I have heard Mundy sing live a few times, and of course many times on CDs etc, but it was fantastic to hear him live at Charlie´s Bar.

He breezed in, met everyone the following day for a sound check and to make out a plan for the week, and that was the last we saw of work for the week. As cool as you like, and I’m sure he would agree with me, that apart from his own easy going, but very professional manner and talent, it was also made simple because of the work that Skin & Hide had put in before his arrival. After one gig it looked as though they had all played together for years!

The atmosphere he created at Charlie´s Bar was electric, and for me personally, what surprised me apart from his talent, was not his songs that I had heard, but the ones that I had not heard before his arrival.

Thanks for a great week, Mundy, and hope to see you soon again – and don’t forget the sun cream!

.

.

Isn’t it great that we have come up with a Trillion Euro so that it doesn’t fall through the floor further, and to stop the sharks running on it? But the very fact that it had to be done at all leaves the currency as weak as water. Those of you who still have Pesetas, Francs, Irish Pounds… hold on to them!  The communion money brigade are right again!

It’s funny to watch this whole EU thing playing out.  The idea that we can all be buddy buddy, which I feel is like communism, is a great idea in theory – and that´s where it *stops*.

Why? Because we have one currency and sixteen different budgets in sixteen different countries. The only way to have one currency is to give *all* power to Brussels, and they have control over the whole EU budget. The problem is now that we have given them half the power, and a half of anything is the worst place you could be.  Ask a pilot or the captain of a ship!!  So we should either pull out of it or give them complete power.

There are advantages and disadvantages to giving them complete power.  One advantage is that we wouldn’t need that useless shower in Dáil Éirean and could get rid of them for good, as all decisions would be made in Brussels where, as I have said, half of them are anyway.  The dissadvantage is that they would lose us our identity, and God knows what stupid laws they would impose on us simple Paddies, without taking into consideration that we are only complex machines for recycling Guinness!

The way I see it, we (or any other nation outside of France and Germany) would never vote to give *total* control to Brussels and therefore, just like communism, this currency is doomed to fail in time.  The United States have one government controlling all, but to make this possible in Europe it would require the other fifteen nations to learn “The Banks of my own Lovely Lee“, “The Wild Rover” and “Oro se de bheath abhaile” in fifteen different languages, and get them all drinking Guinness by the gallon each day at Charlie´s Bar!

Maybe it’s possible, and the way forward.  Yes!  That is the answer for sure.  Control the total EU from Charlie´s in Lanzarote.

O´Sullivan’s John to the road you’ve gone, far away from your own native home…

Here are a few consequences of the volcanic ash in Iceland.  By the way, why don’t they throw a sup of water on it and get on with life?

1. Mistresses stranded in the wrong cities.
2. Husbands stranded with wives at home or abroad.
3. Priests and brothers who can’t make their court cases.
4. The % of the possibility of a bird strike has fallen through the floor.
5. Can’t get Fitzpatrick and Drum back to lock them up.
6. O´Leary has his wish again / no baggage.
7. Plenty of time to check the planes for small cracks and dip them for oil.
8. Time to repaint all Ryanair aircraft in the Aer Lingus colours before the imminent takeover.
9. Much higher mobile phone use and the ferries cleaning up.
10. Property prices and car sales rising due to too many foolish people having too much time on their hands in the wrong places, which could be home.
11. And last but not least, all of us at Charlie´s Bar having an unexpected week off, which will have a serious effect on the following:

• condom sales (easy Shaky and Pedro!)
• a significant rise in Lanzarote pregnancy levels
• a rise in alcohol consumption levels in Lanzarote
• a rise in mass attendances
• a slight darkening of the skin, due to getting up an hour earlier each day at 4pm
• more music and books written and an increase in the levels of very important bullshit spoken

HERE’S TO THE HOLIDAYS!!!

I am writing this back in Ireland while we are on our easter holidays, and the weather here is absoluley fantastic. The sun always follows the righteous, I suppose!!

We have just had two weeks off before the mad season, and Charlie´s Bar re-opens tonight (Monday the 12th).  I am flying back myself on Tuesday because I have a day´s work to do here today.

It’s so funny, but the first thing that came up on my screen when I turned on my computer was some ad saying “PROTECT YOURSELF AGAINST ID FRAUD”.  I was just thinking, if you said that to someone 20 years ago, they would have you commited. Can you imagine walking through Skibereen 20 years ago, meeting a friend along the road and asking him “are you protected against id fraud?”

I read an article in a paper yesterday which said that the website Bebo.com was started in 2005, sold for, I can’t remember how, many billions around 2008, and now it’s falling away to Facebook etc., and is fast in decline. This world has been moving at a dizzy speed for the last 20 years, or if you look at the progress, if you can call it that, which I personally don’t. The world remained more or less the same for millions of years and in the last 100 or so we have had cars, planes etc., which is *some* transfrormation in 100 years – but when you look at what has happened in the last 20 years only, and even more so in the last 10, you just feel like lying down on the grass and holding onto the world before someone sends us off to space to try to grow spuds, and either educate or be educated by the little green men, or are they green and are they little?! If they are little,will we be racist towards them, and if they are large, will we call them sir and hope that they are not racist against blacks and whites??!!

If you lived for a thousand years and never slept, you still would probably only see maybe 1% of what’s on the internet and the more you realise you don’t know as you surf the web, the thicker you feel and the more frustrated you get, the less you mix with your fellow human beings, and the more time you spend on your own.  I was never much one for television because I saw it as a barrier to conversation with our fellow human beings, and I’m starting to think now after a few years that maybe the computer will have to vacate the home as well. Maybe I will have a farewell party for my computer and buy a statue of Obama and put it in the computer´s place.

Why Obama? You could ask, and justifiably so… but when the yanks voted recently to give health cover to 30 Million, which is 10% of their poulation, I couldn’t believe how close the vote was. I spent a lot of time in communist countries, and I know the faults with that system, then you have extrene capitalism in the States, where up to now 30 Million people had no access whatsoever to any medical requirements. It makes you think, even in these sh*t times, that we are lucky to be from Europe where at least the very basics of nearly all humans are looked after, and I know *badly* in a lot of cases, with people on trolleys in hospitals etc., but not all Europe is like that.

Having visited a Russian hospital 20 years ago, I turned to the person I was with and told them if I got sick there, do whatever you have to do, and charter a plane and get me back to Ireland. Now I think to myself in Ireland, if anything happens to me while I’m here, charter a plane and get me back to Lanzarote, where the local hospital is fantastic. Hopefully I won’t need one anywhere, which brings me to another point – for those of you who know the predicament our good friend Sergi found himself in a couple of months ago, I’m delighted to tell you that after 3 operations over the last few months he has got the all clear, and should hopefully be back playing in Charlies again in September, and again to thank Pedro for filling in for him in style…

Hey, I had a dream the other night after a few pints of Guinness, and the dream went something like this: the credit crunch and NAMA were the best thing that ever happened in Ireland since we got our independence, or most of it! You see I dreamt that in a few years´ time there will be no taxes in Ireland for a period of approx. 10 years because our government bought all the banks´ assets for 50% of their 2007 value, and ended up with the majority shares in all the banks, and even owning some of them completely, which they also got for a complete song in bad times. Then, when the world economy bounces back, they will make a ferocious, incredible, ludicrious amount of money on both the banks and their assets, and they will have so much money they won’t have to collect taxes for a decade, at which point I heard a noise downstairs, woke up, realised it was the postman, opened the post to find out that my mortgage has gone up 5%!  Jasus, that Guinness is great stuff for the head, and you don’t even have to leave the parish to get it (yet)!

I had the honour and the privilige of being at Rory’s and Cara’s wedding in Edinburgh on Saturday, and what a fantastic day it was! The sun was shining, not a cloud to be seen and about 20C degrees. Everyone was in great spirits and the day and evening went like a dream. Fair play to them both, they really made a huge effort with every detail, and hard work in the months leading up to it, and it well paid off. They looked completely at ease and so happy and all because of their planning and effort. I wish them all the best for the rest of their lives together, and I know they will have a great honeymoon for the next few weeks, and look forward to welcoming them back to that silly ould rock we all live on in the Atlantic Ocean.

Must go out now and get a tan before I go back to Lanza on Tuesday!!
Adios!
Barry Murphy

Tiger woods on television apologising. Good Jesus, what’s the World coming too now?!

He said he has been in f**king therapy. For what? For getting caught? For making an ass of himself all over the World at every opportunity?  Let’s look at what he could have done, and made one statement along the following lines: “My personal life is my business only, and I’ll drive my car into anything I like as long as it doesn’t hurt anyone else or their property, and I intend to continue to live my life as I see fit not you, so go and f**k yourselves”.

The media would have died down in a couple of days. His marriage may be a different story, depending on his wife and the rules they live by, but that was between his wife and himself only. What in the name of God was he apologising for to the World?  The World couldn’t give a sh*t who he slept with, and if there is any need to go to therapy or to apologise, he should be doing so for hurting himself and making a complete ass of himself. Can you imagine the mind of the therapist that’s treating him?  Holy sh*t. Who is going to offer therapy to the therapist?

Having watched him on the television, trying to a*se lick the World’s media, begging for forgiveness, I have lost all regard for him, and he hopes he will get his image back!  My good friend, you have lost the only image you had since you opened your mouth, not your trousers.

Clown!!!  Ah!  Sure God love him…

PS.: I was talking to a couple of buddies tonight about this, and one of them said that all his sponsors ran when this came out. All I said was “let them run” – turn the negative into a positive, create the image of the black Page 3 boy golfer, and get twice the money for sponsorship from the likes of Playboy and Durex, which would pay off the wife, if she was stupid enough to leave such a virile man!

Having been within 20 miles of the Haiti border myself last year, it was very obvious that when the news of the earthquake came through they wouldn’t have the resources to try to deal with such a major catastrophe in such a poor region of the World.  We were discussing this in Charlies a few weeks ago and talking about the images on the television, and Shaky came up with the idea of having a fundraising event both at Charlies and the Craic n´Ceol one night.  Jon said that he would cut his hair, Widgeon was shaving his beard, all those connected with the two bars were donating their salary on the night, and I said that I would give 50% of the bar takings on the night to the fund.

I am writing this the day after the event, and with everyone´s help we raised €5,100 and had a great night as well.  We would all like to thank everyone that supported the event, and there are people in Haiti (who we will never meet) that will have a tent, food, clean water etc., because of all your generosity.

It was great to see all the musicians from both bars, and a few other bars as well, on the stage together for the last few songs, and the atmosphere was electric. After the bar closed there were 6 or 7 of us that stayed back for a quiet drink, and I was telling the story of the taxi driver that drove Anna and myself from Pattaya to Bangkok, a distance of 150km for €6.  The drive took 2 1/2 hours, and he had to return to Pattaya again as well.  He drove us in a brand new Toyota car, and if he got the car and the petrol for nothing, he would still have had only €1.20 per hour for his time.  Don’t worry, we gave him a tip bigger than the fare, but the point is that it shows how far €5,100 will go in countries like that, and Haiti is much poorer than Thailand, and the money we and you are sending over there is worth the equivalant of €1,000,000 approx. if you compare the price of a Western taxi for the same distance, and do the maths.

On a slightly different note,  I was lucky enough to have spent some of my early adult days with very little, and even no money at times, and I was also lucky enough to have spent some time living in countries which were as poor as Haiti.  The reason I say this, is because a gentleman walked in to the Craic the other night and started a conversation with me.  He told me that he was a Publican in Ireland and then told me he just got a text that day to say that a good friend of his had commited suicide.  I had just read that the rate of suicide had jumped something like 35% in the last year or two in Ireland.  He then went on to tell me that his friend was in his 60s, built up a good business, borrowed to build property, credit crunch, and was heading to go bust, like many… this is why I say I was lucky to be poor at one time in my life.  I know what it is to have nothing, and I’m not one bit afraid of it.  The worst that can happen in Ireland is that you get a coucil house, the dole, and despite the fact that you won’t be going on foreign holidays, there are thousands and millions fighting to stay alive in Haiti who would kill for the worst that can happen in Ireland.  The problem is people are putting this image, and believing themselves they are, who they portray themselves to be, by what car they drive or where they live, and when something goes wrong they are ashamed and embarassed.  Suicide is desperate sad, and believe me, I know, but depression I can understand, even if badly, but why could this man’s friend not see that he was the same man he was last year and for the last 40?  He lost his money, but not his ability, and he wasn’t going to be cold or hungry.  We know the answer is “status”, but that’s why I was so lucky, and it’s a pity that more people don’t realise the difference between who they are and what they have.

Anyway, enough ranting.  Must go to work – and a million thanks again to everyone for last night!

Hey comrad. I awoke this morning at 6 something to find your text on my phone. I was sure it was a nightmare and tried to sleep again, but after 2 minutes I decided to get out of bed to turn on the light, in case this was for real. Then I was thinking, maybe this is a mistake, and in your good but not fantastic English, you made a mistake. It was only the third time I read the message that I understood this is very real, and there is no mistake or nightmare, unfortunately.

Now I was really awake and the first thought that came into my head, or maybe picture, was of watching you and “Papa Caros” (as I called him) playing together in Cork, and the way you bounced off each other. After putting on the kettle, I eventually got my brain to function and made the call, and the rest is…

A little like yourself, Papa Caros always shook hands sincerely,and always with his own unique kind of graceful smile. A man that would not know how to hurt anybody, who would make a bad soldier. His strengths were much deeper than anything physical. I met Vicente a good few times, and despite not being able to speak his language, I always communicated very well with him, as did the rest of the lads. We were always so happy to see him coming around our “nuthouse” with his positive but discreet humble energy.

Each and all of us are with you in the battle of all time battles that lies ahead in the future. You have an army that would have flattened hitler behind you, Serg,and yes, I spelled hitler with a small “h” on purpose. The days and the weeks and months will pass, Serg, and the tears will turn to laughs and smiles at the happy memories you are lucky enough to have. The length of time is not so important as you will find out, but the quality. You may not feel it right now, but you will understand later how lucky you are.

Our thoughts are also with your dear mother who has lost her best friend. May God give her strength and courage to fight on positively, and also your brother. Bless ye, and be sure the sun will shine again for all of you with purpose and energy. xxx

Barry

I have always asked myself the following question: is alcoholism a chemical addiction or not? From watching different alcoholics and their behaviour over the years, whether they are drinking or not drinking, I have often thought that there is more to alcoholism than just a chemical addiction. Then, in the last few days, I have met two different people by chance who related more or less the same story to me about two different family members. Basically, in both cases the family member gave up drinking because it was interfering with their lives, or so they thought, but both of them started and continued to drink in a normal fashion a few years later. In both cases, again, they said that when they were drinking too much and having trouble with it, the reason was because at the time they were not happy with where they were in their own lives, and they were hiding behind drink, and then blaming the drink for the problems, even after they stopped. Of course, the drink wasn’t helping the situation, but the drink in itself was not the underlying problem. Both of them gave up drink and made a serious effort and succeded in addressing what was for them the *real* problem, which was different in each case, and became comfortable in themselves and where and who they were, and in both cases they returned to having a drink, and have been for quite a few years without any problem whatsoever.

The question is, are all alcoholics hiding from something, whether they are on or off drink, and blaming drink for everything that happened in their lives and hiding behind it, joining the club AA and unknowingly supporting each other from facing whatever the *real* problem might have been from the start? Is it possible, like the two stories above, that if they had addressed the *real* problem, if they could face it and deal with it, that they would be able to drink normally? Or maybe there was no real problem, simply a chemical dependency?

I don’t know what the answer is but these two stories really got me thinking to what I always thought was at the very least a possibility. Maybe the truth is that they simply can’t face whatever the real problem is or was, and therefore they are quite happy to hide behind and blame alcoholism for everything, and even if that was the case, is there anything wrong with that, if it’s getting them through life?

I would love to hear other people´s thoughts and experiences of similar situations, but more from family members rather from those who have had or have a problem with drink, or the lack of it!!

I don’t mean in any way make a joke of what is a very serious problem for those who are affected by drink or an underlying problem, whether they are or were the drinkers or family members, as I am one of the above myself, and, like you all, I know many people in the same situation. But we have to keep a sense of humour, even if we´re laughing at ourselves, and maybe this is all bullshit and drink is simply a chemical addiction that affects some more than others?!

What a fantastic, even if funny, year it has been for all of us at Charlie´s Bar!  The fantastic parts of the year for me were seeing so many familiar faces again and again, and watching Charlie´s Bar becoming more and more like a local, despite the fact that so many people are here for a week only – and how many of you know each other from returning again?! I was amazed when we were in Galway
so many people knew each other from back in Lanzarote and decided to meet up together at our Xmas gigs back home.

As I write this in Thailand on a working holiday, I am just thinking of all of those who travelled to Galway from Scotland, England, Wales and all parts of Ireland, and it was great to see everyone together, even those that can´t sing or dance!  It was a very unusual feeling to be playing outside of Charlie´s Bar and to see so many friends.  We all looked so different with four layers of clothing, designer Wellington boots and walking sticks – or were they umbrellas? Now we are looking forward to the Cork gigs (18, 19 & 21 Dec – info HERE), and I know some people that were at the Galway gigs who are going to be in Cork as well.

Another great memory I have from 2009 was welcoming Sharon Shannon, Damien Dempsey, The Wolfe Tones, Jon Kenny and then, just before we closed for the holidays, the great Finbar Fury.  Each time we had special guests over we all got a great buzz from it and enjoyed their company as much as their music.

We were all delighted to have acquired the Craic´n Ceol in June of this year. It´s a bar that fits in very well with what we do and complements Charlie´s Bar as well, and we are very proud to have it.  We were also delighted to have Rory Gallagher joining us at Charlie´s Bar & the Craic with his fantastic talent, and we wish him and his fiancée Cara the very best for their future.  Both of you have only 4 months left to do what you have to do!!

If I made one cock-up this year, it was opening Charlie´s Bar 7 nights a week from May until October.  It was too long playing 7 nights and we should have stayed on 6 nights until the middle of July – but I will learn at my own pace!  I am even contemplating opening 5 nights a week from January with the way things are at the moment, but we will see as we go along.  Unfortunately, there have been quite a few bars that have closed down in Lanzarote over the year, and I know the same is true in Ireland and here in Thailand as well.  Thankfully we have gone from strength to strength, but we have to be on the ball all the time and never let up.  It´s a good job we all love what we are doing and get on so well, or it would be next to impossible to keep going in these times.

One benefit I can see since the Celtic Tiger ran out of borrowed steam is that the arrogance that some of the Irish yahoos had is gone, thank God, and we are back to doing what we do best: drinking a few pints, having the craic, singing a few songs and talking proper shit, not the Celtic Tiger shit.

Looking forward to 2010, we will have quite a few special guests coming over again, and the fantastic Sharon Shannon will be the first on 20th February 2010.  We are currently working on mixing more tunes with songs and we look forward to doing plenty more of that – for me that is what I love the best and to see what kind of concoctions we can come up with.   It´s amazing what can happen when you put 6 thick heads together!

I learn so much about life in Charlie´s with friends and customers telling me so much about their lives.  It´s as if they reflect on life when they get a chance while on holidays, and it´s great to see them a few months or a year later and see how they got on with whatever situation in the meantime.

Like I already said, we are now looking forward to the Cork gigs and then re-opening Charlie´s Bar on 26th December, and getting back to what we do best together.  I won´t talk about what we don´t do best together here, apart from fishing, cooking and skydiving!

We all wish you a very Merry Xmas and a peaceful, prosperous, loving and, above all else, healthy New Year.

“Go raibh mile maith agaimh” which translates as “I hope you get laid soon, have triplets, a crippling mortgage, and never see the light of day again!

Cheers
Barry and all at Charlie´s Bar

P.S. My back is f*cked here in Thailand – and not for the reason you perverts think!  It´s from trying to get under showers that were built for 4´6″ humans and not 6´4″ aliens.  Happy Christmas.

Howdy again!

It was a fantastic last week in Charlie´s Bar before we broke up for the holidays.  I really enjoyed the week with Finbar and Sheila Furey.  The one thing that I enjoyed more even than the fantastic performances Finbar gave, was their company.  Finbar reminds me of a great friend of mine who has passed away, but with the same name. They would have really enjoyed each other´s company because the Finbar that sadly passed away was the same, in as much as he had great principle and honour in his bones, and was a mighty character and great craic as well, and always up to devilment.  I would have loved to have had the opportunity to go away with both of them for a weekend – for sure it would be a weekend you wouldn’t forget in a hurry…

Photos of Finbar on stage with Skin & Hide in our Photo Gallery

I will always look forward to welcoming Finbar and Sheila over here to Charlie´s Bar anytime they can make the time to visit our humble little watering hole again.  I know I can speak for all of the staff and musicians at both Charlie´s and the Craic when I simply say “thank you” to Finbar for taking the time to get to know us and giving us the opportunity to  play a few tunes with you.

Now we take a break for a few weeks before we head for Ireland to play the Xmas Gigs, and it’s a true testament to Finbar that he has decided to come along to one of our Irish gigs and join us on stage for a few tunes and a bit of craic.  We look forward to seeing you back in the old sod!  Rumour has it that there might be a very beautiful box player joining us for a few tunes along the road as well…

I would just like to thank all of the customers of Charlie´s and the Craic on behalf of all of us for your custom throughout the year, and we will be looking forward to getting home and firing Charlie´s Bar up again on 26th December.  In the meantime Rory, Jon, Widgeon and (I think) Gally will be playing at different times at the Craic over the next few weeks – so enjoy, and thanks again.

Cheers
Barry Murphy

I read with regret that Slatterys Travel have gone into liquidation.

I met Dave Slattery here in Lanzarote a couple of years ago, and again we held a meeting in Killarney soon afterwards.  I formed the opinion at the time that he was running too fast, but also that he was a damn fine individual and he employed the best of people here in Lanzarote.

I’m sure that this is a dark moment for him, but I’m also sure that he will learn from this and mushroom again.

Charlies for the craic, the women and the beer!! 

Hello to all. We take annual holidays every May, and next year we, “Skin & Hide” have been thinking of going travelling and gigging for 3 or 4 weeks.

There have been suggestions of going to the United States to play a few festivals and a few other countries, but I decided to put it up here on my blog and see if anyone comes up with some brain waves, or have any suggestions…

Where is the best place to get Thai food?

A true leader cools things when they start getting too hot, and warms things when they are too cool. You are on your own, going against the grain all the time.

While Bertie Ahern was fantastic on the international stage and worked so hard to bring peace to Northern Ireland, domestically, he was a complete f*cking disaster. A terribly nice, well meaning man, who f*cked up the Irish economy by not controlling the boom. He never controlled the spending during the Celtic pussy, and now we have Brian Cowan cutting the sh*t out of everything, when a leader should be positive and moving forward.

Just think what it would be like if Bertie had kept things cool during the boom, and Brian was pushing things forward and giving hope to people in the difficult times.  That’s why they are politicians and not leaders. Unfortunately, true leaders would never go into politics.

Very sad, but very true, and f*ck them all… we will drive on at Charlie´s Bar because we know nothing else!!

1. How many hectares of agricultural land is there left in the World today?  And how many tonnes of food can they produce?

2. What are the World population trends over the last few hundred years?

3. Ireland´s boom was on the back of a high tech industry, which we are no longer competitive in, and therefore there will be no building or advancement in any way until we are competitive again.

As an example, the boss of a high tech company that employs 2,000 people has the following options:

Ireland 2,000 people x Average 40K p.a. = €80,000,000
Abroad 2,000 people x Average 10K p.a. = €20,000,000
Annual saving on labour alone = €60,000,000

There was a time when the Polish, Indians etc. weren´t educated well enough in English and modern tech systems, but that day is over, and I know of two girls working here in Lanzarote as doctor´s receptionists & secretaries for some doctors in the United States.  When you go to the surgery in the States you are greeted by these Secretaries *on a screen* – from Lanzarote!

And now to the *Options* I suggest we have:

1. We control imports, and therefore stop these cheaper manufacturing companies exporting their produce. 

2. We become as competitive as them, and work for the same salaries, which will in turn drop the price of everything we buy, be it food, houses, holidays, cars, etc.

3.  We try to come up with new manufacturing ideas and produce products nobody else is manufacturing.

The young people today will have to pull off a massive stroke of genius if they want to hold on to the living standards they have had until recently, or else simply settle for an awful lot less than they were used to.

My own two sons and all their friends finishing college this year are going out into a very different world to the one they grew up in.  It´s been changing so fast in the last couple of years, I don´t think any of them fully understand it.

It´s one thing to start out your career when everything is still going down and will continue to do so for a good few years yet.  Then you are in a situation where your expectations are constantly changing downwards, and that is very demoralising.  There is nothing wrong with starting at the bottom, and even better when everything is climbing, but there is also nothing worse than watching everything going down around you.

The positive side to all of this is that any of these young fellows starting off in life will either accept a much lower standard of income, which will mean cycling to work instead of driving, not going out socialising, not going on foreign holidays etc., etc., or those who will find a way to get ahead but using a different way of thinking completely, will be fine.

My fear is for those who cannot accept the world as it is changing and will not or cannot do anything about it, but I also know that those that do survive by either accepting the change or doing something about it will be far stronger people than those of us who survived the 80s recession, and will live much better lives after we get to the bottom of this cycle.

Just as sure as the highs of the late 90s and early years of this decade were never higher, its my opinion the lows over hte next few years will be worse than anything seen in the 80s.

There are always fantastic opportunities in recession times, but it´s a hell of a lot more difficult to find them.  Most of the serious wealth was created in recessions, but you have to think in a completely different way during a recession.

I have loads and loads of grat ideas which would work during recessions, but I am too busy and happy making sure that Charlie´s Bar is, and stays, the best bar in Lanzarote, and keeping the hide & skin business in Ireland competitive, to have time to do much else.  And funny as it may seem, for a “clown” who left school at 14 years of age, most of my ideas are based around technology, simplicity and hard work.  I would love to see somebody else making some of these ideas work.  Sometimes all you have to do is look at the exact opposite of what others are doing!

As regards Charlie´s Bar and its competitiveness in recession times, I have seen people in Ireland paying €30 per head to watch a lot worse acts than us at Charlies.  I feel we would be offering really good value by charging €10 entry on the door and then we could sell drink cheaper – but that simply wouldn´t work.  We are all very conscious at Charlies of making sure we offer people value for money.  We work extremely hard to make sure we are the best, and we all live fantastic, but simple lives.  We are very lucky that we love what we do, because you simply couldn´t do it if you didn´t…

So far in 2009 and looking forwards into the year, Skin & Hide spent 3 days a week in January learning & rehearsing Damien Dempsey´s songs, and it was well worth it!  Now they are straight into the same for Sharon Shannon in two weeks´ time.  This is, of course, as well as playing 6 nights a week.  Then we will have one or two meetings after Sharon´s gigs and we will thrash around ideas between us all for making & arranging approx. 10 new songs.  We will rehearse them once a week through March and April.  We are lucky to have Jon Kenny over for the last week of April.  Then we close for the middle two weeks in May for annual holidays.  From 1st June through to the third week of September, we will have no rehearsals and will play 7 nights a week at Charlies, and one early wedding gig as well.  Also in September, a great band from Cork “Bog the Donkey” will give Skin & Hide a week off, and then Skin & Hide will play again 6 nights a week through October and November, and we will put another couple of new songs together during those months. 

2010 will be much the same, except I am working on one or two extra interesting projects, which we might just pull off with a bit of luck.

Hard work, competitiveness, a belief in what you are doing and a lack of greed will pull any business through any recession.  I HOPE!!!

Cheers.
Murphy

The truth about why we are so deep in recession is simply because we haven’t had a leader since Haughey.  Like or dislike him, and I would have serious issues with him, but he understood one thing – and that was that when things are bad, a leader must be positive and drive and push forwards, and when things are good a leader must try to slow the ship down, especially when the good is based on false foundations and expectations.

Since he has gone, Bertie fuelled the hype, or at least did nothing to slow it, and now that the bubble has burst Cowen is slowing things, just as he should be driving forward.  To be fair to Bertie, he brought peace to the North and was very popular on the World stage, which helped us a lot, but he was too nice to some of the wrong people – which is costing us now.

The letter that Ben Dunne wrote in the Independent is fantastic, simply because it’s so real, and it’s he should be Taoiseach. One of the things that he wrote was that we should ask ourselves: “What’s the worst that can happen here? How do we deal with that eventuality, and how do move forward knowing the answers to the first two questions?” I have always made my business decisions based on those very same questions.  What he is saying is that instead of dribbling bad news everyday as it comes out, we should throw it out hard and fast so that everyone knows where we stand.  And believe me, regardless of how bad that is, people respect and feel much more comfortable when they know the truth.  Now everyone is wondering how bad it is instead of how we fix it.  Give people the bottom line and get on with whatever we have to deal with – with a smile…

Check this out.  The closest bit of realism I have read in a long time…

Click here to read the article “FitzPatrick ‘addicted to money’ says Ben Dunne”

Just added!

A great rendition of Damo doing “The Irish Rover” together with Barry Murphy and Skin & Hide, plus “Bad Time Garda” and “Seize the Day”, all here:

www.youtube.com/charlieslanzarote

Enjoy!

Here is a serious question that I want to answer for myself, and I simply don’t know the answer to:

Why do I read newspapers????? HELP!

I remember some years ago that somewhere, somebody started a “good news channel” and it went bust very fast.  Why do we wallow in negativity?  Is it that when we read that there has been a disaster, a murder or an economic credit crunch, it makes us feel better because we have escaped, or because we are part of it, and we feel better to know that there are others in the same boat?  Probably so, because if we hear good news that others are doing well, it makes us feel bad as we ask ourselves “why are we not doing well, and what’s wrong with us?”

What a f*cked up way of thinking. Any time I saw someone else doing well I always thought “how are they doing that, and what can I learn from them?”, but it seems that a lot of people feel better bringing others down to their own level instead of bringing themselves up to others.

A slight example that happened to me today was when I parked a minibus outside a certain bar (which has mainly a daytime trade) with Damien Dempsey posters on the window, and the owner told me to move it as I was taking custom from his bar.  I moved it when he threatened me with the police, even though I had every right to put it there, but I’m too smart to waste time arguing with certain types of people – in case I would become one.  I did point out to him that I had brought about 500 people over the week to Lanzarote by bringing Damien here to play, and that his bar was benefiting from those same 500 people.  His reply was that I didn’t bring Damo here but Magners did, and he knew it for a fact.  While I appreciate Magners´ help and support with the *Magners Irish Sessions*, this gentleman was very wrong with his facts and assumptions.  When I heard him speaking like this I decided that there was no point whatsoever talking any further to someone who knew everthing, and I simply drove away.  A typical example of trying to bring someone else down instead of trying to bring yourself up.  I was even thinking to take a picture of his bar and put it up in Charlies as a place to visit, just to prove the point, but decided that he wouldn’t understand, and while I accept that things are difficult here in Lanzarote at the moment, I can’t understand how trying to shoot each other in the foot is going to help anyone, or all of us.

Anyway, back to my newspaper problem – here are the headlines of The Examiner today. And you tell me why I bother reading them, because I’m f*cked if I know why!

1. There has been a sixfold increase in the number of murders involving knives in the last 5 years in Ireland???

2. Brian Cowen is telling the Irish people that they will have to accept a 10% reduction in living standards because of the global economic crisis???  I presume he means a 10% drop in financial living standards – which is only financial.  I would question that there will be a drop in living standards outside of financial, and would hope that people think the same as I do and that, believe it or not, there is more to life than simply money.  Also, I notice for the last few months that every article that they write about Brian Cowen has the same miserable face picture of him with his head down in despair.

3. The next article is about who owns the rights to the photo used in the election campaign of Barack Obama.  So now all we have to talk about or discuss about the most powerful man on this planet is who owns these rights, and he has only been in office a few weeks!  This leads me to think either he is simply a boring leader or The Examiner editor is a p*sshead who doesn’t have a f*cking clue and couldn’t be bothered to find something intelligent to print.  I hope the latter is the case.

Either way, my question is simple: “Why do I bother to read the newspapers?”  HELP!

Photos are now up in our Photo Gallery.

And here´s a bit of eye and ear candy for you from last night – Damo playing the fantastic “Maasai” together with Skin & Hide…

Thank God that b*stard is gone…

There is a perception amongst some Irish and English people that The Wolfe Tones and their fantastic music are anti-English. This couldn’t be further from the truth.  They are simply anti-oppression.  Remember that the English establishment who oppressed the Irish also oppressed the English working class. The Wolfe Tones simply recorded the history of Ireland with fantastic songwriting and performing talent, and nobody could have possibly achieved that in the manner that they have done.

I remember a time when in the 70s and 80s the ordinary “Joe Soap” in Ireland was completely behind The Wolfe Tones.  We are all grateful that there is peace in the North now, but there are a certain element of the Irish population – God… oh sorry, I mean *Bono* – and the Press, who think The Wolfe Tones should shut up now.  I understand the North is a very sensitive issue and people´s lives are at stake, but it’s ludicrous to think we should be expected to forget the recent and not so recent past, and I can’t understand why some people, both Irish and English, don’t realise that The Wolfe Tones are and have always been singing about peace, equality and freedom, and for all, and those who fought and paid the ultimate price for that equality.

It’s worth remembering that the recent troubles erupted not because the North was under English control, but because the nationalist community were discriminated against in so many terrible ways.  The proof of this is that we now have, thankfully, peace in the North, and it’s still under the control of London, but now there is no discrimination (or very little) if any, I hope, and not just against the nationalist community.

I believe that we should have a 32 county Ireland for the very simple reason that the six counties are simply the North of Ireland, and not the West of England.  They say that it’s about the wishes of the majority, but does that mean if the majority of the population of Kilburn in London are Irish that it should be controlled by Dublin???  I also believe that anybody who is English should be and is welcome and treated equally in Ireland to live and work, but that they should respect the fact that they are in Ireland, just as the Irishman working and living in England must respect the fact and the people around him when he is living in England, and he must also be treated equally.

We should all be thankful that there is peace in the North now and hope it stays that way forever, but we should never forget those who fought for justice and those who told the story through their music.  I am completely convinced that the songs of The Wolfe Tones will live hundreds of years longer than anything God… oh sorry, I mean *Bono*… ever wrote.

Having a quiet few pints with Brian Warfield the other night, he became very emotional and passionate about the images and news coming from Gaza, and rightly so.  Unfortunately it’s another story of oppression, and let’s hope and pray that it comes to an end straight away.

Just some thoughts there!

You got to love this bunch of lunatics….

A 24 year old says to his friend “you know, four years ago my father was as thick as a plank and now he is intelligent, isn’t it amazing how much he learned in four years”!!!!

Here is to the next generation!  Raring by computer!!!

Here is something interesting (to me at least) that you may or may not find interesting. When I bought Charlie´s Bar it was in my mind that I knew the correct formula for a very good music venue. I hope I was right about that and, as always, you (the customers) are the only judge of that. But the fact is that you (the customers) now see Charlie´s in a different light from how we do – and we see Charlie´s in a light that I would never have dreamed about, and didn’t understand, when I set about re-opening it.

Let’s try to keep this as short as possible by making two observations as I see them, whether right or wrong, and I look forward to your opinions. This is what I see from the customers´ side and from our side after two years now.

1.  The customers´ side.

I feel that the customers of Charlie´s, or most of them, see the bar as a fantastic live music venue with a great band, a decent drink and a great atmosphere, and I’m sorry if this sounds cocky because I don’t mean it to be.  I ask “why do people come to Charlie´s?”  Is it because of the music?  Maybe.  But you can get good music on CDs and DVDs.  Is it because of the drink? Maybe.  But you can get drink cheaper in an off licence.  So the only reason left is the atmosphere which we create and the new friends they might meet.  There are people who will come for the music, the staff and the band for sure, but regardless of how good a band are, you can and will get fed up with them, and yet people come back very often time and time again.  We have enough songs to be able to go at least 21 hours – which is a week without repeating one, but that’s not the reason either…

2. The band and staff side.

When I bought Charlie´s Bar I understood what I wanted to do with it, but I can honestly say I didn’t understand why, and never thought about it either.  Now I can see why after two years. The truth is for all of us at Charlie´s (as I see it any way) something has emerged naturally and we see Charlie´s in a different way to the way customers see it.  Charlie´s for us is about music of course, as you can see from the standard of musicians in Skin & Hide and the guest artists we bring over from time to time, but it is much, much more than music ability now.  After two years, we learn new songs every week – but I have to tell you honestly that we do that to make it more interesting for ourselves just as much as for the customers, and maybe even more for ourselves, just to keep moving forward.

What Charlie´s really is for us is a theatre – and not a music venue that sells drink.  We take great pleasure in watching people make new friends, enjoy their holidays or their night off, and just having spontaneous off the cuff fun, wherever the opportunity presents itself and, most importantly, not at the cost of others.  We change around the songs all of the time, but they are still coming from a repertoir that we know well, and you could ask “is it boring?”  The truth is that every night we go to Charlie´s we may have an idea of the songs that will be played which could change by the minute, but we don’t ever know what the night will hold for us and we don’t know who we will meet that we may or may not have met before, or what craic will come from where, except that there is a good chance it will come from somewhere, or someone, on or off the stage.

We have met great characters in the last two years who we are always in regular correspondence with and, would you believe, not all of them are of the opposite sex!!!  It seems to me that we are a bunch of positive people with a wish to harm nobody, with a lot of energy and, as I write this, I have no f*cking idea how we all came together and ended up in this little 200 sq meter “asylum” called Charlie´s Bar on a volcanic rock in the Atlantic Ocean!!!

It’s funny, but if any one of us has a night off on the rare occasion, people ask “Where is Sarah? Where is Terry?  Where is ….?”, and we can come up with some great answers!!

The conclusion is that I knew what I wanted to create and I now know that the reason was to create a good venue that would consistently attract decent, even if sometimes crazy characters (but not stupid ones), that keep life interesting and enjoyable for all of us.

Good Night Sisters, says Nell McCafferty!

Yes Taoiseach, this whole situation has come about by greed. The problem is, why this wasn’t seen long ago and that the relevant legislation wasn’t put in place to help those greedy bastards to control themselves, because they couldn’t contol their greed, and that should have been seen in advance.

On the other side of the coin, we, as a small nation, have no control over the world-wide situation, which is today at least the USA and the UK, and we are just riding along with what has gone on. Fair play to you for taking the plunge with this guarantee, but every leader in the future must understand that human greed must be controlled. I am totaly agaist excessive legislation, but why are ye after f*cking up the Irish culture with your legislation and forgot to control what really was important to control?

Aomeone, somewhere lost sight of the big picture and they were counting pennies with smoking rules etc. but forgot to control the f*cking *greed* properly – which has lead to, and will lead to more, deaths from stress and financial pressure than any smoking will ever do. It’s like checking the upholstery in the car and forgetting about the engine. Stick with reality Mr Cowen, drop the bullshit and know the difference, which is the most important part. It seems to me that you understand that anyway, thank God, even if a little late. When all is settled down a little and you have had a chance to have a week with your family, fly down here to Lanzarote and come to Charlie´s, and there will be a pint of the plain standing on the counter with your name on it. Cheers.

I genuinely pray to God for your health, Brian, and wellbeing in these difficult times. Head down, like a bull, and a*se to the wind. Blink for no one, trust your own instincts and drive on like f*ck, and it will all work out for the simple reason that I know you genuinely want what’s best for the Irish nation, above all else. Good luck.

Murphy

Following on from my blog post yesterday, now it seems that the Irish government has only guaranteed 6 banks and left out the other banks operating in Ireland, which is unfair competition – but nice try.

The truth is if the EU or the UK did the same to any Irish bank abroad, the Irish would have gone mad in Brussels, and rightly so. The opposition in Ireland are trying to dance all over the government, with easy hitting, claiming they (the government) are not sure of what they are doing. They are probably correct to some extent, but we are in uncharted waters here and the government should be supported in every way possible, and for sure they are doing the best they can. Even Cameron said in the UK yesterday that they have to row the boat together with Labour, because this is an unreal situation and there is no room for politics. He will be the next Prime Minister of the UK, and the sooner the better!

As regards the EU, now you can see how important it was to vote “NO” to the Lisbon Treaty. The EU are right to take the government to task about the foreign banks operating in Ireland, and I would hope that whether they had control over us or not, we would support all the banks operating in Ireland equally, just to be right. We should be happy to do what is right regardless, but the thought of having to get permission from the EU to wipe our a*se, well, f*ck that!

This is a classic situation where we are happy to co-operate with our EU neighbours, even at our own cost from time to time, for the benefit of the common good, but if it comes to your a*se or ours, good luck son, and definitely when there are important decisions to be made in a hurry and stupid EU bureaucracy is standing on the fence thinking “too slow Brussels and Adios”, if it comes to it. Brian Cowen, as I said before, should stand up and say:

“We (the Irish nation) are happy to work with Brussels to a point, but if that´s not possible, we will, and are not afraid to, work on our own. We have enough wealth and talent to survive and a great belief in our own best asset (our people, and their strength).”

David Cameron also said today that if the Irish haven’t ratified the Lisbon Treaty before he gets into government, he will also put the Treaty to the English population – and I will bet any man that if that happens the English will vote “NO” as well. The sooner we get Obama and Cameron into office, the better for the world as a whole. Not HOLE!!!

For those of you who are thinking of buying or selling property on Lanzarote, this is the way that I see the situation at the moment.

Obviously, like anywhere else in the Western world, it’s a buyer´s market now.  The very cheap properties are very slow to sell from what I hear, and the very expensive properties have the same problem.  The only type of property that seems to be holding its value to some degree is the one-bedroom apartment that is front line.  While you can pick up a one bedroom apt here in Puerto del Carmen for 90,000 Euros, the location isn’t going to be great for that price but a one-bedroom apt in a very good location on a nice complex can still fetch up to double that.

It seems to me that if you have a very good apartment for under 200,000 Euros, be it one bed or two, you have a reasonable chance of selling.  Also, if you have a good small villa in a good location for under 250,000 Euros, you have a good chance.  These are the properties that are selling at the moment, if any.

There is some unreal value to be had at the moment with medium to high price properties.  Any properties from 400,000 Euros upwards are selling very slow, and the value compared to 2 years ago is unbelievable – and I think they are going to come even cheaper over the next year or two.

The Western world property values are too high everywhere, even still.  It seems to me that the US government have put up a trillion Dollars to support the building societies/banks, and all they have done is bailed out the banks, which in turn will keep prices up above their true value.  If they let the banks go under then, even though it would be very difficult in the short term, it would lead to a much more realistic market in the long term.  Think about it – we have to be competitive against the rest of the World and one of the main reasons that we are not is because people need high salaries to support mortgages for houses that have been artificially pushed up by banks lending too much money to people.

If you look at Eastern European countries that have recently joined the EU you will find that there were no banks there to lend money for properties up to recently.  The value of the properties was very low and all of the properties were bought for cash.  If the average income in Ireland is something around 30,000 Euros per annum then a young couple would have 60,000 Euros, and if one salary was put aside for 5 years the couple would have saved 150,000 Euros, which should be the price of an average house.  That way there are no banks needed (except commercial) and the people working in the banks could be put to use in
manufacturing or exporting industries and, most importantly, the couple would have a debt free life for which they could use their income on a quality of life rather than paying banks.  Yes, property would fall harder, but for the generation that are 18 years old now, they would have a fantastic quality of life and we would be back to simple reality.

I think house prices will fall around 20% over the next 2 years, and despite the fact that it’s going to cost me personally, I still believe it’s a step in the right direction and I only hope that governments take action so that this stupid lending can never again take place.

If the banks had never gone into Eastern Europe, prices would have risen anyway when they joined the EU but only because incomes rose, and not because people had access to funds which put ropes around their necks for 30 years.

I can’t understand why everyone is talking about stimulating the building industry as if it’s the most important thing in the World.  The truth is we need to stimulate any industry that leads to exports and we can worry about how to spend the income made from that after we have earned it.  People tell me every night of the week at Charlie´s that I’m lucky to be living in Lanzarote and to have Charlie´s.  Sorry to tell you folks, but that is the height of bullsh*t.  *Luck* had nothing to do with it.  Here is an expression for you all: The harder I worked, the luckier I got!

Now I’m off to Charlie´s for a nice cool pint of Guinness. Adios.

In addition to the announcement I made in THIS POST, there are also 3 cheap flights a week to Lanzarote for you lot up in Belfast for 80 Euros each way from January to June 2009… 

Murphy

To Charlie´s Bar customers:

aerlingus.com are selling flights from Cork and Dublin (addition: and Belfast!) for 80 Euros each way from January to June 2009.

Obviously these prices will increase and we want Charlies customers to get the benefit of the cheaper flights first so that they will have less to pay for flights, and more to spend on the demon drink!!

I have just come up with the theory that the Irish are after single-handedly preventing, or at least delaying, a Third World War. If the Lisbon Treaty had been passed, we would have had an other arrogant superpower, i.e. Europe, and we wouldn’t have felt the need to be so diplomatic as we do as individual states.

A family member of mine got upset about not receiving a birthday card from another family member recently, and it made me think about this whole greetings thing again. My family aren’t the best at birthdays etc. etc., which often made me think about these occasions. I think in a lot of cases birthdays, Valentine´s Day, Mother´s Day, Father´s Day etc., are a good way for people to ease their guilt. I have many times in my life seen people being a disastrous husband, child or whatever and arriving with huge gifts on any occasion they get a chance. Sometimes they hardly talk to the other from one end of the year to the other, and then arrive with cards etc.

For myself, I love buying things for family and friends when I happen to see something that would really suit the person, and it doesn’t have to be Xmas or any other time of the year. We all say that every year Xmas shopping is a pain in the a*se and yet we still do it, buying sh*t that nobody wants. I gave it up years ago, with the exception of kids of course.

For the last 10 years I have bought a couple of great holidays away as presents, and it’s great when everyone gets together in February or March. The memories of these holidays are worth far more than some stupid jumper ripped off a shelf at speed on Xmas Eve. It’s all a load of b*ll*cks for the guilt ridden, of which I’m one, but can’t be hypocritical!!

All the other nations of the world should donate huge sums of money to the Irish for saving us from the Third World War so that us Irish can get back to doing what we used to do best before the feckin Celtic Tiger – which is drinking pints, talking sh*t, writing and playing music and philosophising. We should never have to work again in our lives. It won’t cost the rest of you much because we are only 4,000,000 people in the World, which is .0000000000000000000% of the population.

Fair play to all the other EU countries that poured millions into Ireland over the last 30 years – we really appreciate it, but now they want money back from us and they want us to work, they even made us work for the last ten years, and we never saw it coming because we were too busy working and buying stupid f*ckin Xmas presents for b*stards that we hate.

It’s time for the Irish to relax, take it easy, don’t let them fool us. They´re trying to keep our minds occupied with programmes like Sky News, Eastenders and Coronation Street! Wake up, wake up, they have us working instead of talking sh*t!!! Smell the heather!!! We might even have our first case of illness due to stress in Ireland if we’re not careful!

It’s as serious as the ozone layer and we have to plan for the future well being of the Irish nation before it’s too late!!

Easy paddy!

Murphy

Whether you are a group or an individual, they will look after you and I’m not just saying that because they are friends of mine. They are simply straight up and great fun and very professional. It won’t cost you anything extra to book with them as they get a discount from the operators that you won’t get, so it’s better to let them organise your trips for you to suit you. Buy them a pint for looking after you, but don’t get brave – they would drink you under the table!!

Cheers
Murphy

I was sitting out in the sun this afternoon, just thinking to meself “how did I end up here?”.

The truth is that I love music,and always wanted to put a good live music bar together, but the plan was to do it in Ireland. It’s funny, because for 20 years I used to get up at 5am to go to work, and now I am going to bed every morning at the same time I used to get up! The memory of getting up at 5am on dark wet winter ornings and starting the artic that I used to drive before having breakfast, so that it would be warm when I got into it… Having said that, it was lovely in the summer mornings to be up and about. With no airconditioning in the trucks, we often stopped along the road during the day next to lakes or rivers and have a swim for ourselves. We used to make the most of life and always tried to have a bit of fun where the opportunity presented itself.

Here is one short story of the type of craic we used to have. At certain times of the year we would get phone calls in the middle of the night and we would have to head to Connemara with salt for trawlers landing with fish. A friend of mine (Pat the Bull) and myself got the call one night at about 12 o´clock. He loaded the salt before me, and was gone up the road ahead of me. It was a dead clear night with a full moon and somewhere up around Oranmore, I saw him miles ahead of me on a long straight stretch of road. We all had different designs of lights on the trucks and it was easy to tell who was who. It was about 3 am and I switched off all my lights, which I was able to do because the night was so bright. After about 20 minutes or so more driving, I caught up with him with no lights on all the time and drove inside the yellow line. As I was nearly neck and neck with him, I turned on all the headlights together and let the horn rip!!! Just checking his heart!!! Thankfully he survived and I survived the f*cking he gave me!! The money was bad, the hours were long, but the craic was 90…

My weekends consisted of Sundays off, which I spent most of the day falling in and out of sleep on the couch and trying to find energy to play with the kids, and then I would go to this pub with the artic at abo10 o´clock and play the bodhran in a session, which I loved doing. When the session was over and all the lads were heading home, I would jump into the truck and head for Galway. That was the way then, with 3 kids, a wife and a mortgage at 23 years of age.

I don’t regret one bit of it and, as I said, we made fun anywhere we could. The cops used to be after us all the time for bald tyres, no tax, overweight etc etc. We had no money for such luxuries. I remember I taxed a truck for 3 months one time and one of the lads said it was a vulgar display of wealth and a shocking waste of good money. I’m thinking he was right – it must have been a rush of blood to the head – or maybe I felt cocky because I was after getting to within 3 months of my arrears on the mortgage and the judge was proud of me!!

I came up with this great idea then that instead of rolling ten cigarettes before heading on a 3 hour journey, I would only roll two and promised myself I wouldn’t stop until I arrived at the other end. I stood to my promise, but I was rolling cigarettes with one hand before I got to Mallow, laughing and congratulating myself on how clever I was. F*cking ejet.

There was a long chapter and a long road between them times and sitting here in the sun today thinking about them. I had a list of things that I wanted to do with my life from when I was 20 years old and was very careful to do them in an order that worked well with age. No point in going skiing or racing when you are 70. So far my plans have gone well, even though the road got bumpy from time to time and different courses had to be taken, temporarily, to avoid potholes.

I have four plans left in me, if I last long enough:

1. I have designed a small spa hotel that I want to build whenever the opportunity and location arise.
2. If possible, I want to get my hands on a very badly run-down farm and put it back on the map again in my 50s.
3. I want to do two more seasons of rally driving.
4. I want to end me days doing charity work, drinking dirty pints of Guinness, talking shit with the friends (in a pub called “Charlies Beag) I made along the road, singing the odd song, and have nothing to me name on my last day, just as I came into the world.

Let’s see how it pans out.

For the next 8 years or so, I’m happy to be doing what I’m doing because of the great people that I´m working with, and Anna (my partner) loves it here in Lanzarote as well. Then we will be calling into Charlie´s, telling the young fellows where they are going wrong. We might just get this hotel built in that time, with a little luck, and two seasons rallying might just fit in as well, if the whores would give me the odd weekend off!

Just to let you know how f*cked up my head is – I was thinking of building a dairy farm here on Lanzarote! One of the things I miss about home is proper milk. Why couldn’t you import the cows from Ireland (4 legged ones), import the feed, silage etc. and build slatted sheds to house them? Then we would have Irish beef/Irish milk fresh from cows that were eating Irish grass. Don’t laugh – it’s not so long ago since some clown went on the late late to say he was going to bottle water and sell it.

Have a nice day. I’m going for a swim.

At the tender age of 43, this is my second time living through a recession, and recessions by and large are not a bad thing if you are ready for them. For most of you this is going to be a long-winded post that you may have no interest in, and I will just give my opinion on this recession that we are facing. If you’re not into this kind of thing, stop reading now, find yourself a partner of which ever sex you are into and go and do what you have to do – or just stroll down to Charlies for a pint.

Funnily enough, recessions boost the bar trade in general, and the holiday trade. The reason for this is simple and well documented – when we are going through periods like the Celtic Tiger, people feel the need to move fast with the economy and they can see others buying property and making money, and any fool could make money in those times, but not every fool could hold on to it. The stupid banks fuel the problem giving out mortgages left right and centre, and nobody can relax and enjoy life because of greed. Then you get a down turn in property and the economy and it’s cool to do nothing. People start to relax and spend their time drinking a few pints and enjoying themselves again because they don’t feel that they will miss something, and they don’t worry that others around them will move on faster than themselves.

There are those who unfortunately are under pressure to pay banks for their first home because, again, the bastards lend too much money fighting for a share of the market. It’s my opinion that those who are in that position should realise that this is much more the banks´ problem than yours. People who are struggling should get together and collectively tell the banks to go and f*ck themselves. They should pay what they can comfortably afford, and the banks can wait for the rest. If everyone did that, who are the banks going to sell the houses too? It’s time for the people to control the banks and not the other way around.

Over the last three years or so my own lads in their early 20s have been saying to me “why did you stop building houses, apartments and warehouses?” etc. I told them that everything was too expensive. Just by looking at average salaries against average house prices, and even working couples can’t afford to live at this rate. They said to me that everyone was still building and there would never be a recession again…. Mmmmmm!!!!

Unfortunately I was right and they were wrong. At that age they have only seen everything going up, people buying, buying, and no stop in sight. I am happy that they now see what can happen at an early age, just like I did in the late eighties, so that they won’t forget it for the rest of their lives. They obviously don’t remember when they were two years old and I was in and out of court with the banks trying to hold on to our house, which thankfully I did, by the skin of my teeth. But I wasn’t too worried about it, living in Ireland, the government would give you a corporation house anyway, and I knew if that’s the worst that can happen, things ain’t bad at all. This was a much bigger problem for the bank than it was for me. I would get going again and buy another house. What I do remember about those times was that there were a lot of people under serious pressure and life was grey to dark – or moral was I suppose.

Take a couple with 52,000 Euros per year net income. This is the way they will work out their finances, in this order, weekly:

mortgage 600
shopping 150
insurance 20
etc. etc.

The way it should be worked out I believe is the following way:

spending money 300
shopping 150
insurance etc. etc.

And whatever is left is what they can pay for a mortgage which would reduce the price of property and give people a quality of life.

How long will this reccesion last? I think things will go down about another 20% in the next two years and will steady, and slowly, start picking up. For sure, it will start to get a little better a year after that a/h Bush is gone.

The bottom line is that banks are greedy institutions that are only answerable to shareholders to make as much profit as possible at anyone´s expense, regardless of the consequences. Their greed blinds them from making long term steady decisions for the benefit of all including themselves. Now, because of their lack of vision and greed, they have thrown money at anyone that will take it, driving up the price of everything to a false level, which is now correcting itself (otherwise known as a “reccession”), and they are unable to keep life in balance for the public, or for themselves. As I have said before, if they lend more than a certain proven income to a couple or individual, they should be left swing and have no opportunity by law to get the money back.

If our governments can’t control them, or won’t, then we (the public) should. If everyone stopped paying their mortgage or any loan for one month, then you would see very quickly what would happen. The banks would be very accomodating very fast, and they would be begging the public instead of the public begging them, and even more of the public would be at Charlie´s having a few pints and a laugh singing along with Skin & Hide,while the greedy would be in their suits 24 hours a day, scratching their heads in offices, worried and thinking “what will we do now?” Then, after a while, the public would feel sorry for these poor assholes and agree to give them X amount per month, and we would never have a recession again as long as we don’t have another Bush, spending billions killing people.

That brings me to think again about people power. The American and English soldiers should not be waiting for Bush to withdraw them out of Iraq. They should simply say “Adios” and walk off to the airport and join the rest of us at Charlie´s for a few pints and refuse to put themselves in the way of fire, or to be firing at others.

Power and greed has the likes of Bush and the banks fcked up,which in turn has the world f*cked up. It’s a disease they have, just like cancer, and they need our help to cure these diseases. I hope none of us would walk away from someone lying on the street sick, so let’s not walk away from the opportunity to help the likes of Bush and the big w*nkers (sorry, bankers) of the world. It’s our opportunity to relieve them of their pain.

That’s enough shit for one day. Or is it shit?

Murphy

Hi folks/scumbags/leprechauns/nymphomaniacs – and Charlie´s customers.

Just to let ye all know that “Skin & Hide” will be playing at Charlie´s 7 nights a week for the summer months. We tried to take saturday nights off, but it didn’t work. That’s because Mick and James, who were filling in are crap!!!!

Only joking.

They are a very hard working talented two-piece with a fantastic reputation, but the truth is that no two-piece could replace our own fantastic 5-piece band. That´s why we have agreed with Mick and James to do the early slot on saturday nights and Skin & Hide will be on at 11.30. So the line up for the summer is that Gally (who will be back this week) will play from 9.30 to 11.30 every night for July and August except Saturday nights (which will be Mick and James) and Skin & Hide will follow on every night. Colin Monday will do the “early” for the first week in September, and Graham Mills will be back doing the early set for the remainder of September and all of October.

I would just like to thank Gally, Graham and Colin who are coming and going off the island and filling in the “earlies” for us. As any of you who have seen them play will know, they are all very talented musicians with years of experience.

As for Skin & Hide, we had to make the decision to play 7 nights as there was no alternative. We are lucky with the way Skin & Hide work for two reasons: the first, and most important, is that we all get on really well and enjoy what we are doing – which makes life very easy – or much easier for us, and second, there are three lead vocalists in the band, which means nobody´s voice gets wrecked. Physically it can get tough for a drummer to play 7 nights a week, especially at the pace we play, so we may need to get a substitute drummer in the odd night over the summer to give Shaky a break now and then. This isn’t a big problem because it’s “only” the drummer and not a musician, and you can find drummers under every cactus plant on the island!!!!

I’m going to work tonight with two bodyguards!!

Adios

Murphy

The controversy over the rejection of the Lisbon Treaty in Ireland is unreal in my eyes.

Adio.

Murphy

In the first week of March 2008, Aslan played 3 nights at Charlie´s. I have already written about that experience in this post.

Soon after they left we got wind that they were going to play at a different bar here in Lanzarote this autumn. We said nothing and waited. Then the proprietor of that bar came and confirmed this to one of our musicians in person. Still, we said nothing.

A week later Aslan´s agent telephoned me and asked me if I would mind if the band played at this other bar in September, and then they would play at Charlie´s again in March next year. I didn’t let him know that I knew anything about their arrangments and said that they can play at Charlie´s in September as well. He got a little flustered, the poor man, and said that he would ring me back – which he did 3 hours later and told me that it had been all confirmed and there was nothing he could do, and he had to keep this band playing all year round . So he wasn’t asking me if I minded – he was telling me, which I knew anyway. I then told him that the lads are very welcome at Charlie´s for a drink when they are here, but they should play in the other bar in March as well.  I don´t owe Aslan anything and Aslan don´t owe me anything and are obviously quite entitled to play at any venue they like.

I have met and been in touch with plenty of very successful artists and their managers this year, and although I am new to booking such acts, they all told me they respect the man that brought them to town in the first place, and the balls that he had to do this, and they would never play in another venue in that town until such time as the first venue refused them. This is what I would have tought to be the case anyway. But there you go.

I spoke to Christy for a few hours one day he was here and believe that this wouldn’t be his way of going on, and I stand to be corrected in this, but just to let him know that we would be delighted to have him back playing at Charlie´s with our own fantastic resident band Skin & Hide backing him – which we don’t expect he will, but for him to know that he is welcome at any time.

Meanwhile we are “flying” at Charlie´s these days, and the patience, hard work and dedication from us all to build Charlie´s and Skin & Hide to be what has been voted “The Best Live Music Venue in all the Canary Islands” seems to have paid off. We take nobody or anything for granted and know what it takes to keep entertaining at this level. But don’t tell anyone how easy it is for us, because we love it. Shhhhhhh!!

I suppose we might just survive without Aslan, with a little help from our friends!

Our many thanks to our customers for their support, both residents and tourists. We really appreciate your custom and your company.

Cheers.
Murphy

Howdy again,

As most of you know, we (Skin & Hide) are on holidays from the 10th May to the 24th. We would like to thank “Ignition” for covering at the bar the first week, and this week we have a bunch of talented f*ckers from Manchester covering. They are playing a lot of music similar to Skin & Hide, but with fiddle and banjo instead of electric guitars! They are a right sound bunch of lads that I have known for a couple of years from my trips to Manchester. Next Saturday night should be a great night with Skin & Hide sharing the stage with the lads from Manchester for some of the evening. It’s also the banjo player´s (John) birthday.

As for Skin & Hide in Ireland… most of us travelled to Galway for Leo’s funeral, which was a bad start to the holidays. If there is such a thing as a “nice funeral”, Leo’s was very special. It was the first time in my life that I saw people singing and playing music at a graveside, and it went on for what must have been an hour, while Sharon and Leo´s friends and relatives took turns at filling in the grave. It was an amazing natural feeling to have been there. As devastated and shocked as Sharon was, she still found the energy to organise such beautiful music in the church and sent Leo off better than anyone could have done. I would also just like to take this opportunity to thank Leo’s brother Kevin for his hospitality in the Roisin Dubh after the funeral.

As I write this, Massimo is in rome playing music with a few of his friends during his holidays, Widgeon is in Texas, Shane in Kilkenny, and Shaky on a plane back here to Lanzarote from Dublin. Jon Gold is chasing sheep around Connemara with a vicious look on his face, and Sergi is lost somewhere between Scotland and Ireland, looking for Barcelona with a compass in his hand!

We are all looking forward to a great summer in Charlies, and our next “siesta” will be the first two weeks in December.

Our thanks again to all the lads that filled in for the holidays at Charlies.

Cheers
Murphy

We all had the pleasure at Charlie´s Bar of welcoming Sharon Shannon and family here in february. I went to the airport to pick up the troop, and within minutes realised there was a real character amongst them. It was Sharon’s partner, Leo, cracking jokes and looking forward to the week that was ahead. We had a great week just as he anticipated. I had long conversations with this dark-haired man with a real twinkle in his eye for life. He told me a lot about his life experiences and we pondered many questions about life itself. We were looking forward to meeting up for a pint during the summer and having a laugh and just catching up again. I didn’t know Leo very well, but in the short time that I did I liked him. It’s that simple.

Then in a very short message on my phone today from John’s daughter, I found out his life had been cut short, and as I write this some hours later, I feel so f*cking empty, sad, and I don’t know what else. I am thinking about Sharon, Leo’s offspring that he spoke to me about, but most of all I am thinking about Sharon, only because I know her personally and not his kids. Leo told me that they were together nearly 9 years or so and that they would be together until death. He was right.

My own brother passed away 10 years ago, much too young as well, and I asked him today to welcome Leo and show him the good haunts and the ropes in his new world.

Sharon – all of our thoughts are with you right now in Lanzarote. The reactions and the looks on the lads´ (at Charlies) faces as I told them spoke for themselves. It was and is nothing but extremely f*cking sad and complete disbelief. We are here for you, Sharon, and always will be, come hell or high water.

Leo, you are gone ahead of us now. Keep an eye on what we do and try to steer us in the right direction until we catch up with you again. It was a real pleasure to have met you, even though it was for such a short time. There was something so genuine and human about you.

Tog a bog e,a chara

May you rest in peace.

From all of us in Lanzarote

Hey Bertie,

I would just like to take this opportunity to thank you for your time and effort as Taoiseach of our great country.

I have already written here about some of your achievements (and lack of them!), but for sure, you got the most important things right.  I firmly believe that you gave it your best through all kinds of difficult circumstances over the years, and steered the ship in a very steady fashion.  It must be the most lonely job in the world to be Prime Minister of any country if you want to be good at it.  Sometimes you have to make unpopular decisions for which you can isolate yourself as a human being, but in the end your vision made it all work out.  I know there are those who would say that this, that and the other went wrong, but there was a lot more that went right than wrong for sure, given the fact that you are a human being and not a machine.

I wish you well in your retirement as Taoiseach, even though I know you have a lot to give to society yet in one way or another.  Take it easy for a while and come down here to us at Charlie´s Bar and have a pint or three with us.  You truly are an extraordinary, ordinary man.  Enjoy a chara.

Mise le meas

Ó Murchú

P.S.:  If anyone can get this e-mail to Bertie in person, please do so.

I´m well pissed off with what I had to do at Charlies last night. It’s much better to be getting on with people who are trying to achieve the same goal, but myself, the staff and musicians at Charlies have all been watching and listening for a few months now and always giving the benefit of the doubt – but enough is enough.

I can handle anyone who comes to me in a straight fashion and not trying to go behind my back all the time, not just to me either.

There are musicians and staff who have approached me looking for a start at Charlies and at times I could have done with them but didn’t take them for various reasons. I have never gone in to another bar to take anyone from it. If someone comes to me because they want to move, that’s fair enough if it suits all of us at Charlies, but we are not going after anyone.

I’m sorry for speaking in riddles to you who don’t know the story behind this, but that’s the way it has to be. I have plenty of friends here who are publicans, musicians and staff from other bars, all trying to do the best they can, and I welcome them in our humble pub all the time, same as they welcome me, the musicians and staff of Charlies in theirs.

No more to say, except on we go, whatever. All the staff and musicians of Charlies want to do is to give the best of themselves to make sure our customers have a great holiday with us here in Lanzarote – and we don’t seem to be doing too bad at it!! We don’t take anything or anyone for granted and we work very hard every week, arranging and rehearsing new material. But don’t tell anyone how much we enjoy it!!

Apology accepted.

Mise le meas

Ó Murchú

As most of you know, I invited The Wolfe Tones to play here at Charlies some time ago, and was absolutely delighted that they accepted. Apart from their music, they are a bunch of characters that are fantastic company and it’s so interesting to hear how their trip through life has been so far.

I knew a lot about The Wolfe Tones from following them over the years, but they surprised me in the way they operate. I couldn’t believe when they told me they had just finisished the American tour that they do every year, and that they performed 27 gigs across America in 27 nights, and by road! Let’s just say these lads have a few years on me and I think I would be sent home in a box if I tried that! Also, from watching them perform at Charlies, they really give it their all. They have more stage energy than a lot of 25 year olds that I know. I suppose this is because they believe so much in what they are singing – they are so passionate about what they do.

They are now 44 years on the road together spreading the message of Irish history through their music and their sense of humour. Having had a few pints with them over the last few nights it became clear to me that there is a huge story there to be told of their life on the road, the characters they have met, the laughs they have had…. and I’m sure Brian probably has drawers of songs and poems that he has written that were never recorded.

They have been seen to be very controversial over the years to some people who, let’s just say, are slightly uneducated. You will hear stupid statements like:

• they caused the troubles in the North
• they hate the English
• they support violence
• they are violent people

There is nobody better at putting their point of view across than themselves, but here is what I personally think of them and what they stand for.

First of all, they were on the road before any of the recent troubles started, telling the stories of Irish history. Secondly, they don’t hate the English! They have a problem with any sect of any society being oppressed by others. Remember, there are a lot of decent English folk who love The Wolfe Tones and their music. Also, it must be remembered that the English who trampled on the Irish for 800 years also trampled on their very own English working classes. They don’t support violence in any way and I’m sure they think it is such a crime that some of our own people had to die and be imprisoned, simply so that the Irish could have freedom and equal civil liberties in their own country, which they should never have had to die for in the first place, and there should have been no need for violence ever. Us Irish only defended and never attacked another nation.

The english who understand that it’s wrong to invade another country and make peasants of the people in that country by control and force have nothing to fear from any Irish Republican Nationalist, and quite the opposite is true – as can be seen by the millions of English who go to The Wolfe Tones´ concerts year after year and are welcomed with open arms. The Wolfe Tones are simply telling the story of Irish history and of some of the brave volunteers who achieved our independence and freedom – with their lives, in some cases, unfortunately.

Some English and even Irish people are against The Wolfe Tones because they believe it’s all in the past now. First of all, it’s our factual history; secondly, we should never forget those who had to fight for what was so basic in the first place and their efforts; and thirdly, it should act as a reminder and deterrent to others never to let something like this happen again, even though it’s happening elsewhere in the world as I am writing this.

I couldn’t believe it when they told me that no member of the Defence Forces in Ireland was allowed to go to a Wolfe Tones concert!

They have also been shunned by RTE, our national television broadcaster. An interesting thing that I learned from Brian was that the Meteor Awards in Ireland are controlled by RTE and that when you vote for the best band you send a text, but you can only choose from a short list of groups that they (RTE) have already picked. Come on RTE!!! Put The Wolfe Tones on the list and watch what will happen, just watch!

These three lads have taken so much stick over the years and given plenty of it back as well. They are semi-retired now and I would love to see them getting the respect and credit nationally and internationally that they well deserve – not only for themselves, but also for those who they sing about. Of course I know that they have huge respect around the World, but what p*sses me off more than anything is the way the Irish State is treating them, and some of the Irish people who don’t understand how we got to where we are today from being a bunch of badly oppressed, starving peasants who were controlled by force and power by the greedy…

To me it’s not important whether it was an Irish/English or catholic/protestant struggle. I would feel the same if it was a Donegal/Cavan or a Jewish/Muslim conflict. As far as I’m concerned it was a struggle for civil libertys and human rights against an oppressor. I’m just against any group of people oppressing another group, regardless of religion, colour or race.

Now we have another Wolfe Tones concert to go here at Charlies in Lanzarote, the last one on Friday (tomorrow) night. I hope that all the people who believe in peace, equal human rights and civil liberties for all – as The Wolfe Tones themselves do – will come and join us for another great night of music and entertainment, whereever you are from.

Tog a bog e

Ó Murchú

There is something on my mind for a long time that I would like to share with anyone who cares to read or listen…

I have travelled a lot over the years and have seen many different cultures. What’s right in one place is completely wrong in another. There are a few basic human traits that I have noticed everywhere, and I can only put them down to human nature, which seems to me to be the common language, and which is stronger than any culture. It’s a higher level of understanding which surpasses all cultures and religions, as I understand it. When you get to this level of understanding, life becomes a little bit easier, or has done so, in my experience. Be very careful of what you read here because this is just my opinion and it could be complete shit, but it’s based on what experience (or lack of it!) I have of life.

The main point which I want to make is that across all cultures and religions greed, selfishness, dishonesty and jealousy are the roots of everything that goes wrong in this world, regardless of one´s intelligence (or lack of it).

If we could only control these conditions in the human being, what a great party we could all have! To control these human conditions takes effort, but it leads to a much better result than not to.

Sometimes greed is expressed through ego, sometimes through material things, but it’s still all greed, whichever way you look at it, same as is jealousy.

Like everyone else, I have been as guilty as hell but I spend a lot of time trying not to be. I can’t stand anything that separates people, and I love anything that brings people together, regardless of nationality, culture or religion. I’m always trying to find the common ground and not the uncommon, but I don’t always succeed.

If you look at capitalism and communism, you quickly understand that communism is fantastic on paper, but capitalism suits human nature much better. I have lived in the former USSR for a period and all of the older folk would much prefer to have communism back. They felt safe. They didn’t have a lot by Western standards (materially), but they had a lot more than the Third World. They didn’t know this as they were kept in the dark, but they will tell you that they went to work, they had their apartment, a Lada car and a holiday every year. They had enough. The truth of it is that this system may well have lasted, only for the fact that the USSR engaged in the Cold War, which cost billions of any currency you wish to choose, and ultimately ended with the fall of the USSR.

One of the saddest things I have ever witnessed in my lifetime was the collapse of the Russian Rubel – not because a currency collapsed, but because there were hard working people who had saved for their pensions all their lives and they lost everything in a week.  When you meet highly educated or intelligent (not always the same) hard working people begging in cold train stations in their 60s +, it makes you sick to the bone.  You listen to their stories and it would kill you.  I have lived with these people in the same house and got to know them.  The lucky ones had sons or daughters who got out to the West and sent money back home so their parents had a comfortable living.  The unlucky ones… you don’t want to know.  Again, the whole lot of this human suffering was caused because of greed or pride/ego.  Will we ever learn?

To be half fair, in the Russian situation they seemed to me to be more on the defensive after the Second World War, after what Germany did to them, and wanted to make sure that it never happened again.  I know there were desperate atrocities carried out by the Russian establishments long before the Second World War against the Russian people as well (which is a different story), but again leads back to the same thing:  control caused by greed, ego etc etc.

I feel that no human being has the right to determine where another lives or not.  Forget communism and capitalism for the moment.  If everybody in this world was able to travel and trade free, we would come to a situation where every human being had at least an equal opportunity to share in the World´s wealth.  Who the f*ck do we think we are to tell another human that he cannot go here or there because of his colour/nationality or culture?  Open your minds and your doors, don’t be afraid and the results will surprise you.

I have today read two things in the papers that caught my attention and are very relevant to this topic.  The first I read was about a tribe of 240 people called the Zoe (I think, I put the magazine in the bin and when I went back to check the name someone had put more waste on top of it and I wasn’t willing to dig through it to get the name right!).  This tribe are and have been living in stone age times and are protected by the Brazilian government.  They have no contact with the World as we know it.  They have been watched and studied, just like wild animals would be for a documentary.  They don’t wear clothes, they kill only what they need to eat, and no more.  They have straw built tents and they sleep in anyone they want to, with whoever they want to.  They have no crazy man invented rules, and they share everything automatically.  Disputes are solved by tickling – whoever laughs the first loses.  They know f*ck all about religion, never mind penalty points or traffic lights, and yet they live in perfect harmony in their ignorance – or maybe it’s our ignorance.  Back to basics, and this is as close as you would get to human nature at its best before we were corrupted by all kinds of rules and sh*t.

The second thing that I read today was that the English government want the English flag displayed much more and have lifted old rules which say that the flag can only be flown at half mast with the consent of the Queen.  So now it is OK to fly the flag at half mast if a local (good person) dies in the community, without the permission of the Queen.  They want to fly the English flag from every government building in the country and they are encouraging people to fly it from their homes as well to get back their identity, regardless of whether it’s England or anywhere else!  Did you ever hear such f*cking bullsh*t in your life?!  Anyone who has to identify themselves with a flag is as insecure a human being as you will meet on any road.

I am Irish (culturally) and I am proud of it, but not nationally.  I see the Irish flag as a sign of “welcome”, whereas the English (and only the English that would support this shit, which is not all English, by any means) see this as a defensive measure.  They feel they are losing their identity and need to get it back in this stupid way.  I also know that there are many Irish that think we should not let any foreigners into Ireland, but they too are the greedy, trying to protect what they have and not share with other fellow human beings because of their own insecurities.

As far as I am concerned, anyone who is willing to pull their weight should be welcome in any society.
If I ever go missing, I will be with the Zoes in North Brazil, but I don’t expect that they would accept me after being so corrupted by all kinds of organisations making rules of how I should and shouldn’t live.  Where will I go then?  I will be simply f*cked if the Zoes don’t accept me!!!!

Murphy

It’s so easy to write a blog post about George Bush – it’s called “Bush Bashing” – and it’s simple because it’s easy to pick on a donkey.  But here are a few of my thoughts.

How responsible is George for the state of the World today? You could say that he fucked the World up economically and humanly better than anyone else could have done, and you would be right.  Was he responsible on his own for this? No way.  But who *was*?

The stupid people of the United States were. Ok, they elected him the first time and it was a mistake, which we are all entitled to make, but not the second time!  Then you will hear folk say that the second election was rigged, but as far as I know, it was only rigged by 1 or 2%. How did he even get that close? You, the people of the United States who voted the moron in the second time are every bit as guilty as him for the huge amount of human suffering that you have caused, and the economic wellbeing of the whole f*cking planet. Your money has been spent on killing innocent human beings and you *voted* for this.

Is an army democratic or is it the case when you sign up to an army you lose the power of your actions?  If there was a secret vote taken by the troops who are in Iraq and Afghanistan, what would the outcome be?  If the outcome was that this was a wrong war to be fighting, would they have the freedom to leave Iraq without losing their jobs as soldiers which they use the income to provide for their families?

Any decent human being, in my opinion, has a right to earn an income as a soldier, to defend their country or fight against right and wrong in the human race, but they were led into battle under the pretence that Sadam had the power to take out England and the States with nuclear power.  The fact is he hadn’t the power to even take out Iraq and when the Allied Forces realised that, should the soldier on the ground not have the power to decide to go home without facing court marshall, or the threat of losing his job?  He was sent there under the pretence of protecting his people, which is why he signed up to the army in the first place.

I remember watching live TV of the invasion of Iraq and thinking to myself “what is going to happen here”? I, like everyone else, thought that the Allies were really up against it and that anything could happen to the whole World, with all this nuclear power.  I couldn’t believe my eyes when, not long into the war, I was watching the US troops pulling down a statue of Sadam in Baghdad and then putting a US flag on top of it, which was the real feeling amongst a lot of the US troops on live television.  Obviously someone realised quickly that this was wrong and the flag only lasted about 30 seconds.  I won’t forget that 30 seconds ever.  It made a huge statment to me.

It’s also my humble opinion that Bush should face a court for his *war crimes* and that he be imprisoned accordingly.  I also feel all those who voted for him should pay the price as well, even though they already are, in as much as US citizens are welcome nowhere now and are looked upon as, at the very least, very stupid, arrogant people.  This of course is not true of all of them as there were an awful lot of them who did not vote for Bush the second time around, or even the first.

The Irish side to this story was highlighted on Paddy’s Day when Bertie Ahern was pictured smiling like a Cheshire Cat giving Bush a bowl of shamrock, which is now flushed down the sewers and has ended up in some waste facility in Washington.  We all know how much the the American economy contributes to the Irish economy and that without that support we are doomed – but let me tell you now (as Ian Paisley used to say) that the companies and their MDs in the States that have manufacturing facilities in Ireland are not stupid, and they know that this war is ridiculous.  When Bertie goes and looks so comfortable with Bush, I hope he knows first of all that he is not representing 99%of the Irish population, and second of all, that he is not fooling the people who really matter in the US, as far as the economy goes.  Bertie, if you smile and mix with a fool, you could very easily become one.

Us Irish have great connections in the States and a lot of good connections with very honourable people.  We should not promote or be seen to endorse the a*seholes over there who believe that this war is justified, because then the decent US citizens won’t have any regard for us – and rightly so.  On the other hand, when we are so reliant on the US, I can understand the way of thinking “let’s stick with Bush, as there are only 9 months of the moron left anyway”.  I think my first point stands up better.  It would be much better for Bertie to say to the citizens of the States that we are 100% behind the States in any way that is correct, but regardless of how much we depend on ye, we will not endorse a stupid war like this.  I feel we would command a lot more respect from the real people that matter in the States just by being honest, and for our honesty long after Bush is gone and hopefully locked up.

Finally, I do believe that Bertie also thinks that this war and Bush are a disaster, but he feels that it would be the wrong thing to come out with it. I could be very very wrong here presuming so much, but I doubt it.

The next piece I want to bore you with has to do with why wars happen anyway, in my opinion, and the human condition that causes them.

Another day.

Murphy

P.S. George, if by any chance you still have that bowl of shamrock, shove it up your anal passage until it reaches your false teeth.
Lots of love from the Irish on Paddy’s Day!

Beauties and professional models Aoife Coogan (Miss Ireland 2005) and Jenny Lee Masterson were over earlier this week and they were such lucky girls to get to pose with me….

We would like to apologise for the behaviour of some of the PRs and some of their employers on the steet outside of Centro Atlantico.  Despite the many times that we rang the police, they (the PRs) keep re-appearing, as the police cannot devote so much time to this issue, understandably. (For those of you who don´t know what PRs are, they are those annoying young men and women who hassle the crap out of you on the street to get you to come into their club/bar. )

When we re-opened Charlies one and a half years ago, we didn’t want to have any PRs on the street, as we understand they can be a pain in the a*se, annoying people. We then had to put PRs down there because the others were telling customers that Charlies was closed/Charlies doesn’t open until 12, when we actually open at 9 etc etc.

We were very careful to choose intelligent, friendly PRs who are not “in your face” to protect our interest on the street.

Some of the other PRs will offer two drinks for the price of one etc etc etc.  Any reasonably intelligent people would know that you would only have to do things like that if you had a sh*t pub with nothing going for it and you had to give away cheap drink for nothing to get people in.

We don’t want the type of people that want cheap free drink in Charlies anyway, apart from the fact that some of the bars charge twice the price for the third drink and put up the prices again after a certain hour when people are a little looser, and they are welcome to those idiots that can’t see through that…

We take a lot of pride in our live music/staff and the atmosphere in Charlies, and wish to apologise again for some of these a*seholes on the street – but there is nothing we can do about it.

Once you get up the steps and into Charlies you won’t be bothered by anyone from then on – unless you want to be!!!!!!

This is a touch of absolute genious of the highest order. They MOVED Paddy´s Day from 17th to15th March!!!!

I want to commend Brian Cowan(Minister for Finance) for having the ability to think outside the box. His toughts: the building industry is f*cked, we are down on stamp duty and capital gains tax. so if the bastards (the public) won’t buy houses, they will buy drink!!! Let’s have TWO paddy’s days! Cute Irish f*cker, but did he ever think of the national and international concequences?!

First of all the snakes will come back to Ireland with the small little green men (who, by the way, for you other nationalities are nearly extinct and are now a protected species) will multiply again and they will head for Leinster House to chew the a*se off Brian Cowen first, after eating all the cob webs out of his wallet!

Can you imagine the turmoil in Japan and the States, let alone with our new Polish residents! Nobody will know what day of the week Paddy´s Day is anywhere and the Chinese walking around in a daze scratching their heads of green hair.

Shergard will probably reappear out of a tin of dog food, ridden by Princess Di and not Lord Lucan.

People back home, will be saying “sure, I met you in Charlies on Paddy´s Day”. Paddy’s Day…. which one???

The whole world is fucked up and confused to get a few quid in to the government´s hands. Now jesus won’t know when to die and when to reappear, not to mind when to celebrate his birthday, which in turn will fuck up Santa Claus and the kids of the world.

Our friends in the North won’t know the start or the finish of the marching season and the starting date of the Olympics will be 2 days late, or is it early in 2012???

Flights will be missed all over the world by millions for evermore as the clocks fly backwards and we all get jet lag without moving anywhere.

I´m dizzy, I´m spinning, the world is all confused. Help help help, I need to hold on to something…

AH!!! A pint of Guinness in the only consistent place in the World – Charlies in Lanzarote!! Thank God.

Jesus, easy on the sauce next year, Brian!

I would like to know what the customers of Charlies think re the smoking ban.I get mixed views from people coming from Ireland and the Uk, both smokers and non-smokers. I was talking to a lady from Macroom in County Cork about this in Charlies the other night and we both agreed, being smokers, that too much smoke isn’t pleasant regardless of whether you smoke or not. We also agreed that smoking a cigarette outside Charlies is no problem because it’s warm in Lanzarote and there is a terrace with seats there. We also agreed that a lot of the craic is now *outside* the pubs in Ireland because you get to talk to people that you wouldn’t have otherwise met. But the weather is shit at home and you freeze!

I came up with the idea that maybe when the Charlies inside gets too smoky we should announce from the stage that for the remainder of the night we would appreciate if people could smoke outside.

Let´s hold a poll with the following questions:

1) Are you a smoker or non-smoker?

2) Should we ban smoking in Charlies completely?

3) Should we run with my idea?

4) Or should we leave well alone as is?

Right, I’m off to Charlies now for a pint and a smoke, adios!

P.S. There´s also a proper POLL that you can vote on re. this subject, on the front page of the Charlies website….

We spent about four hours getting the sound right in Charlies yesterday for the first Aslan gig, but my God, was it worth it!!!!

They came onstage at 9.30 and blew the place away. The power in Christy’s voice in such an intimate venue was unreal. You can see that it’s so easy for him because he isn’t singing with his brain, nor his voice – it’s all just simply coming from his *soul*. He, like the rest of the lads, looked so comfortable on stage and he was rising the crowd with banter in between the songs in a brilliant relaxed, natural way. They all made it look so easy, but the energy they play with is amazing.

All of them are so professional to work with and a great craic as well. I spent an hour with Christy the day they arrived and some of the stories he told me were so funny… but even more funny was the way he told them. That man is some survivor and a completely open, natural, honest human being – something you don’t meet too often these days.

The only thing we didn’t talk about was music. He was walking down the street last night and one of our PR´s that didn’t recognise him tried to get him to go to Charlies to see Aslan. Christy convinced the PR that Aslan were crap! What more can you say.

Aslan were followed by our own band “Skin & Hide” and Aslan´s guitarist Billy McGuinness got on stage singing with them and brought half the crowd with him, again creating a wild atmosphere.

From myself, the staff and Skin & Hide,we would all like to thank Aslan for coming to play at Charlies here in Lanzarote. We hope they will make this an anual event! It’s always great to mix with decent folk, both on and off the stage.

Now we look forward to their Tuesday and Thursday gigs. Tickets available at the door (30 Euros) and the doors open at 8.30 pm. Here’s to the long health of them all.

Another photo here (and many more in the Photo Gallery!!!):

I read this morning that sadly two Polish lads were stabbed to death in Dublin, because they wouldn’t buy alcohol for teenagers in an off-licence.

There is no point in me writing the obvious here, except to say that as a human being and an Irish person, I feel sick to think that this could happen but it would have probably happened if they were Irish as well. The sister of one of the lads was quoted as saying “she didn’t hate the Irish or Ireland because of this and that it could have happened anywhere in the World. This is a very kind statement for somebody who has been so devastated.

What really struck me about this article was that it was said, that some of the scum that did this came from dysfunctional families. I came from a pretty dysfunctional family myself growing up, had a few soft brushes with the law as a teenager which I am not proud of, but they were nothing serious. They were more serious to me than anyone else and still at times bother me. Everybody else forgave me, except myself.

I remember I was in big trouble when I was 19 years old (not with the law this time) and I went to my family for help. But I didn’t get help and I felt so alone. Then I was walking down a road in Cork feeling sorry for myself, when I thought that I had no business blaming anyone for the way my life was going anymore. The one and only person that was responsible for my life and the way I would live, was myself. “Forget the past” I told myself. Today is the day and it’s up to me and me only to shape that day. This was a big turning point in my life, and 24 years later I can still see, hear and smell that day walking in Cork as if it was yesterday.

The point I am trying to make here (probably badly!) is, who is resposible for these two lifes cut so short? If people cannot handle their children, should they not be imprisoned as well as the children themselves? It seems to me that if a parent has lost control of a child they should report it and be willing to testify against the child. In a lot of these cases the parents go and defend the child and that is when, in my opinion, if the child is found guilty the parent should do an equal amount of time.

The question is when is a child responsible for their own actions? If a child is allowed to hold a driving licence for a car at 17, that is probably the age when they should be responsible for their own actions without the parents being implicated. But there are people far better qualified than me to comment on this issue. I am only going by my own experience.

Despite that I came from a disfunctional family growing up, I could never see this as an excuse to stick a screwdriver in the side of somebody´s head – on the contrary, it made me love people more and accept love and friendship from anywhere it came, which in itself would leave you a little vulnerable at times, but you learn along the road of life as we all do. For sure, it is better to get hurt from love now and again than to be hurting others in the way that these scum finished the lives of the two Polish lads.

An interesting question is what would you do with whoever commited these murders? If you rehabilitated them properly to have a conscience, they wouldn’t be able to live with themselves anyway for what they did.

I believe that we should dedicate one of the islands off the coast of Ireland to be a prison for those who commit any violent crime of this nature. There should be no prison staff and the inmates should be given food and water until they die or kill each other, whichever suits them. We should not waste any state funds beyond what is absolutely necessary on these thugs. And, as i said, if they are kids, the parents should be put on the island with them if they are not going to testify against them and report them.

It was nice to read that the residents of Drimnagh were so strongly united with our politicians in supporting the families of Pavel Kalite and Marius Szwajkos, which is only what you would expect anyway from any decent human being.

It makes no difference to me what nationality these lads were. The bottom line is that they have passed away, leaving two families devastated, as well as many friends I am sure.
May they rest in peace.

Why would anyone visit Ireland once, not to mind *twice*, given the following:

1. it’s one of the most expensive countries in Europe now, with bad value for money;
2. the culture, which was our greatest asset, has been killed stone dead in the last ten years;
3. the weather is crap – but we can’t do anything about that – when we still had a culture, tourists used to overlook the weather because of the “Irish Charm”;
4. the traffic and getting around is a nightmare, and so expensive.

The quality of life in Ireland has been destroyed. We are a nation of amazing marketing geniuses, but we can’t keep fooling the tourist – and we won’t. People used to come here for our easy going way, our fantastic way of looking at life and the “green legends”. Only the legends live now…

The Celtic Tiger was built on a fantastic ,but weak, foundation which was our corporate tax level mainly. If the rest of Europe applied the same taxes we would be back digging trenches with our fingers, sowing spuds to feed our families. The only other industry we had was tourism and we have killed that, because we all got carried away with an arrogant attitude because we made a few quid in a few years. We will not always be so clever.

The Chinese and the Eastern Europeans are gaining ground on us at serious speed. We are now a police state, an open prison. Our people are under so much pressure that we are now leading Europe and the Western World in a competition for who can work hardest and sleep the least. We don’t even have time to look after our own families, let alone look after tourists.

When you come to Ireland and visit our famous pubs, restaraunts and hotels, and you are met by somebody who is Eastern European, it´s not good enough. I have nothing whatsoever against Eastern European folk – to the contrary, I believe they are a huge asset to our society, but if I go to Poland (which I have many many times) I want to meet the *Polish*. Any Eastern European working in the frontline of the tourist industry should have perfect English, a very good understanding of Irish culture and history. It is not their fault that some of them in the frontline don’t have the above knowledge – it’s the people that employed them. I don’t care if the Eastern Europeans own the establishments, but I bet you if they did (and they will) they will be clever enough to have Irish working in the frontline.

The Irish are now working and living in the following way:

1. both partners in the family are working flat out;
2. their travel time to work is ridiculous;
3. between child minders and big mortgages, they only have time to sleep;
4. they are constantly under pressure because their one and only beautiful life is out of control trying to juggle so much;
5. the word balance has dissapeared out of peoples` lives as they drink at home like hermits, never mixing with others;
6. they are trying to keep up with a rat race that somebody else invented for them;
7. we have gone from one extreme to another in the blink of an eye in the past ten years, and we are going to pay for these mistakes in the future.

Who do we think we are? We have no natural resources worth talking about. We have a well educated young population, but China and the Eastern European countries are catching up so fast it would make you dizzy, and they are much more competitive. Believe me, I have travelled the World and we are so insignificant and will become more so unless we start to change fast. We need to look after tourists and get our culture back on track. We always got on well as Irish wherever we went, because of who we were, not who we are now. We have become so arrogant just because of a few good years with the Celtic Tiger. There is an expression that “a friend in need is a friend in deed” I think is the exact opposite, i.e. “it’s only when your friend doesn’t need you anymore that you really find out how much of a friend he/she is”. The Irish government and its people got a few quid and look what it did to them….

Our Taoisach (prime minister) Bertie Ahern has lead our country for ten years now. He got the real difficult problems sorted, fair play to him. He sorted out the economy and he made fantastic moves as a national and international diplomat, but why couldn´t he stop that Michael Martin and Michael McDowell destroying all of the good work? Those two a***h*les turned Ireland into an *open prison*, and ultimately Bertie is responsible for this. They have brought out legislation that is of no effect except to annoy people, for no good reason, and lost the run of themselves.

If I had the power tomorrow, these are the changes that I would make to put us in some way back on the right road:

1. I would stop the traffic cops wasting time with their silly speed checks and catching people breaking speed limits by 5kph or even 10. This is annoying people and wasting resources. All of the traffic cops should be in unmarked cars, vans and even trucks. They should have video equipment and be catching people driving dangerously. It is much safer to be doing 80 mph on a main road at 6 o´clock on a fine summer´s morning than it is to be trying to pass out at 60mph on a bad, wet, dark December evening at 6pm with the roads full of traffic. I see people driving dangerously nearly every day at home and I´m sure an unmarked van or truck would too. Of course, there has to be a speed limit – but common sense must prevail!
2. I would stop these stupid tribunals dead and stop wasting huge amounts of money. It would be better to find a way to stop corruption from happening again and get on with life. Of course, Bertie can´t do that because he is implicated in them. If the tribunals don´t find anything more or substantial on Bertie, this will be a desperate waste of time. Ok, so he got a dig out of whatever (maybe 80,ooo Euros – I don´t know the exact amount). This is wrong, but how wrong! Everybody has sins, and when someone is minister for finance and going through a divorce, that is serious pressure. He didn´t do this to have a mansion or a Rolls Royce. He wanted to take the pressure off in the easiest way possible and with the least amount of bother. I bet he is sorry now that he didn´t just organise a loan. If they find more it´s a different story, but I don´t think he is a greedy person who was trying to build up huge wealth for himself. Maybe I´m wrong, but I doubt it.
3. The price of drink in off licences should be the same as pubs. This would stop people drinking too much at home and they would go back to the pubs and socialise more, just like it used to be. It would also stop under age drinking, or at least slow it a lot.
4. Taxis taxis taxis! The way they brought in this deregulation was a disaster. Of course, we needed more taxis at certain peak times, but most of the time there were taxis hanging around anyway. They should have made part-time licences available only for the rush hours and let the full-time taxi drivers make a living. This was so badly tought out and so many taxi drivers were banking on selling their licences for their pension. Now in Cork we have gone from 200-300 taxis to 2,000. They are all sitting around and not making a living. I think there should be a standard taxi fare of 5 Euros from anywhere in the south side to the centre, or with in the south side and the same for the north side. I firmly believe the taxi drivers would make more money and traffic would benefit because people would use taxis much more, and would go out much more. The current prices on the meters would have to stand at peak traffic times because the taxis can´t get around fast enough to make money. Somebody should set up a base for all those independent taxi drivers and charge the above prices. For sure they would all make money! Some similar scheme should be introduced in all areas of Ireland. I can only comment on Cork, as every city and town is different in size etc.
5. The famous smoking ban!!! I wasn´t in Ireland when the ban came into force, but I was sure that it wouldn´t be enforced because I tought people would get up in arms and rebel. I was wrong! I am a smoker and I hate smokey bars. I only want to smoke my own cigarette. If there were proper ventilation and smoke extractors fitted there should have been no need to have a smoking banned, as smoke would rise to the extractors straight away. Of course, Uncle Michael Martin knows what´s best for everyone regarding health, even though he, in my opinion, looks twice his age from interfering in the way he thinks others should live. There is one for the ex-minister for health! Did he ever stop to think about the effect his smoking ban would have on society, with people not going out like they used to, sitting at home, lonely? Their only interaction was with people in their local for a few pints and he destroyed that, which I am sure has caused mental stress, loneliness and even suicides. Should Michael Martin be brought up for murder? Again, it was one extreme to another, by a very arrogant type of human being.
6. There should be a limit on the amount of money a couple or a single person can borrow, which should be a percentage of only one income over the past five years. Also, only 70% of the price of a house should be advanced by a financial institution. This would bring down the price of property and leave people with a reasonable disposable income – to have a *life*. In the event of any bank advancing more money to somebody, they should have no recourse in the courts to regain the difference. A Celtic Tiger based on screwing the people into borrowing more than they can afford, cracking up under pressure, being a contributary factor to suicides and marrige breakdowns and even family murders (in extreme cases) isn´t worth a shit. People working flat out with 30 year mortgages, some on interest only for a period and 100% financed. We don´t need that type of tiger. The tiger was fuelled by other factors as well, and they were positive, but this part was very negative.

When I bought Charlie´s Bar in Lanzarote, my main reason was to have a place for people to go and enjoy the craic and the music like it used to be back in Ireland. We have live music seven nights a week with two live bands and you can get a taxi home for 3 Euros. You can go out for a good steak, glass of wine and a coffee nearly anywhere for 15 Euros.

I keep going back to Ireland every few weeks because it´s where I have family and friends, but if I was not from Ireland, I couldn´t see any reason to go there at the moment. I hope all that will change sooner rather then later before there is too much damage done, or before the tourists cop on. This is constructive critisism of a country and a culture I used to love. It´s not Ireland bashing for the sake of it. Let´s make sure that what ever politicians we vote for put these simple but important things right again, and keep them right, which shouldn´t be difficult given the much more difficult bridges we have already crossed as a nation before.
Adios and Rock on Charlies.

Murphy

There are so many single people in our society now, more then ever before. I think there are many reasons for this.

1. There are not many places to meet others anymore like there were before.
2. Both sexes are working harder than ever now and leading very busy lives, and in my opinion too busy.

I believe that there are three main types of relationships:

• fully commited (co-habiting),
• committed part-time(not co-habiting), and
• casual/frienship.

The most important thing is to find someone that wants the same type of relationship as yourself so that nobody gets hurt. For sure there is somebody there for everyone in this world, at any level.

Our aim at Charlie´s Bar is to facilitate people coming together but with a great craic along the way where people can just have great fun for a week, meeting all kinds of new aquaintances.

There are more and more people meeting on the internet now than ever – whether that’s a good thing or not, it’s simply a fact. We want to combine the internet with real life and while you book your holiday on the website, you still get to meet each other in real life in an easy going, safe & fun way.

Whether you are a group of lads or lasses or simply tavelling solo, we will all welcome ye at Charlie´s, and do what we can to make sure everyone has a great time with us.

Charlie´s is mostly suited to people between the ages of 22 to 45 years of age with its fantastic live music which it has been renowned for for over twenty years.

We feel that with our location on the beautiful island of Lanzarote it’s easy to access from Ireland, and our great pub, musicians and staff that we are very fortunate to have, we get the opportunity to bring people together in such a positive way.

We hope all our guests have a crazy, fantastic time with us. There are only two main rules at Charlie´s:

1. NO drugs
2. NO violence (which we have never had, thank God).

Charlie´s is a place for fun-loving, crazy people to enjoy themselves in peace!

So ENJOY!

… like a prisoner requires the patience of Job and the control of a saint!

Like everyone else in the world who finds themselves in the above situation, you would rather be on the top of a glacier in -30 degrees naked with no real chance of survival!!

Christmas is a fantastic time of year for these situations, when families are forced together. The in-laws/outlaws/children/grandchildren etc etc, which some of them don’t get on and are there only out of a sense of obligation. Don’t do it. Put a few drinks into the equation and Hiroshima looks like a teddy bear´s picnic…

The real question is how far do you go with your sense of obligation given the fact that you have only one short life and it’s better to spend it in a positive atmosphere as much as possible.

I recently had a conversation with a gentleman in his late 50s who told me that some of his family came to stay with him last year for Xmas, from a large city to his country town. In the group were his daughter and granddaughter. The 13 year old granddaughter dragged her feet around the house, picked up nothing after her, mumbled some jibberish when asked polite questions by her grandfather who was trying to make conversation, and made no eye contact.

Grandfather calls the child aside and has a few words to say about manners. Granddaughter goes to mother. Mother goes to grandfather and tells him to stop upsetting granddaughter in a rage. Grandfather feels like a pile of shit in his normally peaceful home. He apologises when he really shouldn’t, just to try and get through the next few days. Grandfather says to him self “I’m going to Lanzarote next year with a few friends”, granddaughter stays in big city next year and all is well, or at least for grandfather.

I have learned from past experience to be extremely careful of getting myself into “trapped” situations with people who are potential trouble, or whom I am potential trouble for.  I am a very bad actor and can’t put on a show just for the sake of it.  Can’t be doing going around with a false stupid smile with people who don’t contact me from one end of the year to the other, but think so different on Xmas Day or any family occasion, out of a sense of duty.

My experience of these situations is that you try to do the *right thing*, and everything ends up even worse than before.  Be a hero – and stay away.  Just like aquaintances, family are the same – some I get on with extremely well, and some not at all.  That’s life, and I prefer to spend the time with those I consider *real* people whom I get on with.  Can’t spend time with assholes who are trying to impress a false image of themselves upon others.

The bottom line is that I know they are doing this out of a sense of insecurity within themselves and I feel very sorry for them.  It’s my own weakness that I don’t have tolerance for these situations.  Can anyone give me a prescription???

Maybe I could smoke joints for these occasions, which I don’t do – nor do I judge those who do.  Then I could sit there smiling away at everyone and everything around me and laughing stupidly at Santa the bastard falling off the Xmas tree.  Bad idea?  Or maybe not, mmmh.

Adios.

Hi there,

This is Barry Murphy, the proprietor of the great Charlie´s Bar in Lanzarote. Just to let you know a little about myself and our future plans.

I am over and back to Ireland every few weeks and it’s amazing the changes that I see between life in Lanzarote and Ireland. I intend to write articles about many different subjects for whoever is interested in them.

It’s funny when you look at life the way I have the oppertunity to and see the crazy cultues and customs of so many countries, having travelled around for so long. What is crazy in one country is absurd in another, and when you read between the lines of them all there is usually a good balance somewhere. We put up with so much crap that has been handed down to us without questioning things properly.

For example, look how long it took us to see through the Catholic Church and the fear of God it put into us all. Of course, there were many well-meaning people in the church, but it was and is a crazy organisation, in my humble opinion. On the other hand, the one thing that it did do was create a sense of community with at least some good morals like love, not to hurt others, to be charitable etc etc, but then it went to far and made sex a dirty thing, made kids afraid of their lives of the priest (not just the ones that were abused!).

I remember the teachers panicking like hell and passing it on to us because the priest was going to pay us a visit. Thank God, we have lost so much of the negativity surrounding the church, even if it is by not practising, but we have also lost the community spirit and the parts that were good morally. Maybe somebody needs to create a much more relaxed and open way of lecturing on Sundays. I use the word lecturing, or teaching, or telling right from wrong and encouraging people to be straight, generous and loving in their dealings with their fellow human beings, because I don’t want to use the word “Religion”. I don’t believe in Religion. That is not to say that I don’t believe in God, but whatever God there is, he would be rightly p***ed off to find different types of Christians killing each other in His name, different types of Muslims killing each other in His name, and both Christians and Muslims killing each other also in His name.

I have views on communisn, capitalism, free movement of human beings on this planet, the West, the East and the Middle East, rearing kids, standards of living etc etc, which I have decided to write about over the next few months on this new blog page, and anyone is free to reply or reprint whatever they like from it.

Not so sure how all this will work out, but I’m going to give it a bash anyway!

Now a little about my own back round. Much to the detriment of society, I was born in 1965, raised in Bishopstown, Cork, with two brothers (one since deceased by suicide unfortunately, which is another topic I have a lot to say about at a later stage) and one sister. I left school at 15 years old – a rebel – which I still am, and don’t intend changing, and served my time as a mechanic. I was a crap mechanic and still know as much about cars as pigs do about holidays. I love operating and testing any mechanical instrument to the last but hate fixing them.

I got married when I was 21 and my eldest son was 1 year old, and then I had two more sons within a few years. All doing well, thank God! I also have a beautifull 18 month old son now.

Over the years I have been involved in several businesses, and still am. I was a workaholic. Then three very strange incidents happened in my life within a few years that changed the way I looked at things for evermore.

1. My beautiful brother Kevin passed away at 27 years old, which made me think fast about what I was doing with my own possibly short life.
2. I went on a fantastic ski holiday with my kids (Barry, Shane and Ross). I had never gone or been able to afford to go on a decent holiday. I remember sitting on top of a mountain in Austria, thinking “I have to start enjoying this life more and doing the things now that I won’t be able to do in another twenty years or so”.
3. I met this wonderful girl in my life (even though we are no longer together, but I know we will remain friends for life) who played music all her life and I couldn’t believe that she was having so much fun without working 16 hours a day, or even 6, and she was getting along in this life as good as me, or maybe even better, and there was me killing myself! Something wrong here, Murphy! Time to have a quiet chat with yourself!!

So then I set about learning and playing music intensely until I could play a gig. I learned the chords and words to 30 songs in as many days 24/7….

I got rid of one business which was a very good business, but was taking up way to much of my time for the way I wanted to live, bought a camper van and a moterbike and set off touring Europe, playing music wherever I could find deaf enough people to listen to me, together with another great female friend of mine for over a year. We were then asked to cover a gig in Lanzarote for a week and off we flew from Gran Canaria. That was in Febuary 2004. We ended up coming and going, sometimes living here in Lanzarote since.

Then an other problem arose, or had been arising, and I couldn’t see it at the time. I had gone from one extreme to another, and was getting bored with my new life. It was time to get involved again with something. This time I was going to get involved with a business that I *wanted* to be in and I got the opportunity to buy the famous Charlie´s Live Music Venue in Lanzarote, which is much more work then I bargained for but I still love it to bits…

Since I took over Charlie´s Bar in December 2007, or at least re-opened it then, after a lot of re-wiring etc. I have slowly but surely put together a fantastic bunch of musicians, that are now called “Skin & Hide“. They have just finished playing with Sharon Shannon for a week here at Charlies, and what a craic we all had!!! They play Irish Rock with Trad Tunes put in the middle, country, rock classics and nearly everything you can throw at them. A sounder bunch of lunatics you couldn’t meet.

I am now looking forward to welcoming Aslan to Charlies for the first week of March (playing 2, 4 and 6 March).

I am very disillusioned with the way our own Irish culture has gone over the past 10 years, with nobody in the pubs, no gigs and everyone rotting at home, working flat out, not able to afford to go out and socalise – all to pay mortgages that they should never have been given by greedy banks, and driving property prices through the roof. That’s a topic for another day though, but it’s so serious to see the pressure that people are under back at home, and so sad, while their lives pass them by…

We will be organising fun holidays for singles, with loads of activities, fun competitions and great nightly entertainment with our live bands nightly. These will be organised weekly, and off-peak from May when it’s not expensive to get to Lanzarote. Keep an eye on our websites www.charlieslanzarote.com and www.charliesholidays.com

Cheers
Barry Murphy
Drink Sex Feck

Hi again Folks,

I’m sitting here in my apartment on Tuesday morning the 5th of February writing this. The sun is shining, as it nearly always does here. Walking on the beach this morning reflecting on Sharon Shannon’s first gig at Charlies last night made the sun seem ten times brighter. I’m finding it difficult to express what everyone experienced in the bar last night, but I will try to set the scene for those of you who couldn’t make it…

On sunday I was waiting for Sharon Shannon and the rest of the crew to arrive at the airport in Arrecife, thinking what will they be like to meet? Will they want this, that and the other, what will the week be like etc. etc. etc.! I never organised anything like this before and I was obviously a little nervous! They all arrived through the gates smiling, some with children, some with parents, even “out”-laws!! After chatting for a while we eventually got all 14 of them to their temporary abodes and organised to meet at Charlies later for a drink.

It became obvious very fast that I had nothing whatsoever to be nervous about. Sharon walked in the door, threw her arms around me and said “would you like a pint, Murphy?” That was that! I have seen her play live at the Opera House and the NEC before, and as well as always appreciating her music, I have always been attracted to that fantastic smile of hers. You wonder then what is she like off stage? The answer is in her smile on stage. That’s who she naturally is, just as I expected, but I was very happy to be right and very right. She is a remarkable character, a great craic, and couldn’t be more helpful – just like all the gang that travelled with her…

I was very wrong about one of them though. I have always seen Jim Murray onstage as someone very serious, as he is about his music (like them all), but this guy is a dangerously funny man, down to earth and fantastic company.

Mary Shannon was just as I expected her to be – easy-going, always smiling and friendly, just like her sister, and she completely knows what she is up to. She is just like a very pleasant breeze about the place, and as helpful as you would meet on any road you would travel.

The last of the geniuses that descended upon our humble live music venue here in Lanzarote was Leon the sound engineer. What a professional! And just like them all a great, very capable, friendly and helpful character. The Sound is so important in a music venue like Charlies and to see this man in action, and the way he sets up sound is simply frightening. He offered to help in any way he could while he was here with the sound of our own bands, and we will take him up on that in future. A really very sound sound man!

Last night was their first gig of the week and they played tunes that they had written themselves (which they are renowned for) that are on their new album called “Renegade” along with many other great stuff. For me, and I think I can speak for everyone that was present, it was Sharon Shannon at her best – in an intimate setting, this was a session rather than a gig – and what a session! As I said last night “I could die happy now” after hearing them in this setting and knowing that I was part of making this happen here in Lanzarote.

Talking to them all afterwards, they had really enjoyed it as well. They were so relaxed and cracking jokes between the tunes and they created an amazing natural atmosphere. Jim was telling me that they were playing some tunes that they hadn’t had a chance to play in a long time in their usual lineup, and it had been a session to them as well that they really enjoyed.

I am told there is a friend of Sharon’s arriving here today whom we all know very well, just for the craic, and I’m sure he will join them on stage as well and will add to what is already simply unbelievable…

All I can say from here is “Roll on the rest of the week”!!!

What a fantastic year it has been at Charlie´s, despite the fact that George Bush is still hell-bent on f—ing up our planet at every possible oppertunity!

Since I last wrote on this website, I have gone on to welcome many more lovely people to Charlie´s and enjoyed having a pint and the craic with them all – or *most* anyway!!!

We had a very busy September, October and, surprisingly, November. The first two weeks of December are always very quiet on the island, what with people at home getting ready for Xmas, whether they are going away or staying put. Our own band “Skin & Hide” took their holidays and we were glad to welcome Colin Munday and Diarmid Good over from Limerick and Cork to fill in. They played a “blinder” for the two weeks despite it being quiet and were followed by “The Chinese Firemen” who are a band put together in about 10 minutes! You would never have tought it….

We had “Skin & Hide” back onstage in one piece for 15th December which was our 1 Year Anniversary and they were joined by “The Broken Band” and “Pearl Necklace”. It was a fantastic night – just to sit there and think about everything that happened in our “loony asylum” over the last 12 months, all the people that came and went, my 4th son, Charlie, who is 18 months old and to see him exploring this crazy world that his wonderful mother Annie and myself brought him into. My eldest three, Barry, Shane and Ross are doing what all young fellows do between the ages of 16 and 23 – and doing it well, it seems! Small travis came into all our lives safely, much to the delight of Terry and Alex. Rumour has it that he is already after getting a modeling contract at 6 months old! Good job he has his mother’s looks!!!

It has been great to see people coming back again and again to Lanzarote and to Charlie´s a few times this year for the music and craic. This is the biggest compliment that can be paid to all of us involved in Charlie´s.

The only negative of 2007 was the fact that a great friend of mine – and a great character – Johnny Scannell, has been in a coma for 6 months now. Our thoughts and prayers go out to him for a speedy recovery and to his family Shirley, Siobhan and Margret. We are always thinking of ye and we keep up hope for 2008, if not before.

Looking forward to 2008, we have the honour of presenting Sharon Shannon and Aslan during February and March . They will all be followed every night by Skin & Hide. Limited tickets will be available on the door for these gigs and the doors will re-open at approx 11 pm for those who don’t have tickets. All of the above gigs will be from 9pm to 11pm approx.

For sure “the craic will be mighty” – as the Galway folk say!

We are organising a tour of Ireland with Skin & Hide from 10th May to 17th May. We will be playing gigs in Cork, Limerick, Galway, Belfast and Dublin during that week. More about that as we get better organised in time! We look forward to meeting friends of Charlie´s along the road at home.

We will be organising more acts for Charlie´s for the autumn of 2008 as well, but again, more about that in time – any suggestions welcome on the guestbook page.

At the end of 2007 we can say that we had a great craic, met great people, and we and all our families are all healthy. Roll on 2008 and plenty more of it…

From myself, Anna, Terry, Sarah, Steve, John, Massimo, Shaky, Sergi, Widgeon, Pearl Necklace and The Broken Band, may we all THANK YOU for your custom, wish you a Happy Christmas and a peaceful 2008.

Long live Charlie´s Staff and Customers!

Drink Sex Feck Arse Fags!!!!