Catch the pigeon and the lucky duck from Limerick

Catch the pigeon

Reading Martin Feeney’s blog about finding a bat in his house reminded me of a mad incident that happened one summer about three years ago.

I arrived home from work having gone straight to work following a weekend away, the young wan was spending time with one of her nannies and as I came into the living room, I felt that something was up.

At first glance around the room, it just wasn’t how I left it. There was stuff everywhere and to begin with I fleetingly thought I had been burgled.

Then I realised I had in fact been pigeoned, while undoubtedly the lesser of those two evils, was something really yeuck and nasty as it was. Somehow the flying rat had managed to fly in the small side window that I always leave open in my living room during the day. (I can do this because I do not live on the ground floor).

Hey guys, free house

This became apparent when I worked out that all the debris on the floor was in fact pigeon feathers as well as the contents of my mantelpiece.

Looking around I surveyed the damage which was huge, though it certainly could have been worse.

Above my telly there is a precariously angled shelf with loads of freeby CDs from newspapers, used CDroms, video cassettes (which have to be placed in a very particular way or they collapse).

While I could see evidence that the unfortunate houseguest has sat on the videos, (due to the large amount of bird shit), for some thankful reason, the whole lot did not go tumbling unlike other little corners of clutter in the room.

Due to the bad lighting in my living room, I have a little movable desklamp on my cooker so I can see while making my culinary wonders and the houseguest seemed to think that would be a perfect perch.

Wrong, from what I could deduce again from the evidence presented, the lamp moved and literally scared the shit out of the guest. Double yeuck…

Then looking at the window I could see where my visitor had repeatedly banged itself off the window by the large minging, filthy goo and mess left splattered.

I then heard my downstairs neighbours come home so I ran down to get them to come up and see, and up they came.

Up to that point, it hadn’t even occurred to me that my visitor could still be there until M, the boyfriend said: “Are you sure it has left?”

R, the girlfriend, and I just looked at each other.

I began to look over my table which was at that time placed in front of a corner where I kept a box of DIY stuff and saw what looked at first glance like a wing. We both gasped and went ‘oh jesus look!’.

Just as R and I realised the ‘wing’ was in fact a bunch of lavender that had been knocked off the wall by the visitor, the lamp decided to click on the timer switch loudly and all of a sudden the room became bright.

R definitely jumped and screamed higher and louder than me. Oh how I laughed heartily.

As it turns out, R believes she saw the poor flying rat dead outside the house a day or two before.

Judging by the state of my living room, I doubt it would have survived the shock of trying to get back out again, not to mention the moving lamp.

I still keep my window open though. And thank God I didn’t have to remove it either alive or dead myself…


catch the pigeon



The lucky duck from Limerick

€115m, just imagine! What would you do with that amount of money, it is straight from that programme ‘Meet the Braithwaites’.

Turns out the roll-over Euro lottery worth €115m (just to say that amount again) was won by a mother of six from Limerick, I thought ‘WOW’.

I hope she was broke, I hope she struggled for money (God I hope that doesn’t sound nasty) because according to one of the Sunday tabloids she now stands at the 72nd richest person in Ireland, just ahead of that mad Donegal musician Enya, who has made an absolute packet humming and making other mad melodic noises about tidal currents and all.

But seriously, I hope her family had nothing, because it so much more gratifying to hear of people who really want getting such fantastic luck.

And I have to say while I agree that she probably should have kept her privacy, I wouldn’t take the strong line that dumtomsphoto’s has taken in his blog, sure hasn’t she won enough to keep everything from her door.

And I hope it makes her life and her family’s lives better forever. And before anyone says it, the only people who say money doesn’t make you happy are rich people.

I have no doubt that money doesn’t bring happiness, but it sure helps stop some of the bigger worries in our lives and you cannot tell me any differently.

Five things I would have done immediately had I won:

Bought a house this weekend, I need to stop lining landlords pockets, unfortunately Dublin is not a home-buyers dream, not when the average price of a house is €350k. But that wouldn’t have been a problem, not with €115m.

Bought a holiday retreat somewhere down the country, New York would have to wait till next weekend.

Bought a car.

Established grants for single parents in each of the colleges here in Ireland which would adequately provide for them and their child/ren while in school, including accommodation, childcare, books, living expenses, course fees and other miscellaneous expenses.

Book an amazing holiday for the child, the lovely man and me, and I would probably bring all the muckers (mates) along for a week somewhere along the line.

There’s many more things I would do, but that’s just for starters, what would you do?

Dublin in the rare auld times, again

I'VE been living in Dublin for nearly 15 years now and the changes that have taken place during this time are phenomenal.

Gone are the prosecutions for selling condoms; gone are the court cases on providing information on pregnancy options and gone is Ireland's archaic views on sexuality, well nearly-ish, it's a step in the right direction.

You can buy condoms nearly everywhere which is such a turn-about considering it is not that long ago that you could only buy condoms for ‘bona fide family planning reasons’.

I never understood that at all, I mean if you are buying condoms because you are having sex and do not want to get pregnant (or indeed catching something undesirable), is that not a bona fide family planning reason?

The problem is of course that this was intended for married couples only, and this is really not that long ago, circa late 1980s.

(Read more here, http://www.ifpa.ie/about/hist2.html) and more here http://www.rte.ie/tv/reelingintheyears/1991.html, it'll be an eye opener for some of you not aware of this.)

So it was surprising this week to see that some chemists/pharmacists/(drugstore for the Yanks) are refusing to sell condoms, and instead opt out under some kind of conscience clause.

I think this is despicable, irresponsible and a lame attempt to keep one foot firmly in the realms of our inglorious past.

It’s funny how far things have moved on and at times how it hits you, how we haven’t moved on as much as we should have.

Consider just over 10 years ago, if you were flat hunting with a lover, you had to pretend you were married before a landlord would consider you and generally they wouldn’t.

Typical advertisements in the classified sections of the Irish Press would read, one-bedroom apartment, suit two girls.

I always had a problem with this, as I never shared a bedroom as a child, why on earth would I pay for the privilege to do so as a grown up?

But how times have changed.

When you look at the classifieds now, you see ‘apartment, suit couple’. And this generally means it is a bed-sit and they want to cram as many people in as possible, money-grabbing bastards that they are. Their previous morals have been replaced with dollar signs.

Don't get me wrong I have no problem with those who rent out a property as an investment or the like, but I do have BIG problems with professional landlords, who in most cases are the bastards.

When the young wan was a baby, we had such a hard time finding suitable flats to rent, most would not touch us with a ten-foot barge pole. Whatever, in that case, I am happy not to be lining those type of pockets with my hard-earned money.

I remember one time, going to view a really awful flat with a pal. I had just started college and was on the dole and this was the first time I had to flat hunt since finishing up in my job to go to college.

We looked within my price range which involved one really grotty flat after another.

One was particularly bad, but it was within my price and near to the young wan’s school, but there was no natural light in the living room and it really was awful. Though we stood there thinking if you did this or did that, it might not be as bad. I was getting desperate having been searching high and low for three weeks.

The landlord said: “Is it for the two of you?

Me: “No it’s for me and my daughter”

Landlord: “I suppose you are on social welfare?”

Me: “Yes”

Landlord: “I don’t take THAT type here. No offence.”

Me: “Massive offence taken and by the way your flat is a disgrace and only I am desperate I would not consider it at all. Thanks for making my decision for me.”

We walked away with as much dignity as I could muster. Bastard.

Thankfully, on the whole, things have changed a lot in Ireland society which brings me back to my original point…

You can get condoms in supermarkets, pubs, chemists, sex shops and many more places.

In fact I noticed something in my local Tesco shop after it had undergone a massive revamp that tickled me pink.

The fact that it is nestled between Calpol and Hedex also gave me a giggle.

Can you see what it is yet? Click on the image to see a bigger version in case you cannot read what it is.

I am not going to say what it is for fear of the awful visitors it could generate to here, but you should be able to read its description on the larger version.

Are we to expect an expansion of this type of merchandise over the next few years?

More on GAA Sundays and hurling

I’VE written before about summer Sundays and the GAA, and last weekend was no exception to my previous description, but one very funny thing did happen.

Pic from www.ul.ie

In my previous post on this, I spoke about people sitting in traffic waiting to get close enough to Croke Park before parking up.

Well the traffic surpassed itself on my road this weekend and went on for a long time. At one point a minibus of people was sitting outside my house for an age as I pottered about in slow Sunday fashion.

I felt watched and looked out the window to see a rake of faces all peering in at me in that kinda lazy ‘I’m so bored, I half staring into space and half nosing very much into your home’, so I waved at them.

And they all, at the same time, tentatively waved back at me.

I laughed heartily, and so did they, hope they had a good day in Croker.

This came to mind because I have just received this in an email from a pal, the quotes at the end are priceless though I have read other equally funny ones.

This is the Lonely Planets description of Hurling!

Hurling isn't what the Irish do when they've had too much Guinness (well, not always). It's actually a mad kind of aerial hockey invented to make the English feel embarrassed about tiggy-touchwood soccer. If you haven't had the twisted pleasure of seeing this example of man's inhumanity to man, head to the Emerald Isle - but keep your head down.

This 15-century-old activity pulls no punches. A hurling match is perhaps the fastest spectator sport in the world (with only ice hockey matching it for up-close frenzy). From a distance it resembles a roaming pack-fight between men with thin pale legs and names like Liam and Sean. At ground level it's much more frightening, a kind of 15-a-side escape from the asylum.

Hurling is rapid, breakneck and rambunctious. The game moves too fast for the novice to understand anything but the most basic rules, but you can start by imagining an egg-and-spoon race with a pack of enormous angry stick-wielding roosters charging the leader. The aim is to hurtle a pellet-hard ball called a sliotar into goals using a stick with a paddle at its end (hurley). The players balance the sliotar on their hurley and then run, hit or bounce it forward, sometimes with all limbs attached. It's when the ball falls loose into a pack that the bravery (or stupidity) of the combatants becomes clear.

The running game becomes like stationery game of no-rules hockey as players run in swinging their hurleys in the manner of a lumberjack on speed. Whacks to the shins are common, as is the occasional broken hand as some poor soul actually tries to pick the sliotar up out of this chaos. The best place to see hurling is the atmospheric Croke Park in Dublin. It's home of the GAA - hurling’s governing body - and the scene of high-attendance finals matches.

For those with an interest in the game's long history, Croke Park also hosts a high-tech museum. Of course, with the Irish being such great travellers, there's probably a game going on near you this weekend too.

GAA Quotes

1. "I love Cork so much that if I caught one of their hurlers in bed with my missus, I'd tiptoe downstairs and make him a cup of tea"- Joe Lynch, actor.

2. "We've won one All-Ireland in a row" -- Wexford Fan in 1996.

3. "The toughest match I ever heard off was the 1935 All-Ireland Semi-Final. After 6 minutes, the ball ricocheted off a post and went into the stand. The pulling continued
relentlessly and it was 22 minutes before any of the players noticed the ball was missing" - Michael Smith.

4. "Sylvie Linnane would start a riot in a graveyard" -- Tipp fan

5. "I'm not giving away any secrets like that to Tipperary. If I had my way, I wouldn't even tell them the time of the throw-in" - Ger Loughnane.

6. "He's like Lazarus; but Lazarus didn't have such a sweet right boot" - Micheal O' Muircheartaigh on Colin Corkery.

7. "Whenever a team loses, there's always a row at half time but when they win, it's an inspirational speech" -- John O' Mahony.

8. "There are 2 things in Ireland that would drive you to drink. GAA referees would drive you to drink, and the price of drink would drive you to drink" -- Sligo Fan after 2002 Connaught final.

9. "The wheel fell off my mobile home" -- Offaly's Eugene McGee explains why he was late for training.

10. "When my friends were besotted with Jason Donovan, my heroes were Colm O'Rourke and Barney Rock" -- Sue Ramsbottom (Laois Ladies Captain).

11. 'We're taking this match awful seriously. We're training three times a week now, and some of the boys are off the beer since Tuesday' - Offaly hurler quote in the week before a Leinster hurling final vs. Kilkenny

12. 'Ger Loughnane was fair, he treated us all the same during training-like dogs' - anonymous Clare hurler

13. 'Any chance of an autograph? Its for the wife....she really hates you' - Tipp fan to Ger Loughnane

14. 'You can't win derbies with donkeys' - Babs Keating before Tipp played Cork in 1990

15. 'Sheep in a heap' - Babs Keating description of Offaly in 1998.

16. 'Babs Keating 'resigned' as coach because of illness and fatigue. The players were sick and tired of him' - Offaly fan in 1998

17. 'And as for you. You're not even good enough to play for this shower of useless no-hopers' - Former Clare mentor to one of his subs after a heavy defeat

18. 'Babs Keating was arrested in Nenagh for shaking a cigarette machine, but the gardai let him off when he said he only wanted to borrow twenty players' - Waterford fan after 2002 Munster final

19. 'They have a forward line that couldn't punch holes in a paper bag' - Pat Spillane on the Cavan football team

20. 'Meath players like to get their retaliation in first' - Cork fan1988

21. 'Meath make football a colourful game-you get all black and blue' - another Cork fan 1988

22. 'Colin Corkery is deceptive. He is slower than he looks' - Kerry fan

23. 'Life isn't all beer and football...some of us haven't touched a football in months' - Kerry player during league campaign 1980s

Making my first million

AFTER reading the mention of Red Mum blog in the Sunday Tribune, the young wan jokingly (she’s very witty indeed) asked would I be giving up work to become a struggling and starving writer and well been there done that as they say and have absolutely no intention of struggling again, as far as I can help it.

We have all seen websites where they encourage you to hit on their sponsors’ websites and make them money.

And while I have seen ridiculous amounts of adverts hiding people’s blog entries, I was more than happy with my relatively clutter-free blog, probably the only thing in my life that is clutter-free.

Then one day after reading on someone’s blog that they had just received their cheque that morning and were going to use it to pay an instalment of their student loan, I thought mmmmmh, then wow, and then signed up to...



I posted my ads along the bottom of the sidebar, after choosing carefully which ones I wanted. I am sure there are more productive ways of doing it but I didn’t want them to intrude on the site too much.

So I waited to see how many millions they would make me. In the six weeks or so since I have signed up, I have made the fantastic total of $1.54c.

Google adsense pays out each time you generate sales of $100. Maybe by the time the young wan goes to college, the revenue generated by my blog will pay for her school bag!

More than likely by that time, the amount would not buy a round of drinks in Dublin judging by the rate prices are increasing here.

(As an aside, the dearest pint in Dublin has been priced at €6 in Cocoon a, boring trendy bar in Dublin co-owned by millionaire little boy racer and wannabe playboy Eddie Irvine, as if he hasn’t enough money.)

But as they say a fool and their money are soon parted. If the trendy young bucks posing in Cocoon want to splash out that amount of money on a pint after 11pm, go for it, it’ll leave all the much nicer pubs to nicer people.

And in true Billy Connolly type-form, back to Google adsense. In June there were 2,395 page impressions of my site and 24 clicks on the ads, while there were 80 queries in the search engine.

So far in July, there has been 1,708 page impressions with 49 queries and I haven’t a baldy notion what CTR is but it ain’t making me small change, let alone money.

And don’t worry I am not going to start doing what other sites do and harp on and on about clicking on the ads, it never made me want to do it, people either see something that catches their eye or they don’t.

But in the mean time, you should be dancing, yeah!


Taken on Friday night in Tetra’s, this is Tetra and the young wan having a ball. I set the camera to a two second exposure and told them to just move a lot, I also took part in the ‘fun’ and ran waving and kicking across the camera, but I was obviously too fast (call me Flo Jo) and the camera missed me.

The Sunday Tribune's Blogosphere column

I HAD a lovely surprise when I opened the Sunday Tribune yesterday at the end of what was, on the whole, a very relaxing and lovely weekend.



We have a perfect Sunday routine in our house, sometimes if I’ve been out for a quick pint on Saturday night I’m able to get Sunday on a Saturday, if you know what I mean.

That's when the Sunday papers arrive into the local shops and newspaper vendors around 10pm on a Saturday night, so you walk home from the pub normally with a pint of milk, something for breakfast in the morning, ie rashers, sausages, the makings of a fry, and the Sunday papers. Bliss.

While I have them in the house and they are tempting, I try not to read them until Sunday morning, cos that’s Sunday paper time.

I don’t like to sit in bed with them, though it is perfectly acceptable, I prefer sitting at my table.

This weekend, I didn’t venture beyond the supermarket, so the other weekend routine in our house kicked in and that is when the young wan will get up in the morning, lead up the doggie and go the shops for the papers.

When she came back armed with the goodies yesterday morning, I had barely supped my first of many cups of tea when I saw that Joe Bloggs had once again included Red Mum in Blogosphere, the Sunday Tribune’s weekly round-up of Irish blog coverage.

You know the way there are always certain sections of newspapers that you go to, for me it’s the letters page, Sunday paper magazine supplements, (reading the news goes without saying) well Joe Bloggs column became a regular read for me.

It was a great place to check out other blogs which led to other sites and generally discovering the Irish blogging community.

So you can imagine that I was thrilled to bits to find myself included that first time, particularly as I had only just started.

And this week I was delighted once again and showed it to the young wan who laughed heartily.

Have a read below, Joe Bloggs writes about my post on our trip to Easons to get the latest Harry Potter book, and in case you missed the last one which was about (at the time) the forthcoming U2 concert and my feelings on that, I am including that below too.

If you can’t blow your own trumpet, who will?

Some unsavoury and suspect visitors have come a calling

THIS is creepy but following my previous posts on the pics of children for sale on e-bay posted by their mother, I discovered two very unsavoury search engine inquiries which brought suspect surfers to my site.

The first was from India and their search consisted of the words “child bathing pix” which as you can imagine, I found very disturbing, however it was the search I found later that really shocked me.

This time the perv seemed to come from Germany via Nicaragua somehow and they hit my site having used the words “naked childs private photo album”.

Is that not enough to send a chill down your spine?

These people are out there and are using the best catalogue in the world for their sick obsessions; frightening, isn’t it? Does that not back up all my arguments in the last number of posts.

And this is to those perverts in case they come back, though I doubt it as I am sure my site is not to their tastes, this is just to let them know I have their ip address and they can be traced easily.

That also goes to any future visitors of that ilk as well.

Apparently I haven't a clue... and this commentator has...

While I had every intention of writing about this today following a piece I read in the Irish Indo today. But I am writing it earlier than I meant to after reading this comment to one of my posts from yesterday.

Anonymous said...

Did you actaully see the auction on Ebay?? I think Not. U havent a clue wot ur talkin about. The pictures sara put up were NOT indecent. OK, she could have thought it through better, but if you had read the ad on Ebay you would understand her plight. The press have made a mountain out of this and turned her life upside down. People should shut thier mouths until they know all the facts. As for people accessing the site...Its Ebay for christs sake! Theres worse out there!
1:39 PM

It is clear that I have more of a clue than yourself. Apart from anything else, being a parent myself as you say yourself she certainly could have thought it through A LOT better.

Your response leads me to believe that you are not a parent. I have spoken to other parents about this and EVERY single one was horrified at this story, no exceptions and no excuses. You can and probably will 'claim' to also be a parent, but to be honest after reading your comment, I would not believe you. I do not know one single parent who finds this behaviour acceptable.

Where did I say the pictures were indecent? if YOU knew what you were talking about, you would see that I never once said anything of the sort. It doesn't take a genius to work out that pix do not have to be indecent to be inappropriate. I have posted pics of my daughter on flickr but as I have already said they are for viewing by invited people, ie family and friends, only, though there is nothing indecent about them I do not want them viewed by all and sundry, that's not the bloody point.

Anyway, this is what was said in the newspaper article which backs up what I said yesterday. Read on and learn something….

From today's Irish Independent
PARENTS should take extreme care when posting pictures of their children on public internet sites that they do not fall into the hands of paedophiles, a leading Irish expert on child exploitation has warned.

The expert goes on to say: “people do not realise that paedophiles do not necessarily have to see sexually explicit images. Many also collect close-up pictures of pretty children or pictures of children in innocent poses.

"Many of them collect, for example, clothing catalogues for the purpose of looking at pretty children. It's called child erotica.”

Read the rest of the story here:
http://www.unison.ie/irish_independent/stories.php3?ca=9&si=1437875&issue_id=12777

I don’t need to see the pictures to question the method of madness in what that woman did. I don’t need to see the pictures of her children bathing to think that no plight you suffer is worth your child’s pic becoming titillating fodder for some perverted f*cker.

And your argument of ‘there are worse sites out there’, is just lame, so what! It is not somehow better that the naked pictures of her kids bathing appeared on e-bay as opposed to some other worst sites! Ehm is this because paedophiles are known for not accesing ebay?!?! That is surely some twisted logic you have there!

You might have sympathy for the mother, I am sure her life has been turned upside down, but it has been done so because she took an action which left her children’s images at the behest of paedophiles. Naive or not, that is the bottom line and that is why people and the media have jumped on this.

Aside from anything else, if this stops another foolish parent from doing the same and maybe thinking more about their actions, fantastic.

Read my previous post again and give my head peace.

The young wan replies to Red Mum

THE young wan has asked to make a post to Red Mum. This should be interesting… though I reserve the right to reply, of course.

YOUNG WAN: This is the young wan and I’m really misunderstood I can be a bit of a buerk at times but I’m pretty sound the rest of the time. My mum annoys me 2 u know. I’m not the bad guy. My mum is always nagging me I know it’s part of my mum's job but can she ever give me a break sometimes.

RED MUM: Ehm no! And ehm who said you were the bad guy? I have only ever said you were a teenage monster, does that amount to the same thing???

YOUNG WAN: A lot of things annoy me sometimes, dishes, low music, hint hint Mum.

RED MUM: Nonsense, music is the one thing I really try not to nag about.

YOUNG WAN: Well that is true… I am not against my Mum, I am just in-between and you snore.

RED MUM: Pot kettle black as they say. I suppose the snoring is another example of her mother’s daughter.

YOUNG WAN: And I think body piercings are cool and I am going to get one on my tongue as soon as I am old enough.

RED MUM: Like bloody hell. (in response to this posting)

YOUNG WAN: Rebel, rebel, rebel.

RED MUM: *yawn* been there, done that, blah blah tshirt… and with the young wan I might add…

NB

Okay, okay, the young wan didn't say buerk, she actually said something else which I do not want to be part of the language in our conversations, and I do think thats fair enough.

Mother puts her child's bathing pic for sale on ebay

WHAT on earth!!!! I also saw this story this morning. Can anyone be that ignorant or indeed stupid? (see story below)

Obviously so because only yesterday I saw pictures that someone downloaded of their kids on flickr, which I felt uncomfortable with. They were taken in a homemade studio setting and the child was lying down on her side looking at the camera over her shoulder and the picture was entitled 'curves'.

What would be an endearing portrait of your child on your own wall at home or in a photoalbum, can take a whole new angle in cyberland.

Now there wasn't anything indecent in the picture but still.... (I won't post a link) I would err on the side of extreme caution regarding anything like that.

I have downloaded pics of my daughter to flickr but I have marked them private where only invited people, family and friends can view them.

Whether we like it or not, we have to be so careful now, because we have to do everything to protect our children.

I am finding it so hard to try to explain to my own daughter that a lot of the rules we have, while a pain in the arse, are because she needs to be safe and I need to know that she is safe, that is the bottom line.

But for a parent to deliberately do something like that, while pleading ignorance of what could be the consequences of their actions, beggars belief.

I do not like to judge parents, it's too easy to believe you know best and we are far too easy to judge. But like my Mum always says 'you never know what goes on in a couple's bedroom' so I think it follows that we can never really understand, appreciate or indeed know the dynamics of someone else's family.

The reality is that parenting can be a very difficult job but in this case I have to say, oh my god, what were you thinking woman?

Mother defends putting kiddie pics on eBay 20/07/2005 - 11:13:08
From breakingnews .ie

A mum who sold photographs of her bathing children on eBay insisted today: “I didn’t think I was doing anything wrong.”

Emotional mother of four Sara Fox was paid just £5.50 (€7.90) in a bid to raise cash for a family holiday in the United States before the pictures were withdrawn from auction after a barrage of internet complaints.

At her home in Ballymena, Co Antrim, she said: “With hindsight, I suppose it was ignorance on my part. But they were put there for a genuine reason and I never imagined it would have caused such a fuss.”

One of the photographs showed her 11-month old daughter naked in the bath with her young brother and sister.

With her husband due to lose his job, the auction was an attempt to fund a holiday back to her home state of Wisconsin where a fourth child, her seven-year-old daughter, lives.

Mrs Fox, 24, said: “Mothers allow their babies to model nappies, bathtime products and baby foods where there is more showing, and nobody takes offence with that.“I respect people’s rights to do what they want, but I maintain I wasn’t doing wrong showing anything of my children which you can’t see in a photograph on a child’s bottle, a packet of nappies or whatever.

“The woman who bought the pictures didn’t even want them. She did so because she sympathised with my plight – £5.50 isn’t going to get me very far and the way it’s looking, I’ll probably not make it back home.“I just thought it was worth a try. It was like desperation and I don’t know how I’m going to tell my daughter.”

Mrs Fox said it never occurred to her that paedophiles might access the site.

She added: “Maybe that’s my shortfall, maybe that’s my ignorance. Nothing clicked in me. A kid in a bathtub is a kid in a bathtub. You see them on TV and that’s okay. What I was doing was personal, but I did take the pictures off the sale.

“If I had put more thought into it; if I had put more thought into the photographs I was posting…obviously it was the bathtub one which put everybody off. When I put them on, I never thought in those terms.

“I was thinking: ‘My kids look absolutely beautiful and they’re together’. I couldn’t see how people could take such offence and I still maintain they still show them better that those who advertise baby products.”

The sophistication of youth

PERUSING the blogs at POTB I spotted an entry on Gavin’s Blog about Google Earth, where he mentions that Google now counts Google Maps as one of it's new applications.

So I clicked onto the link and they’ve done this as it’s the anniversary of the first moon landing back in 1969.

This is what Google says:

“In honor of the first manned Moon landing, which took place on July 20, 1969, we’ve added some NASA imagery to the Google Maps interface to help you pay your own visit to our celestial neighbor. Happy lunar surfing. More about Google Moon.”

I wasn’t born at the time though like millions of others, it caught my imagination as a child, however I do remember the first shuttle Columbia and it’s maiden flight. I was 10 at the time and all my friends waited and waited excitedly for the launch.

We all crammed into a friend’s house and watched it with awe. Wow.

It’s funny now that these advancements do nothing for my daughter at all. So much has happened in the last number of years, her generation is just so unimpressed.

They are lucky in many ways and not so much in others. Those around my age group were probably the last to get a big thrill from the weekly installments and bad cliffhangers in the old black and white Flash Gordon.

Or indeed kids now would not be able to sing the theme tune to Champion the Wonder Horse, another of those old programmes which were ancient to us but not sufficiently so to stop us enjoying them in the 1970s.

When my daughter was about five years old she adored slapstick comedy, particularly Mr Bean, she would be in absolute stitches watching it.

So I figured I would try her out on Laurel and Hardy, she lasted five minutes before she got bored.

Kids today are so much more sophisticated than we were, as I suppose we were in comparison to our own parents, but while some things are obviously gains, others are definitely losses.

I suppose that’s just the way of the world.

On another note I came across this on the breaking news website this morning, pity I didn’t come across these generous people this morning.

http://www.breakingnews.ie/2005/07/20/story212515.html

Fortune hunters are set to flock to Dublin’s Grafton Street today as a mystery donor gives away €10,000.From 10am shoppers will have 10 minutes to get their hands on crisp €10 notes as a group of models walk up and down the street.By answering one simple question correctly early birds will have the chance to make money for nothing in the no strings attached giveaway.The spending spree, organised by a so-far anonymous businessman, is billed as the first step in a mission to end Ireland’s rip-off culture.And the unnamed man will later launch a campaign aimed at bringing everyday costs for consumers into line with the rest of Europe.

Sad passing of a Flickr member

AROUND the time I started blogging, in the relatively recent past, I also discovered flickr, the photo-sharing site, which I love.

What I adore about it is that you can use it how you want, within reason and legalities of course, download snapshots, chat with other photographers about techniques, tricks or even meet new pals.

While browsing others’ photographs today, I saw a very poignant and sad posting about the death of one of the contributors called Sakura.


Sakura’s ‘Denim’ taken from her flickr site

Sadly on July 5th Sukura posted her last picture of a new t-shirt she had recently bought. She writes in the post about her forthcoming move to Ohio. After a few comments from her friends and people who like her picture, on July 13, she posted her last comment about arriving in Ohio and settling down.

At one point in the thread one of her friends posts that she died in a car accident.

In no time at all, members of the flickr community have posted some 130 comments expressing their sorrow at her passing.

It struck me that like any other community, the blogging and photographic community in flickr and other such places on the net, things are not so different to the real-time community (for want of a better phrase).

You would think that the internet is somehow a little removed from the normalities we expect in the ‘real world’ that Sukura’s death could be missed by the online community and her online friends. Thankfully it wasn’t.

Check out her photographs here, some are absolutely wonderful, http://www.flickr.com/photos/sa_ku_ra/23914149/

RIP Sakura

De Basin and another beautiful day in Dublin...

YET again, it has been a magnificent day in Dublin, I started off my morning going to a chiropractor and after having my neck clicked, my ass smashed into a moving table (I kid you not), my spine pressed and prodded, I walked home back through Phibsboro’s finest, De Basin.



De Basin is its actual name, just ask any of the locals, but to those of us who do not find the pronunciation of ‘th’ a problem, it is called The Basin or more accurately The Blessington Basin.

De Basin is a former reservoir which used to supply the greater Dublin area with water and now is a fantastic public amenity.

If you come from town, you hit De Basin first, but if you come the Phibsboro way, you hit the Long Park first, that could be its actual name, I am seriously not sure.

It’s a long, long stretch of green, and it’s a lovely cherry tree lined, benched filled long park and come rain or shine people will be out walking, sitting, enjoying the Long Park.


There were people everywhere here they are just hiding, really!

I always loved De Basin from all those years ago when I first moved Dublin, it was my favourite spot to hang out for five minutes, admire or lament the weather, watch the ducks, seagulls and pigeons fight over bread, have a ciggy, listen to a great song on the walkman, before heading on the last wee stretch in the walk to town.



However, at that time, it was wildly overgrown and you could barely make out the reservoir because of all the sprawling bushes.

Then FAS (a training agency) used it as a training ground for its students and now we have the most amazing place to relax, chill, walk the dog, meet yer pals, hang out with the other teen wannabe Goths (deep sigh), rest after shopping or a five minute breather before going on into town. And it sure is wonderful.


content

But today, it seemed to even surpass itself, De Basin was fantastic and thankfully I had my camera.

I have taken to ensuring I have my camera when I walk through it because I missed a great picture there a couple of years ago when I saw pigeons sitting in a row on the wrought iron fence surrounding the reservoir and I didn’t have my camera, and all in a row they were.

Ha, but little did I know, the pigeons are well-groomed in this wee exercise and I have since managed to capture it here and many others as these pix from today testify.








a personal fav this pic!

I was trying today to capture the craic and banter in the park, the people shouting hello at each other, the elderly folks having a laugh without intruding and I think I managed it.





I tried to take interesting pictures of ducks and hung around one corner waiting for one to submerge they way they do right under the water so I could TRY to capture their ascent back from water to air.

However while I have the coolest digital camera and have had so much fun with it, it is limited in some ways, in that when you hit the button, it is the NOT the moment that is actually captured.

So while I try to compensate for that, sometimes it is a b*ll*x and you miss the moment. The good thing about digital is that you can keep trying until you do get it, which I do and I did this afternoon.

Until I saw the distinctive form of a large swimming ambling fin and all, da daa, through, da daa, the, da daa, water, da da da da da da da dadadaalala.
And I swear to GOD it was THIS ]-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------[bloody big, I swear, no exaggeration.

To my delight I have seen tiddler fish come up before and eat the bread that people throw to the ducks but I have never seen an actual big fish, like a foot long fish, so despite the dying batteries on my camera, I hung around longer than I had expected too. But I didn't get it, yet, as the following pic shows.



Then just as I was taking a pic of a family’s reflection as they looked into the reservoir, one of the kids shouted ‘Jaysus look at that fish’.



Off I shot camera in hand being turned on and off in a vain attempt to make the batteries work and maybe prolonge their short life and not only was there one, but two were coming up to the surface to lie in the sun and take in some oxygen, excellent and I got millions of good pics.







See what you think, for someone who hasn’t a garden, isn’t this a great spot?


Google Earth pic of De Basin

Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince Dublin launch (written over an evening)

8.41pm , July, 15, 2005

THE countdown has begun, less than four hours till we can get our hands on the latest Harry Potter book.



Yes, I am a complete buck eejit like all those mad ones you see around this time, but not the really mad ones, I will not be wearing a witch’s hat, cloak or any kind of face paint, other than my own normal stuff, whatsoever!


definitely not me...

The young wan is a different matter altogether, she has already tried to bribe me saying ‘if I wear my witch’s hat, will you give me a tenner?’. ‘My arse’, as the eloquent, Mr Royal would say.

Well I suppose she is the number one fan as they say and one who had fully and completely gotten me on board the train to Hogwarts with her.

I made her wear the hat once before, years ago, with the launch of the first Harry Potter movie. I managed to get tickets for the first press screenings which took place a week before the general release and didn’t say a word.

As the days got closer and closer to the date, I said nothing, until that night I bet her that she wouldn’t dare walk into town wearing her very special witch’s hat. (It was made by a very talented friend who incidentally is the ticketloser from CCC and stunning it is still despite years of playing, stamping etc etc.)

After the initial looking at me to see if I was wise in the head or not, she went ‘aye alright’, she must have been 10 years old at the time, and off we walked into town, with her wearing the very large, very in your face, witch’s hat with not a bother in the world.

Pretending to check when the movie would be shown, I asked her to wait in a line at the cinema with dozens of kids who were obviously going to see the movie. She just looked at me, thinking this isn’t starting till next week, why is that cruel sh*te putting me in this line? And then I told her, ach it was priceless. I just love doing that kind of thing….

As they say, I digress, scoot back to the present and it’s been a tense week here in the Red Mum household, the worst kind cos I have been off and we should have been making the most of the week, this beautiful week, but we didn’t.

So today, I was hanging onto just one thing done well by the young wan, and well it didn’t happen, there was more food left on the plates after washing than beforehand, her room, oh Jesus her room, I cannot say anymore about that, she took hours running to the shops (despite being grounded so she could meet her mates) and she was plastered in makeup when I got up this morning despite being told (four times in the last five days alone) that she’s not allowed.

( I allow her makeup when she’s off to a disco or the like, light stuff, but not willy nilly at all, like for example, getting up, not at 13, Jaysus not ever like that.)

I decided that a different course of action was required, so after a long talk earlier, off we set into town and then the plan was hatched. If the young wan tidied her room, done completely by early this evening, we would go into town for the midnight launch of the latest Harry Potter book later tonight.

And, I have to say, without close inspection (cos you really don’t want to do that, oh God no, you don’t), it appears semi-well done…. So, off we go later to the Halfblood prince launch.

I will be prising the book out of her arms later as she sleeps…. I’ve done it before and will do it again, like later… Would Calpol work on an older child, I wonder?

12.55am , July 16, 2005

WELL we left for the bus into town at 11pm and were placed at the end of the queue by 11.20pm, and such a mad queue it was as well. There were large families, drunkards wandering in from the pub, the mad eejits working on the promotion, and us….


Some of the first out with the book


fire juggler


blokes on a small bike!!!!

There were people on stilts, fire jugglers, witches giving away tickets for a raffle inside the shop, a badly suited (sorry) Hagrid, wizards and all manners of mad ‘uns. There was also more than one car with occupants shouting ‘Harry Potters a load of me b*ll*x’ and other such niceties, as well as the occasional drunk person trying to bolster the crowd by going ‘give me a HARRY, give me a POTTER’ to dumb looks from the crowd.


Give me a HARRY


10mins past the hour and nearly there...

Once inside, Easons has never looked so good, all the shelves were covered with material painted with fake shop shelves, there were magicians, a DJ, a raffle, coffee, wine, juice for the youngsters and a bag of sweeties for everyone.


entertaining when he wasn't falling over, no seriously...

Once the €12.99 was handed over to one of the many witches behind the till, we were given a Harry Potter presentation bag, with a copy of the latest book, the last book, a Raold Dahl book, and a couple of other thingies.

We left the shop and the queuing at 12.35am, walked a little up O’Connell Street, saw the end of the queue look mournfully at our little goodie bag before hailing a taxi and heading home to a delighted doggie.

The young wan is in bed now with the goods, I wonder how long it will take her to fall asleep……

NB

The pix were taken on a digital camera without the flash as it isnt powerful enough so following the lack of photoshop at home, these are the 'raw' pics , dark and shaky as they are, but sure they still paint a picture.

It's a beautiful day

IT was an absolutely glorious weekend here in Dublin, which is thankfully continuing today, it’s something like 30c in Kildare, I’m reliably told. Here are some pictures taken yesterday while relaxing with the young wan and Tetra after a hectic afternoon shopping.



Actually apart from the fact that I generally hate shopping, it was a lovely day cos everyone seems to have preferred to spend the day chilling in their gardens instead of hoofing it into town, so a pleasurable day all-round with no hectic crowds to contend with.

So we finished the afternoon with a freezing cold smoothie and a lie-down in a small green bit in town with lots happening around us.





Although the beautiful peace was shattered at one moment with the arrival of three Spanish students who had just been to the nearby touristy shop where they bought a tin whistle and proceeded to play it badly… But it makes for a nice picture of them watching the ping-pong game while the annoying one lies back playing his dreadful bum notes.

You must get Google Earth

I HAVE been trying for weeks to download Google Earth but for one reason or another, I just wasn’t able to, until this week and WOW.


I just love this pic, it’s like a badly played solitare game… What on earth can it be?

I just love it, its something else to type in a location and be magically flown around the world, landing right at your location, it is really cool, you must try it.

Since then I have taken to saving the images of places where my pals live and emailing them the pics.

There is hours and hours of educational fun, ever the Mum that I am, it is actually hours and hours of fun. In the pic of our street I can actually see our house and I can zoom back to space and zoom back in again, ending at my house, fantastic.


Taken from a country with the most extraordinary landscape, any guesses?


Is this man-made or natural? (actually I haven’t a clue)






Can you see me waving? That’s me over there….

You must have a go, you will be hooked.

13, 13 and well ehm 13!

MY post the other day concerning what to do with my 13-year-old daughter over her long summer holiday got me thinking to the amazing summer I had when I was 13.

My Mum, Aunty, nine-year-old cousin D, 15-year-old brother C and myself all drove to Portugal in a Volkswagen golf. Would you believe we broke down a total of 13 times, funnily enough, but definitely not at the time.

a much newer and improved golf

Before I go any further, this might be a bit long, well it was a long drive to Portugal and this post concerns the drive and a little bit of the drive back, just to explain the 13 references you understand.

The plan was to drive the 100 miles to Dublin, catch a ferry to Holyhead, drive overnight to Plymouth to catch a ferry to Santander in Spain. And finish off the journey with a lovely drive through Spain to the Algarve where we had booked a villa for the summer.

We caught the ferry to Wales by the skin of our teeth due to traffic in Dublin (no change there then). The stress of hightailing to Dun Laoghaire ferry terminal wasn’t helped by cousin D repeatedly saying ‘We’re not going to make it, we’re not going to make it…’.

As I said we did and off we drive overnight through Wales.

However, somewhere in Wales my Mum continued on a road that we should have turned off from and we only realised after passing a signpost saying London was however far away it was.

It was at this point I became the navigator and not my Aunt. I would sit in the front seat, one of the massive pluses with being the navigator, plot our journey, keep an eye out for upcoming roadsigns and turn offs as well as everyone and again boring everyone with little snippets about where we were from the guidebook. Actually we did all enjoy this.

One quick turnabout later and hours extra driving back towards Plymouth, we got there in time to wave the other lucky ferry-passengers who weren't late and who were now on their way to Santander.

It's not a good feeling watching the back end of your ferry sail away.

In keeping with what would be the unearned and misguided optimism of that road trip, we booked into a B&B and made the most of our night in Plymouth. (At the time I remember V was massive and we watched it that night in the B&B, sorry that’s my only memory of Plymouth).

The next ferry to Santander wasn’t leaving for another five days so after some money calculations and phone calls home with promises of more money the plan was to catch the next day’s ferry to France, which we did.

And so begins the saga… And what a saga it was too.

We broke down 12 times on the way.

The month before the trip, Mum and I were in a car accident, where the front of the car was wrapped around a lamppost and thankfully we weren’t hurt. But it left us with the problem of what to do with the car we were supposed to be travelling to Portugal in?

One swifty car repair job later, and one which incidentally was carried out too swiftly because something they did or didn’t do meant that as we drove through the French, Spanish and Portuguese countryside the car kept overheating, and the fan belt would snap.

I learnt more about fanbelts than you would imagine the ordinary 13-year-old girl would know, we all did. We all became proficient at opening the bonnet and going ‘MMmhhh, looks like the fan belt again’.

At one point, we broke down in the absolute middle of nowhere, it was just after lunchtime and we were all looking at each other thinking ‘now what do we do’.

(Actually we always broke down in the middle of nowhere.)

After waiting for more than an hour for some divine intervention, our deus ex-machina came by in the guise of a farmer and my Mum stuck out her thumb and hitched a lift back to the nearest town, the one where we had already spent a couple of hours getting the fan belt fixed.


The offending article

Hours pass and she doesn’t return. Night falls and my Aunt has us praying a rosary for the safe return of Mum. Everytime, which wasn’t often, we could see car lights approach in the distance we were all on the edge of our seats hoping it was her.

Eventually she returned with a tow truck in tow and back we went to the town where we had already been.

In another incident in France my Mum offered me as a translator in a garage because I had spent two years studying French. Big mistake or should I say grande erreur!

It went something like this:

Mechanic: L’eau est chaud
Me: Yup, the water is hot (turning to Mum) the water is hot….
Cue everyone: Yup the water is hot.
Mechanic: French blah, blah, blah, blah and quickly, more French blah or bleh and even more quickly….
Me: ^*?!?%^%($”????? (blank expression)

Most of the other breakdowns we delved into the phrase books which had by now become absolutely priceless and invaluable.

Because of the detours, car repairs, B&Bs and other unexpected expenses, we ran out of money and spent four or five days sleeping in the car, all of us, all of is sleeping in the car.

I would not recommend this at all. My brother was nearly 6ft, I was about 5ft5, my Mum 5ft2, Auntie 5ft2 and cousin D about 5ft. There wasn’t room to turn your head in the car and it was fairly minging to say the least.

We would buy baguettes and a bottle of water and we lived on this for days. We would all get annoyed with cousin D because he was incapable of drinking the water without leaving floaters and I remember constantly thinking about food, burgers, and fizzy drinks.

We stopped in a small beautiful village somewhere in the south of France and I popped into a bar to use the bathroom. On my way out I noticed a bowl of blackened bananas, that obviously no one wanted, so I stashed two up my t-shirt and ran out back to the car.

I guiltily produced the bananas to my aunt, who is one of the most gentle and good women I have ever met, and confessed my thieving secret.


yum

She silently took them from me and divided them among us, those were the tastiest banana sandwiches we have ever had.

Have you ever heard of Paddy Reilly? No? He’s an Irish singer and the only music Mum and Auntie would allow on the car stereo was Paddy Reilly and Crystal Gayle (not that I mind Crystal but Paddy’s fecking ‘Rocky road to feckin Dublin’, that’s a different story altogether.)

But we all loved Blondie and Madness so of all the music we brought away with us, we were occasionally allowed to listen to Blondie and Madness, thank God for small mercies.

We used camping facilities to wash during the travelling days, and oh my god what an eye-opener that was for me at 13, my brother at 15 and cousin D at nine. The toilets were a hole in the ground that you stood over and let it all fall out and the women would strip off from the waist up and have a good wash in front of everyone. The two boys were in boy-heaven.

The journey was dotted here and there with visits to towns, phonecalls home, pleas for wired money, hanging about in banks, annoyance and finally jubilation when money would arrive and we could get decent food in one of the many wonderful patisseries and cafes we passed.

At one point driving through from France to Spain through the Pyrenees, which were absolutely beautiful, the rain came down in torrents, right on top of our uncovered and not waterproofed suitcases and luggage on top of that brave wee car.

So the first stop after the rain in Spain (okay, okay, the first stop in Spain after the rain) was in a small beautiful village, I cannot remember the name, where we washed our clothes in a horse trough and hung them over walls to dry before continuing our journey.

We spent a night in an industrial park in Bilbao and drove down through Spain, breaking down as we went.

The last time we broke down on the journey there was 200 miles away from our destination and we were towed back into Lisbon making us, if I remember rightly, more than 350 miles away from our final destination. But in comparison to the journey we just had, 150 miles was a wee jaunt down the road.

My brother, cousin and I were allowed, illegally, to ride in the car on the back of the tow truck, well there was no room for us in the main carriage of the truck. Great craic for us though…

Luckily the man who owned the garage, and plush it was, fancied my Mum and allowed us to spend the night on the fancy large leather sofas as it was nearly midnight before we got to Lisbon.

So we slept soundly and woke up all fresh and ready for the last small leg of our journey.

So if you have been following this story you will be wondering when the unlucky 13th breakdown happened (of course the others were lucky!!!).

The 13th took place on the homeward stretch of the fantastic journey.

The Lisbon mechanic fixed the car beautifully; we didn’t have one worry on that score the whole holiday. The fan belt was secure, working perfectly and keeping the engine lovely and cool. That wasn’t the problem, this time.

We stopped at a small walled village to pick up money which had been wired to us and my Mum when backing out doing a very narrow three-point turn, she backed right into a pile of logs, one of which pierced the back tyre.

She lost the rag and banged and banged the steering wheel as we sat in stunned silence and as villagers started to crowd around the car.

And remember this was only the highlights of the journey which happened some 20 years ago (Jaysus where did the time go?), the holiday itself is another story altogether…