Top Fifteen Albums as of 2011*

In no particular order.....

Kate Bush - Hounds Of Love
I loved 'Running Up That Hill' the first time I heard it back in 1985, and the rest of the album is pretty darn amazing too. 'Hounds Of Love' and 'Hello Earth' are firm favourites as well.

Florence & The Machine - Lungs
I bought this following a rave review in Q Magazine, in Heathrow airport, and I'm so glad I did. Love it, love it, love it!

Afro Celt Sound System - Volume 3: Further In Time
I don't actually remember how I got into the Afro Celts, but it may have been the collaboration with Sinéad that did it. Anyway, I'm now a big fan, and will be looking forward to Iarla's new album.

Christy Moore - Live At The Point
My first Christy Moore album, and one of my all-time faves. I've never seen him live, but he's on my list!  On a good night, I'd say he'll be hard to beat.

Sarah McLachlan - Mirrorball
What a voice.... I was lucky enough to catch her live in Dublin at some stage, and she played lots of stuff I loved, and then she played 'The Silence', totally unexpected. One heck of a night in the old Point Depot!

Bell X1 - Flock
The only time I've seen these guys live so far is opening for U2 in Croke Park. Which is not a bad thing! But for ages before that I'd heard they had the reputation for being phenomenal live, and I'd well believe it. Their albums are gems.

Clannad - Legend
The music that started the whole Irish thing for me. I watched 'Robin Of Sherwood' on German telly in 1983-84. Then later on I got hooked on Enya as well (found out she was either sister or niece to all the members of Clannad). Started looking into what this Gaelic language was, because I wanted to know what they were singing about. Then I got into U2. Then I got into Irish history, more cultural stuff, and then I went there for a year as an au-pair, and well.... the rest is history....

Tina Dickow - Welcome Back Colour
I saw her for the first time quite unexpectedly, playing support to Northern-Irish singer Cara Dillon in Vicar Street in 2006, which was an awesome night. Recently I saw her in Tivoli and the gig was fantastic - concert report was posted here at the time.

Thea Gilmore - Liejacker
I got turned onto this great singer through the compilation album 'Where's Neil When You Need Him', where all the music had been inspired by stuff written by Neil Gaiman. Thea had chosen Shadow for her subject and the results were terrific. So is the rest of this album.

Lisa Hannigan - Sea Sew
Her voice is amazing, and yet some of these songs feel like she's singing them into my ear (as does Bono on 'Your Blue Room').

Linkin Park - Reanimation
I'd heard parts of 'Hybrid Theory' through my brother and I'd kinda liked it, but the video for 'Points Of Authority' tuned me into this album, which is somewhat better than 'Hybrid Theory', if you ask me. Favourite track has to be 'My December'.

Jack L - Songs From The Little Universe
Oh what an unforgettable night in the Olympia Theatre! Jack Lukeman, showman extraordinaire! And you could buy this disc of what you'd just heard, recorded in one day, the discs decorated and signed by Jack himself. Only sold at these shows, it remains a fave record of mine, and was such a nice surprise.

Madonna - Ray Of Light
She has yet to better this. Nuff said.

Sinéad O'Connor - Collaborations
A collection of all sorts of duets and collaborations done over the years - even 'Heroine' is here. As is the  track she recorded with the Afro Celts. I listen to this a good deal more than I do her own albums (although I still have a very soft spot for 'Universal Mother').

Paul Oakenfold - Bunkka
Of course, this starts with a U2 connection - the Perfecto remixes of songs like 'Even Better Than The Real Thing', 'Mysterious Ways', 'Beautiful Day' and 'Lemon' - Perfecto being comprised of Paul Oakenfold and Steve Osborne. This album is friggin' awesome.

*This is not counting any albums by U2, Tori Amos, Dave Matthews Band or Bruce Springsteen. Or affiliates. Because they'd fill up the list all by themselves pretty quickly.

And So It Begins.....

...and no, this is not an LOTR post :D

I bought my first KnitPro needle and cable (7mm, 150cm cable for the giant Evenstar I'm making, for a blanket). This will be a big motivator for working on this project too, heeheehee, which is definitely not a bad thing, because I can already see this one languishing at the bottom of the pile for a very very long time. Ahem. We shall see......

On Dublin Time

I was looking through old papers and came across this silly little story I wrote many many moons ago, presumably while I was aupairing in Dublin and trying to study Irish for the Leaving Certificate (= Gymnasium in DK). I ended up not sitting for the exam, having realised that I stood absolutely zero chance of passing. Doomed project from the beginning, taking Higher Level Irish evening classes, having only a little conversational vocabulary, crap grammar and being told that I would not be allowed bring notes/text books/dictionaries into the exam. Add to that the syllabus, which included having to know what an 'aisling' was. Doomed, I tell you. Doomed. The rest of the class must've been wondering what the hell I thought I was doing, all of them being actual students in proper school, because I didn't have the first clue, and it was obvious to anyone but me. Utterly doomed. Young and very foolish, so I was....

I did write a few essays during the course, mostly using dictionaries before I knew of their going to be banned at the exam. But the last one, for which I didn't go near a dictionary or grammar book (and which ended up being all of 1.5 pages long), and which I was immensely proud of.... the teacher never gave it back to me, so I never knew which grade it got. Darn! It would've been total crap, but still.....

Anyway, this little story would've been well within my abilities to write at the time (I've forgotten a LOT), but it has a note on it saying 'Corrected', so I think I must've gone over it afterwards. It wasn't part of the coursework and my teacher never saw it, it was something I did just for fun.


I've no illusions that this is in any way interesting to you, but it's my blog, and I can show off if I want to. So there. *goes HMMF and sticks nose in air* Behold - once upon a time, I had THIS much Irish! Besides, it made me laugh to read it again, so I figured it might do the same for someone else. IF you managed to read this far that is, and not fall asleep yet out of sheer boredom.


And if you do keep reading, I have to warn you, the story is very very silly, but also very very short which counts in its favour. It was also obviously inspired by Timm & Gordon....

Scéal Gearr

Bhí cailín ann agus bhí Máire an t-ainm di. Bhí buachaill ann fósta agus bhí Pádraig an t-ainm dó. Bhí siad ina gcónaí i nGleann Cholm Cille sa Chontae Dhún na nGall. Tá áit iontach álainn í.
Bhí sé lá breá. Thaitin an ghrian sa spéir agus chuaigh siad na leanaí timpeall na háit ar á rothar. Chonaic siad cat bhán. Bhí sé ina chodladh ar thaobh an bhealaigh. D'fhan siad leis an t-éirí an chait, ach níor mhúscail sé.
'Ní mór liom a dul abhaile anois', arsa Máire. 'Mise fósta', arsa Pádraig. Agus chuaigh siad abhaile á ndinnéar a ithe le a dteaghlach. Ar maidin ní raibh an cat ann. 'Cá bhfuil an cat?', d'iarr Máire. 'Níl a fhios agam', arsa Pádraig. Chuaigh siad timpeall an ghleann ar fad ach ni raibh an cat in áit ar bith. Bhí rud iontach rúnda, shil Máire agus Pádraig. 'Tá súil agam go dté sé an cat go dtí ár dteach anocht', arsa Máire. Ach ní dheachaigh sé. Oíche mhaith agus codladh sámh!

Short Story

There was a girl, and her name was Mary. There was also a boy and his name was Patrick. They lived in Glencolumbcille in Co. Donegal. It is a very beautiful place.
It was a nice day. The sun was shining in the sky and they were riding about the place on their bicycles. They saw a white cat. It was sleeping at the side of the road. They waited for the cat to move, but it didn't wake up.
'I have to go home now', said Mary. 'Me too', said Patrick. So they went home to have dinner with their families. In the morning the cat was no longer there. 'Where is the cat?', asked Mary. 'I don't know', said Patrick. They went all around the glen but the cat was nowhere to be found. It was a very great mystery, thought Mary and Patrick. 'I hope the cat will come to our house tonight', said Mary. But it didn't. Goodnight and sleep tight!

All Kinds Of Everything

Today I realised that it's almost a full year since I was last in Dublin. It has never been this long between visits, ever since that first trip in 1995. Wow. Small wonder I'm getting bouts of homesickness for good ole Áth Cliath then! Anyway, it'll probably be a while longer before I'll go back - the question of employment has to be settled first , but then! Oh then :)

So I was listening to that live version of 'Mercy' from Bruxelles last year, when we were there ourselves, and now I can't get that last line of the chorus out of my head: 'Because we can, we must'. Simple, and somehow enormously uplifting, I find..... It's very typical of Bono, and I mean that in the best possible sense. It might have sounded incredibly dumb coming from someone else, but not him. It certainly also resonates with me now in the context of all the fundraisers going on for hunger relief in Africa and all those other catastrophes happening over the last long while.... That line is going to rattle around my head for a while to come, I think.....

Then I went and picked up John Waters' book 'Race of Angels: Ireland and the Genesis of U2', because it's been sitting on my shelf for a few years and I haven't read it yet. I think I got it at one of those Saturday morning markets in Temple Bar Square. See how homesick I am? Anyway... the book starts out describing the aftermath of a Zoo TV show, and it struck me how little U2 concerts have actually changed for me since I started going to them - sure the settings are all different, but the magic and the sheer effort put into communicating with us, the audience - that wanting to connect - it's still the same, undiminished power. I still wish I could've seen a Zoo TV show - I would have loved to have been a fan pre-Achtung Baby, and to have experienced that whole transformation upfront, because it was so massive.

Someone said (can't remember who) that the 360 Tour had all the best elements of all tours from Zoo TV onwards, and there is some truth to that I think. Technology has been catching up to the visions in their heads - what was that story of Bono simply drawing a sketch of The Claw on a napkin and Willie just running with it? But at the end of the day, no matter where you were for this show - and there were no crap seats in the house for this one, I can tell you - the music still reigned supreme, all that other stuff was there to make sense of playing in a big space. It's going to be so much fun to see what they come up with next time!

The White Goddess

I finished reading this a few weeks ago, and boy was it ever interesting! It slots right into other stuff I'm in to - Avalon & Marion Zimmer-Bradley, and a lot of what Tori Amos has done ('American Doll Posse' and 'The  Beekeeper' spring to mind first of all). And, there's a whole new dimension in my head for U2's 'Mysterious Ways' (which features the holy spirit as a woman), which is also not a bad thing. I'm reminded of the backstory to Dan Brown's 'The Da Vinci Code' - it's the worst written book I've ever come across, but the idea behind it was spectacular.

Graves writes about the shift in belief systems aeons ago from matriarchy to patriarchy, and the consequences of that, and it makes sense in all kinds of ways. I don't believe in god, or God. I'm still a member of the church and I've been both christened and confirmed in one, and I've no plans to cancel that membership, simply for the fact that the rituals are so familiar and have other values besides religious ones for me. That's not to say I am now a Goddess-worshipper either - she just makes a whole lot more sense to me. As time goes by, I'm realising that I am far more drawn to cycles than I am to forever....

Anyway! The White Goddess. I'll have to read it a few more times to fully get a grip, because there sure is a LOT of information and names and stories to keep track of, but I am very happy that I finally did read it. Next up is Ulysses..... (she says with a far too optimistic grin).