Category Archives: Misc

Above from left: Artists Una Sealy, Helen Steele, Robert Ballagh and Jill & Gill and Asbestos

Ah here,

This morning.

Dublin 2.

The launch of the Incognito art sale in aid of the Jack and Jill Children’s Foundation, where the sleb artist’s identity remains a mystery until the sale closes.

Each artwork costs €65, with all funds raised going to support Jack and Jill’s ‘in-home specialist nursing care, respite support and end-of-life care for children with highly complex and life-limiting medical conditions up to the age of six’

The collection goes live this Thursday with the sale on April 21.

Register here.

Leon Farrell/Photocall Ireland

This morning/afternoon.

Foxrock, county Dublin.

Mourners leave The Church of Our Lady of Perpetual Succour folowing the funeral mass for Irish cameraman Pierre Zakrzewski, who was killed covering the conflict in Ukraine on March 14.

Above from photo number three: Nick Zakrzewski (brother of Pierre); Ambassador of Ukraine to Ireland Gerasko Larysa (left) with Pierre Zakrzewski’s widow Michelle; Minister for Foreign Affairs Simon Coveney (centre) and Pierre Zakrzewski’s mother Marie-Ange (right).

Sasko Lazarov/RollingNews

Graham Coe – Right By My Side

At the end of a storm…

A songsmith from Blessington, County Wicklow, Graham Coe (top) finds a light in the darkness of the past 2 years on his new single.

To quote the press blurb:

“The song tells of a musician’s lament about the loneliness, uncertainty and numbness of long days during the pandemic and the realisation of having a strong partner and family by your side can help you through these tough times.”

Chris O’Brien and Graham Murphy from The Production Suite, Dublin, were behind the controls.

Nick says: A Wicklow lullaby.

Graham Coe

2010

2017

Are you a woman?

Working in music?

Read on.

The Oh Yeah Music Centre, Belfast writes:

Calling all women in music to participate in the ‘Women’s Work’ photocall at Oh Yeah Music Centre [15-21 Gordon St, Belfast] on April 8 at 4:30pm.

Whatever your contribution to our music community we want you in on this, so we are calling all musicians, bands, producers, programmers, curators, djs, promoters, managers, engineers, educators, marketing, pr and media, facilitators, mentors, festival teams and more.

We need 100+ attendees to better our 2017 attempt, which was a lot of fun and a proud endorsement of all the incredible women blazing a trail in our scene.

Details here

What you may need to know

1. Apple TV+’s Roar, starring and executive produced by Nicole Kidman, is based on Cecelia Ahern’s book of short stories of the same name.

2. GLOW alumni Betty Gilpin and Alison Brie reunite with Liz Flahive and Carly Mensch, creators of the Netflix wrestling comedy-drama series.

3. The cast include Meera Syal (Yesterday), Fivel Stewart (Atypical) and Kara Hayward (Moonrise Kingdom). In addition to Kidman and Brie, they join previously cast Cynthia Erivo and Merritt Wever.

4. The series, will feature eight, half-hour episodes, each told from a female point of view.

5. Among them are the following:

Gilpin will play Amelia, a woman so strikingly beautiful that her husband builds her a shelf to sit upon in their home.

Syal will play Anu, a woman stuck in a lackluster marriage who decides to shake up her life and return her husband to the very store she first purchased him from.

Stewart will play Jane, an angsty teenage girl who loves horses and doesn’t love much of anything else these days; she embarks on a revenge journey when her father is murdered.

Hayward will play Millie, the preacher’s daughter and Jane’s childhood friend — the last person you’d want to bring on a revenge journey with you.

6. G’wan Cecelia, in fairness.

Andy’s verdict: Rarr.

Release: April 15 on Apple TV.

Pat Davitt, chief executive of the Institute of Professional Auctioneers & Valuers

This morning.

A total of 6,824 private landlords left the market between 2018 and 2020.

Why are they leaving during ‘good times’?

Via Pat, Davitt, of the Institute of Professional Auctioneers & Valuers:

Other organisations have documented in budget submissions and elsewhere how poor an investment proposition it is now to invest in residential property, given that one pays over 50 per cent of rental income in tax and with capital gains of 33 per cent on the sale of such property. Commercial property investment is treated much more favourably by comparison, with some very attractive tax breaks.

Exacerbating the issue is the unequal treatment between private landlords within Rent Pressure Zones. Where properties are on a first rental and in cases where properties have not been rented for a two-year period, landlords are free to charge market rent – or in other words, the rent the market will bear.

Other private landlords in the same areas are confined by the RPZ legislation to minimal increases. Those worst-hit, ironically, are those who didn’t rush, as many did, to increase their rents to market level before the RPZ rules took effect in December 2015.

What is not often understood is how this differential impacts the value of one’s property when selling on. A tenanted property rented at 50 per cent of market rent, will achieve only 50 per cent of the market value of that property as an investment property.

This forces affected landlords to end tenancies and gain vacant possession so that they can achieve market value by selling the property to an owner-occupier. The tenant has to find another property at much higher rent or face becoming homeless, adding to the problems for the State.

Private landlords would be willing to sell tenanted properties if they could get market value. Other investors would buy them, just like in several other countries were it not for the unfair restriction imposed via the current RPZ legislation…

Anyone?

Why are private landlords selling up despite record rents? (Pat Davitt, Irish Times)

Pic: via IPAV

This morning.

Charlotte Quay, Dublin 2.

Ronan Brady from Escape Boats Dublin writes:

On the first Tuesday of every month we will be donating our entire day’s takings to a charity chosen by the public. We have a survey open to anyone to vote for a charity of their choice. The vote closes the day before the ‘Chooseday’ and the charity with the most votes receives the full donation.

In fairness.

Vote here

Charity Chooseday (Escape Boats Dublin)

Escape Boats Dublin

This morning.

Brown Thomas, Dublin 2.

Jodie Delany writes:

The first ever Moët Hennessy Champagne Destination in an Irish retail space offers customers the opportunity to explore and discover the world’s best known champagnes houses, including Moët & Chandon, Veuve Clicquot, Ruinart, Krug and Dom Perignon..

Interactive digital touch screens offer the chance to whisk you away to the heart of Epernay, where customers can learn more about each Maison’s blends, tasting notes, food pairings and more; while a new Moët & Chandon personalisation service, exclusive to Brown Thomas Dublin, allows for an extra touch to be added to a gift celebrating a loved one’s birthday, engagement, graduation or other…

Finally.

Pics: Allen Kiely

Last night.

Washington DC, USA

US President Joe Biden stood by his belief that Vladimir Putin should not be president of Russia, telling reporters that he made “no apologies” for his unscripted remarks.

Via Huffington Post:

“I’m not walking anything back,” the president said..

“I was expressing moral outrage, and I make no apologies,” he added.

Speaking in Poland at the end of his four-day trip to Europe on Sunday, Biden said of Putin, “For God’s sake, this man cannot remain in power.”

The line came at the end of a 27-minute speech and was ad-libbed by a president famous for doing so.

Joe Biden: ‘No Apologies’ For Saying Putin ‘Cannot Remain In Power’ (Huffington Post)

Meanwhile…

Ah here.

Getty