Pick of the Pics!

I already posted the picture below on Facebook the other day but I'm putting it up here too for no other reason than because this is the spiritual home of me own homegrown brand of the ole banter!

But what it is is a picture of a candle-holder that I took the other night as I was messing around with the various settings on my camera - trying to to get the best results I could manage in low light.

The workflow that brought you this image involved a combination of clicks, switches, snaps, time lapses, stop-ups and stop-downs and a bleary-eyed determination for the damn thing to be in focus.

To non-photographers the process was a akin to dancing the hokey-kokey while simultaneously reciting the lyrics of Phil the Fluter's Ball - until I arrived at the lad you see below, of which I am strangely proud!

Yet if I were to make a point 'twould be the same as the one I made on FB - simply that it is amazing how a mundane item, in this case one bought by my better half for about a euro in Dunnes Stores last year, can become an intriguing, even mystical, thing when paid more attention to than normal!

And now that I mention it, there might even be a lesson in there for all of us too, a chairde!

More soon ...

That's the wonderrrr ...

Joycean 'Street View'!

Joyce famously said of Ulysses: "I want to give a picture of Dublin so complete that if the city one day suddenly disappeared from the earth it could be reconstructed out of my book."

Here's a thing though. I wonder would he have been as determined to be so accurate if he knew that less than a century after the publication of his masterpiece, he would only have to click on Google Earth, Maps or Street View to construct his characters' strolls around our city with surgical precision and, in the process, save himself a couple of years work and, exile as he was, a fortune in stamps!?

Or, if he lived in the data age, would he have even bothered to create some of his famous scenes? For example, would he have taken the trouble to send Leopold Bloom off on a message to Sweny's Chemist, for Molly's prescription and his own cake of soap with the 'lemony wax smell', when it would've been easier for him to just order them online and get on with his story!?

... and my point, if I have one at all?

Might we just not bother doing things at all when we know that digital technology does them better than we ever could, or ever will, as standalone individuals? Or do we re-focus our imaginations on the things that digital increasingly allows us all to do and run merrily with it? Or do we do the opposite and work to undermine the machine and forge new paths of our own, irrespective of it? Or should we, instead, just redefine what 'better' means to us personally, and plan our actions accordingly?

I can't say I have a definitive answer but I suspect Joyce and all the other mothers of invention could put me straight on a few of the finer points!

More soon ...



"Hold to the now, the here, through which all future plunges to the past."

Joycean 'Street View'!

Joyce famously said of Ulysses: "I want to give a picture of Dublin so complete that if the city one day suddenly disappeared from the earth it could be reconstructed out of my book."

Here's a thing though. I wonder would he have been as determined to be so accurate if he knew that less than a century after the publication of his masterpiece, he would only have to click on Google Earth, Maps or Street View to construct his characters' strolls around our city with surgical precision and, in the process, save himself a couple of years work and, exile as he was, a fortune in stamps!?

Or, if he lived in the data age, would he have even bothered to create some of his famous scenes? For example, would he have taken the trouble to send Leopold Bloom off on a message to Sweny's Chemist, for Molly's prescription and his own cake of soap with the 'lemony wax smell', when it would've been easier for him to just order them online and get on with his story!?

... and my point, if I have one at all?

Might we just not bother doing things at all when we know that digital technology does them better than we ever could, or ever will, as standalone individuals? Or do we re-focus our imaginations on the things that digital increasingly allows us all to do and run merrily with it? Or do we do the opposite and work to undermine the machine and forge new paths of our own, irrespective of it? Or should we, instead, just redefine what 'better' means to us personally, and plan our actions accordingly?

I can't say I have a definitive answer but I suspect Joyce and all the other mothers of invention could put me straight on a few of the finer points!

More soon ...



"Hold to the now, the here, through which all future plunges to the past."

Things We Didn't Know Last Week(ish) - #4

Time to catch up on all those vitally important news stories and research findings that I've been meanly keeping from you in recent days and weeks - but for no longer. Nay, let nothing more stand in the way of me bringing you all up to speed on such critical developments as:

• The launch of No Label, the world's first transgender beer which has just gone on sale in the UK and has been produced from hermaphrodite hops that have undergone a 'sex-change'.
• Or the news that sales of slippers have increased by nearly a fifth in some retail outlets compared to last year despite a rise in sales of shag pile carpets and underfloor heating.
• Or the fact that life now 'begins at 60' and middle-age carries on 'til 68 according to a new report.
• Or the finding that that obesity has more to do with eating too much than with consuming 'junk food' and sugary drinks, according to research.
• Or the astonishing finding that people who buy newspapers live longer than those who don't!
• Or the good news from Holland that three cups of tea a day are yer only man when it comes to reducing blood pressure, diabetes and stroke risks.
• Or the not so good news that slim people with beer bellies are at greater risk of heart disease than those who are obese but with a more even spread of fat.
• Or the revelation that the words binge-watching, clean-eating and shaming are among Collins Dictionary's latest 'Words of the Year'. Others include dadbod, ghosting, manspreading, mansplaining, swipe and ragegasm! 
• Or, finally, the news that the words dacoit, katti and yow were instrumental in securing the World Scrabble Championship for Nigerian winner, Wellington Jighere. The words respectively scored 36, 27 and 27 to give him a winning tally of 448 in the final game.

So, at least now yizzers all know, and I can get back to watchin' me kettle boil.

More anon ...

Really, how very interesting!

Flying Fock!

The German Navy ship, Gorch Fock, paid a flying visit to Ireland last month and docked on the Liffey right down the end of my street. It was interesting to observe the crew as they hoisted up the sails in an impressive formation that made for a nice snap too - specially with the filter!

Hoist up the John B. Sails!

Back in Black!

Back from self-imposed cyber exile, prompted by a message from an ole buddy of mine who lives across the foam and said he missed my dulcet tones! Yeah sure, but the thing is, or was, this: I simply needed to take a break from the willful intrusion that being online increasingly heaps on our lives these days. I simply couldn't face the interface for a fair ole while and thus retreated to the woody environs of Analogland and all its visceral wonder.

Sometimes it gets a bit much living one's existence as a replicant/avatar in an endless continuum of digital ones and zeroes but apparently I am one of the few who feels this way and, anyhow, I know I can't exactly turn back the clock, now can I?

Still, there are times when I wish that all the satellites there ever were would fall from the sky so that we could all be left in private with only the 'A' button available to us as the means of electronically communicating with one another - like the way we used to arrange our pints in the days of yore.

But that's not going to happen so I may as well get back on my digital soap box again and continue to rage against the machine as a fully signed-up member of the National Union of Disgruntled Gremlins! In a way I've missed being away.

More soon ...

Yeah, stick us on a Double Diamond!