Sick of smelly bars & sweaty nightclubs & fancy an entertaining night out with a bit of glitz & a lot of glamour?  Then get your pretty little asses down to Panti bar on Capel Street on a Thursday night. 

The Search for Panti’s PA (performing assistant) has been running for 5 or 6 weeks now and is a great night out.  The premise is simple - Panti (drag queen extraordinaire) needs an assistant and 12 drag acts were battling it out for the coveted job.  With 6 left in the competition things are hotting up.

Read the weekly review to get a flavour

Channel 4 on Demand is responsible for taming the toxics (ya right!). A simple application downloaded to your laptop & you can watch all the old & current Channel 4 programs when & where you want.

I’ve spent the past 2 weeks working my way through Series 1 & 2 of Skins and have just started with Series 1 of Shameless (there are 6 Series with 6 episodes each to get through!) that should have me on my very best behaviour till well after Easter :-).

 Check it out

We’ve been very well behaved (aka exhausted & broke) since Christmas, but totally made up for it with a visit to the lovely ski village of Soll in Austria.

Third time to Austria, but first time to Soll (not that we weren’t welcomed back to Zell-am-See or Bad Gastien you understand….) (obviously always on our best behaviour in the Crazy Daisy and the Silver Bullet!)

Daily sunshine, nightly snow, national fancy dress week (note to self: never leave home with out a costume!) and the BIGGEST disco ball we’ve ever seen in the whiskey mule made it a tox-tastic holiday.  

With our sparkle well & truly restored, we reckon Auuustrian ski trips should be regularly perscribed and claimable on medical expenses. 

All in agreement email bertieineedaskitrip@thegovernment.ie

1.15am and I have just finished christmas shopping in under 4 hours. All from the comfort of my sofa! (well it was comfortable until the beagle & cat sat on my lap - makes typing a tad difficult, but that’s another story..). All i have to do now is wait for the postman to arrive (and teach the beagle how to gift wrap).

Anyways… i was trying to be super organised as we are working til christmas eve (at the 12 days of christmas market in case you are out & about - do come visit!) and won’t have much time for shopping. 

SO, i made a list, set a budget & figured i’d save time, sanity & money by retiring to the sofa with a cup of tea & my laptop.

Time & sanity were saved, but OH MY GOD, how bloody difficult is it to buy presents for other people when there are such fabulously pretty TOTALLY necessary stuff  that would look so fabulous on you/your dressing table/your dog/your fingers/your feet?!

I am now the proud owner of:

1. An Electric Pink Pricess Phone

  

this you understand, is totally necessary. I only have a phone line cause eircom won’t give me broadband without it. I’ve never ever made a call from the line. But now that i’m the proud owner of the electric pink princess phone that is obviously all going to change. it’s so much prettier conversing over a pink line don’t you think!?

2. Jing Jang Creme

“Beauty insiders covet it. Makeup artists love it. It’s the anytime, anywhere, healing, moisturizing, beautifying, one-product wonder. With ingredients like olive oil, Vitamin E and calendula flowers, Jing Jang” BUT WHAT THE HELL DOES IT DO? no idea. but i was sold!

3. Audrey Hepburn HeadHood 

why not!

Me presents weren’t really part of the plan or budget. but what the hell! 

Engage in sofa shopping with extreme caution

My darling brother, (who obviously doesn’t have enough to do at work!) thought it would be funny to elf us, unlike his other attempts at humour, this is actually h.i.l arous! 

Watch it & then Elf YourSelf!

The countdown to christmas is offically on thanks to the lovely people at Fallon & Byrne and their Oh So FAB christmas lights.

 

It almost made us stop mourning the end of summer! The deal was fully clinched when we saw the decorations in Buffalo shoes across the road.  Absolute Vodka Bottles covered in disco ball bling.  Jingle Bells….. here comes Santa!

Fancy dress is the way forward for a night out! Miss Fantasia were doing a roaring trade last week with their specially opened up Halloween shop - from clowns, courtiers & chickens to kill bill jumpsuits and a variety of sexy doctors, nurses and movie related costumes. 

Alice in Wonderland (or would you land?!) was the chosen theme and was such a success we were still wearing them on Sunday J Check out the pics

The electric experience. By Mz D Gillan

“Thank you. Thank you. This has been the best night of my semi professional career.” So said the ever modest Donal Dineen on receiving a rapturous applause from the adulating crowd.

It was 2am, Saturday night. Day two of the Electric Picnic boutique festival in Stradbally and we’d just been to a mood enhancing performance by the Chemical Brothers on the main stage. The electronic duo had left us on a high. We were sure nothing could keep the momentum going except more of the same.

But alas we were wrong. Our leader intuitively knew something we didn’t. As soon as we stumbled across the final moments of Dineen’s ‘Live with…’ sessions, I knew from the glow of the crowd, the tree lanterns reflecting in their midnight eyes, that we’d arrived at something special, something infinitely more intimate. Dare I say it, something more life affirming.

There, only feet away from us in the man made tree stage was

Ireland’s hero from the 1980s, Liam O Maonlai straddling both piano and vocals and Ros O Snodaigh, of Kila, on percussion playing the final bars of ‘It’s going to be a bright, bright, sunshiny day.’ While time was clearly up, the musicians, drunk with adrenalin, couldn’t but feed the hungry crowd greedy for more. And more. The momentum was tangible. The crowd, packed into the mud pit that served as an amphitheatre, happy to serve as chorus. Electric is not the word. Other highlights include herself, Ms Pretty in Pink swinging from the shoulders of one of Dublin’s top theatre PR men to Nouvelle Vague’s rendition of ‘Teenage Kicks’, himself donning her pink strap-on flower as a hat, while her partner in crime was busy gleefully befriending all who came her way. In fact for me, my Lady L highlight was catching her do a good turn to newbies entering the Silent Disco tent, keen to find out for themselves the magic behind the two djs playing simultaneously. We ourselves were finally leaving, having expended the last of our reserves on a good three dozen classic uplifting tunes, and as we handed our headsets back, herself turned to a newbie, switched on their headset, only for them to reveal they then couldn’t hear a thing. Classic. For many, !!! were the gig of the festival closely followed by the Beastie Boys and Erasure but in my books, they faced stiff competition in the form of old skool heroes, Primal Scream who’s ‘We want to be free, to do what we want to do, to be who we want to be…’ tunes fired the Sunday night audience up beyond belief. Of course, I might have been in a better position to comment had I actually made it to !!! et al but there was so much else to see. So much else to taste and sup on including local band, Somadrone who turned heads with their afternoon gig in the Body and Soul tent. It went from unassuming to charming to quietly uplifting. To discover you could then buy both their albums for a tenner was great. To realise you had had this chance all along because they went to the same school as you was something I tried not to think about too much. Roseanne would say I told you so. On the food front, the clear winner was the Pie Master who’s fourty foot long queues spoke for itself. For those non pie eating fans, the Nackered Chef served us well. The afternoon I ordered my lamb and feta burger, he truly was knackered. And it was only day one. Himself and his partner were tediously hand preparing the meatiest, tastiest burgers I’ve ever seen come from a van but boy did they have their work cut out for them. After queuing a good twenty minutes, I finally reached the top of the line only for him to reveal it would be another nine minutes for mine to be prepared. I felt starved. Like my tummy was going to collapse. But it was worth waiting for. Poor guy was used to his motor bike rallys, not 32000 strong music festivals. I hope he made a killing. When it came to sleeping, it was the great outdoors for us. None of this b&b business or indeed availing of the fancy tepees that were generously on offer. We were lucky. We camped on site. Behind the TT stall which meant easy access to regularly cleaned toilets – and nearby food outlets for hung-over heads the following morning (not that I was one of the food- run volunteers; boys, thank you). The bad news was that these same toilets and stalls were a bitch to get to at 4am in the morning. Those rule following stewards took much persuading and once through the barricades, you were left to negotiate a warren of ghostily lit back passages. Some, including our Lady L and Pretty in Pink pals made many dubee friends along the way. The one evening myself and herself ventured home alone a man with a van (ok, a go kart!) took pity on us and dropped us home - though not before trying his luck and asking if I’d ever done it in an ice cream van. Nice try luv. Boys who love girls who love girls who love boys. The song and imagery could’ve been written for today’s wild child as the dazzling array of spandex, diamante and nursery rhyme outfits testified. Clockwork

Orange Boys. Flamingo girls. Glitter and diamond encrusted gals. There was no look too risqué or incongruous for this year’s festival brothers and cousins. Except for our American friend who resisted all temptation to don the lashes. He did get into the festival spirit though - classily carrying his white wine in used water bottles. By the time it’d reach my lips, it was warm and fizzy but most warmly received. At times he danced like it was keeping him alive. I felt obliged to keep up:-) Who more aware of this zeitgeist than my trusted friends in pink (and grey) who played their part in the EP world of make believe – by cleverly supplying our picnic goers with the lushest lashes seen that side of Laois. Revellers looked so at ease in their assumed roles that it begged the question why we don’t see more of such role playing. The most surreal moment came after innumerable hours of dancing on our second night and meeting my top hat wearing friend’s brother from another mother. Mister Captain Gold Fingered as he’s known in some circles looked dapper, like something out of the Lonely Hearts Club Band with his top hat, cane and his band player’s outfit in tip top shape. At 5am we reluctantly decided to call it a day. As we lifted our tired selves out of the amphitheatre of electric sounds, we bumped into his doppelganger - with a difference. Young Matt was from

Galway with his husband. Wearing a dark sailor outfit, it was the yellow bobbin bobbing to the left of his sailor hat that made him stand out and link him to my brother from another mister. The tunes rang in my ears for days after. She’s got the glee. Glee. Glee. Glee. Who could that be? Be. Be. Be. And of course not forgetting the friendliest pup who generously shared his oirish top hat, that which (mostly) sat perkily atop his oh so friendly one eyed self. The man whose story rang true when he said it was off the charts man. Off the charts. Man, I can’t remember a thing about last night. But it was great. Great craic. We thought he was too. This is the same fella who introduced me to the word ‘savage’ and the world of the paparazzi with his ever flashing camera. Lanterns in the forest. Bacardi’s B-live tent definitely did the most business – that booming tent was packed to the gils day and night with revellers thirsty for the best in live percussion and dance tunes. And rum cocktails. Some of us danced for six hours straight. Some never stopped. Rumours abounded of an after hours rave in the forest similar to that in the new lucozade ad …keeping the fairies awake. Each of the camp will have their own highlights, both musical and non musical. Almost all atmospheric. Lights out til next year.