a tale of two cities

I'm listening to the radio as I write this and Adam Cohen is just after having been interviewed on his album (which is soon to be released) and finished by singing So Long, Marianne. Now they're talking about things that have become obsolete in the past twenty years, like printer paper, pretend cigarettes, gobstoppers, mix tapes, dial-up connection, computers the size of fridges; the velocity of technical advances is astounding but the broadcast is also slightly disconcerting as I seem to recall a number of the items on their list as having been present, and quite the norm, in my lifetime... *begins to worry about aging... *struggles to cease said apprehension as realises scrunching of facial muscles induces wrinkles... *reverts to singing inspirational Leonard Cohen songs and decides to embrace what is left of youth

"it's time that we began to laugh and cry and cry and laugh about it all again"

Which is exactly what I shall do in telling my tale of the weekend past. After work on Saturday I took the bus to Dublin to visit the recently qualified Dr Nuala B. Kane and stay in her fancy new city centre apartment...

We acted our age and were lovely and civilised, having dinner and a bottle of wine and talking about all the things we had to talk about after not having seen each other in so long. Buuuhhht then we got a wee bit excited.... ahhhhnd Nuala remembered the bottle of mystery alcohol in the cupboard in the kitchen.... aahhhnd shots followed suit... aahhnd we got really friggin drunk...Aaaaahhnd woke up too few hours later in the best of spirits with the worst of spirits still flowing inside us... Buuuuht it wasn't that bad because we went to Queen of Tarts to meet Una the artist for breakfast and coffee and that was great. Then things took a turn for the worse when we lived an afternoon no hungover soul should ever have to experience: IKEA. Think it would be fun? Based on past experiences so did I. *shudder* nope it's no good I can't even talk about it only to say you'll have to take my word on this one.