For the New Yorkers

... there's this guy. For everybody else, go to New York, email that guy, he'll come and draw you.

Irish summer

We've just had a sudden downpour of hailstones and huge drops of rain, here in Clare. It lasted 15 minutes, now blue sky and sunny again. This is the Irish summer this year: showery, cold in the nights, grey clouds every day, bright spells, fresh. The growth is incredible this year! Everything green loves this weather of course, the whole natural landscape is full and vibrant.

People, however, are fleeing the country in droves, seeking heat. I feel the other way, I've been in Barcelona city heat for a month, and this is a welcome respite from hot concrete. The air smells so good to me.

This time last year I was also in Ireland for a short spell, on a journey that had brought me from Denmark to France and on to Clare, then forward to New York city in mid July. This time, I'm on my way back to Barcelona. Been there with Ross this past month. I'm returning alone, this time.

Want to hear the sound of a giggling rat being tickled?

Now's your chance.

oh alright, and

this

oh, and this

If this is friday, it must be Limerick

It's a sunny day in Limerick. That's all I'm saying.

Hello Philadelphia

... who googled gagged ladies and cat, and found their way here, somehow... oasis in the storm? Glad to have you, Philly.

Paean to these blogging tarts

Ok so there are fucking ten million places now on the internet where you can post your random passing thought of the moment, in pithy one liner fashion. I'm not starting this one pretty.

Facebook
One of the most beautiful things I have seen on the internet in quite some time
Twitter
Gmail Chat
All those postcard-your-feelings-into-our-website genre items
And while you're at it, have a look at Smithmag's six word memoirs

I've just discovered Spanish dippable digestive biscuits. They're extra hard so you can dunk them in your tea without disintegrating (and not as sweet as the exported version by mcvities) but not so hard that you can't nibble on them dry too.

And they make an excellent percussion instrument.

Oh this year I'm off to sunny Spain

AY veeeeeeva espanyaaaaaaaah...

We boogie whether weather

Milan rain. Barcelona rain. It's all wet. Art.

Lough Corrib

Stars fall apart

A supernova is born!

Introducing... the banana guard!

Just found an amazing product for people who like to casually sling a banana in their bag on the way out the door... only to find it at the bottom of your bag, mushed, a couple of hours later. I just wonder how they figured a standardised banana shape... I've heard stories about bananas' shapes being standardised according to EU regulations, dunno if they're just urban myths, but organic bananas always seem curvier to me. Also, I recall having heard once that 21% of the world's total pesticide output is sprayed on bananas alone. If you're going to reduce your organic greengrocery shopping to 2 products, make them bananas and lettuce, which is also highly sprayed, unless organic.

But this banana guard, though it will likely make people stare, and stare hard, looks like a fruit-packing revolution.

Generations of bullheaded bollocks

You couldn't make this stuff up. Especially with the grandson standing in the knesset giving speeches about naive American senators appeasing Hitler. On that note, this bollocks that's being touted all over American political life this week, that nobody in their right mind and ethics should be talking to terrorists... how the hell do you think the peace process in Northern Ireland was resolved? How the hell do you think the peace process in Israel/Palestine got the closest it ever got to being completed? What was the first thing that was initiated in South Africa, after apartheid was torn down, but an amnesty for people from ALL sides and experience of life under the system, to TALK?

Stay on your high horse if it makes you feel superior and you need that to survive, but you'll need to make sure the horse's legs are bullet proof.

How it is

I feel a bit like this today.

Boogie boogie boogie

Pretty cool event happening on the streets of new york citay tomorrow afternoon. Arresting to see a statement by Michael Bloomberg on the front page of the website, tho... (aren't these things in the life of New York city supposed to be heavily underground and utterly unsupported by any state or city office? Isn't that how it goes in New York?!)

This might be the opportunity to make like it's 1980, you're at the High School of the Performing Arts, your best friends are called Coco, Ralph and Leroy in those shiny blue shorts, and the streets are there for the taking (as long as you're tightly synchronised on those yellow cab roofs).

Missus

Interesting perspectives on New Orleans

Like any natural disaster brought to the peak of media attention for a period, you don't hear about the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina very much. But this is a comic-style serialisation of the events of august, 2005 and what happened afterwards. The story of New Orleans exists now for most of the world in the realm of history and tv memory. Here's a little insight into some of the reconstruction that people are trying to do down there, on their own. Click on the neighbourhoods to see the videos.

Green and concrete

This article reminds me of when I first lived in New York city in 2003. I loved the little community gardens of the East Village, and subsequently discovered some in Brooklyn, too. Kind of mythical to hear of secret gardens in Guantanamo Bay, and of course this article was published at the height of that.

Oh this year I'm off to sunny Spain

Interesting story here about drought in Spain, and the revelation of a medieval village from the dry depths of an erstwhile reservoir. It's interesting to me because when I was in Spain in the last couple of weeks, I made a trip to Tortosa, a smallish town of 30,000 a couple of hours on the train south of Barcelona. There, I heard that their local reservoir was threatened with being pumped out north to Barcelona, to hydrate the city, leaving the Tortosans dry. The local community were up in arms, particularly when they heard that some of the designated uses were for a waterland theme park and hotel.

When I spent a couple of weeks at a renewable energy plant in west Denmark a few years ago, one of the engineers joked to me over dinner one evening that Ireland was soon going to be making a lot of money from exporting its rivers and lakes to countries that are drying up fast. We still complain endlessly about the rain here, and take to sunny Spain in droves, seeking heat, seeking sun.