I’m a sort-of fan of Killinaskully. Some episodes are great while others are yawn inducing boring affairs. Last year’s Halloween episode was great fun and the first episode of the new season opened with the depiction of a secret society called the Ancient Order of the Stoat. I almost fell out of my seat when I heard the initiation phrases uttered by Willy when he discovered where the society met. Some people are not going to be impressed!
The origins of my name
A friend emailed me regarding my post about Dingle signage commenting on Eamonn O Cuiv’s surname and how likely it would be for him to change his name to O Caoimh. His email prompted me to search and I found this interesting titbit.
An Leiriu Shimpli simplified the Irish spelling system by eliminating extraneous letters from a word or surname. Thus, O Seaghdha became O Se and O Laoghaire became O Laoire. However, the only ‘simplification’ in all of the thousands of Gaelic surnames to add a foreign letter (in this case ‘v’ was the adulteration of O Caoimh to O Cuiv, a very recent introduction made within the last three generations.
Irish surnames are the oldest permanent surnames in Europe and O Caoimh is one of the most ancient, becoming permanent by the end of the 10th century.
According to this page the “O Caoimh” surname first appeared in the 11th century and has an interesting history.
O’Keeffe, and Keeffe, are the anglicised versions of the Irish O’Caoimh, from caomh, meaning ‘kind’ or ‘gentle’. The original Caomh from whom the family descend lived in the early eleventh century, and was a descendant of Art, King of Munster from 742 to 762.
PS. Thanks Derek!
How narcissistic are you?
nar·cis·sism /?n?rs??s?z?m/ Pronunciation Key – [nahr-suh-siz-em] – noun
- inordinate fascination with oneself; excessive self-love; vanity.
- Psychoanalysis. erotic gratification derived from admiration of one’s own physical or mental attributes, being a normal condition at the infantile level of personality development.
From dictionary.com: narcissistic
If a person displays five or more of the following traits, they are likely to have narcissistic tendencies:
- A grandiose sense of self-importance (eg, exaggerates achievements and talents, expects to be recognised as superior without commensurate achievements)
- Is preoccupied with fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, beauty or ideal love
- Believes that he or she is ‘special’ and unique, and can only be understood by, or should associate with, other special or high-status people (or institutions)
- Requires excessive admiration
- Has a sense of entitlement, ie, unreasonable expectations of especially favourable treatment or automatic compliance with his or her expectations
- Is interpersonally exploitative, ie, takes advantage of others to achieve his or her own ends
- Lacks empathy: is unwilling to recognise or identify with the feelings and needs of others
- Is often envious of others or believes that others are envious of him or her
- Shows arrogant, haughty behaviours or attitudes
Does that describe you? Does it describe someone in your life? Taken from The Monster in the Mirror.
Even the big boys have trouble too
I’m shocked. Paypal.com is down. I need to lie down.
Everything I Do, I do It For You
Think back to what you were doing 16 years ago in 1991. Can’t remember? Surely you haven’t forgotten “Everything I Do, I do It For You” by Bryan Adam from the Robin Hood soundtrack already? It was number 1 in many countries all over the world for several weeks. It was played off the air in Ireland where it stayed in the number 1 position for 9 weeks if I recall correctly.
How do I know this? I know it was 1991 because a music channel played this song last night, and I remember it because I was working in a bookshop for a few weeks at the end of August that year. We used to have the radio on, and Larry Gogan’s “Number 1 at 1” slot played this song every single day. Thankfully my hatred for “Everything I Do” has been dulled with time, but the memory of sorting through Leaving Cert exam papers in a dusty attic accompanied by the rough voice of Mr Bryan Adam will never leave me ..
Dinner in Aroma
Just a quick note at the end of the night. My sister took care of Adam (thank you so much Mairead!) while Jacinta and I went out for a fabulous meal in Aroma on Emmett Place in Cork. It’s a Thai/Chinese/Malaysian restaurant and I’ve never been disappointed when I eat there. In fact we’ve brought lots of visitors there, including Matt if memory serves.
The Thai fish cakes are scrumptious, and I ordered the a beef dish with a Malaysian curry sauce. The meat practically melted in my mouth and the curry was nice and spicy. It can be quite busy but we arrived early at 8pm when only a few tables were taken. Service is great with attentive staff. Compared to other restaurants in Cork, prices for an evening meal are reasonable.
We’re definitely going back!
When columnists go bad
It’s a wonder sometimes why some bloggers hold journalists to such high standards. Quite often what appears in our newspapers is ripped entirely from press releases, or is poorly researched. Case in point are the two columns by Jeremy Clarkson and India Knight in last week’s Sunday Times (I’ve been away, catching up on my blogging!)
Jeremy Clarkson may be a funny guy, but is he a little thick? In Biggles, you’re a crashing bore he says,
Then you have to spend more months learning how to use a radio. Why? I know already. You just stab away at various buttons until someone comes over the speaker. Then you tell him what you want.
Oh no you don’t. You have to talk in a stupid code, saying “over” when you’ve finished speaking for the moment and “out” when you’ve finished altogether. Why? When I ring the plumber or the local Indian restaurant, I am able to convey the nature of my request perfectly well using English. So why when I’m in a plane do I have to talk in gibberish?
“Hello, it’s Jeremy. Is it all right to land?” is a much easier way of saying, “Weston Tower, this is Charlie Victor Tango on 8453.113 requesting a westerly approach to runway 27.”
That’s not sarcastic and witty. That’s plain dumb.
On the same page India Knight states that many people suffering from allergies and food intolerances really don’t have allergies at all and are simply rude. Try telling that to me after I’ve had a cheese covered pizza.
Millions of people have imaginary allergies and food intolerances, according to a survey last week. Many of them have diagnosed themselves online; one in 50 says they only noticed their “problem” when a friend had similar symptoms; and 39% of people questioned think it is “trendy” to claim a food allergy. Twelve million people claim to suffer from allergy or intolerance, of which less than a quarter are medically diagnosed.
The mind boggles. I love cheese and milk. I would love nothing better than to drink a cool glass of milk with a spicy curry, or homemade brown bread with a thick slice of cheese on top. It’s not bloody trendy to have a stuffed up nose and phlemmy throat a few hours later. Poor Ms. Knight lives in a very black and white world.
Good to know I’m not the only one to think this way about India Knight’s article. Actually, India Knight was never good so she couldn’t go bad. At least Clarkson’s articles are mildly entertaining!
Perfect Parking in Blarney
I should blog this at Shite Drivers but this was too good to give up. Sorry Niall!
What you don’t see is the old SUV (probably new when such vehicles were called 4x4s) that swerved across the road in front of me to block 3 parked cars. The elderly driver waited in the vehicle all the time I was walking about there. I parked across the road by AIB because of the stellar parking of the car above. Good thing most of the tourists are gone home now!
Edit: this is how they should have parked!
Will Monster.ie get away with spamming?
Oh dear. Monster.ie is the latest company to spam bloggers. Both Michele and Tom were spammed as part of an email campaign targeting it@Cork members. Monster harvested the emails from a members list on the it@Cork website which has since been removed.
Stewart Photo Supplies spammed a large number of photography related email addresses a few weeks back, but then they apologised which is great. Unfortunately someone from a Monster IP address left defensive and abusive comments so I don’t think an apology will be forthcoming.
Damien has dugg the post so give it a digg if you can! Tom has a new post including a voicemail he received from Monster threatening legal action. That’s bad, really bad.
Just say sorry John, it’ll help (a small bit).
The legislation surrounding this kind of behaviour is very clear, data can only be used for the purposes for which it is obtained. We in it@cork were obviously naive in publishing the members directory (since taken offline) but that doesn’t confer on anyone permission to harvest that address list and spam them.
The Irish Data protection Commissioner takes a very dim view of this and has the power to levy fines of up to €3,000 per address spammed (so potentially €570,000 in this case).
Update! Monster apologised and Tom has the email.
Letterman destroys Paris Hilton
I’ve been away from my computer for a while so please excuse me if you’ve seen this already. Paris Hilton appeared on the Letterman Show to plug her new perfume, but he’s more interested in her jail time .. Certainly funnier than her last video!
Via the blog that’s ripping stuff from my funny video blog so I’m not going to give them a link. Nar! Nar!