Fortress

Not much of anything today until 2.30 or so. By that time I'd become really fed up with the hammering and drilling and banging from next door's building work and had to do a runner. I needed to get a high-quality digital print, so stopped off at Hacketts (an old, old haunt of mine in the days when ammonia-based prints were the norm, but which has moved with the times and is now fully digital). Their minimum charge of 5 euro fifty is a bit rich for a single A4 page printed both sides, but there's no doubt that the quality is superb. Still ...

I'd arranged to meet Carl for a post-holiday get-together, so headed for Dún Laoghaire, way earlier than I needed to be. I parked the car close to this dramatic building which I've always intended to point the camera at, but it was cold and miserable and I didn't spend all that long there. I hadn't fed myself, and I hadn't had my requisite walk for the day, so I left the car where it was and walked to the shopping centre, had a bite to eat in what is now the Harbor Bar & Grill (note the lack of a 'u' in 'harbor'). The last time we called in there intending to eat I didn't fancy it at all because of the multiple TV screens which so incongruously dominate the place, but today it was a case of needs must. My carrot soup was adequate, my mussels were gritty and came without finger bowl or second bowl for disposing of the shells, and my Smithwicks shandy was made with white lemonade rather than red, so all in it really wasn't worth the 18 euro 85 it cost.

We'd intended meeting in Weir's bar for a few bevvies but went back to Carl's place instead. While Carl fed himself, we watched Howard's End on TV. The usual gang of Merchant Ivory acting suspects, including Anthony Hopkins being Anthony Hopkins as usual. It wasn't all that bad actually (though Carl felt it had begun unpromisingly in a rather jolly-hockey-sticks manner). One memorable line was when one of the characters described music as being 'for rich people to make them feel better after their dinner' (a quote I must remember to bring up some time at one of our Saturday music sessions).

A bit of channel hopping after that brought up The Bunker, again with Anthony Hopkins. We were astonished to see in the programme info that he had won an Emmy for his portrayal of Adolf Hitler, which we frankly found utterly laughable in the moments which we saw. Pretty abysmal stuff.