taint.org: Justin Mason’s Weblog

Dublin: Sorry to the non-Dublin readership, I’m sure you all are getting quite bored of this by now. But anyway…

According to jd on the discussion page, the new owner of the Stag’s Head is Louis Fitzgerald, who picked it up for EUR 5.8 million.

Reportedly, he’s ‘the biggest publican in Dublin’ (sic), and owns The Quays in Temple Bar, The Palmerstown House in Palmerstown, The Big Tree on Dorset Street and The Poitin Stil in Rathcoole — and Kehoe’s on South Anne Street. Quite an empire.

I’ll have to leave the speculation on Fitzgerald’s pros and cons to more recent residents of Dublin, but I agree with jd’s comment: ‘hope he does half a good as job as the Shaffrys, and the bicycles are left outside rather than on the ceiling,’ Amen to that.

Tags: discussion, dublin, fitzgerald, head, louis, non, owner, page, palmerstown, readership, stag

Dublin: This is it — it could be the end of an era. CB Richard Ellis auctioneers have a page up noting a new property to be auctioned on Wednesday 11th May 2005 — The Stag’s Head, 1 Dame Court, Dublin 2:

The Stag’s Head is one of Dublin’s most famous and finest landmark licensed premises, with many outstanding Victorian features.

The bar is lavishly appointed with many fine Victorian features from the beautiful mahogany panelling through to the red Connemara marble counter and the ornate stained glass windows.

Accommodation briefly comprises ground floor traditional style bar with feature mahogany and marble topped bar counter and terrazzo flooring with a snug area to the rear with ornate stained glass skylight. On the first floor there is a further lounge bar area with feature bay window. On the second floor there is a large catering kitchen, dry goods store and office. In the basement there is a further lounge bar area, cold room and toilets.

Many nights were spent in the Stag’s Head partaking of their excellent Guinness. It used to be my local, at one stage, and I still drop back in for a night when I get the chance. Save the Stag’s!

As my mate Ben put it –

The new owners will doubtless get rid of the (moth-eaten, stuffed) fox, put in recorded music and big-screen televisions, hire bouncers, open on Sundays, extinguish the distinctive odour of damp, replace the marble with formica, and dig up the Dame St mosaic and trade it to the Russian Mafia for heroin and trafficked women. Evil bastards.

Tags: area, bar, counter, dublin, floor, glass, head, lounge, mahogany, marble, stag

Music: Warren Ellis on pop:

The American music industry … seems to have sunk into a bizarre obsession with paedophilia. Britney Spears has gone from schoolgirl gear to a deeply strange hentai look, little-girl head stuck above great shiny plastic boobs, singing in a Minnie Mouse voice. No wonder she was being stalked by a shifty-looking middle-aged Japanese bloke. He probably had a suitcase full of tentacles to use on her. Christina Aguilera gifts us with the vision of a twelve-year-old girl in leather chaps and a rubber bra.

He’s right, you know… I blame porn-addled middle-aged music biz producers, myself. (Found via the null device.)

Tags: gear, head, hentai, industry, look, music, obsession, paedophilia, pop, schoolgirl

Warren Ellis on pop:

The American music industry … seems to have sunk into a bizarre obsession with paedophilia. Britney Spears has gone from schoolgirl gear to a deeply strange hentai look, little-girl head stuck above great shiny plastic boobs, singing in a Minnie Mouse voice. No wonder she was being stalked by a shifty-looking middle-aged Japanese bloke. He probably had a suitcase full of tentacles to use on her. Christina Aguilera gifts us with the vision of a twelve-year-old girl in leather chaps and a rubber bra.

He’s right, you know… I blame porn-addled middle-aged music biz producers, myself. (Found via the null device.)

Tags: gear, head, hentai, industry, look, music, obsession, paedophilia, pop, schoolgirl

Someday, Ben will set us up the blog, and there will be much rejoicing. In the meantime, I can only quote this one in full, as he hits it on the head:

OK, I know you find this the most boring thing ever and would prefer to find new ways of air-conditioning your chipsets, but, come on! The human drama is nigh Shakespearean.

This guy is pretty good:

http://radio.weblogs.com/0120124/

But, really, RHAT’s filing stands alone. It’s a thing of beauty, as 27-page legal filings go. They give them both barrels; failing business, FUD, insider stock dumping …

http://lwn.net/images/ns/rh-complaint.pdf

ben

Tags: air-conditioning, blog, drama, filing, guy, head, meantime, nigh, rhat, thing

Some excellent ‘oddly enough’ stories:

• Giant dog-eating catfish dies: a story mourning the death of Kuno, a 5-foot-long catfish living in the lake at Volksgarten Park in Moenchengladbach, Germany. It’s presumed he died due to a local heatwave and the resulting low water level. ‘Kuno became a local celebrity in 2001 when he sprang from the waters of the lake to swallow a Dachshund puppy whole.’ I had a run-in with giant catfish before; mind you, a bit nearer to their natural habitat, and with less pet ingestion involved.

  Catfish are in the news it seems; this NYT editorial is relevant, if a bit depressing. ‘The next time a … delegation sets off to preach the dogma of free trade abroad, poor nations would be within their rights to thumb their noses.’

• Yahoo! India: Holding severed head in place, he defied death: van driver has road accident, then: ‘His head almost severed, blood oozing and eyes popping out, Balram was in a dazed state when the accident took place… He, however, kept his head attached to his body with some cloth. When no one came to help him, he drove his own vehicle for 30 km to reach a nursing home in Agra.’ Now that’s grit!

• More sex than splendour on academy’s Aztec holiday: ‘When Andrew Humphrey entered a competition run by the venerable Royal Academy to win a week experiencing Aztec culture first-hand, he might have expected a genteel tour of the ruins around Mexico City, perhaps taking in the famous floating gardens of Xochimilco. Instead, he found himself tasting contemporary Mexican culture at a notorious adults-only resort with nudity, a ’sexy pool’ and ‘adult’ shows.’

(All picked up via the forteana mailing list BTW.)

Tags: academy, accident, bit, catfish, culture, death, head, kuno, lake, place

My cat has turned into a murderer. For the last week, he’s been going out and bagging 1-2 wild animals per day; mostly rabbits, but some voles and a finch too.

It’s really wrecking my head. I don’t have the nuts to kill a half-dead rabbit in cold blood, so I wind up leaving them in the bushes to die; and I’m sure that’s exactly what happens to most of ‘em. The other day I had to fish out a dead baby rabbit, put it in a plastic bag, and dump it in the bin.

Maybe I should leave them out for the hawks. There’s a pretty big peregrine and red-tailed hawk population around here.

Alternatively, maybe some cat transformation sets would help… at least around the house: ‘The cat which became a hood figure is likely to have a broom at any moment, and is likely to begin cleaning.’

Bonus: via jwz:

Tags: baby, blood, cat, day, finch, fish, head, murderer, rabbit, week

Israeli Defence Force fires on parents of injured British peace activist (Independent) (and the British defence attache to Tel Aviv): ‘The parents of a British peace activist who was shot in the head by Israeli troops, came under fire themselves’ … (they) ‘were in a British diplomatic convoy entering the town of Rafah in the Gaza Strip when Israeli soldiers at a checkpoint fired a shot’. ‘The incident … took place despite the Israeli Army being given notice of the journey on at least three occasions’. Incredible. More at the Guardian, too.

Tags: activist, attache, convoy, defence, fire, force, head, independent, israeli, peace

Mozilla fans (and people who want to see how anti-aliasing is doing getting into Mozilla HEAD) may find Chris Blizzard’s blog worth tracking.

Tags: blog, head, mozilla, tracking

From Memepool: The Grand List of Console Role Playing Game Clichés.

1. Thinking With The Wrong Head (Hiro Rule) No matter what she’s accused of doing or how mysterious her origins are, the hero will always be ready to fight to the death for any girl he met three seconds ago.

Tags: clichs, console, game, grand, head, hiro, list, memepool, role, thinking