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FOR THE 14TH time, 55,000 music, arts and culture lovers will descend on the small Laois town of Stradbally this weekend for the Electric Picnic festival.
The eclectic list of headliners includes The XX, A Tribe Called Quest and Duran Duran but it’s not all about the music.
The Mindfield tent features spoken word performers, the Theatre of Food does what it says on the tin, and the comedy tent does likewise.
Are you heading down this year? Here’s what you need to know…
If you’re using public transport, you may be leaving it a little late to sort out but there is still time.
If you’re going from Dublin, Bus Éireann is running a service from Custom House Quay. It says advance booking is recommended but a limited number of tickets will be available to buy there this morning.
Marathon Coaches will also be running a Dublin service, departing at regular intervals all morning from 3 Arena, and George’s Quay. Walking up this morning, it’ll cost you €25 for a return ticket.
You could also get a train to Portlaoise, from Limerick, Cork or Dublin, and then grab a Martleys shuttle bus to Stradbally for €5 each way.
For those driving to the festival, you can take the M7 (both northbound from Limerick and southbound from Dublin), the M8 if you’re coming from Cork and elsewhere in the south, or the N80 (from the west, and from Carlow and the south-east).
Inspector Eamonn Curley, from Portlaoise Garda Station, had this advice for people coming to Electric Picnic: “Pack sensibly for the weekend, check the weather forecast before you leave.
Be safe. Give yourself plenty of time to get to the venue. Leave high value goods at home and put car keys and important valuables in a safe, secure place. When you are in groups, make sure everyone is accounted for. Look after each other’s personal safety and most importantly enjoy the weekend.
You can find all you need to know about travel here.
It was a pretty miserable August for the most part in terms of weather, but what’s it going to be like for Electric Picnic this weekend?
First, the good news.
Today is likely to be dry for the most part, according to Met Éireann. Any showers are likely to be light and short in nature.
It’ll be chilly to start the day but by the time you have your tent set up, temperatures should be in the high teens.
Unfortunately, there could be some heavy rain on the horizon.
While it’ll still be warm on Saturday, heavy rain will hit the west of the country and then go eastwards in the afternoon and evening. However, there is still a chance for some good sunshine, so it’ll be a typical Irish weather day.
In other words, don’t be surprised if you’re dancing to Baggy Trousers in lashing rain or beaming sunshine by the time Madness hit the main stage just before 6pm that evening.
Sunday is set to be the warmest day, reaching the 20s but there’ll also be some scattered outbreaks of rain too.
If you’re packing at the last minute this morning, make sure to bring that rain jacket just in case.
We asked the TheJournal.ie staff, some grizzled veterans of Electric Picnic and others who’ve only went once or twice, for their recommendations to make the most out of the weekend.
Here’s what they said.
Cormac Fitzgerald:
Rave in the woods is always a great shout, and the Body and Soul arena is brilliant. If you’re looking for something a bit different head down to Mindfield at 5pm on the Saturday and catch Lewis Kenny – Obsession. The description says: “Shifty, a working-class waster and dedicated session warrior documents the six stages of the evolution of an Irish sesh-head.”
Christina Finn:
I always try and swing by the silent disco and also the comedy tent is good, particularly on a Sunday when everyone is a bit tired and just wants to sit down.
Daragh Brophy had this recommendation, along with some practical advice:
The Big Tree stage, generally. Also, don’t sit under any of the big trees on Saturday or Sunday morning.
Conor McMahon:
I think Mindfield deserves a mention. Some of the big acts are about doing Q&As with Hot Press and the like. Plus the literature tent has actual seats, so you don’t have rest against a urine-covered tree.
More sage advice from Cianan Brennan:
Do mark where your car is, either using GPS or landmarks.
Sean Murray:
Putting up your tent near to a shop is a good idea. Pitching it near the toilets is not. Soulwax in the Electric Arena on the Sunday night is a nice alternative if you want to ditch Duran Duran.
Sinead Baker:
Repeating the comedy tent – you can sit down, sheltered from the elements, in a place that’s far less grim than your own tent will be after a day.
I mean yeah the lad probably shouldnt have flown close enough to steal a chip but also Russia is quite a good deal closer to the Baltic than the USA. So close in fact that they have a seaport and a major city on it, while the USA is several thousand miles away. USAF hardly taking recon pics of fish.
@stephen: They’re doing lots of training with their NATO allies.
Maybe he was just trying to tell the yank he’d taken a wrong turn…’our submarine base is over that direction’…only sayin!
Given the content of this article any chance The Journal could also report of the NATO jet that buzzed the Russian Defence Ministers plane earlier today ?
Right up beside it and they would have known very well it was a Russian government jet.
Whatever you can say about the posturing both do with military planes involved but to send a fighter jet up to a unarmed Russian government plane seems to be delivering a slightly sinister and not so subtle message.
Did Goose get a polaroid picture of the Russian pilot?
War games
I think the the story needs to add more weight to the fact a US spy plane was operating a few minutes flying time from Russian airspace.
@Aidan O’Donovan: Russian military planes are frequently intercepted off the coast of Alaska, USA
@Diaspora’d: all about the lens your using. Alaska is off the Coast of Russia! The Baltic ain’t near any part of the US, they’re all at this all the time. No biggie
@Diaspora’d: lol Russia is only a couple of miles from Alaska
But was he inverted?
Putin and the Russians have more restraint than any other nation on earth. If the tables were reversed, WWIII would already be on…….
@Patrick Kavanagh: agreed, the US nearly brought the world to nuclear apocalypse in 1960 because the russians moved missiles to cuba, a stone from the yanks. And now nato which is basically the us are building bases and pointing missiles towards russia & they want us to believe the russians are the threat
@Frank McGonigal: ..and the US president responsible was feted and fawned over just a year later when he visited Ireland in 1963.
What was the Russian pilot doing so far from home?
@George Vladisavljevic: Probably out of Kaliningrad.
This headline is a quote from a US military spokesman. I guess it must be true then!!
At the speed they would be traveling at and with only 5′ of clearance between both aircraft all it would have taken to bring both planes down would have a a gust of wind at the wrong time, turbulence or the slightest error of movement by either pilot.
I believe it’s standard practice for all planes to use a transponder, a device that alerts other planes in the vicinity of their presence when they may not be able to see them. It’s worth remembering that no pilot wants to have another plane, commercial or military, accidently fly into them. Russian planes routinely turn their transponders off making them a risk for all air traffic.
@Rusty Balls: yet you likely believe the US spying reconnaissance plane had its on while in Russias back yard!
@Rusty Balls: at the speed they fly at transponders aren’t going to be much use even if they were on.
u wouldnt have seen US spy planes within a 1000 miles of russia 30 years ago. bloody cheek of the yanks in this case
@gregory: Their training with their NATO allies. You know, the countries that broke from the Soviet Union and have no wish to return. Why are these countries so determined to ally themselves with ‘the west’ and not Russia?
@Honeybadger197:
David Hasselhoff
@Thinck: Keep that to yourself though. Say nuthin’…
https://twitter.com/DeptofDefense/status/873260044317593600
Heres a few photos.
@Honeybadger197: A lot more than 5′ between those planes.
@Mick Jordan: Certainly is. Nice photos though. Serious selection of bombers.
@Honeybadger197: thats not it. Different plane different day.
@TeaRex: You’re 100% correct. Apologies.
@Honeybadger197: still great photos though
@Honeybadger197: Great pics. I liked the joke by USDoD in the comments as well.
@Honeybadger197: no need for apologies! They are great photos though!!
I dont see the report mentioning where exactly it happened, other than international airspace. Was it just outside Russian airspace, in which case it was the American pilot was flying too close to a Russian plane.
The Russian pilot should have gone to Specsavers…..
What’s the issue here? If Russian spy planes were flying so close to American air space you can bet your ass they would scramble fights to intercept them.
Pot, kettle, black.
@David Ronan: Its the distance they came to that the US are giving out about. It was simply a stupid thing to do. Both planes could have been brought down by the smallest error or nature.
@Mick Jordan: were the Americans stupid for shooting the Syrian plane out of the sky in Syria this week?
@Cal Mooney: Not if they were defending members of their Special Forces from attack by the Syrian Air Force.
@Cal Mooney: No they were absolutely correct.
@Cal Mooney: you’re wasting your time here Cal….America=great lads altogether, Russia=terrible lads altogether. Sure it even said it on the news. The boys know their stuff.
@Mick Jordan: They never claimed they were protecting members of their special forces but do you think it’s legally OK for a country to shoot down a plane inside that jets own sovereign territory when the aggressor has no legitimate or legal right to be there at the moment?
A nation that is not legally merited to be inside another country has no legitimate claim to use the reasoning of ‘self defence’ at all anyways. Coming legally speaking, not opinionated points of view.
@Andy Brown: sadly different rules and standards are applied to here when asserting who’s right or wrong as usual. West = good, East = bad. Asides from operating illegally without invitation by the Syrian gov., the US has for 5 years now been training, arming and supporting the ‘rebels’ fighting against the Syrian army while ensuring they’re well supplies and enforcing embargoes on Syrian forces restocking supplies. In that time ISIS got to run amuck as the army where kept busy battling western backed foreign invaders under a long changing array of names. The Syrians still and understandable see all forces as illegal and legitimate targets as any country would. The US and our media have been busy ensuring we don’t make the above association and accept US are solely there to fight IS.
Pretty s**t spy plane.
The usual shit from the war mongers . Why can’t they stay at home and kill their own .
American shit.
@Brendan Keegan: Nice abusive comment there, did you ever wonder why these former Soviet Eastern Bloc countries rush to join NATO ? Russia is there nearest neighbor yet they can’t wait to join NATO
Keeping up foreign relations. Yes, I know the finger Goose.
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