Get ready to wiggle...

I'm off to Belfast tomorrow for 3 days of fun with the family, culminating in a Wiggles concert on Friday. WHAT! you've never heard of The Wiggles! Are you mad?

The Wiggles are the biggest children's live entertainment phenomenon on the planet and have now outstripped Kylie Minogue as the biggest grossing entertainers in Australia.

So what exactly do they do. Well they sing and dance and tell stories and such like, all aimed at a pretty young audience, maybe 5 and under or something like that. When you first see them on TV your immediate reaction might be "what the hell is this?" or "who are these weirdos?" because they are not your usual TV types. Nonetheless they grow on you, or wear you down. One or the other.

So, that happens on Friday.

I've been to Belfast just once before with the good wife. It was a memorable 3 days for all the wrong reasons. We went on the train and the journey there was very pleasant.

On the day we arrived we were about 5 minutes from witnessing first-hand a guy being stabbed to death in a McDonalds restaurant. We should have been in there but for some reason decided to hold off for a little while and then when we got there the police were rolling out the incident tape around the building.

On day 2 we went to go shopping but had to delay that too as an Orange order march was taking place right in front of the main shopping precinct and there was heightened tension and lots of security forces in the square. Hmmm.

On day 3 (of 3) we were heading home on the train only to be stopped in some godforsaken station and told there was a bomb threat and we would have to get off the train. They took us by vintage bus (not the "isn't it amazing the way they have renovated this beautiful old machine" type, more the "Holy crap.. they are not going to make us travel in this death-trap are they?" type of vehicle) to another station and we boarded another train.

It was like two journeys in one. One journey was travelling physically between Belfast and Dublin, the other was travelling back in time to pre-war times. The replacement train was old, cold, rattling and had no light or heat inside. Beside us was a deaf couple sitting in the dark trying to communicate using sign language for about an hour. Imagine that.

So, fingers crossed for a much more normal trip this time, and for plenty of wiggling.

Go on, try it. You know you want to!

Full update after I get back.

Now that is smart...

ok.. so I had a bad morning but I'm over it now.

I got a letter from the Revenue this morning. My default thought when I get any letter with a harp on the envelope is that it contains some sinister document from the government.

I've been wrong every previous time and was wrong again this time.

It was an information brochure from the Revenue, the department responsible for all taxation matters in Ireland. They have a new online service. That's good.

What was clever though was the fact that the letter now contains information in Polish, Lithuanian, Mandarin and Cantonese.

This is needed given the huge populations of people from these particular countries now living and working in Ireland, with an estimated 120,000 people of Polish origin in Ireland alone. A very positive and smart step.

Now it's time to start putting messages about road safety in multiple languages too.

Stupid stupid stupid

Last monday I was due to fly out to the US for a meeting. I won't go over it again. Suffice it to say that the flight never took off and I had the displeasure to spend 3 hours in the airplane being teased by the captain.. "we will try again in 30 minutes folks so sit back and make yourselves comfortable".

Yeah right.

Anyway after the 3 hour stint in the aircraft I had the displeasure of lining up for 2 hours to get a refund. I bought the ticket online, directly from the airline, so this is the downside to this kind of online selling.

Anyhow, 2 hours later I had my refund processed to my credit card.

I checked last week on the website of the credit card and the refund was there, refunded in full. Grand.

Except this morning when the missus checked the bank account statement online the plonkers had only gone ahead and billed me for the flight in full and conveniently overlooked the refund they had received.

I called the number on the back of the credit card and the first time nobody answered. Silly me, must have called them at an inconvenient time what with it being a 24x7 service.

The next time someone answered, clearly in another country. Not going to get into that now. I gave her my details, card number, date of birth, blood group, favourite colour and all the rest of it. Then she asks me how she can help.

I explain the situation. I got a full refund for my cancelled flight and you people received the money. "So why did you take the money out?" I ask her.

She says.. ok deep breath... she says "well nobody told us that the flight was cancelled". Yes. Indeed.

Come on.. seriously. I am supposed to tell them that I didn't take the flight. Well several weeks of watching CHiPs and Scooby Doo with my boys has given me some new super sleuthing clues about this mystery.

The original ticket was bought from Aer Lingus. The refund for the exact same amount came from... yes that's right .. Aer Lingus. Hmmm what could that mean?

I tell her this is ridiculous. The money is there to refund the ticket so why did they withdraw it.

She tries on the whole timing thing.. "maybe the refund took place after we debited the money". I'm getting annoyed "Look. You took the money out this morning, the refund was processed last week.. I know because I queued 2 hours for it".

She asks me "what would you like me to do?".. this is a progress question at last.

I tell her I want the money credited to my bank account immediately. She starts well "I can arrange that and it will take a day or two".. then she adds "but it could take up to a week".

This I can't accept. A week. This is 2006 not 1966.

I tell her "maybe there is somewhere on the record you can add this but I don't accept a delay of a week." I tell her if it's not in my bank account in 2 days I'll be calling again.

I can't be dealing with this. I'm supposed to be on vacation.

And it's raining again. AAAAGGGGHHHH!!!!

The sponge theory gains credence

I blame the weather service for the lack of improvement in the line of discussion in this blog. I mean I was informed that the weather was due to return to some nice sunshine this weekend and we get this (see picture above).. rain on the car, rain on everything. Pah!

What is intriguing is how many people responded to my question about the weather where you are. I think that's fantastic so thanks to all who responded, ranging from responses such as "it's really nice and sunny"..ggrrrrr.... to "I'm getting the black lung"... to "I wish I was there in the rain".

So, anyway enough about that for a moment anyhow.

I've been putting some pictures of Dublin into Wikipedia this weekend. It's a lot of fun but it's hard submitting pictures when you see how critical some of the self-appointed reviewers are on some of the stuff that is submitted. I'm no Lord Lichfield, as my photo with the car loudspeaker showing will attest, however I think that an article with no photo benefits from any photo, irrespective of whether the fool taking the picture had his thumb in front of the lens or not.

I haven't been loading anything special though, just a few pictures of roads near where I live, and tonight I'm gonna put up a couple from Dublin Zoo this year. The folks over at Wikipedia, wherever that is, are actively seeking pictures for things in Ireland and Dublin Zoo is one of them so boy are they gonna get it from me.

Some of my favourite pictures are taken from inside the car, like the one below. When I look at the picture I actually recollect sitting behind the wheel at the moment it was taken and I like that.

This was taken while driving through the Napa Valley in Northern California a couple of years back. It was a grand day and sure I was driving around in a rental car with the daytime free while waiting for a wedding the next day. You can get a good look at the wipers of my car but sure what the heck. It's still a good memory.

Now that everyone has gone photo mad taking digital camera pictures, thousands of them per person probably, what do you do with your photos?

Do you put them in a folder on your hard disk, do you get them printed (while leaving out the crap blurry ones) or do you put them on some fancy web page or something like that. Me I just print the odd few (well really my wife does that) and the rest are on a disk upstairs. I wish I could look at them more often. They are a great way to grab a quick 30-second vacation.

The sun has gone

I took this picture on the 9th of June at about 2:40 in the afternoon, 2 days after my exam. If you've been reading my inane ramblings you'll know that we were in the middle of something of a warm spell by Irish standards.

In all fairness (as Ronan Keating would say) we had a beautiful 2 weeks of sunshine but now the weather is crap again. Crap and grey with a good load of cloud, wind and rain for good measure.

Maybe you can see all the juicy clouds we have been blessed with above. Those of you with a keen eye for photography will see that I took this picture from the car while driving, hence the daft dark patches where you can see the loudspeaker and the heating vent. I don't mind too much about stuff like that hence my photos are sometimes crap. I call this added character.

All this greyness and wind meant I was tempted to turn on the central heating in the house today but then I remembered it is supposed to be "summer" so I didn't bother.

Alan said something very interesting to me in a conversation many weeks back. He was commenting on the way people from Ireland always enquire about the weather where he is, i.e. San Diego (check out his blog). It's true. We Irish always ask about the weather. It's a staple of our conversation. It's because we just never know what we are going to get.

I often think of Ireland as the sponge of Europe, sucking all the wet out of the clouds so our friends in Paris, Munich, Roma and so forth can have nice dry days. Then again that's kind of a daft theory since they have the Alps and the Pyrenees and all that to contend with.

That's probably enough about the weather for today. Anyway, what's the weather like where you are? (this question is only applicable for people not living in Ireland)

p.s. I'm not exshplaining who Ronan Keating is exshcept to shay he'sh a shinger with a funny way of shinging...... yurgggghhhh

My 4-year old comedian

Little kids are such fun. They learn stuff from one another and most of the time they have no clue what it means.

Take my 4-year old son. One of his friends at school, probably 5 or so (my wife will kill me for not knowing how old our son's friends are) has been teaching him jokes. Now our little guy parrots them back to me and anyone who will listen but they don't make sense.

At least until tonight they made no sense.

Tonight he comes out with this.

"Dad, Why did the chewing gum cross the road?"

Me "I don't know"

"because it was stuck to the chicken"

I am impressed!

If you yearn for a more enlightened answer to the question of why the Chicken crossed the road click here.

Is life really pointless?

I don't think life is pointless.

However I've just finished reading a book (by the guy shown below) that someone gave to me (forgive me if you are reading this and you gave the book to me) called "was 9.99 now 6.99: a novel"... an English language translation of what was originally a French language novel.

The author paints a bleak picture.



The book is about marketing, and how we are all really just idiots in the game created by Marketers.

The book is a bit shocking at times, especially the occasionally crass and vulgar language, and on the whole tries to create a sense of disgust and loathing in the reader.

I have to say I was a bit unmoved. You can read a review of this book by the Guardian here or see what Amazon customers thought of it here.

Is there anyone reading this who thinks life is ultimately pointless?

Conversation overheard at the airport

Scene: sitting at Gate B25 waiting for my flight to New York to board. On my left a crowd is waiting to board a flight to Italy. Above me is a giant plasma TV showing the match between Japan and Australia in the World Cup. A woman sits beside me, probably in her fifties. A man stands next to her, probably in his twenties. His name is Ken.

Ken: "Do you think Zico speaks Japanese?"

Woman: "what?"

Ken: "Do you think Zico speaks Japanese?"

Woman: ... pause..... "who's Ezekiel?"

Notes:
who is Zico
who is Ezekiel

I can only comment on this particular Ezekiel since I have never heard of anyone else called Ezekiel. Maybe I need to travel more.

Hands up if you hate the world cup

Ok maybe don't bother to stick your hand up. I hadn't really thought that one through.

Anyhow, it's becoming clear that plenty of people hate the world cup, or have expressed mild antipathy towards it, or have no clue what it is, or could not care one way or another.

Are you mad?

At what other time in the sporting calendar can you gaze upon grown men feigning injury, spitting, clearing their nostrils, televised pictures of them drinking water, immaculately styled hair, various hideous tattoos and so on.


OK, so maybe they aren't the best plus aspects.

But really, who can't get excited by the thought of the world cup?

p.s. some teams really are only making up the numbers. What's that all about?

Are you a slut?

I mean when is "slut" ever a good word?

I was parking in the underground car park of my local shopping centre on Wednesday evening last, right after I finished my exam and noticed this guy at the car next to me.

The car was a silver VW Bora and the boot/trunk was open. He was sitting on the bumper/fender at the back talking on his mobile phone.

On the side window of the car he had one of those home made "for sale.. call 56325426" type posters.

When I came back to my car later the Bora was still there and the boot was shut.

On the back right below the Bora name badge was a matching badge that said "SLUT".


It struck me as odd. I mean I know there have been some unfortunate English language direct translations doing the rounds on the web but I think it's unlikely that this is a mistake out of the VW factory in Wolfsburg.

Which begs the question. Who bothers to get a chrome SLUT badge made up for their car? There are companies that specialise in making aftermarket badges, like this one but I couldn't find SLUT in their list of offered items.

So, imagine the scenario... prospective buyer sees the "for sale" sign on the window of the car and arranges to pop around for a viewing. After giving the tyres a good kick, and after opening all the doors and looking in all the corners the prospective buyer stands there, rubbing his/her chin. "Yeah, it's a very nice car and I am really interested.. there's just one thing that's bothering me.. THE SLUT BADGE ON THE BACK".

Talk about making it hard for yourself to sell this car. Strange with a capital S in my book.

The mystery of exams

We are experiencing something of an Irish heatwave at the moment. Temperatures are a very pleasant 25° C or so for this past week and that is pretty unusual nowadays in Ireland.

American visitors to Ireland are often forwarned by friends and relatives who have been to Ireland that they should bring some sweaters. Well they'll be sweating this week alright because you will have a hard time finding a place with air conditioning in most parts of the country and that makes it feel really hot.

Anyway, Wednesday afternoon was no exception as I arrived to take my part 2 exams. I thought there would be just 4 people taking the exams but there was a whole room full of people. It was hot, really hot, and the windows and doors had been thrown open to let a little air in.

The exam was not too bad at all, and I was able to answer all the questions to a good extent. I managed my time meticulously, that was crucial for the part 1 exams last year so my trusty little clock was plonked on the desk in front of me.

The three hours sailed by. I was struck by a feeling of timelessness about 30 minutes from the end of the exam. The "Flow" state was happening alright as I was thrashing through the questions and writing like crazy. The last paper was made up of about 8 or so small parts, each divided into 6 or 9 minutes or thereabouts it seemed. It was tough trying to answer this paper with so little time to devote to a question part.

Anyway, at 5:15pm the invigilator, what a great word that is, stood up and politely said "ok, you can stop writing now." Last week I was reading a piece on the build-up to the World Cup (the world's second largest sports event after the Olympic Games) about a player in the Italian team who is suffering from a niggling injury. The player, Gianluca Zambrotta, in response to a question from a journalist about whether he was worried that he might not make the tournament said "I am tranquil". That word, tranquil, really stayed with me and that was my stated aim. Well one of them. I wanted to feel tranquil at the end of the exam.

The second aim was to really give it my best shot. In my usual fashion I read and read and then read some more. Put it this way I sure do know a lot about Burberry, the UK "luxury" fashion brand and Aldi, the german retail discounter. I had done the work and was ready to get in there and get it down on paper. Aim number 2 was supplied courtesy of Al in San Diego who provided me with the mantra "kick it's ass".

I can safely say that when 5:15 arrived I had duly kicked it's ass (the exam paper that is) and was definitely tranquil.

There were a few little "paper-autopsies" going on around the room, you know the kind of thing..."so what did you write for question 2... yeah me too.. I just bullsh*tted an answer to that one too..." so I decided to get out of there before someone came up with something smart that I didn't write.

So that's year 2 finished and onto year 3 in a week or two. I took the rest of Wednesday (between 5:15 and 5:30) and the rest of the week off as vacation and I'm currently at home with the sun beating down. Hence the earlier blog time of posting.

Results will be out in about 8 weeks and by then I'll have forgotten most of the feelings I had on the day about how I did or the worth of what I wrote.

Life is good.

Back to normal

Hi!

a technical problem since Wednesday at Blogger.com prevented me from posting something new but that's all resolved and I'm back online and posting again.

....conjures up images of Jack Nicholson in Psycho... I'm baa-aaaa-ck ! (cue mad laughter)

anyhoo.. I'll be posting something later about the exams so if you're interested in what happened then be sure to pop back later.

I have also been keeping a list of things I want to post about so that's all coming later too.

It's great to be back online again.