There are quite a few charity shops around Dublin.  They seem to congregate in little clumps about the city.  There’s a string of them in Ranelagh, a brace or two on Thomas St, a cluster in Rathmines, and a troop of them on Capel St. Irish charity shops are not particularly impressive compared to American thrift stores and there is a strong possibility that if you are visiting the city you are doing it for reasons other than a desire to buy old cardigans and chipped commemorative dinner plates.  On the other hand, you may well be in the market for some reading material and there are a couple of charity shops which specialise in books.

One of these is the Oxfam shop in Rathmines, but more central and better stocked is the Oxfam bookshop in Parliament St, just off Dame St and right near Temple Bar.  There’s not much to it, really, just a relatively clean and relatively well-lighted place for homeless books.  It’s the nature of a charity shop that the stock changes fairly rapidly and without any real design, but if you can’t bear the idea of reading the bleedin’ Da Vinci Code left behind in your hotel room, you might spend a profitable hour checking out what’s on offer here.  Since all the workers there are volunteers, it is not necessarily the most efficiently run establishment in the city (which, without wishing to sound unpatriotic, is saying something), but you can find a decent range of contemporary and popular fiction, proper literature, books of Irish interest and music.  There are also a few rare books and records, but these tend to be over-priced, seemingly on the assumption that is something is old it is worth a lot of money.  People make the same mistake about me.

The other thing, of course, is that not every tourist has the will or even inclination to coat their arteries with quite as much pig fat as the Irish, but those who long for a traditional American breakfast can find one in the heart of Temple Bar.  The Joy of Chai café on Essex St (it's an awful name, isn't it?  I think it takes its name from the Joy of Coffee up the street, and if that's still not really much of an excuse, consider that it was once called Central Perk and be grateful that we are living in more enlightened times) has an American breakfast, and to my uneducated palette it's pretty good: American style pancakes, with American style bacon and scrambled eggs and maple syrup (someday I will find somebody who will explain why maple syrup is supposed to go with pork products, until then I simply submit myself blissfully to the mystery).  It tastes pretty good to me and it's not as much of a rip-off as many breakfasts around town.  The place also sells a wide range of teas, herbal teas, infusions and stuff, incongruous maybe, but welcome Plus, apart from this kind of weird old intense guy with a white beard, the staff are attractive and intelligent and helpful.

It is surprisingly difficult to find a good example of the great Irish breakfast in this city.  There are any number of places selling them for extortionate prices, but few enough where you can get a good feed - of rashers, eggs, sausages, pudding, maybe a grilled tomato, possibly a few mushrooms - and not feel a tiny bit ripped off.  This isn't so much of a problem for the visitor as for the resident, I suppose, since your hotel will probably provide you with some revolting bastardisation of the Irish fry that approximates pretty closely to what is available around town.

The other thing, of course, is that not every tourist has the will or even inclination to coat their arteries with quite as much pig fat as the Irish, but those who long for a traditional American breakfast can find one in the heart of Temple Bar.  The Joy of Chai café on Essex St (it's an awful name, isn't it?  I think it takes its name from the Joy of Coffee up the street, and if that's still not really much of an excuse, consider that it was once called Central Perk and be grateful that we are living in more enlightened times) has an American breakfast, and to my uneducated palette it's pretty good: American style pancakes, with American style bacon and scrambled eggs and maple syrup (someday I will find somebody who will explain why maple syrup is supposed to go with pork products, until then I simply submit myself blissfully to the mystery).  It tastes pretty good to me and it's not as much of a rip-off as many breakfasts around town.  The place also sells a wide range of teas, herbal teas, infusions and stuff, incongruous maybe, but welcome Plus, apart from this kind of weird old intense guy with a white beard, the staff are attractive and intelligent and helpful.

But all this mutual lovey-doveyness and hands-across-the water carry-on is only really attainable when there is a certain amount of good will on both sides, and it can be surprising how easy it is to squander this good will and leave your willing host just about ready to strangle a person (you).

Dublin's weather - there's no point lying about it - is changeable, and that's about as much as can be claimed for it. We've had sunny blue skies and lounging around in parks for the last while but last week was very wet and disappointing, so let me just say it here up-front: if you come to Dublin you may get rained on. If the possibility of getting rained on is enough to destroy your chances of enjoying the city, it will be sad for all of us but probably for the best if you go somewhere else. And if you are being taken around the city by friendly natives, while a brief joke about the weather is traditional, constant high-gear moaning about it is not only futile but kind of wearying after a while.

This is how I spent last Friday, absorbing the whiny misery of two young American students whose travels on the continent of Europe have only served to confirm them in their conviction that Paris, Venice and London are inherently and fundamentally places as miserable and soul-destroying as whatever part of Michigan they came from. (I have friends from Michigan, I have nothing against the place, but whatever part of it these girls come from must specialise in depressive whining. "We never see the sea. It's awful" "It's depressing, actually, it's kinda sad" "I hate your wallpaper.̶

In fairness to the two women, they had just come from Venice and London, both by their accounts very disappointing cities. ("There's nothing to do in Venice" What about checking out the Tinterettos and Titians and Tiepelos in the magnificent churches, girls? "We're not really that into churches," replies the student of art history.) In addition to this they had miscalculated the stupidity of the left luggage room in Dublin airport which meant lengthy trips to the airport and back again, and the prospect of hours waiting for their early flight. That would be enough to make anybody glum, fair enough, and if you want to be brutal about the entertainment on offer in Dublin, it is more of a hanging-around city than a sight-seeing city, but hanging around is exactly what I do best and I had a friend, Fred Farkle, lawyer, inventor and dog walker to the stars to help me escort these visitors.

It didn't help. The pub was too crowded and noisy but at least they liked the cider (or rather, when they observed how hard it sucked that such hard cider was not available in Michigan, I chose to see the remark in a positive light). Since the plan was to go to Dublin Airport for eleven and to wait there until six o'clock, I suggested that they might get their luggage and return to town where I might cook for them or at least take them to a restaurant or a few pubs. By this time Farkle was making grumbling noises and his normally bold spirit had retreated into his noble breast like a kitten threatened with a water-pistol. His attempts to win favour with jocular banter were met with blank stares; his efforts to draw them into the most general conversations about travel/ music/ politics/ shopping/ the weather, even, the bleedin' weather all resembled the desperate efforts of a mad doctor trying to extract blood from a particularly anaemic lump of stone. We even tried poetry on them, for goodness' sake, surely an instance of desperation. But they weren't interested in travel or music or politics or shopping or the weather or poetry; for them the city of Dublin was just a large, wet, inconveniently located waiting area, preferable to the one in Dublin Airport solely because the lighting was less harsh. When we tried to crack jokes they looked at us as if they were not sure whether to make us offerings of glass beads or to call the embassy in panic. Instead they sat silently drinking my wine and insulting my wallpaper (which, in fairness, really does need to go).

The point of all this is not to complain about America or Michigan or tourists generally. Travel can be tiring, the weather can be demoralising, I don't know what it was that our two friends were expecting but clearly whatever they got was profoundly disappointing. But what struck me was that they had no conception that their enjoyment of the city might have been enhanced by even a tiny bit of effort. They were tired, but worse they were tiring, and they seemed to think that it was our job to entertain them rather than to help them enjoy themselves ("Everybody makes their own fun," David Mamet has a line somewhere, "If you don't make it yourself it ain't fun, it's entertainment".) To judge by their expressions, my guess is that they actually felt they were being cheated financially, conned by a city and a host insufficiently dedicated to providing them with laughs.

(It would make you wonder if there are city planners in Paris and Venice scratching their heads as they take a long hard look at themselves and their cities and saying "What can we do to make our boring cities more appealing to the students and alumni of the University of Michigan?̶

We were unlucky, my American companions and myself, to find ourselves so mismatched, but if there is a larger point to be made out of all this it is that travel is not entertainment in itself. It is an opportunity to experience stuff or to learn stuff or to have fun, but it is not a guarantee of any of these things. The blank passivity of these two girls was not only rude and insulting, it was depressing for them, and it was a waste of an entire continent. When good-natured visitors find themselves in a downpour, I don't mind taking responsibility for the rain, but these two girls treated my friend and me as if we really were to blame and as if we'd done it on purpose.

I like Americans, I like showing my city around to visitors, but you should be aware that some of your compatriots out there are giving you all a bad name.

Bearing this in mind, however, if you feel yourself in need of the sweet balm of poesy, there are a few places you can go to get your fix. The format and location of poetry events depends unfortunately on the organisational skills of poets, and it is a common trait among many Dublin poets to regard organisational skills as something rather distasteful and low. Still, there are one or two places where an ordinary human being can go to enjoy some verse without being made to feel like a visiting psychiatrist.

The most vibrant of these currently is in Carnival on Wexford St (five minutes from St Stephens Green) where every second Wednesday, host Mike Igoe (a talented and so far un-jaded young poet) organises The Naked Lunch. As with all these things, the quality and variety of the poetry (and occasional singer-songwriter) varies enormously, but there are a few regulars who are always worth listening to - Igoe himself as well as figures such as Sweeney, Birch and Raven, all soi-disant legends in their own lunchtime. Bring your own verse and read or else get disgustingly drunk and heckle. It's all performance art...

I'm from Dublin and naturally resentful of the filthy tourist traps that infest the cultural quarter, but you don't have to be a snob to find FitzSimon's disgusting. The place is a foul hole full of drunken hen- and stag-nights, disappointed to find that there is nowhere to go in Dublin but Temple Bar and nothing to do in Temple Bar but drink. Let them alone, there's no redemption for them. The English football blares out from screens roughly the size of tennis courts and if that's what you want to do with your Sunday morning hangover, please please seek professional help.

Ugh.

Cornucopia is an altogether better bet. It employs quirkily sexy lesbians and former goths (there's some overlap between these groups) and the food is delicious. It's not really cheap - a main course costs up to a tenner which feels pricey in the casual cafe-style surroundings for a load of mushed vegetables - but the salad plates and soups are reasonable and very tasty. You can also get a variety of herbal teas, good coffee and extravagant desserts. The staff are friendly and there's a funny collegiate atmosphere which is partly to do with the cramped tables and partly to do with the solidarity of the hipster staff in the face of snotty customers who get rude because they can't square the city-centre overpriced lunchtime rush with the laid-back homely feel of the place. Don't go at lunchtime. You'll find yourself queuing for ages, unable to get a seat and feeling irritable, and the staff don't respond well to that.

Cornucopia is at its best in the summer and if you can get a stool at the front window, it's a great place to spend an afternoon thinking deep thoughts, perusing Gay Community News and watching the world go by on Wicklow St. (It's funny how much of the world seems to be routed through Wicklow St on a summer day; most of it, by my reckoning.)

Peter's Pub is one of the few places in Dublin where the barmen (I've never seen a woman working there, so if that's what you're after, look elsewhere..) seem seriously dedicated and professional about their trade. They dress in white shirts and ties (which ties change with the seasons but in a curiously uncheesy way - I have never seen a red and green tie covered with reindeer worn with such poise and class as by the staff in Peter's Pub) and have the perfect balance of friendliness and reserve that only serious professionals can claim.

The decor is simple: green couches, few decorations and no music. It's a place for conversation, civilised pints and maybe a toasted sandwich. There are outdoor heaters, but sadly the outdoor seating area is in an alleyway away from the sun. (You might say the same for the city as a whole̷

Peter's Pub has a certain quiet dignity that is unusual in a Dublin pub, but does not at all detract from the fun of the place. It's a grow-up, friendly, decent establishment and I've never met anybody there who was anything less that delightful. If Grogan's is too smart-alecky for you, Peter's Pub could be exactly the thing you are looking for.

The pub is called Grogan's and it's on South William St in the middle of Dublin, sort of parallel to Grafton St and at the back of the Powerscourt Centre. It's not like any other pub I know. At first glance it's not even that impressive - the ceiling has that nasty hospital-style tiling with all those tiny little holes - you know the sort that you count when you're clutching your guts and waiting for a doctor and you haven't got anything to read? The wood-look laminate stuff that covers large portions of the place is more than a little bit hideous and the carpet requires a strong stomach to look upon. However, this superficial ugliness hardly impinges on the eye of the discerning drinker at all. The first thing that really strikes you on entering the place is the collection of art that hangs higgledy-piggledy all over the shop. There's a permanently changing collection of work by artists from all over the place, and it is all for sale.

Having a pub as an art gallery is a great leveller; at any given time there is an awful amount of terrible crap and an impressive, if smaller, collection of genuinely good work by very talented artists, and since you have paid the price of a pint to sit there and look at the stuff, you are quite entitled to voice your opinion and decide which is the good stuff and which is the crap.

The single most impressive thing on display is a stained-glass piece just to your left as you come in (it's not for sale). It's a portrait (I know the word portrait strictly refers to a painting of a living subject, but such is the atmosphere and distinct character of Grogan's that it seems the proper term to use here) of the pub itself, featuringminiature portaits of beloved and celebrated regulars , most of whom are now dead (just ask Tommy the barman, one of the few remaining survivors of the window's curse̷ The picture's perspective is so cleverly designed that it seems to be painted from the point of view of wherever you happen to be in the pub. (At least that's how the fragmented perspective feels after a few pints̷

The clientele in Grogan's varies a lot and the place takes on different atmosphere depending on the time of day or day of the week. In summers at the weekend it gets packed, and the seats outside are among the most prized outdoor drinking spots in Dublin. I prefer to go during quieter times on a weekday afternoon, and it's then that the place seems most truly itself. It's then that you will find the old artists and writers and musicians sitting over pints and engaging in the most rarefied of Dublin cultural conversation. At least that's what they'd tell you they were doing - preserving that elusive combination of erudition and bullshit that makes the place unique. This is the time to here stories of self-aggrandisement or -deprecation or - more frequently - of the former dressed up as the latter. You'll find the names of Behan and Joyce and Yeats flung around without much respect for the poor men who made them, but the really surprising thing is that all this talk is not asbsolute and total nonsense. If you are prepared to take some of these guys on on their own terms - and if you are prepared to be lectured to - you can find some remnant of the real old Dublin culture that seems to have disappeared elsewhere.

And that's why I can't have you coming in here and spoiling the place. Come in, by all means, sit down and have a pint of really excellent Guinness. Engage a stranger in talk of "Ulysses" but do so with a touch more humility than you feel. Don't sing - it's not that kind of place - and please, although I'll be delighted to see you there myself, don't tell them I sent you...

It is quite possibly the only club in Dublin where you are allowed to bring your drinks onto the dancefloor-a point that is not lost on the lounge staff who seem to spend most of the evening sweeping away shards of broken glass and spilt beer. But at 5Euro admission, crazy country folk and an enclosed smoking area, who cares?

29 harcourt street,

Dublin 2

Phone: (01) 4758777