Ronnie Drew & things this week

Listening to the late, great Ronnie Drew telling the story of Cú Chulainn. Cú Chulainn is one of the most famous figures in Irish folklore and Drew’s ravaged voice adds much to the telling.

Ronnie Drew was the leader and vocalist in Irish group The Dubliners. In attitude, The Dubliners were more rock n’ roll than rock n’ roll. The Dubliners were famous for their version of McAlpine’s Fusiliers and The Black Velvet Band. Ronnie Drew and The Dubliners were influential to  The Pogues and Dropkick Murphys.

My parents view of them is more ambiguous. They were jackeens or city dwellers, which they thought was incongruous with Irish traditional music, which was kept alive in the countryside. Secondly, their drinking was seen to be a stereotype reinforcing cliche. They looked more like university students rather than turning up in a nice suit and tie, which was seen as disgraceful.

Ronnie Drew and the rest of The Dubliners love of their culture and stories comes out in their recordings. More related content here.

Nice bit of pop songwriting with Twin Shadow

I’ve been listening to Audio Books on YouTube as higher brow background noise Free Audio Books for Intellectual Exercise – YouTube – YouTube

Buffer is now allowing for direct scheduling of Instagram posts. Its a bit of a kludge. I tried it this week and it worked really well.

You can write the post on the desktop version of Buffer, but you have to do a number of things:

  • Have mobile notifications set up on the Buffer iPhone app and Instagram
  • Set your Instagram account up with a business account (this includes pairing with a brand page on Facebook)

As far as I can tell the Buffer mobile app then publishes to your Instagram mobile app at the scheduled time. But that’s the kind of BS you have to go through with Instagram’s restrictive APIs that it has to try and ensure it is the source platform for all graphic posts.

My next step is to see if this kludge will help me auto-post from Flickr to Instagram…

Matt Farah goes over the oligarch-like relationship of the Swiss watch industry – Episode 10: The Watchmaking Family Tree – YouTube