Brian Reddy

This is unbelievable John, fair play!!

Didn't realise this was a bunch of newspaper articles. As a result inevitably staccato & formulaic. In theory I like the concepts of Psychogeography and of Will Self. But often
smug / nauseatingly too close (i.e. being in London circa 2007!); often warmly familiar - man approaching middle age.

This was an amazing book. The first part - a dad's hapless, frenzied experience of childbirth - is the best description I've seen anywhere of it. Really moving family epic, in only 100 pages.

Situationnistes

I recommend it! Magical realist, bittersweet short stories. They're good

It’s time to ban SUVs.

My letter in the Irish Times yesterday.
#BanSUVs #SUVBan

Irish businesses will struggle to compete with Amazon ie, both online and in the high street.

Shop direct with your Irish retailers, who already exist.

Support local, not the billionaires.

Record crowds, record transfers: Irish football reaches a watershed moment Shamrock Rovers are one win from history in Europe while League of Ireland clubs are thriving after Covid and Brexit

Record crowds, record transfers: Irish football reaches a watershed moment

‘It’s so deeply unfair’: Lankum singer Radie Peat on the lack of supports for her autistic daughter ‘You ask yourself, will she ever say mama’ - singer and Lankum musician told she must wait until July 2028 for services

‘It’s so deeply unfair’: Lankum singer Radie Peat on the lack of supports for her autistic daughter

www.irishtimes.com/health/2025/...

open.spotify.com/track/54wZvQ... also good

Hoots Mon! Lord Rockingham's XI · The Incredible Lord Rockingham's XI · Song · 1958

open.spotify.com/track/6cKbmt... this could hopefully be useful post match from time to time this season🫎🫎🫎@bfcdublin.bsky.social

Family of Limerick student Joe Drennan 'disgusted' by concurrent jail sentence for his hit-and-run killer Joe Drennan’s mother Marguerite said Kieran Fogarty’s sentence for her son’s death was “absolutely unbelievable” and “really hard to take”.

Family of Limerick student Joe Drennan 'disgusted' by concurrent jail sentence for his hit-and-run killer.

Eamon Ryan: Moaning about cycle lanes is a symptom of our inertia on road safety and climate Untold story about our roads is the dramatic rise in serious injuries in 10 years

Excellent points here- “It is not inevitable that so many people will be killed or maimed for life. It is a political choice.”

www.irishtimes.com/opinion/2025...

I tell my kids, that even at red lights and with a green pedestrian crossing, make sure you make eye contact with any cars still moving.

You just can’t trust drivers any more.

A map of the Indian Ocean region that graphically depicts the 2004 Sumatra tsunami runups in meters in various places that ring the ocean basin.

Today marks exactly 20 years since the 2004 magnitude 9.1 great Sumatra earthquake and tsunami, one of the worst disasters of all time. It was the planet's first M9 quake in over 40 years. More than 225,000 lost their lives across 14 different nations, an unprecedented transnational disaster.

Happy Christmas everyone. Blessed are the peacemakers.

Misanthropic, loser behaviour from him

Irish Times: Mark Paul Fri Aug 25 2017 - 06:15 Martin Keane, the publican and developer at the centre of the stalled €100 million Iveagh Market regeneration project, radiates the rare auld times. He has an irrepressible demeanour, a glint that is as Dublin as can be. Maybe it comes from the graft and guile, the street smarts of a man who started as a pageboy 55 years ago and now owns probably the most profitable – and expensive – pub in Ireland, the Oliver St John Gogarty in Temple Bar. He also owns nearby Blooms Hotel and a property portfolio of the city’s finest townhouses.

Reading that long fascinating article about how the weird owner of the Samuel Smith pub chain in the UK buys historic buildings just to let them rot reminded me of Martin Keane, who's letting the Iveagh Market, Mother Redcaps & other venues decay. But when he gets profiled here, it's in these terms:

Humphrey’s world: how the Samuel Smith beer baron built Britain’s strangest pub chain Since the 1970s, Humphrey Smith has acquired scores of pubs and historic properties around the UK. But time after time, he has left the buildings empty. Why has he allowed his empire to moulder?

I absolutely LOVE Sam Smith's pubs. But it turns out their owner may be quixotic, monomaniacal, deranged...
www.theguardian.com/news/2024/de...

Michael McDowell: Israel has accused Irish politicians of anti-Semitism before. It has never been true Ireland’s position on Israel has always been consistent. If our Government is guilty of anything, it is delay

Michael McDowell has a good article in the Irish Times.

There. I said it.

www.irishtimes.com/opinion/2024...

Today is 2024-12-14, the sun sets at 16:05:46 and the grand auld stretch tonight was 00 mins and 03 secs. #GrandStretch #TheGrandStretchIsBack

Pingo - Wikipedia

Interesting! Imho en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pingo

Seems completely plausible to me that FF and FG fall out in the coming weeks and we end up with and FF+SF+(either) Labour or SD government. Assumedly both Lab and SD would find this more palatable than with FF+FG. Would have a comfy 98 seats in either formulation.

Bohs truly are a wonderful football club.

the utter shamelessness of FIFA is not new, they have always been for sale to any regime that wanted to pay up

but somehow "highest bid evaluation score ever" feels like a new low -- it makes any claim this organization is remotely serious self-refuting

Snippet from an Irish Times restaurant review. Most of my trips to The Unicorn began with a tactical trawl starting at the office door on Fitzwilliam Square. It was a Friday ritual: work done, papers shuffled, and off to Doheny & Nesbitt, where my chum Emer, with her preternatural ability to commandeer prime bar stools, would already be perched, drink in hand. From there, it was on to The Shelbourne, where the Horseshoe Bar crowd spilled into the lobby, before the night inevitably required soakage. The Unicorn was the answer. A call to the indomitable owner, Giorgio Casari, to say we’d be late was always met with a jovial, “No worries, I’ve already given your table away. Come in an hour.” This was pre-Celtic Tiger, a simpler time, before I decamped to the UK for a few years, blissfully unaware of the economic juggernaut about to turn Dublin into a parody of itself.

Lovely throwback to a lost Ireland where people were humbler, happy to settle for Friday night drinks in the Shelbourne and dinner out in a gourmet restaurant. A simpler time.

A cargo bike cycling along a canal

Doing the nursery run with the kids chatting / bickering in the front of the Big Bike is just the dream. The frost just adds to it ✨❄️

Gift of The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts

Georgia O'Keeffe, 1980
https://botfrens.com/collections/19/contents/1227631/

A List of Things People Blamed on Bicycles

🧵