Monday, August 27, 2007
Friendly People with a Zest for Life or Why Northern Ireland is Really Really Brilliant…
ARE you from Northern Ireland? Then you’ll be delighted to know that you are “hospitable, friendly and generous”. This is because we natives (and invaders, I suppose) “are vibrant and colourful with a real zest for life and a taste for the good things in life”. Not only that, the Northern Irish are “hard-working people, they are also family-orientated and like nothing better than sharing laughter and the craic with friends and family. Their strong work ethos cuts across into their leisure and relaxation time, so don’t be surprised to see them on a family-trek up a mountain at the weekend, sailing the lakes or surfing a few waves along the north coast beaches”. My goodness, I feel so much better about myself! See if you can read more of this government-sponsored propaganda that seems based on some 1950s advert without a) laughing out loud; or b) wretching uncontrollably. Group hug, anyone?
Hat-tip to the Tele’s Insider column, sadly not online.
Belfast Gonzo @ 09:21 PM
Slug,
Is this Nicaragua [NI] you’re referring to?
Posted by on Aug 28, 2007 @ 04:15 PMSammy
When I was in London the Receptionist was a young cockney girl. I asked her for a good place for an Irishman who didn’t know the place to get drink and possibly some female company. She sweet as pie directed me to the Old Kent Road, which I recognised from Monopoly, jumping in a taxi and giving the driver my destination he looked at me with horror on his face. He reckoned that with my accent I’d be killed in roughly 5 minutes.
Posted by on Aug 28, 2007 @ 04:24 PMDawkins,
Northern Ireland, not Nicaragua. :)
Posted by on Aug 28, 2007 @ 04:29 PMPounder,
The peeps of the Old Kent Road don’t much like Irishmen because they believe they deliberately mispronounce the name of the road :0)
Posted by on Aug 28, 2007 @ 04:42 PMDavy Adams is covering this NI website on Talkback at the minute.
Posted by on Aug 29, 2007 @ 11:48 AMBelfast gonzo,
Any recent tourists to NI around? How do others see us?
Yes, I was there just last week, one day in Belfast, another in Portrush to see the Giants Causeway and Bushmills Distillery, and a brief stop for lunch and a walk on the city walls in (London)Derry. First time I’d been to NI in 20 years, and seeing it without the heavy security presence was really nice. I enjoyed myself immensely, although it must be said the quality of the food in RoI is now so good that most of your restaurants suffer by comparison. Did not have any problems with wait staff or the folks working at the two hotels we stayed at. Whatever contact I had with people was positive, and an outsider is unlikely to find it any less Irish than Kilkenney or Galway, even with the many Union Jacks and Red Hand flags you see in Antrim and Belfast. BTW, is there a significance to all the white flowers that my wife noticed in the windows of homes in Loyalist areas? We only saw them in areas with the British/Ulster flags.
Anyway, I had a lovely time, and wish you all the best.
Posted by on Aug 29, 2007 @ 06:53 PMWe had a friend from LA staying with us this week. We did a day in Belfast, a day in Dublin, then a day round the north coast. Without exception, he had a great time everywhere we went. He drank Guinness in the Duke of York, wolfed down the champ in White’s Tavern, drank many more pints of Guinness round the town, and pronounced Belfast his favourite city outside the US.
The only sour note in the whole enterprise was the Giant’s Causeway carpark, which now costs a fiver to park in. The road has been double-yellowed for about 3 miles leading into the causeway so there’s no escaping paying what feels like the first of many taxes on tourism, at a venue that I think is supposed to be National Trust funded.
I wouldn’t mind so much if they’d got their act together and re-opened the cliff-path, but for a 45 min whizz round the rocks at the causeway, a fiver seems a bit avaricious.
Posted by on Sep 04, 2007 @ 02:01 PM
