photopol

The Hard Sticky Sell

2012-01-27T02:43:00.003Z

Seen in my local supermarket.

I sort of understand selling cars through ads with scantily clad women in them. You are sort of promised the woman with the car, or the car is as desirable as the woman, or the car will get you a woman, or whatever. Some sort of connection there anyhow.

But inspired rolls of Sellotape? What is that all about?

I'm completely baffled.

.

Turkish Delight

2012-01-17T19:38:00.005Z

Beautiful cartoon from Matt in the Daily Telegraph today.

Lots of Irish resonances if all be told.

Such a boycott, if successful, in the old days, could have caused unemployment not alone in Turkey but also in Cork, where Hadji Bey had a thriving business making high quality Turkish Delight. I remember it well from when I was small. Large cubes of Turkish Delight with a fine sugar coating. You never went near Cork without bringing back a box of these.

But there are other resonances, perhaps more obscure, but interesting nonetheless. Hadji Bey was not a Turk but a Christian Armenian, named Harutun Batmazian, who had actually fled Constantinople to escape a Turkish pogram. And what did he end up doing in Cork? Making Turkish Delight. And you know what the Turks did to the Armenians. Ironic.

It reminded me of another irony. My French teacher in school, nicknamed Froggy of course, was actually Albert Folens, a militant Flemish nationalist who fought against the all pervasive French language in his own country, Belgium, but who, in the aftermath of WWII, ended up in Dublin teaching French and was known as Froggy. Ironic.

And, of course, the word boycott comes from ...

Urban Myth?

2012-01-15T20:23:00.002Z

Jews at the Crossroads

2012-01-07T21:27:00.004Z

You know how it is. There you are walking along the road, your head miles away, and the corner of your eye picks up a pattern.

Well, there I was, approaching a local roundabout when my brain registered a Star of David on the ground at one of the approaches. There is, however, only one triangle here. The other one is merely suggested by the middle of a corrupted YIELD sign.

The symbolism was overwhelming.

I am tempted to stop writing now, and let the picture just speak for itself. But I feel some little interpretation is required to avoid landing myself in serious international trouble.

I say Jews in the title of this post. Not Israelis, not Zionists. These last categories are already past the crossroads phase. They have already crossed. They have chosen. And the Palestinians of Gaza and the West Bank are a testimony to that shameful choice.

The challenge is now for Jews of good faith to bear witness. Do they support the war-mongering Israeli state in its illegal oppression and collective punishment of the Palestinians, or are they willing to shout stop and work to cut off financial and military support to Israel.

That is the message of my simple roundabout, which, after all, was originally built to accommodate the seamless merging of traffic from all directions.

Meltdown 2012

2012-01-03T13:07:00.005Z

The meltdown is reaching even to the stars, as this stark example shows. And it didn't start in 2012, it was already underway before the end of the year when the above shot was taken at Killester RC Church. This is what it looked like in 2009 before the accident.

But the good news is that it has not yet reached nearby Raheny, as that RC Church (below) will testify.

I suppose we won't know the full story until this time next year when we see if these stars appear at all for the holy season and if there is enough energy left to light them.

Mind the Gap

2011-12-26T22:53:00.008Z

This photo is taken from the road bridge that crosses the Connolly-Raheny railway line at Venetian Hall apartments in Killester.

I was passing by the other day when I saw workment putting up the wire mesh.

"What's that for" said I, "are young lads pegging stones down on the trains?"

"No" said they, "people dumping rubbish".

You wouldn't believe it possible if you hadn't been told. I suspect they might have been spotted by the security cameras installed when the the new apartments went on fire some time ago. Or maybe the train just ran aground on a mound of rubbish. Anyway the mesh was to sort all this out.

It was only later that I realised a gap had been left in the middle of the mesh, on both sides of the bridge. Now, what is that all about? Beats me for sure. Ideas welcome.

So we're sorted then?

The gap has been closed and all is well.

I gather a mistake had been made.

The gap should have been much wider.

So now it's been closed.

Sleep tight.

Piggybank

2011-12-26T20:10:00.011Z

I got a most evocative stocking present on Christmas morning.

A piggybank.

Now these were designed in the past to encourage thrift.

"What's thrift?" I hear you ask.

Well, it was a pre Celtic Tiger virtue which meant you saved some of your income for a rainy day, or a family emergency, or to buy something you couldn't quite afford yet.

The piggybank always had a zero or positive balance.

It has, unfortunately, been replaced by the credit card. These, contrary to what their name implies and unlike the piggybank, always have a negative balance. In fact if you have more than one of them they can add up to an exponentially negative balance. They should more appropriately be called debit cards, but then we already have debit cards and they have a positive balance, don't they? Very confusing.

But that is all for another day.

Back to the piggybank.

My new one is well suited to saving in a period of reduced income. It is no bigger than a table tennis ball, so it can quite adequately cope with the likely volume of savings.

In fact, the deposit slot at the top will accept nothing greater than a 20 cent piece in €urocurrency.

It also has a withdrawal hole on the underside which is normally bunged up lest any savings leak.

However, when you get to the stage of withdrawing your meagre savings, you find that not even a 1 cent piece will pass through the hole.

So, to get at your savings, you just have to break the bank.

QED.

Still Bloomin'

2011-12-23T23:03:00.003Z

Sweny's
still on the go
in one form or another
despite all its travails over the years.

Mattress Mick

2011-12-23T22:28:00.003Z

Dublin's latest new character: Mattress Mick.

The mind boggles.

Waiting for Godot

2011-12-23T21:52:00.002Z

This is the crib in the RC church in Raheny before midnight on Christmas eve. Like most church cribs it is observing the tradition that the babe is not put in the crib until Christmas Day.

Unlike the ending to Beckett's play, this one is heading for a happy ending, for the moment at least.

Cappanahanagh

2011-12-21T19:45:00.007Z

Murroe and Boher is a Roman Catholic parish in East Limerick. Murroe is perhaps best known as the birthplace of Canon Hayes, founder of Muintir na Tíre, and as the location of Glenstal Abbey where many a well known Irishman went to school.

My interest is in the townland of Cappanahanagh where some of my ancestors come from. So far I have traced them back to the time of the French Revolution and am not sure I'm going to get any further in that direction. But never mind, the family is replete with interesting characters as it is.

I visited there some time ago, at the invitation of a relation, Nora Meehan (née Fogarty), who is assiduously following up both her own and my family history in the area. The result of my visit can be seen here. Nora suggested that I might contribute a piece to the parish annual, which I was only too glad to do. It is an excellent publication with a very high standard of presentation. But the meat is in the content. Murroe has a great community spirit and has developed a vast range of community activities and interests. You can get a flavour of these from the annual and also from the website which has been going from strength to strength since its inception a few years ago.

The cover of the current annual is reproduced above and you can click on it for a larger image. The year 2011 saw the visits of President Mary McAleese, JP McManus and Archbishop Dermot Clifford, and, of course, the annual Mary from Murroe festival - all themes taken up on the cover of the annual.

You can read my piece in the annual here or a purely text version here.

Saecula Saeculorum

2011-12-18T21:25:00.006Z

Just a few secular night shots of Christmas in Dublin in 2011,
starting with Grafton Street viewed from St. Stephen's Green.

Carols from Santy's helpers,
male, female and lay, in Grafton Street.

Joseph O'Connor's Mickey
in a Grafton Street shop window.

Not forgetting Minnie
in the same window.

A fairly elaborate Santy
in Griffith Avenue, Dublin 3.

Telemetree

2011-12-11T23:16:00.004Z

GCHQ, Vernon Avenue, Dublin 5

Top o' the Mornin'

2011-12-11T12:13:00.004Z

She may never have existed, but then neither did he.

While the City Council are attempting to give the city a bit of character with some excellent street sculpture around the place, this cretin is trying to turn it into a Hollywood set.

And he's holding out his hand for money for just standing there and ruining the view.

[Before I'm attacked by the s/he brigade, I am doing the ladies a favour by assuming that it's not one of the fair sex inside that thing.]

Pray God and pass the blood-pressure tablets.

Happy Christmas 2011

2011-12-11T11:36:00.006Z

from Downtown Raheny

Johnny Xmas

2011-12-11T11:09:00.004Z

My first thought, when I came across this object blocking my path outside my local supermarket, was that it was a jet engine which had fallen off a passing plane.

Then I wondered if it was one of those drones which appear to be landing where they are not supposed to. A distinct possibility when they are being pilotted from the USA west coast by people who couldn't find the North Pole at Christmas. Let's hope, for Santa's sake, that they don't find it before the 25th at any rate.

Then the context hit me.

Christmas is coming, my local supermarket is hosting the usual Christmas tree sellers, and this is just a packing device - like the funnel on a sausage machine or a rubber johnny.

No mystery here then.

Happy Christmas.

A Dry Christmas?

2011-12-03T11:42:00.008Z

Combining local interest and a worthy cause, All Saints' (CofI) parish in Raheny, Dublin 5, are selling A5 size Christmas cards in aid of the roof repair fund.

This is the gem of a church which was built by Lord Ardilaun for his estate at St. Anne's, subsequently became the local parish church and in more recent times hosted Bono's wedding and a complete reading of the bible on the 400th anniversary of the issue of the King James version.

The card above is the Great East Window depicting the Nativity, one of a set of four. The others show the window depicting the baptism of Christ, the church exterior in the snow,and the Duck Pond in St. Anne's. The images come by kind permission of Leo "George" Devitt.

The cards are €5 for a pack of 8 and can be got from Paper Pieces and Best Sellers in Raheny shopping centre, Adams's chemist on Main St., and Mace opposite the Cedars Lounge at Assam's Park.

I am happy to report that the amount of funding required to repair the roof and fix the old bell mountings is now estimated to be only half the amount originally envisaged and that virtually all the required funding has now been obtained. Work on the bell has already been completed.

I learned this at this afternoon's service when the christmas tree lights were turned on and the bell rung for the first time in a long while. You can see a short video here.

Reverend Jim was in fine form and thanked all who had contributed both to the current service and the repairs fund.

He then joined the group of parishioners below for a souvenir photo.

Guess who?

2011-11-27T22:51:00.010Z

Digits erased to protect the innocent
Look who I found on my local northside supermarket noticeboard.

Hacked?

2011-11-23T22:21:00.022Z

The IRISS Cyber Crime Conference in the D4Berkely, Dublin, (23/11/11) was very interesting and sometimes very scary. The IRISS had assembled an impressive panel of speakers covering a range of cyber security areas. They also took the opportunity to release IRISSCERT Irish cybercrime statistics which are reported on here.

The keynote speaker was Mikko Hypponen of FSecure who brought us on a trip down Virus lane recalling the development of the virus from a harmless hacker hobby, through a destructive phase, then a moneymaking phase, and finally a form of State-sponsored cyber warfare.

Ryan Jones took us through a security incident, illustrating the importance of advance planning and comprehensive logging if there is to be any prospect of getting on top of the problem.

Robert McArdle introduced us to the fantastic world of HTML5 and then scared the shit out of us with the security implications of this box of tricks which can effectively bypass much of the traditional anti-virus machinery.

Dale Pearson gave a virtuoso performance on social engineering which effectively means exploiting the human factor vulnerabilities.

Stephen Bonner took us through a Barclay's Bank user awareness campaign, including some heavy ideas that didn't get used. He generated an active audience response by pegging Ferrero Rocher chocolates at anyone who made remarks or asked questions. He literally threw a book at me.

Conor Daly showed how Passive DNS could be used to pin down threats. David Rook demonstrated his code scanning tool Agnitio. John Burroughs teased out the security implications of the Cloud. Mathieu Gorge gave an overview of Information Security Ireland which is attempting to bring Irish security firms together both to share information and campaign to bring multinational jobs to Ireland. Daragh O'Brien dealt with some aspects of crisis management which are often overlooked, such as coming clean quickly and having a good public communications strategy to protect the brand.

Dave Venman and Eoin Keary went over my head.

While all this was going on in the main room, the hackers were busy at work next door. HACKEIRE was a competition in which teams of hackers had to hack a virtual system set up to test their mettle. Seriously competitive co-working.

Some of the day's sponsors had stands in the foyer and Amazon were actually recruiting. They have 12 hour global functions located in Dublin.

All in all a very interesting day.

I attended on behalf of
.
You can read some supplementary remarks on the NodeCity wiki.

Cuurious Chicken

2011-11-20T19:37:00.003Z

I was always told to read the ingredients.

It could happen to a Bishop or even a Vice President.

No French Kissing

2011-11-18T15:00:00.005Z

Hot on the heels of Benetton being forced to abandon its latest outrageous ad campaign which showed prominent people on opposite sides of the fence kissing, Enda Kenny has decided to spice up the Eurocrisis by giving Angela an oul peck, or is he nibbling her ear, or perhaps even telling her the latest Irish joke.

Remains to be seen if it will go up on his next election poster.

Craig Murray blows the Whistle

2011-11-15T11:30:00.004Z

Craig Murray, former UK Ambassador to Uzbekistan, is now a campaigning human rights activist with his own authorative blog.

He has just published an article which implicates the UK, and more particularly both the recently resigned Defence Secretary, Liam Fox, and the current UK Ambassador to Israel, Matthew Gould, in a plot to attack Iran.

Despite the reliability of his sources and his own forensic follow-up, the mainstream media, who have published much of his writings in the past, have run a mile from this explosive story.

Despite it going viral on the internet in recent days, it has been studiously ignored by the same media, which does seem to testify to the power of the Israeli lobby in the media not to mention at the heart of the UK Government, which is part of the point of the piece.

In order both to give Craig's article the maximum publicity, and to ensure its continued availability, I, along with many others, have posted it on my website.

You won't regret reading it, unless, of course, you are one of them.

Happy Scary Halloween 2011

2011-10-31T00:01:00.002Z

Supervalu, Raheny, Dublin 5

Waking the Dead

2011-10-30T18:00:00.002Z

Konstantin Raudive did some experiments which involved taking a tape recorder, running the tape and then isolating the device in a Faraday cage. When the tapes where subsequently analysed he noticed "interference" or "background noise" in which he was able to discern the voices of people speaking from beyond the grave (including Winston Churchill). He published Transcripts in a book called "Breakthrough".

In May 1971 the Late Late show featured this item and so great was the response that they came back to it again the same month. I actually bought and read the book following the first show and thought it a load of cobblers. When I heard there was to be another show I rang up for tickets.

I got talking to Pan Collins, who, Gay Byrne apart, was the Late Late show. She told me that the tickets were all gone by then but that they were holding back a pair until they got an assurance from the people to whom they had promised them that they would be prepared to contribute to any debate that arose in the studio. She explained that there was a tendency for audiences at spooky shows to clam up and for the show to go dead. I said I'd be only too happy to participate vigorously in the debate and that I thought the whole thing was a load of cobblers.

Apparently the people to whom the tickets had been promised funked it and they were mine for the taking.

On the night, I was up in the back of the audience (much smaller than today's, I think). I don't know if I remember all the panel but the man of the moment was Dr. Peter Bander PhD, who had written the preface to the recently published English version of the Raudive book. Also present were an Italian priest, probably Fr. Pistone, and Terry Prone.

My recollection is that, having introduced the "professor", Gay went straight to the audience for a spiritual health warning. He spoke to two men in the front row whose niece (I think) had been messing about with a Ouija board and got into severe mental difficulty as a result. This duly raised the studio atmosphere.

After a bit of initial chit chat with the "professor" he turned to the priest and asked him for his views. "Do we not believe in God, in the saints, and in the devil? Do we not believe in the spirits?". Or something along those lines, which Gay interpreted as a strong endorsement of the current phenomena by the Vatican no less.

The discussion was eventually thrown open to the studio audience and I duly raised my hand. I need not have bothered. Despite even loudly clicking my fingers at a later stage Gay studiously ignored me right through the item. Needless to say the thing was going swimmingly in an ever rising cloud of hype. Not a dissenting voice to be heard.

By the end of the show I was steaming through every orifice and dying for a go at the "professor". So when the show finished, I sidled up to Terry Prone, whom I knew ever so slightly, engaged her in conversation and proceeded unchallenged all the way to the Green Room, where I buttonholed the "professor". He had been flaunting his doctorate all during the show to give authority to his answers so I asked him what he was a doctor of. Psychology, apparently. I pointed out that this did not actually qualify him to authenticate supernatural phenomena. I further pointed out that many apparent supernatural phenomena through the ages eventually turned out to have natural explanations. By his logic, the Romans should have venerated a sword and shield hanging on the wall if they just rattled every so often.

At that point, when he was clearly beginning to find me tiresome, one of the blue rinse brigade with an American accent caught him and asked if the spirits understood French. Now, clearly in his element, he dispensed with me and took off across the room with this silly person.

Bander later wrote a book about his evangelistic tour in which he devoted a chapter to his appearance on the Late Late show. I must check out the attic one of these days. I think I might have bought it at the time.

Bander died in 2004 and is now in a better position to authenticate these phenomena. I'm waiting.

Anyway, it's Halloween, so let's not be too fussy.

Riddle me this.

2011-10-23T08:50:00.007+01:00

My existing baseball cap, very useful not only for keeping the sun/light out of my eyes generally but also for taking photos, was getting very tatty and I spotted the one above for €1 at a carboot sale in the grounds of the local Protestant church. I had been looking for a plain cap, but I figured the question mark logo was neutral enough, so I took it.

I've been wearing it for the last month or two and it was only yesterday that it was pointed out to me that it is from a Batman range of merchandising and represents the Riddler, Batman's intellectual enemy. Sure enough, on further inspection there was a Batman logo inside the rim.

How cool is that?

Mr. Tayto for President

2011-10-20T21:43:00.005+01:00

A notable absentee from the current Presidential election is Mr. Tayto, who has participated in a number of General Election campaigns in the past.

It is rumoured that he will be a write-in candidate and his Election Bus was spotted earlier today on Dublin's Northside just before starting its countrywide tour.

Features to note are the aspirational twin exhausts pointing skywards. The right hand back door given over to sponsorship in deference to our likely future paymasters. The subtle racial reference to Lyons Tea in the trouser legs - Tayto is a thirsty consumption. Retention of the boater in honour of James Joyce. The red jacket lest Mary Davis get all the limelight. The blue tie to avoid any impression of power dressing. And the customary big smile as an alternative to kissing babies.

So don't forget the write-in candidate on the 27th.

Food

2011-10-16T11:15:00.010+01:00

Just a few passing thoughts on food today.

Seasonality has gone by the board. Because we could afford it, partly due to an inadequate and distortionate pricing system, we have now got fresh food being flown all round the world so we can have it all the year round. This is obscene decadance and must be reversed.

Greedy Big Pharma is messing with our food (GMO). Their greed will end up poisoning us all and destroying the capacity for growing edible food. Signs are already on it in the developing world. Nature is not copyrightable. They must be stopped.

We are also being poisoned with additives, designed either to make food last, or look nice, or be addictive. This has to stop.

Strict standards are needed for the origin and ingredients in all food. And the testing of ingredients needs to be genuine. At present we often haven't a clue where stuff comes from or what is in it. We need a regular feedback analysis of products at the level of the retail outlets.

And so on, and so on. Where do you stop. There is at least half a century of abuse which has been tolerated by oblivious consumers who have been systematically manipulated by commercial interests.

In fact, looking closely enough at food as a case study would lead you to the conclusion that political structures purporting to be "democratic" actually need complete revamping.

Blog Action Day Homepage

Visit Dublin

2011-10-13T17:48:00.008+01:00

Dublin Tourism are running a very interesting photo competition for the last year or so. They are operating through Flickr. You enter a photo by posting it to their group on Flickr. You can enter up to 5 photos per month and the increment to the pool is adjudicated every 2 months. The only condition is that the photo is relevant to Dublin.

I have been entering 5 photos a month for some time now and I currently have 79 photos in the pool.

I have noticed sometimes that the pool only picks up say 3 of my 5 submitted photos and have put the omissions down to software defects. Usually, when I resubmit the missed photos they eventually appear in the pool.

Last month, however, I have come up against what I think is a downright refusal. So far, the photos have been if anything flattering to the city, but the one (above) passed over last month is less than flattering, though I think it is a good photo. There is nothing in the conditions to say that the photos have to be flattering nor is there anything limiting the adjudicators in their absolute discretion in awarding prizes.

In an attempt to be sure that something was going on, I resubmitted the above photo this month (having resubmitted it twice last month) and also included some less flattering photos in this month's batch.

So far, the photo above has not been accepted nor has the one below, representing the end of the party from earlier this year.

My own view is that this is a disgrace. It is fine to limit prizes to flattering photos for the Dublin Tourism calendar, but it is an unjustifiable form of censorship and propaganda to refuse to accept unflattering photos into the pool. I would warrant that the batch I have submitted to date are more than flattering to the city and that there is even a fair risk that any tourist whose expectations are based on them would be seriously disappointed at the actual state of much of the place.

As a sign of my good faith, I have so far held myself back from submitting the photo below.

Where is it? No. 7

2011-10-13T17:06:00.005+01:00

To see all the quiz items click on the "Where?" tag below.

Pissing into the Wind

2011-10-13T16:16:00.003+01:00

A suitable case for treatment?

Wrong Writing

2011-10-08T07:47:00.003+01:00

I always remember a piece of wisdom I heard in school. "Never write anything wrong on the blackboard".

This was really advice to the teacher. And it was good advice as I later realised.

There is a lot going on in the subconscious mind all the while, and the rationale of this advice was to avoid visually underwriting something that is wrong. Full stop.

This recollection was provoked by the ad above. It is very sly. It is visually trying to persuade you that this bar is big, but it is slyly covering itself by telling you it is lying. So where does that leave you.

It's not square, but it sure is big.

Which reminded me that over the years, since I was wee, sweet manufacturers have been surreptitiously raising their prices by cutting down on the size of the product.

We had a (sweet) shop when I was young and you could see and feel the gradual shrinkage over time.

You can't beat these guys. Win/win all the way (for them).

Apostrophic Separator

2011-10-08T06:40:00.006+01:00

I thought I'd seen it all but this Bargaintown innovation is truly a new chapter in the life of the apostrophe.

"Pig ignorance" was my first thought. But then, on reflection, I could see the sense of it.

When we were more integrated with Britain in the past, the question didn't arise. The thousands separator was a comma and the decimal point a full stop.

Then we increasingly came across another way of doing it. The French, for example, do it exactly the other way round. The dot is their thousands separator and the comma their decimal point.

This made financial dealing with the French, particularly for anything under the million a real pain in the arse.

So is this the answer? Agree on the apostrophe as the universal thousands separator and Bob's your uncle.

So I figured I'd check out which countries were using which system. Enter Wikipedia. And to my amazement I found that some countries are already using the apostrophe for this purpose. But there is no standardisation. The variety of uses of the comma, dot and apostrophe as numeric separators is truly amazing.

So I leave you as I am left, pondering the question: is there scope for a universal campaign in favour of the apostrophe as the thousands separator?

Cool or cool?

2011-09-27T18:32:00.007+01:00

Irish Times (online), 27/09/11
How cool is that?

This teaser just shows how language can change, or how old Subs never die.

"Cool" is used here in the older sense of "reluctant" or "not in favour of".

To the young modern reader the headline would mean that Enda had no problem with lifting the salary cap.

The full teaser is below which clarifies the meaning a bit.

And the full piece is here.

Naked Truth?

2011-09-27T18:30:00.006+01:00

Irish Independent (online), 26/09/11
Not sure that the juxtaposition of the headline and the picture itself are consistent.

Maybe it's just me?

Native cuisine ...?

2011-09-11T17:45:00.006+01:00

Seen recently in Galway
Food for thought for our Australian brethern sistern.

Thanks to Barry Crowley and Vivion Mulcahy for passing it on. The title of the post is Barry's.

I decided to chase it up and this photo appears to have come from Ronan Ryan originally.
Thanks Ronan.

And the experience is not unique, in fact it seems to be quite common and worldwide, and Pennsylvania University are keeping an eye on it. Thanks to Stan Carey for that link.

Oops!

2011-09-10T19:17:00.007+01:00

What have I done?
(See previous post)

Clicked on Taoiseach's Department at www.gov.ie.

Was told they had moved. So clicked on here.

And found they didn't exist anymore.

I suppose that's the Vatican gone too?

How in hell do you reverse this antimatter thing?

I should have left well enough alone. Or not?

Civitas Dei?

2011-09-10T18:45:00.005+01:00

Obedientia civium urbis felicitas.
The antimatter version of the Vatican.

And you know what happens when matter meets antimatter.

View from Parlon Country

2011-09-08T21:00:00.002+01:00

A Parlon Country child's view of the Dáil, in the run up to the 2007 general election, in which Tom Parlon lost his seat.

It is very revealing. Despite the twice asserted national ownership, the building has all the characteristics of the Big House. And not satisfied with a mere Merc, this child has our hero step from a flashy stretch limo onto the red carpet to be whisked inside to join our native betters.

Welcome to Parlon Country

Jesus, phone home

2011-09-08T07:46:00.010+01:00

The phone company Phones 4u have been ticked off by the UK Advertising Standards Authority for using the above illustration in an ad released over a Christian holiday period.

The ad has been withdrawn and so far no fatwas have issued either from the Vatican or from Canterbury.

My favourite, legitimate, use of Jesus on the phone is the notice at the entrance to the Roman Catholic church in Birr, Co. Offaly, Ireland, below.

The message is clear from these two examples. If you're not advertising for Jesus, just leave him alone. Or to quote what once used to be one of the pillars of good journalism "When in doubt, leave out".

A different kind of Jersey

2011-09-07T11:18:00.017+01:00

Elections to the States (parliament) of Jersey, a British Crown Dependency are due on 19 October next and nomination meetings are currently under way. The election promises to be an interesting one and some of the candidates are already out of the traps, as illustrated by the above comments on yesterday's nomination meetings for Senator.

The above illustration is taken from the blog of Ex-Senator Stuart Syvret, who will be contesting the election. The Ex-Senator's history is too long to go into here. Suffice it to say that he was sacked as Health Minister for attempting to open the can of worms that is the cover up of child sex abuse in Jersey. He is now dragging the present administration through the courts en route to Strasbourg.

Previous post.

Update
Ex-Senator Syvret has now published the evidence which the court had declared inadmissable in the course of his "public interest" defence against the charge of having illegally and publicly named a male nurse who was suspected of being a serial killer and who may have murdered a number of the Ex-Senator's former constituents.

The States of Jersey claimed that the "public interest" disclosure provision in the legislation did not apply in this case because the enquiry (1999) into the behaviour of the nurse in question had been complete and matter was closed. Syvret's naming of the nurse was therefore an offence under the data protection legislation.

When Syvret then obtained disclosure of relevant documentation which showed that the enquiry had been anything but complete and appeared to have been prematurely wound up, the authorities declared the disclosed material and Syvret's expert's report thereon, inadmissable in evidence. The local Jersey court upheld this bizarre view.

The evidence clearly blew the authorities' case out of the water, which is why they could not afford to have it admitted in court. So why did they disclose it to Syvret in the first place. Simple, they handed it over without having read it. Then they panicked.

So Syvret had no choice but to abandon the corrupt local court system and head for London. He didn't have much success there, due to the close links between the UK and Jersey establishments and because the UK judicial and political system was frightened to death of opening up a can of Jersey worms which, inter alia, could ultimately have serious implications for a significant element of the UK financial sector. Not to mention the reluctance of Jack Straw, the responsible UK minister, to do his duty and take a stand for justice.

The Jersey administration then used Syvret's flight to London to smear him for having "abandoned his constituents". They have now accused him of being responsible for some £400,000 of Jersey taxpayers' money which THEY spent in what can only be described as a campaign of harassment and defamation.

The pace is clearly quickening in the run up to the forthcoming October election in Jersey.

You can read the disclosure evidence here.

Update
27/1/2012
You can see a very succint summary of the present position in this comment. It is also worth reading the post to which it applies. It follows revelations which blow a complete hole in the Establishment's supposed justification for the sacking (suspending) of the Chief of Police, the subsequent maligning of his retired Deputy, and the earlier sacking of the Health Minister - all in an effort to avoid and subsequently cover-up exposure of institutional child sex abuse.

Just to remind you also that Ex-Senator Syvret, the former Health Minister, has just emerged from serving a two month prison sentence which effectively arose out of his efforts to expose the ongoing cover-up, though technically imposed for other reasons.

Previous post.

In the soup

2011-09-07T08:31:00.005+01:00

The impact of the full-page ad nearly made me drop my hardcopy of the Irish Independent into my soup. Good Lord, I thought, why have I been avoiding playing sports all these years? Sad.

So I checked it out. The advice (above) is even more startling, even if the order is a bit muddled.

None of this is designed to help you concentrate on researching something as relatively boring as your own family tree.

Anyway, seeing as how it's early in the morning, and some of you are limited to the online edition of the paper, I'll leave you with the image below to send you on your way. If you're a collector of football cards you can go to the source.

As good as it gets

2011-09-06T20:59:00.003+01:00

Great Denmark Street then
Nice to see a bit of grammar accompanying the move.

In moving from 16 Great Denmark Street to 54 Lower Dorset Street, Fay's has picked up an apostrophe.

Great, I said to myself. You can't beat a bit of old fashioned education.

Then I wondered was the change simply an indication of reduced family size.

Still, there should have been an apostrophe somewhere on Great Denmark Street.

Lower Dorset Street now

Vertical Strip Postering

2011-09-05T16:02:00.006+01:00

Click for larger image
Not as easy as it looks, is it?

Vertical Apostrophe

2011-09-05T15:28:00.003+01:00

Now there's a man who knows where to put it and not let go of it.

A rare vertical apostrophe, in Hill St, Dublin.

A medal for grammatical accuracy, visual consistency, and sheer bloody mindedness?

And rumour has it that the pint's not bad either.

John Joe Mahockey

2011-09-03T16:55:00.003+01:00

I was looking through some old photos and came across this one which Jack Cruise (1915-1979) gave me in 1954. He even inscribed it personally on the reverse. I was only 10 and the thrill was enormous.

Jack and his "troupe" used to "do" Butlins for the summer season at the time. Butlins was great. You paid (well your parents paid) up front at the beginning of the holiday and then everything was "free" after that, treasure hunts, paddle boats, competitions of all sorts, all under the strict but friendly supervision of the Red Coats.

Jack's shows were ideal. They were funny and they were cleaner than clean.

Butlins was magic. The only disappointment in my time there was Hopalong Cassidy. The actor William Boyd had become completely identified in young minds with this fictional cowboy character. Boyd was Hopalong Cassidy. So when he was scheduled to appear at a campfire in Butlins, during his short visit to Ireland, we were ecstatic.

On the appointed night, we waited, and waited, and waited. But he never appeared. There were rumours of an excess of hospitality at a Croke Park function earlier in the day. A hero utterly destroyed for ever in the eyes of those eager young campers.

But back to Jack.

In later life, a stage director told me that Jack was a ruthless performer. He claimed the stage as his own and dare one of his troupe, even inadvertently, upstage him, even for a moment...

But none of that was evident to this young camper at the time. And Jack turned up every night and the show went on and it was a great show.

Where is it? No.6

2011-08-30T20:06:00.004+01:00

I guess Dave gets this one. See his comment below.

Well spotted, Dave. It's over Sam's Barbers at 28 Lr. Ormond Quay.

In the shot below it is just above the centre pillar.

To see all the quiz items click on the "Where?" tag below.

Kilmainham Festival 2011

2011-08-28T08:25:00.003+01:00

This is the second year of the Kilmainham Arts Festival. An action-packed programme was provided by a relatively small team with significant local sponsorship and buckets of enthusiasm.

Good to see this sort of thing taking off. Communities are valuable and anything that reinforces them is to be welcomed. The old city centre communities up around James's St., Mountbrown and Kilmainham have, in large part, been long broken up and suburbanised. Regeneration of their remains has run aground in the current financial catastrophe. So local efforts to hold on to what is left and expand the base are very welcome.

Photo shows the artist presenting his picture of Anna Livia, à la Picasso, to the Lord Mayor who sort of promised to hang it on his wall. Speeches by the three people in the photo were exemplary - short and to the point.

Sadly this year's Kilmainham Festival coincides with the demise of the No.19 bus, despite residents' protests. That's the last echo of the No.19 tram gone.

I have reported on the recent Raheny Festival here.

Where is it? No.5

2011-08-25T19:43:00.004+01:00

To see all the quiz items click on the "Where?" tag below.

Embedding Flickr

2011-08-19T13:12:00.009+01:00

I just wondered if it were possible to embed Flickr photos in a web page.

In fact it is quite easy to do and it opens up possibilities for interesting presentations on your web page or in your blog.

The photos in this post are simply links to those in my own Flickr collection.

Find the shot you want in a photostream in Flickr.
Left click on the photo and you will get a larger size of that one photo.
Left click on the Actions button above the photo and then on View All Sizes in the dropdown menu.
Pick the size you want
Right click on the link "Download the [whatever size] of this photo".
Click on copy link location in the dropdown menu (or the equivalent on your particular browser)
Use the following code format on your web page/blog <img src="" />
Paste the link in between the quotes

QED

You can do this with any photo on Flickr, and not just your own.
You don't need to be logged in to Flickr.

Just thought I'd share this. Haven't yet decided myself on just how I'll use it.

My Flickr

Art is not a crime ?

2011-07-25T16:52:00.006+01:00

The above is clearly an unexceptionable statement. Only repressive régimes make art a crime. Do they not?

But when the rest of the backlane, between St. Laurence's Rd. and the Styles Rd., is peppered with the likes of the shite below, it would make you wonder.

Where is it? No.4

2011-07-25T16:21:00.004+01:00

To see all the quiz items click on the "Where?" tag below.

Junk it

2011-07-21T07:08:00.010+01:00

I have had my fill of junk mail. Literally.

Unfortuntately Divine Intervention was not forthcoming in response to my enraged ejaculations in the direction of the Good Lord. Probably because he knows I know he's not there.

So back to earthly remedies.

I have written to some of the people who have stuffed my letterbox, including the post office. They have all taken the line that they are under contract to distribute such mail (the post office) or just a plain "eff off" (any of the very few others who bothered to reply).

The citizen's advice bureau advises you to contact the IDMA but this will only get you off lists for mail which is specifically addressed to your residence. You are still left with the fliers which I suspect are the main problem for most people.

Various remedies have been suggested. One that I liked, and which reminded me of a long past Private Eye campaign against W H Smith who refused to handle their publication, was to collect all your junk mail, assemble it in small parcels and post them all, without any stamp, to the mailer of your choice. Clearly this would only have an effect if adopted by a sufficiently wide segment of the offended population.

An alternative, suggested by the cartoon below, is to put the paper to your own constructive use.

Source
I remember making "papier maché" in school which could be used like plaster for making masks, boxes or whatever. You normally used paste and newsprint to do this but it might just be possible to come up with some fluid which, when mixed with the glossy junkmail, would produce the same effect.

Perhaps we might see junkmail banks springing up to facilitate those who don't want to go to all this trouble in the home. On reflection, maybe that's already there, after a fashion, in our current domestic recycling bins.

Anyway, for those of my readers whose blood pressure has reached an all time high since starting to read this post, I would like to end on a calm and civilised note.

I recently got a flier from a local motoring school. Needless to say there was an email address to facilitate booking your place.

So I mailed the offender in the following terms.

I have a notice on my letterbox requesting no junk mail.

I have just received your flier in triplicate.

I would like an explanation from you of how this happened and what instructions you give your flier distributors.

I would appreciate a reply before taking this matter up on my blog.

Much to my surprise I got the following prompt reply

I have now terminated my contract with the distribution company. Thank you for bringing this to my attention.

There's hope for us all yet.

And the civilised and concerned citizen involved is

Karl Nolan
Clontarf Driving Academy
086-3087756

Daw Fe Ddaw Yr Awr

2011-07-17T09:13:00.005+01:00

That Hug
We are approaching the tenth anniversary of the breaking of a significan glass ceiling in the cultural life of Welsh Wales.

For the first time ever, the Eisteddfod Chair, Y Gadair, was won by a woman at the Denbigh Eisteddfod in 2001. It was an electric occasion.

For its sheer impact, this occasion was on a par with the posthumous award of the Chair, at the Birkenhead Eisteddfod in 1917, to Hedd Wyn who had just died on the Western Front in WWI days before.

Since 2001, only one other woman has won the chair, Hilma Ll. Edwards, in 2008.

So all eyes will be on Wrexham for 16:30 on Friday 5 August. Will it be another woman on this occasion? Will the Chair be withheld for want of an entry of sufficiently high standard, as was the case as recently as 2009?

I'll leave you on a lighter note from 2001. The Englyn competition boasted an ironic entry in the light of what happened with the Chair. "Bunny" on the theme of "Red Herring" bemoaned the lack of a female archdruid. Chair Bards are normally preferred for this office, though we have even had a Prose Medal winner as Archdruid in recent times after the qualifications were widened to include this category.

Two female Chair Bards must surely increase the chances of a female Archdruid in the near future.

Mererid Hopwood with the Archdruid, 2001

Living History

2011-07-06T23:02:00.010+01:00

Is it a sign of advancing age when I find myself with connections to three out of four people photographed at the launch of the history of National Library of Ireland Society? This is a recurring experience.

I worked with Felix in the Departments of Finance and Economic Planning and Development and our paths have recently begun crossing again in the areas of local and family history. I also worked with Ian in both the above Departments though our paths have not (yet) started criscrossing in recent times.

Maurice is a different kettle of fish. I first met him at an essay competition run by the Irish Independent and moderated by the then editor Hector Legge. He won, I lost. He then turned up as my tutor in UCD and duly signed my chit to get Paul Blanshard's book The Irish and Catholic Power off the reserved shelf where is was isolated lest it contaminate the innocent students of the day. Thank you Maurice. I reread the book in more recent times and it is even much better than I remember.

For the record, the guys are (L-R) Felix M Larkin, Vice President of the Society, Maurice Manning who launched the history, Dónall Ó Luanaigh who wrote it, and Ian d'Alton, Treasurer.

Reviews of Friends of the National Library: in Irish Times Irish Catholic

Where is it? No.3

2011-07-04T15:13:00.008+01:00

Congratulations to Felix M Larkin who has correctly identified the figure as that of Blessed Francis Taylor outside the Pro-Cathedral in Marlborough St., Dublin.

To see all the quiz items click on the "Where?" tag below.

Where is it? No.2

2011-06-27T22:34:00.005+01:00

This could be an easy one - if you visit my website every day.

I'll probably post the answer in a comment sometime.

Full marks to Dave (see his comment below) for getting that one right. It's the Naughton Institute in Pearse St., part of the TCD complex.

It is one of the pictures that comes up once a month on my website.

To see all the quiz items click on the "Where?" tag below.

La Reine de la Manche

2011-06-24T22:45:00.003+01:00

"The Queen of the Channel", Jersey, Channel Islands, occupies a unique space. It is French but not French; it is British but not part of the UK; it is not in the EU but sort of of it; it is a tax haven sheltering under the relative respectability of a British Crown Dependency just off the coast of France.

In 1961, when I went there for summer work, it was a beautiful place, a sort of tourist paradise, advertised as a taste of France without the language problem. It was, and is still, more or less self-governing while formally the responsibility of the British Crown.

It is the only part of the "British Isles" to have been occupied by the Third Reich and the legacy of the occupation is still there to this day. Mind you, it did have some delusions of grandeur as illustrated by the limmo above, carrying the then current heads of state or government of the WWII allies: McMillan, JFK, de Gaulle and Kruschev.

The big tourist festival, akin to the St. Patrick's day parade for the Irish, was the "Battle of Flowers" where magnificent floats, completely covered in flowers, took part in a parade along the prom at St. Helier, the capital. When it was over the flowers were torn off the floats and pegged at one's opponents, whence the "battle".

All very idyllic, you might think. But revelations in recent times have shown this magic island in an entirely different light. Horrendous physical and sexual abuse of children, principally in institutions, has come to light. This was perpetrated by those in positions of power and has been systematically covered up by the Jersey administration for years.

When Senator Stuart Syvret, the Health Minister in the period 2005-2007, started poking the embers in response to complaints from victims, he was summarily sacked and has since been the object of villification and illegal harassment. The chief of police, who had come from the mainland, was also summarily sacked ("suspended") when he supported the efforts of his deputy to carry out the police enquiry into the abuse in a professional manner and free from political interference.

Ex-Senator Syvret is now working his way through the local courts en route to the Human Rights Court in Strasbourg. The, now retired, former Deputy Police Chief has provided him with an affidavit which is well worth reading in full. Stuart has reproduced it on his blog.

Says it all. Unfortunately.

Update: subsequent post.

Sign of the Times

2011-06-21T10:17:00.012+01:00

The National Roads Authority (NRA) has taken down this sign in Ballyvaughan, Co. Clare, because it is non-standard. The same sign is being used by Fáilte Ireland (the tourist board) to market the country and the area.

Is it any wonder we are in the mess we're in.

Fintan O'Toole has pointed out the lack of joined up thinking among our authorities and also the lack of respect for local involvement and preferences in our system of governance.

Clearly, what was required here was the capacity for the authorities to exercise discretion when applying national norms to allow them to respect local culture.

But this is a Catch 22 dilemma in clientist Ireland. On the basis of past experience, such discretion would be used by the authorities to wreck the country. We have already seen the number of local authority planning decisions which have had to be overruled by the national planning authority, particularly in the West of Ireland.

Ballyvaughan is a beautiful place, with its own pace and serenity. It is a place to stop in and not just to speed through.

What price a motorway? Oh, I forgot, we can't afford it. Shame!

Lending Library

2011-06-18T01:50:00.013+01:00

What is a library?

It's a place where you get books out on loan and where you can consult a lot of general reference works. It is also a reading room where you can sit and read their books or even bring your own.

At least that's how it used to be.

Today your local library is so much more. Quite apart from automating book loans by (almost) replacing friendly and efficient staff with intelligent machines (see above), the library has become a much wider community facility and focal point.

This is a current view inside my local library, the second busiest in the city of Dublin. You can see the desk, which still does a brisk business despite the intelligent machines at the door. You can also see one of the exhibitions which turn up regularly throughout the year. This particular one displays some of the really excellent photography of members of the Sutton Camera Club. Other exhibitions cover the work of local artists and aspects of local history, and there are yet other, more general, Dublin based exhibitions which travel around the city's libraries.

The study space is a new feature. This gives students a chance to study uninterrupted in a quiet environment away from home. The library provides free Wifi to all its clients. There is another space in a secluded corner which hosts language classes and conversation groups. The children's spacious area is also requisitioned on some evenings for illustrated talks on a wide range of subjects. These are very popular and well attended.

And if you don't have access to the internet at home, for one reason or another, the local library is your only man. You can book hourly slots on one of the four open computers. This not only allows you to access the internet generally, but you also have free access to a number of databases which would cost you at home, such as the Irish Times digital archive and the Irish Newspaper Archive which covers the Independent and Freeman's Journal at national level and is steadily increasing its coverage of the provincial papers.

The children's area has been reorganised from the old days when the emphasis was simply on taking out books. As you can see from the photo above, the emphasis is now on space, allowing plenty of room for both reading and joint project work.

There are even outdoor facilities. This chess/draughts bench sits in the middle of the front lawn and provides good healthy open air brain stimulation to players of all ages.

Not to forget the clothes (charity) and bottle (recycling) banks.

I was mulling over this post, and had raised it with my local librarian when, coincidentally, the Irish Independent carried an article on how to save money by using your library. It's well worth a read.

I intended the post to draw peoples attention to the significantly enhanced role of the local library in today's world, not only to provoke its use but to sound a warning note. Library services are provided free at the point of use but they incur a significant resource cost and can be a tempting target for public expenditure cutbacks or charges.

A greater appreciation of this wonderful service and its universal availability will hopefully encourage people to defend it agains such depredations.

By the way, the library carpark is most definitely not a place to park your car while you go to the gym, do your shopping or raid the hole in the wall across the road. The car parking is to facilitate the public using all the other facilities provided by the library.

Thought for Bloomsday

2011-06-16T18:04:00.006+01:00

Photo taken from a passing DART north of Connolly Station, Dublin.

Moving

2011-06-14T00:42:00.005+01:00

It doesn't really soften the blow for the staff but it may soften the general public's perception of what is going on.

Remember "downsizing", so much more sanitised than "laying off" or "making redundant".

Well Xtravision have come up with another one. They are closing their Raheny branch, but the sign simply says they are "moving".

Ah yes, but they are "moving" to two other outlets that are already there. So it's still bye bye staff.

There should really be a prize for the guys who think up, or apply, these new innocuous sounding verbs to what are really gruesome happenings.

Where is it? No.1

2011-06-08T20:50:00.008+01:00

I thought I'd engage in a bit of divarsion and, from time to time, post a photo of something that struck me in my travels and ask my readers to guess where it is.

The purpose of the exercise is really to encourage people to look around them as they walk, bus, tram or train around the place. Drivers and cyclists should keep their eyes strictly on the road ahead.

I had never noticed the above premises before, though it could have been there since Turkey applied to join the EU in 1987. It was certainly not there when Turkey got associate membership in 1963.

See an earlier view from Google Streetview.

If you've run out of patience and just want the answer hover the cursor here.

To see all the quiz items click on the "Where?" tag below.

Clip clop

2011-06-05T23:27:00.005+01:00

In 1884 there were 793 blacksmiths (excluding farriers) in Dublin alone.

The Medlar branch of the family boasted its share of this profession but in modern times the smithy is alas no more. Probably a mere corner of an apartment block, or of a car park, or of a super highway, or just an old ruin gone to seed.

Well, the good news for blacksmiths, not to mention farriers, is that they may be back. The recession/armageddon will reduce us all to a single horsepower, at most, and the lucky horseshoe will be back in fashion in spades.

The illustration above imagines an ancient Irish clamper, but may yet be a sign of things to come. It is from the same collection of postcards I introduced here last year.

On Guard

2011-06-01T02:42:00.004+01:00

People go to great lengths to protect their stock of booze. This guy is standing guard over the Guinness mortuary chapel in All Saints' Church in Raheny. As far as I can see, he is the only gargoyle on the outside of the church.

As well as the remains of Lord and Lady Ardilaun the chapel contains a special can of Guinness (below) commemorating that brewery's 250th anniversary at James's Gate in 2009.

The dragon above has been on guard for nearly a century and a quarter, but the piece of Sharia law below has just been introduced into the Supervalu off-licence in Raheny.

It would need to be a very very Good Friday!

Off with their heads.

2011-05-30T00:23:00.005+01:00

This cartoon appeared in the
Irish Independent on 7 May 2011.

You saw the concept here first
on 9 April 2009.

Just Pat

2011-05-29T10:57:00.002+01:00

A generation of Irish children have grown up with Pat Ingoldsby. Well, that's not exactly true. Pat was already grown up. Sort of. He has never lost his childlike wonder at the world, though it has got a slight edge to it as the years have passed and his beloved Dublin gives him short shrift from time to time.

His writing is quintessentially Dublin and, like Spike Milligan, whom he admires and resembles in many ways, his themes span a wide range of living, their presentation is in short bursts, and his use of unlikely juxtapositions and the absurd bring you up with a jolt. Sometimes it's a profound one, or just a sad one, or one that has you chortling on the DART or the LUAS and being immediately written off as another eccentric by the more serious passengers.

His latest book, Hitting Cows with a Banjo, is a marvellous read, and it comes complete with an apology to all cows on the back cover.

Unfortunately you won't find it on Amazon. Pat's last book there dates from 2003, and he is now into direct marketing, setting up his stall wherever on Dublin city pavements. Much of the present book is set on these very pavements. If you see him, talk to him and buy a book. You won't regret it.

He more than deserves The Freedom of the City and it might stop the occasional overenthusiastic (or spiteful) Garda moving him on.

I hope he won't mind me reproducing a couple of his shorter gems from Cows.

WELL NOW THAT'S CLEARED UP

An odd little man approached me
waving a finger
and said with a voice
which would brook no contradiction
"You're not Oliver Goldsmith!"
I didn't feel qualified enough to argue.

ECT

The medical profession
brought rural electrification to my brain.
I've had hot water ever since.

BEAM ME UP

A young woman stopped to look at my books from a safe distance.
After a while she spoke.
"What is your profession?" she asked.
"I'm a poet" I said. "And you're welcome to look at my books."
She still did not move any closer.
"What is your profession?" I asked her.
"I'm a student" she said. "I haven't finished High School yet."
"You will" I said. "Or maybe it'll finish you."
She smiled. "Can I get you on-line?" she said.
"But you're here now" I said. "So are the books.
You can touch them for real.
Why would you want to be changing it into something virtual?
You're right here with me in the middle."
She thought about it for a minute. She smiled.
"I like that" she said.
Jesus.

The Baby and the Bathwater

2011-05-25T15:45:00.006+01:00

Kay's café, Tesco, Clare Hall, Dublin.

Tomás Mac Anna

2011-05-24T02:50:00.013+01:00

I came across Tomás Mac Anna when he produced, directed, and often wrote, our school pageants in the early 1960s. These usually illustrated some aspects of Irish history, factual or legendary. They were very elaborate and used the latest effects in sound and lighting. They were the nearest thing to an Irish version of swashbuckling.

Tomás was very creative and generated great enthusiasm among the participants. He was also a stickler and a perfectionist and could, at times, be very grumpy.

We didn't exactly make our own costumes, but we did make crowns for kings and helmets for warriors.

We got so good at this, under his tuition, that he had us make similar artifacts for Geamaireachtaí na Nollag in the Abbey. These Christmas pantomimes were a hoot.

The serious Abbey actors treated them like an R&R break and ad libbed their way through them with great gusto and enjoyment. They also tailored each performance to its audience, often lampooning teachers from the stage and in front of their classes whom they had brought along as part of their Irish language "education".

These were quality actors, such as the late TP McKenna, and they really had a ball on stage. And there in the background, egging them on, was Tomás.

I'm not a theatre person, so I had no contact with him after I left school. But I know he was widely respected and you can read an appreciation by Joe Dowling which covers the later period.

You can read the 1963 school concert programme which included the play, Íosagán, written by Pádraig Pearse and directed by Tomás Mac Anna, and a pageant, Fíon Spáinneach, which he both wrote and directed himself.

Go n-éirí leis i nGlóir-Réim, nó b'fhéidir i nGeamaireacht, na bhFlaitheas.

RIP

Garret FitzGerald

2011-05-19T11:17:00.017+01:00

Garret was one of the driving forces behind the first MA in European Studies in UCD in 1966/7. And he set about implementing the new course with gusto. This was well before Ireland joined the EEC. In fact it was more than a year before de Gaulle (again) refused us entry (along with the UK, Denmark and Norway).

Garret had a long and enthusiastic interest in Europe and he was on the European Parliament's mailing list. He used to come into class (there were only about 6 of us, as I recall) with big bundles of EP reports under his arm which had just arrived in his morning post. He plonked these on the table and we sifted through them looking for nuggets on which to base our papers. The system worked well. We got a profusion of reliable sources and he got his reports sorted. A forerunner of distributed computing.

He may also have made history in the Berlaymont (Commission HQ in Brussels) during the same course. He had taken us on a study trip to the Commission and was in full flight at one of our briefings, quizzing the Commission official giving the briefing. The official was waffling all over the place and I figured there was nothing useful to learn from him, so I switched over to the French interpretation. As Garret, whose brain constantly outran his tongue, gushed on, the interpreter faltered and eventually lapsed into silence.

"I am sorry but I cannot keep up with this speaker", she said.

Incidentally, at the end of the session, the Commission official apologised for his disorganised presentation and responses, claiming he had hit his head on the side of the swimming pool when playing with his children over the weekend. We all felt very sorry for him until we later learned that this was a story he rehearsed on a regular basis to excuse his poor performance.

Garret had two great qualities for a teacher: great enthusiasm and intellectual curiosity, both of which he shared with his students.

A fault was his assumption that everyone was as interested in minute details as he was himself. And he wasn't the greatest delegator in the world. Very much a hands on manager which, when he was Taoiseach, led to difficulties in his dealings with the Civil Service and to some of the longest Cabinet meetings in the history of the State.

He was a conviction politician and, unlike many of his contemporaries, was conscious of the wider national interest in his dealings both at home and abroad. He will be sadly missed, not only by his family and friends, but by the country, which will be the poorer for his going.

It's a pity he missed his date with the Queen, but it now appears he had a more pressing appointment.

RIP

Lying in State

Marianne

2011-05-14T10:33:00.001+01:00

I had occasion recently to do a clearout of old papers in the course of which I came across a very interesting monograph written in 1985 on the crisis in Northern Ireland. You might like to read it? But first a bit of background on the author.

Marianne was born in France of Irish-French parents, and French was the language of the home.

When it came to career time, she decided she wanted to be an interpreter and went to the interpretation school in Geneva, just across the border from where she lived in France.

Sensibly, one of the course requirements was to spend some time in a country of the language she was hoping to interpret, and, while there, complete a monograph on some aspect of that country's linguistic, social or political life.

Marianne was taking English and Spanish, and, as she had Irish relations, she decided to come to Ireland and do her English language monograph here. Given the intensity of the Northern Ireland problem at that time (1985) she decided to do the monograph on the North.

She read widely around the subject before she put pen to paper and when she got around to formulating her outline she had a well thought out analysis of the situation from a political science viewpoint.

One aspect of her approach was to distinguish between what was going on at the political level on the one hand and the underlying interplay of violence (physical force) on the other. In doing this, she naturally assigned the IRA, UDA, RUC, Crown Forces etc. into the latter category. At the end of the day, these entities were all engaged in trying to force a military solution.

I thought this a perfectly valid academic approach to analysing the problem. Imagine my surprise then when her supervisor in Geneva threw a freaker. No way were the Forces of the Crown going to appear in the same bucket as the IRA. She was told that these two groups were in no way morally equivalent and could not therefore be lumped into the same section of the analysis.

What a load of cobblers that was. But what provoked this irrational, unscientific and unacademic outburst? The explanation soon emerged. Her supervisor was British.

As she needed her qualification, she had to compromise, which she did, barely.

You can read her paper here. I think that anyone with a modicum of understanding of the Northern Ireland situation, as it evolved up to 1985, and, indeed, since, will see that the paper was well thought out, and even prescient.

I leave it to you to judge.

Buck House

2011-05-07T18:37:00.005+01:00

Interesting how all that stuff floating around in the news is subliminally absorbed and affects your perception of things.

Now, take the royal wedding and the impending royal visit to Ireland.

For an instant, I thought I had found another immortal typo.

Just as, when I now see an ad in the distance for Polish (shoe variety), I think it is another Polski (immigrant variety) poster or sign.

King James's Thunder

2011-04-19T20:17:00.021+01:00

Spy Wednesday

This year is the 400th anniversary of the King James version of the Bible. This was a conservative but resonant document and it has influenced the English language wherever she is spoken.

All Saints church, in Raheny, Dublin 5, is celebrating the anniversary with a marathon reading of this whole bible in the lead up to Easter. Readings are broken up into quarter hour slots; readers, and hopefully listeners, make a donation to the church's roof fund.

A significant feature of this exercise is the support from the nearby Roman Catholic parish of St. Brigid in Killester. Parishioners there are providing readers for many of the slots. And this is not the only example of interdenominational cooperation between these two parishes. A recent coffee morning in Killester netted over €2,000 for All Saints' roof fund.

And the interdenominational angle doesn't stop there. The Rector, Rev. Jim Carroll, is a former Oblate father who has opted for the Church of Ireland. He is well aware that Jesus didn't distinguish between Catholics (Roman) and Protestants, Jesus himself being a Jew, as was his holy mother.

I had dropped in to listen to the readings and Brian Leonard (who organised the marathon) said it was OK to take a photo (above).

Rector Jim recalls that his Uncle Tom, whose house is just across the road from All Saints, had been forbidden, many years ago, to even enter the church where Jim is now Rector. I can recall such prohibitions from my own youth, which were very hurtful, particularly when it came to Protestant neighbours' funerals.

Holy Thursday
Was out walking the following day and dropped in again on All Saints. Readings had been going on there 24 hours a day from 3pm on Palm Sunday and were due to finish at 6pm on Holy Thursday. Brian Leonard reassured me that, much to my relief, the readings are well on, and at times ahead of, schedule. Some of the readers I had heard had been making fairly heavy weather of it.

They had just started on Romans when I arrived.

I was invited to do the next 15 minute slot and initially demurred, saying that, while I thought the project was a wonderful idea, I didn't think it was necessarily appropriate for an unbeliever to be declaiming King James from the altar. I was told that there were no visas needed in this church and it was humorously suggested that I first sign a waiver in case the Lord should smite me in full flight.

I took the 9 to 9.15 am slot and read Romans Chapters 8 to 10. Powerful stuff. First time I'd ever read it. A good morning's work, though I must admit some of the text appeared to be directed at me personally. Just as well I'm immune!

At the end I was presented with a certificate to say I had participated in this rare venture.

Brian told me that there are only about 15 such events in the world planned for this time and none in so small a church as this one (Bath cathedral etc.). Rev Jim told me yesterday that there are only about 300 families in the parish (which includes Coolock).

Good Friday
I was out walking again and decided to take a few external shots of All Saints' Church, particularly the spire which is supposed to be modelled on Salisbury Cathedral.

There was nobody around but I noticed that the door to the Mortuary Chapel was open, so I went in. It's a small chamber at ground level with a dual sarcophagus (Lord Ardilaun and his wife) and stuff around the wall, including that below:

This is the nearest thing to a posthumous DO NOT DISTURB sign. So I decided not to disturb.

Then I noticed an internal side door open and wondered if it led to the belfry, so in I went. It turned out to lead to the body of the church and as soon as I stepped in, every alarm in creation went off. The interior of the church screamed and flashed, the rectory screamed out into the ether and the gate lodge throbbed to the screeching rhythym. I got an awful fright.

So I went out and waited for the emergency services to arrive. Sure enough within minutes the Rector appeared in tennis shorts and a baseball cap. Apparently the vault door had been accidentally left open after a wedding in the morning and nobody had noticed.

So the day after reading off the altar I set off the burglar alarm. I'll be barred there soon, if the curse doesn't get me first.

Incidentally, the Rector asked me if I'd seen the can and the note. I had, and had already photo'd it.

He explained that the can, note and €20 had appeared on the step outside the vault in 2009 (250th anniversary of Guinness Brewery 1759). The can and note now repose beside the sarcophagus in case Lord Ardilaun (Guinness) or his wife get a thirst in the middle of the night.

Anyway, back to the roof. All Saints is a beautiful church, sponsored by Lord Ardilaun (Guinness) and dedicated in 1889. The roof is now sadly deteriorating and needs work done on it. Hence the round of fundraising.

I have already drawn attention to Jean Shouldice's excellent paintings/postcards, one of which features All Saints.

The photo of All Saints below was taken in December 2010 and photoshopped into watercolour.

On my Flickr page you can see: a larger version of the photo; a photo of St. Brigid's church in Killester; and a photo of the painting of St. Brigid's profession from the interior of Killester church.

Also this little gem from the RTÉ Six o'clock News for as long as it remains up.

On the move

2011-04-15T13:45:00.004+01:00

Spotted within a stone's throw of Ivor Callely's Peace Commissioner office in Killester, Dublin 3.

Now that's an idea for Ivor - a mobile mini-clinic.

Can operate from furthest points north, west and south and presumably qualify for appropriate mileage allowance.

QED.

More background here

Power of Music

2011-04-12T13:00:00.000+01:00

Brilliant visualisation of ESB sponsorship of the Feis Ceoil.

Come into my parlour

2011-04-06T03:25:00.002+01:00

This is the story of a silly bumblebee who blundered into the web of a smaller spider who trussed him up and ate him for dinner.

See the video

Beggar thy Neighbour

2011-03-05T21:04:00.006Z

Click image for full comic strip

D Bus

2011-03-05T20:46:00.005Z

This neat poster/sticker was pointed out to me by hXci on his great shared blog "Come Here to Me"

Feeling the Pain

2011-03-04T09:02:00.011Z

Click on image for larger version

The caption reads

"Fellow Minister Ruairí Quinn teases Cabinet colleagues during period of health cuts, 1986".

It is reproduced from the autobiography of Barry Desmond who was Minister for Health at the time. Ruairí was known for drawing and passing around cartoons at Cabinet meetings.

This particular one, with a minor change of identities and a quarter of a century later, could have the nation as patient on the table with the Government wielding the scalpel while the IMF/EU/ECB drip lacks the unaffordable anaesthetic.

Star Quality

2011-02-22T17:00:00.003Z

I have been trying to figure out what the current Fine Gael logo is supposed to represent.

I suppose the "green flag" is obvious from the green, white and orange.

But the blue, and so much of it, from the party of the Blueshirts? Either somebody slipped up there or the party has identified a latent fascist streak in the Irish electorate.

And do I detect a touch of Papal yellow in there? With all the electoral brouhaha out there you may have forgotten that Ireland hosts the Eucharistic Congress next year.

And the shape of it.

Possibly intended to convey star quality, but it reminds me more of Tinkerbell (from Peter Pan) sprinkling her stardust.

Maybe we need some of that dust to sprinkle over the "bailout" deal, though I would prefer the application of a few Ninja stars there myself.

Self Restraint

2011-02-13T17:52:00.010Z

So now you know.

In future the oldies will have to limit themselves to a speed of 5km/h.

And they'll have to go about in pairs to ensure observance of the speed limit.

What on earth are we coming to?

Sure, life wouldn't be worth living at that pace. Why not just get rid of the oldies altogether?

Anyway, if you have a problem with this, take it up with the Little Sisters.

It's their old folks home.

Yes Minister?

2011-02-09T19:04:00.013Z

Material for thought on the role appropriate to the civil servant, based on two unfortunate incidents in my own tumultuous career.

John Kelly

John Kelly, then I think a junior minister, and for whom I had previously had the greatest respect, rang me for briefing just before he went into the Seanad to speak at a debate on Northern Ireland.

I briefed him on some economic comparisons between the North and South, which I had been monitoring for a number of years previously.

In particular, I briefed him on the "British Subsidy to Northern Ireland". The North had been surviving on income transfers from the "mainland" for a long time. These involved direct public expenditure on infrastructure such as roads and on transfers to the NI social insurance fund.

But there was also the small matter of spending on the British Army and Border Security. Now, the British had consistently maintained that the South was spending much less per head on border security than the UK, with the implication that we were harbouring and facilitating those who were attacking Northern Ireland from across the border.

This was a completely fallacious argument. They argued that security spending per head of NI population was way ahead of spending per head of the Southern population.

In consultation with the Department of Foreign Affairs, I had determined that the appropriate tax base for estimating British Army security expenditure per head in NI was the UK population and not the NI population. On this basis the UK were spending only a fraction per head of what we were spending.

I explained this very carefully to Minister Kelly at which point he berated me for betraying my civil service trust and feeding him a Fianna Fáil line.

At that point I lost all respect for him. Regretfully.

Clearly he had become a bit paranoid about advice coming from a civil service which for most of its existence had soldiered under Fianna Fáil, particularly when that advice was strongly defending a national interest against that of perfidious Albion.

On this occasion I had been accused of stepping outside my role when I hadn't.

Celia calling

I was in St. Petersburg, in April 1994, not on a junket but as a necessary representative at the AGM of a bank in which the Irish State has a not insubstantial shareholding.

St. Petersburg was chaotic. Different aspects of the meeting were taking place at opposite ends of the city and communications were appalling.

A call came through from Dublin, from Drumcondra. Yes, you've guessed it. Bertie was the Minister for Finance and representing our shareholding interest in the Bank.

As a civil servant I would not normally have had anything to do with the constituency office. But, under the circumstances, I was quite prepared to facilitate contact between Dublin and St. Petersburg.

"Celia calling, can I speak to Bertie."

Now the Minister was at the other end of town and communications, as I said, were appalling. So I offered to relay any message to the Minister.

"No way", sez Celia, "Get him to call me."

So, deflated from my adventurous offer, I set about trying to contact the Minister.

I rang the Bank's administration and was told that the protocol officer was in the building where the Ministers were meeting.

So I rang him on his mobile.

Sez I "Would you ever go into the Minister's meeting and put your phone up to my Minister's ear so I can give him a message."

"No problem" sez he "but unfortunately I am now at the other end of town."

Which just goes to show how us landliners can be foxed by mobiles.

OK. So no go.

The Minister was finally got to ring Celia.

I learned afterwards that Bertie's car, in Dublin, had been stolen and it turned out that it was only recaptured some days later after a high speed chase down O'Connell St.

Anyway, on this occasion I felt I had stepped outside my proper role to facilitate some people and had been rudely put down.

Offside

2011-02-04T18:00:00.004Z

If you want to see some real sexist stuff in operation you could do worse than follow up on the two idiot commentators who figured the offside rule in soccer was too complicated for a mere woman to understand.

What provoked their ire was a not-offside call by lineswoman Sian Massey. They figured it was offside and she called it wasn't.

They jeered her on-mike and one of them, who was a serial offender, was subsequently sacked by that "gender equality channel" Sky, while the other guy resigned.

Right bloody order.

There is nothing complicated about the offside rule in the first place. It is essentially the same rule as when I started following soccer in the 1960s. It is even the same rule (almost) as applies in the soccer board game Subbuteo, played by both genders of all ages since time immemorial. Further examples here.

While the rule itself is not complicated, implementing it on the field can be. It requires the referee/linesperson to determine whether the intended recipient of the ball is offside at the moment the ball is played by the kicker. No easy task, and angles of view can be very deceptive so the referee-team needs to be way ahead of the actual play.

I wonder if a change in the rule so that it applied to the recipient at the point when he received the ball might not simplify matters without in any way impinging on the game as currently played?

In any event, we're well rid of these pompous sexist pricks. And the rest of them had better watch out.

The only guys offside here were the two idiot commentators.

Full marks, Sian.

Chwarae Teg.

About time

2011-01-29T18:45:00.005Z

The style of airports and train stations is now coming to a bus stop near you.

The Dublin Bus logo is being replaced by a screen showing how long you have to wait for what used to be described as "the next car". And it's broken down (oops!) by route.

This is the first one I have seen. It is located at Sybil Hill on the Howth Road on Dublin's Northside. It is a great idea.

Now I will know how long I have to wait for the next bus and whether or not I should start walking. I'll get advance warning of the approach of the usual convoys and record their digital progress for posterity. Assuming, of course, that this is realtime stuff and not a mere regurgitation of the aspirational timetable.

Long may it last.

And there's the rub.

Those lovely glass shelters need regular and frequent repair following damage by late night revellers returning from their late night revels. I'd hate to think the new screens would need replacement as often.

So, for now, it's just a matter of staying tuned and waiting for the arrival of one near you.

Update 20/2/20011

You can't really ask for more accuracy than that. Bus due, and by she speeds.

Keep in touch with developments here.

Scuttin'

2011-01-28T00:55:00.004Z

It's a long time since I heard the word and I don't know if I ever saw it written.

When I was young you'd scut on virtually anything that moved, provided it had something to hold on to. Cars with footboards, lorries with backboards, and busses with open platforms, provided the conductor was inside collecting the fares, and preferably upstairs. Horse drawn vehicles were a cinch.

But the LUAS? I ask you. How in God's name would you ever get a grip on that streamlined snake of a thing. Nevertheless, the poster above is now appearing at LUAS stations.

Beats me.

Mai

2011-01-21T22:18:00.009Z

My godmother died today in her 91st year.

As a godmother she was a complete failure.

As a human being she was a complete success.

Mai Medlar tended towards the slightly dressier end of the family. She always presented well.

She was born on Usher's Island within three doors of Joyce's Dead. Her father ran an undertaking business in James's St. and she was a true child of the Liberties.

She married Harry Ledwidge, from James's Terrace, Dolphin's Barn, in 1954, and they emigrated to Penge, London, England. Harry was a great guy. Mai worked in a factory and was a barmaid in the area. They had no children. Harry died in 1966 and Mai returned to Dublin.

In her later years she lived in Iveagh Trust, in Patrick St., and when she was not able to manage there she went to the Molyneaux Home, in Leeson Park, where she was well looked after.

Mai took people at face value. By that I don't mean how they projected themselves, but what they were. She had an instinct for people. She saw right through them and related to those who were genuine.

She was always young at heart and open to change. She lectured me on Fat Frogs when I hadn't a clue what she was talking about.

I had the honour to give a talk on her father, PJ Medlar, in the Dublin City Library and Archive, last year (2010) which I dedicated to her and which she was thrilled to hear. The family were ordinary Dublin people. Not many of the ilk left.

May she rest in the peace she well deserves.

Back to the Future

2011-01-05T21:54:00.008Z

Given the political and financial bankruptcy of the Irish State in this year of Our Lord, thoughts have turned to the reform of the political and financial systems.

There is a tendency to present this as a new trend provoked by the failure of the current setup. There is also a trend to present Civil Servants as a crowd of unreflective, unconcerned and moronic wasters in secure and over-remunerated and pensionable employment, with the implication that this has always been so but has only recently been discovered.

In a spirit of opposition to this trend, I would like to present for consideration a memo, drafted by a 34 year old civil servant in the middle of WWII (1942).

While it accepts some of the conventional wisdom of the time (the majority of women to be educated for home duties and family raising, the electorate to be confined to over 25s with a certain minimum degree of education), it is also far seeing in identifying, and sometimes questioning, significant emerging trends (party whips in parliament, need for greater citizen involvement in government, a planned economy, free trade subject to fair trade, need for individual responsibility on the part of administrators, and more).

While it also has many of the properties of an initial draft and might have benefited from further editing, it does reflect well on the writer's intellect and comitment to the development of the nation.

The writer has long been one of my most admired relatives.

Memo

Man over Machine

2010-12-31T19:49:00.006Z

The first thing to get straight is that the term "man" above implicitly also includes the prefixes "hu" and "wo"

Now that that's out of the way, I have always been fascinated by how, when faced with mechanical or even electronic problems, the human can come up with innovative solutions.

The most obvious one is rebooting the computer when it gets awkward. But there are more nuanced situations.

The picture above is the toilet in Pearse railway station in the heart of Dublin. They had a problem with druggies in the toilet so they installed ultra violet lighting. This has the effect of masking the veins so you can't see where to stick the needle. It is, apparently, a standard solution to this problem. I've tried it and it works - masks the veins that is. I made great play of this on my website a good while ago. Well I was in there yesterday and the lighting has reverted to normal. Curious, I asked why. "Well, it didn't work" I was told. "The druggies simply traced the vein with a pen before going into the toilet and bingo". You have to admire that solution for its simplicity.

Then there was the tabletop projector at a lecture in my local library which insisted on projecting an upsidedown image on the screen. No amount of electronic fiddling would fix it. Until, that is, an enterprising member of the audience volunteered to hold the projector in his lap for the duration of the lecture, upsidedown. Bingo.

Then we had the reluctant cash register which refused to sell items that were clearly on the shelf. The register had no record of the items and refused to process them. That is, until the wicked supervisor took out her magic key and over-rode the register.

And then there were the French. They are always lurking around the corner trying to stuff their bloody language down your throat, so to speak. Well, I claim credit for this one myself. Voice recognition systems are neutral as between languages. So this little French machination was quickly put in its place.

Merry Christmas 2010

2010-12-24T08:08:00.005Z

St. Assam's @ night

The ruined St. Assam's Church, in the centre of Raheny village,
dates from a 1712 reconstruction of a 1609 building,
and is believed to be the successor
to an early religious settlement.

from Póló's photostream @ Flickr

Cold Comfort

2010-12-22T21:48:00.002Z

The unfinished seasonal development in the foreground lies in the shadow of the recently completed Shieling Square luxury development on the Howth Road, Dublin.

Perhaps it was intended to serve as emergency housing until after the great thaw expected over the Christmas.

Or, perhaps it was inspired by this example from the last snow-in, which appears to have been let (or taken down as anticipated).

The Brendan Voyage

2010-12-06T11:45:00.004Z

Brendan Cardiff is proud to be a Northside Dubliner. Unlike that other "northsider", Bono, Brendan has not ensconced himself in a southside mansion. In fact he hasn't ensconced himself on the southside at all. He has, however, had an exciting and distinguished career on both the Irish and international stages.

His childhood stories resonated with me. We are, after all, both Dubliners and from the same generation.

Before I mention a few of them, and in order not to detract from the more weighty considerations of Irish economic development in the latter half of the twentieth century and from our tunnel visioned relationship with Europe, I should say that I have commented on these in my review of Roots on Amazon.

In the 1950s British sweets were a luxury, probably as much due to their scarcity value as anything else. A visit to the UK always ended with a ritual purchase of the unavailable at home, such as Spangles. Brendan mentions a visit to Northern Ireland in the 1950s when he couldn't buy the sweets because post-war rationing was still in force there and he didn't have a ration book. Well, maybe nobody told him where to get one. My family visited the North in the 1950s and we were directed to the coupon distribution centre to pick up our ration entitlement. Having used this up during the first week of a fortnight's stay, we went back for the second week's coupons only to find that we had already consumed our two week allocation. An early onset of Lent followed.

Brendan very wisely defines the difference between clothes and presents. As a child I sold raffle tickets for the Franciscans in Cork and, as was usual in these matters, there was always a draw for the promoters. I won six dozen of stout. However, as there was a rail strike on at the time and the stout could not be got to Dublin the Franciscans sent a cheque. That was fine by me. I know where the stout would have gone. I had the cheque spent in my head long before it arrived only to find, when it did, that my mother requisitioned it to buy me clothes. Much needed I'm sure they were. Presents they were not.

He reminds us of the time milk was delivered via the tilley out of the churn, only to be replaced by the new fangled bottled milk. He mentions the extra drop out of the tilley to make sure you weren't being short changed. This was the first time I heard tell of a baker's dozen of milk. I wonder does he remember the cutting-edge-of-technology foil-milk-bottle-top opener distributed for free by Hughes Bros. Round piece of plastic with a bump in the middle. Worked a dream.

While we're still on the milk, he mentions the transition from horse drawn to motorised delivery. He doesn't, however, mention one of the downsides to this bit of technological progress. No more manure. I remember well following the horse drawn carts down our road with a bucket and spade gathering manure for the back garden. Maybe they didn't do that on the Northside!

Joshing aside, this is a fascinating book. Apart from the purely personal stuff, Brendan has recorded his experiences in the early days of Irish economic development through his work in the private and public sectors, both in Ireland and abroad. He was in Uganda, representing the EU Commission during Idi Amin's reign, and this, among other things, has given him a deep and no-nonsense approach to development.

He is an inveterate traveler and the book contains wonderful cameos of his favourite places along with some beautiful, and very professional, photos from his own camera.

Significantly, the book is published by Liffey Press, a Northside publishing house, headquartered in Raheny, Dublin 5.

A backseat on the Brendan voyage is yours for the asking. Try it. It's a worthwhile trip. Available at good booksellers or, in extremis, from Amazon.

Business Studies

2010-12-04T17:15:00.016Z

See video here.
Believe it or not you are looking at a business studies project.

Manor House School (for girls) got an interest-free loan from the local Roman Catholic Church to finance the reconstruction of their hockey pitch. You are looking at one element of a fundraising drive to pay off the loan.

Manor House is an enterprising school. As far back as 1965, when girls did not do honours maths in the Leaving Certificate examination, this school took the plunge and, in 1967, became part of the first wave of Irish girls ever to sit honours maths in the Leaving. A new curriculum had been introduced for that cohort and (surprise, surprise) the corresponding textbook was not available through the normal channels. So the girls had to use the only text book that was available. This was compiled by the Christian Brothers (for boy's schools) and it was available in the Irish language only. So the girls in this English medium school had to study the new honours maths course through the medium of Irish.

Clearly the school is still in pathbreaking mode and its business studies faculty is on the ball.

Footprints

2010-12-02T22:34:00.005Z

I was about to head out the front door today and brave the newly fallen snow when my eye caught these footprints. "The postman's been" I thought, but there was nothing in the porch.

Then I noticed that the footprints approached the door but then stopped.

"What the hell" I thought. "I wonder was that alien paying me a visit but his spaceship came back just before he could reach my door? Had he changed his mind about going home and decided to seek asylum with me, as the only person who was aware of his existence? And got caught short, so to speak?"

Or was it a different story entirely. "Surely" I thought "my new vaporiser burglar alarm could not be so efficient as to vanish a burglar without trace on my doorstep?"

Then I noticed the curve. Whoever it was had come close to the door and suddenly turned on their heel. "What" I wondered "had frightened them away"

Then the penny dropped. Thank God for some literate and conscientious junk-mailers.

Flies like a dart, darts like a fly

2010-11-14T17:19:00.004Z

It's taken them 24 years to cop on to this concept.

No wonder they haven't thought through the toilets yet.

This is the conflicting position between Pearse (formerly Westland Row) and Tara St. You board a DART at Tara St. and you have to wait for Howth or Malahide, or Greystones, to have a pee.

I was in Dún Laoghaire station recently and asked a porter where was the toilet. "We don't have one. It was vandalised". End of story. Cross your legs and pray to your Deity.

Unbelievable.

I could think of a few targets for that dart in the poster.

Treasure Island

2010-11-13T17:10:00.008Z

I love the way Google choose, from time to time, to commemorate some occasion of note by replacing the normal Google logo with a customised one which loosely reflects the Google theme but more explicitly illustrates the occasion being commemorated.

They've done it again today. This (13 November 2010) is the 160th anniversary of the birth of Robert Louis Stevenson, author of, among other things, Treasure Island.

I remember Treasure Island and the voyage of the Hispaniola from my youth. When I was in school in St. Louis, Rathmines, Dublin, aged about 6, my mother had arranged with the class nun to collect me at lunchtime, on a school day, and take me to see the newly released film of Treasure Island.

I grew up on this sort of stuff, and that probably explained why I took to a rather strange version of map making in later life.

Then when I got a printing press I used to print big black spots on small squares of white paper. I don't think they worked, though. Nevertheless they brought with them feelings of immense power (of the voodoo kind).

Thanks to Robert Louis Stevenson for hours of pleasure as a youngster.

Greet local

2010-11-10T20:34:00.014Z

I love original postcards, notelets and other original creations pressed into the service of communication.

I have already drawn attention to the stresses of monastic life bringing an undercurrent of humour to your next postcard.

I came across some very nice local cards today, painted by Jean Shouldice. Jean has a wide range of Dublin cards, but two in particular took my fancy: All Saints' Church in Raheny and a view of Howth Harbour from the Gem.

All Saints is an impressive Church situated at the northmost point of the old St. Anne's estate. It was built by Lord Ardilaun (Guinness) and the daughter of the first rector was Marie Hayes, missionary and feminist in the terms of her day.

Jean has done a beautiful representation of the church (above). If there are any philanthropists reading this, the roof fund is very badly in need of support at the moment.

The view of Howth Harbour has different resonances for me. This is the view I saw looking out my front window up to the age of 5. My mother ran the Gem which faces the harbour.

Again Jean has produced a very evocative view (below).

Jean's cards are available in many outlets, but from my point of view, in particular, in Best Sellers, behind Supervalu in Raheny village.

A Modest Proposal - Mass Savings

2010-11-02T11:27:00.003Z

While I am in favour of mass education and mass literacy I have a problem with mass cards.

These cards, within the Roman Catholic tradition, signified the "purchase" of a mass, or of its benefits, in favour of a third party.

They were usually used in the context of funerals to attempt to purchase the escape of the recently deceased from the torments of Purgatory and release them into the everlasting bliss of the heavenly abode.

Funerals provoke the purchase and presentation of up to hundreds of mass cards for the benefit of a recently departed individual soul.

Now, this gives rise to a serious theological conundrum. The benefits of a single mass are supposed to be infinite. So a single mass should not only offset the punishment of an individual soul, but it should actually sort out all souls for all time.

The matter has been complicated in recent times by the selling of pre-signed mass cards whose links to bona fide masses by authorised clerics has been a matter of dispute. This has led to some dubiously constitutional legislation which remains to be tested.

I would like to make a concrete proposal.

Why not subscribe (or whatever) to one mass to be said for your intentions during your lifetime. And then simply send "intentions" cards to people which would be backstopped by the infinite benefits of the already "purchased" mass.

A once-off lifetime money-saver but reaping all and every benefit of tradionally repetitive Mass Card purchases.

Where's the catch?

Their job, your life

2010-11-01T09:30:00.005Z

Remember when doctors used to listen to patients & their symptoms. Symptoms are the body trying to tell a story, whether it is about an underlying condition or a reaction to medication (going on or off it).

The doctor (GP) is the lynchpin, the one who takes an overall view of the patient. He it is who must balance the advice of consultants and mediate such, often conflicting, advice in the interest of the whole patient. He it is who must explore with the patient such issues as the trade-off between treatment and quality of life. He is the one dealing with patient as person. The others are only looking after their own specialised bits.

There is a German term Fachidiot which denotes a type of person who is specialised in such a narrow range that he knows nothing. This description reminds me of consultants. It also brings to mind the old song The Gasman Cometh. I think it was a Flanders and Swan song. The gist of it was that you started off with a problem with your gas (supply for the cooker). The gasman came and fixed it but damaged the wall. You then had to get a builder to come and fix the wall, and so on, until the following week you had to get the gasman back as the previous tradesman had messed up the gas supply in his efforts to repair the damage caused by the tradesman before him.

Well, consultants are only interested in their own specialised bits. A heart man will give you a pill to cure your heart, even if it blows your head off. He is not a head man after all. That is another fella's problem.

Quite apart from that many consultants, and doctors alike, act like gullible bureaucrats. They prescribe by the book, and the book is written by Big Pharma. Moreover most of it is fiction. Big Pharma makes exaggerated claims for its products, falsifies studies to prove the claims, and markets any given product for a successively wider and wider range of complaints. Products which fail to fulfil their primary purpose are marketed for their side effects. Never mind what the the product is doing to other parts of your system. And have you ever tried coming off some of these products? Scare the wits out of you.

Ivan Illich coined the term iatrogenic illness to describe an illnesss caused by doctors. And it is a hell of a lot worse since his day. Check out any of the online victim support groups. Rafts of side effects of medications never, or barely, mentioned in the patient leaflet and frequently unreported to the regulator.

Not that reporting to the regulator would solve the problem. Regulators in this area are, more often than not, captives of the industries they purport to regulate.

The intensive marketing by Big Pharma directed at doctors is something else - high pressure salesmanship accompanied by incentives which vary from trinkets (pens etc) to computers. Their marketing aimed directly at the consumer, where this is allowed, is usually based on fear.

Equally, doctors are not statisticians, and they can fall for the most outrageous claims of Big Pharma.

I remember a pamphlet written by the Director of the Irish Economic and Social Research Institute in 1972, which he wrote in total frustration at the misuse of statistics by the newly emerging cadre of social scientists. He titled it The Social Science Percentage Nuisance. Unwarranted conclusions were being drawn from surveys due to the total ignorance of statistical techniques and the limitations of statistics, on the part of the social science practitioners. This was surely a benign scenario compared with Big Pharma's willful distortion of the facts in the interest of crude marketing.

And what of the patients. Doctors/Consultants are dismissive of the complaints of patients who have followed up their own conditions on the internet. In many cases they may be right as people can unreasonably latch onto particular aspects of their case and ignore the wider context. But the emergence of patient support groups on the internet cannot be ignored. As never before, widespread, but hitherto unreported, side effects of medications abound, and this on a scale that challenges the supposedly rigorous standards applied in the testing of medications for approval by the regulator.

The doctors/consultants now have a choice. They can go by the book (written by Big Pharma) and prostitute themselves and break their Hippocratic oath, or, they can try and factor in the legitimate reactions of patients, who are the ones experiencing the side effects of the medications they have rashly prescribed, and who are the ones faced with huge suffering and life disruption while the doctors/consultants calmly tick the boxes.

And the money involved. Doctors charge enormous sums for their advice/consultation/prescription and the consultants are in the mega-sphere in this regard. These "consultations" are time limited, often interrupted by external phone calls, and undertaken without a familiarisation with the patient's up to date file - assuming of course that all relevant material has actually been recorded on the file.

And where do we stand with alternative medicine? Decried by the conventional prescribers, and without access to the vast funds of Big Pharma, the alternative sector staggers on. The genuine alternatives do not generally have the resources to distinguish the snake oil from the homeopathic from the traditional cures. While it might have one big advantage in that people have faith in it, the sector is increasingly in danger of being sidelined or even outlawed under pressure from Big Pharma and its medical acolytes.

Did the spider's web not bring us penicillin. Do dock leaves not cure nettle stings. And, chewing raw garlic might even keep the vampires at bay. Who knows?

And then there's poor Maurice Neligan. A first class heart surgeon who wouldn't go near a doctor to save his life. And a heavy smoker to boot. Sadly he died recently. But who is to say that he did not have a better quality of life from his own philosophy than if he had listened to Big Pharma and his own colleagues.

I had a thought recently to suggest that tweeters/twitterers who have suffered iatrogenic illnesses should tweet their experiences on 18 October with the hashtag #iivd (iatrogenic illness venting day). Unfortunately nobody took up the suggestion, but then I suppose very few people read my tweets in the first place. St. Luke, the physician, whose feast day is 18 October, must have been very disappointed. Maybe next year.

Does anyone in the medical profession ever ask: what are we here for? This is not necessarily a hugely abstract philosophical question. It may be more a matter of deciding where the trade-off point is between prolonging a life which which has become intolerable from the side effects of doctors, or, taking a chance on a shorter life span by going it alone.

Happy Scary Halloween

2010-10-31T00:01:00.005+01:00

Raheny, Oct 2010

End of an Era

2010-10-25T16:02:00.004+01:00

I went down to my local cobbler this morning with shoes for soling, but he wasn't there.

The place was locked up and the notice below was displayed on the door. Sad story.

Michael Yeates was a native of Clontarf and had been in the cobbling business for 70 years, 50 of them in these premises, in Churchgate Lane, at the bottom of Vernon Avenue. Michael was 87 last year.

I had many conversations with Michael over the last 30 years. My own great-grandfather was a cobbler in James's Street, but way before Michael's time.

Michael used to cycle from his present home in Drumcondra to his lock-up premises in Clontarf every working day. He was a cheerful, if resigned, man whose work was as much an opportunity for a chat as it was a source of income. He took great pride in his work.

He has now been driven out. A victim of "progress", a mews, no less.

You can hear him in Natalia McCarthy's radio documentary, from the middle of last year, when he was still fighting his threatened eviction. Clearly he lost.

Model Railway

2010-10-23T18:57:00.002+01:00

The sign above caught my eye as I passed by St. Paul's College today.

I had a model railway when I was young. The standard of the day was Hornby which took its power from a middle rail, much as the London Tube does these days. Hornby had been around for ages and was the quaility product on the market.

Then Triang, known for its tricycles, decided to enter the market. Its innovation was a two rail system, just like the real thing, and it also brought some new features not then available in the Hornby system.

I got a Triang set. Among the newer features were: the pantograph - an overhead electric feed like the trams or today's DART or LUAS; a mail carriage which picked up mailbags suspended alongside the track; remote controlled level crossing gates and semaphore signals.

So I went in to the exhibition expecting to relive a part of my youth. I must say I was disappointed. Today's model railways are on a much smaller scale - tiny little sets. There is much more attention paid to what I would call the off-track elements - roads, fields, houses, animals etc. The layouts were quite boring. Much of the emphasis was on the sale of components - fine for the enthusiasts but a bit much at an exhibition which charged a €6 entry fee. Also, the atmosphere was one of adult aficionados obsessed with accuracy, often of American models.

A saving grace was the man I met who was building his own miniature rolling stock and his colleague who had a huge enthusiasm for steam and who explained to me the extent to which the model locos had embedded chips and were capable of very sophisticated remote control. These two guys were my kind of enthusiasts.