Quality WTPhotoshoppery (using digital manipulations of his own images) by Caras Ionut.
Lots more here
Yamamori Noodles on South Great Georges Street, Dublin 2 within the past 15 minutes.
The editirix writes:
Two firetrucks outside, smoke coming out of it! Sorry for blur, am on moving bus….
Thanks John McDonald
The GRO Research Room (for those doing Irish family history or other genealogical whatsits) at its new address at 1 Werburgh Street, Dublin.
The move hasn’t been smooth, as one historian explains:
Dear Brian Hayes, T.D.,
How are you? I am writing to give you a little feedback about the location of the General Register Office (GRO) research room. Since the research room has been in the new location for a few weeks now, I’m including a few photographs, and a little information to help you out, along with my thoughts.When you were rationalising the move of the GRO research room from the rented premises at the Irish Life Centre to a state owned building on Werburgh Street, you described the building as “at the rear of Dublin Castle”. Since I’ve actually been to the place, I thought I would write to let you know that the building at 1 Werburgh Street which houses the new GRO research room is not at the rear of Dublin Castle.
At the rear of Dublin Castle is a beautiful garden and green space, complete with a labyrinth walk. It’s quite lovely and welcoming. When I’m in Dublin I often take a walk around the labyrinth. The open airy space is quite conducive to helping one when there is a difficult decision to be made, or when one needs to give his head a shake about a poor choice he made. You might consider taking a labyrinthine walk. It’s very beneficial.
You might even consider getting your driver to swing by the place on the way to the Dáil. You could get out of your lovely car and take a walk from the labyrinth along the streets which take you to the new home of the GRO research room.The street I had to walk along in order to get to the new research room was neither lovely, nor welcoming, and although I was harassed by a group of ne’er-do-wells on my way to the building, at least I didn’t get mugged.
It’s good that you didn’t choose to move the GRO research room elsewhere, such as into the under-utilized former Tourist Office on Suffolk Street. That might have made too much sense, and would have had us doubting whether or not you are a real politician. It’s better that you made this backward move into a substandard building surrounded by prison-style fencing. It helps to remind some of us of our family members who were incarcerated during the Land War, the Irish War of Independence, and the Irish Civil War, without the need to once again stop by Kilmainham Gaol. Thanks. You’ve killed two birds with one stone. Such a time saving idea.You mentioned that the new GRO research room location had undergone “extensive renovations”. I guess I need to get a new dictionary to help me understand this new meaning of ‘extensive’, and maybe the meaning of ‘renovations’ too, or perhaps you could tell me, what do you mean by these terms?
With respect to health and safety, I have a couple of questions, so please do read on. Most of the windows at ground level are covered with metal caging, and with the exception of the one in the picture above, they are all opaque, so you cannot see outside — probably best given the dodgy area in which the building is located — but giving me some safety concerns with respect to the building itself. There is ONE single exit from this site for patrons using the reading room. Mr. Hayes, if there was a fire or any other sort of emergency, and that single exit were to become blocked for any reason, how would GRO patrons and staff escape from this building?Also, there is a single toilet for the use of ALL patrons. There are enough tables in the room to seat about 40 researchers at a time, and throughout the day there are always many people who stop in to pick up birth, marriage and death information. Any person with even an ounce of sense would conclude that a single toilet for the use of more than 40 people is not just unhygienic, it is simply disgusting. Would you be satisfied if there was only one single toilet available for the use of the members of the Dáil Éireann? As to the exterior of the building, the ugly colours chosen are perfect — the sad grey facade and the teal to match the prison gates — because they remind us that maybe Ireland really isn’t on the road to recovery after all. I especially like the old grey wall covered with graffiti, and the lovely lot next door to the building, and all the garbage moored up against the fencing. Was all of that part of the extensive renovations? Perhaps you can find a couple of heroin addicts and get them to hang out there. Doing so will make complete your apparent plan to bring a real gritty urban feel to the place. The tourists will love it. By the way, leaving the GRO research room last week was a real treat too. In the pouring rain, I had to close my umbrella in order to make my way around a delivery van — pictured below — that was completely blocking the entry gate which leads to the building. Thanks for that narrow entry gate.
The staff of the GRO research room are surprisingly upbeat, considering the prison-like nature of their new digs. Their work space is very cramped and there are no windows other than the very small ones at the top of the building. In terms of work ergonomics it does not strike me as a very conducive space, nor a particularly safe one. Some of the staff seem happy just to be employed, but even if there are some who are not content, who cares if employees are happy anyway? For that matter who cares about any Irish citizens who are very unhappy about the move? It’s not as if they vote in elections.The choice of this site makes it very clear that the Irish Government views the GRO research room as a very low priority. In the future, it is likely I will be returning to the GRO research room simply because of my work as a historian, and I will deal with things as I find them. Clearly the Irish government is not interested in bringing the GRO research room into the 21st century. The promised research terminals are not in place, and I doubt online access will come into play anytime soon. Perhaps next time you need to save money, before you consider moving a facility such as the GRO research room, you might look at areas in which the savings would be of a more significant nature. For example, you might consider TD pension reform. Just a thought. Have a nice day.
Yikes.
GRO Research Room: A very low priority: An Open Letter to Brian Hayes, T.D.
As a busker in Berlin hacks his way through a version of Bronski Beat’s Smalltown Boy, the strangest thing happens.
Further to this morning’s profit warning/share price drop at Ryanair.
A visibily rattled hyper Michael O Leary appeared (from the London Stock Exchange) on BBC’s Breakfast Time (with business reporter Steph McGovern) to demand that the airline’s business is “booming” and that it is a victim of misreporting in the UK press.
Steph McGovern: “It’s fair to say that Ryanair have a bit of a bad reputation when it comes to customer service, so much so that it was voted the worst of Britain’s One Hundred Biggest Brands by readers of ‘Which’ magazine. And this morning, Europe’s largest airline has announced that it’s slashing its four year profit forecast because of increased competition and rising fuel costs. Well, let’s talk now to Ryanair Chief Executive Michael O’Leary. Good morning to you Michael.”
Michael O’Leary: “Hi Steph, how are you?”
McGovern: “I’m very well thanks. What’s gone wrong with the company, because it doesn’t look great?”
O’Leary: “Absolutely nothing! Traffic is up, we’re booming, profits will be down, solely because prices this Winter will be weaker. In periods of weaker prices, Ryanair leads even more. We have great customer service , which is why 81 million passengers choose to fly with us.
McGovern: “Great customer service, Michael? You’ve admitted yourself that you can be a bit abrupt and that you’re having to change things. Your shareholders have been asking you whether you think that the problem is because of customer service and you even admit yourself, you’re happy to take responsibility for that.”
O’Leary: “Sorry Steph, what I mean is that our web-site is poor, we’re going to transform that web-site in the next couple of weeks, other than that, our customer service is brilliant! We have the lowest fares, we have the most on-time flights, we have rising load factors and last Friday we announced our October traffic was up 6%.”
McGovern: “Sorry for interrupting, but you’ve put out a profit warning for the first time in a decade recently. Also, you’re saying you’re going to change all the charges, you’re , to reduce your baggage charges. You’re now going to have allocated seating, you’re admitting that all of these charges that you did, even one time you were looking at charging for use of the toilet and you’re admitting now that those were daft ideas, and that’s not what makes customers happy?”
O’Leary: “Look, what makes customers happy, again which is why 81 million people choose Ryanair, low fares, great on-time flights, great service. Despite the fact we have a poor web-site, 81 million people this year will still fly with us, compared to less than 30 million people flying with British Airways. That’s not to say there aren’t aspects of our service that we can improve. The big one, I think will be the allocation seating, which will come in on the 1st of February, next year. Passengers can now bring a second bag on board our flights. It’s not because there’s anything wrong with our business, our business has never been better. I love periods when prices are low, because we do better in periods of low pricing. We have the lowest costs and our costs continue to fall.”
McGovern: “Are prices going to have to go up, if you’re going to cut back on some of these charges that you make, for things such as baggage and allocated seating?”
O’Leary: “We have a range of prices out there, all Winter long, you can fly almost anywhere in Europe with Ryanair for 15 quid.”
McGovern: “You recently went on Twitter to answer people’s comments and you got quite a lot of interesting tweets, one of which said, ‘There’s a rumour that you intend to charge for each inhalation they make, after take-off.’ To which you replied, ‘Good idea, I’ve got a team working on it!’ Now I know that was obviously a joke, but there’s a lot of comments out there about the charges that you face when you go on a Ryanair flight!”
O’Leary: “I would say, almost none of our passengers pay those charges, I mean the kind of famous charge with us, the checked-in bag, only 20% of people pay it , 80% don’t! The gate bag fee, less than 1% of our passengers pay it! There seems to be this kind of hysteria, particularly in the UK media about charges that nobody pays. At Ryanair, we have charges to change passenger behaviour, not because we want your money. We want to send you on the lowest fare possible, which is what we do.”
McGovern: “So, you don’t want people’s money, is that what you just said?”
O’Leary: “Not from extra charges, we want to change their behaviour, we don’t want people to show up at our gates with an over-sized bag, very few do, some very few pay the charge. We don’t want people to show up at the airport without their boarding pass, which is why very few do, very few people pay the charge. And yet, the media, particularly here in the UK hyper-ventilate about charges which nobody pays, while ignoring the fact that our fares are falling, which is really good news for our passengers, and our business is booming!”
McGovern: “Okay Michael, thank you very much for your time.”
Ryanair’s Michael O’Leary: ‘Business never been better (BBC)
Earlier: A Limerick A Day
Choosing the three winners of Friday’s Teeling Single Grain competition was so difficult we ended up selecting four winners (without telling the Teeling people but we’re pretty sure it’ll be ‘cool’).
A bottle of Teeling Siingle Grain therefore goes to…
Thanks all.
Previously: Lost That Lovely Teeling?
Vaclav Crejci shows off his Word skillz, duplicating the flat pastel design of Apple’s new mobile interface.
We can do ‘bold’ and ‘underline’.
MS Excel Pacman anyone?
The ‘Traveller signs’, across from Maureen’s shop in Stoneybatter, Dublin 7, explained.
They were created by Japanese artist Shota Kotake, who moved to Dublin in 2004.
Writing for the On The Batter blog, Shota explains:
“A few months ago, my bike was stolen from our back yard and, a few weeks later, my good sports jacket. It was all caused by having no proper prevention on our wall facing Manor Place.
“As Maureen sometimes told us, some people climb up and look inside to see if there are any valuables to steal. We discussed about having broken glass, but that’s illegal to do. We also thought about spreading grease, but then stray cats can’t come into our back yard anymore, so we had no good idea about it. Then I suddenly came up with this idea of having some sort of art work. It could be replicating a Super Mario stage or something like that, but I came up with having Travellers on it and making them say something.”
…
“It was a huge sensation when the video of Davy Joyce replying to Simon O’Donnell came out on YouTube. All the lads in college were talking about it and that was the first time I discovered these Travellers and bareknuckle boxing culture. Everyone thought it funny that these big muscly lads were ranting on each other through the video and they send it to each other to organise a fight. Also, the words they used in the video were funny as well. I found it funny as well, but I found it more like I found a true Irishness in them. They never accept their defeat, they use a lot of unique words to describe something which can be described in a few words like “Here, I want to fight with you on this date, this place”, rather than shouting at each other how they are shit and all. I guess such garrulity is something that only Irish people can have. Moreover, these boxers have unique characters themselves.”
“A Japanese art group from the 1950s called GUTAI is one of the only such groups that became well-known overseas. And the reason they were huge is because they do stupid and meaningless things very seriously. I find Travellers kind of the same. They are doing something that looks stupid to people outside their community and culture, but they’re doing it really seriously. That’s why I love them and respect them.”
Previously: Meanwhile, In Stoneybatter
The story behind Stoneybatter’s latest street art (On The Batter)
Man Down
at
Collie Ennis tweetz:
“Hoovering behind the couch when this happend… Proof that toy story wasn’t just a movie?”