Ireland – Page 12 – Something Odd!

The Simpsons come to Ireland

So, a new Irish themed Simpsons will air tomorrow night to celebrate St Patrick’s Day and the whole world is going gaga over it.

We had lunch in Blarney today and heard from more than one person that the Simpsons will be making an appearance tomorrow at Blarney Castle! I think people are confusing reality with a cartoon storyline. Things are getting out of hand. Next thing you know, Bugs Bunny and Daffy Ducks will be spotted walking out of the Woollen Mills and drinking pints with the locals.

I have the episode set to record on Sky+ anyway. Should be a laugh.

Oh, and it’s not “Patty’s Day”. A pat is something a cow leaves behind in a field and contributes to global warming and is quite smelly. Dung beetles like it too. If you must shorten “St. Patrick’s Day”, it’s “Paddy’s Day”! Thanks Gavin for alerting me to this atrocious misspelling.

Will the real Tubridy please stand up?

After this morning’s blogger interview with Ryan Tubridy it looks like the radio talk shot host is diving into Twitter with enthusiasm. Maybe!

Listen to the interview here courtesy of @topgold.

PS. Will has an easy way to verify that @ryantubridy is real:

@ryantubridy @DamienMulley @RickOShea validity test. What socks is Ryan wearing today? Ryan has to answer first

I don’t think Ryan wears flip flops though.

The Irish Blog Awards in Pictures

As I may have mentioned once or twice before, we were at The Irish Blog Awards on Saturday night. Here are a few photos. They’re after the jump because there are 70 there and I’d hate to see them load every time someone loaded the front page of my site!

Gallery of shots from the photowalk to come tomorrow. Possibly over 100 shots in that. I do like to take photos don’t I?

BTW – Please Photoshop Grandad above. What’s he saying? Two example to follow ..
Continue reading “The Irish Blog Awards in Pictures”

Back from The Irish Blog Awards 2009

Jacinta and I are just back from the The 2009 Irish Blog Awards and we’re elated after the experience. If I thought I could convey half the good humour and energy and enthusiasm I’d try but I know I’d fail dismally. It was a wonderful night, full of great people and I’m only sorry we couldn’t stay longer and chat some more!

Thank you Damien and everyone who helped. You pulled off a hugely success celebration of Irish blogging.

Ryanair Staff Give WordPress some lovin'

Oh yeah, a couple of Ryanair staff really love WordPress! Or maybe not. Jason Roe discovered that Ryanair’s website session handling isn’t 100% reliable. Click through to the voucher section, click back and suddenly the price of your flight is 0.00!

Unfortunately a few Ryanair staffers decided to take it upon themselves to chastise Jason for his blog post and took a dig at WordPress while they were at it.

You dont get a free flight, there is no dynamic data to render which is prob why you got 0.00. what self respecting developer uses a crappy CMS such as word press anyway AND puts they’re mobile ph number online, i suppose even a prank call is better than nothing on a lonely sat evening!!

Personally, I believe him about ryanair.com and the “dynamic data” which I presume is POST data, but they should handle these situations better. Their chief rival in Ireland, Aer Lingus show an “expired session” page at every wrong turn which is annoying but at least doesn’t lead me down the garden path of trying to buy tickets for €0.00!

Maybe Ryanair should hire Damien to give them a clue about how to play nicely online. Can’t see that happening though. They’d probably charge you €2+€5 credit card fee just to send them a refund request by tweet.

PS. Jason verified the IP addresses of the Ryanair staff. They were browsing blogs at work from their company’s designated IP range of 193.120.152.0 to 193.120.152.127.

I called the litter warden

This morning I discovered a black refuse sack of rubbish had been dumped almost in front of my house. This afternoon it’s still there but I rang the litter warden for South Cork, Jim Dooley at 021-4285417 giving my name, address and phone number. Hopefully they’ll get out here soon and find incriminating details buried in the bag but I don’t hold out much hope of that.

From a brief inspection of it, whoever dropped it doesn’t have the healthiest diet in the world. Packets of crisps, cans of Diet 7UP, plastic wrapping, and of course some of the local dogs have got their jaws into it too. Oh yeah, dogs are supposed to be under the owner’s control? ‘Course they are. The dog warden would have a field day around here too.

Anyway, I’m really pissed off at whoever dumped the rubbish. It’s disgusting, ignorant and completely irresponsible. I’ll update this post if the litter warden shows up. Seething.

Lots of Irish in Texas

After I found out that Waterford had moved to Kilkenny (thanks ILUG!) on Google Maps I became curious and searched for Blarney and found Blarney Stone Street in Tyler, Texas. Check out all the street names!

You could travel all over Ireland by walking up and down a few streets in that town! Dublin, Limerick, Ulster, Blarney. I have to wonder who named a street, “Irish Moss St.” Sounds like something you get at a garden centre!

You never know, I might visit Tyler in Texas some day.

Zavvi

Sometime last year Virgin sold it’s retail music business and was renamed Zavvi. The first I knew of it was when the Cork store had this strange forgettable green brand name plastered over the door. I could never remember the name, not a good sign for a retail chain.

They didn’t last long unfortunately. The notice above is displayed in their front window. The company appointed a liquidator on December 30th. If you go in there now they have some great sales. 30% off games, lots of DVDs and CDs slashed in price. Long queues at the cash registers though and I wouldn’t count on getting a refund quickly if they’re liquidating stock.

Stop the Killing

A protest march in Cork today against the Israeli invasion of Gaza. Plenty of photographers covering the event, I wouldn’t be surprised to see photos appear on Flickr soon.

A leaflet urged the reader to boycott Israeli products and listed many well known brands. Unfortunately if I was to do that I wouldn’t be able to use my Intel powered laptop, and I wouldn’t be able to use WordPress because Israeli citizens have contributed to it. Oh wait, you probably shouldn’t even use the Internet. Log off now please.

At the end of the march, the speaker pictured above told the crowd that there would be another march next weekend. Ominously he said all shops in Cork should not sell Israeli produce and whatever it takes will be done to force them to do that. He added that only lawful pressure would be applied, that “we must stay on this side of the law”.
How is that really going to hurt Israel? The produce is already bought and paid for by the retailer. Irish shop keepers are reeling from the worst Christmas sales in years and they want to put more pressure on them? You’re only going to hurt the local economy if you go ahead with that boycott. Insane!

I have so much sympathy for the people in Gaza and Israel. Innocent people get killed and maimed on both sides and the cycle of violence goes on and on and on and …

Recession in Cork

The world is in recession, and it’s even affected Cork. The city was busy but it’s been much busier in previous years. Every second shop had a “Closing Down sale” or “50% off sale” sign. Usually you have to wait until the January sales. It’s great that prices are down, but depressing what it means for the economy. I heard that many stores on North Main Street have already closed their doors.

Construction work still continues in the center of the city though. I bet the developers of those sites are not looking forward to the job of selling floor space to retailers. The Elysian, tallest building in the country, is practically empty since it was opened officially a few months ago.
Besides the maddening crowds, collectors for Share and other charities were out in force. At least that’s one thing that hasn’t changed. The streets were packed with people, but the queues in the shops weren’t that long.

Bully’s on Paul Street was excellent as usual. Their ground floor tables were all taken but they have a first floor restaurant I never knew existed! We got a nice table away from everyone, it was a nice reprieve from the crowds and sounds outside. Their Bully Burger is well worth sampling too. Yum!
Continue reading “Recession in Cork”

Donncha on Star trekkin' across the universeSeptember 4, 2025
And in 2020 someone created a version of the song on the Commodore 64! Not great, TBH, but you'll recognise…
James on Fisher or hunter street photographer?September 4, 2025
… liked this!
Josu Lizarralde on 1986 Interview With John DeaconAugust 22, 2025
… reposted this!
Josu Lizarralde on 1986 Interview With John DeaconAugust 22, 2025
… liked this!
James on 1986 Interview With John DeaconAugust 22, 2025
… liked this!