Secret Histories of Queer Melbourne

If your perception of history is that it’s the dry and dusty domain of tweedy old academics, this accessible and engaging publication from the Australian Lesbian & Gay Archives (ALGA) will surely change the way you think about the discipline.

An account of the travails and triumphs of Melbourne’s lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans and intersex – or ‘queer’ (to use the umbrella term that has grown in popularity since it was first introduced to Australia circa 1991) – community from the 18th to the 21st centuries, the book makes no claim to be a comprehensive history. Rather, as its editors acknowledge in their introduction, it is a series of ‘snapshots, fragments, vignettes’; a collage of histories told over 51 chapters, written by 12 separate authors.

Having grown out of a series of history walks presented by the ALGA at Midsumma and similar festivals, the book’s tone is accessible, concise, and distinctly non-academic despite the qualifications and careers of its various contributors. It is also immaculately researched, with an array of footnotes providing proof of the writers’ and editors’ rigorous approach to their subject.

“The history of queer Melbourne is stored in documents, in newspapers and magazines, in police and court records,” writes co-editor and author Graham Willett in one chapter of Secret Histories of Queer Melbourne, and certainly much of what we know about early queer life comes from incidents where gay or bisexual men came into contact with the law, such as the case of Yackandandah resident John Morrison, who in 1870 was sentenced to ten years hard labour for the ‘abominable crime’ of buggery. As an additional punishment, in the first six months of his sentence, Morrison was flogged three times, each time receiving 50 lashes from the cat-o’-nine tails.

Elsewhere, Willett acknowledges the difficulties of researching queer lives in periods when homosexuality was both illegal and taboo:

“When we speculate upon the sexuality and sexual identity of people who lived in times so very different to our own, we are always on uncertain ground. Unless they are caught in the act, or write about themselves in unambiguous ways, we are forced to try harder to find our way into their lives.”

The authors of Secret Histories of Queer Melbourne have clearly tried very hard indeed, and with considerable success.

From the fascinating account of bushranger Captain Moonlite (after his lover James Nesbitt was killed in a police shootout, Moonlite ‘wept over him like a child, laid his head upon his breast and kissed him passionately’ and later, throughout his trial, wore a ring on his finger made of a lock of Nesbitt’s hair) through to the flappers and ‘fast women’ of the Roaring Twenties (such as the trail-blazing Alice Anderson, who opened an all-women’s garage in Kew in 1919); from secretive wartime romances, and nocturnal assignations in Melbourne’s parks and laneways interrupted by the police, through to the gay pride movement of the 1970s and the AIDS activists of the early 1990s, three centuries of queer life are detailed, explored and entertainingly speculated upon.

The book is not without its faults – for instance, Michael Connors’ chapter on AIDS activist group ACT-UP describes the group’s 1991 ‘D-Day’ campaign (which saw the St Kilda Road floral clock deflowered in a late night raid in which the blooms were replaced with small crosses signifying the deaths of people with HIV/AIDS due to government inaction) as a ‘masterpiece of media activism’, when in reality the ensuing media storm caused the group to fracture under the pressure and blame the floral clock attack as the work of rogue elements – but overall it is an fascinating, detailed, and rewarding study of queer life in the Victorian capital.

Secret Histories of Queer Melbourne
Editors: Graham Willett, Wayne Murdoch & Daniel Marshall
Paperback, 172 pages, $40 RRP
Australian Lesbian & Gay Archives

Review: SECRET HISTORIES OF QUEER MELBOURNE

If your perception of history is that it’s the dry and dusty domain of tweedy old academics, this accessible and engaging publication from the Australian Lesbian & Gay Archives (ALGA) will surely change the way you think about the discipline.

An account of the travails and triumphs of Melbourne’s lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans and intersex – or ‘queer’ (to use the umbrella term that has grown in popularity since it was first introduced to Australia circa 1991) – community from the 18th to the 21st centuries, the book makes no claim to be a comprehensive history. Rather, as its editors acknowledge in their introduction, it is a series of ‘snapshots, fragments, vignettes’; a collage of histories told over 51 chapters, written by 12 separate authors.

Having grown out of a series of history walks presented by the ALGA at Midsumma and similar festivals, the book’s tone is accessible, concise, and distinctly non-academic despite the qualifications and careers of its various contributors. It is also immaculately researched, with an array of footnotes providing proof of the writers’ and editors’ rigorous approach to their subject.

“The history of queer Melbourne is stored in documents, in newspapers and magazines, in police and court records,” writes co-editor and author Graham Willett in one chapter of Secret Histories of Queer Melbourne; and certainly much of what we know about early queer life comes from incidents where gay or bisexual men came into contact with the law, such as the case of Yackandandah resident John Morrison, who in 1870 was sentenced to ten years hard labour for the ‘abominable crime’ of buggery. As an additional punishment, in the first six months of his sentence, Morrison was flogged three times, each time receiving 50 lashes from the cat-o’-nine tails...

Read the full review at Arts Hub.

Life, the universe, entertainment and finances

Normal programming will return as soon as I can drag myself away from catching up on season three of Heroes. I skipped season two altogether on the advice of several friends, and jumped into season three yesterday, only to find myself watching eight episodes back to back (my excuse being that it was hot outside and, being a delicate, retiring sort, I needed to stay indoors).

There's all sorts of things I should be doing instead - reading through the 273 emails in my inbox, planning my radio show for the next few weeks, listening to the pile of CDs I've been sent and the masses of unread media releases that are building up into a dangerous heap on the coffee table, lugging a pile of washing to the nearest laundrette, vaccumming, dishes, etc - but I think today all I can be fucked doing is watching more TV.

It's a bit indicative of my life these last few weeks since I quit MCV, and I'm justifying it by claiming that it's some much needed downtime.

In the last two weeks I've devoured three new Torchwood novels, which is amazing in itself - usually it takes me two weeks to read a single book given how busy I normally am. Of the three, my favourite was James Goss' cracking yarn, Risk Assessment - some great plot twists and an extremely memorable new character - while the weakest was the short story collection Consequences, although the latter did feature one excellent story, Andrew Cartmel's 'The Wrong Hands'.

I've also seen several films, including three at the inaugural Nordic Film Festival: the wartime thriller Flame & Citron, the cerebral gothic horror flick Sauna, and the exquisite and entertaining The Man Who Loved Ingve (pictured above), the most refreshing coming out film I've seen in ages. I've linked to reviews of all three films I wrote for Arts Hub, but as ever you'll need to be Arts Hub members to read them.

But here's a sneak preview if you're not an Arts Hub member, and as a bonus, each review excerpt contains a link to the official site of each movie in case you want to learn more. Never say I don't spoil my blog readers!

Flame & Citron: "Less a film about noble partisans fighting the good fight, and more about the way even the noblest of intentions can lead one astray in the fog of war, Flame & Citron is a dense, dark and ambitious tale, and one of the most successful (and most expensive) Danish films to date."

Sauna: "Annila has crafted a very European horror story in Sauna, with the emphasis on suspense and atmosphere rather than shock and gore. He successfully utilizes all the elements of the film’s broad palate, from the central characters’ sibling rivalry and the all-too-fresh tensions of a 25-year long war, through to a palpable sense of unease and decay and the gothic motifs of the ghost story. The film’s production design is visceral and vivid, and performances are excellent – especially Ville Virtanen as the war-haunted Eerik Spore, whose spectacles hide the self-loathing eyes of the habitual killer."

The Man Who Loved Ingve: "Featuring charming performances from some of Norway’s best young actors, and incisive direction from newcomer Stian Kristiansen (who was still studying at Sweden’s National Film School in Lillehammer at the time he was appointed to helm the production) The Man Who Loved Yngve avoids clichés and sentimentality while telling a fresh and authentic story about adolescent life. Characters are appropriately inarticulate, avoiding the faux-adult teenage dialogue depicted in such staples of US drama as Dawson’s Creek, The OC and more recent productions such as Gossip Girl; and the pangs and pains of adult life are fleetingly though accurately portrayed."

I've also seen the new Australian film about love, dreams and trucks by writer/director David Caesar, Prime Mover, which I wanted to like but didn't - to quote Don Groves from SBS Films, it's a 'straight-forward, cliché-riddled tale' - and writer/director Roland Emmerich's disaster-porn epic 2012 - which I enjoyed a lot more than I thought I would: it's big, it's dumb, but it's surprisingly fun.

I've also been stressing about my finances, since I don't have a new source of income to replace the money I was making working two days a week at MCV; and I've been worrying about how much I've been drinking while I've been off work - it's getting a bit excessive, in all honesty. That said, I guess I can only fight one vice at a time, and since I kicked a major speed habit earlier this year I probably shouldn't beat myself up too much. However, when I do get paid next week I think it might be time to buy some running shoes and take up some serious exercise, since I don't want to end up like my old man, who dropped dead at only 47. That's just five years away from where I'm standing...

Anyway, since I've been meaning to properly update this blog for a couple of weeks, I'm actually pretty happy with this morning's output. That's one thing I can cross off my long list of things to do, which means it's time to watch a few more episodes of Heroes!

Cool things to do on a hot, hot day

While today isn't quite the scorcher it was on Saturday, it's still getting uncomfortably warm; too warm for my liking. Anything above about 26-27 degrees is too warm for me, and while I no longer suffer nosebreeds and dizzy spells once the temperature climbs above 30 degrees, as I did as a child, I'm still definitely a cold weather kind of guy. Which is why I favour finding ways to escape the summer heat that are simultaneously rewarding, culturally and personally, as well as offer lower temperatures than can be found outside, on the baking streets of Melbourne.

Yesterday, my tempature-control plans saw me fleeing to the comforts of the cinema, at least initially.

One of the good things about living in Fitzroy is that the city is so close. At 10:15am, on the spur of the moment, I decided to catch the 10:30am session of The Golden Compass at the Melbourne Central Cinemas (comfortable seats, air conditioned, great sound system and - at such an early session - an almost total absence of screaming children to distract me from the story unfolding on the screen).

Now, had the film actually started at 10:30 I would never have made it in time; but knowing that there would be at least 20-30 minutes of ads and trailers before the film started gave me more than enough time to get out of the house and to the cinema on time.

The reviews for The Golden Compass (which is based on the novel Northern Lights by English fantasist Philip Pullman, the first in the His Dark Materials trilogy) haven't been great, with suggestions the story felt rushed, was too complex and confusing for its audience, etc. Having not read the book on which it is based, I thus went into the cinema in an ambivilent state, and came out enraptured.

With its feisty heroine, Lyra Belacqua (a wonderful performance by newcomer Dakota Blue Edwards despite her all-over-the-shop accent); a stellar cast including Daniel Craig as Lyra's uncle, the scholar-explorer Lord Asriel, the usually annoying but here convincingly cold and manipulative Nicole Kidman as the villainous Mrs Coulter (memorably described in a Guardian review as "an arresting mixture of Darth Vader and Veronica Lake"), and Sir Ian McKellen voicing the war bear Iorek Byrnison; and assured direction by Chris Weitz, who also wrote the screenplay, The Golden Compass is a thoroughly entertaining romp.

Without going into detail about the plot (which concerns, at its heart, a struggle over the choice between freedom and control of the human soul between free-thinkers and the Magisterium, a thinly-veiled portrait of the Church) the film is by turns enthralling in its detail, breathtaking in its scope, and inspiring in the message it subtly conveys.

The special effects-heavy production never gets in the way of the essential humanity (or lack thereof) of its characters, which include witches, sea-gypsies, child abductors, aeronauts and talking polar bears. While the film is not without its flaws (Lyra seems remarkably unsupervised for someone half the world is searching for, and constantly wanders off on her own despite the malevolent forces that are gathered against her; and the breakneck pace of the film certainly borders on the rushed) its skillful blend of story and spectacle, its rebellious heroine, and its essestial heart ensure that The Golden Compass is the best fantasy film to hit the screen since the conclusion of The Lord of the Rings, with significantly reduced machismo. Certainly it's a vast improvement on the blandness of Eragon and the by-the-numbers The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.

Highly recommended for children of all ages.

Thereafter, having had a brief lunch at a Vietnamese noodle bar, I ventured into the coolth of the State Library, and spent a happy hour or two perusing two of three permanent collections on display (the contents of which regularly cycle through the library's holdings, and so will not be the same in six months as they were yesterday).

Mirror of the World is an exhibition about books and their impact on civilisation, from the earliest form of the written word through to pulp fiction, graphic novels and contemporary literature. Whether exploring the 'religions of the book' (Islam, Christianity and Judaism, which each have a holy book at the core of their teachings) or the impact the publication of titles such as Darwin's The Origin of the Species and Mao's Little Red Book have had upon the world; this is a pretty cool exhibition for anyone with literary leanings. The exhibition is also situated in a gallery that runs around the library's great domed reading room, providing a perspective of the space I'd never experienced before.

Up another flight of stairs from Mirror of the World is another exhibition, The Changing Face of Victoria, which explores the evolution of Victoria's population, from pre-settlement to post-war migration, and much more. Here you'll find such treasures as Ned Kelly's armour and the Jerrilderie Letter, dictated by Kelly to his right-hand man, the opium-smoking Joe Byrne; the surveyor's chain with which Robert Hoddle mapped out Melbourne's grid; and paintings and photographs revealing all aspects of Victoria's cultural life and history. Given my own personal interest in the history of this city I call home, I found this exhibition enthralling. Perhaps you will too?

Review: Soon I Will Be Invincible

I was, I must confess, really hoping to enjoy the debut novel by US author Austin Grossman, Soon I Will Be Invincible. Unfortunately however, while occasionally entertaining, it was rarely inspired; relying too heavily on over-familiar archetypes and failing to delve deeply enough into the sometimes-twisted psyches of its main characters. In other words it was a bit of a let-down, although not without its charms.

Grossman, a game designer, has written a novel about superheroes and supervillains in which he attempts to get behind the mask and explore the psychology of individuals who are driven to wear capes and masks, and obsessed with either taking over the world, or stopping others doing the same. It's a nice idea, and done well, it could have been captivating. Unfortunately, due in part to the novel's pacing, and also to the author's inability to convincingly differentiate the two, alternate first-person narratives of the book, he fails to pull things off.

The first of our twinned narrators is Doctor Impossible, a nerdish genius gifted with superpowers following a scientific experiment which went horribly wrong. When the novel opens he is in prison, following numerous failed attempts to take over the world with a series of doomsday devices, as well as hypnotising the US president, taking the moon to ransom, and much more. Of course, as you would expect from an over-confident criminal mastermind diagnosed as suffering from Malign Hypercognition Disorder ('evil genius syndrome', in layperson's terms), he's not in prison for long...

The book's other narrator is Fatale, part human part machine; a cyborg, and newly apprenticed to the reformed superhero team The Champions. The victim of a terrible accident in South America, Fatale's only chance at life was to sacrifice almost everything which made her human. Now, her body irretrievably merged with a complex array of computers, bionics and sophisticated technological weaponry, she waits to see if she'll be accepted into the greatest crime-fighting super-group in the world...

It's through the eyes of these two characters that we learn about an array of archetypal superheroes, such as the borderline autistic Blackwolf (closely modelled on Batman) and the supremely powerful Damsel (Wonder Woman) when the Champions are are reformed several year's after an acrimonious breakup, due to the threat posed to the world - again - by Doctor Impossible.

As previously mentioned, Grossman's writing style never really brings his two main characters to life. Consequently the alternating narratives are too similar in style and tone to be convincing. The pacing of the plot and story too, is off-kilter - the story feels drawn out, at times even cumbersome - and while capable of sketching out his characters quickly and effectively, he never really gets beneath the surface to convincingly explore their motivations and personalities.

Additionally, the tone of the book is settled uncomfortably between satire and homage, while the overall story is so formulaic that it didn't sustain my interest after the first 100-150 pages. I really had to struggle to finish the book.

Comic fans, obviously, will get a kick out of Soon I Will Be Invincible, though some may find that Grossman's overly-faithful homages to various iconic superhero scenarios and characters begins to wear thin after a while. I suspect that more general readers will basically find the whole thing more than a little silly, and more than a little dull.

If you want strong psychological exploration of the motivations of superheroes, pick up a copy of Alan Moore's superb graphic novel, The Watchmen, because there's really not a lot about this book to recommend, unless you're after some light, relatively mindless reading.

Although, if if you visit the website hyperlinked above at the start of this post, you'll be able to determine whether you're at risk of developing Malign Hypercognition Disorder yourself. It seems I certainly am. Mwah-hah-hah-ha!

check the Metahuman Activity Map

The King of Shadows

SoonIWillBeInvincible.com

Plans for Saturday night

1. Good company with MsKP, Rach and others.
2. Trying not to hyperventilate.
3. ABC TV coverage.
4. Shrieking, one way or another.
5. The Greens' election night shindig in North Melbourne.
6. Huge fuck-off-Howard (hopefully) piss-up at Trades Hall bar til the wee small hours.
7. Hopefully get a celebratory root, or at least a snog.
8. Streaking optional.



Yes, I know I wrote this as a comment on RYWHM yesterday, but I'm overworked at the moment and couldn't think of anything else to write here today. So sue me. Actually, don't - I have no life savings to speak off, only a stupidly large collection of CDs by obscure indie bands and lots, LOTS of books. I could possibly spare something from my collection of 80s fantasy novels I suppose...



PS:

Out of the blog, into the world!

Should your life be so lacking in stimulii as to wish to see the author of this blog creep out from behind his keyboard and into the real world, then you'll have your chance this week; both physically and audibly.

This coming Thursday, I'll be facilitating two panels at the Melbourne Writers' Festival; in other words introducing two seperate groups of writers who will in theory be discoursing about the precise topics of the panels in question, but who really are engaged in little more than a marketing exercise designed to promote their latest books. Moi, cynical? Heaven forfend!

At 3:45pm in the Bagging Room at the Malthouse Theatre, I'll be chairing a panel called Refined Tastes, featuring authors John Lanchester and David Hewson, and discussing the differences and similarities between author and character when it comes to writing about art, architecture, food and wine, and similar subjects.

Then, at 6;30pm, in the Merlyn Theatre, I'll be facilitating a discussion with authors Janine Burke and Philip Jones called Collector's Edition, on the psychology of bringing things together. Festival Director Rosemary Cameron should have been a panellist on this one, methinks, although maybe the collective commercial demands of the publishers who seem to run the MWF from behind the scenes prohibited her from doing so.....?

Then, this coming Friday, I'll be shirking off work for an hour or so and wandering over to the Southbank studios of the ABC, to co-host The Conversation Hour with Jon Faine on 774 ABC. Our guests will be musician Mia Dyson, and a couple of writers who are in town for the MWF - which means above and beyond my usual stupid workload I have a thick stack of books to work through. Oh joy!

On poets and poetry

A couple of weeks ago I was flattered to be asked to launch a new book of poems, Excess Baggage & Claim, by its co-author, Terry Jaensch, who I've had the pleasure of knowing for several years.

Said launch took place tonight, at 45 Downstairs. Last week, over a beer, Terry had told me that he wanted someone who would 'speak to the book' and not just dwell on its gay aspects. I hope I succeeded.

***

"I'm delighted and honoured to have been asked to launch Terry Jaensch's and Cyril Wong's Excess Baggage & Claim here tonight.

Like many creative projects, the idea for the book has evolved significantly since 2002, when the idea of first writing about castrai opera singers first arose in Terry's mind.

Through a process of artistic alchemy, refinement and collaboration, that idea has given birth to a collection of poetry in which the castrati have metamorphed into a metaphor for the contemporary gay male; while singing, such as at the karaoke bars depicted in this book - 'all those standards that engage', to quote from one of the poems - has become a metaphor for the individual's voice, or lack of a voice.

Today, in John Howard's Australia, far too many of us are denied a voice. Elsewhere, some of us sit passively by, doing nothing as other people's voices are silenced and supressed.

We live in a time where legislation supporting same-sex civil unions has been banned by the Federal Government despite it being a key platform of the mandated ACT Government's sucessful election campaign; where 'Poorly realised gay characters cough themselves to death - still'; where communities are divided into 'Australians' and 'people of Middle Eastern appearance' and other others.

At such a time, the publication of Excess Baggage & Claim is, for me, a momentus occasion.

Momentus because it represents a personal and artistic triumph for Terry and Cyril, who were introduced by a mutual friend; who who corresponded for a year and a half via email as they discussed the project; and who hammered out much of the book's themes, voices and structures in a passionate four months in Singapore, which Terry visited as the result of an Asialink residency.

Momentus because it represents a remarkable cross-cultural fusion - both artistically, and politically. It is an act of creation, and a rejection of the values of Pauline Hanson and others of her ilk - including our own Prime Minister, who in 1988, in opposition, talked openly of too many Asian immigrants spoiling Australia's 'social cohesion'.

Momentous because it explores gay love and desire in a country where, only a decade ago, Cyril's first book was heavily censored by Singapore's National Arts Council because of its prevelence of gay themes.

Just as one of its characters seeks to 'cultivate one authentic self from a series of predictabilities', Cyril and Terry have strived - successfuly, in my eyes - to create a work of art which is larger than both of them.

It is a collection of poems which evokes the human spirit's ability to engage with past betrayals we might once have shied away from, considered unspeakable:

'father upon me, whispering:
Don't worry, don't move, this won't
hurt, ok?'

It is a collection of poems which do more than touch upon our intimate fears as we 'lie in bed waiting for the dark to lift', and which are about far more than just gay men, gay sex, and one man's romantic love for another.

Excess Baggage & Claim is a dialogue; an affair; an engagement with senses and sensation. It is a revelation. It is both painful and beautiful. It is a romance - flawed, like so many romances - and a romance with literature, a love of words, carefully written and placed.

'I love you. There, I have said it
Again. Bravely this time, without
Looking away as if the next moment
After could scorch me, the words
like sparks in cool, flamable air.'

I love this book. I commend it to you without hesitation, and I am delighted to now, offically, declare Terry Jaensch's and Cyril Wong's Excess Baggage & Claim well and truly launched.

Thank you."

***

Excess Baggage & Claim is published by the independent press, Transit Lounge, and available from their website, and through good independent bookshops.

Oh, and Cyril is also, as well as being a beautiful poet, a beautiful counter-tenor. He sang tonight, acapella, with such beauty that tears rolled down my cheeks as I listened to him.

The Bravest Coward

The story of rodeo-rider, horse-wrangler and gay man Adam Sutton is much more than just a coming out story.

As told with the help of his mate, journalist Neil McMahon (who is himself also gay) it's a story about hope, love, loss and fear; about determination and desperation, and how far we we go to hide from the truth about ourselves.

Perhaps most importantly, it is a deeply moving story about the pivotal relationships between our parents and ourselves. That said, it is very much a gay man's story, which makes it a human story, and one that will hit home for all who read it.

And yes, before anyone asks, I think I've developed a bit of a crush on Sutton while reading it; helped immensely by having lunch with him, McMahon and their publicist after last week's show... *blush*

Originally a newspaper article written by McMahon about his mate, 'the real gay cowboy', which appeared on the eve of the 2006 Academy Awards, when Heath Ledger stood a chance to win best actor for his role in the 'gay cowboy movie' Brokeback Mountain; and then an episode of Australian Story that moved me - and countless others - to tears, Adam's story is now a book, Say It Out Loud, that was published by Random House two weeks ago.

His life is a litany of tragedy: the self-loathing spawned by his conflicted sexuality that drove a younger Adam to reject family and friends; and his guilt over the death of another young man in a drunken car accident which led him to consider suicide only days before being sentenced to a prison term. It is also a story of adventure: prawn fishing and horse-breaking, working on remote Aboriginal communities, driving across the country single-handed, and slowly but surely, coming out.

Throughout this nomadic period of his life, Sutton describes himself as "the bravest coward" - throwing himself headlong into life-threatening danger as a means of distracting himself and others from what he viewed as his secret shame: his desire to love and be loved by other men.

Last week, I skimmed through Sutton's memoir prior to having the delightful experience of having him and Neil McMahon on my radio program. Such was the impact of the book that now I'm re-reading it properly, slowly, from cover to cover: and again, it is moving me to tears.

Adam Sutton's zest for life, his larrikan charm and innocence, and his frankness and honesty, coupled with Neil McMahon's precise, powerful prose, ensure that this is a book that will touch many people. Not just because it tells the story of one young man's struggle to truly accept his sexuality in a world of rough and ready (and ready to lash out at the unfamiliar) masculinity, but because it will resonate with anyone who has ever pushed away the people who loved them the most, no matter what the reason.

After I finish my copy I'm lending it to my mum. I'm also going to buy copies to send to my old high school in the country, because I'm sure there are still kids there who, like me back in the 1980's, would have walked taller after reading it. I strongly urge you to do the same.

Say It Out Loud: Journey of a Real Cowboy, by Adam Sutton and Neil McMahon, published by Random House, pb, 285pp, $34.95.

More Dublin adventures, then on to Amsterdam (updated)

Wed 14th September (Day 20)

Rose early and walked across the river to the central Dublin bus depot, from where my guided coach tour to Newgrange was due to depart at 9.40am. I had a sinking feeling as I started walking there, and decided about halfway through the walk that I should abandon the tour and make my own way to Newgrange. This would involve a 50-minute train trip to Drogheda, perhaps a wander around the town, and then a bus to the Brugh na Boinne. Sadly, once I got to the railway station I realised that I'd forgotten to include Ireland as one of the five countries on my Eurorail pass, so instead of paying extra for the train I resigned myself to the coach tour instead.

We left just after 10, with a fairly small contingent of 20 people, the majority of them aged 50+. The coach driver was informed and chatty, but by the end of the trip I just wanted him to shut up for five minutes so that I could soak in some of the landscape undisturbed.

Our first stop was Monasterboice, a monastery founded by St Buite (who died in 521 AD). Its main claim to fame are the three tall crosses, weathered and lichen spotted, which were carved and erected around the 10th century, that stand in the cemetery that dominates the site today; the tallest of the three crosses stands an impressive 6.5 metres high. Little remains of the monastery itself, save a few weathered walls, and an impressive round tower, standing some 35 high and built as a refuge for the monks and their holy treasures to keep them safe from maurauding Viking raiders.

Yew trees sprouted in the graveyard, their roots digging down into the fertile soil; rooks cawed and croaked above; and cows watched impassively from the surrounding fields. Many of the graves dated from the tragic times of the 19th Century Potato Famine, while the most recent burial was that of a local farmer killed in a car accident in the USA only a few weeks previously. It was an attractive and atmospheric site, but I felt a bit frustrated being there when I really wanted to go straight to Newgrange.

Back onto the bus and on to Mellifont Abbey, the picaresque ruins of the first Cistercian abbey in Ireland (founded in 1142 AD). Again, interesting and attractive in a gothic sort of way, but still not really my thing; on another day, had I wanted to embark on a tour of 10th century Ireland, I'm sure I would have found the place fascinating, but goddammit I wanted megaliths and Neolithic chamber-tombs!

Back onto the bus, and at last, off to the Boyne Valley: past the site of the 1690 Battle of the Boyne, a grassy field by a river intermittently lined with fisherman; in the distance the Hill of Slane, where St Patrick lit his beacon to announce the arrival of Christianity in Ireland in 433 AD; and finally, following the narrow road beside the River Boyne, to Newgrange. As we approached I felt a similar excitement to that I'd experienced at Stonehenge welling in my breast, especially once I caught my first glimpse of a burial mound atop a neighbouring hill...

Sadly, I found Newgrange itself disappointing: mainly, I think, because the site has been 'restored' to an informed interpretation of the way archeologists think it would have looked in its heyday in 3,200 BC instead of being left to nature. Even though the site is older than the Pyramids, indeed even older than Stonehenge, I found it difficult to feel any sense of atmosphere and mystery; it felt all too pristine and manufactured. It didn't help that we were herded into the passage tomb itself in groups of 25, meaning that you can't really see anything of the ancient carvings that adorn the stones, or hear the whisper of the past due to the inane babble of your fellow tourists...

That said, the nearby tourist centre, from which you have to catch a shuttle-bus to the tomb itself (one of over 30 Neolithic sites in the Brugh na Boinne area, including standing stones, barrows and enclosures) was informative, well-structured, and distinctly non-tacky. A definite relief!

Thereafter we were bussed back into Dublin (I napped part of the way, if only to avoid the driver's constant commentary) just in time to catch the peak hour traffic snarl.

I went and grabbed a quick bite, bought a copy of Jamie O'Neill's novel At Swim, Two Boys, and then went to see my final Dublin Fringe show for this trip: the passionate and dynamic hip-hop interpretation of Romeo and Juliet, Rumble. Fuck this was good! Simple staging, inspired use of multimedia (especially in the scene where Juliet was dreaming of her Romeo), and totally superb displays of physical prowess from its multinational cast. Great to see so many kids in the audience too. Definitely a winner.

Thereafter I checked out a local gay bar (underwhelming, but aren't all gay bars - especially when drag shows are placed centre stage as the ultimate in so-called entertainment?), and eventually staggered bedwards to pack and prepare for my flight to Amsterdam the following day.

Thurs 15th September

Wearing my Melbourne Fringe board member's hat, I started the day with a meeting with Wolfgang Hoffman, the director of Dublin Fringe, to talk about potential opportunities for cultural exchange programs and forging stronger links between our festivals. Hopefully it will lead on to some productive outcomes.

Then it was on through the rain to the airport, and a cheap flight to Amsterdam. I found myself giving assistance to a fellow tourist at Amsterdam Airport, who didn't know which train to catch to get into the city or how to work the ticket machine. The latter I could master because I read English and the ticket machine was bi-lingual; the former I knew about thanks to my Lonely Planet guide (my backpacking bible!).

Here's what I wrote at about 5pm on this day, within my first hour of arriving in Amsterdam:

Just arrived in Amsterdam Centraal (and no, that's not a spelling mistake) after getting a cheap flight over from Dublin this afternoon. I've checked into a small, cheap hotel - a very basic one, one step above a hostel - and have quickly dropped into a internet cafe that doubles as a 'coffee shop' to check the address of The Paradiso, a converted church turned live music venue and indie club where I'm hopefully going to go and see Mum tonight - Mum being an electronic band from Iceland whose music I love. It's delicate, sweeping, cinematic music, all rippling glacial tones and chimes, grandeur and drama. I don't have a ticket but as they still have tickets on sale at the door, I should hopefully get in.

Edit: I did get in, and fuck Mum were good. Plus they played their entire first album from start to finish as part of the show. Who-hoo!

And The Paradiso was amazing - great atmosphere, great DJ and superb acoustics - definitely somewhere to check out if you're in Amsterdam and want to catch a band or dance to some damn fine indie/alternative music. Check the above link for venue details if you need to know more.

After the gig finished I caught a tram back to my hotel (yes, a tram: I had a wave of homesickness and nostalgia when I boarded!), finished off the very mild joint I'd specifically requested from said earlier coffee shop (I hardly ever smoke choof these days so I wanted something very weak and very gentle, which was exactly what I got) and then crashed: I was knackered.

Friday 16th Sept: Day 22

I decided to stay in Amsterdam another night (which meant I basically resigned myself at this point to missing out on either Paris or Berlin; oh, would that it had been Paris, in retrospect...) so that I could soak up some of the atmosphere and sights of this tranquil, friendly and beautiful city.

I spent half the day avoiding being hit by bicycles: most major streets have four lanes: bike, car, car, bike - and of course people drive on the opposite side of the road from what we're used to in Australia, so half the time I was looking in the wrong direction when I stepped out onto the road, and consequently almost got clipped by pushbikes whizzing past on a number of occasions. By the end of the day I was almost paranoid, and was looking in every direction possible before attempting to cross the street.

I started the day with a couple of tokes on a fresh joint, and then a one-hour, rather impersonal guided tour of the canals, with a pre-recorded commentary delivered in bursts of Dutch, English, German, French and Japanese. Yes, another guided tour that I didn't like: by this stage of the trip I was starting to realise that guided tours just aint my thing! That said, I probably would have enjoyed a smaller tour more...

Travel Tip No. 2574: If you're in Amsterdam, shop around with the canal tours until you find a company that sends you out on a small boat, not a bloody great barge absolutely jampacked with tourists.

For the rest of the day I walked absolutely everywhere, which meant that even when I got lost I was still enjoying myself, because I was meandering and drifting and discovering new sights around every corner or across every canal...

As an aside: A couple of people had warned me about pickpockets in Amsterdam and indeed Europe generally. Be alert, they said, pickpockets might lift your wallet from your back pocket (not mine, I have a chain wallet) so wear a money belt or a bumbag (which to me sems like a great way of advertising where you're carrying your money, passport etc, although thinking about it I guess a chain-wallet is no different). Even Lonely Planet's Europe On A Shoestring guide mentioned occasional instances of people's backpacks being sliced open while they waited at traffic lights to cross the street, resulting in their valuables and travel documents being stolen in a matter of seconds.

Nothing like that happened to me, but as an example of how seriously people take this kind of thing, at one stage today I stopped on a bridge in order to open my backpack so I could pull out the camera and take a photo. Task accomplished, I slung my backpack back over on my shoulder, the camera in my hand. I'd only taken a few stops when a polite young man - a local I think, from the accent - stopped me and warned me that my bag was still open. It was indeed still partially unzipped; only a couple of inches, but presumably enough for an accomplished pickpocket to reach in and grab whatever they could find - which would only have been my journal, a novel and my Lonely Planet, as it happens, but still it aptly illustrates how seriously people take pickpocketing on the continent...

Anyway, rather than blather on endless, it's time for a quick summary. My Amsterdam highlights included:

• The cobbled expanse of 13th century Dam Square, and the grandeur of the Royal Palace, originally built as this proud merchantile city's Town Hall in the 17th century, which I literally stumbled upon by accident the previous night while taking my first tentative steps about the city, and which I had to see again by daylight.
• The Amsterdam Historical Museum, housed in what was once the city's orphanage, built in the 15th century and then extended in the 17th. While the museum concentrates on Amsterdam's golden age, the 17th Century when the city was the rich capital of a vast merchantile empire, I was most intrigued by the exhibitions which explored Amsterdam in the 12th - 15th centuries, as it slowly grew into the city of canals and bridges that it is today. I scribbled down several notes about this period, which I'm sure will be useful one day... In addition to this, there was a great exhibition focussing on the art and history of modern tattooing, whose centerpiece was a recreation of a tattoo parlour from the late 50's/early 60's. Cool stuff indeed.
• The awe-inspiring Rijskmuseum, which I hadn't actually intended to visit, but which I found myself in front of as I was trying to find the Van Gogh Museum. What the hell, I thought, I may as well go inside. Because it's being renovated, the bulk of the museum, a vast and beautiful building in its own right, is closed until 2008. While parts of the collection tour the world (including, recently, Melbourne) the "crème de la crème of its permanent collection" was on display in one wing of the museum. Sadly I forgot to take my journal and a pen out of my bag when I handed it over to the cloakroom staff, so my smoke-clouded recollections of what I saw are a trifle hazy, but this 400-piece survey of the Rijskmuseum's collection of 17th Century masterpieces was definitely a marvellous aesthetic experience, even it the bulk of the works were from an historical period I'm not especially smitten by...
• The marvellous Van Gogh Museum (where I had a momentary frisson of impending doom as I gazed into the painter's eyes, in a series of four of his self-portraits hanging side by side, and recognised certain similarities in our expressions...or maybe that was just the effect of the joint I'd smoked in the park before I went inside...). Here I saw some truly magnificent art, including a temporary exhibition of cabaret posters, theatre programs, handbills and other ephemera by Henri de Toulouse Lautrec; the Fauve-influenced masterpiece Portrait of Guus Preitinger, the Artist’s Wife, by Kees van Dongen; and of course countless works by poor tortured Vincent himself. As it was a Friday the museum was open until 9.30pm so I had plenty of time to stroll around and gaze in awe at the artworks, despite having already had a busy day.

That night I went off to an excellent absinthe bar, named Absinthe, appropriately enough, where they served six different types of absinthe scaled by price and thujone content (thujone being the psychoactive ingredient which gives the drink its legendary properties and mystique). I lingered over a couple of different varieties, chatting happily with the Irish barmaid and a couple of young American tourists ("We don't smoke," one of them said, and gestured to his glass, "so this is as wild as we get.") before I made my way out into the night.

Next I'd planned to go check out a couple of other bars before finishing my evening sightseeing in the infamous Red Light District, but as I was a touch tired and footsore, I decided to skip the bars (after all, I figured I was pretty unlikely to find a gay bar that played the kind of music I like without doing at least a half-hour's research beforehand) and head straight to the Red Light district.

Colourful, is one word that springs to mind. There were plenty of other sightseers like myself, but there were also a lot of serious customers perusing the charms of various women in the windows, haggling over services and prices, or queuing up to enter one of the several clubs touting live sex shows on stage. While the latter had a vague, perverse appeal (if only to say that I'd experienced unbridled heterosexuality live before my eyes) the fifty euro cover charge, about AU $100, was enough to ensure that I stayed a sightseer - especially as it only included one drink!

Having squeezed a lot of Amsterdam into one day, and yet still only having scratched the surface, I called it a night. A good night's sleep was in order, seeing as tomorrow the final leg of my trip would begin.

Onwards, to Paris!

Footsore and happy in Dublin (Updated)

Monday 12th September

It's not really surprising that I slept in until almost 11am today as I was exhausted, which meant that I missed out on the hostel's free breakfast and lost part of the day, but woke deeply refreshed and ready for a big day.

It began with a quick breakfast (a smoothie and a cheese & ham bagel for those who like to know the minutae of my life) and then a visit to the Dublin Fringe ticket office to grab tickets to my first three shows (of which the promo artwork for one is pictured above). Then I headed off for a guided tour of Dublin's Trinity College, whose alumni include the likes of writer and wit Oscar Wilde, and Bram Stoker, the author of Dracula. Our student guide was casutic, witty and extremely entertaining as he pointed out various buildings, commented on college traditions, and showed us such landmarks as the two great trees growing on the college lawns, their roots buried deep in the graveyard of the old monastery which once stood here...

The tour ended outside the Old Library, which is the home of the remarkable illuminated bible known today as The Book of Kells. After viewing the book and related manuscripts of a similar age (I think there must be a series of old manuscripts tourists have to view, like swapcards, while they travel through Ireland and the UK - such as one of the four remaining copies of Magna Carta which I saw in Salisbury Cathedral - collect the set!) I wandered upstairs to the Long Hall - and my god what a library! Spiral stairs, busts, rare manuscripts, ladders leading to the topmost shelves, and a whole second tier of books towering above you on the second floor. And yes, it is indeed a lonoooooong hall, as the above link will show you.

Thereafter I cruised about the campus for a little while - cruised being the appropriate word. Let's just draw a discrete curtain over what happened after I made repeated eye-contact with a rather cute young red-headed student who turned out to have a room on campus, shall we?

Ahem.

Next I strolled, smiling and feeling delightfully relaxed, down to a nearby park where a suitably languid statue of Oscar Wilde has been erected, opposite Wilde's birthplace and family home. I bowed in homage to the great man, who is one of my personal saints, and raised a glass (well a can) of cider in his honour that I'd put in my bag especially for the occasion. This despite the fact that drinking was forbidden in the park. Oh, I'm such the rebel. ;-)

Thereafter I meandered back to Trinity and purchased a ticket to The Dublin Experience, allegedly the ultimate multimedia exploration of Dublin's history. Cobblers. It was a naff collection of slides using almost no original source material or footage, with a series of voiceovers linking it all together. While some of the early history about the Viking settlement of the city was informative, as was the brief summary of the events of the Easter Uprising in 1916, by the time we got to the modern era the show degenerated into a jingoistic compilation of images that reminded me of bad US propogandha films from the 1950's. Avoid The Dublin Experience folks, if you're coming to Dublin, unless you really need a crash course on Irish history in a 40 minute package.

After that I went to see a couple of Fringe shows in the evening:

A Season in Hell (After Arthur Rimbaud): Presented by The Stomach Box

"It has been found again!
What? Eternity.
It is the sea mingled with the sun."
- 'Alchemy of the Word', A Season In Hell (trans. Oliver Bernard)

A contemporary, site-specific operetta based on the poetry of 19th Century wunderkind Arthur Rimbaud. The production was performed in a warehouse, in a cavernous, dusty and gloomy room, to which we were led by a guide after meeting on the street a couple of blocks away. Music was performed live, and there were some excellent directorial flourishes, including some inventive use of video and the original appearance of the main performer, swathed in a black robe and carrying a lantern through the darkened room accompanied by a recording of an Arabic singer.

Sadly A Season In Hell was let down by its director-composer's insistence on singing. Had he stuck to the piano and the occasional spoken word performance it would have been a much stronger show. He had such a weak voice and narrow vocal range that it drained the work of any real power, save for when he was declaiming the poetry, at which point it came to spectacular life. Given that I'm quite an admirer of Rimbaud and his poetry, I found this show rather disappointing.

Urban Ghosts - Pale Angel (Presented by Bedrock)

"Once upon a time there was a little girl who made friends with shadows..."
- From the opening monologue of Pale Angel
(a line delivered by a menacing, suit-wearing, rabbit-headed man.)

An evocative, complex and sometimes cryptic fusion of physical theatre and drama, this performance by Irish company Bedrock was devised and directed by Jimmy Fay, with text by Alex Johnston. Its drama was informed by the suicide of American photographer Francesca Woodman in 1981. Woodman, who often used herself as her own model, was little known during her own life but has increasing come to be recognised as one of the major artists of her generation.

Superb lighting, strong performances, and a plot that explored grief and guilt, and which occasionally veered into the surreal and haunting, ensured that I was utterly captivated by this production from beginning to end. In fact I liked Pale Angel so much that I went to see the second show presented by Bedrock during the Fringe on Tuesday. More of that shortly...

***

After seeing two shows in one night I retired to the downstairs bar at my hotel, where I had a couple of pints, was slightly disturbed by the vast number of Amercian accents dominating the room, and went to bed relatively sober and relatively early - by my standards, at any rate!

***

Tues 13th September

Rose early, about 8.30am and had a free breakfast - fruit and cereal - in the backpackers' dining room, then strolled down through the Temple Bar and over to the main Dublin Tourist Office, where I booked myself a guided tour to the Neolithic chamber tomb of Newgrange (this would later turn out to be a mistake - see tomorrow's post for more details).

At this stage of the trip I was also seriously considering blowing off the rest of my plans for the Continent and staying in Ireland for the rest of my holiday, seeing as I was enjoying the atmosphere and energy of Dublin so much, but to do that I would have to get my visa extended, as I'd told customs at the airport I was only staying for a few days. This turned out to be a bit more complicated that I wanted it to be, so in the end, I decided to keep to my already distorted schedule and head on to Amsterdam in a few days time.

This sorted, I headed off to the National Museum of Ireland which has a superb collection of Stone Age - Iron Age antiquities, and where I marvelled at how small the hilts of Bronze Age (circa 1400-1000 BC) rapiers were: what tiny hands the warriors who wielded them must have had!

I was just admiring the natural mummification of a bog body when the power went off, and all of us were herded outside onto the street by nervous security guards, who presumably sought to ensure that none of us smashed a glass case and nicked a gold torque while the generator was down... Missed my chance, there!

Out on the street, I walked back past the modern Irish Parliament to the Temple Bar district, and went to the National Photographic Archive, which is dedicated to preserving and presenting old photos of a vanished Ireland. The exhibition showing while I was there was called Regeneration, presenting photographs taken by the Congested Districts Board, a government organisation who helped families from poor, over-populated and under-developed areas re-settle or re-build.

Given the activities of similiar well-meaning but destructive government boards in Australia's colonial history I was a touch suspicious, but the exhibition gave the Congested Districts Board nothing but good press: great photos too, of bare-footed children, turn-roofed cottages, tiny fishing villages and much more, most of them taken circa 1910.

Just across Meeting House Square was the Gallery of Photography, who display contemporary photographic work (rather like Melbourne's CCP). The current exhibition was the marvellous The Architect's Brother, a series of works by Robert and Shana ParkeHarrison (USA). Their work was a spectactularly strange and beautiful series of photogravures, presenting surreal and haunting sepia-toned images: a man crawling across a series of planks which he is nailing together over the surface of a lake to create a bridge...a rent in the earth reveals the gears and mechanisms of a strange machine...a man waters a tree that sprouts from his head, its roots like dreadlocks...dangling from ropes tethering a cloud, an everyman hooks himself to the peak of a mountain.

Thereafter, having enjoyed yesterday's performance by Bedrock so much, I went to see Urban Ghosts: Self Accusation at the Fringe, a lunchtime performance. This was a local production of Peter Handke's 1966 two-hander, a deliberately contrived piece more spoken word than theatre, featuring two performers (a man and a woman), alternating confessional declarations of guilt: "I lay on the floor during months with the letter R ... I failed to look away ..." Through its deliberately repetitive & confessional litany, this piece 'examines the path we all follow from youth to adulthood, from nature to culture, an inevitable progression towards conformity and integration in society'. It was fantastic, and I'd love to perform it here in Melbourne one day.

Thereafter I strolled through the streets of Dublin, through a crowded mall to St Stephens Green Park, where young boys threw sticks into the leafy boughs of a chestnut tree, where countless couples were entwined in the afternoon sun and mallards quacked on the lake. I admired memorials to Joyce and Yeats - god but Ireland loves its writers, would that Australia was the same - and then dropped into The Stag's Head for dinner (Irish Stew) and a pleasant yarn with a young barman who'd spent a year in Australia (several months of it in Melbourne), and who told me he despaired of the trait of his countrymen to seek out the first Irish pub they could find every time they visited a new country.

That night, I returned to Trinity College, to the Beckett Theatre to see what was to be the highlight of my Dublin Fringe experience: the Welsh company Earthfall's adaptation of Jamie O'Neill's award-winning novel At Swim, Two Boys.

My god but this was a beautiful piece of work; one of those performances so sublime, so moving, so poignant and romantic that it made me weep while watching it. Watching? No, participating: this was a performance of physical theatre that made you feel the emotions and experiences the two dancers were presenting, that made you feel like you were actively involved rather than just a passive observer seated in the audience.

The story explores the growing love between two teenaged boys, Jim and Doyler, and is set against the backdrop of 1916, when World War One raged in Europe and when the Easter Rising launched the fledgling Irish Republic and the rebellion against English rule. Performed by Terry Michael and the beautiful Cai Tomos, the production of At Swim, Two Boys is set in a low-walled pool which gradually fills with water as the dance continues. The performers leap, spin and splash with exuberence and tenderness as the production plays out, to a sublime, cacophanous and delightful live score by expat Sydneysider Roger Mills (and another musician, whose name I don't know, unfortunately).

Now, I'm not a huge fan of physical theatre at all, but this piece really won me over, and I'm going to try my hardest to see if there's not some way of ensuring that it can tour Australia, because god I want all of my friends to be able to see it.

The following day I went out and bought the novel it was based on: that made me cry too, but more of that later...

Onwards to Dublin

Sunday 11th September

After a restless night's sleep (I was paranoid about oversleeping and missing my Aer Lingus flight to Dublin, the capital city of the Republic of Ireland, because I don't own a watch or a travelling clock) I eventually climbed out of bed at 8am. I probably only had about two hours sleep all night, despite getting to bed at the relatively civilised (for Barcelona!) hour of 2am, and so consequently was a bit of a grouch for the rest of the day. Ordinarily this wouldn't have been a problem, except for the circumstances of my flight.

Richard's travel tip #18: Don't catch a Sunday midday flight from Barcelona - the airport will be full of still-drunk, loudly boasting British lads who are returning home from a weekend of shagging and partying and conspiring about what lies to tell their girlfriends. Worse, flights from Barcelona to Dublin at this time are, according to an Aer Lingus stewardess, traditionally full of Spanish high school kids on their way to Ireland for a week to help them improve their English skills. The horror, the horror!

Not only was the plane echoing with the uncontrolled shouts, shrieks and bellowed conversations of about 35 such teenagers, but their teachers did absolutely nothing to control them. Worse still, for some reason I was seated right in their midst!

Now, bearing in mind that I was sleep deprived and grumpy, you can imagine how little I enjoyed this flight. At one point, despite having my headphones on at my iPod at maximum volume, I could still hear them shouting and carring on, to the point where I was compelled to turn to the kid next to me, saying 'Habla ingles per favor?' ("Do you speak English please?") When he replied in the affirmative, I said sweetly, "Then will you please shut the fuck up and stop yelling in my ear?" He looked suitably surprised and abashed, and to his credit kept the volume down for the next hour. Didn't stop the rest of them though!

So, not the most enjoyable plane flight I've ever had. Far from it in fact. It was an enourmous relief to disembark, grab my luggage, and catch a bus into central Dublin. It was even more of a delight to run into Rob Nairn at the airport - a Melbourne lad who used to work at The Builder's Arms Hotel! Ah it's a small world to be sure, to be sure.

Rob and his girlfriend Hannah have been living in the UK for about a year, and were over here in Ireland for a visit; in fact he was returning their hire car to the airport when I bumped into him. He advised me where to get off the bus in town, and also advised me that I might have problems finding a room, as the all-Ireland Cork vs Galway hurley grand final was happening!

There were, indeed people everywhere, swarms of them flooding every street and spilling out of every pub. I still found a bed though, for €15 a night at the Oliver St. John Gogarty, in the heart of the Temple Bar district, the entertainment/culture centre of Dublin. It's a bit noisy (the downstairs bar hosts live traditional Irish music til 2am but what the fuck, I can always join em if I can't sleep) but large, clean and comfortable - plus there's only me and one other person in my eight-bed dorm room.

After checking in and dumping my backpack, I went for a stroll about town to orient myself. It's not an imediately beautiful city, but I really like it here and am considering skipping Amsterdam so that I can stay in Ireland for a few more days instead of leaving on Thursday.

One of the first places I found was a great independent bookshop called Books Upstairs, where not only did I pick up a gay and lesbian newspaper and a Dublin Fringe mini-program, but also a couple of local literary journals and a collection of new and emerging writers. I also visited The Body Shop to get some peppermint foot balm (I've been doing so much walking in the last week that I've got blisters. Owww.) and then dropped into an Irish pub for a pint, and discovered an impromptu jam session in progress, with a guitarist, a whistle-player, and an appreciative crowd - how very Irish!

That evening I met up with Rob and Hannah for dinner at a very good but slightly expensive Japanese restaurant called Wagamomas - sort of like a busier version of Melbourne's Chocolate Buddha, and equally pricey. In fact Dublin is a very expensive city all round, especially compared to Barcelona; the good thing about Wagamomas though was the quality of the food - good fresh ingredients - and the attentive service.

After we parted ways I dropped in to another pub, the International, for a nightcap and got talking to a couple of lads in the basement bar, which hosts live music later in the week. One of the lads was Bob, a burly, shaven-headed 25 year old-ish lift repairman (and quite cute I might add - indeed, so are many of the Irish boys, and their accents make me go weak at the knees...). After hearing that it was my first night in Ireland, and being quite drunk after celebrating the day's big game in style, Bob was generous enough to give me a gift: a small block of hashish which I promptly lost later that night, dammit!

Then it was back to Temple Bar and off to bed for a much-needed rest.

Tomorrow: Trinity College, the Book of Kells, Oscar Wilde and so much more!