On Saturday Helen(a) invited me to join her at ‘Taste of Dublin’, provided I drove. The Taste gig was held in Iveagh Gardens just off Harcourt St. Even if you have no interest in food, it was fabulous from an anthropological perspective.

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.

Well apparently there is a new blogging quality standard that some of us just aren’t achieving.

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.

Well I’ve managed to make print. The very nice people at “The Dubliner” have included me in their sex blog list. (Thanks to Epona for the heads-up.) Not one I’ll be showing to mum, even though they did say some very nice things. Worth picking up a copy to read the article on being single over 30 and the age old debate of settle versus compromise.

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!