On may 16th, 2011, A dear friend of this website, Richard Patrick Leslie, aged 89, some weeks before his 90th birthday. He was found dead in bed in London. It was believed that he past away peacefully in his sleep. His last diary entry was may 1st. What does this have to do with us?

Well Mr. Leslie was a Carlovian to the bone, and in the Christmas last, we at MonteCarlow were contacted by a close friend of his, to find the grave of his mother as he is to be buried there. We found the grave, and sent pictures of it him to him. We also, as a mark of respect left flowers on the grave. In return he sent my self letters and information as to his history.

I only recieved word a few days ago that he had died, and it saddened me greatly. Mr. Leslie had no direct family, and any connections in Carlow are long gone. I would ask that any people available in Carlow today, that they would be available to attend the mans burial. The details are: St. Mary’s Cemetery, @2.30pm Unfortunately I am not around, and I cannot attend myself, but I am sending my family, who are available to attend. Mr. Leslie, a great Carlovian, sadly missed.

Yes, let’s get it out there.

I am sad. I am sad because of two things.

The first is that when I was walking through Carlow Town today, I saw an ad saying “Eddie Rocket’s is coming soon!”.

I was over hyped! The second reason you may think I’m sad is because I’m devoting a blog post to this!

Anyway, there’s a history to this. I love Eddie Rocket’s, though the Counter burger has pipped Eddie Rocket’s in “Best Burger according to Rozzie” The Garlic-Cheese fries, Oreo Chocolate malt, chicken tenders and their new sweet potato fries are the best!

And guess what? They’re coming to Carlow! It’s good for the town but not for my waistline. Resolve will be needed!

I find it strange that it’s coming to the town after all these years, we have a Rip-off version in the town, it basically has copied their menu and tried to put an Irish slant on it. You know what this is if you’re from Carlow. I think this may spell the end for this particular eaterie!

You will find the new Eddie Rocket’s at Court Place, the top of Tullow Street in beside the new HSE and Bank of Ireland( and my fave hairdressers, Berlin and face beautician for Shellac, Butterfly Beauty)

We should meet up for a malt. Check out my blog at www.rozz.ie

As of November 15th 2010, a new network of speed cameras has been let loose on Irish roads. White vans with ‘hi-viz’ markings, containing the speed cameras will terrorise motorists across the country. The general location of the vans has been published by the Gardai, see here.

Here is a snapshot of the Carlow speed cameras.

A quick glance shows there is no attention paid to the M9 motorway. This is in keeping with Garda promise that this project would be focused on accident or speed black spots. The old N9 is heavily monitored, even in the urban sections of the road in Carlow Town.

One strange stretch of road that gets considerable attention is what I would call the “back road to Bagenalstown”, it runs parallel to the old N9 from Carlow Town out to the Harrow Cross and beyond. This is a tight road and it is hard to imagine where a large van is going to find the space to park up.

I am amazed the N80 is void of any attention. I consider this to be one of the more dangerous roads in Carlow. The N80 is a fast road with many right hand turns and it has seen its fair share of accidents.

Below is the full map which you can zoom in to your most frequented roads. The red strips indicate potential locations of the speed camera vans. Happy motoring!

After weeks of build-up, we finally got to see the great Indie’go Music festival come to fruition, but unfortunately we were sadly disappointed in the end. Not to do with bad organisation, or poor acts, but attendance! I know it has been a long while since it was cancelled, but I was doing some research, and finding out peoples thought on the festival, making sure I wasn’t blinded.

In mine and others opinion it was a great festival. Unlike the main stream commercial festivals, you didn’t go to Indie’go to drink to have fun, you went there to have fun and a drink, maybe on the side. The venue was a small intimate garden to the back of the house in Fenagh, no intimidation on the size, if anything it created a very friendly atmosphere.

Surrounding the back of the field was a couple of lovely interesting little stalls offering food, wares, and oddities, ranging from coffees to woollen jumpers. The real focal point when it came for food was the “Eco-bus”(check them out by clicking here )- A red double Decker bus, decorated very bohemian with the kitchen in the lower section of the bus and the upper deck with wooden tables and comfy couches but the main point about the bus, it was powered by renewable energies! The fuel was the used vegetable oil from the kitchen, and all other power was brought from windmills and solar power collected as the bus sat there serving.

Coming to the music, the sound and main stage were amazing! The Main act I think that comes up for commendation is local band “CLEERE”, who had a great set that was unfortunately cut short due to the schedules running very late. One of the oddities though was an English band call “Smerins Anti-Social Club” which rocked the festival so much I am pretty sure that got everyone in the field up and dancing. The way the band dressed and sang reminded me of a 1920’s speak easy blues band, although the sound was fresh and new. It was basically a brass band, I did thoroughly enjoy their set.

On the second stage, were the slightly less interesting bands, but was taken over by a DJ, after hours, which was a good idea, but the DJ’s, in my own opinion, weren’t the best, doing tricks that made the CD sound damaged, on purpose, and did not sound right where they were( I know I’m not as read up on dance music as I should be and that sound is right in some cases but in these cases definitely not!). The idea of the DJ’s were great, but the DJ’s themselves weren’t.

In conclusion, Indie’go was a great festival, and we hope that we see it again next year, unlikely as it might be. It is my personal belief (not that of Monte Carlow), that with a bit more publicity and the right ideas of ticket prices and such, maybe getting in earlier to schools and colleges, and going to national papers etc., and not just facebook, we could possibly have a fantastic festival for Carlow!

I want to let our loyal readers know, that rumours of my death have been greatly exaggerated! These past couple of weeks have been very turbulent for me. Things have finally levelled off for me in the past couple of days, but am on a high! I am now in Tipperary Institute, Clonmel campus studying Information Technology(creative Media).

I only learnt that I was doing this course last Thursday, and been rushing around sorting myself out. I will be back with vengeance in the next couple of days. I will also not be neglecting my home town, and will be back on the weekends working and partying . hope to talk again soon!