Chinese New Year, 2011

Word Salad

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Authority?

I have been scrubbing a wall.

It is a damp wall.

It gives me time to think and ponder.

There's not much else to do on an overcast, muggy day in Dublin.   I find that wondering about Nick Clegg passes the time nicely.   What, in the name of all that is beautiful, makes a government decide that the institutions are simply "not fit for purpose" and send everybody back home to fend for themselves.

The Big Society?

It seems to be shrinking by the minute and it may be about time that the ladies took the lead?

Onwards...

Dipping Into the Archives

Looking back on what I was doing three years ago, in Summer, passes the time and offers a lazy way of posting without having to think up new ideas.

I can now see that my pleasant obsession with public sculpture was giving plenty of range while walking round gardens in Dublin and York. There is so much to see in both cities and I have a particular fondness for 18th century art in all its forms.

Must make more efforts to get out and about in our fine public spaces and record the many statues there... ça y est.

Anouilh

Generating an online identity takes time and energy. When a "nom de plume" was requested on chat rooms years ago, I opted for a persona that would cause a bit of discussion. Jean Anouilh was my favourite writer for several years during my teens. His ascerbic wit, shot through with a fey romanticism was just right for the time and, while he is less visible nowadays, his quotes appear regularly on many sites. The pronunciation and spelling of the name, however, led to some humourous interchanges...

I've Been Around...

the World for sport again.

Co-incidentally, we had booked a ferry crossing from Dun Laoghaire to Holyhead months before the ash plume played Molly Bawn with air travel, so it was reassuring to get to visit family without any obstacles.

Hours on the motorway is part of the package, but the anticipation, as usual, turned out to be worse than the real event.   Several years ago I got hit by a truck (twice within moments) while driving in England.   Everybody emerged without a scratch, due in no small measure to the fact that I had rested every afternoon for days, in anticipation of the journey and was in top driving form.

However, although I did not in any way lose my nerve, my co-driver is now so traumatised by the memory that I have not been invited to drive again...

This has many advantages... notably it leaves time for taking photos of interesting sights along the way.

The best way to travel in England, however, is by train.   We took the slow train from York, through Harrogate, stopping at every tiny station along the way and even catching a glimpse of the gorge at Knaresborough through a misty window.

Our first trip to Leeds was a great success.
The chocolate cake in the Art Gallery restaurant, an ode to the tilers craft, was top notch.

Can't wait to go back again soon...

Dublin in Winter

More About Meme

More About Meme

My husband and I are in absolute agreement on one fact. Neither of us have any recall about the sites we have signed up to over the years. They are gentle, bland names that slip, unnoticed through our aging synapses, leaving no mark.

It was with pleasure, then, that I found I had somehow bonded with
Tweetmeme


I have to admit that I joined Twitter with the enthusiasm of a novice swimmer jumping off the Forty Foot in early January.

Oh No! Not another system to learn!

It has turned out to be less painless than anticipated, and I have even Retweeted, though in such a state of confusion that I claimed to be "Tetweeting".

The English language is never going to be the same...



Dublinoise Connection explores a similar theme...

Malahide Castle, the Talbot Botanic Gardens

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The Color Purple

Dreaming of Forest Trees

Kind Thoughts, Coronets and All That Jazz

I'm exhausted.

Monday mornings are usually my "forte".

Up and running for the new week is easily achieved after
a restful two days of gentle housework and hearty eating.

Not this time...

Somehow all the information gleaned at the wonderful
afternoon spent in Trinity College listening to
World Class garden writers speak
kicked in last night.

My rattled psyche spent much of the night taking
French class in an open plan school building
which, looked at in the grey light of day,
was the Edmund Burke lecture theatre and its
environs.

This is not a complaint.
Simply an explanation that it is sometimes
good to go into town on a Saturday and joggle
the old synapses.

Having taken reams of notes and snapped (in iso 1600)
enough images to give a new lecture of my own,
I'll leave it for another time to share all the extraordinary
ideas learned.

Enough to say that the Lewis Glucksman Symposium
was a glowing success
and that the speakers, all four,
should stand up and take a bow.

Lewis Glucksman Memorial Symposium

An Artistic Moment

Memories of Country Life

Voyage Into the Unknown

Well, let's put it this way, having read about all the confusion
caused by missed bits in computer programming I'll be staying
with the more secure areas of photography for some time to come.
My ethical problems in relation to this new technology are almost
on the verge of being simple-minded.
Living in a small city, I tend to have great qualms about uploading
photos of people on the street, in case they may not like it.

These are paltry concerns when compared to the life and death
realities that many computer professionals face daily.

"Computer Ethics and Professional Responsibility"

presents the alarming proposition that cause and effect
are no longer predictable, once computers are involved.

Far from causing fear, this idea has opened up a vast
area of curiosity which should keep my Winter reading very
lively indeed.

But the prospect of writing code takes on a
link to social responsibility that may
prove a burden?

Web 2.0 is Here to Stay

It seems that the Internet will soon outstrip the World's mainstream media in productivity and, in some cases, quality.

The article linking to the Title Bar here gives an insight into the history
of how it all started.

Nay-sayers who find much to criticise in the output from the Net forget that
it offers an opportunity to those who would never consider journalism or
the formal professional art world as a forum for their work.

If you think that the machine is taking over
the option to make personalised widgets is always there.

Cherchez la Femme

Award winning Irish bloggers are gathering mainstream media attention at last.

This article in today's "Irish Times" re-introduces
some very well-known faces to fans.