Programme! Get yer programme!

While I was over I got along to see Celtic's wins over Motherwell and Kilmarnock.

There is a great stall out the back of the Lisbon Lions stand (Janefield Street) that sells Celtic match programmes going back to the 50's and 60's. Some of the ones from European ties in particular are beautiful. I bought these two back with me: games against clubs from two cities I visited during the summer. The Red Star Belgrade challenge match programme features an article about Celtic's record (up to then) against Eastern European opposition - from this I discovered that the home tie against Wisla Krakow in 1976 ended 2-2 before Celtic were knocked out of the competition in Poland in the second leg, losing 2-0 on the night and 4-2 on aggregate. My scant internet research into the outcome of the Red Star challenge match has yielded no results as yet.



The guys who run this stall keep a website: Glasgow Programmes. They have a huge collection for sale from a whole variety of Scottish and English clubs down the years. Some other Celtic covers taken from this site I am fond of:

Disappearing Crafts and Culture

Ray Flynn retired from the Department of Visual Communication in NCAD this year. Last weekend I visited a small exhibition of his photographic work in Colman Doyle's, Wexford town. Over the last 30 years Ray has travelled all over Ireland, capturing images of traditional Irish crafts and craftspeople. This collection of black and white images - silver gelatine prints developed at home by the man himself - was on show as part of this year's Wexford Opera Fringe Festival.


Detail from 'The Village Postman', taken in Co Wexford, 1972.



The prints are a small selection taken from a wider collection Ray will publish as a book in the near future.

"These images are made up of studies of craftspeople in Ireland working in their own environment. They are sure to remind some viewers of how things were done, by hand, before the Industrial Changes, Celtic Tiger and Digital Revolution, forming a visual trip down memory lane. The exhibition should be of educational value for younger viewers who may never have the opportunity to see many of these traditional crafts in real life. The same could be said of the fine examples of Irish culture, which make up the second element of this exhibition."

If it ain’t Dutch it ain’t much*… pt 2

A few flyers that caught my eye. Cyan and Magenta overprinted on cheap and cheerful flimsy brown packaging paper... fluorescent inks and wonky trapping... unusual abstract imagery and photography.

If it ain’t Dutch it ain’t much*… pt 1

*A saying of my old mate, Peter Van Den Berg of Skills Netherlands. The quality, quantity and diversity of graphic design and printed material that surrounds you in the two cities I visited was incredible. Here are a some covers of several theatre guides/listings magazines picked up at the big discount ticket office at the Stadsschouwburg. Simple and clean use of san-serif type, and interesting print finishes (Rozen: gorgeous metallic red logotype and edging that appears black here but take my word for it) and binding (Toneelgroep: glued crudely down open spine)

Never, Netherlands

I spent a brilliant four days last week in Holland, two nights in Amsterdam and two nights in Rotterdam. It is the first time I have visited the country. The two cities are very different in both appearance and feel, but are both fantastic. I flew to Charleroi Airport outside Brussels on a cheap Ryanair flight (€30). From here it is possible to get a regular town bus down to the train station for €2.50, and a train straight to Amsterdam Centraal via Brussels Midi for €27 (U26/youth fare). The whole journey took about 4 hours, with a half hour wait and time for a coffee in Brussels; direct fares to Amsterdam from Dublin that day would have cost way, way more. That time flies anyway as you cross the region; the sprawling factories, yards and quaint, quiet towns of the Belgian countryside and the windmills, waterways and endless fields of the neighbouring Netherlands. Then, via Rotterdam, Den Haag, Lieden and Schipol... you get to Amsterdam. And things are never the same again.

Stamp collector

With all this talk of stamps... here are a few nice ones dug from the mounds of postcards, books, records etc collected on a recent 2 month adventure in Europe. I am slowly getting this hoard together and hope to put up another blog to present my findings over this time. A retrospective visual diary, if you will. If you like the sound of that, check back: link will be up here soon.