Bad beat/Moaning/Venting thread - Wordle Gummidge

[Lao Lao]

Currently I'm in Shoreditch which for a few years was a cool place full of a wide mix of music and arts... People found out and it become successful rents went up. Now it's a crappy mess of nightclub and the demographics have changed radically in a few years.
that's how cities evolve.
Just because a few good musicians played in a bar occasionally does not mean that the vast majority was from pisspoor amateurs diddilying for tourists. And it doesn't come close to making it a cultural shibboleth.

I'm somewhat baffled by your post?

You seem to be saying that a really cool, culturally vibrant area was ruined by money/developers coming in and it was turned into a absolute mess. That surely isn't a good thing?

Then you seem to just accept that there isn't an alternative, that it's just evolution, c'est la vie. Why should we just accept it, why shouldn't we do something to prevent that happening?

You then seem to be underestimating the impact The Cobblestone has had here. If you do even the slightest bit of research, you will the sheer amount of people who are crediting it with getting their break, a place that was so influential to them. To label it as some tourist spot full of pisspoor amateurs is way off the mark.

[ComradeCollie]

I'm somewhat baffled by your post?
.

Have you tried going to a meeting yet? I'm not a big AA fan, and obviously it didn't work for me. Think it might be a thing that would work for you.

[Lao Lao]

Have you tried going to a meeting yet? I'm not a big AA fan, and obviously it didn't work for me. Think it might be a thing that would work for you.

Stone cold sober and have no problem with alcohol, have no need for AA.

[ComradeCollie]

Stone cold sober and have no problem with alcohol, have no need for AA.

Stay off it for 3 months, and then realise how depressed you were by drinking for even 2 days a week.

[Hectorjelly]

Have you tried going to a meeting yet? I'm not a big AA fan, and obviously it didn't work for me. Think it might be a thing that would work for you.

WTF CC?

[Hectorjelly]

Palm Springs best movie I’ve seen in a while

watched Another Round (Druk) last night, bit of a let down

I just watched this, I absolutely loved it! What a great movie! I think this is one of the few movies that both myself and Satnav would enjoy.

[ComradeCollie]

WTF CC?

Yeah, think I'll take a break from here for a while, before I go full JBravado.

[Hitchhiker's Guide To...]

Ha. This is a great start for the week.

[Lao Lao]

Stay off it for 3 months, and then realise how depressed you were by drinking for even 2 days a week.

I'm not depressed or suffering from depression.

But don't log off from here over a comment to me. There is absolutely no offence taken from my my side. Stay and have the chats, you definitely add to this place and would be missed.

[Solksjaer!]

I think Lao Lao is passionate about the subject which is fair enough surely . I'd agree with a lot of what he says .
CC just winding up for the craic ?

Yeah Hotspur. Havent enjoyed a horror series like that since Saloms Lot .

[Hitchhiker's Guide To...]

Petition for name change to Lush Lush

[Raoul Duke III]

Who would have thought a discussion about old boozers could turn into the IPB equivalent of the Treaty?

Lao Lao is our Mick Collins.

[Hitchhiker's Guide To...]

Thinking as the first house step - have the whole thing rewired. Then we can start moving forward confidently knowing the wires (which the surveyor said were grand, but would need to be changed at some point as they dare from 1959) won't fry us if we add too many connections to the network. The heating in the house is electric, so we want to get in some of those new super efficient German electric heaters, but can't really without knowing the core electrics are fine.

Does that seem like a fine decision, or more akin to a decision to live in Bray?

[Raoul Duke III]

I just watched this, I absolutely loved it! What a great movie! I think this is one of the few movies that both myself and Satnav would enjoy.

The dance scene at the end just tops it off nicely. Just a really nice little movie, that proves you don't need CGI shite to tell a great story with sympathetic characters.

Even the

SPOILER

suicide

has a nice element of pathos to it.

[Raoul Duke III]

Thinking as the first house step - have the whole thing rewired. Then we can start moving forward confidently knowing the wires (which the surveyor said were grand, but would need to be changed at some point as they dare from 1959) won't fry us if we add too many connections to the network. The heating in the house is electric, so we want to get in some of those new super efficient German electric heaters, but can't really without knowing the core electrics are fine.

Does that seem like a fine decision, or more akin to a decision to live in Bray?

I'd start with the most important things; cleaning and eating. What state are the bathrooms and kitchen in?

[Hitchhiker's Guide To...]

^^^ someone recommended CODA (children of deaf adults) as another feelgood movie. But don't know if they are a reliable recommender.

[Hitchhiker's Guide To...]

I'd start with the most important things; cleaning and eating. What state are the bathrooms and kitchen in?

I think 'grand', not great though. The problem there also is its all connected to electric. Install a proper electric shower - blow the fuse box. That's why I'm thinking about the wiring. But I genuinely don't have a clue. It just seems reassuring knowing the core fabric of what a house is is grand. As well as reducing the chances of having to dig something up later.

[Solksjaer!]

I'D have followed you to hell DEV

FYP

[Raoul Duke III]

I think 'grand', not great though. The problem there also is its all connected to electric. Install a proper electric shower - blow the fuse box. That's why I'm thinking about the wiring. But I genuinely don't have a clue. It just seems reassuring knowing the core fabric of what a house is is grand. As well as reducing the chances of having to dig something up later.

Might want to sell the rest of that crypto.

'Core fabric' is a lot more than just wiring; what about insulation, windows, flooring, doors, plumbing, heating, skirting?

[Solksjaer!]

HH . Btw , Get a carbon monoxide alarm . (As should ye all)

That canary btw used to play the Cobblestones Sunday morning.

[AndyFatBastard]

My beautiful Kitty passed last night. Heartbroken.

1.png

[ionapaul]

Sorry to hear that AFB.

[coillcam]

Thinking as the first house step - have the whole thing rewired. Then we can start moving forward confidently knowing the wires (which the surveyor said were grand, but would need to be changed at some point as they dare from 1959) won't fry us if we add too many connections to the network. The heating in the house is electric, so we want to get in some of those new super efficient German electric heaters, but can't really without knowing the core electrics are fine.

Does that seem like a fine decision, or more akin to a decision to live in Bray?

If you're going the full re-wire, it's worth considering getting network cabling dropped in around the house to a few rooms. You seem like the sort who'd have a few internet-connected experiments that could benefit from it.

[DeadParrot]

Do you think Netflix should take it down though? I wouldn't watch a Jim Jefferies show, because I think he's an unfunny drunken lout. I wouldn't want to deprive the people who do find him entertaining their fun though.

My initial thoughts are no. "Cancelling" is a toxic practice that stifles expression. Like your feelings on Jim Jefferies (who I quite enjoy), refusing a platform based on what I enjoy a ridiculous stance to hold.
Would I want netflix to talk down a chubby brown special? I wouldnt really care but I'd hope they wouldnt promote it.

[DeadParrot]

Echoing Solks, Midnight Mass on Netflix is quite something if you fancy a little 7 parter intelligent horror.

I liked it but......

SPOILER

The stupidity of every single person on the island at the end was annoying. Not one of them could think of a single way to avoid their fate?

[DeadParrot]

I'm somewhat baffled by your post?

You seem to be saying that a really cool, culturally vibrant area was ruined by money/developers coming in and it was turned into a absolute mess. That surely isn't a good thing?

Then you seem to just accept that there isn't an alternative, that it's just evolution, c'est la vie. Why should we just accept it, why shouldn't we do something to prevent that happening?

You then seem to be underestimating the impact The Cobblestone has had here. If you do even the slightest bit of research, you will the sheer amount of people who are crediting it with getting their break, a place that was so influential to them. To label it as some tourist spot full of pisspoor amateurs is way off the mark.

Tbh, I wouldn't think of the cobblestone as a tourist destination really.
Any time I've been in there, the tourist element is at a minimum. Any tourist there, that I've seen, is usually brought by a local who is already familiar with the place.

[Solksjaer!]

I liked it but......

SPOILER

The stupidity of every single person on the island at the end was annoying. Not one of them could think of a single way to avoid their fate?

SPOILER

just like most brainwashed religious nutjobs

[Lao Lao]

Who would have thought a discussion about old boozers could turn into the IPB equivalent of the Treaty?

Lao Lao is our Mick Collins.

It's a good job you didn't call me Dev - There would have been a full on civil war had that happened

[Strewelpeter]

I'm somewhat baffled by your post?

You seem to be saying that a really cool, culturally vibrant area was ruined by money/developers coming in and it was turned into a absolute mess. That surely isn't a good thing?

Its neither good nor bad its just a fact. Creative hubs that succeed in creating a nexus in an area drive up demand and soon prevent new young creators operating in these areas(. They go elsewhere rinse and repeat.

[Lao Lao]

Petition for name change to Lush Lush

I'd prefer Tipsy Wipsy, please & thanks.

[Hitchhiker's Guide To...]

Its neither good nor bad its just a fact. Creative hubs that succeed in creating a nexus in an area drive up demand and soon prevent new young creators operating in these areas(. They go elsewhere rinse and repeat.

I think that's it. They get pushed out to warehouses, to odd districts. Thats part of the process. I wonder if the scrambling is part of the creation. That they are so far out of the way, that they need to be extra compelling to attract people. Its not that we should design pain into the process, but maybe also pain is a necessary part of the process. That countries where they have state-designated 'creative districts' where they give the creators everything, probably struggle to actually be creative. Maybe the Cobbleestone needing to recreate its idea of how trad music is consumed is something that will keep it fresh. Its a difficult one. Like, maybe its just pure rampant capitalism, or maybe its part of what keeps things alive.

[Hitchhiker's Guide To...]

I remember that with Chapter One and 101 Talbot. That their location, in their respective hot decades, was notable at the time, but was driven by needing to find somewhere cheap. In return then those types of places help to make things vibrant. Albeit that obviously hasn't worked for 101 Talbot, as nobody followed them there.

[Raoul Duke III]

I think that's it. They get pushed out to warehouses, to odd districts. Thats part of the process. I wonder if the scrambling is part of the creation. That they are so far out of the way, that they need to be extra compelling to attract people. Its not that we should design pain into the process, but maybe also pain is a necessary part of the process. That countries where they have state-designated 'creative districts' where they give the creators everything, probably struggle to actually be creative. Maybe the Cobbleestone needing to recreate its idea of how trad music is consumed is something that will keep it fresh. Its a difficult one. Like, maybe its just pure rampant capitalism, or maybe its part of what keeps things alive.

If you look at New York, you can see this working out over decades. The creative districts in Manhattan gradually became fashionable, then gentrified and the creatives were forced to move elsewhere - mainly Brooklyn.

We don't want monochrome cities (otherwise we would all go and live in some hellhole like Singapore). We want that mixture, that's what gives cities their energy. The problem is how to safeguard that within a market-driven infrastructure.

[Raoul Duke III]

huh, now there's a form of compliance that I had never come across in work before today:

Regulatory Marijuana Related Business

Listened to a really podcast on the legalisation struggle at the weekend. Never realised how close America was to full legalisation in 1977 and how the stoners managed to fuck it up in classical stoner fashion. Worth 45 mins.

[Mellor]

Thinking as the first house step - have the whole thing rewired. Then we can start moving forward confidently knowing the wires (which the surveyor said were grand, but would need to be changed at some point as they dare from 1959) won't fry us if we add too many connections to the network. The heating in the house is electric, so we want to get in some of those new super efficient German electric heaters, but can't really without knowing the core electrics are fine.

If it still has the original old style fuseboard, then would be worth while replacing with a modern circuit board. And you could do that without replacing all the cabling as long as there were a few existing separate circuits. From there you could also add a dedicated shower, heater, car charger circuits as needed to the new CB.
Replacing all the cabling with the boards would be marginally better. But a lot more work as you'll be ripping into wall. Best do as part of another renovation imo - unless they are in a bad way obviously.

I'd look at the kitchen and bathroom first. How old do they look? What are the finishes materials. Maybe they were replaced recently, but changes are they are the best place to start.
Most places of that era have odd little fireplaces. Getting rid can give you back usable space in the downstair rooms.
BER is likely awful. Could improve by insulating the attic. Or my adding a large well insulated extension.

[ArmaniJeans]

Have to agree with Courtois today, 3rd place play offs are worthless.

I don't think UEFA are a fan of them either as they don't have them in any other competition.
But having one in this competition solves a scheduling issue - without it there would be no second game for Belgium or Italy in this international break after they'd lost their semi-final.
Because every other country is already committed to WC qualifier games.
So the obvious solution is that the two beaten semi-finalists play each other, and you might as well give that game a moniker.

[Hectorjelly]

I think 'grand', not great though. The problem there also is its all connected to electric. Install a proper electric shower - blow the fuse box. That's why I'm thinking about the wiring. But I genuinely don't have a clue. It just seems reassuring knowing the core fabric of what a house is is grand. As well as reducing the chances of having to dig something up later.

Run an ethernet cable into each room

[DeadParrot]

If you're going the full re-wire, it's worth considering getting network cabling dropped in around the house to a few rooms. You seem like the sort who'd have a few internet-connected experiments that could benefit from it.

At the very least get something like https://smile.amazon.co.uk/TL-WPA422...s%2C469&sr=8-3

[Micknail]

I don't think UEFA are a fan of them either as they don't have them in any other competition.
But having one in this competition solves a scheduling issue - without it there would be no second game for Belgium or Italy in this international break after they'd lost their semi-final.
Because every other country is already committed to WC qualifier games.
So the obvious solution is that the two beaten semi-finalists play each other, and you might as well give that game a moniker.

True, would be a hard sell to put tickets up with what, 3 days notice for a friendly versus Qatar or something otherwise.

[Denny Crane]

Its neither good nor bad its just a fact. Creative hubs that succeed in creating a nexus in an area drive up demand and soon prevent new young creators operating in these areas(. They go elsewhere rinse and repeat.

That's it.

If it wasn't happening it would be a sign of a decaying city. It's an unfortunate thing by it's own that it happens, but it's a sign of a healthy growing city. Things change and move. The only constant is change.

[Denny Crane]

If you look at New York, you can see this working out over decades. The creative districts in Manhattan gradually became fashionable, then gentrified and the creatives were forced to move elsewhere - mainly Brooklyn.

We don't want monochrome cities (otherwise we would all go and live in some hellhole like Singapore). We want that mixture, that's what gives cities their energy. The problem is how to safeguard that within a market-driven infrastructure.

Hmmm. I was just offered a job in Singapore recently.

I thought it might be nice to live under a benevolent dictator for a change of scenery.

[shrapnel]

Hmmm. I was just offered a job in Singapore recently.

I thought it might be nice to live under a benevolent dictator for a change of scenery.

a good friend of mine lives out there and I was speaking to him yesterday. he says it's currently a miserable place to be. Population is currently down to its lowest since 1975 as so many expats have left due to their covid restrictions and policies. no one want to be there anymore and he says it probably wont get back to the way it was for quite some time.

[Hitchhiker's Guide To...]

Singapore is most definitely not bland! They've loads of tall buildings and that casino monstrosity by the sea, but most of their life is lived in charming little side streets. The street food cusine is widely viewed as the best in the world. Its a great place.

[dinekes]

Run an ethernet cable into each room

Ah Jaysus HJ he'll never get over selling them with that constant reminder.

PS.. may have mentioned them last week but I think I got away with it

[Hitchhiker's Guide To...]

[Hitchhiker's Guide To...]

If it still has the original old style fuseboard, then would be worth while replacing with a modern circuit board. And you could do that without replacing all the cabling as long as there were a few existing separate circuits. From there you could also add a dedicated shower, heater, car charger circuits as needed to the new CB.
Replacing all the cabling with the boards would be marginally better. But a lot more work as you'll be ripping into wall. Best do as part of another renovation imo - unless they are in a bad way obviously.

I'd look at the kitchen and bathroom first. How old do they look? What are the finishes materials. Maybe they were replaced recently, but changes are they are the best place to start.
Most places of that era have odd little fireplaces. Getting rid can give you back usable space in the downstair rooms.
BER is likely awful. Could improve by insulating the attic. Or my adding a large well insulated extension.

Thanks so much for this. I think it is an old fuseboard from what I've inferred from the surveyor report. I rang one person from a reliable place and he said that will be €7,200 for a full rewire and another person from a reliable place said that probably a rewire isn't needed and he'll send out an electrician to go through the various potential issues and price up the different types of jobs that could be done - e.g. fuseboard. They seemed the least money-grabby, and the closest to what you said, so he's on his way out.


8JLciLxl.jpg

[Lao Lao]

I don't think there is any job/salary that would make me want to live in Singapore. I've only ever been there once and absolutely hated it.

[Hitchhiker's Guide To...]

I don't think there is any job/salary that would make me want to live in Singapore. I've only ever been there once and absolutely hated it.

but but but the crazy rich asians lifestyle!


tW0NNril.jpg

[AndyFatBastard]

a good friend of mine lives out there and I was speaking to him yesterday. he says it's currently a miserable place to be. Population is currently down to its lowest since 1975 as so many expats have left due to their covid restrictions and policies. no one want to be there anymore and he says it probably wont get back to the way it was for quite some time.

I've 3 friends living there and their only complaint is if they leave they can't get back in

[shrapnel]

I don't think there is any job/salary that would make me want to live in Singapore. I've only ever been there once and absolutely hated it.

give me Singapore over the emirates any day!!

[Hitchhiker's Guide To...]

Reading some great graphic novel series at the moment.

Preacher is just brilliant glorious nonsense.

9781401240455.jpg


And then the surprisingly deep Black Hammer.

9781616557867.jpg





Either series would be great introductions to the genre for anyone on the edge of trying out graphic novels. An artform that everyone should be knee-deep in.

[Lao Lao]

give me Singapore over the emirates any day!!

Yeah, wouldn't be mad about the Emirates either although the main attraction with them is to go for 3-5 years, make a shit ton of tax free money and then come back to be either mortgage free or very close to it.

There was people contacting Mrs Lao Lao about jobs in Dubai recently but we didn't look at it as serious option.

Friends were on the verge of going to Doha until their family circumstances changed very significantly and that's been closed off for good.

[Hitchhiker's Guide To...]

Yeah, wouldn't be mad about the Emirates either although the main attraction with them is to go for 3-5 years, make a shit ton of tax free money and then come back to be either mortgage free or very close to it.

There was people contacting Mrs Lao Lao about jobs in Dubai recently but we didn't look at it as serious option.

Friends were on the verge of going to Doha until their family circumstances changed very significantly and that's been closed off for good.

Theres a bit to be said for that at the right point in your life. It puts you on a whole new life trajectory really - maybe an extra half mil of disposable cash. I'd imagine it would be a grand experience too. Not a super great experience, but a grand one as long as you didn't have the temerity to be different in any way. I don't think the gender thing is all that much experienced by visiting females, only the poor unfortunate women unlucky to be from there. Although I've never been there, so don't really know, and could easily be wrong.

[The Istanbul]

Excellent Article in The Currency re the Cobblestone et al. Have tried to copy it below

The Cobblestone pub in Smithfield is special because it feels a bit like stepping back in time. Or, at least, into a pub in West Clare. It’s a bit run down. On an evening, you might find three sessions going on in different corners of the place. The atmosphere is perfect.

The Cobblestone is on a corner at the top of Smithfield market in Dublin. The buildings and land on either side of it are derelict. The pub occupies the ground floor of a three story building.

Across the road from it on Smithfield Market is a wall of apartment buildings, between seven and fourteen stories in height. They were built in the 1990s. If Smithfield were to be developed today, and if planning wasn’t an issue, those apartments might be forty stories tall.

That’s because Dublin is getting richer. The technology industry has come to town. The wealth it generates is literally seeping into the ground: land prices have rocketed since the 1990s.

Now there’s a plan to demolish the derelict buildings around The Cobblestone and replace them with a nine-story hotel. The Cobblestone would lose its smoking area and one of its live music spaces. And its front bar would be adjoined to the hotel as a residents bar. The atmosphere would be ruined.

So there’s a conflict. The Cobblestone is one of the places that makes Dublin unique. But it’s sitting on a plot of very expensive land.

You might say that it’s not a difficult conflict at all — just save The Cobblestone. Simple as.

But The Cobblestone is an awkward example of a very important and wide-ranging problem in our country. It’s an example of hard cases making bad law.
The problem


The other day on Twitter I put it like this: “Ireland has very high land prices and very low density. This is an unnatural state of affairs. Expensive land wants to be developed densely. Indeed, this is why towns and cities exist.”

Land has gotten more expensive in Dublin, and Ireland, for basically positive reasons. It has a thriving economy, good quality of life, is culturally interesting. For these reasons, it’s attractive. People from the rest of Ireland and the rest of the world are moving to Dublin. Tourists want to check it out.

The problem is when we don’t build new infrastructure to accommodate all these new arrivals. If we don’t build new places for them, what happens is they come in and displace the existing Dubs. And you get the situation we’re in now.

And if you don’t want to see lots of construction, and taller buildings, the only other way to lower housing costs is to make the city less attractive – perhaps by cancelling rubbish collection or sacking the teachers, or by kicking out TikTok, or closing hotels. That would also work. It would obviously be nuts. But if you want the cost of living to fall, these are basically the two options. Either expand supply to satisfy the existing demand, or contract demand so that it matches the existing supply.
Special case


The Cobblestone is an interesting case for two reasons. One is that it’s not being adjoined by any old building, it’s being adjoined by a hotel.

Hotels are now the enemy in Dublin. The housing shortage has gotten to a point where tourism – our largest indigenous industry – is considered a bad thing. Or at least, the hotels tourism necessitates are. Hotels are seen to be taking space away from housing. So, for The Cobblestone to be replaced by a hotel of all things is especially galling.

We’re in this through the looking glass world where anything that attracts people to the city, or makes it better, can be seen as bad because it exacerbates the housing crisis. 5,000 new jobs at Tiktok? Airports opening back up? Successful policy initiative to remove cars from the city centre? Universities climbing the global rankings? All bad news for Dublin.

The other interesting thing about the Cobblestone case is this idea of conservation. The Cobblestone is a special case because it’s so beloved. The petition to protect it got 20,000 signatures in a few days. But the desire to conserve our existing built environment saturates our planning regime.

What would happen if a developer tried to build a nine story apartment block at the end of your road? It’s likely the local WhatsApp would be up in arms, and the neighbours would probably be successful in stopping it. They’d likely argue a nine story building would ruin the character of the neighbourhood.
The Dublin City development plan, 2016-21
This idea of conservation is at the heart of our dysfunctional housing market. We don’t want our neighbourhoods to change. So we elect councillors who draw up development plans that forbid drastic change. The reason your local WhatsApp group probably isn’t battling with plans for a nine story apartment blocks is because those blocks have already been made illegal almost everywhere in Ireland. Your local representatives have ensured it.

Ronan Lyons reckons the government’s target of 29,000 homes per year is way short. He thinks we need closer to 50,000 homes per year for the next twenty to meet the demands of our growing population. The fact of the matter is that there’s zero chance of us hitting that target under our existing planning regime, with an effective prohibition on high density city living and a veto for locals. To get 50,000 houses per year we need new construction everywhere. It doesn’t need to be nine stories tall, but it needs to be in every neighbourhood in the city of Dublin and all over the country. It’s something we’re never going to do if we hold onto this impulse to conserve things the way they are. Our cities need to change quite radically. But that doesn’t have to be something to fear.
The Lexus effect


The other point is that right now, when we’re not building enough, it always feels like we’re fighting a rearguard action. The new developments are bland hotels or office blocks. The ones getting replaced are beloved cultural spaces.

But this is what you get when there’s not enough construction. When the amount of construction is rationed by the planning system, as it is now, new construction focuses on the top end of the market.

This makes sense: the fewer units of a product that get made, the more high end it’ll be. The first cars were toys for rich people. Then, mass production made them a product for anyone.

As the writer Matthew Yglesias has pointed out, in the 1980s, the US government restricted the number of cars Japanese carmakers could export to the US (this they did because US carmakers were angry about losing market share). In response to the quotas, the Japanese carmakers decided to move upmarket. They developed the Lexus and Infiniti brands. They moved upmarket because, only being allowed to sell a small number of units, they had to maximise the margin they made on them.

So when the planning system restricts development, it does two things: it changes the quantity of units (bad for affordability in itself) and it changes the quality of the units that get built, making them more upmarket.

We know how to create great cultural spaces. Indeed, they appeared all over Ireland during the recession. All that needs to happen is for rents to be low. With low rents, cultural spaces emerge naturally.

So the good news is that we don’t have to fight a rearguard action! We can actually get ahead of the change, and have plenty of cool cultural spaces alongside hotels and apartments and houses. The new parts of our cities don’t have to be bland.

Japan is my urban planning nirvana. Japan is a place that’s ruthlessly free of nostalgia. The Japanese build much more stuff of all kinds than we do. (They do this because their planning system is much more permissive, but that’s a story for another day.) Anyway, when you walk around Tokyo or Osaka, the place is buzzing with culture. Even though the buildings are all new, they’re full of weird, small, quirky businesses and public spaces. There are little sheebeen pubs all over the place, with enough room to hold eight old men leaning against a counter in the centre of the room. They don’t have that corporate blandness you get in new parts of western cities. Japan isn’t bland because it has relatively cheap rents, and it has cheap rents because Japanese people build way more than we do.

You don’t have to go all the way to Japan to see cities with low rents and thriving cultural scenes. Manchester or Glasgow or Berlin or Pittsburgh all fit the bill. But those cities’ glory days are behind them. That’s why they’re cheap. What makes Tokyo or Osaka notable is that they’re cheap and they’re growing. That’s the trick Ireland needs to pull off.

So we can have our cake and eat it, in the sense that we can welcome people to the country and have vibrant evolving cultural spaces that are uniquely Irish and have affordable housing. New cultural spaces can be just as good as the old one we’re clinging onto. The places that embody Irish culture don’t have to be frozen in place from 1950 or whenever.

But we can’t have our cake and eat it in the sense that we can’t have affordable housing and conserve our existing neighbourhoods. Either we embrace change, and allow our neighborhoods to radically change in line with their growing population. Or we spend the next few decades fighting about rents, and visitors, and highly-paid technology jobs.

[Strewelpeter]

Reading some great graphic novel series at the moment.

Preacher is just brilliant glorious nonsense.

9781401240455.jpg


And then the surprisingly deep Black Hammer.

9781616557867.jpg





Either series would be great introductions to the genre for anyone on the edge of trying out graphic novels. An artform that everyone should be knee-deep in.

I bought a copy of watchmen today, ostensibly for no1 grandchild (32 months old) telling her I'll mind it for her until she's 16 and here's a Dr Suess to keep you ticking over until then

[Strewelpeter]

give me Singapore over the emirates any day!!

Fucking Antarctica would be a better life choice than the Emirates tbf.
They are ok if your only purpose is to work work work, keep your head down and make money but expat life there is a sick way to live IMO

[Mellor]

Run an ethernet cable into each room

This was the standard advice on boards years ago. Certainly wasn't a bad idea or anything. But its worth noting that as wireless has improved. Self builders were left with the legacy cable they installed. So a house that has Cat5 throughout from 10-15 years ago is probably a slower than modern wireless routers.

No idea is history will repeat itself with current cables. But I'd go high spec to be sure.

Thanks so much for this. I think it is an old fuseboard from what I've inferred from the surveyor report. I rang one person from a reliable place and he said that will be €7,200 for a full rewire and another person from a reliable place said that probably a rewire isn't needed and he'll send out an electrician to go through the various potential issues and price up the different types of jobs that could be done - e.g. fuseboard. They seemed the least money-grabby, and the closest to what you said, so he's on his way out.

Is that photo your actaul fuse board? That's the old kind, they are screw in wire fuses. A modern board will have switches. Apart from being safer and faster, if they every trip, you can flick them back on. Instead of having to replace the correct a fuse.

I believe the meter is technically the ESBs property. And I think they'll replace it with a digital smart meter in an upcoming or ongoing rollout.
https://www.esbnetworks.ie/existing-...-meter-upgrade

[Hitchhiker's Guide To...]

Excellent Article

Literally just off the phone with that journalist and we were chitchatting about some side issues and I mentioned about that place, not knowing he had written that at the weekend. I said I'd heard dodgy things about it, and he goes: oh yeah what? I then proceeded to explain about the anti-Finish sentiment once expressed there as an example of how it might have been a bit closed in mindset.

[The Istanbul]

Literally just off the phone with that journalist and we were chitchatting about some side issues and I mentioned about that place, not knowing he had written that at the weekend. I said I'd heard dodgy things about it, and he goes: oh yeah what? I then proceeded to explain about the anti-Finish sentiment once expressed there as an example of how it might have been a bit closed in mindset.

He writes well (as do most of the contributors to the Currency). I presume you have a Uni-paid for sub?

[DeadParrot]

I bought a copy of watchmen today, ostensibly for no1 grandchild (32 months old) telling her I'll mind it for her until she's 16 and here's a Dr Suess to keep you ticking over until then

This series should be on everyones reading list.
Get in there before they make a soulless tv adaptation