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Avoid TempleBar like the plague is yer first piece of advice for a trip to Dublin.
The city has no shortage of good pubs but particularly worth bothering with are:
Kehoe's - South Anne Street . My personal favourite. Bags of character and lots of nooks and corners. O'Donoghue's - Merrion Row. If you want lashings of authentic diddle dee music. Doherty & Nesbitt - Baggot Street Lower. Superb example of Victorian pub decor.
Agree re Ljubljana. Beautiful place but very small. Not especially cheap either. Lots of great restaurants and bars along the river. If you have any interest in contemporary art there is quite an interesting scene in the city. The castle is also well worth a visit.
Great thread. I listen to a lot of podcasts and I'm always on the look out for new ones!
Right. The obvious QPR podcast aside, the ones I listen to most regularly and would recommend are (by subject):
History:
"Dan Carlin's Hardcore History" is probably the best (non-QPR!) podcast out there in my opinion. Episodes usually weigh in at the 3 hour mark - and some topics (e.g. WW1...) are spread over a series of episodes - so it's not a quick 20 minute on the bus job but the production values, level of detail and analysis and his style of delivery especially make it awesome if you have any interest in history.
"Irish History Podcast". A bit niche perhaps but probably of interest to Brian McC at least. The focus has generally been on the early history of Ireland - Celts, Vikings,the arrival of the Normans etc but there are occasional one off specials. Comes out every few weeks and usually about 25 mins long.
"The History of Rome". This was an epic 179 episodes that covered the history of Rome from Romulus and Remus through to the downfall of the Empire in the 5th Century - and lasted almost as long! Most episodes are only 15 mins though so great for dipping in and out of.
Literature:
"BBC Radio 4 Book Club" 30 minute interviews with a wide range of authors and genres (Wilbur Smith to Hilary Mantel!) in front of a live audience that also ask questions.
"The HP Lovecraft Literary Podcast". This started life as a none too serious critical read through of the complete works of HP Lovecraft - 'The Call Of Cthulu' etc - but when they got through those it evolved into a more general podcast about horror/weird fiction. Dickens, MR James, Stoker et al...
Music:
Despite being obsessive about music I don't really listen to podcasts about it. I guess I'd generally rather listen to the tunes themselves than listen to someone b0ll0ck on about recording it but I do think the "Gilles Peterson Worldwide" podcast is worth checking out. Great tunes and a great mix of interesting interviewees.
Football:
"Guardian Football Weekly" obvs.
"The Blizzard" - from the producers of the top quality magazine of the same name.
"Hold The Back Page". It's an Irish podcast but the main focus unsurprisingly is on the Premier League. It's not just about the Prem though - international football (especially the Republic obvs), Champions League, Serie A, MLS and even the League of Ireland get a look in too! One of the presenters is a QPR fan and the discussions are usually decent. The "Extratime.IE podcast" is also worth checking out.
General:
"BBC Radio 4's In Our Time". Great selection of topics discussed by a panel of experts chaired by Melvyn Bragg.
"Bishopsgate Institute Podcast" - hour long talks on a wide range of topics. Mostly with a London theme or connection.
"Documentary On One". Random documentaries taken from the RTE archives. An amazing range of subjects and programmes - some from as far back as the 1950s.
Yep just finished watching it slightly delayed on playback. Always forget just how much I used to like the early Joy Division stuff. I mean, I still really like it, I just never listen to it anymore!
Whilst that documentary featured some of the most Manc accents ever committed to tape ("it were dead arrrrrrrrteh!") the line that stood out the most for me in the whole thing was actually Johnny Rotten at the near mythical Sex Pistols Free Trade Hall gig in 1975:
"Where do you all come from?" "Manchester!" "F@ck that..."
Yep. Like most people I stopped actually physically buying music in any form for a good few years in the 2000s and just downloaded everything from iTunes et al. Then I noticed that all my favourite record shops (and HMV, Fopp etc) were closing down so I stopped. For the last 2-3 years now every payday has seen me head to Sounds Of The Universe, Sister Ray and the like to spend £30-£50 on tunes. admittedly generally on CD rather than vinyl but feel like I'm going my bit!
Same as how I haven't bought owt from Amazon for a similar period of time. I try to use Foyles or some other independent store instead. I know it ends up costing a couple of £ more but it's only the price of a pint really and at least I know I'm making my contribution however small to paying a nurse's wages or a binman, teacher, rozzer whatever... Of course I may have just contributed towards a warhead aimed at Libya or the like😡😡
Palace has long been ridiculously overpriced for what it is - I'm pretty sure I can remember them charging £30 for the Arthur Wait in the late 90s which was a good £10 above going rate at the time.
Think I'll be giving it a miss this time round.
It'll take a lot to beat the atmosphere during my favourite trip to Selhurst - Warnock's return during the 2009/10 relegation battle:
Total blast from the past. Uncanny - second time in a week that I've read something about Elite.
There's a book about the creators of Elite coming out (or just come out) so I read this last weekend - fascinating. A different world and yet not all that long ago really.
Nigh on 40 years ago the Scottish football journalist Ian Archer described that club as "a permanent embarrassment, an occasional disgrace". He wasn't wrong. Although Christ knows what he'd make of them now.
Although I seem to vaguely recall one glorious Sunday lunchtime spent cavorting on a wind, rain, sleet and snow lashed uncovered terrace at Chesterfield's old ground c.2003? Think we won 4-2... I had travelled up straight from Saturday night having not been to bed. Great times.
No it hasn't. I think that was the 3rd edition - I remember one coming out c. 1992/93 and another for the millennium (a truly glorious period in our history indeed!).
I could of course be wrong about almost all of the above.
My uncle is a QPR supporter and I remember him saying once back in the mid-'80s that he felt there were important lessons in life that came from supporting a team like Rangers. They were fatalistic lessons but lessons nonetheless about futility, hope and the connection between the two. No matter how excited you became as a QPR supporter, there was always a voice telling you, "Nothing will come from this".