This section of my singles collection starts with the rather lovely Turn Back the Clock from Johnny Hates Jazz. It’s the story of a man looking back at his childhood and realising that despite the heartaches and difficulties they were the best times of his life. A beautiful tune and thought provoking lyrics come together to create a song that resonates through the years. If that’s the case for Turn Back the Clock, it goes at least double for the all time classic – in my opinion anyway – I’ll Find My Way Home by Jon and Vangelis which was released just before Christmas in 1981. The beauty of the tune and the purity of Jon Anderson’s vocals come together to create one of the all time great songs. It got to Number 6, but in my opinion we sold it short in the UK. Howard Jones was one of those artists who was always on the edge of my musical likes but he hit the spot with the gorgeous No One is to Blame, which, in common, with the previous two songs has a lovely tune and thought provoking lyrics. Howard Jones was well covered on the Now albums so I didn’t have to buy the singles very often, but this one definitely earnt its place in my collection. The B Side ‘The Chase’, an instrumental synth tune was memorably described by a friend of mine at the time as a case of ‘turn the instrument on and go for a cup of tea’!
The next tune could not be more different. An 80s classic, belted out in bedroom, bar and disco alike, Walking on Sunshine is immediate, visceral, exciting and uplifting. Katrina and the Waves may have won Eurovision later in their career, but this was their finest moment without any doubt. Give it Up by KC and the Sunshine Band was the summer hit from 1983, the year I finally escaped my secondary school. Those words were ones I sang loudly because I’d finally given up 7 years of misery so it is a song that will always be amongst my favourites. Added to that, it’s just a very good tune and added to that it has a cracking vocal performance.
We finish off this picture with three songs from early 80s hit maker Nik Kershaw who had an unerring ear for a tune. These three really give a good picture of what made him special. There’s the serious, thoughtful and occasionally gloomy lyrics of Wouldn’t It Be Good as a contrast to the tongue in cheek lyrics of Wide Boy dealing with a young man who has had overnight success and doesn’t have the ability to handle it! However, if I could keep just one single from Nik Kershaw it would be the marvellous The Riddle. There were many rumours that the track, if it were deciphered, would lead to a Masquerade style prize. Kershaw himself confirmed that it was simply a nonsensical guide vocal, but what a nonsensical guide vocal it was. It sounds full of meaning and the video added to the mystical feeling that pervaded, but it was just as much about the Celtic style undertone of the track that it had that added heft. A marvellous track in every way.
In the 80s, the best way to revive an old song was to put it in an advert or a film. Ben E King’s all time classic Stand by Me, benefitted from both. It was the advert that pushed its ascent to Number 1 as the Levi’s 501 cover indicates. The original release saw the song reach Number 27 in 1961! The three weeks at the top was a far more deserved chart placing. The Kinks were one of the best groups to come out of the 60s, but for their revival in the 80s they didn’t have to rely on films or adverts. Instead, they released a new track that showed they could still capture the ears and hearts of the listening public. Come Dancing with its story of the local palais was full of character vignettes, London character and a fantastic chorus that made it irresistible. It encouraged me to listen to The Kinks from the 60s, and I bet loads of teenagers followed me down that route. The only Kiss song in my singles collection is the Foreigner style soft rock of Reason to Live. I really enjoyed it, more than the successful Crazy Crazy Nights which reached Number 4. The fact that it reached Number 33 indicated that not for the first time I was in the minority!
For a good few years, Kool and the Gang were reliable hitmakers who produced dance tracks and ballads with, seemingly, equal ease. My four singles from them tend more towards the latter with the clear standout for me being the gorgeous, emotional Cherish. It is just a superb song that has stood the test of time to earn its place amongst the best ballads in an era absolutely chock full of them. Speaking of ballads, we finish off this section with Patti La Belle and Michael McDonald’s On My Own, another excellent example of the genre. Written by songwriting giants Burt Bacarach and Carole Bayer Sager, this song reached Number 2 in the UK and Number 1 in the US. It was an unusual duet though, because the two singers never met, recording their parts separately, something that the video reflects.
The final section starts with perhaps the strangest Christmas hit of them all. Seemingly out of nowhere, Laurel and Hardy’s Trail of the Lonesome Pine from the 1939 film Way Out West looked set to be the Christmas Number 1, or at least a Number 1 early in the New Year. Instead, it spent five weeks in the Top 3, swapping the Number 2 and 3 position with Greg Lake’s I Believe in Father Christmas. What stopped these two tracks from hitting the top? Bohemian Rhapsody which stayed at Number 1 for 9 weeks. I remember as a 9 year old being incredibly frustrated that Lonesome Pine didn’t get there, but my older self freely admits that its two competitors were far superior songs!
As forgotten ballads go, they don’t come much bigger than the outstanding See the Day by Dee C Lee. Lee was a backing singer for Wham! and her vocals were a huge part of The Style Council’s sound as well. However, solo success largely eluded her. See the Day was her only Top 40 hit, but if you’re only going to have one then it’s the one to have. This is the type of song that just fades from the memory and then reappears crystal clear as soon as you hear that soaring chorus. Next is a John Lennon cover of the Ben E King track mentioned earlier, which is decent enough but fades into obscurity compared to the original. His son, Julian, had a couple of hits in the 80s, of which Too Late for Goodbyes was my favourite. He had a decent voice and he was a talented musician, but he fell foul of the famous child of a famous father syndrome. If his name had been Julian Smith he would have appeared much later in my singles collection (!), but he might also have been judged more fairly on his own merits rather than being compared to John.
Level 42 were a group I always enjoyed listening to, but as far as their singles go their 1986 smash Letters in Love was their high point musically speaking, at least in my opinion. I loved it from the first time I heard it and it is still a favourite to sing. Mark King is still front and centre 40 years after they started and that instantly recognisable bass style is still the percussive heart of one of the most fondly remembered British groups of the era. From the other side of the Atlantic, Huey Lewis and the News were a very important part of my musical journey. Why? They were the first act that I saw live in a big London venue. The support act was Bruce Hornsby and the Range, so it was a high class night from beginning to end. It was a night that gave me a lifelong affection for the group and the album they were touring at the time, Fore. Yes, I know I have two copies of The Power of Love, but unlike Walk of Life by Dire Straits, it isn’t a mistake! I bought the second copy for perhaps my favourite song by Huey Lewis and the News, the amazing Do You Believe in Love. I bought Stuck with You and then picked up the Fore album, and for a good while it didn’t spend much time off of my cassette deck!
Hope you enjoyed my ramblings! The latest selection of tracks is on Spotify so please take a listen The A-Z of my Singles Collection Part 3
Sometimes, when I am looking through my DVD/Blu-ray collection, I come across a film or series I haven’t watched in ages. I put it on and I am reminded why I liked it in the first place and why I still enjoy it. One such film is the 2005 version of C.S. Lewis’ first Narnia novel. In order to focus properly on that film, I will address one of my irritations, the continued lack of a film or TV series based on The Magician’s Nephew. Why don’t the film makers start there? It explains how Narnia came into being, and is my favourite Narnia, perhaps because it was after all but The Last Battle had been completed, when Lewis had the entire story of Narnia from beginning to end. It fills in gaps in the narrative and provides Jadis with a fantastic backstory. There are often rumours of a new Narnia series being made, so I hope that my favourite Narnia story finally makes it to the screen. It is only fair to say that a number of scholars disagree with me on this, and suggest that the order in which Lewis wrote them with The Magician’s Nephew the penultimate book and The Last Battle, the final story, were always intended to be read after the rest of the Narnia Chronicles. Now that’s out of the way, I can get down to reviewing the Disney studios answer to the Harry Potter phenomenon.
The Plot
This must be a plot that must be extremely familiar to most of you reading this, but in case you aren’t, it sees the four Pevensie children, Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy evacuated during WWII to a large house in the country owned by Professor Kirke. One day, while playing hide and seek, Lucy hides in a wardrobe, but it’s no ordinary wardrobe. It turns out to be a portal into another world. This world is snowbound and apparently deserted, but whilst exploring she meets a faun, Mr Tumnus, who takes her home for tea after finding out that she is in fact human, something Tumnus seems unsettled by. When she gets home after hours spent in Narnia, she tells her siblings that she is back safely, but it turns out that no time at all has passed. Edmund is the next one to discover Narnia, and he runs into the White Witch, the self-styled ruler of Narnia, who finds out that he has three siblings and tells him to bring the others back after enticing him with hot chocolate and Turkish Delight. When all four finally make it into Narnia, they find out that the White Witch is an evil ruler who has enchanted the land, and that Tumnus has been arrested after Edmund carelessly told the Witch about Lucy’s visit to the faun. When the White Witch moves against the four children and their supporters, the stage is set for a battle between good and evil.
The Cast
As with the book, the story is seen largely through the eyes of the youngest of the siblings, Lucy. As such, the film makers had to get the casting right, and with Georgie Henley they succeeded. Although it was her first film, Henley proved to be equal to the task of guiding the audience into Narnia. She is appealing as a central character and her ability to show a combination of vulnerability and bravery made her performance strong enough to carry viewers with her. The relationship she has with her older siblings is believable, with the fraught dynamic between her and the second youngest Pevensie, Edmund, nicely authentic. Skandar Keynes has the most difficult journey as the treacherous Edmund, having to make himself unlikeable and occasionally spiteful, whilst leaving just enough goodwill in the audience to accept a possible redemption. Keynes walks this tightrope very well, and allows Edmund to be a character with shades of grey, and occasionally jet black. Anna Popplewell plays the older sister, Susan, and does an underwritten part full justice. In the original novels, Susan is given little character development and her main role seems to be as a viewer of events rather than integral to them. She becomes a very peripheral character in Prince Caspian and it seemed to me that C S Lewis spent little time trying to give her any defining traits. The final novel, The Last Battle, sees Susan shut out altogether in a move that outraged me as a child, and is the reason why I have never read that book again. Popplewell manages to show Susan’s strength and her role in bringing her occasionally warring siblings together. Finally, as the oldest sibling, Peter, William Moseley gets the bulk of the action sequences, having the chance to fight at the head of the forces of good. It is a role that could be a little one note, but Moseley shows concern for his brother and sisters that hints at a softer side.
The two main protagonists, at the head of their respective armies are Aslan, with the voice of Liam Neeson and the White Witch played by Tilda Swinton. Neeson has the required power and gravitas to portray the God of Narnia and is helped by a very effective realisation of Aslan on screen. It is, however, Tilda Swinton who takes her chance to steal the movie from everyone else with a truly superb and scary performance. Even as an adult with a good few viewings of this film under my belt, Swinton could still be genuinely terrifying at times, never more so than in the brutal Stone Table sequence, which is as dark as it gets in a family film.
Finally, I must mention Mr and Mrs Beaver played by Ray Winstone and Dawn French, who give the film humour in some of the darker moments with their excellent characterisation and comic timing. They were my children’s favourite characters when they first watched it, and remain so even now.
Overall
Nearly 20 years on from its first appearance when, by the way, it outperformed Goblet of Fire at the Box Office raking in $750m in cinemas, how does it hold up? Visually, it is still magnificent and the CGI is still extremely effective. The performances are strong throughout, and they help to create a fully rounded world that is built up in just a couple of hours. The story races along and the pace is never allowed to sag once the four Pevensies get to Narnia. Finally, the portrayal of the four as adults in Narnia shows how to do a 19 years later style epilogue! So why was it the only truly successful film in the series? A few reasons, but perhaps the three year gap between this film and its sequel, Prince Caspian, betrayed a lack of forethought that the Harry Potter films had in abundance. Each year, there was a new Harry Potter film, and the connection with the audience grew larger with each one. The audience, having waited three years between films, moved on in many cases to the darker toned fantasy films and never returned. Prince Caspian was a much darker film which further alienated their core audience of younger viewers, and when the more tonally similar Voyage of the Dawn Treader finally arrived in the cinemas 5 years after the first film, the Narnia bubble had well and truly burst.
While writing this entry, I have discovered that Netflix have bought the rights to all seven Narnia stories, and rumours are that Greta Gerwig will be directing two of the films. Nothing is confirmed yet, but it looks promising, and who knows, a new audience may yet be entranced by the adventures beyond the Wardrobe.
On September 5, 1983 I entered the world of work for the first time, starting a career that has had more twists and turns than most! 40 years on, I thought it might be interesting to look back to what the office looked like in the analogue days of the early 80s. Now, this is just my experience of one firm, but, from chatting to people at the time and after, I think it is fairly representative of what we faced in those far off times. Follow me through the doors of my first office.
Lloyds of London
My first job was in the Non-marine section of the famous insurer, based in Gun Wharf in Chatham. I had left the Maths School in July of that year with huge relief, and with one final piece of bad advice from the disinterested careers officer in a school that only cared about university entrants. I had done A Levels so I should look for a job in banking or insurance. Accordingly, I applied for every bank and building society I could and it was Lloyds who were unlucky enough to employ me! I was hopeless as a non-marine insurance clerk as I had absolutely no eye for detail and made mistake after mistake during my 10 months there. Despite this, I actually enjoyed the people I worked with and the opportunities I had on the social side. My pay was the princely sum, at least to me at the time, of £3,600 a year. This kept me in the manner of most 18 year olds at the time, funding pub visits and records quite happily! Savings were not an issue for me at the time, so it was purely spending money after I paid rent to my parents. My biggest purchase was a ZX Spectrum 48K for £175, the equivalent of a whole month’s disposable income! My friends loved it, but I was rubbish at computer games so it was by any measure an irresponsible purchase as it turned out!
The Office
In 1983, the office was a very different place in many ways. First of all, there were no computers of any sort on our desks. The whole idea would have been laughable when the computer rooms were huge spaces containing giant mainframes that had less processing power than the phones we carry in our pockets today. Instead of endless emails we had the post room where letters were sorted and delivered to offices twice a day. The post room staff were extremely efficient and, for the most part, enjoyed their jobs as they were not bothered by management and could work at their own pace fuelled by tea, coffee and cigarettes! In those days you could smoke in the office, and over half of the employees did. Looking back, that seems to be the relic of another age, but at the time we thought nothing of it. Our colleagues were not the chain smoking types, and they often took the chance to go for a walk when they were smoking so there wasn’t a permanent fog of smoke in the place.
The benefits of a computer less office lay in the ability to think, plan and consult with colleagues when they were less busy. If someone had a query for your department, they didn’t expect a reply immediately even if they phoned up. These days, the instant nature of communication means the expectation of instant answers. The effect of that is to reduce the effectiveness of some of those answers and to increase the stress on the employees providing them.
My colleagues were a mix of older time served employees in their 50s and 60s, many of them with 30 or more years of service under their belts, and a large proportion of new employees, hired year after year on the basis that not all of them would stay. I sat opposite a couple of older employees who would regale us with stories of WWII and their experiences of Lloyds during the many years they spent there. They were, as a group, fascinating, caring men and women who had a clear policy of watching the backs of the younger employees. From their own experiences of being new workers, they were able to see the pitfalls way before us and often had a quiet word to help us correct our mistakes before the managers spotted them. It was very much a them and us approach in the office that gave us a bond with each other and made for a very supportive work atmosphere. They shook their heads and smiled on occasions when they saw the younger crowd walk around as if we’d got it sorted out, but were endlessly patient with us. The managers themselves were accorded respect because they had all worked their way up through the ranks. You could go to a manager for help if you needed to, safe in the knowledge that they had the skillset to help you. Our assistant manager and manager in my department had over 50 years between them in Lloyds.
What a contrast to today when being a ‘manager’ is simply a career path chosen by people who in nearly every case have no idea about the field they work in. All they care about is enriching themselves and their opportunity to get even more money in another field they are similarly clueless about. Yes, I know there are exceptions, but the general lack of understanding or interest in the management class is what has led to many of the problems we have today in terms of business stability and relations between junior and senior staff.
Lloyds, in common with many other places at the time, had a system called flexitime. This involved employees being treated as responsible adults, which was probably not ideal in my case! You had to work a set number of hours each month, and at the end of the month you were required to have a surplus or to have ‘broken even’ by working that required amount of time. In my case, I treated myself as a part-timer for the first 2 or 3 weeks of my first few months and then worked 8 – 6 with 15 minutes for lunch in order to play catch up! This was not the ideal strategy, and one month I was sick for the last two days and ended up with a deficit for which I was rightly taken to task. After that, I was much more responsible and came to enjoy a system that allowed you time to recover from a bad morning or a ‘heavy night’ and, if you built up enough time, take the odd day off. It was a system that both employees and employers benefitted from and a system that would be significantly better for morale than the enforced or zero hours we have now. Holidays in those days meant someone else doing your job for two weeks and no inbox with hundreds of emails to return to. It gave you the opportunity to really relax for two weeks and pick up the work when you returned with no backlog.
Lunch time
Lloyds, in common with many other places had a subsidised canteen. If you just had a main course it was 9p, but if you pushed the boat out and had 3 courses it was the princely sum of 27p – less than the price of a half pint of beer! There was no sitting at your desks eating, you had to leave the office for a minimum of 15 minutes at lunchtime as that was considered essential to maintain concentration. In practice most lunches were 30 – 45 minutes long. Steve Reid, my inseparable work buddy, and I used to spend lunchtimes chatting, playing snooker on the 6 by 3 table downstairs, or occasionally taking part in indoor bowls (More of that later)! On Fridays, however, we went to the Command House nearby and, unless I was playing catch up on my hours, spent sometimes up to an hour and a half drinking and eating with the many of our younger colleagues. Friday afternoon saw very little useful work being done by most of us as we struggled to stay awake, let alone read insurance forms through our self-induced alcoholic hazes! Occasionally, our senior colleagues joined us, or went out with their compatriots to toast the upcoming weekend. It was an accepted part of work behaviour pretty much everywhere as long as you didn’t overdo things, although if my friend Gavin’s drunken Friday afternoon phone calls were anything to go by, the London banks seemed to be a free for all! Yes, it could be one of those privileges that was abused, but we knew what the limits were and for the most part kept within them.
Social Life and your employer
Back in the 80s, we were probably in the last decade or so of the expectation of jobs for life. Many of the post-war generation were reaching the end of their careers and had dedicated their working lives to Lloyds. In return, they were treated very well by the company both inside and outside work. Those of us who were just passing through were also beneficiaries of this approach and probably didn’t really appreciate how lucky we were until later on in our careers.
Lloyds had sports grounds in the Medway Towns and in London with a number of cricket teams in the summer, football, rugby and hockey in the winter and well used clubhouses in both venues. They were not unusual in this respect as other companies such as Lloyds Bank, Barclays Bank and Cuaco (Commercial Union Assurance Company) ran 5 or 6 teams in each sport whilst smaller companies commonly ran at least one team in many sports. This fostered a sense of belonging and gave employees an outlet for their interests that cost very little and was well supported. We had games evenings against other companies which were great fun and definitely competitive! Steve and I played indoor bowls in a Lloyds league organised by a couple of the employees. The combination of Steve’s skill and my brute force occasionally paid dividends, but I definitely wasn’t the most reliable partner, that’s for sure! All of the above examples compare very favourably with today’s employers who, in the vast majority of cases, expect full loyalty from employees without acknowledging a duty of care, mental or social, to those they expect so much from.
Education and training
Finally, all first year employees were working a four day week during college terms as it was considered essential to have a workforce with as much training as possible. We went to the nearby Mid Kent College every Friday to study for our Introduction to Insurance qualifications. At the end of the course, we had to take exams, and, as our part of the deal, needed to pass two out of the three subjects to protect our college day. If anyone didn’t pass two exams, they were allowed to resit them the following year, but they had to study on their own time as they went back to a full 5 day week. Ironically, given that I didn’t last a full year, I was the only one eligible to keep my study day after the exams! It was the perfect combination of incentives, and if you went back the following year and passed the missing subjects you could move on to Stage 2 and get your study day back. Now, that’s what i call professional development!
Final Thoughts
So there you have it, work 1983 style. I know I have painted it in a very positive light, but at the time it didn’t seem that positive. It’s only in retrospect that you realise it was a very much better time to be a common or garden worker in an office than pretty much any era that followed it. Did I enjoy it much at the time? No way. Work is work, particularly in a job you are completely unsuited for, and I hated the feeling of not being up to the job. However, even at the time I appreciated my colleagues and my employer for making it significantly more comfortable than it otherwise would have been. These days, I doubt that many modern firms would have the patience or understanding required to do anything to smooth my path.
The Blue and The Green
In the early 70s, ITV was responsible for two fondly remembered science fiction series. The first, from 1970, was the excellent Timeslip which only lasted for one series on TV, but which covered a huge amount of dramatic and scientific ground. The second series, which started in 1973, was The Tomorrow People. Both series were overseen by Ruth Boswell, a leading figure in children’s drama whose approach was never to talk down to her audience, but rather encourage them to stretch themselves. Alongside her two most famous series, she was responsible for Escape into Night in 1972 and the anthology series Shadows in 1976. All four were high quality productions where the ideas were central to their appeal. If you have seen them, you’ll know what I mean, and if you haven’t I urge you to track them down.
The Story
The Blue and The Green is perhaps the best regarded, and certainly the best remembered, story in the series, and it is the story that introduced Series 2. The episode starts with two Tomorrow People in their hidden lab, John (Nicholas Young) and Stephen (Peter Vaughan Clarke). Stephen is attending school, where his art class is being taught by Elizabeth M’Bondo (Elizabeth Adare), a new student teacher. He quickly realises that she is a Tomorrow Person, although she is quite a bit older than the others who had ‘broken out’. John tells Stephen to tread carefully, but soon the new potential Tomorrow Person is a minor problem compared to Stephen’s new classmate. Robert (Jason Kemp) produces a painting he calls ‘The change of weather on Rexil 4’, a name he insists he made up. However, Stephen knows that not only is there a planet called Rexil 4, but that he has painted it entirely accurately. The situation gets much worse when Robert brings a box of badges to school, in two shades, blue and green. When the whole world takes sides, there seems to be little even the Tomorrow People can do. What is Robert’s story? How will Elizabeth cope with becoming a Tomorrow Person? These two questions drive the five episode story as it becomes progressively darker.
Reactions
My first reflection when re-watching a programme I’d last seen when it was first broadcast in 1974, was how well the central concepts still stand up. The way that human nature tends towards inexplicable violence is just as pertinent now as it was then, perhaps even more so. It is one of the programme’s strengths, at least in the first three series which were overseen by Ruth Boswell, not to sugar coat the more controversial elements of the programme. The ongoing conflict in Northern Ireland is referenced, as is racism. Cleverly, the points are not laboured, but they are unsettling and left firmly in the viewer’s minds. The apparently random introduction of the Blue and Green badges is extremely clever, because their effect is immediate and occasionally shocking, but the explanation for that effect is deliberately left until Episode 5. The viewer is left wondering what is going on and even Tim (voiced by Philip Gilbert), the Tomorrow People’s powerful computer is at a loss to explain what is going on. He does, however, mention that the Roman Empire fell after the citizens split themselves into Blue and Green factions. This occurred in the 6th Century and initially took place within the Byzantine Empire, which was centred around Constantinople. This proves to be an important plot point. The denouement is interesting and brings the best story, in my opinion, to a satisfying close.
The weaker points are few, but one of them centres around the uncomfortable marriage between high concept science fiction and children’s television at the time. Robert has a ‘grandfather’ (Nigel Pegram) looking after him who has been brainwashed into thinking that Robert is his flesh and blood. He looks, and acts, like Dick Van Dyke in his role as the manager of the bank in Mary Poppins! It’s a clowning performance that seems to have wondered in from a completely different programme, perhaps Rentaghost. The fight scenes are badly choreographed, but then again they couldn’t be too realistic for a programme shown before 5pm, so some allowances are needed when judging them. That said, there is significant footage from conflicts around the world and that gives a more unsettling feel to the programme which offsets it. Finally, there is a non Tomorrow Person who helps out called Chris (Christopher Chittell). His role is providing the muscle, given the Tomorrow People’s prime barrier which largely stops them from acts of violence. In this episode, Chris gets involved in breaking and entering as well as seemingly random car chases that, once again, seem out of place in the show. Finally, the way the solution is enacted can seem quite amusing in places, but if you suspend disbelief I think it’s actually quite effective.
Things to look out for include early appearances by those Birds of a Feather Pauline Quirke and Linda Robson, the former immediately recognisable, and their castmate from ‘You Must Be Joking’ Ray Burdis. An interesting aside from Tim introducing himself to Elizabeth is his description of himself as Artificial Intelligence. This reflects the fact that The Tomorrow People, like Timeslip, had a scientific advisor.
Final Thoughts
So there you have it. The Blue and The Green definitely stands up extremely well all these years later. It is thoughtful, intelligent science fiction that is the perfect showcase for this 70s classic. Even if the story hadn’t been as effective I could watch the opening titles on a loop! The combination of music and images still sends shivers down my spine in the same way as it did when I was just 8 years old.
As I have just got back from the capital of Ireland I thought I’d share a few thoughts and recommendations to give you a head start if you’re planning your own trip to Dublin’s fair city.
Getting there
Unless you have lots of time, or you live very much closer to Holyhead than I do, the flight is perhaps the only option. With the usual caveats of it being something of a game you are playing with the airline to keep your costs as low as possible, the budget carriers were our best option. We ended up with Ryanair, and for me the huge plus was the amount of legroom. To be able to actually stretch your legs out on a plane was a real surprise and an element that made the flight far more comfortable than expected. As more experienced travel blogs would tell you, exhaustive internet research is the key so head to the usual suspects and do your comparisons.
Accommodation
We went across as a family for my wife’s birthday so with ourselves, children and partners there were eight of us. This meant that we could look at the self catering options provided by Yugo, whose term time student accommodation is available for the summer months. Now, if you are used to hotels, the accommodation can seem a little basic, but if you are used to hostels it’s pretty good. The kitchen has fridge, freezer, oven, toaster, microwave and hob. It doubles as the lounge and there is a flat screen on the wall which has the terrestrial channels plus Netflix access. All cups, plates and utensils are present and correct, and all in all it’s perfect for breakfasts and your evening meal if you are cooking for yourself at any point as we were. There was a dishwasher but no tablets so if you want to use it you have to buy your own. The rooms are basic in nature, but comfortable, although the beds were three quarter sized doubles which may be rather cosy for two! All in all it was pretty good and a perfect base for 3 nights.
Getting around
From the airport, the best option by far, to my mind, is the Dublin Express Bus, which takes you into the centre of the city within an hour for 5 euros. Once you are in the city itself, most things were in walking distance for us, but there are buses that cover most of the city as well. As someone who never takes taxis I’m afraid I can’t comment on those!
Eating and Drinking
As with any city there are a huge number of options, but as with any city the meals are not especially cheap. However, I want to suggest a couple of pubs and a small but excellent café. The pub that we went to for a couple of meals was O’ Shea’s, and even as a non pub goer I was bowled over by the atmosphere there and the quality of the food and drink. Between the eight of us we tried most of what was on the menu over two visits and all the meals were of the highest quality. On the Sunday night the live music was superb and not at the level where you couldn’t hear each other speak. The pub is situated near Merchant’s Quay and is definitely worth a visit. The other bar, Dillon’s Bar, is a great place for lunch with an excellent sandwich menu and an excellent atmosphere. It is just down the road from Phoenix Park, so it makes a handy stopping off point on your way back in to the city. Finally, for breakfast on my wife’s birthday we went to a little place called The Cheeky Piglet which had a fantastic breakfast menu which was tasty and perfect to set us up for our day of sightseeing.
Places to see in Dublin
I don’t want to make this an exhaustive list, so I will just pick three places that I really enjoyed. The main reason for our visit was to take my wife to the Guinness Storehouse. Across five floors and a rooftop bar, you are introduced to the story of Guinness and then invited to sample your own pint. We upgraded our visit to the Stoutly which gives you the rather intriguing option of your picture on the head of a pint of Guinness. It’s definitely worth the extra money in my opinion, because it’s a real talking point and you won’t get it anywhere else! We ended up spending 4 hours there, but you can probably see and do most things in 3.
Dublinia is a fascinating introduction to the Viking and Medieval history of Dublin. The idea is similar to Jorvik in York although there is no ride through a Viking village. It’s a good place to while away 90 minutes, particularly when waiting for the rain to stop!
On our final afternoon, we visited the Irish Whiskey Museum, because we had an hour or so to kill before the end of our visit, and we were so glad we did! You get a tour from a knowledgeable guide. Donal was our guide and he was by common consent absolutely brilliant. His genuinely hilarious asides were cheeky, quick witted and entirely good natured even, or especially, when he skirted the edge of insulting very skilfully. In our final couple of hours in Dublin we saw, heard and tasted the essence of the Irish experience.
Final thoughts
The weather when we went was pretty bad, in common with most of the rest of Britain and Ireland.
Tip Number One – Never go out without a jacket thinking it looks OK! The weather changes insanely quickly and the next belt of rain could be far closer than you think.
Tip Number Two – Layer up so you don’t end up perspiring profusely if you don’t get rained upon.
Tip Number Three – The atmosphere of Dublin is best experienced on a summer’s evening by simply walking around. We went to Grafton Street one evening and Temple Bar area on another, and had a fantastic time. It is a European City in every respect and the café and pub culture comes into its own on a walk around the areas where the locals congregate.
Tip Number Four – It’s expensive but so is any city, and with careful budgeting you can spend a small amount and get a huge amount of value from it.
Tip Number Five – Slow down and let Dublin seep into your soul. My family say I am incapable of slowing down (!) but by my standards I was more relaxed here than on pretty much any other short break I’ve ever taken.
Thank you Dublin, I will be back.
David Pearce - Popular Culture and Personal Passions 