Alison Moyet touring in Ireland (and Europe and the UK)

Alison Moyet is playing in Cork this evening, in Belfast tomorrow, and in Dublin the day after that.

But her website indicated that all of these three places are in the "UK".

I wrote to the webmaster about it. I made three suggestions:

1. Put Ireland in a category of its own
2. Put us in with Europe
3. Change the "UK" category to "UK and Ireland".

He very kindly apologised, selected the third option, and fixed it in a flash.

It problem may seem minor to some, but I think its important to get these things right.

The photo below shows how it used to look. The new version is here as I write.

Gabrielle - Twitter

Gabrielle is on Twitter as GabrielleUK.

Here is what she tweeted just after the new version of Dreams was played for the first time on BBC 1Xtra at 8PM this evening:

Gabrielle - Dreams

Just listened to the new version of Dreams by Gabrielle.

It was played by MistaJam on BBC Radio 1Xtra for the first time just after 8PM.

In fact he played it twice.

She teamed up with Naughty Boy for this version. It is beautiful.

And Gabrielle's voice is as beautiful as ever.

Her new album will be out in November.

When is a charity not a charity?

The following flyer came through our door a while ago. I took a copy of it before I dropped it in the recycling.

I think that anyone who saw this would initially assume that it was from a charity. But on closer inspection there is no evidence that it is.

The note uses the following words and phrases:

• Clothing Appeal
• Developing World Clothing
• communities who need urgent help
• support single mothers
• Let's care about others together.

They even include their "Co.Ref.No". But, of course, that is not the same as a registered charity number.

On closer inspection they don't claim to be a charity. But I wonder if anyone might have been unintentionally mislead by this flyer?

IMDB plugs Joseph Gordon-Levitt

I had to take a picture of the IMDB homepage today.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt appears in 5 different photos and his name appears 4 times!!

I don't think I've ever seen anyone so prominently featured!

Check it out for yourself:

Steve Ballmer Resigns

On the August 23, Steve Ballmer announced that he will step down as Microsoft CEO within 12 months.

There are a number of surprising things about this announcement.

The main one is that he wasn't forced to step down years ago. Anyone who say the video below would agree with me. Imagine having to treat that person as your boss!

The second is that it's going to take up to 12 months to find his successor! Why?! Couldn't they just walk down the corridor until they find someone who's acting bizarrely!

The one thing that wasn't surprising about the announcement (widely covered in the media) is that the stock price jumped 7.3% on the announcement. Why should that surprise anyone?

Microsoft finally buys Nokia

In September of last year I blogged about the Nokia/Microsoft alliance and I said that the former must be "waiting and hoping that Microsoft will step in and buy the company".

Well it took another year but this September it was announced that  Microsoft has agreed a deal to buy Nokia's mobile phone business for 5.4bn Euro.

To be honest I don't think the deal is a good idea. I think Nokia was a great company in its day but that day has passed. I just don't think it can get back from where it is now.

In fact I think that commentators who say that buying Blackberry would have been a better idea are right. Better to buy a company that is sick than one that is on life-support.

Johnny Cash - Hurt

I was never a huge Johnny Cash fan, but I challenge anyone to watch this video and not be moved by it.

The song was written by Trent Reznor and released by Nine Inch Nails in 1994.

Johnny released it in 2002. Johnny's wife, June Carter Cash, appears in the video. They married way back in 1968. He passed away in 2003, 4 months after her.

It's amazing when a song, a singer, a life, a relationship, and a video can come together to create something so perfect.

Glen Campbell - Wichita Lineman

Wichita Lineman was written in 1968 and released by Glen Campbell in the same year.

I have always loved it. It's a song about love, and loneliness, and phone lines!

The lyrics are quite strange. Some of them really are about phone lines, like this one:

And if it snows that stretch down south won't ever stand the strain.

I saw an interview with Glen some time ago where they spoke about the impact that Alzheimer's disease is having on him. It was very moving, of course, but it was amazing to see that (at least at that time) this horrible disease had left his music alone.

Billy Idol - Eyes Without a Face

I happened to hear "Eyes without a face" on the radio a few weeks ago.

What a fantastic song. I have no idea how many times I have listened to it since then. I have played it on Grooveshark. I have watched/listened to it on YouTube.

Here's a link to Steve Stevens talking about how he came up with the chord structure (starts at 1:15).

Included below is a video of Billy and Steve performing it live in Chicago in 2006.

They've still got it! And Billy still has the snarl!

Only 1 Episode of Breaking Bad Left!

Watched the penultimate (love that word) episode of Breaking Bad the other day. Can't wait to see how it finishes next week.

As I mentioned previously, Vince Gilligan says that he and the writers are happy with the ending. So I hope we will be too.

In the Emmy awards the other night, Breaking Bad won:

• Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series - Anna Gunn
• Outstanding Drama Series 

So as I wait for the final episode, I only have two wishes:

• I want to see Jesse come out of it all OK
• I want to see Todd and his crew come to an awful end!!

Here is Anna Gunn accepting here award:

Goodbye to Cable TV

I have had cable TV in my house since 1993. Through a series of acquisitions and name changes it has been supplied by Cablelink, CMI, Chorus, and most recently UPC.

And all that time it has been an analogue signal, and not a very good one (picture quality was poor and, unbelievably, most of the channels were in mono!)

When the Irish TV channels went digital last year, UPC continued to send me a crappy analogue signal. I guess I didn't care all that much at the time.

Then Netflix opened my eyes to the joys of (fairly) HD picture quality. So I decided that the time had come to go digital.

I called up UPC. The person explained that I could go digital (basic package) for more-or-less the same monthly cost. That was the good news.

The bad news was that:

• I would have to continue to pay extra for my second outlet
• I would have to pay an installation charge for a decoder. But I wouldn't own the decoder: if I left them and didn't return it then I would have to pay for it.
• The straw that broke the camel's back was when I asked if the signal would be HD and she told me that I would have to pay extra for that too for both the box and the monthly charge!

So I told her to forget about it and I started to plan my escape from the complete waste of money that is cable television. Those guys really need to wake up and smell the coffee. Don't they know that you can access a huge catalogue of movies and TV shows via Netflix. And the sound/picture quality is excellent. And you can access it from as many TVs and devices as you like at no extra charge!

More about my escape anon.

Bought another Viera TV

When it came time to replace our second TV a while ago, I plumped for a Panasonic TX-L32E5B32" Smart VIERA LED TV.

I guess that's a reflection of my complete satisfaction with our main Panasonic Viera TV.

The main differences between the two are:

• Smaller (32" versus 42")
• No built-in Wi-Fi
• No 3D

The great thing about it from my perspective (and I don't think I fully realised the importance of this when purchasing) is that it has the same remote control and the same functionality as the main TV.

It has built-in support for Internet (including Netflix and YouTube apps) albeit with no Wi-Fi. I plugged in my existing media player via USB and it worked right away. And the Panasonic TV Remote app on my Android phone works just as well as it does with my main TV.

The only thing that doesn't work (and I haven't figured this out yet) is that I can't use the "Media Server" option to access media on my laptop. It sees the laptop OK but when I try to access it I get a "Connected to the server failed" error message.

All in all I'm very happy with it.

3D or not 3D

We bought our 3D TV in November of last year.

I remember debating at the time if 3D was just a gimmick.

Well, I have watched quite a few 3D movies between then and now. Recent ones include:

• Dredd
• Iron Man 3
• Star Trek Into Darkness
• World War Z

So I can say with certainty now that I still get a kick out of 3D. It adds an extra dimension to TV viewing (pun unavoidable). I'm definitely glad we went for it.

Atheism to be taught in Irish schools

It has been announced that Atheism will be taught in Irish schools.

I'm trying to imagine what the curriculum for this will look like.

How do you teach people about NOT believing in something? How long would that take?

The answer, apparently, is that "there will be a module of 10 classes of between 30 to 40 minutes from the ages of four upwards".

Amazing.

Perhaps they intend to tackle the main religions one-by-one.They could do them in descending order of populatity:

• Why Christians are wrong
• Why Muslims are wrong
• Why Hindus are wrong
• Why Buddhists are wrong

Having said all that, the "Why Scientologists are wrong" one would be quite entertaining when they get to it!

Karate Competition

Portmarnock Kenpo Karate hosted the IKKU Junior Kata Championships at the weekend.

The event involved 8 different grouping and the competitors went through their "forms" in 3 different areas.

I helped out by projecting a screen showing what was going on "now" and "next" in each of the 3 areas.

I just used PowerPoint to manage the screen.

In fact there were three slides: one to welcome people to the event; a second to show the activities in the 3 areas; and a third to show the names of the people who came first, second, and third in each category.

This photo shows how the screen looked from the far corner of the hall. Although the photo doesn't show it, it was actually possible to read what was on the screen from that distance.

In future venues it would be nice to (a) be able to show the screen more centrally and (b) to project onto a white wall (the walls look blue in the photo but in fact they are really a shade of green!)

Emmy for Claire Danes!

I read in the news that:

Claire Danes won a second consecutive Emmy for outstanding lead actress in the Showtime drama, Homeland

 You've got to be kidding me!

By the end of Season 1, Homeland had degenerated into complete farce. I didn't watch any of Season 2. And Danes's portrayal of Carrie Mathison was one of the most bizarre things in the show.

It's a complete mystery to me what the people who voted for this award see in this show.

Here's a nice photo of Danes overacting in the show:

I have no sympathy for the movie studios

I mentioned in a previous post that services like Netflix are killing downloading. And I mentioned in other postings that outlets like HMV and Xtravision are being killed by Netflix, Grooveshark, etc.

People don't buy DVDs any more.

But the reasons I have no sympathy for the movie studio in this are:

1) DVDs have always been ridiculously overpriced (as were CDs). DVDs are cheap to manufacture and distribute and the prices being asked for "new releases" was obscene. I have lots of DVDs but the vast majority were purchased when they were "3 for €20" or similar

2) I started watching "Broken City" on DVD this evening. It was a "previously viewed" copy bought by a friend of mine. It starts out by showing adverts for other movies. And then it show normal adverts! And you can't skip away from them!

And I remembered all of those anti-piracy adverts that you would see on a DVD which you had purchased telling you that "you wouldn't steal a car, etc." And you couldn't skip away from that one either. And this on a DVD for which you had paid your own money!!

So I have no sympathy for movie companies as sales of DVDs tank. Serves them right. I hope and trust that Netflix are only paying them a tiny fraction of what DVD sales were bringing in.

Dublin are All-Ireland Football Champions

I watched the football final at home at the weekend. Fantastic to see the Dubs take the title once again!

It wasn't a great game, but the Dubs really asserted themselves in the second half and came out worthy winners.

Fantastic achievement.

As I was at home (unlike at the semi-final) I had to resort to taking photos of my TV!

The photo is of the fabuolous Stephen Cluxton preparing to accept the Sam Maguire Cup. Although the fantastic Bernard Brogan was awarded man-of-the-match I'd say that Cluxton was a close second. And I think that Mayo keeper Rob Hennelly also did an outstanding job: making 3 great saves to keep his team in the game right up to the last minute.

Speaking of the last minute: I'll never understand why Mayo decided to take settle for a point at the end of added time - effectively conceding the game. Very strange.

Central Bank Regulation?

I mentioned surprising radio adverts in my last post.

At the end of the KBC Bank advert (and all bank adverts) you can still hear those immortal works: "KBC Bank is regulated by the Central Bank of Ireland".

I blogged about this over a year ago but shame has still not forced the CBI to withdraw the requirement for this phrase to be included in radio advertising.

Maybe that's pretty much all that they do and they need to keep doing something.

Today, by coincidence, the CBI announced that it has completed a review of the Anglo Irish tapes and that it "was not obliged, nor did it intend, to make any further statutory reports to An Garda Síochána or the Office of the Director of Corporate Enforcement."

This news item implies that the tapes were reviewed by the CPI after they were released by the Irish Independent. You would imagine that they would aleady have listened to them. Or maybe not.

Perhaps the staff in the CBI found it hard to listen to the deregatory way they were referred to in the tapes. They were referred to as "buddies on Dame Street" and generally painted as being less than competent. Some would argue that there might be some truth in in both of these things.

KBC Bank looking for new customers

I was surprised to hear a radio advert yesterday from KBC Bank looking for students to open accounts with them.

I found it surprising given all the publicity the bank has received recently in relation to pursuing Stephanie Meehan to pay the residual interest or capital on the balance of her mortgage for her apartment in Priory Hall.

Stephanie appeared on the Late Late Show a few weeks ago and spoke very movingly about the circumstances surrounding the suicide of her partner Fiachra Daly in July. RTE did not allow her to name KBC Bank on the show but the bank was subsequently named widely in the media.

KBC Bank had written to her following her partner's death to inform her that she would still owe them almost €17,000 after her partner's life insurance policy had been redeemed!

So I'm not sure if:
1) KBC thinks that students don't read the news
2) KBC thinks that students aren't able to remember the news a few weeks later
3) KBC thinks that students don't care about their callous behaviour

Shame on them.

Shyamalan does it again

I have blogged previously about the fact that each movie which M. Night Shyamalan directs seems to score lower than the previous one on IMDB.

Well his new one ("After Earth") has managed to come in with a score of 4.9 which puts it below everything else except "The Last Airbender".

Amazing.

Amazing that he keeps getting the opportunity to direct movies!

Needless to say I'll be giving that one a wide berth.

Alright versus "All rIght"

I was going to write the following an email the other day when I paused to wonder if I should use "alright" or "all right":

I see what you mean alright but...

Turns out that the use of the word "alright" is frowned upon. This is confirmed here and here and here.

But I was unwilling to write "I see what you mean all right but...". That didn't work for me. The words "all right" seemed to be endorsing the view that I was about to contradict. So I restructured the sentence to avoid it.

If I ask someone what they thought of a movie or a meal and they say "it was only alright" you know that they weren't very impressed. I don't think "all right" works as well here (obviously you can't see the spelling when people are speaking to you!)

The first link above does explain that the following two sentences could be interpreted as meaning two quite different things:

• The figures are all right (they are all accurate)
• The figures are alright (the are satisfactory)

And most of the links seem to admit that there is a more towards alright (even though it is still "unacceptable")

So for me the word "alright" is "all right".

Upcoming Referendums

I speculated in a previous post that the upcoming referendum on abolishing the Seanad might be called "The Get Rid of Those Useless Old Fogies in the Seanad Referendum".

Well it turns out that the Government doesn't care which way we vote on the two referendums.

According to the Referendum Commission's website, they will be called:

• The Seanad Referendum
• The Court of Appeal Referendum

No emotive or manipulative wording in sight!

Making a hames of something

I love the expression "making a hames of something". I find myself using it quite regularly.

It means to try to do something but to make a mess of it.

Maybe I like it because I know it's a very Irish expression

An example of usage would be: "I was trying to assemble it but I think I've made a complete hames of it".

Here's an excellent article which explains the expression and also explains what "hames" are.

Fanfold Paper

I mentioned fanfold paper in a previous post.

Wikipedia tells me that it is also known as continuous stationery, continuous form paper fan-fold paper, sprocket feed paper, burst paper, tractor-feed paper, and pin feed paper.

I thought is was consigned to the history books.

Imagine my surprise then when I was on a client site the other day and I saw the invoice below on someone's desk. I just had to take a photo!

The photo wasn't great to begin with (not sure why) but I have blurred some parts of it in order to avoid breaking any confidentiality.

Unique Street Sign

I spotted this street sign in Hatch Lane in Dublin and I had to take a photo.

It has been made to look like a normal street sign.

I know nothing about it but I found the following on the web:

“All I want to do now is walk through walls.”
Gary Baseman’s quote was machine carved into a wood and hand-painted to look like a metal Dublin street name sign. It was installed on Hatch Lane in the early hours of a cold Dublin Thursday.
Thanks to Art from Artisan for carving the sign.

It's lovely to round a corner and see a subtle and unexpected piece of art.

The REAL Beautiful Game

Recently I have watched:

• Dublin v Kerry - Gaelic Football - All Ireland Football Semi-Final - Live in Croke Park
• Cork v Clare - Hurling - All Ireland Final - on TV
• Ireland v Sweden - Soccer - World Cup Qualifier - on TV
• Ireland v Austria - Soccer - World Cup Qualifier - on TV

And I realise something that had never occurred to me before:  there is very little that is "beautiful" about soccer.

Now I know that Ireland does not have a great soccer team at the moment. And that is obviously a factor.

But Gaelic football and hurling have MUCH more skill that soccer. And there are more scores. And the games are MUCH faster.

Soccer is full of kicking the ball aimlessly up the pitch. And misdirected passes. And back passes. And awful shots on goal.

In Gaelic football and hurling, you see guys from impossible angles, often while evading a defender and even while turning. The skill levels are through-the-roof. It's quite amazing.

The problem with soccer is, of course, that you have to keep the ball at your feet. As I think about it, this is really silly! Most players can't shoot accurately, can't pass accurately, and haven't got the skill to take on and pass a defender.

This video shows the last 8 minutes of the Dublin-Kerry game. It starts with Dublin 1 point behind. Judge for yourself!

Ireland beaten by Sweden

Just finished watching Ireland being beaten 2-1 by Sweden in the World Cup qualifiers.

Looks like we won't be going to Rio. So depressing.

Richard Dunne got the man of the match award afterwards. And he was indeed our best player.

But the best player on the field by a long chalk was Sweden's Zlatan Ibrahimović. He was a real game changer.

So this seems to mark the end of the road for Giovanni Trapattoni. I don't think many will look back on his time in charge with any great fondness.

So the question now is who will replace him?

Breaking Bad and Talking Bad

Season 5A (as Vince Gilligan calls it) of Breaking Bad is off and running.

4 episodes gone and 4 more to go! Thanks heavens Netflix are showing the episodes so quickly after the ar in the States.


An extra bonus for these last episodes is a programme called "Talking Bad" which Netflix is also showing where Vince Gilligan, cast members and guests discuss each episode after it airs. This adds a new dimension as you get to see other people discussing what is going on (or seems to be going on).

How will it all end? Who knows?!

But I watched the first episode of Talking Bad an Vince Gilligan said that he and the writers are very happy with the ending.

My main concern is that things work out well for Jesse...

Dublin beat Kerry in the 2013 All-Ireland Football Semi-Final

I was fortunate enough to go with my family to see Dublin play Kerry in Croke Park at the weekend. What a game!

The Irish Independent described it as "two outstanding football teams in one of the greatest games of all time".

As a Dublin supporter, the game was nail-biting for most of the 70 minutes.

At half time we trailed by 1-9 (12) to 3-5 (14).

With 20 minutes to go we took the lead for the first time since the 4th minute and we were literally jumping for joy.

With 2 minutes remaining on the clock the sides were once again level.

And then Kevin McManamon score a goal and we all went wild once again. Eoghan O'Gara scored another goal but even before that the win looked safe.

So now we meet Mayo in the final on the 22nd. I'll be watching this one on TV but I can't wait.

Here's a picture I took before the game started. Our seats were high in the Davin Stand but our view was excellent.

Seamus Heaney - Beloved National Treasure

As I look back, I see that I have used the word "genius" more often than I would have expected in by blog. I have used it for people like Prince, Hugh Laurie, Michael Jackson, Jimmy Carr and Trevanian.

But never has the appellation been more appropriate than when applied to Seamus Heaney, who left us at the weekend.

There is nothing I feel entitled to say about him or his work except that I am a great admirer.

I feel a certain connection to the man in that, like my father, he was born in County Derry, went to school in St. Columb's, and moved to Dublin as an adult, and lived out the rest of his life here.

RTE showed a very good documentary on his life and his work at the weekend. In addition to his gift with words, he seems to have been a very nice man.

Included below is a video showing him reading his poem "Digging" at various stages of his life. A joy to listen to. He certainly did use his "squat pen" well.