I just heard on Red FM that Texaco are telling their retailers to increase the price of unleaded petrol to 1.20/lt! I filled up with petrol at 1.05/lt this morning but I might just fill the tank this evening if this is confirmed elsewhere.
Tag Archives: When-in-Ireland
3 Ireland launched today
Ireland has a new mobile phone operator: 3 Ireland. As you can probably guess from the name, they specialise in 3G but unfortunately that only extends to the cities. I’m not sure if Blarney is covered by the red sploch on this map is it? I’ll have to ring them and ask.
More coverage: babblogue and tomrafteryit
The National Data Directory – "do not call" list for Ireland
I just heard on the radio. A “do not call” list is being developed and rolled out in Ireland! Here’s the FAQ from the Data Protection Commissioner. Call your telco now and get them to update your “marketing preference” straight away!
Pictures: Cashel Red Bull Air Race
Wow! Despite the awful weather today, and the long traffic jams outside several towns we had a great time at the Red Bull Air Race in Cashel! Here’s a few photos from the event.
Ryan has some amazing photos from the opposite side of the valley!
We were lucky today! We arrived in Cashel around 3pm, and walked up to the town because the buses must have grown wings and flown away. Everyone was walking, and not a bus in sight. We got into the town around 3.30, and popped into a local pub where we had a drink and sat down for a breather. Rumour had it that an announcement would be made at 4pm so we headed up to the airfield around then.
We ended up on the Rock of Cashel looking down on the field, opposite from where the majority of the crowd was. There were a few security people around, but it looked like they were there to stop people from climbing higher up the hill! The crowd was good humoured and well behaved thankfully, and I didn’t see or hear any trouble. I don’t think anyone drunk could have survived on the slippery hill anyway!
Finally the even started, and two helicopters did a display over our heads for a few moments, followed by the planes doing fly bys.
There was only one round, each plane ducked and dived and performed airobatics for us and got awfully close on occasion!
I had my Canon 20D, and the Canon 75-300mm IS zoom. That lens is rubbish at focusing! At the long end of the zoom it hunts continuously! After I missed two or three shots I flicked to manual focus, knocked the aperture down to f/8 and focused on one of the Red Bull pillars. I hoped that the smaller aperture would give me enough depth of field to keep everything in focus. After that it was a breeze. The 20D performed brilliantly, shooting off 5fps for a few seconds at a time as planes flew overhead or flipped by 90 degrees to go between the pillars.
I took 400 shots all told during the event.
It rained on occasion and I had to hide my camera inside my coat but it didn’t spoil any shots.
The show lasted all of about 10 minutes. We had travelled for about 3 hours for 10 minutes. Not exactly pleasing or satisfying.
On the way back to the car parks were crowds and crowds of people. We were sheltering under our umbrella when we practically stumbled upon a young woman lying on the side of the road. A few more people came over and a doctor pushed her way through to her. I rang 112 and got onto the Ambulance Service and gave them directions. The doctor spoke too, and I heard the woman hadn’t eaten in days. She handed the phone back to me, and seemed to be in good care. With a few glances back we walked on, and soon heard an ambulance making it’s way to the scene behind us.
Traffic going home wasn’t so bad, but if you want to know why five people were killed on the roads at the weekend just look around you. I was passed several times on the road as if I was stationary. An Alfa, followed closely by an SUV whizzed by at something approaching 150km/h! Even a Fiat Punto passed us doing about 120km/h! Let’s all say it together, “Crazy!”
Others who went: bitwise.ch, reapofmind, matt411, John O’Donnell, diarmy, Liom, topgold, wyvernfriend, bleek_embers637 and of course Ryan!
Petrol rises over £4 a gallon
Petrol prices are rising and rising. In the UK they’ve hit £4/gallon which is about 1.28 Euro a litre. *Ouch*
Prices in Ireland have hit 1.059 Euro a litre, and probably higher. The Government gets about 65% of the price through taxes so the taxman must have a huge grin on his face!
The AA recommend that you buy your petrol by volume instead of money. Instead of buying 20 Euro of petrol, buy 20 litres of petrol. You’ll be shocked at how much difference a small change makes. I bought 20 litres last week and it cost me 20.58 Euro, but last night in Bandon the same fuel cost me 21.18 Euro!
Up and up and up and up ….
LoicLeMeur Wiki – Irish Blogosphere
LoicLeMeur Wiki – Irish Blogosphere – lists, facts and figures about the state of blogging in Ireland.
Starting a Business in Ireland
Starting a Business in Ireland.com looks like a promo site but has a couple of good links.
Of immediate interest will be Revenue.ie, Oasis has a page on starting a bussiness, and here’s a another page without specifics, but then you should pay them for advice, right? 😉
This Is Home
This is where I call home! Googe Maps finally gets satellite data for The Cork region. (yes, they probably have had it for ages but I’m not obsessive)
You can see the bird sanctuary where I took a number of photos.
Here’s where I grew up.
IOL used to have a map server. I remember looking at that and marvelling that I could make out the front drive of my home! The Google maps don’t seem to have the same resolution yet.
Ah, now I don’t have to tell people how to get to my house, I’ll just point them at the URL above and they can follow the satellite maps!
Cheap computer components suppliers.
Here’s a list of suppliers who can do you for computer parts. Some UK based, some Irish, but useful comments to go along with them.
Sit-in at city shop
I went into town this morning and came across this group of protestors on Princes Street. I didn’t know it at the time, but they were employees of O’Donovans Butchers, a 105 year old company with a premises on the street. They had all been let go the previous day. The Evening Echo has more on their front page.
The workers were protesting because they were laid off almost a week early with very little compensation despite many years of service in some cases.
