No doubt, struggling publicans in Tramore, Dunmore East and other seaside resorts across the South East are glancing enviously at their colleagues in Ballybunion who have come up with an idea that is drawing in between 3,500 and 4,000 young people to the resort every Monday night putting an estimated €100,000 in their tills over a few short hours.
‘Monday Night Madness’ is an event organised by Ballybunion’s publicans who have arranged for thousands of young revellers to be bussed into the Kerry resort every Monday night, mainly from Kerry and Limerick.
Inevitably, such a large influx of revellers has resulted in a certain amount of anti-social behaviour and the publicans are coming under fire from some residents who are unhappy about the disruption to their lives. The week before last, fifteen people were arrested following a number of incidents that resulted in two men being hospitalised after being struck with bottles.
However, local publicans insist that the economic benefits of the Monday Night Madness far outweigh any problems it causes. One bar owner, Maura Hanrahan, said she had been in business for five years and, if it weren’t for the Monday nights, she would be closed by now.
She said the majority of visitors enjoyed their night out, behaved themselves and minded their own business and the promotion was so popular they were even getting people from as far away as Sligo, Waterford and Wexford.
Goodbye to Les Paul
No doubt there is plenty of music in Ballybunion bars on those Monday nights and it is certain that a fair proportion of guitarists will be using Les Paul instruments. Acknowledged as the inventor of the electric guitar, Les Paul died at his home in New York last week aged 94 years. An exceptional guitarist himself, he made the first prototypes of a solid body, electric guitar in the late 1940s and the first Gibson Les Paul was manufactured in 1952 and has remained one of the two most iconic rock guitars ever since, the other being the Fender Stratocaster.
A couple of years ago U2’s Dave Evens (The Edge) donated his favourite Les Paul guitar to a charity that was helping New Orleans victims of Hurricane Katrina and it fetched a whopping €170,000. Incidentally, because he was so famous for inventing his guitar, many people forgot, or never knew, that Les Paul was also one of the early pioneers of multi-track recording and was the first guitarist to produce instrumentals where all the parts were played by himself.
An uplifting revelation
for women
There is news this week of a startling revelation that affects women of all ages all over the country. Apparently the vast majority of Irish women are going about their daily lives wearing badly fitting, incorrect size bras. Obviously, I wouldn’t have any personal knowledge of the subject but it sounds like a very sore thing!
Two experts at Carlow’s Marie Sue Lingerie Store have just completed a comprehensive five-week survey and have deduced from the data that 80 per cent of women who took part in the survey were wearing wrong size bras. And, when it came to women in maternity bras, almost 100 per cent were wearing an incorrect size. Susan Aylsbury and Maria Byrne believe it is very likely that their findings would be replicated around the country and, if that is the case, then an estimated 1.7 million women in Ireland are wearing the wrong sized bras.
The lingerie experts point out that most women regularly change the size of their clothes depending on their age, height and weight but the vast majority of women never change the size of their bras and most have never been fitted properly for such an important item of apparel. In the interests of comfort and health, the women of Ireland should take heed and get measured up as soon as possible, say Susan and Maria.
Bottled tap water!
An interesting item came to light last week when it was revealed that three unnamed bottled water companies, somewhere in Ireland, were doing nothing more than filling their bottles with local authority water from a convenient tap. Apparently the HSE investigated 26 companies that produce bottled water and found that three were nothing more than ordinary tap water. The HSE will not be taking the matter further because its only concern is that the water is fit for human consumption and, of course, many local authorities supply excellent potable water through its taps. Meanwhile, the Food Safety Authority has confirmed that the three companies concerned are not obliged by law to reveal the source of their water on the bottle labels.
Two apples a day
And still in the general area of nourishment, it turns out that the old adage of an apple a day keeping the doctor away was very definitely based on truth. Scientists at Teagasc have just concluded a twelve-month investigation into a variety of apples widely on sale in our supermarkets and have concluded that two apples a day is really, really good for you and that Granny Smiths, eaten with their skins, have the best health promoting properties. The scientists also point out that people hoping to reduce their cholesterol by eating fruit should be able to achieve a ten per cent reduction in about four weeks.
End to a nurse’s gallop
Student nurses on the WRH/WIT degree course were discussing psychiatry and emotional extremes with their tutor one day last week. “Tell me”, asked the Professor, “what do you think is the opposite of joy.” “How about sadness”, answered one of the students. “Excellent”, said the professor, “now how about the opposite of depression.” Several hands shot up immediately and one of the student nurses asked if the correct answer would be ‘elation’.
“A very good answer”, said the Professor extremely pleased at the standard of awareness in the class. “Now, something a little more difficult, what would you consider to be the opposite of woe”, he asked.
This time there were no immediate replies but just as the professor was about to supply the answer herself, a nurse at the back of the class stood up. “Would the answer be giddyup”, he ventured.
Aaaarghh
Apologies in advance for this one but I couldn’t resist it. New evidence from the United States suggests that poor old Michael Jackson actually died from picking his nose too much. Doctors said they couldn’t blame it on the sunshine, couldn’t blame it on the moonlight, couldn’t blame it on the good times so they had to blame it on the boogie.