The Dubliner Magazine

Slippery Slope

Search and rescue in the Wicklow tundra

It's 5 degrees and sunny outside, a welcome change from the subzero tempest we've been living in for the past while. And even those two dopes up in the Wicklow mountains have been finally located, after what was probably a pretty horrible evening up on the slopes.

So we can all breathe easy, safe in the knowledge that it only took four helicopters (including the Garda and Coast Guard choppers), 50 members of the Army Rescue Wing and a Welsh search team to find two eejits who basically just wanted to have a giggle sliding down a Wicklow hummock on a snowboard.

The inevitable question in these hard times: how much did it cost?

Culture agus Craic

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editor@thedubliner.ie

My Dublin: Guggi

Outdoors
When we were kids, our dad often took us to Dollymount Strand, Donabate, the Botanic Gardens and Fairview. I still have a lot of affection for these places and for those memories.

Restaurants
I love Town Bar & Grill – just walking in there feels like a special night out. The wine tastes more expensive than it costs. That suits me very well.

Food
I don’t cook very much. And when I do, the problem is I just can’t get my wife or kids to eat it. I must admit, I find it rather hard to get it down myself.

Popping the Cork

Problems down in the real capital

God bless you O'Gara and co, you've managed to put something on the airwaves that doesn't involve endless bad news or depressing omphaloskepsis.

But while the nation rejoices over the defeat of the Frenchies, spare a thought for our friends to the south whose hopes, dreams and God knows what else have been destroyed by their striking hurlers*, with a loss to the bleedin' jackeens of all people.

The public mood in Cork has been so affected that 10,000 of the langoliers took to the streets in support of the team. Last time so many Corkonians congregated on Pana, Georgie Bush was planning to drop a few bombs on Baghdad.

But there might be a light at the end of the tunnel, if Setanta O'hAilpin keeps up his messing and is forced to return to the old sod.

*For those of our readers from overseas, or unfamiliar with our native past-times, hurling is sort of like a mixture of field hockey and getting mugged. A game of superlatives, it's Ireland's oldest sport, the fastest field sport in the world and the most popular hobby in Kilkenny since the banning of incest. It's a venerable game in which players line out with clubs and riot gear and you get one point for hitting the ball over the bar, three points for getting a goal and five points for concussing a member of the Artane Boys Band.

FURTHER UPDATE! Joe Cosgrave, Ireland's next big literary sensation (here) has set his blog to private, after the exposure from The Irish Times and My Little Piebald.

A Kid Off His Chops

It's 3pm, do you know where your dentist is?

Proving once again that the internet is the best thing since sliced spam. I'm off to get a dental check up post-haste. Is this real life? I hope not.

Baled Out of It

Batman goes off half-cocked 

The greatest thing recorded on audiotape since Twink threatened her husband: professional yoyo dieter Christian Bale goes flipmode at a director of photography.

Ah, Hollywood, you theatre of dreams.