood and Glendalough then across the Wicklow Gap to meet with some friends. We ended up in the Ballymore Inn, sitting in the sun drinking bucketloads of organic white wine. (Bonus: no headache hangover!) Okay bucketloads is a bit much, according to the barman who was very knowledgeable about such things we went through 12 bottles. But, I must clarify, that was from 2 in the afternoon through to about midnight. As you can see from the photo* (taken at about 9 o’clock) I was still sober enough to buy MORE wine. Although sadly I appear to have acquired 5 chins somewhere along the way.

Countdown to Holiday: 17 days

*Photograph by Priscilla

It’s lovely to meet friends for lunch at Christmas time.

It’s even lovelier to have a couple glasses of wine while you’re meeting them.

It’s not so lovely to have to come back into the office, pretend to be sober and hang around till 5 o’clock though.

…and has been since 3 o’clock.

Why is drinking in work like drinking while flying? My face is all flushed and my eyes are feeling all swollen.

Also, Rolling Rock is muck.

It’s cold and it’s damp and these days all you want to do (or at least all I want to do) is find a nice cozy pub with a roaring fire that does a good line in Hot Port. So far the search for the Perfect Port hasn’t been going so well. As you may remember I previously mentioned Madigans of Donnybrook (1 slice lemon, no cloves, proper glass, vaguely warm water) and Keogh’s of Sth Anne St. (3 slices lemon all nicely studded with cloves, proper glass, good hot water.) At that time Keogh’s was the clear winner, but what has happened and where have I been since?

Neary’s
Not a proper glass, but was pre-ordered for me, so by the time I arrived it was ‘luke-warm Port.’

Stags Head
Not a proper glass and no accompanying napkin wrapped round so I had to wait for the thing to cool off before I could even take a sip. Sort of took the point out of ordering a ‘hot’ port. No sugar added and the lemon looked like it had died long ago. No cloves, no spoon.

Library Bar
Proper glass, one clove stuck in the lemon. Sugar on the table so I could add it myself with spoon (provided.) Fair to middling.

Neary’s
On a return visit I received my port in a proper glass this time, but it came with a plastic cocktail swizzle stick yoke which didn’t work very well, as by the time I got to the end of the glass the sugar was all still sitting undissolved at the bottom of the glass. Lemon was properly studded with cloves, but had turned deep red by the time I finished which means it wasn’t the freshest slice.

So at the moment the leaderboard is still showing that Keogh’s serves the top hot port in the city. More anon as my liver recovers.