Hopefully, I’m a bitter spellr than the grafitti artist.

TTFN.

Anyway my mind is wandering so here’s some random photos of Bull Wall, Ringsend.

* I’m a vegetarian and I do look like death warmed up. Lack of iron (ferrous/ferric – can never remember). What a dumbo but, in my defence, I’m a biologist and not a chemist. It’s kinda weird because a relative (60yrs+) has just been diagnosed with haemachromatosis (English wiki). Hemachromatosis (American wiki) is a genetic disease which leads to a build-up of iron in the blood. And the treatment? Diet has minimal effect so semi-regular blood-letting is the treatment. Seriously.

What’s even weirder is that it’s very prevalent in Ireland and…Japan! There are three types of genetic mutation associated with this condition. Two of them affect the Irish population and the third (about 5% of 100% diagnoses) are found in the Japanese population.

Weirdest of all is that, in a previous life, I used to advise hospitals on how to use molecular techniques to fast-diagnose these types of genetic disease. One hospital on the Northside wouldn’t take our technology because they couldn’t afford it. The GP’s (family doctors) who used their clinic wouldn’t pay up on time so this clinic spent a lot of their time chasing GP’s for monies owed!

Another hospital took our technology on board because they had a big problem with M.O.M. s*x. M.O.M. stands for men-on-men. Join the dots! I still chuckle, even though I shouldn’t, at this acronym. P.S. I’ve deleted the e in s*x (and wrote M.O.M.) as I don’t want people searching for those words finding me through Google etc. Not that I’m prudish but that’s not part of why I blog – there’s a public and private part to everyone’s life.

Finally, so I can finish on a happy note, here’s my favourite cartoon. The copyright obviously belongs to doonesbury. They won’t sell outside the U.S. but I wonder is someone on ebay has the same issues? Must check. Next challenge is find a 5 year-old cartoon print using…what search terms? My brain isn’t linear enough to figure this out.

I started at the Baggot Street end and cycled west? I believe the canal ends in Kildare somewhere but I wasn’t going that far. Not on a first date and certainly not with the rain clouds gathering! Just like a first date, everything was quite pleasant to begin with. The sculptures behaved professionally & stood still, the local wildlife dropped by to say ‘hi’, and no beggars asked me for money. I got there by taking a non-direct path through St Stephen’s Green and Merrion Square but you’ll have to visit my Flickr Dublin 4 photo set for more info on that half-hour of my life.

One thing that struck me about Saturday’s cycle was the ‘public’ streetscape scape on view from Dublin 4 up to Rialto*. (* I’m a Northsider and all the Southside is just the ‘Southside’ to me). Now admittedly, the bridges, pathways etc in Dublin 4 were probably built 100 years ago at great British expense but, come on, the design standards of the newer bridges, public amentity spaces, benches, trees etc noticeably decreased as I cycled west. I’m not a ‘the grass is greener … it wasn’t like that in my day‘ type of person (?). I believe in modern design but Dublin has to try harder – look here for good examples (IMHO).

The further west one went, the worse it got. Outside of D.4, there were no pedestrian crossings at junctions. Cycle lane or no, this made it quite dangerous for someone wearing rain-splattered glasses travelling on a bike with non-functioning brakes. Basically, I had no idea where I were going, I couldn’t see where I was going and I couldn’t stop even if I wanted to!

Roughly 6 roads, a Luas line and the canal meet in Rialto*. Admittedly, there were pedestrian crossings this time but the whole streetscape appeared to be just thrown together. Why the Council didn’t make a big deal about the meeting of feet, bicycles, barges, cars, Luas & buses seems odd to me. Look at Dundrum. Even Nature was getting depressed. Look at the difference between the Portobello Bridge photo (that’s the (ahem) artistic long distance photo taken under the trees) and the Rialto* council flats photo.

As I cycled through Riato*, I got depressed and started to turn back. The rain started it but the flats depressed me. Were the barren trees designed to stop people looking out (you’ll always be locked up: either here or in prison) or were they planted to stop people looking in (sweep the problem under the carpet)? In fairness, it had started to rain so the view to this glasses-wearer wasn’t great anyway. Looking at the skyline, I saw civilistation (the incinerator chimney** in St James!) so headed that way. Looks like the whole area is being done up and hopefully, the council will learn from their previous mistakes (e.g. Rialto*).

I was going to include a photo of the BTSB building at the rear of St James as it’s quite nice. But then I realised it’s very, very similar to the Genetics building in Trinity so why bother? Instead I’ve put in this (ahem) artistic photo of the Luas line at the rear of the hospital. Germ of an idea. Can you take your bike on the Luas?? I’ve fond memories of getting the DART out to Bray & climbing the ‘hill’ when I was younger.

** There are already lots of incinerators in Ireland.

I took a detour halfway there because I remembered about the Black church and the little park at Blessington Street basin. I’m sure the church has a proper name but I’ve only heard the old wives tale that if you run backwards around the church 3 times during a full moon, the devil will appear. There, you’ve been warned!

Right beside the church is Paradise Place. More like Paradise Lost, if you ask me. What were the council thinking when they named the place? In my little dictionary, parados is the entry after paradise. It means, ‘back wall of trench in warfare.’ This might have been more appropriate considering the area’s history!

The third photo is ‘something’ displayed on the side of a house beside the church but I don’t know what it’s about. Is it art? Can anybody shed any light?

The park at Blessington Street basin was very nice but a little down at heel. It would be a very nice place to have lunch if you worked in the area. I was quite surprised that there were no drunks or junkies hanging around. Makes a nice change.

Eventually made it to Smithfield. Kinda impressed but don’t know if I’d want to live there. There has been huge development and, on the whole, it looks pretty nice. But some of the architecture, like the council houses below, looked a bit iffy. Using my ‘wet Wednesday in November’* rule, these house can’t be considered a success.

There was a certain charm about the place and I could well imagine that it would be nice place to live or visit during the Summer. But only if the drunks, junkies, street people and beggars are kept out of the area. At the bottom of the Plaza, there were three separate groups of people who were drinking, cursing, and making the whole atmosphere a bit wary/tense. Everybody walked through with grim faces, and quickly, with their eyes down, hoping not to be asked for money or to be insulted about their sex or race.

When I took out my camera, they started to stare at me. After a tense stand-off of negotiation via body language, I agreed not to shoot any photos of them and they agreed not to shoot any bottles or stones at me. I wonder if twentymajor was in the group? As they say in the tabloids, I made my excuses and left.

Wet Wednesday in November rule: In this instance it means what would it be like to live or visit here on a wet Wednesday in November?