Luncheon Roll

…and next Monday to roll up just so I know I actually get there okay.
There’s been too much head-in-hands, cringing glumness already and no doubt there’s more to follow.

Sometimes nothing goes to plan, it’s out of your hands and you’d best deal. I tried to do that on Saturday, when my daughter went off with a friend without telling anyone where she was and we spent four hours searching from her, getting more and more panicked. When dinner was ready at five I went looking for her, to no avail. Toni arrived at 6 to get ready with me and a bottle of champagne in the fridge saved for a special occasion was popped. It got flat fast when the minutes ticked by and there was still no sign of Saoir. By 9pm, droves of people were knocking on doors ’round our way, driving the streets, enquiring after a little blonde girl. Not icy water down the spine, nor creeping nausea in your gut or spiders in your brain can describe the sickening feeling of all the stories in the news haunting not knowing where she was in the darkness outside. We eventually found her; she’d lied to her friend’s parents that she’d asked my permission to play. I couldn’t even feel angry because I was just so relieved she was okay!
Everything was ready for the kids to go to Mum’s and in between all the worry I’d polished off the champers and broken into the Smirnoff. She whisked the chisellers away and left me to let my frazzled hair down. Trying to make a judgement call, I envisioned the Alexander Hotel full of calm-faced, wine-sipping literaries who would undoubtably refuse entrance three hours late to this gold and houndstooth, half-cut rapscallion with delusions of rugby-player tolerance. I wish I didn’t make judgement calls. My judgement sucks.
Instead of going to It’s A Buffalo or LaRocca we went to Whelans. The only reason being that in my befuddled state I thought Chequerboard was launching Penny Black.
No. Some feckin ska band and loads of Ben Sherman. And a total letch who stood gawping everywhere I turned.
The night descended into a pitiful mess. I got seperated from Toni and wanted a Roma but ended up going homa on my owna.
(Puns are all I have right now)

*groans*groans*groans*

All I really wanted was to be shooting spit pellets at Tim, RP and Aoife Indie, catching up with Lili and grilling Una on her choice in jeans (they were purple and looked like fun up there on that table) and oh, the buzz of anticipation as the winners were announced. I wanted to bite my nails,  jump out of my chair and run screaming congratulations to Nialler9 when I didn’t win and challenge the PopCulture Vultures to a Shakin’ Stevens dance-off.
And at least then if we all ended up talking shite it’d be bloggy shite, as useful as Rosicrucianism in the real world but gospel to believers. Start off Sunday with some wi-fi worship.
Reading everyone’s posts about the night…it’s actually kinda hard and I feel so shallow getting miserable about what is basically another party, of which there’ll be a dozen more along the way. I’m so glad everyone had a good time, the smiles and dodgy props in all the pics just prove bloggers do it better!

But you know, I’m quite hard on me. I scold me when I write about my feelings but…I guess sometimes there’s room for leeway if it’ll make you feel better. The whole week was very overwhelming: Choice was amazing and so much fun, am really happy with my pictures and won a fortune on SEBP (which was drank!)…then Childline was a bit stranger, the Academy is an odd venue I’ve never felt at ease in…(reminds me of dodgy taste in music a few years ago). On Friday I was hoarse and jaded from working all day, meant to go to a friend’s leaving party and later to The Kinetiks but was gripped by a writing idea at 6pm and stayed up burning midnight oil, inspired by a feeling of validity as everything at work and home balanced, the planets of Nay aligned. Feel so lucky and privileged to be here, making a decent fist of things, all just because of a whim one morning, marching into FAS and proclaiming
“I wanna change my life!”
(”Next hatch, luv”)
resulted in actually learning wtf this black box covered in glass and buttons does. And then being nominated for it? Mega..

Ohhh.  I need a moan and a bath and a Lindt chocolate egg. I have the egg, a shower will do and thanks to you, I got my moan.
Promise that’s the last one.

Shite. I forgot to book a room for my pimple at the Alexander Hotel tomorrow night.

I realised a teenage dream today. I shook Keith Duffy’s hand.

Get back, you naysayers! Shane Lynch is next…ain’t arsed about the rest :p

Ok, I just realised that Keith Duffy is polar opposite to Frank Black. The sentiment stays. The two were prominent in completely different hormonal eras. Completely different.

…But I’ve made up my mind. There will be no communions in our house.

Preparation for the big day began after the Christmas holidays when Saoir brought a note home from school about baptismal certificates. Although she was christened at ten weeks, Ethan never was. Even then, it only happened to make Granda happy and to shut my best mate up about godparenting. Yes, I was that naive. By the time Ethan came along I’d wised up considerably.

I make no bones about religion in my house. There are no sins, prayers, saints or crucifixes. We only attend mass to honour passing of a loved one. We chat about different cultures and religions. Show my kids a star and they’ll tell you if it’s Jewish or Pagan but they never ask about God. So how the hell can I justify sending her off for her first penance on Saturday?
We are a young, modern Irish family. I take pride in my singledom and two fabulous, astute, balanced and well-behaved children. Halloween is more exciting than Easter. Outmoded demands of the Catholic Church have no place in our way of life and yet! We are not heathens or destitute, sheep nor wolves.

You have to see it from Saoir’s viewpoint though; a special day of mammoth proportions, glammed up to the nines and dandled by neighbours and relatives and schoolfriends, emerging from the chrysalis of childhood hierarchy in a way, having passed a money-logged milestone in tacky white heels.
Well I’m sorry if I ostracise her from her friends, I really am. I’ll buy her a €20 pic’n'mix, take her abseiling in a posh frock and hold a tea-party for all her friends in a bloody yacht if I have to but she will not march down that aisle dressed as a child-bride of Christ, aware she’s commited grevious sins but confounded if she knows what they are.

Oooh, she screamed! I got several pillows and a plush Nintendog in the head. Not so balanced after all!
Her ire deepened when I reasoned that religion was a life-long commitment and she could easily make her communion as a liberated adult. Not the right thing to say. Eighteen, eighty…there is no relativity in child-time.

Ick. I can’t allow this. I feel it’s wrong to the core, that the sooner Catholicism’s place in the curriculum is abandoned, the better. But am I being too harsh, foisting my ideals upon her? She really wants this but for the completely wrong reason. To me, it seems that the Church’s policy on communion in first class is to get em young, when they’re still dazzled by strangers with lollipops or priests with shiny rosaries. What’s a mum to do?

Well, I ain’t a great one for organisation but this weekend tackled some photo files. The end result is a tidy new desktop for me and a whole new Flickr account exclusively centred on Irish music. The pictures are collected from the last eighteen months right up to recently.

You can see a slideshow until I tidy up the account details.  Or have a look at my older account for older live music and photoshoot albums.

“I’ve been playing with cameras since I was about 6 or 7, my dada used to bring VHS cameras back from work when they first came out. He once told me to tidy my room so I lifted his camera and came back two days later with an animation of all my toys getting up and walking across the room, climbing into their boxes.”
Slaine Browne.

Dan Dennison got a Pentax when he was tiny and Lili Forberg’s mum drove her to photograph Guns’n'Roses in Berlin when she was twelve. Doesn’t everyone have an anecdote on how they fell in love with their craft?
I don’t really have anything as exciting as these stories: I got my first camera, a snazzy pink and green point-and-shoot  from Woolworths’ when I was nine  and used it to snap everything from the view of out the window of our flats to my killer-rabbit in his hutch, our friends and the secret dens we made in gardens, sheds and underground garages.
I always liked taking photos as my mum never really had a camera around much and there are very, very few pictures of us as kids. None of us as babies. I definitely overcompensated for that when I had my own children!
So although I always had a point and shoot since that first cam and spent a fortune devolping film, I never had an SLR until I started college to study photojournalism in 2005. My first was a truly awful Minolta which was used once and then sat in its box until a friend needed it. I started HP workexp as part of college and they lent me their Nikon D70 and I love that little machine so much; it’s the perfect beginners’ camera.
Since then there was a digital Kodak Pro 14n before I got my Nikon D200 and manual film cams, a vintage Canon AE-1 and my pride and joy, a Korroll ‘S’ my grandad gave to me shortly before he died last year, a truly beautiful thing I am too scared to use. That’s my newest resolution: I will start using it soon.

Anyway, a typical photo (complete with typical dirty window): jade fishes on a thong from the Chinese New Year celebrations at Smithfield last weekend.

Shamelessly nicked from Una. Wouldn’t normally do these quizzes but you can always trust the Beeb to give it straight.

I’m a Mentor.

• Warm and lively people who focus on the needs of others
• Bring people together and encourage group participation
• Think of themselves as intelligent, outgoing and sensitive
• May become overbearing in their quest for harmony

Take The Quiz!

…Isn’t the worst. I find it very inspiring that even East Wall can look beautiful in the sun.

Though the photo’s too dark to see through the shed window, there’s a red lifejacket  in the corner.

(more…)

Cue Pics is crap. This is why my tech-savvy potential has not been realised. A good idea strikes, you catch it and run for home, giving it your all to get that creative ball into the goal and crappy software fouls you in the last stretch. Bah!

WHAT a weekend it has been!
On Friday, I continued from Road Recs to take photos at The Merrion Hotel for Stuart Clarke’s interview with American author Richard North-Patterson, timing it especially early; my new-old book started getting interesting in the bank queue and there’s nothing like hotel-lounge quiet for a literary sesh.
He was a nice man, very friendly. The Merrion people didn’t want us to take photos inside so I just sat in on the interview and enjoyed a comfortable swank amid silver-service coffee and dinky biscuits I longed to wrap in a napkin and bring home to the kids. Except the napkins were linen and HP ain’t insured against klepto peegees…I fogot to pay before I left so that’s equally awful :p

(more…)

Sinead Gleeson’s running an interesting post at the moment.

What childhood memories do you have regarding pressure to mature and loss of innocence? The Eighties seem very tame in comparison to today.

She-Ra taught me short skirts make for better butt-kicking…

It’s been up in the air.

It’s Chinese New Year, too.

(more…)

“Ohh, look at that Ethan. It’s 6pm and Saoir’s not home.”
The wistful look on his face told me he’d already realised this. “I know. It’s dark.”
His friends went in for tea at five and he’d been mooching around the house on his own since.
“She knows she’s meant to come in before it gets dark and stays out every time. Dinner gets cold and I end up taking Simpsons away. Why does she do it?”

“I dunno. Maybe she’s just having so much fun with Sophie she doesn’t even think of time.”

a) He’s a genius.
b) I’m getting really old.

There is so much to do at the moment. The kids are at a fractious stage of curious chattiness which does not compute with Mammy’s frazzled state at 3:15 and Armageddon via email.
Cannot believe that Irish evening television was better twenty years ago. I am referring to Murphy’s Australia, RTE2 at 8pm on Wednesdays. Riveting stuff. Bet all the gearheads and boobies had the Mrs Doyles scandalised back in the day.
I shouldn’t have been watching telly at all but was caught between rooting for Fionnuala on Project Catwalk (poor girl but that dress had to go!) and deciding for myself whether Helen Mirren’s any cop with a corgi.

Activity’s cranked to da max. Normally pics can be dropped in at the end of the week for proofs on Monday but everything’s on fast-foward as HP’s had an early Spring-clean and everyone’s more efficient than I!   Jobs were plentiful this week an four of seven photo-batches were done at 5pm this evening. Deadline determination kicked in, along with a bawling, bleeding Ethan through my bedroom door, minus a tooth. Saoir got fed up of waiting for his wobbler to fall out and took matters into her own hands in the form of a soapy facecloth.
Tears turned to My First Tooth euphoria…bless…how can anyone tell an excited wee nipper that’s deadly, fabulous, now go downstairs and let me work? My jaw was like a vice as I realised bought messages with Laser and had no cash for Fairy-Tax, which meant shops and lost times and streesss…
In the end everything was grand. Money could wait. Saoirse got some tissue for his new gap, he got a glass of milk and a kiss and I got lucky with a fiver in my jeans sorting out the washing. Result.
With We Should Be Dead, Ham Sandwich and Amy Macdonald all safely farmed out, I called time. Heaven knows how but HP existed without me almost 30 years, two batches of pics can go in the morning. Damn, it’s already morning.

I’ve a deadly tingly feeling that’s completely new. A story I’m dyyyying to break, not about to change the world or save a life but a real nugget nonetheless. I’ve been asked to hold my breath for now but can’t help feeling a little giddy. S’all new to me, this photojournoblog malarkey and by Jove, I’ll enjoy the shine before it wears off.

LoveMyFlash is a nifty little site for free flash MySpace layouts created by professional designers I found through HubPages. The clean designs and accessibility are a breath of fresh air compared to dull and tacky pimpmyprofile et al, whose generators never work and usually require swatches of code to snip out to remove the icky banners. Although the flash layouts on this site are more original and attractive, they may cause delays to visitors with a weak internet connection. Increasing the kudos, the site also features layouts for personal or musical pages, a sweet option, I changed my MySpace the other night with a cool LMF layout and it was the fastest and most painless profile transformation I’ve had in eight years of tweaking. The major flaw I found was my last.fm widget is not supported, which was a bit of a bummer but there may be a way around that with some digging.

My HP blog OffHerRocker’s been revealed as a heavyweight in the blog-stakes and it ain’t as good as it sounds! Eoghan at Cluas posted a obesity-chart-of-doom and I weighed in as a worst-culprit, no doubt thanks to the high number of photos. I *do* try to save as optimised for web but sometimes the quality of pics can be dreadful as a result so…guilty as charged but I kinda think he’s overreacting  a tadge. The 7% of Irish visitors visting Cluas on a dial-up connection should be dragged kicking and screaming into the 21C rather than Nay kicking and screaming into resaving my entire photo gallery. But I would say that!
Don’t mind my moaning because  my reason for mentioning this was the rambling route of looking for an angry fat woman video on YouTube brought me here. I’m not sure how “youtube lady angry screaming mad woman america” threw up “recovered epistles homeless urban nomad” but ya gotta love the random factor.

Ahm. I may have been a bit previous in ranting about identity theft and the gas bill. There was a perfectly good explanation in the end and yes, it was glaring mistake on my part. It really is worth closing your accounts when you move house.

:p

Damn, it’s morning!

Really must be more upbeat if that glaring ‘whingeing’ category is to calm itself down….

That last post was a bit of a silly aside, really. It’s daylight now, I’m warm and I still mind. Where the hell do you start unravelling something like this? Go to the Guards, naturally…I don’t have time or money for such bullshit. So much talking, so many telephone calls, no hearing aid.

I’m going to have a shower while I still can.

Some utter fucker has opened a gas bill and run up €618 in my name.

I wouldn’t mind but I’m fucking freezing.

0 injuries.
Arrested only once.
Both children top of class in school.
Utter Gonzo-shoot with Alabama 3.
Stage-crashed gigs: 4.
Managed five-portions-a-day occasionally.
Camerawork drew closer to a sixth sense, improvement from 2006’s intimidating lump of Nikon.
The National - seventh wonder of my world.
Smoked and drank less. Worst indulgence was eight pints and cocktail optics with a bottle of Jack.
For superstitious types, 2007 crunches down to 9 in Numerology. Which is also my name and birthdate value. I figured there’d be no harm in putting a little welly into kickstarting some auspicious potential…as I see it, I got a job. In September, the 9th month
Close the year with dignity and 10 digits intacta.

Everyone’s been doing lists. I hate them. All the cool things that happened throughout the year come flooding back and I get caught up in rose-tinted retrospect and the resulting list sounds so smug it’s destined for the bin.
This has been a good year, full of friends, family and fortune, all larger than life. I met a wonderful guy in January, my grandfather died in February, two days before my first cover for HotPress was published. He was a huge support and would have loved to see it. Where constant figures are concerned, Granda was the epitome of perfect Irish patriarch. He was a vegetarian, for a start, a staunch Catholic, twinkly-eyed and stubborn to the bone. Profoundly deaf from an accident in Sheffield coalmines, he taught me to cope with deafness in a pragmatic manner…he was never afraid to ask someone to repeat themselves. It’s been hard to know if I’ve grieved for him as I don’t think of him too much but when I do, such happy memories abound it would hurt more to ignore them. Life without him has been the biggest challenge of the year.

Kids came such a close second though. How these sunny imps put up with a moody, scatterbrained mum as myself, I’ve no idea but we’re bumbling along. I hope in 2008, Ethan realises the concept of knock-knock jokes and Sar decides denim is wearable.

Work has been a pleasure this year. I feel more capable with the camera and comfortable with myself. The previous year was too exhilarating to properly enjoy: it’s hard to relish sights and sounds when you’re frantically calculatinging an f-stop. A round-up of pics will soon be posted on the other blog. Oh, I graduated from college too but that’s negligible in itself: Marino is a shithole. I made decent mates there but the lecturers are a dreary, nose-picking bunch of uninspired weirdos. Plus the college itself is falling apart: the main staircase has crumbled between ground and basement and it’s sealed off. For two years.

Oh I don’t want to ramble on about 2007 : a few hours to midnight and the new day!
So cheers to my cats, the fat janitor and you!

*clink!*

This has been a bittersweet day.
When I started this blog back in September, it was an excercise in how to write without all my personal mish-mash of wafflin’ bollocks thrown in. I haven’t had much luck in abandoning that trait but what I have succeeded in was my other goal: convincing HotPress that the circuit of unsigned Irish music was vibrant and diverse enough to warrant its own dedicated, regularly-updated forum.

So, Luncheon Roll’s gone to ground zero. Worry not. All the content still exists, minus your generous comments. There’s just been a change of name and address: http://wordpress.hotpress.com/offherrocker

Ok, one final parting shot of wafflin’ bollocks. I’m off to raid the stash of Christmas booze and get gloriously, poetically drunk in the dark as only a lonesome Wednesday night with Pink Floyd on headphones can warrant.

I’d like to thank everyone who stopped by, looked at my pics, commented on the posts and even raised hell a few times.  Luncheon will now become my own blog and therefore probably nowhere near as interesting as the bands and gigs I’ve enjoyed posting about here. I hope you’ll check out the new site and let me know who/what you’d like to hear more of/about. I’ve got mega plans for bands in 2008. You coming?

Nay xx