Britain, Britain, Britain...
Yesterday was the 18th of October. "Duuh!", right? Well, not so much, actually, because exactly one year ago, 18 October 2004, I took the plane from Gothenburg City Airport to Stansted and officially moved to England. Nottingham. So there! Survived here a whole year. Somebody give me a medal? Nah, it hasn't been that bad. Britain's nice.
We went to a place called Amore's in Beeston, an Italian restaurant, to celebrate. I got flowers. I like flowers. :) (Before going to bed, I put them on the cluttered kitchen table so that Daisy wouldn't find chewing on them a good idea... you never know... that cat even chews on plastic gift-wrapping string if it's green, all in the belief it's grass!) We've had the restaurant recommended to us, but it wasn't at all impressive, I'm afraid. I mean, how on earth can you manage to make a pizza taste bland?! With the amount of stuff in mine, it should be insanely flavourful, but it wasn't. Terribly disappointed. At least it was well-cooked and looked nice (which I can't say a similar style pizza I had at Frankie & Benny's time before last was - it was pretty much raw inside, but I do believe it still had more flavour).
This isn't the first time I've thought of putting up little restaurant reviews on my website. I really should do that. For the hell of it. My website is loaded with stuff ordinary people never have on their personal sites, so... maybe something I could do tomorrow, when I have the day off (working Saturday). Sadly, though, I also have the Teacher's Handbook for SH to continue with, as well as finishing writing the Ethereal Crystals manual. Not to mention that ConX stuff for my character. So many things to write, so little energy to do so.
I had a dream this morning. I was in Dublin. Can't remember much about it, but I went into a big building where they sold stuff, like beds and furniture (like IKEA), but also other things. They even had a pizza counter. Then I woke up. I enjoyed the energy of Dublin. It was alive, fresh and young. What I didn't like so much was the lack of Irish people. Every place we went to, there were people who didn't have English as first language (or Gaelic, for that matter), and when we went into a pub to have some traditional Irish stew for lunch, were the people we were sitting next to Irish? Feck no! They were, judging by the accent, from Stockholm.
Recently, I've thought of Luke Kelly's poem "For What Died The Sons Of Róisín" (one of my favourite poems) as a bit of a protest against the EU, but to be honest, now I rather see it as a protest of how Dublin has become now. Ireland is prosperous today, but it's gone overboard. Did the freedom fighters die in order to make Dublin a big tourist-trap? (If you've been there, you can't have NOT noticed how touristy the place is!) I think not.
I read a little travel report from a travel show on Swedish TV. It was written in 2001. It lists the entrance fee for the Guinness Brewery (Storehouse, rather) as 2 Irish pounds. An Irish pound at the time was roughly the same as 2 Euro or something like that, or if it was like £1 (GBP). The entrance fee in September 2005 is the rather more hair-raising €14. They can only get away with it because they are who they are. I mean, even we went "well, it's Guinness, we HAVE to go there!". I really don't think that's what Connolly, Pearse, Plunkett, Heuston, MacDonagh, Clarke, MacDermott and the rest gave their lives.
Rant over, time to go home.
Reference:
"For What Died The Sons of Róisín" by Luke Kelly
For What Died the Sons of Róisín, was it fame?
For What Died the Sons of Róisín, was it fame?
For what flowed Irelands blood in rivers,
That began when Brian chased the Dane,
And did not cease nor has not ceased,
With the brave sons of ´16,
For what died the sons of Róisín, was it fame?
For What Died the Sons of Róisín, was it greed?
For What Died the Sons of Róisín, was it greed?
Was it greed that drove Wolfe Tone to a paupers death in a cell of cold wet stone?
Will German, French or Dutch inscribe the epitaph of Emmet?
When we have sold enough of Ireland to be but strangers in it.
For What Died the Sons of Róisín, was it greed?
To whom do we owe our allegiance today?
To whom do we owe our allegiance today?
To those brave men who fought and died that Róisín live again with pride?
Her sons at home to work and sing,
Her youth to dance and make her valleys ring,
Or the faceless men who for Mark and Dollar,
Betray her to the highest bidder,
To whom do we owe our allegiance today?
For what suffer our patriots today?
For what suffer our patriots today?
They have a language problem, so they say,
How to write "No Trespass" must grieve their heart full sore,
We got rid of one strange language now we are faced with many, many more,
For what suffer our patriots today?
We went to a place called Amore's in Beeston, an Italian restaurant, to celebrate. I got flowers. I like flowers. :) (Before going to bed, I put them on the cluttered kitchen table so that Daisy wouldn't find chewing on them a good idea... you never know... that cat even chews on plastic gift-wrapping string if it's green, all in the belief it's grass!) We've had the restaurant recommended to us, but it wasn't at all impressive, I'm afraid. I mean, how on earth can you manage to make a pizza taste bland?! With the amount of stuff in mine, it should be insanely flavourful, but it wasn't. Terribly disappointed. At least it was well-cooked and looked nice (which I can't say a similar style pizza I had at Frankie & Benny's time before last was - it was pretty much raw inside, but I do believe it still had more flavour).
This isn't the first time I've thought of putting up little restaurant reviews on my website. I really should do that. For the hell of it. My website is loaded with stuff ordinary people never have on their personal sites, so... maybe something I could do tomorrow, when I have the day off (working Saturday). Sadly, though, I also have the Teacher's Handbook for SH to continue with, as well as finishing writing the Ethereal Crystals manual. Not to mention that ConX stuff for my character. So many things to write, so little energy to do so.
I had a dream this morning. I was in Dublin. Can't remember much about it, but I went into a big building where they sold stuff, like beds and furniture (like IKEA), but also other things. They even had a pizza counter. Then I woke up. I enjoyed the energy of Dublin. It was alive, fresh and young. What I didn't like so much was the lack of Irish people. Every place we went to, there were people who didn't have English as first language (or Gaelic, for that matter), and when we went into a pub to have some traditional Irish stew for lunch, were the people we were sitting next to Irish? Feck no! They were, judging by the accent, from Stockholm.
Recently, I've thought of Luke Kelly's poem "For What Died The Sons Of Róisín" (one of my favourite poems) as a bit of a protest against the EU, but to be honest, now I rather see it as a protest of how Dublin has become now. Ireland is prosperous today, but it's gone overboard. Did the freedom fighters die in order to make Dublin a big tourist-trap? (If you've been there, you can't have NOT noticed how touristy the place is!) I think not.
I read a little travel report from a travel show on Swedish TV. It was written in 2001. It lists the entrance fee for the Guinness Brewery (Storehouse, rather) as 2 Irish pounds. An Irish pound at the time was roughly the same as 2 Euro or something like that, or if it was like £1 (GBP). The entrance fee in September 2005 is the rather more hair-raising €14. They can only get away with it because they are who they are. I mean, even we went "well, it's Guinness, we HAVE to go there!". I really don't think that's what Connolly, Pearse, Plunkett, Heuston, MacDonagh, Clarke, MacDermott and the rest gave their lives.
Rant over, time to go home.
Reference:
"For What Died The Sons of Róisín" by Luke Kelly
For What Died the Sons of Róisín, was it fame?
For What Died the Sons of Róisín, was it fame?
For what flowed Irelands blood in rivers,
That began when Brian chased the Dane,
And did not cease nor has not ceased,
With the brave sons of ´16,
For what died the sons of Róisín, was it fame?
For What Died the Sons of Róisín, was it greed?
For What Died the Sons of Róisín, was it greed?
Was it greed that drove Wolfe Tone to a paupers death in a cell of cold wet stone?
Will German, French or Dutch inscribe the epitaph of Emmet?
When we have sold enough of Ireland to be but strangers in it.
For What Died the Sons of Róisín, was it greed?
To whom do we owe our allegiance today?
To whom do we owe our allegiance today?
To those brave men who fought and died that Róisín live again with pride?
Her sons at home to work and sing,
Her youth to dance and make her valleys ring,
Or the faceless men who for Mark and Dollar,
Betray her to the highest bidder,
To whom do we owe our allegiance today?
For what suffer our patriots today?
For what suffer our patriots today?
They have a language problem, so they say,
How to write "No Trespass" must grieve their heart full sore,
We got rid of one strange language now we are faced with many, many more,
For what suffer our patriots today?
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