Speaker Martin

Very swift update.

The Michael Martin affair has become really interesting. I think the constitutional significance of the actual resignation is being over played. Again, there are more significant constitutional issues which haven't been addressed properly since New Labour came to power. Obviously, I'm primarily thinking of the second chamber. But in the drama vacuum left by Martin's simple and dignified resignation lots of political commentators are trying to fill it with bizarre hyperbole.

General election? Probably a good idea. But there's a real danger of some crazy celebocracy arising. I mean, Esther bloody Rantzen!

Ch, ch, changes!!!

Hey all,
It's been over a year since my last post. I'm pretty sure I'm writing to no one by now. But, I guess, that puts me in the same category as 99% of all blogs. But why do people write blogs? I feel I mostly did it to document a very happy time in my life. Things were so good I wanted to express it in an almost tangible way. Something that people could see and I could look back on.
A lot has changed in the past year. I live back in Belfast. I am, once again, a teacher of Politics and Sociology. And I'm not as happy as I was.
I have potential posts stored in my memory from Argentina, Paris, Brussels and, of course, Ireland. None of those burgers were particularly good but some of the places were cool and had pretty substantive veggie menus.
Politics is depressing me a little at the minute. I don't like that people only want to talk to the Politics teacher in school when gossip, rumour and scandal are at the front of people's minds. There are more important issues and they still need dealt with. Obama has been underwhelming but the ideological battle brewing in France is intriguing with the NPA getting some headlines. I do like a bit of an old fashioned left-right struggle. I'm getting a lot of good US news from the NPR website. Highly recommended.
I've seen some great bands recently. Health made an incredible noise as did Mi Ami. Morrissey was too rock but played some great tunes. Jeffrey Lewis was funny and touching but almost overshadowed by the support, Peter Broderick. And something else... When I was a kid I saw Nirvana play a few times. The best of these was in the King's Hall in Belfast. That night the two support bands were the breeders and teenage fanclub. Sixteen years later I saw both these bands within a fortnight of each other. Teenage fanclub remain lovely. I could have sung along all night. Not really an important band but a delight to see. The breeders are important. Each one of their four albums is filled with ideas, experimentation, challenges and sweet, sweet, pop hooks. Last night, in Dublin, they played songs from all these records with humour and charm and intensity and passion. First rate!
I'll be back on Friday. Thursday night brings deerhunter to Belfast for the first time and I'm gonna visit the very fine Mexican eatery, Boojum. I'll let you know how they both were.

The Bottle Tree (Birmingham, Alabama)

We've been on the road for a little over a week now and I'm starting to get a sense of just how varied this vast country is. After a brief stop in Bloomington, Indiana to visit friends and a couple of days in Nashville (yes, we do go to the Grand Ole Opry and yes, it is bonkers and genius all at once) we find ourselves in Birmingham to take in some history.

Through some careful research, Bobs has hunted down a veggie friendly place called The Bottle Tree and the night we're due to be in town tapes n tapes are playing. We figure this could be a great night out so we plan to find the venue, get some food, find a hotel and head back for the show.

And then my heart sinks. I know I'm not an authority and I'm aware I'm making this judgement based on a 30 minute drive but Birmingham seems to be a city in bits. As we drive through the town to find the venue, the scale of poverty is something I've never witnessed in a European city. And, of course, the people in the most run down areas are exclusively black. The next day we visit the Civil Rights Institute and it's an awe inspiring place filled with stories of dignity, strength and the potential for humans to display sheer guts and fight for freedom in the face of tyranny. But why have the people of Birmingham not been liberated from this crushing poverty?

Eventually, we find the venue and it is a great little place. Nice selection of veggie food, good range of board games to waste time on, a cool indie band sound checking in the next room and a great little patio where the Birmingham hipsters seem to have congregated. Something's not quite right though and it's blindingly obvious what it is. The guy working the bar and taking our order is deeply unpleasant. Nothing manifest, just his attitude and manner. This guy really stinks. His conversation is fouled by constant expletives of the most offensive type and the overall vibe he gives off is that of a jock trapped in a tattooed punker's body.

The veggie burger is really poor also. It's a black bean burger but seems to taste of very little. The salad has seen better days, the bun is inoffensively bland and the presentation is shockingly bad.

Our quest for a nearby hotel fails and we end up in a budget motel a fair bit away. It's depressing as hell. We skip the show and vow to get up and do good stuff the next day. We do. And my faith in humanity is restored.

The Flying Saucer (Humboldt Park, Chicago)

I have taken leave of New York and embarked on my very first road trip. First stop is Chicago where, in a couple of days time, I'm renting a car and driving just over 1000 miles South to New Orleans.

Chicago, like DC, is another of those places that I feel I know. Popular culture has filled my mind with images of the city, from its skyline and excesses to its ghettos and social problems, you don't have to cast your gaze too far to catch a glimpse of this city. I also have a feel for the place as I was a long time subscriber to the excellent Punk Planet magazine. What started as a magazine documenting and commenting on the, mainly American, punk rock scene, Punk Planet seemed to grow up with me and its focus moved to include left field political groups and issues. Essentially, it was a space for important, oppositional voices which could not find or maybe did not want, inclusion in mainstream media.

Punk Planet was awesome and I looked forward to it each month. It has now fallen victim of the decline in independent media and I miss it. Not exactly a tragedy but a huge disappointment,

Talking of disappointments, I'm pretty fired up to try my first veggie burger on the road. When we get to Chicago our amazing hosts have a huge pile of Time Outs and it doesn't take too long to find a recommendation for the number 1 veggie burger in Chicago. So, we trot off to Humblodt Park and find the Flying Saucer. It seems to be in a fairly desolate part of town and finding it is no easy task. But find it we do and as we step in we instantly feel at home. This place feels like a very cool East Village diner. The decor is nice, the girl serving has the requisite asymmetrical haircut and the boys have the fashion beards of choice. Foals (seriously, they were playing down the road) are at the table next to us and they don't look out of place.

We get the menu and my heart sinks. It's the weekend. It's brunch. There's no veggie burger. But as the old song says, "you've got to accentuate the positive" and I notice they have a veggie version of something I thought I'd never get to taste... Biscuits and gravy! And it's pretty good. I've nothing to judge it against so I won't pretend it's the greatest meal ever and it does feel like it's doing my dietary system no favours at all. But it was really tasty and well priced for a whole heap of food.

I liked Chicago. We did some obvious tourist stuff but, never having been there before, I felt that was important. And it's good to be out of New York to see how the rest of this vast and varied country gets along. Next stop the airport to hire the car and South to Bloomington, Indiana.

7A (East Village/Alphabet City)

"This used to be the grandest part of town.

Now it's all scuffed up, subsiding into the ground"

Faded Glamour by Animals that swim is as close to the perfect pop song as anything I've ever heard. Its description of a place once buzzing with life is quintessentially English so it's strange that it rings through my head as I step onto the boardwalk at Coney Island.

I love this place. Nothing about it appears organised or uniform. There seems to be nothing plane or plumb. But you can feel the romance in every loose board of wood and the charm in every rusted rail. The smells are almost tangible. The sea air, the fried food and the grease from the fairground combine to summon up memories of youth. I feel very alive here with a heightened sense of past and future.

Coney Island has slipped from being the place to be to being an antiquated curiosity. One frequently threatened by the destructive impulses of progress and homogenisation.

Alphabet City in Manhattan has gone the other way. Once spoken of as a no-go area for tourists, gentrification has been good to this place and, sitting on the terrace outside 7A, it feels like it's populated by a microcosm of all the different strains of cool the world has to offer.

When the sun shines, 7A (on the corner of... Oh, I don't need to tell you) is a beautiful spot to sit and engage in some people watching. It's Friday night and we're getting some sustenance for the night ahead. My burger fulfills this roll amply. There's a great "meaty" patty that comes with awesome sauteed mushrooms and lettuce and tomato. I choose to add monterey jack cheese and ask them to hold the cress (I've nothing against the flavour but I can't abide the texture). It really is stunning. There's a lot going on in there but it's all good and results in a heck of a satisfying burger. Across from me Bobs, looking stunning in her new wayfarers, has cheese and spinach ravioli and gives it a huge thumbs-up. We have a couple of beers and some red wine and it all comes to around 50 bucks with tip. Good times!

Oh, I'm still exclusively listening to music released by Matador records in the mid to late nineties. I'm currently becoming dangerously obsessed with the mighty Chavez.

Shake Shack (Madison Square Park)

There are certain days where New York seems like a truly magical place. 

It's the hottest day of the year, my two day hangover has gone, Bobs is back in town after a brief spell in Ireland and we have nothing to do but walk around, sit about and soak it all up.

Madison Square Park rests in the shadows of the Flatiron building and despite the proximity to really busy parts of the city, this little Square is a casual, relaxed space. In one corner of the Square, partially obscured by the branches of enclosing trees, sits The Shake Shack. You just know it's gonna be good as the line is at least 50 people long and it does take us a good half hour from deciding to queue to taking our first bite. Wow! That first bite is something else. Unlike any other veggie burger I've had before, this is a deep fried treasure of portobello mushroom and melted muenster and cheddar cheese. The flavours are not subtle and the pleasure is far from guilt free but these are the thoughts furthest from my mind as I consider another 30 minute wait for another one.

But I'm convinced that one is enough and we continue our day filled with lots of little, unplanned adventures.

Tiny's Giant Sandwich Shop (Lower East Side)

As a rule I tend not to enjoy cultural products that win awards. The records I listen to don't win Grammys, the books I read don't pick up Booker awards and the movies I enjoy certainly don't win Oscars (I make an exception for No Country for Old Men but I maintain that that's because it was so faithful to the novel rather than as a result of anything The Coens added to it).

The Big Mack Daddy burger at Tiny's, on the corner of Norfolk and Rivington is frequently referred to as one of the best in the city and has been voted the very best on at least one occasion.

It's literally round the corner from us so we call in the order and dander round to collect it a little later. The sandwich is really nicely packaged and is such a good size that it makes sense that it's cut in to two halves. But there's something not quite right about it. On paper it should be great. A soft brioche bun, a generous patty and all the good stuff like lettuce, tomato, onions and pickles. Then it hits me. It's the special sauce. Heavy on the mustard, it's overpowering on the bites overflowing with it and somehow bland on the bites where it's absent.

You know, it's not bad. It just needs a little balance. And I'm a fair guy. I should tell you their grilled cheese sandwich is amazing and Bobs is a huge fan of the crab cake sandwich.

Later that night I head down to The Bowery Ballroom for Nina Nastasia and Jim White. I love Nina's song writing. It's a bleak, desolate sound and her voice, Southern and affecting, has the ability to drag long hidden emotions out of the listener. Combine this with Jim's drumming (if you haven't seen him play live do it the first chance you get) and the show becomes a low key spectacular.

I should also mention that I recently picked up a second hand copy of the soundtrack to the movie Half-Cocked. Featuring Rodan, Unwound, Versus, Slant 6 and Helium among others, I'm reminded that music has never been better that it was in 1995.