How to make limoncello!

I'm quite taken with the old guy in this video recipe for a good basic limoncello. It sounds very good. But where the hell does a person get 'pure alcohol' that isn't Poitin, in Ireland? Or this 'Everclear', for that matter?

So, humans make horror films and think they're really scary

Well, have a look at this.



via Radiolab.

Fantasy of a Jimmy Carter past future

I just spotted this on a comment thread following a Michael Tomasky article about Carter's comments about the Joe Wilson fandango, and I thought there would be a few people who read this blog who would enjoy it. It comes in the context of a number of people on the thread talking about how Carter's presidency was a failure and how great Ronald Reagan was that he came in and saved the Americans from themselves and the Soviets from Sovietism. The commenter's nom de plume is 'Sheepishly':

i sometimes speculate about an alternate reality where jimmy carter won re-election and kept reagan out of the white house. imagine:

the usa still has the smallest gap between the rich and the poor, the cost of living never quadrupled relative to wages, the majority of americans do not live in debt. we have transitioned at least partly to alternative energy sources, and are not wholly committed to foreign wars for oil. we never armed or trained osama bin laden and his cronies, never gave saddam hussein weapons to gas his people, nor had to waste lives in two iraq wars--there was no 9/11. also, the arms race with the soviets never happened, and the ussr crumbled anyway--but when it did fewer people starved. we never raked up unprecedented debt on useless weapons, and loose nuclear material is not spread across eurasia waiting to be used by enemies of america. money was used to stop the spread of aids before it became an epidemic, to revitalize our cities, and build the best public transit system in the world.

if it weren't for ronald reagan, my generation would have the same opportunities our parents had under FDR. instead we are born in debt, and are coerced to go to college so we can be debt slaves for the rest of our lives, the economy is crumbling around us, we are quagmired in two wars, and our taxes are going to shore up corporate waste. we have no affordable health care, no social safety net, no job security, no vacation time, no funds for retirement, no clean air, no clean water, no decent food, no future.

thank you, thank you ronald reagan.

So I haven't written in a couple of weeks

Loving earwigs

Gosh, this blog has been full of dead old guys lately, I've just noticed. Phew. Here, read this article about the sensual, passionate, feminine natures of earwigs instead.

The passion of his life

via cosmic variance

Been off

cycling in the rain through the countryside of Cork. I had no idea that getting soaked for hours on end, monsoon soaked, tropically soaked, can be having the time of your life. I am very happy to have made this discovery.

Please touch

Frank McCourt is unwell

I was born and reared in Limerick city. We have some good writers here, amongst them: Kate O'Brien, Michael Hartnett, and of course the one who travelled the furthest, Frank McCourt.

Frank McCourt had mixed experiences when he returned to Limerick after the book was published and had become such a runaway hit all over the world: a small but vocal number of people didn't like what he had been writing about and made it difficult for him to live in Limerick, but by far the majority of people in Limerick did what people do everywhere in small cities that suddenly find a hugely successful home grown writer in their midst: welcome and celebrate him. I have heard that whenever he came back to Limerick he could sometimes be found joining in the 'Angela's Ashes walking tour' here. Just wandered by, like another tourist. Signed books and chatted away, unassumingly.

I have heard that Frank McCourt is very unwell. I am sorry to hear that, and wish him well, really. There's something of the sheer eejitry about the way that some people in Limerick responded to that book, a very peculiar Limerick combination of snobbery and shame, and you know, it's not particularly my cup of tea either but it really touched a lot of people who read it, including people from Limerick who remembered that time in its history, who lived alongside him. That book succeeded mostly from word of mouth. And that's a real kind of success.

God bless you, sir.

The Red Man In The Door

Do you have to be on facebook to see this? Is that how it works? A short play of mine will be performed in London on Sunday. You're welcome. The play is called "The Red Man In The Door" and it has been described as a "brilliant new short play" by Rebecca Atkinson-Lord. We will see.

Ok so it's a few days late for the 4th

... but it's never too late for this.

(via Cosmic Variance)

The 2 Train: sweet and groovy

So I'd like to introduce you to The 2 Train: my new band! The 2 Train is me, Lucy Foley (voice) and Ross Bonadonna (guitar). We play a mixture of jazz, pop and bossa nova songs. Ross and I have been playing together since he discovered I could sing, and this past March we recorded a bunch of songs by the fireplace here in Clare. You can hear them on our myspace page. We're also busy making my first album in Wombat Recording, and I look forward to being busy with both projects for a while yet.

We're available for bookings throughout Ireland, Europe and New York, and you can contact us at the address on both the myspace page and from my website.

Missus, today

Missus, who knew a cushy number when she climbed in my window and saw it. About halfway down the comments on this post, we're talking cats and rescue.

Two wet squiglets

There is also video. Who wants to see video? Please register your interest in the comments.

Inevitably, this has to happen

Four squiglets in the bath

Hey, if you don't like the occasionally cute moments on this blog, there are plenty of other uncute places on the internet for you to loiter.

Wild mothers

In yet another example of how callous mothers often are in the wild, a koala mother has flung one of her newly born twin babies out of her pouch, to be delightedly hand raised by a human in a Crocodile Dundee hat who has thought fully provided a koala soft toy for it to climb on, instead of a pouch. We are so judgmental about our own species' examples of indifferent mothering, when cute furry creatures seem to abandon or eat their own young as a matter of course.

The Unfit Koala Mother was last seen climbing a tree, serenely, with the remaining twin secure in her pouch. There are thus far no indications that other koalas are going to prosecute. A nursing mother koala at a nearby zoo was asked for her opinion, and she just shrugged.

So here is the moment you've been waiting for: video of the koala baby getting bottle fed, with a feast of other wildlife video snippets on the page.

This is the kind of thing I have to deal with lately

Leaving New York, from the sky

Looking for Lucy

This guy made a tumblr and postered downtown Manhattan with these posters and postcards, apparently in the hope that he would find some chick he walked a couple of blocks home one evening. This is the kind of madness that New York sets off every minute of every day.

Actually, the site and postering campaign seems to be to publicise this internet tv series. It's pretty grim. For the real deal, go to the Craigslist missed connections page.