A strange thing has started to happen in Dublin. Words that 12 months ago would never have been whispered in polite company, like Aldi and Lidl, are now being said loudly and in public.

Apparently we are all tightening our belts and it has nothing to do with the new personal trainer at David Lloyds. Even my sister, (whose definition of economy is getting a taxi rather than wasting shoe leather by walking in her Louboutin’s), has started to skimp. On Sunday we went on our first shopping to Lidl.

Now we’re obviously not the only ones to downgrade as the car park was like Ballsbridge Motors, which was a bit challenging as those spaces are not designed for SL’s. (Primal did reference this phenomenon months ago, but I assumed he was joking.)

Inside the supermarket it was a dazzling mix of social classes. Who knew that a German retailer could be the catalyst for such social integration? Some customers were obviously more experienced than others, you could tell by their full baskets. The newbie’s would generally be pushing around a gigantic trolley containing a jar of jam and absolutely no wine. (You have to draw the line somewhere).

After 30 minutes and extensive use of language skills, we managed to half fill the basket. Despite the multitude of products the bill came to less than €20. Who knew you could buy food so cheaply?

One week later we still haven’t eaten anything, but we both agreed it was great value.
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PS – Twenty did a post on this topic, which is shorter and funnier, but as I had already written mine I was determined to post.

Well Dr McRide called over this weekend to pick up the last of his stuff (my ex-flatmate who turned into a raving alco and druggie). Being the brave and mature individual I spent most of the time hiding in my bedroom, only emerging to get the key back.

Now I accept my behaviour may have been a little petty, but it was completed trumped by that of the good doctor. A man who spent countless years training to help others did the following:

Cut the NTL cable to the TV
Technically he did pay for digital TV to be installed, but not sure what use half a cable will be - the rest is still screwed into the wall socket.

Changed the Light Bulbs
Removed the working light bulb from the living room and swapped it with the blown one in his room.

ESB Bill
Made me take a reading for the last 3 weeks as he didn’t trust my estimate – actually bill was twice my estimate - ha, ha, ha!

But the ultimate pettiness …………….

REMOVING THE SALT CRYSTALS FROM THE SALT CELLAR*

Now this is a guy who I really used to like. In fantasy flirty land I had names for our first born children (Sean and Sophie). But less than 12 months later this is how things ended. Proving that I am a crap judge of character and perhaps being single and living alone is sometimes the better option.
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*I really, really wish I was making this up.

Where’s he from?

What does he do?

What does he look like?

And then a slight variation from the norm.

Does he have hair ?

Happy be the day when that question was:

What colour is his hair?

*sigh* getting old sucks.

“Wow, you’re the image of that actress” - random bloke.

“Me, really?” - I smiled knowingly, while trying to look curious.

“The one with the big hair” - random bloke getting increasing animated.

“It’s probably only the hair we have in common” - me.

“No you’ve the same face and everything, I just can’t think of her name, she’s married to another actor” - random bloke.

“Do you mean Nicole Kidman?” - me, trying hard not to grin ear to ear.

“No, the one that’s in Sex and the City – Sarah Parker or something like that” - random bloke.

He thought I looked like Sarah Jessica Parker! Old horse face herself, winner of the most unattractive woman in the world award from GQ magazine!

I gave him the glare of death and stomped back to my seat filled with rage and descending depression. My mood was not improved when Garda Nick looked up, saw me coming and said:

“Why the long face?”

Some nights you should just stay in.

The Tottering Tasters
Women of a certain age, who recently completed a wine course and wanted to test their tasting skills, aka get pissed on free booze. Generally they moved with extraordinary slowness, petrified they would miss out on a free drink, but the second a chair was vacated they would start sprinting like Olympic Nigerians to claim the free seat.

The Eco Baggers
I have never seen so many Anya Hinchmarch “I’m not a plastic bag” in one place. I almost spent 22c on a real plastic bag, just to scribble “I’m a plastic bag” on it, but figured I would anger the eco Gods and end up facing some type of organic vegetable firing squad – healthy but messy.

The Foodie
Generally a man, but a very thin one, wearing cords and pushing a buggy containing a child eating a rice cake. He would taste everything very slowly and then list all the ingredients. His main catch phrase was:

“Gary Rodes / Kevin Dundon / Gordon Ramsay has become very commercial”.

The Chapter One and Bon Appétit stands were wedged, presumably because it was one of the few opportunities that southsiders would get to sample food produced north of the river. (Mohammed and the food mountain analogy)

The best fun of the day, from a viewing perspective, was generally after the cooking demonstrations. You could watch hoards of well heeled people stampeding to sample the free food. Famine victims would have behaved with more dignity. People launched cocktail sticks at each other in a pitched tent battle to skewer the last piece of chicken. I know a recession is meant to be approaching, but who knew times were so hard? (More on that topic in the next post.)

I can’t comment on the rest of the event as I ended up dropping Alice like into the O’Brien’s wine tent and emerged a few hours later dazed, bewildered and unable to drive. It will be a while before I am offered the “Driving Bitch Daisy” job again.

As a non-professional writer I was unaware that my voluntary blogging efforts are subject to quality control. Reprimanding my blogging ability is like criticising Mother Theresa for not being better looking - a tad churlish. I can only work with what I have, if you don’t like my efforts fine, don’t read.

Constructive criticism in blog world is of course useful, but ‘shit-awful‘ is not constructive, it is just childish mud slinging at people who happen to have more popular blogs in a vain attempt to get yourself some attention.

I do regularly give feedback on blogs, generally when asked, but I do it privately. On the rare occasion I say something in a comment about another blogger I try to make it constructive as opposed to “a harsh fucking review“. Dragging someone else down to enhance your own standing serves no good and it certainly won’t result in mainstream media taking any of us more seriously. (To date I have had no issue with mainstream media e.g. Irish Times, 2FM, The Tribune, Dubliner, U etc )

Claiming that your post is ‘intended as a critique of the blogs themselves, and not of the bloggers‘ is highly disingenuous, unless some bloggers have a team of ghost writers, the blog is very much about the blogger. The hypocrisy of this becomes very clear when you refer to my blog like this:

‘epitomises (for me) all that I dislike about Dublin - it is to blogs what Café an Seine is to pubs?’

(struggling to understand if this is a bad thing)

‘I think it perpetuates an unhealthy and unhelpful stereotype.’

What stereotype am I perpetuating and why is it unhealthy and unhelpful? Is my blog inciting some type of racial hatred against single women who live in Dublin?

The most frustrating point is that the author called for open debate, but did not have the courage or courtesy to link to the blogs she slagged off (let’s not fool ourselves that it was criticism). Allow me to return the non-link favour.

So, when you say that you’re “a far cry from a flirtysomething?“. Trust me I don’t take it as a “slight” - it’s a compliment.
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PS- I assume you will withdraw from the TV3 documentary rather than risk being in my blog’s “company“?
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Comments closed as I think everything has been said on this topic by now.
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Thanks to all who helped with my technical issues this week - much appreciated.

The Irish as we all know are not the best looking race in the world, but what we lack in appearance we more than make up for in alcohol consumption. On average we score around 6.5 on the good looking scale. (Polish girls are totally messing up the bell curve at around 9, although this is mitigated by some pretty awful dress sense)

On a night out most of us literally start out at 6’s and 7’s. As midnight approaches (thanks to alcohol) we are up around 7 or 8 and by 3am we’re all perfect 10’s. This is generally where women make the fatal flaw. On meeting a guy (half-cut at 3am) instead of exchanging banter and perhaps some salvia, we foolishly decide to “share-a-cab”, despite the fact he lives in Clonee and you’re in Stepaside. Unsurprisingly the cab only makes one stop.

I won’t comment on the in’s and out’s of what happens next, but presumably at some stage you fall asleep. The rest of the night / morning will be a cachonphy of snoring, farting, scratching, drooling and a host of other natural, but unattractive behaviours. When you eventually wake up from this sleeping symphony, you are at best wearing last nights very rumpled outfit or his oversized grey t-shirt or complete disaster – naked. Most of your make-up is now on the pillow, with the exception of your mascara which is now forming a large frame for your bloodshot eyes. The once luscious and perfectly lined lips now have a drool trail like the Oronoco flow. In short you are unlikely to be looking or feeling your best.

After some emergency repairs and challenging conversation there is a half hearted attempt to swap numbers. The thing that I find most amazing is that girls actually think the guy might call. Looking purely from the male perspective, who for a variety of reasons tends to focus on the visual:

He went to bed around 3am with what he believed was a 10. A few hours later he wakes up to see this creature in the bed beside him. It’s like dating snakes and ladders. He was happy to climb up last night, but in the cold sober light of day you have slid down in his estimation.

So ladies can I implore you to give careful consideration before you “share-a-cab”. If you are just looking for a quick ride, the fare is totally worth it, but if you would like something slightly more long-term than day break, get out of the cab – alone. If he’s the one for you then you have the rest of life for sleep overs.

The timing is particular good as I’m off to meet my agent tomorrow, (was busy practicing my air kissing all weekend), so I’ll be casually leaving the magazine open on the appropriate page to remind him of my general greatness. He will be talking about lots of things “in the pipe-line”. I am beginning to suspect that it is the Shell pipe line off the coast of Mayo, as both seem to have a similar level of progress. How anyone achieves over-night fame is beyond me!

Leaving early if things aren’t going well or ending the date on a high if they are.

Appearing like I have a busy social life.

Ensuring that I don’t get pie-eyed and sleep with him on the first date.

As the weather was pretty good I nominated a beer garden close to his spiritual home of Harcourt St. for a few drinks. He arrived without the stab vest, thankfully, but still wearing a pretty snug t-shirt, now matched with long combat shorts and flip flops. It was all very ‘Home & Away’ and he managed to carry it off – almost.

He volunteered to get the drinks if I got the seats. Everything was going pretty well, sunshine, banter and some good chemistry, until it was his round again. Unfortunately Garda Nick decided to go to the bar, (for some reason country guys are incapable of getting lounge service, I’m not sure if it’s because they don’t like being served, or tipping, or just years of their mammy telling them to get up and do something has finally paid off.)

When he swung around his leg to get off the bench, I clocked his big toe or more precisely his big toe almost clocked me. In fact to call it a big toe is a misnomer, gargantuan toe would be more accurate. It was like another leg growing from his foot. (Thankfully I don’t have a toe sucking fetish or deep throat would be required).

Garda Nick seemed completely unaware of his genetic defect, why else would you wear flip flops with those toes? But I wasn’t. I guess it was too good to be true, a good looking Garda! The more I tried to tell myself it didn’t matter the longer his toes seemed to grow. Garda Nick became my toe-nocchio.

Now I’ve dated a few muppets in my time, but I’m not sure if I’m ready to add a puppet to the list.

Well thanks to some very clever suggestions from commenter’s on the last post I decided to ring Garda Nick and thank him for his advice. Got into a bit of banter about living on my own, did he know anyone looking for a room ( thanks caro ) and after some industrial sized hints he finally asked me out for a drink (for someone in special branch he’s not great at picking up on clues!) Tomorrow night is date night. Can’t remember the last time I was so nervous and excited about a date.

PS – I won’t be wearing this t-shirt, although it is tempting.