unironedman

It’s been a busy few weeks. I have been back out on the road again, whilst managing to get in one of my favourite runs. At the weekend, I was off down to Cork for another stadium gig, with lots of airport pickups. With some of the crew arriving on Friday for the Saturday gig, it meant an evening out in Cork city (the ‘real’ capital of Ireland), and a stay in the executive floor of a nice hotel. These are the perks, my friends. You gotta roll with it!

The band put on a great show, and as they were off at the crack of dawn for the start of some European tour dates, it was straight back to Dublin after the gear was loaded out, and a drop off at their hotel in the airport. For all the glamour that we see on stage, there is an enormous amount of work behind the scenes (literally), and a hive of industry keeping it all ticking over. Not that this is news to anyone who has been involved in the business, I suppose.

With a late finish on the Saturday, I did not, dear reader, make an early start on Sunday. Indeed, as with mad dogs and Englishman, I conspired to wait until the hottest part of the day to head out along the canal for my favourite run: a half marathon towards Dublin along the Royal Canal. It takes in the Deep Sinking – an engineering achievement that deserves more blog attention one day – and then touches on the edge of the city at the 10k mark. Indeed, when Garmin is behaving, exactly ten kilometres puts you in the middle of the aqueduct over the busy M50 motorway from my front door. I usually run down to the next lock to add on the extra distance to get me over the 21k required to call it a half.

Gary very kindly liked the run when it uploaded to Garmin Connect, and then asked how did it go. Laboured, was my single word reply. And laboured indeed it was. I would like to draw your attention to the heat at this point, but the real underlying factor here is just not enough fitness. Not yet, anyway. It’s been a messy old few months, and I have yet to knuckle down and get into a rhythm. I am still waiting positive news on the Dublin Marathon ticket. And my planned adventure out west (the Mayo section of the Western Way) was postponed due to my mishap, as was my ultra out in Connemara. Tentative plans with Gary to do a long cycle along the Grand Canal remain on the drawing board for now.

If nothing else, the Sunday canal run was the longest run of the year to date, so I will take this as a positive. These are the straws that must be clutched; the crumbs that must be, eh… comforted (this really doesn’t work! ed.). And I did get to take some nice photos. So there’s that…

This week, rock bands were set aside for a fashion shoot. Tuesday and Wednesday were spent out in Mullaghmore in Sligo. It was just more driving, and the only saving grace was the location. Sligo may not have the imposing peaks of Kerry or Connemara, nor the allure of the Burren limestone in Clare, but Queen Maeve’s tomb atop Knocknarea is like a benevolent all-seeing Eye of Balor that finds you wherever you are in the county. Your approach to the county town passes the beautiful Lough Arrow, and above you, to the left, the silent tombs of Carrowkeel observe your journey from their vantage point on the Bricklieve Hills. And of course, to the north, as you pass famous locations like Rosses Point and Drumcliffe – the resting place of WB Yeats – you are under the watchful eye of Benbulbin.

Benbulbin, for those that haven’t seen it, is simultaneously the most imposing and also the most ridiculous mountain. It has a profile, from certain angles, that makes it hugely photogenic, and instantly recognisable. Like Mount Fuji or Table Mountain, you could draw Benbulbin with a few strokes of a pencil, and you would know it straight away. It also reflects the Atlantic weather like a mirror and is quite the shape-shifter as you move around it. It refuses to conform to any notion of what a mountain should look like.

The weather was fabulous. A chilly enough wind on the Tuesday, off the sea, but plenty of sunshine, and then even hotter on the Wednesday. Again, huge amounts of just waiting around for people to do their thing, which allowed me to take a few pictures. I regretted not packing my decent camera, but perhaps the crew would have been spooked if I started whipping out my Nikon and snapping all around me. I wasn’t in the least interested in the clothing brand, but I suppose it was no harm to be discrete.

The gallery below is best viewed one shot at a time. I included the hotel interior shot because it’s impossible to stare down one of these long corridors and not expect to see two twins holding hands. Also, the trawlers should be titled ‘Seen better days’, as they are three of the most bedraggled craft I have seen tied up together.

The final shoot location was right under the shadow of Benbulbin, and I had been asked to help scout it out in terms of transport and accessibility. It would have been a tough spot to get all the crew vehicles up there, and at the last minute, common sense prevailed, and they scaled back the resources required. Suddenly, I was free! I wasted no time in offloading any gear I was carrying and headed for home.

The following day was the final series of shots in and around Dublin city centre, which was tricky enough, trying to get parking for the various crew vans. The weather was even finer again, with a lot of sun, made even more oppressive by the lack of breeze and the urban surroundings. I suppose, on the plus side, it meant they weren’t losing any time on location, and we were packing up by around 7pm, and I was on the road and home soon after 9. Glamour it is not. Work, it is.

The Euros continue, for those that like the football. England continue to amaze. Not due to their sparkling performances, I might add. Simply down to the fact that, on paper, there is a lot of talent. But as a team, it is not clicking. I suspect, if one is being harsh, that despite many of these players plying their trade in the top teams, the big guns like City, Arsenal and Liverpool are also stocked with non-English players, and coached by non-English coaches. The style of play encouraged by the likes of Pep Guardiola is all about passing, possession and control. This requires a lot of confidence on the ball, and whatever is going on at the coaching set-up with Southgate, this style of play seems totally alien to the team. They look rudderless, and unless they radically improve, they will not make it past the quarter-finals.

Spain look good, as do Germany. Italy look like a beaten docket. France are always, well, France. I imagine the winner will come out of that last paragraph 😉

And now for some silliness. And some dogs…