With the world markets doing what they’re doing at the moment, it’s no wonder that past crashes and bubbles are being discussed a lot on the Intarwebz. The Tulip Bubble in particular has been getting a lot of attention, maybe because it just seems so nuts now that we’re used to seeing financial madness mostly […]

Posted in Current events, Europe, Finance, Politics No Comments »

Oh dear. Yesterday the Archbishops of Canterbury and York condemned London-based brokers who indulged in short selling as “bank robbers and asset strippers” and accused them of “generating unimaginable wealth … by equally unimaginable levels of fiction”.
But now it turns out that the Church of England has been quite willing to sell short and hedge […]

Posted in Current events, Europe, News, Politics No Comments »

Well, not too far beyond, we hope.
 I’ll sure be watching this on the lunchtime news…
(ETA:   Postponed to Sept. 26 due to cloud / bad weather in France.)

Posted in Current events, Europe, News, Science, Technogeekery, Travel 1 Comment »

My nominee for this year’s Too Long: Don’t Read award…

This autumn, according to the newspaper Libération, 676 new books will be published [in France], 466 of them written in French, the rest long-awaited translations. According to François Reynaert in Le Nouvel Observateur, “The name alone is leaden - in the expression ‘rentrée littéraire,’ one hears especially […]

Posted in Europe 1 Comment »

Which would be (originally) Independent Pizza Co. in Drumcondra, but (even more so) its younger sister-facility, Gotham Café in South Anne Street. The excellent Adam Kuban of Slice, the pizza lovers’ website par excellence, has just kindly posted a note I dropped him about the place.
Gotham Café is one of our favorite places to […]

Posted in Europe, Fantasy and science fiction, Food, restaurants and cooking, Ireland, Star Trek and other licensed properties, Writing 1 Comment »

(EDIT: Scroll down to the bottom of the posting for video of the August 11 press conference with Rockefeller / Gerhartsreiter’s attorney.)
I’ve continued to follow the “Clark Rockefeller” / Christian Gerhartsreiter story over the past few days as it just keeps getting more convoluted, and as the subject’s apparent/alleged pathway between Germany and the USA starts […]

Posted in Current events, Europe, Media, Medicine, nursing, health, News, Psychology / psychiatry 1 Comment »

A one-Euro coin with Homer Simpson’s face on it has turned up in Spain.
No, really. (more here and here)
 
By rights, though, it should have turned up in Greece. (Just sayin’…)
Tags: Homer+Simpson, Euro, coin, forgery, hilarious, Simpsons, counterfeit, defacement

Posted in Animation, Cartoons, Current events, Europe, Humor, News No Comments »

When those images of the big Berlin gathering at which Obama spoke started turning up on the Net, I said to myself, “Hmm, this is going to provoke certain kinds of language here and there…”  And when the word “demagoguery” started turning up here and there in conjunction with his name, I thought, “Hmm. It’s only […]

Posted in Current events, Europe, Online life, Politics 1 Comment »

…And it’s fascinating.
Purported descendants of the Knights Templars are suing Pope Benedict for recognition of the seizure of a hundred billion Euros’ worth of their ancestors’ assets and property in the mid-1200s. (The seizure was secondary to accusations that the Order was heretical, and involved — among other things — in devil worship: but these accusations now usually […]

Posted in Current events, Europe, History 1 Comment »

Or, rather, without the flimsy semi-transparent bag with handles that cut into your hands like cheesewire if you put something in the bag that weighs more than a pound? Here in Ireland, it’s been a pleasure.
I see the concept of dumping the bag — by one mechanism or another — is being introduced in Los Angeles County […]

Posted in Europe, Hobbyhorses and General Ranting, Home life, Ireland, Politics 4 Comments »

I mentioned this place in passing in a post some while back, and it really needs to have something more said about it, as there’s not nearly enough information online.
There are a lot of nice estaminets and bars in Brussels, but this one’s a favorite one for both Peter and me. Other such places will […]

Posted in Cats, Europe, Food, restaurants and cooking, Travel No Comments »