#PEARSE PIANO

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The idea of the public or street piano has been around for a while. It essentially involves leaving a piano in a public place for passers by to play it.

There is now one in Pearse Station and it is going down a bomb. I suspect, however, that this one may be unique. It was offered to Irish Rail by piano tuner John Murphy, which probably explains its lovely tone and that it is beautifully in tune.

It's on the South bound platform and when it comes to waiting for a train I'm usually on the opposite platform. Today I made a point of crossing over to have a look and I found this young lady playing away.

And yes, she can actually play, and was not just posing for a picture. I asked her Dad was it OK to take a photo for a blog post and got the go ahead.

Job oxo, and she looks very pleased with herself, as well she might. You're never too young to start.

I did the fiddle myself but that was probably a mistake. It is always a delicate matter to stay in tune as you make your own notes rather than simply choosing them and it is always an advantage to have learned a keyboard instrument when it comes to harmony, either composing it or just trying to keep up with Nancy Calthorpe in class.

John Murphy, piano tuner

John studied Piano Tuning and Restoration at Newark College Piano School, the UK Centre of Excellence and subsequently worked for a busy and well established piano workshop in South London for a number of years. He is now making his services available to the Irish public. His nice clean website is every bit as crisp as his piano tuning.

I was very taken with this photo on his contact page.

NoBo

For a good while now, Pearse Station, in the centre of Dublin, has had this jazzy integrated café on the platform.

"Which platform?", I hear you ask. Why the South Bound platform of course. Isn't that where all the quality travel from and it's not called SoBo for nothing.

Now, there are lots of myths about the DART. There is even supposed to be a DART accent. Quite how that could be is very hard to understand when you look at the variety of ABCDE areas through which that train passes. Of course, the quality live on the Southside and it is to them that the DART accent refers. Some of them might be jumped up quality, but quality nonethless for the purpose of this exercise.

This DART accent corresponds to what in my day was the Mount Murrion accent. This was a sort of neutralised transatlantic accent which signified that you at least, and perhaps even your people, were neither up from the country nor residents of the inner city.

So the SoBo café went with the accent, so to speak. And those freaky Northsiders could always risk missing their train if they stopped for a cup of coffee, as a northbound DART could have come and gone in the time it took you to negotiate the underground passage from southbound to northbound platform.

Now, at last, there is an end to this discriminatory foolishness. The northbound platform has acquired a Mocha Bar and can confidently cock a snoot at it's SoBo rival. So there.