{"id":291,"date":"2008-01-22T18:13:25","date_gmt":"2008-01-22T18:13:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gaisan.com\/wordp\/?p=291"},"modified":"2008-01-22T18:13:25","modified_gmt":"2008-01-22T18:13:25","slug":"why-the-planet-is-so-lonely","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gaisan.com\/blogs\/?p=291","title":{"rendered":"Why the planet is so lonely"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Like many of the irish population I listen to the Last Word on <a href=\"http:\/\/www.todayfm.com\/\">Today FM<\/a> regularly while travelling home from work. Today I managed to catch a section on the Lonely Planet guide&#8217;s description of certain Irish towns and counties. A link to the press release on the Irish section of the guide can be found <a href=\"http:\/\/www.lonelyplanet.com\/pressroom\/news\/press_release.cfm?press_release_id=345\">here<\/a><br \/>\nThe section was typically Dublin focussed with most of the interview covering the guide&#8217;s comments about Temple Bar. Lads, you&#8217;ll never achieve any decentralisation if you don&#8217;t educate the pale about the rest of the country. Surely it&#8217;s worth pointing out there are places where you can get to work in under an hour without having a multi-million euro mortgage and a helicopter.<br \/>\nHowever, at the end they mentioned the comments about Waterford.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><em><br \/>\nWaterford Town: \u201cAlthough that seedy port-town feel is still evident in places, the city has received a facelift in recent years. Pedestrianised streets and public artworks have improved the centre, and it\u2019s now a more attractive place to wander.\u201d (P184) <\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><\/em><br \/>\nNow, this back-handed and cack-handed complement is typical of the bluster that the editor Justin Bambridge tried to defend on Matt&#8217;s show. He made vague references to &#8220;proper research&#8221; but couldn&#8217;t articulate what this really consisted of. There are not &#8220;seedy places&#8221; in Waterford <b>CITY<\/b>. I can only think of a few square metres in the town that could be described as &#8220;seedy&#8221;. I can assure the reader that having grown up in Waterford if there was any more seediness to find, my intrepid group of friends would have found it. I kinda wish they&#8217;d included some photos of all this licentiousness.<br \/>\nWhile we&#8217;re at it, I&#8217;ve found greater need to <em>&#8220;take care after dark&#8221;<\/em> in the &#8220;cultural centre&#8221; that is Kilkenny or the <em>&#8220;buzzing with energy&#8221;<\/em> Cork than in Tralee. As for Dublin, I&#8217;ve seen more alcohol-related fights in Dublin on my ocassional nocturnal outtings there than many years spent in Waterford and frequent trips abroad. I suppose depending on their mood the writers would thus describe Dublin as &#8220;having something for everyone&#8221;.<br \/>\nPerhaps the planet is lonely as it&#8217;s so goddamn smug.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Like many of the irish population I listen to the Last Word on Today FM regularly while travelling home from work. Today I managed to catch a section on the Lonely Planet guide&#8217;s description of certain Irish towns and counties. A link to the press release on the Irish section of the guide can be [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1705],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gaisan.com\/blogs\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/291"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gaisan.com\/blogs\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gaisan.com\/blogs\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gaisan.com\/blogs\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gaisan.com\/blogs\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=291"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/gaisan.com\/blogs\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/291\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gaisan.com\/blogs\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=291"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gaisan.com\/blogs\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=291"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gaisan.com\/blogs\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=291"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}