Lockdown has let us all reboot, rebrand and refurb, and for dapper manager Nicky Logue that also applies to his Dublin 4 hotel, the InterContinental.
Nicky has spent the lay-off productively updating the wardrobe for which he has become known on the Irish capital’s social scene.
Nicky, like all good hotel managers, is omnipresent, and omnifashionable and will no doubt have a swanky suit for the occasion of the big July 20 reopening.
The bould NIck has always given me (and the Scary One) a warm welcome when we visit either for a snifter or a cheeky night away… Rugby central, it’s the InterCon… what a Ledge!
And the hotel which is an institution in Dublin’s most hip suburb, which is a long Jonny Sexton kick away from the RDS with the Aviva Stadium just up the road, will be even better than ever.
With the ground floor, lobby and bar getting spruced up.
Visit http://www.intercontinentaldublin.ie or call (01) 6654000.
And you’ll no doubt catch D4’s most famous resident, the rugby ledge himself, Ross O’Carroll-Kelly.
He’ll only be whiling away the COVID-19 days in his second home, the Ice Bar.
A Port chaser
The Portuguese already have a jump on us of course and this week sees restaurants and cafes up to 400sqm reopening.
As well as museums which coincides with International Museum Day. Art Galleries, palaces and churches are also getting the green light.
We’ve flagged up Turismo de Portugal’s Clean & Safe seal which will give reassurance to visitors which we hope will include us soon.
Which will mean a bit more of this… Secret Portugal and SPORTUGAL See http://www.visitportugal.com
England – the Home of Golf?
I’m recycling this one from my old colleague and voice of golf Martin Dempster of my old paper The Scotsman who has been flagging up (and he wouldn’t use such a lame pun) the thorny subject of cross-border golf.
And the growing attractiveness of the Berwick-on-Tweed courses Goswick and Magdalene Fields to Scottish golfers who are excluded on this side of the border from taking their clubs out.
Which is making me even more itchy to get my garish V neck jumper on as my new billet looks out over the historic North Berwick course south of http://www.northumberland.com Edinburgh.
Northumberland will be the first place I’ll be going once I get permission to leave these 2kms around my house. And there is much to enjoy there too.
The north-east of England has many charms including Hadrian’s Wall, the Holy Island and Alnwick and Bamburgh castles.
Us Scots have long held a claim to Berwick and they have impressive fortifications to keep us out.
And where we once came foraging, plundering and laying waste with our claymores, now the good folk of Berwick are keeping their eyes peeled for those in tartan-clad plus-fours with golf bags slung over their shoulder.
MEET YOU OUTDOORS
