Category: General

Went along last night to catch David O’Doherty’s warm up show for the Edinburgh Festival last night. He had posted on a forum I frequent and asked people to go along as he wanted to test out material. I had only seen him once beforehand in the International when he was on stage with Tommy Tiernan and Dave McSavage. I met up with a few of the people from the forum, who I suppose should get a mention to make them famous, namely Wikki, Chirri, Kinky and Cali….oh and Brian. 🙂 The show itself was on from 6 to 7 and was superb. Dave has this really endearing way of presenting his material and the jokes are all the better for it. He does some songs on his keyboard between jokes and we were in stitches the whole time. 😆 One of them, “FAQ for the DOD”, gives his answers for commonly asked questions by journalists. 🙂 I have some photos from the night but I need to tidy them up before posting them. Planning on going to “Stand Up Against Racism” which is on in Vicar Street tomorrow night. There’s a quality lineup including Tommy Tiernan, the aforementioned David O’Doherty, Reuben, Maeve Higgins and Barry Murphy.

Wow, it seems I’m behind on posting entries as this one is about the Oxegen festival which took place on the 9th and 10th. 😳 I had a reason for delaying it though, I wanted to include some of the photos I got. They were taken on a disposable camera though so the quality isn’t great.

So….on to the main thrust of the post, Oxegen 2005. For those not in the know, Oxegen is one of the biggest music festivals in the country with an estimated 60,000 people attending it over the two days. I had been before, when it was called Witnness, in 2003 and saw Coldplay, Damien Rice and a host of other acts. However, I always felt that I was missing out by not camping so, this year myself and Dave decided to go the whole hog. Little did I know just how much I was missing out on.

My Oxegen Photos (16 of them)
All Oxegen photos posted to Flickr!

There’s more news this afternoon from London following yesterdays attempted bombings. Apparently a suicide bomber was shot as he ran from police. An eyewitness said three police fell on top of him and unloaded 5 shots into him. The reports are still pretty sketchy but the picture should become clearer as the day goes on. I can’t believe that Blair is still giving the “if it wasn’t Iraq, it would be something else” excuse. That’s like sticking your head in the sand. 🙄 The situation is more complicated than just the invasion of Iraq but governments need to look at why so many young muslims are falling into the trap of extremism.

Update 1: It now looks like the man who was shot had no links to the terrorist attacks. My thoughts are with his family and the officers who made the decision to shoot him. It can’t have been an easy one. These are dangerous times.

Update 2: Great article by John Pilger over at AntiWar.com. Basically sums up exactly what I feel about the current situation. I saw Blair’s press conference yesterday and it’s phenomenol how a man can be so out of touch with the reality of a situation. He kept insisting that there was no justification for suicide bombers. He’s right that there isn’t but you need to understand that these suicide bombers are not robots. They are people with views, yes evil has inhabited their thinking but that happens as a consequence of the West’s hypocrisy in the region.

Wow, what a holiday in Prague. It feels weird writing about this after three weeks have passed but I noted down a few things as soon as I got back so I’d be prepared when it came to writing this up. For those who didn’t know, I was heading to Prague and then Dolni-Studenky for my mate Pavel’s birthday. We flew out on a gorgeous Wednesday morning from Dublin at 7.15am which meant I had to be up for roundsabouts 4.15 although I never really mind things like that when I’m going on holiday. 🙂 This entry is massive so I’ve included a little summary for those who don’t want to read it all. There’s pictures in the extended entry.

Wednesday: Got the plane out, met Pavel’s friend, Jurka, whose apartment we would be staying in, had a few beers (tastes much better than the muck they serve here), rambled around the Old Town and saw a few sights, ended up at an Irish bar by accident, went for beers in a big outdoor venue.

Thursday: spent 9 hours walking around and taking photos, toured the gorgeous castle, drank cans on the street.

Friday: met Ciaran after he got lost, toured around the city, played tennis on the outskirts of prague, ate cheese in a mad bar, went to the akropolis and drank and danced till 4.

Saturday: headed down to Pavel’s home town, met the family and ate some roasted pig, did shots, played a game of football in a mudbath, DJed for a couple of hours

Sunday: watched firemen racing against the clock, took the train back to prague, didn’t feel great

Monday: went to see the museums, walked around prague’s north bank, shopped, retired to bed.

Tuesday: spent the day in bed and then took our flight back.

Full list of photos on Flickr!