Frank Taylor

@vinnyfitz wrote:

I mean, where on earth would one go for a pint after the show?

Joxer Dalys or the Waxies Dargle. You can try out your cod Sean O’Casey Dublin accents on the salt of the earth in these fine establishments. I’m sure you will be received with open arms.

Originally posted by Devin
I have never heard An Taisce “lamenting how God-awful these bungalows look”.

My apologies if this was unfair paraphrasing.

Originally posted by kefu
I’ve always suspected that any congestion charge introduced in Dublin could not apply to people who are resident inside the border of the Grand Canal and the North/South Circular Roads.
Otherwise, you would have to pay a fee just to visit your own home.

In London, inner city residents still have to pay the congestion charge but get a 90% discount.
http://www.cclondon.com/downloads/ResidentsLiving.pdf

He gave me a helpful answer in the ‘Ireland says no to PVC’ thread.

I live in a property with 7 year old PVC windows that, for various reasons, I can’t replace.

Is it possible to paint them- maybe by ‘keying’ them first. I asked one friend who advised me against, saying they would peel and look like a decaying caravan.

I really hate the front door. it’s made of a huge hunk of white PVC moulded into a mock georgian shape with a mock victorian knocker. It has a lip at the bottom to trip you up. You need a key to lock the door from the inside (no latch is fitted on this door type as standard). So if the house went on fire and I couldn’t find my key, bad luck. So I just started leaving the door open with the handle pushed up. Then the toddler let himself out and had to be returned by a neighbour. I had a latch fitted but the locksmith told me that new lock fittings tend to fall off PVC doors after a few years as the screws just slide out of the plastic. One day a six foot sliver of white plastic just fell off one side of the door. I couldn’t see its purpose or how to reattach it so I chucked it out. The letter box flaps have broken off on the inside. i often see this door type on other houses and I wonder why such a crap product has won market share from one that worked fine before (wooden door).

Some of the window frames have cracked from kids climbing on them. Others have been spattered with paint or otherwise discoloured. The opening mechanisms are ugly and lumpy and some have broken off.

Anyhow, can I paint them?

The crossing between Trinity College and the traffic island facing the Westin has for many years been a pedestrian bottleneck between the Northside and the Southside. It would make a huge difference to change the traffic light sequencing in favour of the pedestrians as Ken did in Trafalgar Square a couple of years back.

Originally posted by Diaspora
It sounded like the pedestrainisation of College Green is “agreed”

I hope it comes to pass, Dublin would benefit enormously.

How would this work? Would the stretch of road passing the Bank of Ireland have to stay open to cars to allow traffic from Dame street on to Westmoreland Street? What about traffic from D’Olier street that goes across college green towards Westmoreland Street?

Is there no room in architecture for humour? Not all buildings have to be beautiful or well proportioned or matched with their surroundings.

This building makes me smile. It lifts my spirits when I catch sight of it. It’s full of personality. Pompous and oversized, maybe- but it’s funny. Does it not make you laugh?

Maybe the owner built it as a way of making a rude gesture to his wealthy neighbours. Maybe he is taking the piss out of conservationists.

It must be galling to spend so much of your time as architects struggling to comply with planning regulations and then see something like this get through. However, would Dublin’s architecture not be more entertaining if the rules were relaxed to allow more comic structures like this? After all, the land is so valuable around D4 that if the next owner thinks it’s rubbish he’ll just knock it down and build a new one.