Peter Rhodes on fiddly bottles, hats in bed and fury erupting in Dublin
Considering how big it is, how close it is and how strong are our family links to it, we don't get much news out of Ireland. Even the TV and online weather forecasts tend to ignore it, dwelling on anti-cyclones over Belfast, but not over Dublin. We are left with the impression that the Republic of Ireland is a rather quiet sort of place where cheery, contented, multi-cultural folk are up for the craic and rubbing along nicely.
And then out of the blue (or possibly the green), the centre of Dublin suddenly erupts in an orgy of violence. I was reminded of the footage from Ulster when the Troubles kicked off in 1969. Everyone could see what what was happening, but nobody had a clue why. And now, as back then, we are suddenly made aware that all is not sweetness across the water, that mass immigration is not going so well and there's a nasty whiff of far-right racism drifting across the Liffey. To misquote W B Yeats, a terrible ugliness is born.
I nodded off while wearing a woolly hiking hat (it's a long story) and enjoyed the best night's sleep I'd had for years. So as always when something unusual happens, I turned to Google and uncovered masses of evidence about the benefits of adding headgear to your bedgear, from preventing heat loss to making your hair lustrous; frankly, it's a little late for that. Am I preaching to the converted? Are we a nation of closet hat snoozers?
Happy 60th, Doc. I recall the first episode of Doctor Who but don't remember watching with any great interest in the intervening 60 years, or being remotely scared of the Daleks. But there was one enemy that became the stuff of nightmares, the Weeping Angels from 2007 who steal your life energy by touching you but can only move towards you when you blink. In other words you are doomed by your own actions which must be the very worst sort of doom. Stop blinking. How long would you last . . ?
Just been wrestling with one of these new plastic drinks bottles with the screw top attached to the neck of the bottle which means both bottle and top can be recycled together. Awkward to undo, difficult to re-seal and almost impossible to drink from. I never knew saving the planet would be so fiddly.
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