So Long! Farewell!

In less than 5 days, I’ll be off to London to live there for a few years. This is all very exciting. So far though, I’ve not received any going-away presents. (I TELL A LIE! KATIE GAVE ME THE WORLD’S BEST GIFT). If anybody else would like to give me a present though, I’d like something from here.

This Charming Girl is an online store which creates new pieces from vintage charms. So far, I want everything in it, but accept that our readers have limited budgets, and have whittled it down:

or

or

All the above come in at under €15 and are handmade. You can address them to Ailbhe Malone, Bluebirds are so natural, the Internet. Great. Thanks. You’re too good to me.

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Country Grammar

After a delicious FBB (cheers M&S, and also Ams) I was only really good for an afternoon of light reading. So I bought the new i-D. Man was I disappointed.

Firstly, let me just preface this by saying;

1. As a magazine, I quite like i-D, and I buy it most months.
2. As a journalist myself, I understand how sometimes typos get the better of most people.

However, what follows is just embarassing.

Over the 162 pages, there were a mortifying amount of mistakes. I’m not just talking typos though, and though it’s tempting, I’ll not do a page-by-page roll call. Suffice to say that:
In the lead story alone (one on Lily Allen), they mix up ‘heirs’ and ‘airs’. That’s not forgetting the constant ‘lets’ vs ‘let’s’ and ‘its’ vs it’s’. Elsewhere, they misspell ‘arctic’ and in a spread on Stephen Dorff, get the colour of his eyes wrong. Despite there being 3 full-page photos of him and his green-not-blue-eyes preceding the write-up.

‘Aged 35, has eyes of blue’ Cheers i-D

Hmph. Looks like it’s back to Dazed for me, so.

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Let’s Get This Party Started Right

Unlike some people, there is nothing, nothing, nothing that Katie-Lilga and I like more than free stuff. We love love love free stuff. We love free mp3s. We love free brunches. We love free invites to gigs, and plays, and art shows. Love them. No really. We might marry them. Not right now, but when we’re both old enough to support them and a family. Best not to rush into these things.

Naturlich, the launch of the restaurant in the Dylan Hotel last night was right up our alley. There was champagne. And oysters. And silly canapés (tomato mush served in a spoon?). But, most importantly, there were crap Irish celebrities. Here’s a list of those that we’re pretty sure we spotted.

1. Glenda Gilson. Looks like a giraffe that’s just fallen out of a tanning booth and into River Island. She is very very tall.

2. A Rugby Player. We don’t know his name. Or even if he plays rugby. But he was stocky, and people were taking his photo.

3. A Crowd of Girls Who Were Either in Glenroe or Fair City. We could tell this because they had very voluminous hair, and necks and ears that sparkled.

A big thank you to Elevate for inviting us. If you’d like, we’ll make you a cup of tea next time you’re in the area.

xxx
Ailbhe

Mont Blanc, I Love You, But You’re Bringing Me Down

Oh oh oh, it’s bulletin point holiday notes time!

1. Ronan Keating was on my flight to Geneva. He walked around a lot on the plane.

2. Geneva’s economy seems to thrive on coffee, and watches, and, apparently George Clooney’s career seems to depend on promoting both those products. George Clooney may well be the King of Geneva.

3. It may come as a surprise to all, but I’m not an adept skiier. I’m not even an ept skiier. Inept doesn’t begin to cover it. The only possible way that I can describe the way that I move when placed upon skiis is to compare it to when one tries to force a domestic animal to have a bath. Legs and arms are in rictus right angle mode, while beady eyes are set on the escape route, at any cost. I was about as graceful as a pig on ice.

4. As I’ve a degree in French, I was designated speaker for the trip (despite everyone else in my family having a moderate to quite good level of French). While I can lovingly lyricize about de Guérin and Flaubert, alas, I do not know the word for ’snow tyres’. Which lead to beautiful sentences like:
Bonjour, je cherche les, um, trucs, pour notre voiture qui nous laisseraient de, um, bouger, avec vitesse sans danger dans la neige.

5. I read some pretty dreadful novels. Not least one which featured VAMPIRE KILLERS THAT KILL. But only girls that dress like this:
…the killers left her earrings, and a small sapphire in her belly button. We found the clothes: UFO parachute pants, Nikes, Chili Peppers t-shirt

6. I watched some pretty dreadful movies. Including Tomb Raider which which which features blondie doctor from Green Wing. He looks ugly in it though. Very very ginger, and his nose has seen better angles.

7. Geneva airport, ovo under George Clooney’s rule, is the least practical place known to man. The only bottled water available is San Pellegrino, the Duty Free only sells silly types of Bailey’s- and the shops? Hermés, Guess and Cartier. Even the magazines were too much for the likes of me- though I did gaze longingly at the latest Lula.

‘S good to be home though, yeah?

Your Love Keeps Lifting Me Higher

It’s my own fault. I Googled myself. Proper Googling. And 4 pages in, I didn’t like what I found. I suppose in almost 2 years of writing part/full-time, I’ve been lucky not to get too many negative responses- unlike poor Úna. Still, it’s upsetting when an last-minute awkward awkward AWKWARD live interview you do as a favour to a friend gets slated as the most god-awful interview I’ve ever had the discomfort of watching. Fair enough, it was pretty terrible, and girl knows her shiz. I’m not one to be dwelling on blog comments, but it’s not the first time a sly dig’s been sent round my way.

S’pose I’ll have to up my game, eh? Onwards and upwards.

Ailbhe

edit:

yes, thank you.

Police and Thieves

We don’t generally whinge a lot, Katie-Lilga and me. We tend to make the best of things. Except, this time, something needs to be said.

Over the past few months, we’ve heard a lot of complaints about bullying by the security staff at the POD complex. (And, in fact, in other Dublin venues). It wasn’t until last night that we experienced it ourselves.

Let’s put things in context. We were a group of 5 girls. The youngest of us was 21, the eldest was 23. The 23 year old didn’t have ID. Fair enough, she’s 23. None of us were drunk. None of us were rowdy. It was a very wet, very cold night.

We’ve been going to Antics since it began 4 years ago. We knew the old bouncers. These guys were new. We lined up at the door, calmly and quietly. The 23 year old was told that without ID, she wouldn’t get in. Here’s where things went wrong. While it’s a perfectly acceptable policy not to allow those without ID to enter, it’s not acceptable to bully and shout at someone when they point out that they are 23, and have been coming to the club for 4 years. It’s not acceptable to tell them that they have ‘fuck all life experience and don’t know a fucking thing about the world’. One of our friends stood up for the 23 year old, saying ‘I don’t think you can talk to her that way’. She was promptly hoisted out of the club, and told that she wasn’t allowed back in. The bouncers were so rude to her, that she began to cry.

Normally, I tend to take the side of staff at a venue, especially at a club night that I’ve been going to ever since I can remember. But this is not on.

All those involved in the incident have lodged a complaint- either through writing a letter, or by phoning the venue. If you’ve had a bad experience thanks to the POD security, I advise you to do the same.

Here is the phone number of the POD complex: (01) 4763374
Here is the address: Crawdaddy, Old Harcourt St Train Station, Dublin 2.

This can’t go on, and won’t go on.

Ailbhe

If You Really Love Me

…you’ll go to this link: www.oxygen.ie/page/1325 and vote for ‘Analogue’ in the people’s choice category of the Student Media Awards. It’ll only take a moment. If you’re not a student, make up a student number. They’ll never know.

If we win, it’ll be an excuse to buy a new dress. And go to the awards ceremony. No-one would ever want to deny me that, right?

Kisses in advance,

Ailbhe