Bakker Bugle Blog Say it three times fast. In Luxembourgish.

I don’t believe people who say they saw a UFO. Ninety-nine percent of the time, when you look at one of these people’s lives, there’s a good reason to be skeptical.

When I see something unusual, I always think, “I’d better get out of here.” That instinct has served me well. If I decide to stick around, then I’m not going to stick with “unidentified.” I’ll find out what’s out there.

When I climbed out of our subterranean apartment, I saw something unusual. I was following my girl up the stairs, so I couldn’t just run back down. Eerie lights streamed from the Park, and the air filled with a thrumming noise that sounded like an idling tractor-trailer.

I took some photos, of course, and tracked down my woman. She was talking with the call-girls who work across the street. They were just as worried as me. The girls looked to me for an explanation for what was happening to our neighbourhood. I had no answer. As we returned to the increasingly fragile safety of our home, the lights in the park began flashing: green, blue, purple, red.

This investigation isn’t just a hobby anymore.

Monday morning, I took more photos of the jobsite, hoping for a lead. I found some interesting details, but I couldn’t get my head around them. I was still in a fog from the effects of an all-night stakeout for one of my other cases. So I went back to bed to sleep it off.

As the sun set in the afternoon, I walked toward the seedier side of town, to follow a lead on the same case that kept me away from home last night. On the way, I stopped to talk to Old Patrick, one of the beggars that makes a meagre living from the softer emotions of the Irish who got lucky from the Celtic Tiger.

He dropped his usual mumble and leaned in to speak: “They say you’re looking into Fitzwilliam Square, like.”

I knew the routine quite well. I found a crisp ten euro note in my wallet and I wrapped it around a cigarette. Old Patrick prefers that his presents be gift-wrapped. And everything costs more in Dublin these days.

He laughed. “Well, I don’t know anyting yet, meself. But thanks a million for the smoke. I’ll keep one eye on the Fitz while yer doin’ business. Com’ere — do ya wanta know what I tink is going on?”

I knew that Old Patrick’s favorite game was spinning stories that started from a shred of truth and led to a few pints apiece at the nearest pub. That sounded like a good way to spend the rest of my day. But I had to make some progress on my bread-and-butter work, if I was going to have time for my unpaid moonlighting gig on Fitzwilliam Square.

Sunday, 20 January 2008.

Word on the street is that the blue-bloods of Dublin like to chum around my turf during the gray days of late winter. Nobody asked me to the clambake. Then again, they never do. There’s an upstairs-downstairs smell to this town, like everybody wants to be an English duke or something. To these American eyes, Dublin’s uppercrust drips with hypocrisy.

I can’t assume that this thing is just a shindig for the silk-stockings set. Assumptions get you killed in my line of work. So Sunday afternoon, I looked for more facts, hints, anything that would give me a clue. I need to know who’s behind all this. More important, I want to see who has something to lose.

More photos posted on Flickr. This time, some of the pics are in full resolution, so you can zoom in, on your computer, and look for hidden details. To see the photos in the highest resolution, click on “ALL SIZES” above the smaller version.

Friday, 18 January 2008.

It was a rainy night in Dublin, and it was winter, but the cold snap was over. As I rounded the corner on the way to our local pub, I was blinded by a bluish-white light that burned through the mist and onto my retinas. I guarded my eyes and trudged onto the local, seeking my whiskey and beer. I passed a few box-trucks that were full of unidentifiable steel equipment and ducked into The Pembroke for the warmth of the fireplace and the alcohol.

Inside, locals mixed with some new folk, including a skirt with a radio and an earpiece, who darted around like a mouse in a tenement apartment’s only bedroom. She wouldn’t meet my eye, so I slugged back some more firewater, flipped a one-euro coin to the bartender and walked back into the rain. It was then that I noticed that the single bank of lights was focused on the opposite site of the street. It lit up a posh restaurant called FXB, where a guy like me wouldn’t get past the doorman and wouldn’t know what to do if he did. The light spilled onto the next building, so I couldn’t be sure that the steak joint was the real focus of attention.

Normally, you’d see movie-types hustling around, or at least a photographer. This was a remarkable scene because those lowlifes were not around. Just the trucks. After the week that I had, I wasn’t looking for trouble, so I didn’t ask. I just went home.

Saturday, 19 January 2008.

Even a stiff like me needs to go shopping for groceries once in a while. And my doll wanted me to take her to some fancy museum close to our place. It was going to be an ordinary Saturday. As I reached the top of the stairs that led up from my basement apartment, blinking into the dim light of day, I knew that there was nothing ordinary about this Saturday in Fitzwilliam Square. A crane leaned over the park, and there was a lot of noise for eleven in the morning, at least for my neighbourhood.

A PI’s instincts don’t take holidays, so I grabbed my camera and did my best Stupid Tourist act as I took pictures of everything in sight. Something was going on in Fitzwilliam Park, and I’ve had one eye on the Park since I moved in across the street. Almost a six months ago, the rich folks of the Park’s board held their noses and let me into their club. Of course, I had an angle. If I could get some business from these stuffed shirts, I’d have a whole new kind of clientele. Maybe I’d finally be able to take my lady out for a holiday and leave this dingy city for a while.

Editor — The story continues on Flickr, where you can see the photos that our protagonist took on Saturday. You can try to solve the Mystery of Fitzwilliam Square! Click here to help sort out the evidence.

In the spirit of getting out of the house, Will and I tried to be more active this Saturday than we have been in weekends past. We debated about taking a drive outside the city, seeing a movie or going for a bike ride. However, the weather on Saturday was not the best, so we decided to do a chore and go to a museum.

We did our chore first, which was taking some recycling to the “bring centre.” As I mentioned in an old post, the city will pick up only our trash, so we have to take our recycling ourselves. With our chore finished, we ate some lunch and headed to the museum we had picked for the day.

We had several choices, but we went with the National Museum of Ireland – Decorative Arts and History. We just call it “The Collins Barracks,” which is the name of the site from its military days. I had been there once this summer when Mom was here for her visit and Will has been back a couple more times. It is a very large museum and both of us thought there would be plenty to see. We were right.

The major exhibit we viewed today was Soldiers and Chiefs: The Irish at Home and Abroad. With all the history relating to Ireland that we have been watching and reading, it was a good overview of the military side of Ireland.

We intend to try each weekend to take some time to experience our city. It is far too easy for us to sink into a winter funk and hide in our home. From now until Spring, we plan to use the time to explore the museums and other indoor activities. Maybe one weekend will be nice enough to do something else. Stay tuned!