Happy New Year

I THOUGHT I would post more (ehm at least once) over Christmas, but between the festivities, sleeping and a bad cold that floored me for nearly three days I just haven't had a chance - I am working on a review of the year here just give me a day or two on that. In the meantime I thought I should take the time this evening to wish you all a very Happy New Year.

Thanks to everyone who has stopped by, commented, linked to and everything else throughout 2008. I am planning a refit here early in the New Year once I can nab someone who knows what they are doing on Wordpress to show me what to do. So for 2008, some 200 posts and 1600 pics on Flickr thats it, and here's to 2009.

On meeting Santa

DID I ever tell you all about the time I met Santa?

Well it was a couple of years ago and I was struggling home with some Christmas shopping when I flagged a taxi and it was Santa driving, seriously Santa was driving the taxi.

I kept doing a double-take, he was uncannily Santa and as it was Christmas time I couldn't help but say that it must be a very busy time of year for him and he laughed heartily. From his snow white hair to his magnificent Santa beard, this man was the best Santa I had and have ever seen, think Richard Attenborough Miracle on 34th Street Santa and you are getting close.

So we had the craic and he told me how his nickname is Santa and how Christmas is indeed busy for him as he does many Santa outings and how on Stephen's Day when him and Mrs Claus go for a Christmas drink all his mates get him a seat and line up a load of drinks in front of him saying 'you must be bleedin knackered'.

As he drove me home we chatted away. When we reached my house I paid him, grabbed all my bags he said 'Happy Christmas and may all your dreams come true' stopping me in my tracks. It felt like a moment from a movie when the adult realises that Santa is real, fairy dust has been sprinkled over everything and who knows what could happen.

Once I went inside the fairy dust was gone and I had a little laugh to myself but its funny I have never seen him again. After all you do sometimes come across the same taxi driver, theres one guy I have gotten twice and not since and both times, a year apart, I flagged him down at Phibsboro crossroads at about 6.30am going to the airport but I have never met Santa again. (You can start with the Twilight Zone music right about now.) :) I suppose he is very busy this time of year.

So Happy Christmas everyone, I sincerely wish you all a wonderful time with your family and friends, and may all your dreams come true (sprinkles some fairy dust). More soon. (PS thanks to Claire for the excellent templates.)

Damn you

DAMN you whoever you are. If you were one of the canny people who queued at Lidl this morning to get their offer of an image tablet in all of the Dublin City Centre stores leaving none in any of the three city centre stores, damn you ;) I couldn't believe it, they were sold out by 10am!!! Well now I know the game and the next time I'll be there before the store opens.



Hopefully Lidl or Aldi will stock them again soon. I've been wanting one for ages but the cost of them is ridiculous. Even second-hand on ebay the cost wasn't as good as the €50 for that one.

Maybe if I can stand to hear how they work, those early-birds can tell me what the tablet is like.

Wednesday's vigils - a thank you post

I'M GOING to cross post something I wrote (with some minor tweaking) after this week's vigils in the Facebook campaign group .

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The vigils during the week were great. Like any other event like this, when I went to set up at the Dáil I was nervous and anxious thinking 'please let people show up' and you did :)

Both Cork and Dublin's events had about 60 people attending and considering the evening that was in it, a wet, cold, very cold evening, that was great.

According to Sorcha Daly (who organised the Cork event) the speakers were great and Ger Murphy who lost her daughter Evelyn last year to the disease was particularly powerful.

In Dublin we had deputies Jan O'Sullivan and James Reilly who spoke, unfortunately Deputy Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin was unable to make it out in time as he was due to speak on the Health Bill in the Dail and couldn't leave the House. He did make it out at the end having run out trying to catch the end of the vigil. We had many other TDs out at the vigil and I would be afraid to name them in case I would miss out on some, but their presence was fantastic.

What was also brilliant in Dublin was that some of the attendees came because they received an email about the event and one couple came because they heard about it from a friend via text. So well done that was brilliant. We are getting our message out using all sorts of methods.

I think that an important aspect to the group where people can participate on a level that suits them whether thats by attending demonstrations or by emailing or contacting family and friends on the issue. Everything has its place and all of it counts.

The vigils got fantastic news coverage; Newstalk, Cork's 96fm, the Sun, the Examiner, the Mirror, the Star and a brilliant spread in the Daily Mail (who have been running a campaign also calling for the vaccine) including the front page which featured Evelyn Cotter who died from cervical cancer last year.











We do understand that not everyone can make it to events like this which makes the online campaigning side of this issue very important so your emails to your Government TDs are vital, we need to consistently let them know that we are not happy with this decision and we want it reversed.

I also want to thank Sorcha Daly for taking the lead and organising a dual event in Cork, that was fantastic. And fair play to her for all the work. It is hard doing these things by yourself, with a budget of nothing. So for the group to pull off two great events was fantastic. Well done and thanks.

We will be doing more. I am going to draft a couple of standard letters to the editor which people can adapt and send to their local papers about the issue and after Christmas we'll work on another action.

I have found the nonsense moral undertones surfacing around this hilarious to say the least. One person who has bombarded the Facebook group with nonsense comments as well as my Flickr account even went so far as to phone my work to complain about me. The person she got through to put her onto me (thanks) and she gave out yards about god knows what before saying 'I bet you have shares in the vaccine company' to which I replied 'yes thats right'.

Whatever about not agreeing with the campaign and whatever about not agreeing with vaccines, people are free to believe what they want. But as it stands no one has a choice about this campaign and if the vaccine was implemented they would have a choice NOT to have their daughters vaccinated and we would have the cjhoice to have it. Being insulting, rude and aggressive to a stranger because you don't agree with them will get you nowhere and certainly will gain no respect from me.

You can see pics from the event on Dec's Flickr photostream, it was odd to be at a demo and not taking pics, I don't think people would have been impressed with me interrupting introductions of speakers to say 'hang on till I get a pic :) I was delighted to briefly meet Neil Dorgan and I look forward to his shots as well.

So thats it for now but more things are planned, so if you haven't joined the Facebook group yet, please do, we are nearly 11,000 members strong.

Education cuts demo

I'M going to attempt to catch up on things I have been meaning to post about, so first up is last weekend's protest against the education cuts in the Budget.

And what an impressive turnout, tens of thousands took to the streets with an astonishing amount of placards. Merrion Square was completely decorated with them at the end of the day. Here's some images from the afternoon and you can see more on Flickr.

Vigil tomorrow evening for HPV vaccine

JUST STOPPING by quickly to remind you that if you are in either Dublin or Cork tomorrow evening (Wednesday December 10th) at 6.30pm there are two candlelit vigils organised calling for Minister Harney to reinstate her proposed HPV vaccine programme. The Dublin event will be at the Kildare Street entrance to the Dáil while in Cork they are meeting at Daunts Square.

More details of the vigils can be found in the post below, we would love to see you there. BTW the group stands at 10,600 members, isn't that brilliant? Well done and thank you everyone. The group's campaign will not stop at tomorrow evening's vigil so if you are on Facebook and feel strongly about this issue please do join and invite your friends.

PS normal blogging will be resumed as soon as possible.

Facebook organised vigil happening next Wednesday, Dec 10

PLANS are well underway for next week's vigils as part of the ongoing campaign calling on Harney to reinstate the HPV vaccine.

We were talking about trying to coordinate events in different cities and I am delighted that Sorcha within the Facebook group has organised a vigil in Cork, there maybe more and if there are I will post the details.

So if you are in Dublin on Wednesday, December 10th at 6.30pm please come along to Dail Eireann where the Dublin event is taking place. If you are in Cork again on Wednesday at 6.30pm the vigil will be taking place at Daunts Square. Full details of both events will be posted closer to the date within the group.



Even if you can't come you can help by downloading the poster either as a PDF or from Flickr and display it in your workplace and email it to your family and friends. We are also calling on people to email Harney again to express your disgust at this decision, her email is minister's_office@health.irlgov.ie

Lastly the Facebook group from where we are organising all this has reached 10,000 members which is absolutely amazing. It also shows how successful the Facebook ads are, thanks Gavin, who did all the work and more on the ad campaign. And thank you all for your help. And eh here's hoping people turn up ;)

Boomtown

I FEEL like Mr Mulley at the moment, juggling about 50 things, some of which I will tell you about later but in the meantime here's something great for you. I listened to a sneaky preview of Boomtown last week and thought it was brilliant, now they have a video for it so enjoy. They want a Christmas number 1 and they could very well do it with this.

The artists behind it describe it as: "Boomtown, the stunning debut from Anon, is the crimbo song we've all been waiting for. Bertie dances, sings and swings with the best of them here for your viewing pleasure. If you like this, please subscribe, and we may even do more." Do check out their You Tube channel.