The Cedar Lounge Revolution

Tickets here or on door.

The Deviators bring their own brand of “Raw stomping sinister post punk mania” to the Annesley House , where they promise to blow the roof of the building while The Prongs will shake it to its foundation. But in the best way possible of course.

Not to be missed, The Deviators debut gig has been described as the equivalent of the GPO in 1916 or the Manchester Free Trade Hall in 1976 – anybody who missed such a legendary occasion had to lie and say they were there. 

This is the latest in the series of LOVE PEACE / HATE WAR gigs at the Annesley House, hosted by the Dublin 3 For Neutrality campaign.

All our shows have been sold out – DON’T MISS OUT !

Conor Pope in the Irish Times had this recently, organising, if that is the correct term, a holiday in Ireland using A.I. Now, having had reason to use so-called ‘A.I.’ closely and also, though not simultaneously, book various train journey’s across Europe recently it strikes me how useless the former is with relation to the latter. It took a process of hours to investigate routes, sign up to various rail providers, check connections, see that there were trains and those trains at the correct times and then purchase tickets.

Pope’s ‘A.I.’ assist was entirely cosmetic in that regard.

We asked ChatGPT to plan a weekend in Dublin for two adults and two children aged eight and 10, travelling from London on Friday, June 5th, and leaving on Monday, June 8th. 

Less than 45 seconds later it was back to say it had it all worked out. Sort of.

Plenty of recommendations:

“The main London airports with affordable options to Dublin are Gatwick, Luton, and Stansted,” our AI wannabe travel agent started earnestly, if obviously. “By early June, you can find good-value returns on budget airlines if you book soon.”

It suggested an early-morning Ryanair flight from Stansted with a Monday return, and told us the total cost would be less than £200 (€231) .

The Maldron in Smithfield was recommended as the best place to stay, with the online oracle promising a room with a double bed and two singles for €510 in total.

But lots of odd discrepancies:

As itineraries go it was grand, but what intrigued us more than the activities were the suspiciously low prices. For three nights in the Maldron on these dates,the best deal we could find was €1,036, or twice what the AI bot told us. 

The restaurant prices seemed out of whack too. When our fantasy family decided to have mains and desserts in Ely along with a fairly sober two pints of Guinness and two soft drinks, they easily wound up spending over €150 rather than the €80 ChatGPT told us to expect.

Even when using a supposedly more ‘tourist’ oriented ‘A.I.’ the results were… mixed:

It made some basic errors, telling us to have breakfast in Brother Hubbard on Capel Street – a long schelp from Croke Park – while the Bunsen it recommended was in Dublin 8, even though there are two Bunsens much closer to the Croke Park Hotel.

When we asked for a total cost of the trip, it said no. “Airial tracks flight and hotel costs but doesn’t provide detailed budgets for activities, meals, or other expenses. You’ll need to estimate those separately based on the suggestions I provide,” came the decidedly tetchy response.

Doesn’t this suggest that cutting out the A.I. and going and doing it by engaging directly with the elements of a stay – looking at maps, estimating distance, checking out hotels, etc, is actually more time effective?

But the fundamental problem is referenced in passing and in a slightly different context in the article:

Most AI bots aggressively search the internet, leaning heavily on positive reviews scraped off travel sites.

It’s not just the reviews, all the information is scraped from there too and it has no way of assessing is it correct or not because, of course, it does not and cannot analyse what it is at. It’s a fundamental error to place any store in what information is ladled out – or to assume that it is correct.

Sure, the article goes on to talk about the future, Agentic AI which is meant to act in a more proactive fashion, but why that should be any more trustworthy is not explained. Indeed explanations are not part of the process. One person is quoted as saying:

“If AI knows what you want and the kind of hotel you like to stay in and the experience you like, it can, over time, build up a picture of you,” he says. “At a conference recently I was told that we are not living in an era of change but in a change of era, and that really encapsulates it. It is fundamentally different way of thinking and doing things, and how travel companies react will be fundamental to their survival.”

What does this mean?

Surely the material reality is that there are hotels and they have rooms which they offer at various prices. There are locations and they offer services, sights, etc. There are means of transport and they run at certain times. Ultimately the decisions as to how to use those, or not, rests with conscious volition. For travel companies that remains exactly the same.

It is as if a layer has been interpolated between that reality and potential customers offering nothing and doing nothing that wasn’t available before (yet expending incredible amounts of energy while doing it). The current iterations cannot be depended upon. Future one’s do not as of yet exist. Yet we are told this is utterly world and economy changing.

One person is quoted as saying:

She reckons AI “definitely got me deeper” than more traditional Google searches.

But what is A.I. as is, other than a sort of cursory google search? And not an accurate one? One person notes that ‘when it comes to real-the information all the AI engines seem to fall flat on their ass’. Which is, if one thinks about it, incredible, given the emphasis placed on this. Again there’s this weird dynamic where people ‘use’ A.I. to do things they should do in the first place, and which they’ll have to do anyway.

Despite his misgivings, he uses AI regularly. “It does work, but you have to double-check things. If I’m going to a football match in Madrid and want to know what part of the city to stay in so I’m close to the Bernabéu, it will recommend places close the Metro line to the stadium. If you know the city well, you’d know this, but if you are not familiar with it, it can really help. And it can also learn things over time about how you like to travel, what you prioritise.

Can it? Is that additional information actually more than you’d find with a good map and guidebook?

As it happens for train travel across Europe, or the world, you don’t need A.I. You can go here, The Man in Seat Sixty-One. Schedules, mostly bang up to date, and links to train companies. Useful recommends on accommodation. The ability to plan journeys within Europe from one destination to another.

I did a bit of reverse engineering for this piece and fed in some of the parameters for the holiday into an A.I. One hotel was recommended that had been booked, but then that was directly beside a station, a no-brainer as it were (and given I’d booked months ago, not sure it’d be possible to afford it). Otherwise train times, the complexity of crossing a frontier or two where multiple train operators run, none of that was there. It’d be a start, sure, but again, no more useful than having a calendar and just going to Seat Sixty-One. It offered a list of dates that I have the paper and pen counter part – and even that wasn’t quite right.

What’s troubling is that people are waving in a supposed tech into their decision making that is not fit for purpose. As the Macalope column on Macworld noted earlier this year: Every attempt to make AI a product has failed or is having a lot of trouble getting off the runway.

Too few people in government, the private sector, education, wherever appear to understand this.

Starkadder in comments and a comment recently which really resonated with something I’d heard recently. They wrote:

Starkadder says:

June 21, 2026 at 1:59 pm Edit

The mainstreaming of conspiracy theories we mentioned makes me think about how the 2016-18 revival of “The X-Files” failed to make an impact. I think it was because the culture around conspiracy theories had changed so radically.

In the 1990s in Western societies, the Cold War was over, and the War on Terror was still in the future. Hence US society seemed relatively peaceful, and the lack of a “big enemy” fuelled an interest in conspiracy theories.

And being interested in conspiracy theories wasn’t seen by the general public as being unlikelably crankish back then. It was seen as a harmless hobby, like making model railways or collecting old comic books. 

It was possible for popular media productions of the time like “The X-Files”, the Oliver Stone film “JFK” and the Richard Donner film “Conspiracy Theory” to depict men obsessed with exploring conspiracy theories as sympathetic and heroic figures. 

We often saw a character standing in front of a pegboard with photos and documents connected with red string, explaining to a sceptical character how “It all makes sense! I’m telling you it’s all linked!” *

But 2016, Western society was now awash in conspiracy theories. Social media of the time was full of paranoid ruminations that had gone mainstream. Powerful figures like Donald Trump, Nigel Farage and Viktor Orban were enthusiastically promoting conspiracy theories to increase their followers. 

In this society, a Fox Mulder figure obsessed with secret plots, and who blamed the perpetrators of such plots for harming his family, would be depicted in most progressive-leaning film and TV shows as either pitiable or villainous. Certainly mainstream audiences would find it hard to see him as a heroic figure.

• This was a cliche amusing parodied in the “American Dad!” episode “Bush Comes To Dinner”.

The same weekend I’d heard an Incomparable podcast on All The President’s Men, famously centred on the Watergate scandal, and there was mention how little action there was in it. Empty car parks carried some of the weight of that. Of course, the X-Files took that an made it so much a part of their schtick in the 1990s that vast swathes of screen time was taken up with (on occasion more energetic) scenes in various Washington car parks.

In fairness it made sense, this was a television series based around conspiracy, and a conspiracy or conspiracies that were perhaps for most viewers a little more exciting than efforts to re-elect the President. It was also set in Washington, the protagonists were part of an FBI that had been infiltrated along with government and other institutions by those involved in the conspiracy (it was an FBI deputy director who was the ‘deep throat’ leaker in the original Watergate). It all tracks. Though it would, wouldn’t it?

But what’s striking, and Starkadder makes this point, is how empty conspiracy theories feel now. The return to the X-Files in the late 2010s was actually good, but the central conspiracy at the heart of it made little sense even then with a White House already tilting towards woo of various kinds, and even less sense with the current one. Numerous releases of near enough entirely useless files on UFO sightings bring us no nearer a conspiracy – they seem to sink the idea of one as it becomes more and more obvious that it’s what most thought all along: people misperceiving things in the sky. There’s near enough nothing there, nothing of any great interest and the newly released files seem thinner and thinner.

When the President of the United States himself – despite winning two elections, refuses to believe that he could have lost one, well, that’s not conspiracy, that’s stupidity. Not that that is going to make any difference to those utterly invested in the idea (not least himself). It’s the times. When anti-vaccine irrationality is the order of the day from the man nominated to oversee the health of the US, well, things are grim.

And I think the point about such theorising being fun is central to this. The sour tone of more recent theorising has a wounded aspect to it – not that that of the 1970s was less so, but the US for all its problems was somehow despite Watergate more confident, more at ease with itself, able to see the scandal as a scandal in a way that something today wouldn’t be seen as such, mired in partisanship and social media noise. Hardly surprising after relative economic decline, multiple crashes, conflicts that have seemed to bleed the country. Conspiracies were always dark, but they became darker, encompassing more people in their supposed net.

But where does this leave conspiracies? As Starkadder says, they seem flimsier, less consequential. When everything is a conspiracy, well then what’s the fun?

It’s as if once there were those in the White House essentially amplifying conspiracy theories from the fairly benign (if dumb) ones about UFOs through to vastly more problematic ones about vaccines – then somehow the lustre of conspiracy theories began to fade. After all, if there’s legitimation for them, or even just tolerance, at the highest levels of government then there’s no particular cachet in holding to them. When everyone is a contrarian then no-one is. Worse, the very fact of Trumps second season (I mean, of course, term), after the disaster of the end of his first itself invalidated numerous conspiracy theories. All those QAnon style ‘The Storm is Coming’ have been proven to be utter garbage as the supposed rounding up of Democrats etc has been conspicuous by its absence under Trump. Not that those who hold such beliefs fervently have disavowed them. Anything but. Yet the idiocy of much of that thinking is ever more obvious (in a way there’s an element of Brexit about this – the absurd predictions of ever more sunny uplands on foot of it were proven to be nonsense, but those who held them while retreating somewhat from Brexit found plenty of ammunition in other areas to hold on to).

As to the X-Files, perhaps one aspect that left the revisited series high and dry was the simple fact that Mulder and Scully were still working on the X-Files in the mid 2010s. All those years, decades, had passed and they’d achieved nothing. Nothing had moved forward, there was no resolution, no sense of closure. Absolutely true to the concept but near enough useless in a drama. They hadn’t changed, they couldn’t. The world had changed utterly, but their position in a focal point that was meant to peer into the ‘real’ truth behind everything had revealed nothing of consequence.

All those supposed fictional conspiracies had no particular impact one way or another – and in our actual reality, all the conspiracies playing out were, like it or not, in plain sight. Billionaires becoming trillionaires. Elites garlanding this planet with their satellites and rocket boosters. Amplifying the worst of the worst for political and material gain on social media platforms they own. Weakening social security nets and cutting taxes. Hucksters conmen and conwomen, grifters of every sort, seeing a chance to capture states and siphon off the proceeds.

There’s a lesson in that.

Mulder and Scully weren’t entirely ignorant of that (Joel McHale had a neat turn as a conservative news anchor), but all the fuss and nonsense didn’t address any of it to any real degree. And given the number of times both had been sidelined from the X-Files you’d wonder, you really would, had they ever thought join a union? Because ultimately the worst and most immediate threats are very much of this Earth.

There’s a lesson in that too.

Good point made by former President Mary McAleese when she noted:

Mrs McAleese compared people who use the Irish flag to intimidate and say “Ireland for the Irish”, to the “no Irish need apply” signs in the UK and the US.

“Do they know nothing about our history as immigrants?

“Do they know nothing about the impact of immigration-based racism on our people, have they no conscious about that?

And:

“I never thought I’d live to see that day in Ireland, where the Irish flag would be used by people like that, but it is all the more reason to say you will not colonise our thinking, you will not colonise our flag,” she said.

She made another point too:

The Belfast native said “other people tried in the past to do it for really malignant reasons that were visited upon us as Irish people but we will not let that happen to those who have made their lives among us”.

It’s remarkable looking at the way in which the flags here were an emulation of a British dynamic. Incredible really, as noted here on RTÉ:

And while Inevitable West’s intervention didn’t create the movement, it did tie it to UK flag-raising drives and cast it within a broader anti-immigration discourse.

The post read: “Irish patriots have joined the “Raise the Colours” campaign with flags being raised in Dublin.”

Across Britain, ‘Raise the Colours’ has seen supporters hang Union Jacks and St George’s Crosses on lampposts and homes. Right-wing groups backing the campaign say it’s a show of patriotism – critics say it’s actually intended as a show of nationalism, and opposition to immigration.

And:

And back in Ireland, groups with similar ideologies have been encouraging followers to ‘raise the colours’ at home — framing it as pride in Ireland while attaching it to anti-immigration talking points.

That use of the term ‘raises the colours’. Not sure I ever heard anyone refer to the Tricolour in that way – that seems very English.

As to the future, leaving them alone – at least on the part of the state/DCC – has been sensible. I like the Tricolour. I don’t like the way in which those who talk about patriotism use and abuse the flag – I remember in the Gaeltacht the respect shown to it when it was raised and lowered each day – not an empty flag worship, but the care afforded to a symbol (literally) of unity.

There’s not a hint of that care in the current way it is displayed – the rules of how it should be flown are very clear, and entirely ignored by the self-proclaimed patriots.

But it’s still our flag and it’s bigger than those who try to use it in ways that cut across its history and its meanings.

Hope Not Hate notes:

Exclusive polling, commissioned by HOPE not hate, reveals just how close a contest [this mayoral by-election in Manchester on foot of the departure of Andy Burnham] will be. A survey of 1,143 voters, carried out between 22 May and 5 June, found Labour on 33.2%, Reform 30.1%, Greens 12.5% and Conservatives on 11.1%.

Fuller details of the by-election here. HNH also notes there are limitations:

However, it should be noted that this poll was conducted before the by-election was announced and candidates declared. It also did not include Restore Britain and the Workers Party, both of which have now announced candidates.

But this following is a great insight into UK politics.

To isolate the key potential issues in the campaign, our poll asked voters to select their priorities. Just over half (51%) chose the cost of living, 42% selected the NHS, healthcare and mental health services, and 30% prioritised crime, policing and antisocial behaviour.

That on those issues Reform is so close to Labour is a dismal indictment of the Labour Party under Starmer. Reform has managed to place itself as the default alternative even on issues it has no interest in. For voters the issue is change, not continuity – but there’s a wrinkle to that, as HNH points to:

Labour candidate Bev Craig, the current leader of Manchester City Council, will be running on a continuity ticket, hoping to build on Andy Burnham’s stewardship over the last nine years. It is a legacy that is popular with voters. Two thirds of those polled thought that Burnham had done a good job as mayor, with only 22% taking the view that he has not been a success.

There was also general approval for his achievements in many of the key policy areas that are governed by the mayor. Three quarters of voters (77%) think he has done well on transport, while 56% think he has done well on policing and fire services. On economic growth and investment his support is double those who think he has been unsuccessful. who think he has not been successful.

Not a bad legacy, and as HNH says, perhaps there will be a Burnham bounce. But important too to see how contests without Burnham go.

Here’s something that will surprise none of us here, though least of all Irish Election Literature.

The Electoral Commission has found that posters are more effective than social media in raising awareness about elections, often reaching “low interest” voters, playing an important role in the democratic process. 

A review of the use of posters in elections by the Commission found that while Irish people dislike them, and want to see their usage reduced, politicians and candidates see them as crucial. 

And tellingly:

Analysis done during last year’s presidential election found that posters were the second most common way for voters to find out about the campaign. 

Two thirds or 77.5pc of respondents found out the election was under way from broadcast media, followed 59pc who said they saw posters, 52.6pc through discussions with friends or family and 50.6pc on social media.

Thinking about that, isn’t that incredible, how detached people are from political processes that the Presidential election only came into some peoples view due to the posters. It certainly casts the fretting over the supposed ‘lack of choice’ into a new light.

The report itself is well worth a read.

It argues:

In the light of the results of our own deliberations and the analysis contained in the Research Report, An Coimisiún considers that election posters play an important part in public engagement with the electoral process in a number of respects. First, they inform the public that an election cycle has started. Second, they can have the effect of delineating the constituency boundaries, which may be important for newly arrived electors and when a boundary has been changed following a review. Third, they may help to identify the candidates, and a poster may be the primary means by which a new candidate or one who does not, for whatever reason, have a high public profile can become known. Fourth, the poster is public, in a way a social media post is not, and can engender conversation, including casual conversation, about a candidate, the issues or the election generally. Fifth, the poster can sometimes be effective and informative in a subliminal way, as is apparent from the fact that many persons who responded to the surveys had actually noticed the contents of a poster, or differences between posters, without being fully aware of the fact.

The figures show that in the 2024 general election campaign, more than 280,000 political posters were put up across the country. 

The plastic waste of this equates to approximately 1.3 million takeaway coffees, “on some estimates, half of the amount of coffee drunk in Ireland in one day”, the report found.

“The carbon impact was considered to equate to a full commercial plane making two return flights from Dublin to New York,” it said.

Which is fairly minimal, given this is an exercise in democratic processes.

There’s a lot of negativity about posters but the report found:

An Coimisiún notes the widely held view from the political stakeholders consulted that an outright ban or any potential significant restrictions on the use of posters would have a detrimental impact on the ability of new candidates to get noticed.

Approximately 90% of interviewees would not support a blanket ban on posters, citing unfairness on new candidates.

The piece notes that:

Accordingly, An Coimisiún makes the following recommendations:

1. There should be clearer communication and more consistent and stringent enforcement of existing legislation and guidance governing election postering.

In particular, the breaching of guidelines around placement should result in more consistent and timely enforcement action.

2. There should be clarity on who is responsible for enforcing and monitoring compliance with specific elements.

3. There should also be a specific national level communications campaign targeted at political stakeholders on the public safety hazards caused by inappropriate placement of posters.

4. The permitted shape and size of posters should be limited to reduce the amount of waste and environmental damage they cause. This should be introduced on a phased and gradual approach to allow the reuse of existing poster stock.

5. The Minister should request local authorities to put improved facilities and supports in place to encourage sustainable disposal and recycling of existing posters. This should provide more structure and clarity on arrangements to reuse or dispose of poster material thereby helping with recycling rates.