Ireland.
The Emerald Isle. The home of stereotypes, potato blight, leprechauns,
lucky charms, stout and the colour green. Thoughts of Irish culture
recall Swift, Wilde, Yeats, Joyce, Beckett, Stiff Little Fingers, The Undertones, Therapy?, MBV, and
Father Ted. Unfortunately Riverdance, Colin Farrell, Westlife, Boyzone, U2 and Susan Boyle are there too.
More recently there is the Rubber Bandits:
who seamlessly manage to blend all these elements into one unpleasantly catchy whole.
My first week in Cork, the Republic of Ireland's second city, located on the south coast to the west of Dublin has been okay. It is winter and when you are near the coast, in damp air, it feels colder - I was out in minus 20 in Switzerland and it feels worse here at minus 2. Houses are poorly built (unlike Switzerland, and a little worse than the UK it seems), our rented house has no loft or cavity insulation so it acts like a big fridge. It doesn't help that electricity and gas prices are super-high too. Post economic crisis everything is super expensive, worse than in Switzerland for a number of reasons as I see it: 1. Infrastructure: There is no effective train network here, the bus system is hampered by a bad road system and is overpriced. 2. Everybody drives - more so than the UK even, despite a road tax system that penalises emissions, a car is required if you want to travel anywhere conveniently - therefore there is no drive to improve public transport. 3. Tesco's. Tesco has a monopoly on out-of-town, 'low-cost' supermarkets, so their version of 'low-cost' means competing on some lines with Aldi, with everything else priced however they want it to be - no Sainsbury's, Asda, Waitrose or Morrisons here. Also, quality is poor too, as it is generally with Tesco's in the UK, and totally unlike the great quality of the cooperative supermarkets in Switzerland. Luckily there are numerous health-food shops in Cork so being a vegan is not a drag, though is super expensive, despite this nascent competition.
My first record shop experience nearly made me cry. I was taking my daughter to a lunchtime family cinema screening of a french film (The Life of A Cat) at the local art centre - a beautifully converted church, that has a record shop incorporated: 'Plugd'. Walking up the ramp with my daughter the record shop guy actually acknowledged me and my daughter, saying how great it is to have all theses kids coming in the shop, he then approached me and my partner and daughter, being friendly and asking what kind of music we're into and where we had come from. I checked out the selection - Tortoise, Trans Am, Ox Scapula, Don Caballero, Rudimentary Peni - just some of the great LPs I picked out. Very emotional. In the UK a record shop guy usually sits behind the desk staring at his feet while playing some ultra-hip god-awful rubbish, and responds to questions either with grunts or a sneering, cynical look like your question about an Amon Duul II record was like you farting loudly in their direction. Not so here, and I look forward to my next visit...must check out the book shops too...
