The Blindboy Podcast - I walked through Limerick in the rain instead of gigging Glastonbury

Episode Date: July 3, 2024

I walked through Limerick in the rain instead of gigging Glastonbury Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome to the Bardshit District, you barbiturate Bridgets. It's the Blind By podcast. If this is your first episode, consider going back to an earlier episode to familiarise yourself with the lore of this podcast. It's desperately humid here in Limerick. Humid, hot, misty, drizzly, drinkable weather, I call it. The weather that, if I'm ever anywhere that's incredibly hot and dry, like if I'm in the south of Spain, or the barren, arid

heat of the West of Australia part. This specific weather in Ireland is what I would pang for, I'd long for it. It's the weather that reminds you, Ireland is a rainforest. Ireland is a mid-atlantic rainforest. We just don't have any trees left. We haven't had those trees for over a thousand years, but we live in a rainforest, a desertified rainforest. And in July, we get this thick humidity, a gossamer veil of mist that deceives you. Raindrops so small that you assume they can't get you wet, but you step out on it for a minute and you're soaked. And you'd think what I'm describing here is unpleasant.

We're talking about very, very high humidity. Like, I don't know what humidity it is now. Hold on a second. Hey Siri, what's the humidity today? The humidity will be up to 70% today. 70% humidity. And it can go up as far as 90 or 95. It's not sticky because there's such a stinging freshness to it.

This is a beautiful cold mist with an ambient heat behind it. My favorite thing to do in this weather is to put on a pair of swimming shorts and go for a bare chest run. I'd do it in the nip if it wasn't illegal. It's summer heat, we are consistently being sprayed by a cold fragrant mist. And this rainy mist, it not only awakens smells from plants, it carries those smells in the mist. It feels like a conversation with the plants. Nettles. Nettles all of a sudden going what's the crack man I have a bit of a smell of a blackberry off me did you know that? No I didn't Mr. Nettle I didn't know that at all. Yesterday I walked past these hanging

baskets hanging baskets in the street they smelt like a freshly opened condom that sex bang of latex. It was so powerful I had to stop and investigate the hanging baskets to see if someone had put a condom in there. They didn't. There were these little pansies, purple looking pansies that are just like, did you know I smell like rubber? On a humid day I did not know that Mr. Pansy. Thank you so much for letting me know. That's incredible. When you go out and walk in this thick,

misty July rain, most people avoid it because you get so wet. If you go out and walk in it, especially amongst vegetation, and it doesn't matter what vegetation, this could be weeds, when you go out and walk in it, it feels like you're stumbling upon a moment that all the plants are having a chat with each other using smells and there is a reason for it. I had to find out. So very very light rain causes plants to release terpenes which are a plant's smell and the humidity and the lack of the breeze makes these smells hang in the air a bit more, hang in the moisture

and then also there's oils and resins on the surface of the plants that get awoken in light rain and then the soil has a smell too, you know that oily smell that you associate with summer rain. It's called the Petrichar effect. There's these little bacteria in the soil called geosmin and they get disturbed when it's raining and they release this this kind of oily smell. So I'm like wow okay this this is real this is a thing that happens. This is why it feels like the plants are having a chat using smells whenever I walk in this wonderful July humidity, and then I was thinking, but why? Why did I do this?

If why do all the plants release these wonderful smells, these strange smells, during this particular type of rain, and it's because this rain brings out the type of insects that want to eat those plants. Slugs, snails, caterpillars. These insects love it when it gets rainy and humid because it makes their predators less active.

Birds don't fly as much. When it's really humid and rainy, there's less visibility in this thick grey mist. So all the little insects that love eating plants they come out in this thick rain and say, it's time to have a banquet, this is our time to eat. We have the subterfuge of mist.

But then the plants are like, fuck this. So the plants release these strong smells, their tarpings and their oils to make them less tasty to the insects. That's probably why when I walked past that hanging basket and there was a pansy in there that smelled like a condom, that was that pansy's defense mechanism

to keep caterpillars away or whatever, that rubber home of a condom that I associate with having a ride is screams of terror and anxiety in pansy language. Nettles who I'm not a great fan of because they sting me. Nettles smell like black currants when they're afraid. What I'm trying to say is I think this is my favorite Irish weather. Hot misty July rain, more plants have panicked conversations with odours. So I was supposed to be at Glastonbury festival this weekend. It's a big festival over in England. They wanted me to do a live podcast and that maybe I'd chat to that band, Idols, at the live podcast.

I'm sure they would have said yes, because Idols listen to this podcast and I've met them before. But I wasn't at Glastonbury this weekend. I turned the gig down. For no other reason than I wanted to walk around in the misty rain and smell plants, and I appreciate that that answer might sound a bit mad. But I had to put happiness first. I've been gigging like a mad bastard since November since my book came out. I've been gigging almost every single week and I've been making a documentary. I've been doing a lot of stuff on top of this weekly podcast and I've had very little time to find the type of moments

of calmness where happiness exists. I wanted to take a break from touring this summer from doing gigs so that I can focus on things that I love. The things that I love are being by myself, exploring lots of ideas by myself, and then creating things. That's what I love doing. That's what I live for. So when the offer for Glastonbury came in, I said no, I don't want to do that gig. I know that doing Glastonbury would have been really beneficial for my career, my profile, all of that shit. But I have to protect myself from completely burning out. And festivals. Festivals are incredibly stressful for me. I really dislike festivals.

Even before, even before I fucking knew I was autistic, if someone would ask me, are you enjoying going to this festival? I'd say no, I don't understand festivals. It's just a loud field full of people. Why the fuck would I like that? That's hell. When I'm at a festival, I feel dizzy. There's way too of people. Why the fuck would I like that? That's hell. When I'm at a festival I feel dizzy. There's way too many people. They're all walking in different directions at once. Then there's multiple sources of loud music

in different directions. And finally there's the smell of festival, which you usually get on a Sunday. But on a Sunday when you arrive at a festival there's this collective hum. It smells a little bit like the porta potties but you know when you walk past a field of cows or a field of pigs and you get that smell it's the smell of cows it's the smell of pigs or goats it's the smell of goats well the smell on a Sunday at a festival that's the smell of human that's the smell on a Sunday at a festival, that's the smell of human. That's the smell of human. And something about that upsets me.

Because I like to view people as individuals. And I don't want to intimately experience the collective hum of human. It feels sad to reduce us all to one smell. So festivals aren't very enjoyable for me. And that doesn't mean I think festivals are shit. I have eyes. I see how much people enjoy festivals. For some people, festivals are like the best part of the year. I envy these people. I would love to enjoy a festival like that, but I just don't possess that gift. So this week, I'd like to speak about what I did instead of going to Glastonbury.

I walked around in the rain. I walked around in the rain by myself and had the most wonderful time. I've been doing mindful walks. I try and do a mindful walk once a day for like an hour. Longer if that's where it takes me. And a mindful walk, it's a walk where I put effort into concentrating on the present moment. I suppose the easiest way to describe a mindful walk

is to speak about what it isn't. What it isn't is going for a walk and then spending all my time on that walk, worrying about the future or worrying about the past. We've all done that. It's very possible to go for an entire walk and arrive back home and not really remember any of that walk because you spent the entirety of that walk in your head. Not in the present moment, not in the here and now. Focusing on worries, thinking catastrophically about the future, making unrealistic predictions about all the

terrible things that are going to happen in your life. Thinking about a negative interaction you had with someone a month ago, and then role playing a fantasy argument about what you should have said to them, and getting really pissed off. Or feeling really embarrassed and ashamed about something you said or did three years ago, and then you get back in home more stressed than when you left. And you kind of can't believe that you just went on a walk because you don't remember any of

the actual walk. So that's the opposite of a mindful walk. A mindful walk for me is it's when I actively focus on smells or sounds or the sensation of my feet on the ground or even if you like the music that you're listening to while you're walking, or a podcast or an audiobook that you're listening to while you're walking. If your attention is focused on a task in the present moment, and you're experiencing an ambient sense of calm while you're focused, then that's a mindful walk. And I do mindful walks to cultivate feelings of happiness. It's like I'm growing happiness and I grow happiness. I cultivate happiness through mindfulness which leads to a feeling of calmness and a feeling of safety. And then when I experience

calmness and safety in the present moment my mind starts to become curious and playful. And that's what I'm looking for. That's what I want. I want to feel so calm and relaxed that my thoughts are curious and playful. That's happiness. That's happiness to me. See, if I'm on a walk and I'm thinking, how dare that person say that to me six years

ago? Who do they think they are? If they were here right now, I'd say this. If I'm thinking that way in the middle of a walk, I then start to feel angry, clench my fists, clench my jaw. I'm defensive, I'm ready to fight. Emotionally, I'm a scorned toddler, but if instead I'm focusing my attention towards

the smell in the air, the quality of the rain, the sound of my feet, the quality and the pace of my breathing, making sure that I'm getting good deep breaths in my nose that are expanding my belly, then I start to feel safe, I start to feel calm, and emotionally, I'm not a scorned toddler, I'm not an angry toddler. I'm a little toddler who wants to play and have fun and experience the world with new eyes, feelings of curiosity and playfulness and joy and creativity. We can only experience these things when we feel calm and safe. Just like tiny little kids, a little child who's playing with their crayons and singing songs and absorbed in their task.

That's a happy child. That child feels safe and calm and we are all still that little child. But we have to be our own parents. We have to cultivate the feeling of safety and calmness within ourselves so that we can be playful children in our thoughts, in our emotions, in our actions. That's what brings me happiness. Going to Glastonbury doesn't bring me happiness. It might bring me a bit of notoriety, it'll bring me compliments, it mightiety. It'll bring me compliments. It might improve how other people see me. It will only bring me external things. But the humility of going for a fucking walk

into July Drizzle, where I'm listening to the patter of rain on leaves and really smelling all the different aromas in the air, that will bring me calmness and playfulness and happiness and curiosity. Like I mentioned earlier about like noticing the strong sense that plants give off in this July drizzle. First I have to notice that and then I have to feel calm enough and safe enough to ask why and to try and find out why. And the answer is beautiful. The plants are terrified of being eaten by insects. Their strong smells and aromas, which I experience as life-affirming and wonderful,

are actually screams of terror for the plants. It was a great moment of personal meaning. To be able to reflect on that, that brought me happiness and purpose. I could adjust as easily to the same walk and didn't even notice what the plants smelled like. So as I was walking around Limerick City this week, in the rain and the humidity, obviously I'm dressing appropriately. Head to toe, Gartex. Gartex pants, Gartex jacket. I've done entire podcasts on Gartex before. Full outdoor gear, completely dry, but my feet were getting a little bit wet because I wasn't wearing outdoor shoes.

I was just wearing regular casual casual trainers with cortex pants and cortex jackets. Now I've had a roll up to this point you can't go full outdoor gear unless you're up a mountain you can't go a hundred percent head-to-toe outdoor gear or you look like you've been through a difficult divorce. Now I'm joking when I say that, but there's an insecure part of myself that doesn't wanna, I don't wanna be 100% head to toe outdoor gear man. But this week I said fuck it. Fuck it. Why should I be doing these wonderful walks in the rain and then getting wet socks? Fuck that. So I went and bought proper, proper fucking hiking boots. They're as light as a feather.

They're as waterproof as a set of wellies. I could step into a river in these boots. They've got a steel toe cap. They feel like walking on a cushion of air. These fucking outdoor hiking boots are the best thing to happen to me all year. I look ridiculous. I don't even look like I've been through a difficult divorce. Do you know what I look like? I look like a middle-aged man who's preaching in the city centre, preaching Christianity in

the city centre. Do you know the way there's always a middle-aged man? Head to toe in outdoor gear. And he's after buying himself a little speaker and a microphone, and he has taken it upon himself, he's not part of a church, he has taken it upon himself to go to the city center with his little microphone on his outdoor gear, and he just screams at people about how they're sinning and how they need to repent from sin, and how he need to repent from sin and how he was once a sinner

but now he's not a sinner anymore and you must repent from sin and when you see this fella You know well, you're witnessing a person having a public mental health crisis But because he's preaching the word of Jesus Christ It's somehow a normal thing. Like what if I started doing that next week? Got myself a little microphone and a loudspeaker. Except I'm screaming about hope. When a pansy is frightened, it smells like a condom. And how if you ignore, if you ignore the smells of plants in rain, you're deaf to their screams

of terror. What if I start screaming that one? Shouting that in the street. In my Gore-Tex. And my wonderful outdoor boots. I'd get called a lunatic, but if I do the same shit about Christ, that's fine. So anyway, I'm dressed like a middle-aged, nervous breakdown Christian preacher. That's what I'm dressed like. And I don't give a fuck. I don't care. Because I can walk around in the drizzle, perfectly dry and comfortable,

and have mindful experiences. The feeling of these outdoor boats as I walk through mud and puddles brings me more happiness and joy than gigging at Glastonbury. This podcast is about happiness. Do I want to live my life for external approval? How I'm seen in the eyes of other people? Gigging at Glastonbury, that's pretty cool. People like you when you do things like that.

Do I want to seek out self-worth and happiness by trying to impress other people? Or do I do what brings me personal meaning? Walking around in the rain on my own, dressed head to toe in Gore-Tex and outdoor shoes, that's not going to bring me an awful amount of external approval. If someone I know went past in a car and they saw me walking slowly in the rain, staring at nettles, dressed like a divorced preacher, that's going to bring me the opposite of external approval. That's actually bring me the opposite of external approval.

That's actually gonna bring... That person who knows me would say to themselves, Jeez, he's not doing much with himself, is he? Fuck it, he's finally gone mad. What if instead the same person's on Instagram, and there I am at Glastonbury with a crowd, talking to idols, then they'll go, wow, amazing.

I'm jealous. The thing is, I've been getting that type of external approval since I've been in my fucking twenties. I've been doing festivals, I've been doing cold shit. Does any of that external approval bring me happiness? Not a fucking hope. None. Absolutely none. If you live your life searching for happiness in the approval of other people,

or searching for happiness in your achievements or your possessions, or searching for happiness in how your achievements or possessions can make other people jealous, that will only bring misery. If you've received approval, I don't know, you've got a promotion at work, you've got a nice car. Maybe, and I'm not fat shaming here, but some people, they might exercise and lose weight and as soon as this happens, people you know go, oh my god, you look amazing. External approval from other people can bring this very temporary boost in confidence that feels like a drug. The psychologist Carl Rogers called it the ideal self.

And when you base your happiness on other people's approval of you, you then become terrified of losing it. And it brings misery. You'll only begin to approve of yourself if you feel that other people approve of you. And if I'd have said yes to Glastonbury this weekend, the only reason I would have said yes is because of how I wanted to appear in the eyes of other people.

I wanted the Instagram likes. I wanted people who know me to go, wow, did you hear he was at Glastonbury? And I would have done this knowing that I would have risked burnout. I didn't have the social battery to go to a fucking festival in England for two days and put myself through that. So I made the choice to do something that brings me meaning.

Genuine meaning. Something that's truly core to who I am. Something that brings me joy and happiness and has fuck all to do with what other people think about it. I wanted to stay in Limerick and walk around in the rain on my own in full outdoor gear. I did that for me and I did it for my self-esteem and I did it for the humility of it and I don't regret it. And even when I looked at images of other artists at Glastonbury, the only regrets that came up

were really, really insecure regrets. Jealousy, envy, irrational fear that by not doing Glastonbury I'd destroyed my career. All irrational anxiety-based thoughts that aren't based in observable reality. It's always good for us to self-reflect and ask, are we doing something in our lives to seek out the approval of other people? Are you pushing yourself in the gym too hard? Like going to the gym is fantastic, it's very enjoyable.

I love going to the gym. Exercise is magnificent. Deeply enjoyable activity, but are you doing it for you or are you putting yourself through stress and pain or a restrictive uncomfortable shit diet just so you can look a certain way for the approval of other people? Are you putting yourself in debt because you'd like to impress people with a car? Do you have a car that's a bit too expensive? Are you creating stress in your life with

credit card bills so that you can buy clothes that impress people that you can't really afford? Are you doing this because you're pursuing happiness? Well, none of that's going to bring happiness. It might bring temporary blasts of joy that you'd be terrified of and that you'd be afraid of losing. And you'd consistently compare yourself to other people, whether positively or negatively.

So what can you do that's unique to you, that legitimately brings you a sense of joy? For me, it's as simple as going for mindful walks that bring about a feeling of calmness and safety, which then allows me to think in a curious and creative way. That's all I want. What's your thing? What's your real self? What do you love doing

as a child? What simple humble activity brings you value from within? Other people don't even come into it. What they think about this doesn't matter. This is something that gives you value from within. Is it something to do with animals? Is it being kind to it? What they think about this doesn't matter, this is something that gives you value from within. Is it something to do with animals? Is it being kind to strangers? Is it playing with a colouring book, painting pictures that you don't show anyone? Is it knitting? Is it spending wholesome quality time with people that you love? What makes you feel calm and safe? What makes you happy with who you are when you go to bed at night time and close your eyes. So I'd like to speak about the wonderful time I had on Saturday when I should have been in Glastonbury. It was a particularly humid day with a wall of drizzle. The type of rain that makes electrical pylons hum.

Smells were strong, hanging in the air. Unfortunately there's a street called Bedford Row in Limerick where thousands of starlings shit. It's called the Birdshit District and unfortunately the smell of barge shit is particularly strong all over the city because of this street in that July rain. I was sniffing hanging baskets, I was sniffing weeds, thistles, nettles, but I wanted to immerse myself in greenery. Specifically what I wanted was, I wanted to be in a net of Irish rainforest, which is a very hard thing to find. Even out in the countryside, it's difficult to find

untouched net of Irish rainforest. Either the trees have been introduced or there's, you know, spruce trees and pine trees. Indigenous untouched forest exists, but you have to really look for it. Now I actually found, about a year ago, I found a tiny patch of native Irish forest in the middle of Limerick city. It's a tiny patch. I've taken photographs of it, I've shown it to an expert. They confirmed this is an untouched patch of woodland. It's a little pocket of rainforest. This is what the land is supposed to look like. It's on an island in the middle of Limerick City, an island called Grove Island, and it's directly

across the way from a hotel called The Absolute Hotel. It's a small patch of land by the river, which is impossible to access by foot, and has always been too marshy to build on. It's in full view. It's a perfect, tiny little island, with a city growing all around it. If you go to the Absolute Hotel in Limerick and look across the little river, you look at that patch of green, that's native Irish rainforest. It's tiny, it's barely a quarter of an acre.

There's ash trees there, there's reeds, it's completely overgrown. There's moss on the trees, there's no rubbish, it's untouched. You can see it on Google Maps, just go to the Absolute Hotel in Limerick, and it's that patch of green, in full view, but people just ignore it.

Now the drizzle was heavy but I was head to toe, gar-tex, no rain penetrating me really dry and that morning I just bought those new fucking hiking boots so I was feeling confident and I'm like I'm gonna get to that patch, I'm gonna get over to that patch. And I'm gonna spend some time in untouched native Irish, native limerick rainforest. I wanted to know what the smell would be like. I wanted the land to speak to me in the July drizzle. There's wildflower in there. What does indigenous fucking Irish rainforest smell like?

This forest that has evolved to breathe in that July mist. What truth is in those odors? So I walked over and I tried to access it. There's this apartment complex called Grove Island. I tried to hop a wall, it wasn't happening. This tiny forest is literally an island. You're not getting onto this island on foot, not happening, deep water. You actually can't get to this little piece of forest. It's right there in plain view. The only way to get onto this piece of forest is by boat. And then I thought maybe that's for the best. This is wild forest. Maybe I don't need to be walking all over it in my outdoor boots.

I know from speaking to Mankon Magon, Mankon tries to plant ancient forests on new land. And he does this by scouting hedgerows and bits of countryside to find old forests. And then he'll take a little bit of a tree or dig something up and try and plant a forest from that. But Mankhan told me the most important thing about an ancient forest is the network of fungus in the soil. It's not just a matter of transplanting a tree and trying to start a new forest from that. The mycelium in the soil is very important, so maybe it was a good thing that I couldn't actually step onto this forest and start disturbing the silo at my feet. Maybe it needs to be left so that humans don't walk on it. So I decided instead I'll just go across the river to the Absolute Hotel, sit down and get a coffee in their smoking area and

then observe the forest. I'll just stare at the native forest as it lies across the river, all windy and tangly and green. So that's what I did. So I'm sitting in the absolute hotel in their outdoor area looking across at this forest. Really present in the moment, very happy, having wonderful curious thoughts. What I couldn't believe was, I was literally sitting on the old medieval wall of Limerick. Limerick was built in the 8th century by Vikings, and Limerick was a series of islands. And where I was sitting at the Absolute Hotel was literally where the walls of Limerick were, the old medieval walls of Limerick were, the old medieval walls of Limerick. And I'm looking across at the little forest and I can't believe that

it's been untouched for all that time. It's too marshy. You couldn't build anything on it so people just let it be. Everything was built around it, right beside it is a canal. There used to be a brewery, a brewery just to the right of the island that shut down in the 1800s. But I'm sitting on the the oldest parts of Limerick City, 1200 years old, and where I'm drinking my coffee that's on top of the old city walls that are now gone. But the thing is with any old city, any old city that had walls, something you can be guaranteed of is that diabolical shit happened outside those walls. And I remembered back in 2005 when they were building the Absolute Hotel. Now Absolute, that's a global hotel brand.

In 2005, that was the height of the Celtic Tiger, this period of excess and economic strength in Ireland. And I remember when they were building the Absolute Hotel because everyone was dead excited. You see that area of Old Limerick, that would have been like a slum. Unused buildings, far and apart, completely derelict, and we couldn't believe, fucking hell, we're getting a big giant absolute hotel.

My god, look at us, because Limerick's a poor city. But as I mentioned, they were building the hotel on the city walls, and when they started to dig those foundations, all these skeletons started showing up, and the hotel, the building got stalled. And what became apparent is that, because it was just outside the old Limerick city walls, all throughout the medieval period up until the 1800s, whenever there was a plague or disease in the city, the bodies were very quickly thrown over the city walls and buried in the ground. And now people weren't that excited about the hotel anymore. I remember it, I went down there. There was all these skeletons being dug out of the ground, we couldn't believe it. It was skeletons on top of skeletons. Centuries of

different burial grounds on top of each other and it was the nature of the burial that upset people. It was the fact that these bodies were thrown over the wall, that they were dangerous, hazardous, frightening. People started to say you can't build a fucking hotel on that. Something about this isn't right. I'm not staying in a fucking hotel that's built over several hundred years of disturbed burial grounds. Everything about this feels wrong. This hotel would be haunted.

This hotel would be plagued by bad luck and all the old Irish superstitions start to come out and now people don't want this fucking absolute hotel and I remember it at the time really challenging our sense of identity because like I said it's 2005 it's the Celtic tiger we're starting to view ourselves as modern cosmopolitan European but then at the same time, people were gathering around the foundations to look at the skeletons and these older superstitions were coming up. There was talk of fairies, there was talk of banshees and puka. No limerick builds over the burial ground, but all medieval superstitious limerick, that doesn't fuck with burial grounds. And then what happens is the hotel announces that it's not just going to be a hotel, it's going to be a swimming pool.

There's going to be a beauty centre in there. Then people change their mind, they're like okay maybe if there's a swimming pool I'll go to a haunted swimming pool. But also in 2005, before the recession, Limerick was becoming Ireland's party city. We'd shit loads of strip clubs. We'd massive night clubs, I mean fucking huge night clubs where international DJs would come. Limerick was the center of Ireland's drug trade. There was drug gangs, there was gang wars. If you'd have said to people in 2005, this is before the recession, if you'd have said to people in 2005, what do you think of Limerick? The general vibe outside of Limerick

and in Limerick was, of course there was the negative, oh this is Stab City, it's gang infested, it's full of crime. But the flip side of that is, this is going to be Ireland's party city. Like Jordan, Jordan, the glamour model at the height of her fame. She came to Limerick to go on the lash with a lot of her friends. In 2004, Brian McFadden from Westlife was getting married to Kerry Katona

and he had his stag party in one of the strip clubs in Limerick. This was big news. We were a city of nightclubs and excess and drugs and parties and vice and the big absolute hotel that was going to be the centre of this. That's where all the cool people were going to stay when they were having their big night out in Limerick. Celebrities were going to come and stay in the hotel. Stag parties from England, we were going to have an entire night time economy. This was the plan.

And the absolute hotel, that was gonna be the center of this. In 2005, that was fancy as fuck. An international hotel chain, common to Limerick, that was fancy as fuck. Back then, it was a big deal. So everyone was excited for the opening. We still had the old lads going.

They're after building it on a graveyard, something terrible is gonna happen, something bad will happen, there'll be bad luck. So what happened was, the Absolute Hotel Group, were an international group, they failed to research the intricacies

of the local Limerick dialect. So in Limerick, we used the word absolute a lot to insult someone. You absolute prick. You absolute gull. You absolute gummy. You absolute langer. And also another insult in Limerick, a big insult, is the word spa. Spa is short for spastic. So what happens when the Absolute Hotel opens in Limerick? In big giant neon lights on the front of the hotel I mean fucking massive it says Absolute Spa. People lost their shit. Imagine a hotel being called Stupid Cunt.

Imagine that. Imagine you're going to a city and the big hotel is called Stupid Cunt and it's up there in neon lights. They called the hotel Absolute Spa. People didn't find it funny. It was mass embarrassment. People were calling to the hotel. Are you serious? Do you know what you're about to call on your hotel? You can't call a hotel Absolute Spy in Limerick. You just can't do that. You can't do that. You have to remember in Limerick too. I mentioned this on a podcast before. We've got the curse of St Munchen. We have a superstitious belief

in Limerick that we're plagued with bad luck. Because in the 9th century, the men of Limerick that we're plagued with bad luck because in the ninth century the men of Limerick refused to help St Munchen build his church. So St Munchen put a curse on us. So this was mortifying. You just had this huge glowing sign in the middle of the city centre that said Absolute Spare. I remember just being in shock. I wasn't embarrassed by it. I wasn't offended. I would look at the absolute spa sign every day and I'd almost pinch myself. I'd be with my friends going, look, look, it's the absolute spa. They're after calling it the absolute spa. And people would be like, we know, we know. Just imagine a hotel called Stupid Cunt. It was that bad. The sign lasted maybe three months and it had to be taken down. This was our tourist hotel. This was for cool DJs to stay in. You can't call a hotel absolute

spa in Limerick City. And everybody blamed the skeletons. Said this is what happens when you build a hotel on ancient burial grounds. The fairies will get you, because that's pure fairy shit. Fairies are tricksters you see. They mightn't harm you, but they'll make you look like a fucking idiot. They'll confuse you. The fairies will have you losing your way home or trying to catch you out and then you have to put your jacket inside out to try and confuse the fairies. The fairies will make an absolute spa out of you. They'll make you into an absolute spa. That's what the fairies. The fairies will make an absolute spa out of you. They'll make you into an absolute spa, that's what the fairies will do in Limerick parlance. And in Irish folklore and superstition, if you build over anything ancient, you're fucking

with the fairies. They'll get retribution, they'll come back and they'll play tricks. So all of that came flooding back to me. As sat in the absolute hotel as it's now known, staring across at that little island of indigenous rainforest in the heart of Limerick City. Let's have a little ocarina pause now, shall we? I've got a strange, quite a large ocarina here. You're gonna hear some adverts. How does this fucking work?

I can't operate this ocarina. Wendy's has a new breakfast deal. Mix and match two items of your choice for only $4. Breakfast wrap, biscuit, or English muffin sandwiches, small seasoned potatoes, or small hot coffee. Choose two for $4 at Wendy's. Available for a limited time at Participating Wendy's in Canada. Taxes extra. From your ghost Lentimos, the Academy Award nominated director of Poor Things and the Favorite, comes Kinds of Kindness, a darkly hilarious and unpredictable film that critics are calling mind-bendingly brilliant

featuring an all-star cast led by Emma Stone Jesse Plemons and Willem Dafoe Kinds of kindness is a wild ride that will leave audiences discussing the experience long after it's over Don't miss kinds of kindness now playing in select theaters Rainer lines of kindness now playing in select theaters. That's an ocarina from an ancient fucking burial ground, it won't work. It's this big stone thing that I was sent. It looks like a fairly decent ocarina, it's massive, but it obviously requires a technique that I don't possess. Not yet.

Support for this podcast comes from you the listener via the Patreon page, patreon.com forward slash the blind by podcast. If you enjoy this podcast, if it brings you marth, merriment, enjoyment, solace, distraction, whatever the fuck has you listening to this podcast, please consider funding it. All I'm looking for is the price of a pint or a cup of coffee once a month. That's it. But if you can't afford it, don't worry about it. You can listen for free. Patreon.com forward slash the blind by podcast. Also subscribe to the podcast on whatever app you're using. I always forget to fucking ask

people that. If you listen to this podcast, press the subscribe button or give it a review so that you don't miss any new episodes. I have no gigs to promote, because I'm taking the summer off to fucking relax and visit hidden forests and gar-tects. In September, I'm at the Cork Podcast Festival in the Opera House. I think it's September. Cork Podcast Festival is a good crack. There'll be lots of other events on as well. Two promoters, Joe and Ed, absolutely lovely fellas, who are worthy of your support. So I had a moment of synchronicity when I was in the Absolute Hotel.

I was being rained on, by the way, it wasn't covered. I was out there on my own in Gartex, no one else around on the terrace, drinking coffee that was being rained on. And little synchronicity connections started to jump up on the terrace drinking coffee that was being rained on and little synchronistic connections started to jump up between the absolute hotel site and the origins of crucifixion. I was paranoid that I looked like a street preacher. I was full Gartex including the fucking, including the hiking boots and I was a bit paranoid that I looked like a man who's about

to bust out a megaphone and start roaring about Christ, but I had Christ on the brain. Remember I mentioned, I said anytime you have the walls, the walls of any ancient city, you get a diabolical darkness around those walls. Well in ancient Rome, about 30 or 40 years before the birth of Christ, there was a hill called the Esquiline Hill. The Esquiline Hill in ancient Rome. And the Esquiline Hill in ancient Rome actually has many parallels to that site where the absolute hotel was built. The Esquiline Hill in ancient Rome, it was a hill just by the old walls of the city and it was a burial ground for slaves, for bodies that were discarded and so many slaves were buried on the Esquiline

Hill in Rome that vultures would just hang around there. These were slums. This was a place of death, but about forty years before the birth of Christ. The Esquiline Hill became heavily gentrified, because it was a hill high up above the city of Rome. Rich people started to build their mansions there, and they'd have to dig up the bones, the bones of slaves, to build those mansions. A fella called Gaius Macenus, he was a very wealthy Roman dignitary and patron of the arts. He built his gardens on the Esquiline Hill and 40 years before the birth of Christ, he built the world's first heated swimming pool on the Esquiline Hill over the bones of slaves. So because you've got this area now and you've got the world's first heated swimming pool

and these beautiful gardens and mansions, this Esquiline Hill becomes the most sought after, gentrified, lucrative area in ancient Rome, the elites start to move there. But even though it's mad posh, it's still near the gates of the city, it's near the walls, and at the base of the Escolin hill is the Escolin gate, and just beyond the walls of the gate, that's where slaves are being executed. The Roman economy depended upon slavery. Slave labor propped up all that wealth and the way that the Romans maintained slavery was through incredibly harsh punishment of slaves if they rebelled or refused to work. There were many different ways that slaves were being executed in ancient Rome. But by far, the

cruelest, most painful way to execute a slave was crucifixion, because it was slow, painful torture and it meant that the slave's body was on display for all to see. This is the price. This is the price you pay when you refuse to be a slave, when you go against the economy. And this Esquiline Hill place, because it had the first heated swimming pool, because everyone there was wealthy, everyone, the elite, the decision makers, they would watch from their hill and see all the slaves being crucified outside the city gates, outside the walls. So because they could witness this spectacle from their homes, all the wealthy elite agreed, yeah, this is the best way.

This is the worst criminals, you fucking crucify them. This crucifixion thing, that's the best way to do it. So crucifixion quickly, that's the best way to do it. So crucifixion quickly becomes the standard way of executing slaves and criminals throughout the Roman Empire. So then 60 years later, when Rome controls Jerusalem, there's this young fella called Christ who claims that he's the son of God. So the Romans give him the worst punishment imaginable, they crucify him. But if it wasn't for the invention of the world's first heated swimming pool, on the Esquiline Hill back in Rome, 60 years before that,

crucifixion may not have been the way that Christ was killed. And that's the synchronicity that I saw between the absolute spa in Limerick and the crucifixion. Two separate heated swimming pools, built on the outskirts by a wall on two burial grounds, both resulting in very controversial iconography that's hung up on display. The Absolute Spa sign and the Crucifix. So those are the thoughts I had last Saturday when I should have been at the Glastonbury Festival and I'm much happier that I stayed in Nimric and had a wonderful mindful afternoon, dressed like a divorced preacher.

In the drizzly July rain, dog bless, I'll catch you next week. Wink at a swan, take a lick hitting, but other all wasp... you Thank you. you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you. you