Martello

So I didn’t get a great picture of the Sandycove Martello Tower, but here’s one of the many others, the one in Balbriggan. Yet again there was a beautiful Sunday morning, though the clouds did appear soon after taking the photo.

We went to see a lovely Irish movie this afternoon called Standby There is a good review here:
http://nomoreworkhorse.com/2014/11/10/standby-movie-review/ .
I had hoped to catch it after work one evening, but it didn’t seem to be in any of the city centre cinemas, which is a shame. Maybe it was only there for one week. I know any time a film consists of two people wandering around a city I just go into automatic Before Sunrise reference mode, but of the two Before Sunrise-ish films I’ve seen this weekend, this was by far the superior. Dublin looked fantastic, although I did find it a bit depressing that it was seen as being the loser route for him to stay and also that there was never any question of her coming to Dublin. Anyway, I’m not saying it’s a classic but it was funny and sweet and just what I needed after Friday’s atrocity.

It stars Jessica Pare (from Mad Men) and Brian Gleeson (forever to be known as son of Brendan). What can I say, I love all the Gleesons. As soon as we figure out what date suits us all, a group of us will be heading to see all three Gleesons in The Walworth Farce in January.

Oh and by the way, on the subject of the Gleeson family here is a video of them messing around as kids and adults. The song, by Squarehead is in aid of St. Francis’ Hospice.

No mention of books….no time for reading today really…

Sandycove

Last night I went to Sandycove. This tied in very nicely with finishing Dublinesque, considering the closeness with Ulysses. I realised that although I’d been to this pub in Sandycove a few times, on musical society business, I’d never actually been out to Joyce’s Martello tower. So I had a wander. I thought, if this was somewhere in Spain and there was some kind of tourist attraction close by I’d be racing up to see it and take some photos. Obviously it was closed. And dark. So I won’t put up any photos just now. (I also passed some spectacular houses, oh, how the other half live!)

I’m not sure exactly how many Martello Towers there are on the Irish coast. I wasn’t particularly curious about them when I was younger, they were just there.

Anyway, I was at a quiz last night for my former musical society. And I won a bottle of wine. That’s a result!

http://johnsbookshop.com/product.php?intProductID=1310
We were sitting under this poster. At first seeing the ‘de’ my mind switched to Spanish until I recognised the French and worked out that in French the film if ‘The Dead’ was simply called ‘Dubliners’. That story never fails to move me.
It’s a long journey back though and my phone was dead, so I did read a little bit more of The Yellow Dog. Until I had to snooze, but stay alert enough not to miss my stop…