I think this is the first time in 16 years of using the internet that I have been presented with a list like this:
[tags]Monty Python, Hotels, UK, Lord[/tags]
Browsing Posts published in July, 2006
The Matador
Year: 2006
Length: 97 minutes
Media: DVD
Studio: Weinstein Company
Rating from : R (Restricted)
UPC for dvd: 796019791595
ID in Amazon.com: B000EQ5UIC
Rating: out of 5
I saw “The Matador” on a plane recently and raved about it. Catherine got it out on DVD last night and it still works on a second viewing. It is the story of a hitman with problems played by Pierce Brosnan, who befriends an average joe played by Greg Kinnear. The movie is full of wonderful dark one liners and some fabulous scenes.
As a movie, you’ll enjoy it immensely but what will blow you away is Brosnan. He acts everyone else off the screen – seriously! He has finally realised that slick and suave is far more interesting when mixed with sleazy and he just nails his character. The scene where he strides through the hotel looking completely screwed-up wearing nothing but black jocks and ankle boots will stay with me for many years to come.
[tags]The Matador, Pierce Brosnan, Greg Kinnear, Hope Davis[/tags]
Turkish Barber
Category: Other
Provider: GG
Price range: €9 to €32
Location:
Ring Road
Clonakilty Co Cork
Ireland
Overall rating: out of 5
Service rating: out of 5
Value rating: out of 5
We missed another Farmer’s Market as myself and Osc spent longer in Clon that we expected. The place was mobbed, jammed with cars on the way to/from holidays and flooded just to make everyone’s lives harder. However, none of this interfered with our mission to get our hair cut.
Catherine had noticed a new Turkish Barber had opened up on the ring road in Clon and thought I should check it out. I think it is only open a few weeks at this stage. I poked my head in the door and there were only two other people waiting which suited just fine.
The place looks great. Small but lots of nice touches including a big flat screen TV to keep you occupied. However, the TV was on TG4 which was showing their Saturday movie (A Summer Place). It was one of those awful pointless 1950′s yokes with no-one you have ever heard of. I hated those movies when I was a kid and they haven’t got any better. But I suppose it is a tradition to show crappy movies early on a Saturday afternoon. In any case, there was far more entertainment to be had watching people getting “treated”.
We were lucky that the guy in the chair had a beard so we saw lots of the services on offer. The barber was incredibly adept with the scissors and even more so when he took out the cut-throat razor to tidy up the beard. He dipped it in alcohol and then lit it which caused Oscar’s eyes to be glued to the remainder of the activities. Of course, he used old style shaving soap and a big brush to foam it up.
Then he upped the game even more – he took a giant cotton bug, dipped it in alcohol, lit it and then started swooping it towards the guys head over and over. Oscar went totally silent. This was presumably to burn off the various dodgy hairs that we older men seem to get in the oddest places.
He finished the guy off with a multitude of unguents and sprays and sent him on his way looking like a million dollars.
There were two more “quick trims” before us. The guy with the comb-over who asked for “not much off the top” was claerly living in a fantasy world all of his own creation but the barber sent him off loooking dapper too.
Oscar was next and went up to the chair very nervously. Suddenly he smiled and said “there’s a TV stuck in the mirror!”. Sadly for him it was also showing TG4. Normally GG won’t do kids on a Saturday cos it is too busy and he is on his own but he was happy to do a machine cut which Osc was cool with too. It took him no time at all to change Oscar from a pseudo-crustie to a fine looking young man. A great haircut.
I was going with my usual zero blade machine cut. Done in 5 mins and far better than I ever do myself. But that was not the end of it, I got the blazing bud treatment too which was fantastic. Then he really freaked me and cut my eyebrows! Ok, so they were getting a bit unkempt but they were hardly Rumpole of the Bailey. I was actually chuffed that he did them.
€20 for the two of us. When I originally saw his price list I thought it was expensive but it is a bargain for the effort he puts in. Next time I’m going for the €32 “The Works” which includes traditional hot towel Turkish shave.
Whether you want a manly treat or just a good hair-cut, give GG’s a go.
[tags]GG’s, Turkish, Barber, Clonakilty[/tags]
Osc opened a Melon and Orange yoghurt yesterday to discover it actually contained Fruit of the Forest. So did two others that he checked. In one of his favourite books “Stink and the Incredible Supergalactic Jawbreaker”, the hero (Stink) writes a letter of complaint about a jawbreaker that did not break his jaw. The result is that he gets sent a huge box full of sweets. I think maybe Oscar is hoping something similar happens here.
His letter is as follows:
Let’s see what reply he gets.
[tags]Yoplait, Yoghurt, Glanbia, Stink, Jawbreaker[/tags]
I just spotted this over at the Signal vs Noise blog. Brilliant Kiwi comedy duo called The Conchords. Hiphopopotamus vs. Rhymenoceros is definitely the best of them.
[tags]The Conchords[/tags]
Most people, even non-techies like my Dad, have heard of Skype at this stage. Skype gives you free PC-to-PC “phone” calls and allows you to ring normal international phone numbers for much cheaper than normal phone-to-phone calls. I’ve used it a lot and it works pretty well.
But Skype has a much less well-known competitor called Gizmo and you’d be nuts not to give them a try. Gizmo, unlike Skype, is built on a standard called SIP so it works with all other SIP-based products e.g. VOIP products that cable TV customers in the USA use. It also doesn’t chew up your PC like Skype can do.
Gizmo’s feature set has always been far better than Skype including conference calling from day 1, call recording, voicemail etc. I have always found the voice quality to be better too. It’s biggest drawback has always been the lack of uptake so that I have never done a PC-to-PC call with it since no-one I know uses it.
Recently they unveiled a killer feature. Any two Gizmo users can now do PC-to-phone calls for free. All you have to both be is signed up for Gizmo, only one of you actually needs to be at a computer. This is available in 60 countries including Ireland right now and even works for mobile numbers in a bunch of them too (not Ireland yet sadly). I’ve tested it and it works perfectly. If you make lots of national or international calls and don’t mind doing them from your computer, you could save a ton of money with this. If you have a VOIP phone or Router, then you may not even need to be at the computer! I need to investigate this more.
Check them out, you’ll be pleasantly surprised.
[tags]Gizmo, SIPPhone, SIP, Skype, Michael Robertson[/tags]
At this stage I’m sick to the back teeth of the moral relativism that passes for liberal thought in modern Europe and particularly in Ireland. Recent events in the Middle East have just amplified the noise. So it is a joy to read something as reasoned and balanced as Norm Geras’ post on what is happening in Lebanon. Read the questions at the end very carefully and maybe you’ll learn something about yourself from your answers.
I’m surprised that so many of the old left in Britain have been able to move to a place politically where I can agree with much of what they say. It is a pity that the Irish left can still be found associating themselves with Ba’athist-hugging scumbags like George Galloway or Pol Pot groupies like Noam Chomsky.
[tags]Lebanon, Israel, Norm Geras, Pol Pot, Noam Chomsky, George Galloway, Baath party[/tags]
Michelle Dewberry is pregnant by Syed!
It would never have happened if he’d listened to me and hired the Badger.
[tags]The Apprentice, Michelle Dewberry, Ruth Badger, Alan Sugar[/tags]
Great Local Restaurant doing lovely food
Jul 23, 2006 by
Conor O’Neill
Macehiters
Western Road
Clonakilty
Co Cork,
Ireland
★★★★☆ The plan last night was to grab a quick bite to eat in Clon and then go to “The wind that shakes the barley”. OK, the original plan was to go to Eddie Rockets and “The Break-Up” in Mahon. In the end we just ate in Clon and went home. But what a fine meal it was. My parents threw caution to the wind with their mental health and offered to mind the children of the corn whilst we headed out with big sis Fiona for a semi-birthday meal for her.
I’ve passed Macehiters many times over the past three years and always liked the look of it and wanted to try out their charcoal grilled steaks. Now that I’ve eaten there, I still don’t know how to pronounce it. Mack-e-hiters? Masiters? Mace Hitters? But this is coming from someone who has been pronouncing the village of Leap as it is written rather than “Lep”.
Back to the restaurant. It is a small place with not many tables and the menu is up on a giant blackboard on the wall. It has the comfy, well worn look of a place that has been happily serving food for a long time. No bookings are possible and if they are full they send you across the road to the pub and then get you when the table is ready.
We skipped starters as we still thought we were going to the cinema but they looked lovely. Mains were just a good selection of standard fare with a special charcoal grill section. Nice set of three fish of the day too. I had to have the sirloin, Catherine had the black sole and Fiona had the mackerel. All were simply grilled or fried and came with salad and baked spud or garlic spuds. All were absolutely top class. Wonderfully cooked steak, lovely salad dressing on decent leaves and perfect spuddies. I had originally thought the prices were a bit high but you get a large amount for your money.
We just had a bottle of the house red Cabernet which was nice and light and we went for three baked alaskas for dessert which were really fab.
Service was lovely and friendly, coffee was spot on, they are cool with kids too. We’ll be back. Highly recommended.
This
hReview brought to you by the
hReview Creator.
[tags]Macehiters, Clonakilty, Cork[/tags]
Inspired by Red Mum’s recent pizza making post, the awesome DiFara Pizza story and my experiences in The Good Things Cafe recently, I decided to make some pizza-pies with the two middle childer yesterday. We made one each. Classic Margherita with simple garlic/oregano/basil/passata sauce and buffalo mozzarella.
Sibéal, aged 2:
Oisín, aged 4:
Conor, aged 38:
Which was the nicest? Yup, the 2 year old’s. After the horror of watching them “knead” the dough and drop it on the floor several times, the two little gits ended up with far superior results because [a] they were not swimming in sauce and [b] the were wafer thin cos I only gave them a small bit of dough each. Mine was more like a soup on a bap. All tasted fantastic tho.
technorati tags:pizza, The+Good+Things+Cafe, DiFara, Margherita, Red+Mum
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