St. Patrick's Weekend in Second Life

Yes, St Patrick's Weekend was celebrated in Second Life, not least in the various themed parties and meet ups in the clubs and bars there. Discover Ireland also arranged for a number of parades along the streets of "Dublin" as part of an effort to publicise the Real Life (RL) city. The theory behind this is that people might like SL Dublin and come searching for some RL kicks.

I find SL Dublin to be strange in the extreme. Walking (or flying) along College Green, one sees traffic-free streets and some familiar sights like Trinity College and the Bank of Ireland. Enter a doorway, however, and one finds oneself inside a typical SL boutique selling avatar clothing or jewellry. It's like being in a dream where the familiar is ever so distorted. In O'Connell Street, the widest thoroughfare in Europe, one finds the GPO a stone's throw from the river (I flew into the Liffey by accident and walked along the bottom -- a real first -- I've not done that in RL... yet....) and then the Northside stops abruptly before Henry Street. No Clearys, either, but there is a Millenium Spire. There are quite a few avatars hanging out in SL Dublin's bars and clubs and it is definitely worth a longer exploration some time.
On Sunday I joined the onlookers for the first parade in SL Dublin. It was fun for a number of unexpected reasons, primarily the technical problems of too many visitors filling up a Sim in one go and the comments from those whose avatars were experiencing difficulties. People were materialising without any hair, or couldn't see anything, or couldn't figure out if they were sitting in an unoccupied seat. Luckily, although there were some lags in the action, I didn't experience too many glitches. The arrival of SL floats whose construction was sponsored by various RL and SL interests was announced by a commere whose American origins meant some interesting pronunciations of the pre-prepared script: "Dally-mount Park" and "Chapel-eye-zod" for instance. "The Christchurch" was another small blooper.

I have to say I didn't stay to see the whole parade, but of those I saw the floats mostly appeared uniformly cubic in shape with various uninspiring (some downright mysterious) attachments forming their bodies. They zig-zagged in a kind of controlled chaos down the streets (and sometimes on the pavements) to the applause of the crowd. After a while, I let my camera wander over the spectators, who seemed much more interesting, if only because they come in far more varities of sizes, shapes and styles.
Of course, I eventually ended up in Toby's Juke Joint Blues club in Garden City, which is my favourite hang-out in SL so far. The party must have been good because my avatar was missing a boot next day. Bit like RL, I suppose.

But I think the parade showed great promise and I hope it continues to grow. Perhaps with a longer lead-in time next year the floats might show more of that Second Life magic. Ironically, I've seen creatures and costumes in the real Dublin parade that rival any fantasy creations roaming in the wider Second Life world. I hope someone finds a way to integrate that kind of creation into the 2009 SL parade. Good work, people! Looking forward to next year already.

Dublin indignation

Niall Tobin once remarked that indignation was the particular defining attribute of the true Dublin man. The more I think about it, the more I think he may be right.

This evening, as I thought that the latest free skip bags I had put out on the roadside some days ago were now indeed as ablaze in reality as I had imagined they would become, I was relieved to see the flickering, bright orange light was coming not from flames but from the whirling, cab-top hazard light of the skip truck come to take them away. The man worked his remotely controlled crane hoist expertly and patiently, even when the shuttering for our soon-to-be-built front porch, added atop my neatly levelled household waste by the Window Man only last night, caught in the side of the truck and had to be poked and pulled. He noticed me standing on the doorstep looking on.

"Howerya?" he asked, flicking switches and making the vehicle safe to drive away with my old cooker and washing machine and the best portion of a 30-year-old kitchen in the back.

I waved, then ambled out. He took some complimentary skip bags in their plastic packets out of a compartment and handed them to me without referring to them.

"Were you able to see the flashing lights from the house?" he asked me.

"Yes," I said, not adding that I expected the deisel hum of the engine to be attached to a fire engine rather than a high-sided lorry when I looked out.

"Then let me tell you a good one," he said, in reassuring Dublinese. "I was up in the Pines just now and there was a car in the driveway and another on the road, you know?"

I nodded. I myself had put an entire growing tree in the way of the recovery of a skip bag only a couple of weeks ago and had the broken branches in the back of his truck to prove it.

"Well," he went on. "There was the bag and a car right in the way. Couldn't get near it. I could see your woman in the house. Lights on. You know what I mean. I couldn't do a thing with the car in the way so I went up and rang the doorbell to ask her to move the car. And I could see her, looking out the window, all 'What's goin' on here?' and looking at the truck. And d'you know wha'?"

"Wha'?"

"She wouldn't answer the door!"

I nodded in sympathy and clutched my complimentary skip bags tighter.

"So, I said: 'This one will be calling the office', and I went off. And sure enough, at the end of the road the phone rang and it was the office asking why I hadn't collected yer woman's bag. So I said: 'Do you have her on the phone, now?'. And they said: 'Yes.' So I said: "Then tell her on the phone to move her feckin' car!'"

We sucked our teeth at the intracability of womankind and of customers in general.

"Well," he said. "Have a good one!"

"You too. And thanks!"

I now have five unused skip bags stacked under the stairs, but I haven't yet run out of things to put in them.

Escaped traffic lights recaptured

A herd of traffic lights which had made a sensational escape from a depot of South Dublin County Council overnight were recaptured and corralled in Firhouse this morning.

Under cover of darkness, the eight-feet high lights had sneaked out a hole in a fence and scattered across parkland into nearby estates.

Local resident, Eilish Okimbawano, told our reporter: "I came out to pick up the milk and there was one standing in my garden, eating the top off my Clematis campaniflora.

"I got it in Woodies in the 50% off sale," she added.

This is not the first time there has been a problem in South Dublin with roadside structures. In 2005, one-hundred directional signs disappeared along the M50. It is thought they migrated to Southern Italy for the winter.

The escaped traffic lights were rounded up by Roads Department staff on overtime this morning and corralled in a temporary compound off the Firhouse Road. A spokesman said:

"We think we got them all back, but it's hard to tell. They're pretty frightened at the moment and will probably just mill about for a few hours before settling down. Once they get used to the new surroundings they should all start pointing the same way."

Reports this afternoon from the Dodder Valley Park area of sightings of two more traffic lights hiding in shrubbery near Firhouse Weir are being investigated.

In the meantime, member of the public are asked to be vigilant and to report any suspicious traffic lights to their local Garda station.

Serving the Community

Chugg! Chugg! Chugg! Chugg! Chugg! Chugg! Gobble-ee-umph-umph-rattle...!

The bus stalled. A girl laughed out loud upstairs.

Ping! Ping! Ping! Ping! Er-ree-ree-ree-ree-ree..! REEEEEE...!

The driver started the engine again. We were one stop from The Square on the 49, heading for town, and the driver was not impressed. I wondered if we'd make the whole journey.

Passengers got on. The traffic light went red.

Chugg! Chugg! Chugg! Chugg! Chugg! Chugg! Gobble-ee-umph-umph-rattle...!

It cut out again. The girl upstairs shrieked laughter.

Ping! Ping! Ping! Ping! Er-ree-ree-ree-ree-ree..! REEEEEE...!

We limped along from stop to stop. Each time the engine had to idle in the stationery traffic the engine worked for a while then died. The driver called the controller on his radio.

"I had dis boss YES-ter-day and it was cutting owt. I put in a docket. I was told it was fixed. It is still cutting owt. It has cut owt six time maybe from The Square to Old Bonn."

The heavily accented Dublin voice of the controller came back.

"Errrr....!"

Aggrieved, the driver waved to an oncoming bus which stopped alongside. He said:

"Tell them I had dis boss YES-ter-day and it was cutting owt. I put in a docket. I was told it was fixed. It is still cutting owt."

At the Old Bawn junction, the bus went "Chugg! Chugg! Chugg! Chugg! Chugg! Chugg! Gobble-ee-umph-umph-rattle..!" and the engine stopped again. An orgasmic wail erupted from the upper saloon.

At The Old Mill pub, the driver had had enough. He had repeated his speech another time to the controller. The public address intercom then said:

"Everybody off da boss."

So we got off da boss and walked. I don't think the girl upstairs could have taken any more anyway.

Culture shock

The bus pulled in at the terminus at The Square and in keeping with tradition the passengers disembarked and the engine was switched off and somebody started to complain as the driver tried to go on his break.

"You're late!" the middle aged Dublin woman said to the African in the Dublin Bus uniform who was trying to wave her off the step so he could shut the door.

She stepped back down onto the pavement.

"I've been waiting here for hours and then you just go on a break!"

The driver calmly closed the door. He said:

"How many hours?"

There was a definite look of surprise on the woman's face. Not only was she, a native Irishwoman, being addressed by a black person, but also by a black person in a position of authority. It was evidently a shock to her system.

"How many hours have you been waiting?" he asked. "One hour? Two hours...?"

She looked at him in bewilderment.

"Half an hour!" he said. The bus arrives every thirty minutes or so.

She retreated to the relative safety of the bus shelter. No-one else joined in the argument on her side.

"That's right," she rallied. "You go on your break now and get your cup of coffee or whatever it is you're getting."

The driver spoke quietly to her and I couldn't make out what he said. But her reply must have included something along the lines of

"And what are you going to do about it?" because he then said, loud enough for all to hear:

"I can refuse to take you on this bus. All of these people can travel. You cannot."

He turned and walked off in into the Square.

Ten minutes later we boarded the bus. The complaining passenger politely proffered her fare and was given a ticket. A few stops on, a friend joined her. They spoke cheerfully abut the weather and about hospital appointments and stuff like that. Then after a quarter hour their voices lowered and they whispered together. I wonder what the subject was.

Nice one, driver. I think.

Okay Yah Land here we come, loike.

She said: "Nioo. I've noit run away from hiome. I just don't loike being there. It's loike... everything there is loched."
He asked: "What do you mean, loike?"
She said: "They switched off my Internet conn-eh-shone. And took my mobile phoine. Loike why did they take my phoine?"

I thought: "Because they were sick of the sound of you."

Long Long Way a short read for me

2007 International Impac Dublin Literary Award shortlisted author, Sebastian Barry serves up a wonderfully written story of Willie Dunne, a young Dubliner who volunteers to go to fight in World War I.

Willie's father is a police inspector from Dublin Castle whose life is filled with duty and loyalty. Willie's relationship with him is strained while away at the front and news of the aftermath of the 1916 rebellion in Dublin filters through.

The novel tells the story of an uncomplicated man in a complicated time. Its simplicity of style is beguiling, telling us only what Willie knows or hears and sharing with us the confusion of war and the experience of the ordinary man. I feel this book will be seen in later years as an important milestone in Barry's career and in Ireland's attitude to its Colonial past. Couldn't put it down.