vintage shades:A cache of vintage sunglasses from Dior, Fendi and YSL from the 1950s and 1960s found in a Paris flea market are on sale at No 6 in Castle Market.
Helen McAlinden came across the shades on a scouting trip with her assistant over a year ago and with the new shop in mind, promptly bought a couple of hundred pairs. She was told that the glasses, along with scarves and other accessories, had been found in a disused city warehouse. With the current vogue for oversize shades, some look exactly like the kind that Jackie O wore for 30 years (she said that she loved wearing them because she could watch people surreptitiously), while others have perspex or finely wrought steel frames. Only a few left, at €220 or €240. Vintage hunters will love them. Deirdre McQuillan
bag a bunny
If you'd like an enormous Lindt chocolate Gold Bunny for Easter - it makes a change from an egg - send your name, address and phone number by e-mail to info@presence.ie as soon as you can. (Put the word lindt in the subject line.) The senders of the first 10 e-mails that arrive (maximum one per household) will each receive a 1kg Lindt Gold Bunny, worth €49.99.
Happy Faces Day
Tomorrow is Happy Faces Day, the Irish Professional Photographers Association's annual charity drive. Head for your local professional studio and have a 5x7 inch portrait photo taken for just €20, which the IPPA will donate to charity. This year the event benefits DEBRA Ireland, which supports sufferers of the rare skin condition, Epidermolysis Bullosa (EB). To get a list of participating studios see
stick 'em up
As TV's Supernanny Jo Frost will tell you, most kids will do anything for a sticker on a chart, even eat their greens. Kids' Food Challenge Charts, complete with a range of colourful stickers to be awarded for healthy eating, or good efforts towards healthy eating, such as trying something new, or drinking milk rather than soft drinks, are available free of charge from www.safefood.eu. The Safefood website is a valuable source of nutritional information and useful tips to improve the whole family's diet, presented in a colourful and easily assimilated manner. Marie-Claire Digby
easter passion
Glenn Gannon, the playwright behind the Andrew's Lane productions Tears of a Clown and Only Make Believe, turns his mind to the story of the Passion for his new play which will be performed in St Andrew's Church, Westland Row, Dublin 2 during Holy Week. The Trial is a modern take on the story of the Passion, set in present-day inner-city Dublin. The story is narrated by the character of Barrabas, played by Yare Jegbefume, who, having been freed instead of Jesus, takes the audience back over a week where newspapers report that "a local man in his thirties, well known to authorities was framed, exposed, arrested, tortured in captivity and tried in the Four Courts on trumped up charges."
Jesus (Rory Treanor) wasn't born in a barn, but in Dolphin's Barn; Judas Iscariot (Kieran Maher) is a hoodie-wearing wide boy; Mary Magdalene is known as Mary from Magdalene House and John the Baptist is simply known as The Baptist. But this is no skit. Producer Aine Carvill says it is a genuine attempt to "engage the audience and make them relate to this story, not as a 2,000-year-old biblical story, but as a scenario that could just as easily be re-enacted today." The Trial, St Andrew's Church, Westland Row, Dublin 2. Tuesday and Wednesday, April 3rd-4th, 8pm. Tickets €5. Michael Kelly
seth and the city
Folk music, for all its worthiness, has never been traditionally associated with raw sex appeal. But then Seth Lakeman came along, and folk all of a sudden got foxy. This 30-year-old songster-cum-fiddler from Devon was doing low-key venues and low-budget recordings until a Mercury Prize nomination swept him into the big time less than two years ago. Now, with a second album - Freedom Fields - under his belt and a loyal following, the Celtic crooner continues to brew up a fiddling storm in his popular live sets, while making a name for himself for carefully crafted, thoughtful tunes. Catch him, with special guests, at Whelans of Wexford Street, Dublin 2, tonight. Fiona McCann
top trees
There are always some weird and wonderful things to see on the Neotorama website and in its nature section it currently has a list of the 10 most magnificent trees in the world, with breathtaking photos of each. Included in the top 10 are the haunting sight of the Lone Cyprus, standing majestically overlooking the Pacific Ocean in Pebble Beach, California; the 2,200-year-old Giant Sequoias known as General Sherman in Sierra Navada, described as "the greatest of living things" and the world's largest tree in terms of volume. See www.neatorama.com/category/nature. Michael Kelly
the bag lady cometh
"I combine looking ridiculous with a serious environmental message," says Shirley Lewis, otherwise known as Bag Lady, one of the Northern Ireland's best known campaigners for recycling. When dressed in her full regalia - festooned from top to toe in a colourful array of plastic bags - she cuts a striking figure and certainly gets people talking. Lewis, who is also a film-maker and a playwright, is a real old-fashioned eccentric. "I use plastic bags to enhance my appearance," she says. But there is nothing whimsical in her commitment to protecting the environment. Lewis's mission is to wean the North off its reliance on plastic bags and other unnecessary packaging, and follow the South's example in imposing a bag tax. To this end, she has persuaded a whole raft of councils and supermarkets, as well as the Environmental and Heritage Service of Northern Ireland, to take part in her "Need a Bag?" campaign, designed to encourage both shopkeepers and customers to steer clear of plastic bags.
So far, Bag Lady has visited around 150 schools in the North, distributing action packs and urging children to "start pestering all the adults you know to start saying no to plastic bags when they shop." See www.bagladyproductions.org Fionola Meredith
smokies are back
Smokies, a rich meld of smoked haddock, cherry tomatoes, spring onions and cheddar cheese bound with crème fraïche, is one of the signature dishes of Eden restaurant in Temple Bar, Dublin 2 and at its country outpost at Bellinter House near Navan. The dish, served bubbling and browned in a ramekin dish, was a big hit on the very first Eden menu, but when chef Eleanor Walsh updated the menu three months in, she took it off. "It led to chaos. Two customers walked out, as they had come specially for Smokies, and I received numerous phone calls. The 'Replace the Smokies' campaign was launched. I learned a valuable lesson - give your customers what they want."
Smokies is just one of many Eden signature dishes featured in the Eden Cookbook, launched this week and written by Walsh, who is head of food operations for Mackerel, Cafe Bar Deli and the Market Bar as well as Eden, and her successor as head chef in Temple Bar, Michael Durkin (pictured left).
You won't find anything as calorific as Smokies in the other Irish cookbook launched this week, but Fiona Gratzer manages to make her Unislim Recipes for Success collection appetising as well as healthy. The Unislim unit counting is all done for you, and there are some surprising revelations. Low-fat burgers with gherkin salsa and skinny chips weights in at just three-and-a-half units (269 calories), while innocent-sounding banana leaf steamed mackerel with runner beans and wild rice comes in at a hefty seven units (509 calories).
Eden Cookbook (€18.99) and Unislim Recipes for Success (€18.99) are both published by Gill & Macmillan. Marie-Claire Digby