Day 119 - Friday, April 29th, 2011

ANOTHER sunny day - there is an endless supply of them these days - huzzah! A series of klaxons klaxed to signal the end of an utterly arduous 4-day working week, occasioning a fictitious stampede to Northern Trust's beloved local - Ned's of Townsend Street, where the words "utter" and "kip" spring to mind, in no particular order. A hasty fermented apple-juice later, a beeline was made to the altogether more pleasant O'Neill's of Pearse Street, where the Friday night drinking posse had now reached the startling number of four - myself and the 3 Es (Ed, Eoin and Enda).

A couple more citrus spritzers later, and the desire to explore further was overpowering, prompting a magical walk alongst the Liffeyside and a bridge-crossing to the more fashionable Northside, where awaited the MV Cill Airne - a merchant ship that has been transformed into a splendidly hip drinking and eating place, whose revenue rises and falls directly according to the weather, so tonight it was heaving.

Our quartet of revellers took position on deck and fuelled by the astonishing argumentative powers of fermented apple juice, proceeded to fiercely debate and the topics included whether Oxegen was a good festival or not, whether the Leaving Cert was fair or not, whether loving Liverpool FC and hating England was ridiculously hypocritical or not and whether Northern Trustees has a relatively cushy working life or not. It was hard to prise oneself away from the spirited discourse, meaning that I stayed out way past my self-declared curfew time of 9pm (on account of a proposed 5am rise-time tomorrow), commencing the short walk to The Lighthouse at 11.45pm.


The Cill Airne in all its nautical glory

Contentment : 13 / 25
Excitement :    2 / 10
Memorability : 3 / 15

Overall Score : 36% (53rd out of 119)