One of the things my mum found most hilarious in life (along with Terry Wogan’s annual commentary on the Eurovision Song Contest and most things after a couple of drams of Jameson’s) was the fact that I once asked for help with the personality quiz question, “Am I Decisive?” I insisted afterwards that I was […]
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Rush Hour Reading
I’m trying to read a book a week on the streetcar on the way downtown each morning. The feeling of finishing a book is a splendid one and if accomplished during a morning commute, shunts my day into the success category before most people have even struggled to their desks. Very little needs to happen […]
Tired of the Elephants: In New Mexico with Jose Cuervo, Jesus and a penguin
I found a wee scrap of diary from a trip to report on Albuquerque, New Mexico’s Hot Air Balloon Fiesta for The Irish Times a few years ago… It was one of my very first travel writing trips. It was pretty great; I looked at America from a train for two days, drank tequila and […]
Crow’s Feet
This morning I walked up to the library to collect a few books I’d ordered. The books were a lot heavier than I’d expected, so I had to weigh up how much I really wanted today’s tomes. I checked that nobody in the vicinity was doing online bongo lessons like the last time I was […]
Backdropped
Today I’m in a Venezuelan café where they sell empanadas and play slick R’n’B. I’m drinking very strong coffee that will soon turn me into a crazed monster who will wreak havoc on the world. I’m not supposed to drink coffee. Usually, at this writing slot time, I write in a Starbucks, its bland anonymity […]
Norm and The Herring Belt
I live in Parkdale. I like to call it Little Scotland, but it’s actually Little Tibet or Little Roma-ville or Little Halfway House. Doing laundry round here can be interesting. There’s a laundry much closer than the big, airy one I trek to at King and Dufferin, but I prefer a laundry where the folding […]
The Stars of Spencer Avenue
Spencer Avenue has always got something going on. Maybe it’s the vacant eyed guy in the burgundy fedora, preaching damnation as he strides north. Or the six-foot-five man who wears pristine jumpsuits, belted at the waist and tucked into knee high sports socks, might model a fine new cream or taupe number. Or the sweet […]
The Somerset Cheddar – part 1
I wrote a story about cheese. I was originally going to make the main character a cantankerous Mature Isle of Mull Cheddar, but to show that I have no hard feelings towards those from south of the border, I made it a story about an English cheese. This is part 1. Click here if you […]
The Somerset Cheddar – part 2
I wrote a story about cheese. I was originally going to make the main character a cantankerous Mature Isle of Mull Cheddar, but to show that I have no hard feelings towards those from south of the border, I made it a story about an English cheese. This is part 2. Click here to read […]
The Parish Talent Show
I have always had an unreasonable fear of singing in public. While I dream of being the one who vaults in front of the microphone to entertain the amazed masses, I am instead the one who blunders to the back of the room, making panicstruck attempts to blend into the curtains, foliage or profiterole […]
