An open thread where, at your weekend leisure, you can discuss anything you like.
Ps: For anyone planning to come to the Brisbane Grogblog this arvo, please note change of venue info.
33 Responses to “Saturday Salon (St Patrick’s Day edition)”
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Aye begora, I’m first.
b’jaysus
Congratulations to Cristy and Paul on the birth of the Third Pea!
Yay! Excellent! She’ll be blogging before she’s walking no doubt!
Everyone:
]
Erin gebragh! [or something like that
It’s Erin go bragh (Ireland forever).
Speaking as an ex-Brisbanite in Ireland, hope you all have a great St Pat’s day. It’s overcast here (what’s different?!) and most people are looking forward to the rugby tomorrow for a big double celebration. Sláinte! (Cheers!)
“Nationality? Other people have a nationality. The Irish and the Jews have a psychosis.”
– Brendan Behan
“Napoleon once said that if the Dutch had Ireland, it would be a garden; and if the Irish had Holland, they would all drown.”
–Brendan Behan
“…They go to the cliffs of Moher rising out of the mist,
Above the real,
Rising out of the present time and place, above
The green, wet grass.
This is not landscape, full of the somnambulations
Of poetry
And the sea. This is my father; or, maybe,
It is as he was,
A likeness: one of the race of fathers: earth
And sea and air.”
– Wallace Stevens, ‘The Irish Cliffs of Moher’
“I’m dissatisfied, and I’m Irish.”
–Marianne Moore
“I am a reasonable man, but there’s limits.”
–Brendan Behan
In 1919 Melbourne City Council refused permission for the annual St. Patrick’s Day march.
Archbishop Daniel Mannix protested. The MCC (feeling its Empire-loving oats) relented on the condition that a Union Jack lead the march.
Mannix agreed. He searched under shrubs in the Flagstaff Gardens for a drunken derelict, of whom there were many. He asked one of the more drunken and unstedy of them if he were, by chance, an Englishman.
“Yes I am.”
“How would you like to make 5 shillings?”
“Yes I would.”
“Well, put this paper Union Jack on a toothpick in your bowler hat and lead the St. Patrick’s Day Parade.”
And indeed the parade took place. Mannix’s phaeton was surrounded by six Catholic Victoria Cross winners riding white horses.
And an unknown English drunk was in the van.
Congratulations on the bub.
Yeah!!!
Have fun at Grogblogging in Brisbane. Should be a hoot.
We had one down here last night in honour of Ms Duck.
Happy St Paddy’s Day people.
Couldn’t find a drunken Englishman, but I sure ran into a few Sons or Erin that were staring in early on the celebrations last night.
“When I was a kid I brutally tortured my cousins till they told me anything I wanted them to. Then I began to extort their families. It was all downdune from there.�
Khalid The Confessor.
j-p-z and Katz:
Hahahahahaha, Thanks.
Right at this very moment, ABC Radio National “Radio Eye” is rebroadcasting a 2005 Canadian “radio archaeology” program called [I think] “The Promised Land of the Saints” about St Brendan’s journey to Newfoundland 1500 years ago. Long before the Vikings went to Vinland and even longer before Portuguese fishermen accidently crossed to what is now Brazil …. and returned.
A quick note on the Melbourne grogblogging last night, then I’m off again:
So I set out from home, after an afternoon of book-sorting and repossession (I’m now the proud owner of two more Molesworth books, in paperback, among other volumes and tomelets) and arrived at the Exford around eight. All the suspects listed in were there and I hob-nobbed with a few of them myself.
A few red wines buggered up my impulse control – as usual. They didn’t do much for the budget either. The big zeitgeisty moment happened in conversation with David Tiley, when he remarked that:
* Howard is pretty well gone;
* The biggest job post-Howard will be to repair the damage he’s done to civil society in Australia.
Bastard! I was going to say that!
Best recent Irish book: “The Blackwater Lightship” by Colm Toibin – I recommend it.
Feck! Arse! Girls!
My great granny was Irish and I went and forgot St Pat’s day, my Irish coming out! I’m off to find some Guiness, merry time to you all to be sure! And great input from that J_Z fella.
Come on all you political bent lads and lassie’s, West Wing is over now, lets have a St Pat’s party as I’m too poor and health concious to be at the local drinking green beer. Come on, before pumpkin time!
Gummo Trotsky:
but who will be the Minister for Reconstruction and, more importantly, who will be head of dpartment and who will be in charge of the Bankuptcy, Eviction and Family Breakdown Recovery Commission and who will lead the investigation to recover the “missing billions”?
Thank you Pavlov’s Cat!
Congratulations, Cristy! Millions do it every hour of the day, but it is still a wonderful, special and personal experience.
Dont know if anyone cares quite as much as me – but the biggest BOILOVER of cricket world cup history has just blown the roof off Jamaica stadium…
Ireland send Pakistan packing. They’re going home – they’re out. You heard it here.
On St Patricks Day too!
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/cricket/6457689.stm
But wait…there’s more! Bangladesh hammers India. The world’s turned upside down! Tis all in paeces, all caehaerance gone!
WHy isn this on telly?
http://www.abc.net.au/sport/content/200703/s1874462.htm
Weird… disappearing comments!
Hmmm… anyway, as I was saying: CRICKET WORLD CUP BOILOVER! On St Paddy’s day too!
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/cricket/6457689.stm
Ok, lets see if this link fares better.
St Paddy’s day World Cup boilover!! http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200703/s1874533.htm
I dunno why, Lefty E, but the spaminator loves your comments so much at the moment that it wants to keep them all to itself!
I was stunned watched the Paddys smash the Pakis too. I hadn’t even heard about Bangladesh smashing the Indians.
If the Jews have a psychosis jpz, it would seem they’re finally getting over it.
http://timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article1431766.ece
Perhaps they’ve finally called time on the left because for so long the left have been calling time on them.
Just think about it …..seventy- five years ago, today, a horse opened the Sydney Harbour Coathanger.
In seven days time a donkey will be Premier of NSW, regardless of the election result.
More predictable anti-donkey slander.
Caligula had the right idea: fill Maquarie street with livestock — it’s not like the aren’t already drowning in horseshit…
Slander? Strewth. I hereby and unreservedly apologise to all donkeys living and dead for any suggestion that their intelligence is in any way on a par with a NSW Premier now or next week.
Onya Zarquon. Father Ted references will win you important friends in the right places (As will catblogging on your maiden blog post, incidentally – nice torty there), even if St Patrick’s day is completely shit otherwise and should just be killed, speaking as a dual national Irish citizen of course.
A horse ridden by a card-carrying ‘new guard’ fascist, no less!
Anyone keen to find out more about Australia’s own fascist movement, in a user-friendly way, can read ( or even see the fairly good movie made of) DH Lawrence’s Kangaroo.
Thanks, Laura. And now for something completely different: beardless John Quiggin. Does this mean he’s lost all his strength?