Quelque Chose #4

Robbie the Robot. An indubitable hit with the ladies.

All Fired Up

The ruin of the Hellfire Club that sits atop Montpelier Hill in the Dublin mountains is a curious place indeed. The area bristles with legends and hearsay of the debauched group of 18th century rich boys with nothing better to do than gamble, drink, feck-act about with black magic and allegedly murder the odd prostitute or set fire to a hapless servant to amuse themselves. Regardless of whether the more outrageous stories are true or not, it's quite a spooky place to be. Even the route out to the site is like a map of Dublin hauntings and ghost stories. Our guide spent the bus journey filling us in on the discovery of the 130 year old remains of a girl in a pretty silk dress tied to a chair in a walled up room of Rathfarnham Castle in 1880 and the weird happenings at Killakee House which culminated in an exorcism and the skeleton of a dwarf being unearthed from beneath the kitchen floorboards. Lovely.

It's much creepier at night, I assure you.

Upon reaching the actual building, which was aptly surrounded with eerie mist by now, we were warned that many visitors start to feel nauseous once inside, or are overwhelmed by the negative energy that envelops the ruin and have to get back outside quick smart. Suitably on our collective guard, we ventured into the pitch blackness of the lodge, jitters tempered by camera flashes and torchlight, but not at all helped by the skangers in Halloween masks who crept up to the window to frighten the baby Jesus out of the German tourists in our group.

Once upstairs, and with a vice like grip on the unshakeable Bear's arm throughout, we were told about the various faces and shadows that people have claimed to see, in subsequent photos or otherwise and how previous visitors have had necklaces snatched from their throats while in a particular room. We also came across what appeared, from where I was standing, to be discarded bits of rubbish scattered around a former fireplace, although it transpired that a small dead dog was in amongst the debris. Apparently a tour from earlier on in the week came upon a deer's head there too, as it appears that some people's fuckwittery is just too awful for words.

I was finding myself approaching the point of getting just a little bit freaked out, although in retrospect that may have been because of the much more tangible threat of an impending knack attack, what with the scumbags and their masks lurking outside and all. Either way, I was happier once we were back outside in the night air with the spectacular view of Dublin spread out below. It being actual Halloween night, that particular view was made all the better by fireworks erupting all over the city in random sparkly explosions. On our way back down the hill, the guide informed us that a member of the group had seen a six-foot shadow in one of the rooms and a few people felt the forewarned nausea. Of course, she could also have made it all up and none of us would be any the wiser, but nevertheless it certainly was a fantastic way to spend All Hallows Eve.

The Rocky Horror Contraband Whiskey Show

All kinds of merriment was had at last Saturday night's Halloween jaunt to The Sugar Club. It's always fun when behaviour like trashing a venue with toast, rice and party poppers and screaming lines like "Get your tits off the tank, bitch!" are acceptable, if not encouraged. The crowd was awash with excellent homemade costumes in the forms of Chilean miners, blood soaked nurses, Sweeney Todd and fantastic Dia de los Muertos ladies. Not a Playboy bunny to be had, thank fuck.

My own costume entailed a hip flask filled with whiskey safely stowed in my hold-up tights, just to complete the whole Prohibition era dead-girl-about-town look. It also just so happened to empty itself throughout the course of the night. (I'm classy like that.) Free hot chocolate that was kindly handed around by the organisers as we queued outside beforehand found itself magically Irished up, as did several glasses of soda water and lime. Weird. Delicious too.

Also among the crowd of ne'er-do-wells was one Greg Sestero of The Room...er...fame. Relative fame at least. There was a screening of The Room taking place the night after, you see. Billy Flag gave him a shout as he walked up the steps towards the bar and when he looked over at our table and waved, I dutifully squealed and waved both arms in my drunken zombie excitement, because it would appear that I don't do subdued when it comes to The Room.

This is me when we got home, drunk and hiding behind the Bear's camera having realised I had no photos from the night for the blog.

After the show finished and Midnight Burlectro had kicked off onstage, I met a cousin of mine who had descended upon The Sugar Club, and having figured what was on previously, just knew I'd be found there. The thing is, she was there with people from my work, some of whom I was only introduced to for the first time that night. With crazy blackened eyes and fake blood plastered all over my chin. I make one hell of a first impression.

Brains, Darling. Brains.

I do so love a bit of Halloween divilment, and this weekend is shaping up rather nicely on that count I have to say. Tomorrow night will find the Bear and I, among others, shouting obscenities and throwing toast around in The Sugar Club for another fun night of Rocky Horror mischief. Seeing as dressing up is both mandatory and fuckloads of fun, I've been putting some thought into this year's costume and have settled on 1920s zombie.


I'm hoping to channel a sort of undead Clara Bow vibe and have been looking for pictures of vintage hottie Madge Bellamy in White Zombie, the first ever zombie movie by all accounts, fact fans. Last night when I was going to bed after spending half an hour Googling zombies, the Bear decided to frighten the bejaysus out of me by hiding in the doorway of the bathroom with the light off, the big jerk.


Undeterred, I have plans to rip up a black dress from Penneys, pick holes in some fishnets and get some fake blood all up in my grill, as it were. When Sunday rolls around, we've got an adventure in the Dublin Mountains to look forward to, as the Bear managed to win two tickets on Facebook for an excursion to the Hellfire Club from Hidden Dublin Walks. Sure what else would you be doing of a Sunday, other than listening to stories about demonic statues, dwarf skeletons and black masses in a haunted ruin up a mountain?

Quelque Chose #3

Via Dinosaurs and Robots

One, Two, UniShoe

When I was little I decided I wanted to be a librarian. This was entirely down to a Richard Scarry book that my brother and I owned, (we inevitably mispronounced his surname as Scary) as it had a section that listed different jobs. That section included a picture of a cat sitting at a desk with piles of books in front of her, with "Librarian" printed below it. As a small child, I decided I liked the look of this as a career and would stack books in front of myself in an effort to emulate the cat in question. At least until I decided I actually wanted to be a fireman. Or fireperson. Which doesn't quite sound right. But back to the book, and the work of Mr Scarry. Feline librarian aside, mine and my brother's favourite character in it was that of a magically upright worm.

How come the pig at the far end won't hold hands like everyone else? I bet the worm would be all about the hand holding if he had them. Contrary fucker.

That's him there, with the dapper hat and bow tie. Devoid of arms and uni-shod, my brother and I christened him One Shoe Hopper. I actually only discovered this year that his proper name is Lowly Worm. I prefer One Shoe Hopper though. Further Googling of him and his well dressed ways revealed that he regularly appeared in Scarry books, driving around in his apple shaped car. Driving. DRIVING? He's got no arms or hands and only one foot. Which is really the end of his tail stuffed into a runner.

Madness.

How could this even begin to work? I don't see a steering wheel of any description, how the hell does he go around corners? There doesn't appear to be any manner of door either, so how does he get in? And even if there IS a door, HOW DOES HE OPEN IT? I need answers!

Stuff and Things

As a completely unorganised person, random little ideas for blog posts tend to be either scribbled down or typed into my phone and left languishing in the drafts folder. Some of them are too short to warrant their own post or too long to squish into Twitter's 140 character restraints, so here they are as a medley of sorts, or selection box if you will.

> Whilst out for The Incredible Mulq's birthday a few weeks ago, a genius idea was born. An idea of such magnitude that I kept it safely in my phone and subsequently forgot all about it until recently. An Irish horror movie called...wait for it...GAELGORE. Possibly all in uppercase and most likely set in a Gael Coláiste on Skellig Michael. Yes, we were quite drunk at the time. Alright, very drunk. But that's what happens when mojitos are two for a tenner. Also, the Gaelgore bit was actually Dave Flag's idea.

> Is it just me, or do the staff of Cineworld on Parnell Street work in slow motion? They don't seem to have any grasp of the concept of "being in a hurry because we're a bit late and might miss the beginning of the film". Also, a few months ago the Bear and I ordered some delicious salty cinema food at the counter, only for the goon that took our order to quite literally wander off out of sight to a back room, not to be seen again. Which left us standing there puzzled, wondering what the hell just happened, until someone else came along to serve us.

Seriously.

> My Dad is quite a funny man. For example, he came up with "the Spliffy by the Liffey" when we passed this particular scene on O'Connell Street last week. However, he's at his absolute funniest when it's unintentional. He was telling me about a comedy song he heard on the radio, and that it was by some group called Cat Sack Upside Down. I stared at him and said: "Do you mean...Dead Cat Bounce?" He looked thoughtful and replied: "Oh yeah. That's what it was."

> And lastly, there's this crowd noise. A particular crowd noise clip that gets used in tv shows, ads and films. It's a generic crowd cheer with a distinctive "Woo! Woo!" towards the end. Stay with me on this. Seriously. It must be the crowd noise equivalent to the Wilhelm Scream, because I hear it all the time. South Park always uses it and it's currently in that awful 123.ie ad with the poorly animated showbiz presenter lady with the big rack and that insufferable Ivan Answer idiot. I just need to know if anyone else knows what I'm talking about or am I actually in the process losing my mind. Help me.

If You Go Down To The Woods Today

A few weeks ago, the Bear had a college reunion of sorts in Nealon's. I came along later on in the evening, having previously been at Landsdowne Road to swoon at Michael Bublé. Ahem. I know. I'm actually desperately uncool, despite the deadly-bird-about-town persona that this blog no doubt projects. Y'know, the kind of deadly-bird-about-town who's obsessed with Jessica Fletcher and puts her foot in it with her boyfriend's relatives. Yeah. Maybe not, actually.

Anyway, I joined the Bear and his buddies once I had made my way back into town to find him in a warm and crowded pub wearing his big, scratchy, woolly zip-up hoodie.

"Eh...are you not roasting?"

"Yeah. But there's a bear convention or something on upstairs."

"....there's a what now, where now?"

It transpired that Nealon's is in fact the official venue for Dublin Bears. These particular bears being the large, hirsute and cuddly variety of gay man. And on the third Saturday of each month Pantibar, which is across from Nealon's, hosts a bear night called The Furry Glen. (Whose logo I flipping love by the way.) It being the third Saturday of this particular month, there were big beardy men in assorted combinations of leather to be seen traipsing up and down the stairs in the pub, to the upper floor. Unfortunately in this instance for the Bear, he too is a big, beardy man and he also happened to be wearing a tshirt I got him for Christmas with this on it:


So to avoid any confusion, he kept his big warm hoodie on. Which is brown and (as I said) woolly and scratchy and as such did absolutely naught to distance him from the goings-on suas staighre, as it gives him the appearance of a huge friendly teddy bear. Although lucky for me, this bear doesn't have any interest in boys wearing assless pants.

Black Magic Woman

On the way to work this morning, I noticed that the windows of the MAC section of Brown Thomas were adorned with huge images of Cruella De Vil and the Evil Queen from Snow White, as part of their new overpriced makeup collection Venomous Villains. Even though I have no intention of shelling out for any of it, I did think to myself: "They better have included Maleficent in this you know, because as Disney villains go, that bitch is BADASS." Turns out they did. I was pleased.


You see, I have no interest whatsoever in buying purple lipstick but I do love me some Disney villains. The Princesses are all well and good, but the baddies are just so much more interesting. They get some of the best lines, they're so sly and clever and...purple. In college I managed to write my thesis on the image of the witch throughout history...as you do. (Cue conversations with lecturers about how this totally relates to graphic design and is definitely relevant for the degree in Visual Communications that lay ahead.) Halfway through it I managed to shoehorn in a reference to my beloved villainess Maleficent, and a picture of her to boot. Go me.


As Disney villains go, Maleficent kicks the collective asses of all the other evildoers. They're Diet Evil, while she's the childhood-scarring real deal. I mean, if you're going to be the hero's enemy you may as well go all out. Her scenes at the end of Sleeping Beauty frightened the bejaysus out of my six year old self, but on reflection turning into a dragon and having a pet raven are frankly quite awesome attributes.

Apparently (and if the gospel according to IMDb is anything to go by) Tim Burton is meant to be having a crack at re-telling Disney's Sleeping Beauty, but from Maleficent's point of view. Oh now. Yes. Please.

Bog Down In The Valley-O

A few weeks ago, I was out for a quiet few with the Bear and two of the Flags in a pub in Sligo called Shoot The Crows. A fine pub it is too. It's just the right kind of dark inside, with lots of timber, good Guinness (according to the Bear anyway), old men with great beards and a scary painting of a raven on the wall. All well and good, yes? But there's an oddity of sorts to be found in the ladies toilets. There's one normal cubicle and one really quite large one. And the really quite large one merited a blurry cameraphone picture to bring back and show to the boys in bewilderment. And this is why:


That's right. Two toilets. One cubicle. Now, I could kind of understand this in a nightclub of some description, when girls are the level of drunk that we'll pile into one stall with our mate to keep whatever enthralling and undoubtedly intellectual conversation going. But in an old man's pub in Sligo, where there's only one other normal cubicle and a girl in a sequinned dress would look spectacularly lost and out of place? Surely this means that the second toilet is left mostly unused unless you're willing to pee next to a stranger. Which I'm really definitely not.

Squirrels Just Wanna Have Fun

In real life, I do actually call the Bear..well...Bear. He calls me Kitty and on occaison, Squirrel. (Yes I know, bleugh alert etc.) The squirrel part comes from the fact that we sometimes like to replace the word "girl" in a song lyric with "squirrel". Try it. It's fun.

See?

Well it certainly amuses me no end. But then again so does the word "debrief".

Anyway.

Whilst wandering around Urban Outfitters, I was immediately drawn to a wallet with a lovely yellow squirrel on it. For €32. Balls to that, thought I. But one just like it was on sale for €18, and it transpired that the squirrel one was actually on sale too. Seeing as my last wallet had cost an entire euro in Dunnes, I figured it pretty much balanced out. While paying for my shiny new wallet, the guy behind the counter decided most kindly to give me a student discount. Even though I haven't been a student since 2006. So it actually only cost me €17.

Kitty: 1 World: 0

Battle Of The Bears

I think it's safe to say that pretty much everyone loves the Fox's bissquits panda Vinnie, what with the cute little head on him and his fluffy mafioso charm. But there's a new bear on the block. Birdseye have taken it upon themselves to impose on tellies everywhere a judgemental polar bear that lives in people's freezers. I don't like him. He creeps me out. Also, he's voiced by Willem Defoe, so they might as well slap a flashing neon sign with VILLIAN! on it over his head. Therefore I propose another TV smackdown in the manner of my previous Cardassians vs Kardashians brainwave. Ad Bear (Polar) vs Ad Bear (Panda). Vinnie could take that creepy dot-eyed sociopath down to Chinatown without even leaving his armchair. For real.