Library reflections

Another great Music Group session today, this time in a room in Trinity College, in the heart of the city. I'd promised myself that I'd get there early for a bit of blipping, and actually managed to stick to the plan. Lots of blip possibles ended up in the can, and it took a while to decide which to upload. Trinity has a proud record architecturally when it comes to commissioning new buildings, and this, the Berkeley Library, still remains my personal favourite. Way back in 1967 when it made its controversial presence felt, I bored everyone with my praise of this building, concentrating on the fact that excellence of one age can co-exist perfectly comfortably with excellence of any other. The no-apology modernistic approach of the architects struck me forcibly at the time, as did the courage of Trinity College in accepting the design and going ahead with it. It could do with a little bit of a clean-up to remove the grime of the past forty years, but apart from that it still wins me over every time I see it.

After the music session I got the DART over to the south side to meet up with Carl for a meal which he'd set up to celebrate my months-ago birthday and my more recent good news about prostate progress. We went to Dali's in Blackrock. Everything was quite wonderful until it came to our desserts, both of which were so disappointing that we gave up on them after a couple of spoonfuls. A shame, really. A few cocktails across the road in Tonic ended the night, then a taxi back to Carl's place for a partial viewing of Immortal Beloved (I'd enjoyed this the first time I saw it, being especially impressed with Gary Oldman, but it hasn't stood the test of time, I'm afraid).