“The closing four pages are so cataclysmic and catastrophic as anything I’ve ever done—the harmony bites like nitric acid – the counterpoint grinds like the mills of God.”
Quirky
From A (Angostura) to Z (Zacapa): Toeing the line in a new kind of Rum Diary
The crack had appeared in the all-important distal phalange, one of 14 phalanges (a posh word for bone, as in ‘I’ve got a phalange to pick with you’ or ‘My favourite red wine is Côte de Phalange’).
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Quirky
Testing times, a Praying Mantis and a countdown to freedom in the Interim Quarantine Bureau
“We’re here for the test,” said a woman in full PPE, who at first sight looked like a giant praying mantis. “So am I,” I replied lamely. “The All Blacks are ahead 16 to 8.”
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Lifestyle
In training for the (very modern) Quarantine Pentathlon
The triple jump – What we used to call the hop, step and jump at school is a natural for a finely tuned quarantine athlete such as me. Hop? Why that’s so easy, I could do it on one leg.
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Miscellaneous
Time to abandon the rear view mirror
It takes me 12 strides to walk the approximate 10-metre length of my room. That means 150 ‘laps’ or 1,800 strides to do my equivalent of the 1,500 metres. Today I plan to set a new personal best in a probably futile attempt to delay the onset of madness.
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Miscellaneous
Rain and shine, a room indoors and edging towards a revival
Our gathering evoked the value of the relationships that so many of us in the industry have forged over many years, and the trust and friendship that underpins them.
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Events
Leading from the front at the Dubai Duty Free Irish Open
As the Dubai Duty Free Irish Open takes place, even with limited numbers and with all of the necessary safety measures, it also offers an important sense of normality returning to Irish life.
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Miscellaneous
Tuning into Edvard Grieg’s Morning Moodie
Amid all the talk about sector ‘recovery’, the reality is that any such curve is going to be country by country, route by route, step by step (in both directions). Inch by bloody inch.
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Lifestyle
Move over Moxie and Martin, your body double is in town
Courtesy of Kelly and Kiehl’s, and with both Moxie and the real Martin now having a body double in place, I’ll surely scale what had seemed not just a hill but a whole mountain range.
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Quirky
How Caelumest Ginis and Ginger Vitis got Blitzed then Bloomed
Norbert Pinkley ordered his fourth gin with alacrity. “Certainly Sir, on the rocks?” “No, just down on my luck.”
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Quirky
How ARI’s resident ‘Andy man’ created an international DIY gin distillery
Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world he walked into his own. Here’s your chance to win a bottle of gin of your choice while applauding distil-it-yourself in-gin-uity.
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Fashion
Masked Men unveiled – and Mask Maker revealed
Colm mistook – quite understandably – the chap on the right for American actor and heartthrob George Clooney…
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Quirky
Boris in Blunderland and quite the stupidest T(ory) party you’ll ever visit
“Short-sighted, incomprehensible and, let’s say, quite masochistic decision! I love this country, but sometimes I hardly understand it”