I Heart Jolie Holland

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Now Thats What I Call Planxty Snow Leopard

More busy eleven o clock overtime. Below is a pictorial communication of my eye movements over the past few weeks. It's a messed up world when the culmination of weeks of effort. painful cross cultural collaboration, endless multinational telecons and lots of shit take out food is .......two blue men with swords knocking spots off each other in an MMO game. Whatever pays the bills.

Lovely book

Interesting to read about Prosperous in a flattering way

Beautiful hardback edition of an unedited version of an old favourite

And I've been given a spotify account with which I spent the weekend making playlists based on this. It will change your life.

Now That's What I Call Music (Burn To Shine)

Hits 5 (Q and Not U)

Thurston Jazzmaster

Oh Dear. When's my next 30th birthday?





Oh Fuckit. Nevermind......

Shake It Like A Polaroid Picture

We've been having fun with an application which turns high res digital photos into oversaturated, randomly cropped, grainy old polaroids. For anyone whose family photos consist of half torn or folded polaroids covered in crayon or marker or lipstick from being stored in your mother's handbag for decades - you'll enjoy these.

Photo by M. D is going through a hat phase. M is half way through a painting the fence phase.

Lough Ennell - the retro rigout on D makes this even more authentic looking.

Dot Doc

So enough lazy posting of lovely gig posters (although I reserve the right to post in a lazy and uninspired way at any time in the future). It's time to pull up my socks as a daddy and document dammit.

D Painting #1 (finger and paint on A3 paper)

For a long time there we had to feed D with two spoons. Even though she didn't quite have the dexterity (or a big enough mouth) to feed herself, she insisted on holding her own spoon in her clenched fist as one of us would feed her with the other spoon. One spoon only, driven by Mammy or Daddy, and no food would pass her lips. She is now feeding herself, out of the side of her mouth, from above, sometimes even facing away from the spoon, so even though her mouth hasn't gotten much bigger, her aim has improved and she's up to about 25% of the food arriving safely in her mouth. Those are organic Rice Krispies by the way.

Mammy and the kids at Rosses Point

Miss Post & Telegraphs, Sligo 1973

Those are her second pair of shoes. She cashed in while she was on holidays. That dress is new aswell come to think of it. We also said we'd get her a nice "do" to go with her new dress and shoes. So we sauntered into a Sligo barber and got some mixed results.

Before

After

Noooooh little Snowbear....

All together now! "Hey Mr Tambourine Man......"

There's a toy shop on Quay Street in Galway where D buys herself one of these wooden birds every time we're down there. It's run by a German woman and her daughter and for such an amazing little toy shop jam packed with beautiful, hand picked, hand crafted kiddies toys, there's minimal emotion on display at the cash register. They do all kinds of animals but we particularly like the ones with beaks. All the better if we don't know what the name of the bird is. We also have a bear somewhere and a giraffe who has also gone missing. Get D to do her giraffe impression next time you see her. It's quality. So these birds live on top of the mirror in the bathroom where D gets changed. She salutes them on entering now with a Hiyiz! and on leaving with a wave and a b'bye!

In the spirit of documented randomness here's a montage of some photos from our honeymoon in Italia which I tastefully placed on a bedspread and photographed when I got the prints.


And finally this is her favourite piece of televisual entertainment at the moment.

You Wouldn't Throw It On Nettles

Just back from a lovely Sligo babymoon. This one featured a pot head in the bed beside us every night singing songs and even dancing in the dark into the wee hours, blackouts on the massage table, sunsets over Rosses Point with the Snow Leopard's stools, D's first swim (and her second pair of shoes), visiting Queen Maebh's grave, borrowed t-cloths for bibs, multiple bumps on an auto phobic Yaris beaten repeatedly by the same stationary obstacle, the tireless search for pencil lead, D unlearning physics with the wonky ball, Elfie's estate, blue murder over spilt Cidona, Sunbear as daddys, Sideways O's, magic cream samples, spuds and croissants for breakfast and introducing Leopard Cohen. The highlight was definitely bumping into Mary Mcaleese and her entourage at a motorway coffee place outside Carrick on Shannon. I don't think she was canvassing - I think she was just thirsty. The place was full of bajillions of dislocated taigs from all over northern Ireland escaping the 12th of July Orange marches. I'll post some pictures later. In the meantime..... dropped D.

A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Fridge

Insomnia, stubbed toes, tri-not-to-breathe-pod, bright until 11 o'clock, cheap curtains, 30 second exposure, straight to bed.

We think it's a boy based on salt and size and old wive's tails and the color of our eyes. Hard to believe that next month we'll be four. All is well except for the planning of the post launch marketing campaign. We've yet to decide on a brand name be it boy or girl. Gulliver has been nixed (Gully means manhole in German). Rolo is the name of a relative's dog. Buzby is so last year. Someone else said we'll have to choose an Irish name as we already have a D. I don't get that reasoning but maybe the two names do need to compliment each other. Darren it is then.

Sokol Underground

Some lovely Arcade Fire gig posters. Superchunk and Arcade Fire under the one roof.

Best Before See Side Of Lid

The honeypot on Autumn's windowsill. A swarm of wasps gorging themselves on the inside of a used up discarded jamjar, then realisng that they can’t escape the sticky sides of the jar because their wings are drenched in sugary red syrup. Hind legs, middle legs, forelegs slipping serially on the upright surface. Black and yellow covered in red. Their antenae wilting under the syrupy weight. By the end of the day they had licked with their wasp tongues the inside clean and lay ontop of each other, drunk as fourteen porters, beyond self control, limbs and wings in crazed but unproductive motion like blinded serpents, powered by the biggest sugar rush in the history of Yellowjackets. Nature is greedy. I eventually got bored enough to bin the jar - a microcosm of insanity hermetically sealed and hidden in otherwise unremarkable domestic waste. Probably still writhing to no end, those that weren’t dead. I wonder do they sting each other, out of competition or even by accident.. I wonder does it hurt when you're high on Bonne Maman Jam? There's something distressing about lifeless living or dead things piled one ontop of the other.

A God Named Jarlath (Aesop's Ocean Race)

What a wet month May was turning out to be

D decides to pull some strings to summon the sunny weather.....


God gets a text message from D : "pls fix de wthr kthxbye!"

God happened to be sitting at his weather machine taking requests at the very moment the text arrived.

God made it so. And before you know it.....

The Green Dragon is overheating in the Galway sun

Shadows plan sailing holidays without Cliff Richard.....

...and D is delighted. That's more like it. Hurrah for May!

But the days continue to get very very hot. It was like God had turned on the immersion before he went on holidays and forgotten to stick it on timer.....

D learns to be careful what you wish for.

I'm not coming out until it cools down a bit

OK - but only for pancakes

It keeps getting hotter....

Buzby fades, tropical animals appear, drawn by the heat

Everyone is perplexed by the symbolism

God switches off his phone