Yearly Archives: 2017

A 70th anniversary tribute, of a kind, to the iconic 1947 Flaminio Bertoni-designed Citroën H Van.

Created by builder Fabrizio Caselani and designer David Obendorfer, the 2017 ‘H-type’ is actually a series of external panels, refining the shape of the original commercial van’s panels, bolted to a Citroën Jumper.

The kits will be built by FC Automobili and limited to 70 units, for sale in Italy.

Below: for comparison, a restored 1947 H-type.

uncrate

‘sup?

Dublin Zoo writes:

Dublin Zoo is thrilled to announce the birth of a male Asian elephant calf. Proud mum Yasmin gave birth to the healthy calf on Monday afternoon  after a 22-month gestation period. The calf is estimated to be 1 metre tall and weighs approximately 130kg.

This new arrival is Yasmin’s fourth calf and the sixth elephant calf born at Dublin Zoo in less than three years.

…Dublin Zoo is inviting the public to suggest a name for the new arrival based on his Asian origin. Name suggestions can be submitted at Dublin Zoo.

Dublin Zoo

Thanks Cormac

This morning.

Dublin castle,

Taoiseach Enda Kenny carrying Lexi McKeon (7 months) and, to their left, Simon Harris (32 years), Health Minister, help  launch the Healthy Ireland Network, which aims to boost “the national movement for health and wellbeing”.

Leah Farrell/Rollingnews

Meanwhile…

Via Oireachtas Retort:

You and I may believe the problems facing this country are legion but we must accept that these were none of his concern.

All the ills and injustice deepened by his policies are not error or oversight but perfectly desirable features of how Enda Kenny believes the world should work.

You have to look very hard to find any measure imposed by the Troika that Fine Gael would disagree with. Every incarnation of the party dating back to independence and before has shown contempt for the vast majority of Irish people in the interest of the wealth and privilege they represent.

Rather than some so heroic fight to bring the country back from the brink, the bailout provided perfect cover to remake Ireland in their own warped image.

“The best small country in the world in which to do business” – that was the extent of his vision for Ireland. A modest ambition for a country that never had any issue in facilitating the needs of capital.

If anything, it was already too easy to do business in Ireland provided your business was finance, property or farming exports.

Kenny’s very first outing as Taoiseach was a conference of the Irish Funds Industry Association where he gave the keynote address. The main takeaway from that speech as noted on the lobby group’s website was the prime minister assuring financial services that his “door is always open”.

Not so for those at the sharp end. You needn’t have me repeat here that list in full. Soaring house prices, rents, debts and suicides. Decimated public services, deliberate rural decline, etc. Nor need we run through every twist a turn of his six year premiership because we’ve each witnessed it.

There is little point raising these facts now as he prepares to step down. Long prepared newspaper supplements and well rehearsed media punditry will do the usual routine with no one remarking that Enda Kenny leaves politics having fulfilled exactly the job he had to do. A sycophant in Europe and puppet at home was all in a days work. Housing crises, desperate lone parents and crooked cops have no baring on his record.

Commentary will instead commend him as a ‘canny operator’. He will be lauded for hanging on in spite of increasingly grotesque scandals exposing the dark heart of this country, whatever of the casualties.

Enda Kenny survived.

Just as the regime he led continues to exploit, demean and prosper for it. It may be cruel. It may be shambolic. But we cannot judge his role in it as other than a success.

FIGHT

Enda Kenny – The Most Successful Taoiseach Ever (OireacthasRetort)

The magnificent sand sculptures Of Toshihiko Hosaka (pic2), who’s been refining  his granular oeuvre for two decades. Aside from a hardening spray applied to protect the finished sculptures from erosion by the wind and sun, the only material he uses is sand.

Earlier this month, Hosaka’s three-days-in-the-making tribute to 16th century Japanese swordsman Musashi Miyamoto (top pic above) won first prize at the Furlong International Sand Sculpture Art Festival in Taiwan.

colossal