Things that strike me

Today, I ploughed through a piece of text which the Sunday Independent was good enough to publish yesterday, written by someone else – as in, not me – which gave me cause to pause. Well that was after the tide of red rage had dissipated, that is. The thought that went through my head is that on and off for the last I don’t know how long, I’ve been writing. Bits and pieces, journals, blogs, reviews here, commentary pieces on various websites. And people get paid to write this.

A couple of things have been going through my mind. On one front, I think the traditional newspaper is dead meat. I don’t think any Irish newspaper has a sufficiently coherent product to make it in the online world; so most of my Irish news now comes from the RTE website. It’s largely devoid of comment, although I have no doubt that the editing has some bias through in if only because people are human.

I have a lot of responses to this. On the one front, I suspect that some judicious organising of google news and my feedreader (which is currently feedly) would serve me a customised news/opinion experience that would blow every newspaper out of the water. I do know that I’ll have to do a certain amount of messing to set it up but I am tempted to do so.

I’m also tempted to start writing myself again. I know that this site is very different to the old windsandbreezes site, some of which is on the Wayback machine but the Wayback machine is currently down so I can’t link to it. I may set up a separate site to handle those things although frankly my internet-fu is pretty dreary since wnb died a year ago.

When I say I’m tempted to start writing, I mean to write articles. Part of this is because to be honest, a lot of what I read is – at best – quite average. I know I used to be better. Linked in with that, I did wonder about the possibility of doing a collaborative one off newspaper…but I’m concerned about the checks and balances in terms of legal requirements given that Ireland is what it is with respect to libel legislation so I don’t know what the feasibility of a one off Anti-Sindo might be.

The internet is full of interesting projects. Mark Little is working on one at the moment, Gavin Sheridan and Mark Coughlan have one, and there are other interesting pieces around all the time. I can’t help feeling this could be leveraged in some way to make the old media completely irrelevant except for the death notices and the crossword. There is a market out there for opinion and interactive discussion. I really question whether the Irish media has worked this out at all.

Surfergirl magazine is available for free on issuu. Here’s the link. I like Surfer Girl and what I regret most about it is that it didn’t exist when I was 15 years old. It or a windsurfing equivalent. It used to come free with Carve quarterly and now it’s free on its own a few times a year. It’s far, far better than any of the other glossies.

When I was 15, the choice was Jackie or Marie Claire. Jackie is gone and I read Marie Claire at the dentist/doctor/beauticians only.

I’m having a breeze around issuu. I can’t help feeling there are more interesting things there to be found. And what I like about issuu (as opposed to pixelmags) is you can read it on a normal browser on a PC. Currently the pixelmags stuff is limited to iPhone (sucks to read a magazine on) and iPad which I won’t buy because frankly Apple products suck in my experience.

Thing is, I’d be good to buy magazines on a decent reader that didn’t cost 600E. I mean, yesterday I bought three and okay so one of them was unusual (Woodturning magazine because one of my photographs is in it) but I do buy a lot of magazines.

In the last month or so I have bought Advanced Photoshop, Photoshop Creative, Cooler, Surfgirl, Digital Arts, Digital Artists and only for the fact tha tI would truly bankrupt myself, I’d buy more. And I don’t have space to keep these things. Ideally it’d be nice if I could just download them into a bunch of nicely organised pdfs in a magazine reading library but that’s not really happening.

For now, however, though, I find something like issuu and it’s nice to wander around.

I was thinking this morning – I can’t remember why – that the music industry modus operandi is now broken. We don’t really need the big labels any more because we’ve a reasonably standard data format, artists can actually record studio quality albums at the sort of cost that you could only dream baout 10 years ago and the whole marketing platform has changed a lot. I don’t think the music industry has worked out just how broken it is, and how irrelevant the big labels are. I mean, I mostly pick up obscure music like Xavier Rudd from youtube videos, or extreme sports videos or the like. I listen to radio from all over the world and yet the record labels spend their time throttling promotional tools like last.fm. I bought loads of music as a result of last.fm recommendations.

These tools can be and are being leveraged by independent artists and small labels.

The publishing industry is heading for a similar change. I’m in the process of (early process of) assembling a photography book. It’s inspired by the great coffee table books that I have seen other people produce – I actually look at these things possibly because I am a photographer – but the point is – technology allows me to do this now and cut out a publisher if I want, or market it myself (which is going to be the hard part). Book publishers, to me, look to be understanding how technology can be leveraged to affect them although they’re slow on the technology uptake – I mean compare the iPad to any of the other e-readers. Black and white only – for crying out loud. Whose dumb idea was that when we have colour on phones for chrissake.

Magazines are going the same way – but you can see that some of the publishers have woken up to this. Advanced Photoshop and Photoshop Creative and the entire imagine publishing collection is available through pixelmags which is terrific apart from the fact that the last time I checked they didn’t really have a PC friendly interface which is essential in part because people like me won’t be buying an iPad if there’s a chance that a Windows friendly netbook will come along and do likewise for me via a browser. And obviously any of the ones on issuu are even faster on the uptake – and issuu make it possible for people like me to do stuff like this.

Meanwhile, you don’t have to be from Hawaii to read specialist sports magazines. I’d've taken surf at the age of 15 – I always loved surf and windsurf imagery and that’s why you buy these things (it’s not necessarily for the writing) but there are so many possibilities opened up by it being possible to get all these things, instantly.

It’s just amazine.

Read this report from the Irish Times.

Fine Gael need to hang their heads in shame. If they had the guts to give us someone other than Enda Kenny as a complete loser leader, I might not have to write this.

In an effort to reduce payroll costs, it argues for the reduction in the number of city and county managers from 34 to 24; directors of service from 240 to 190; and the number of senior and middle managers by at least 15 per cent. This change would in effect mean that some local authority managers would be in charge of two councils.

Mr O’Loughlin said this proposal had the greatest scope to generate savings and could lead to better local governance.

Could lead to better local governance. Could?

Could is not anywhere close enough to being good enough. Before looking at the savings you look at the processes. Here they just want to save money. It could lead to better local governance but I’ll be frank. I doubt it. ONe of the big issues we have with local governance in Ireland is the lack of accountability.

The sentence could as easily read “could lead to chaos as two different local authorities slug it out for favour”. Frankly I see more chance of that given what happened (not) the National Spatial Strategy.

He told RTÉ Radio that some of the changes could be implemented quickly as some county and city managers were on fixed term contracts and because the Croke Park agreement allows for deployment of personnel elsewhere in the public service.

So how much do we save on payroll given that some of them were due to go anyway and we’ll still be paying the others as we shift them around, right?

The group has also recommended that tolling charges be extended from motorways to national roads. It has argued this would be consistent with Government policy on the environment by incentivising road users to use other transport. It would also allow a stream of revenue for local councils to invest in local roads.

I suspect most of the group live in Dublin. What other transport are they suggesting? Bus? Train? Public transport in Dublin is woefully inadequate. Do they not know that it even in itself is worse than public transport everywhere else. Do they not realise how people’s time is money? Do they not know that if you don’t live in Dublin or Cork, this is frankly almost impossible?

While the group has said the distribution of the tolling booths should be equitable, placing them on national roads as well as motorways would be seen as controversial and politically unpopular.

How will they measure equitable? The M50 toll does not act as a deterrent; it acts as a cash cow.

Mr O’Loughlin said the new tolls could be used to fund infrastructure developments on local and national roads and could prove to be good for the environment.

Again, if they are funding roads, how are they good for the environment? He cannot have both his cake and eat it here. Either it deters road usage (in which case why build more?) or it screws people who have not much choice in whether you use the road or not.

The group found the number of senior managers in Dublin and Cork cities was noticeably high compared to other local authority areas.

The population served is noticeably high also.

____

Local governance in Ireland needs to be looked at. This is not looking at local governance. Far too much could and very little would in this.

Renting versus Buying.

In Ireland, renting is

socially unacceptable.

That’s what it boils down to. It doesn’t matter where you are in your life, perfect strangers who know nothing about your life situation will cheerfully advise you that

there will never be a better time to buy.

Despite the fact that what I can buy versus what I can rent….means what I can rent is generally better.

But that shouldn’t matter. The point is, Ireland has apparently cast off the shackles – more or less – of being governed by an unelected judgmental elite called the Catholic Church but yet many people still feel the need to

be judgmental about other people’s life choices and

interfere in them wholesale.

So here’s how it works. There is nothing wrong with renting. It is for each individual to make a call. For me, for example, I rent a 3 bedroomed semiD in Dublin City. Or I buy a 1 bedroomed apartment 10 km out. What would you choose?

I don’t care what you’d choose. Point is, I choose the house in the city.

In short terms, if someone comes up to me and says “you should buy now” or “there’ll never be a better time to buy”, I’ll be safe in the knowledge that they are wrong. Because people are still thinking they “know” how it works.

They don’t. I don’t either. But I know how I work and if I buy what I can afford now, I’ll be less happy than I am now.

Is there something wrong with allowing people to make their own decisions in life?

I was wandering around art.com when I saw and wanted – immediately – completely desired – this. It would look FANTASTIC in my kitchen.

Of course, if I did put this in the kitchen, I’d probably have to scrap the idea of having a red IKEA kitchen.

yesterday’s target: 750m

yesterday’s achievement: 1000m. I still can’t string more than 25 of those metres together in one go but the recovery time is falling off big time and yesterday I really had the feeling of not being one of the worst swimmers in the pool.

The first 400m is always the hardest. Once I get past them…it seems to be easier. I don’t know why. It was this way the last time I was training too; once I got to 400m everything racked up dead easy. Also, the last 100m last night was pretty tough as well – the absolute limit for last night.

So, a lot done, more to do.

600m. I still can’t chain the freestyle lengths but it takes 600m for me to get half dead now as opposed to 75. So that’s an improvement.

I’m trying to sort out the technique today. I made the bad mistake of reading teh boards.ie swimming forum which was demoralising to say the least. Apparently 25-30seconds for 25m is like “slow”.

uhoh. I’m doing drills and concentrating on technique and I come in at 36sec. If I scrap all that I come in at 29.5.

I’m now wondering what “fit” actually is. What’s a decent fitness level for a non-elite swimmer, non elite sportswoman and all that jazz? I know I have that 400m in 8 minutes lark to aim for and by the looks of things, that may not be particularly taxing for a lot of swimmers (although right now for me, it’s out of reach). I also know that once I break 400m even in my swim sessions, it gets easier. The last 200m were easier than the first 400m today and I remember that from the last time too, when I was backstroking; the first 400m sucked. The subsequent 1200m that brought me up to 1600m didn’t suck quite so much.

Anyway, the technique bit seems to be improving a bit, and the recovery periods between lengths are dropping off so I suppose that’s good.

Today was one of those days that sounds more productive than it actually was. I:

• started another lacy cardigan and am on row 4.
• washed 3 towels and 2 swimsuits
• sorted out the swimming drawer
• tidied the boot of the car and made room, sort of, for the kite equipment.
• tried on my harness. ugh. Put the IKSA tag on it. I am now ready for kitesurfing. Let us have some SSE winds please, at say, 4pm, weekdays. Let me get up at 7am so as to be at work early enough to get out to exploit those SSE winds before the boys arrive.
• started watching Dolmen DVD box set.
• Stopped watching Dolmen DVD box set after murder number 1 and the family fight but before the good looking Parisian detective arrived. Realised the script was even worse than I remember.
• went swimming at 8.30 this morning. Will be going swimming again at around 6.30 and this time I will do the 500m.
• Replaced the godawful chocolate yoghurt that I bought yesterday, thinking it was hazelnut yoghurt.
• Ate dinner and breakfast at reasonable times.

So far, today I have not played either Angry Birds or Bejewelled. I intend, however, to do the swimming lark again.

The worst experience was the packing of the car. In theory, the idea is that I get the kitesurfing gear into the boot of the car so that I am ready to roack and roll. I own a Fiesta. I know from past experience that the packing of the car is a precision event  because I own a Fiesta. In fact, I own a Fiesta and I like things to be tidy. Which is why typically, I pack stuff into plastic boxes, tidily. This is probably not the most effective use of space. Also, the board doesn’t fit into the boot of the car either so that usually travels in the passenger seat, belted into place. My kiteboard is nothing if not safely boarded in.

I have a couple of friends who drive cars like Opel Vectras and Ford Mondeos. In fact, I have friends who drive vans as well but we’ll skip them. I envy them. They have big boots in their cars. I don’t need all that boot space for shopping in Brown Thomas. I am entertaining the purchase of a Ford Focus, however, to get the kite gear into the carboot along with the swimming gear, the climbing gear and the photography gear. Because right now, if I learned nothing today, I learned that it didn’t get any easier between last year and this year. Bah.

Okay. So in that sanctimonious mode, the one that allows me to avoid the hoovering, I was up in time to get to the swimming pool for some insane time like half past eight this morning. It was not an especially positive training system because this morning the obstacle coast was mother and baby time on the short pool and another swimming club in the long pool.

Fact: if I try and follow the total immersion style advice for freestyling, 25 m takes me 38 seconds. if I try and swim according to the way I was taught 4 years ago when I went for “proper” swimming lessons in the National Aquatic centre, I can do 25m in 29-30 seconds.

also I’m less likely to drown myself by swallowing water. End conclusion, does anyone want a Total Immersion book?

Because I didn’t get the distance in this morning that I had hoped, ie, at least 500m total, (I’ve done that before), I’m minded to go back later this evening.

I suspect there are 2 causes for this failure, namely:

• mother and baby collision avoidance
• not having had breakfast before I go out.

It would be interesting to know how much of an impact the whole breakfast thing had on life because frankly I’m wondering if 6am wouldn’t be a better time to go swimming. Although “after climbing” is also an option.

Currently on the beauty contest list for the New Kite, the one I will buy when I can swim 400m and kitesurf better than I can now (which is bloody lousy) are:

• Best Kahuna. It’s pretty. It better come in pink
• Bandit III or replacement there of
• Liquid Force

Size in question is 9 or 10m. I’m suspecting 10 to be honest.

Inspired by this which arrived in my twitter feed via Visit Kerry.

1. Keel to Keem Beach, Achill Island. I’m naming this one my scariest because I have tried it twice now and the offshore wind conditions have disuaded me on both occasions. Frankly, the first time I turned around was the second most scared I’ve ever been in a car. The other time was in France so it doesn’t count.
2. Also in Achill Island, the drive up to the top of Mweelin, I think it’s called. It’s the mountain with the mast on the top. That would be scariest except I have driven it and have not driven Keel to Keem in the wind. Possibly when I get around to doing Keem Beach, this will slot in on top if it’s not quite that bad.
3. The “scenic” route from Inch to Camp, over the mountains. Apparently the scenery is nice. I didn’t see it much on account of having to carefully judge driving between the edges of the road and avoiding sheep. And praying to a god I don’t believe exists that nothing would meet me coming from Camp to Inch. I believe there’s a stone age grave site up there but frankly I wasn’t minded to try and find it.
4. The “not suitable for coaches” road around Ballinskelligs Bay. Trust me, it’s not for the faint hearted.
5. I personally haven’t driven the Vee in Tipperary but if it’s the one I’m thinking of, there’s some spectacular hairpin bends.

On balance, 40% of most scary roads are in Mayo and 40% are in Kerry. These are both good footballing counties from a GAA point of view. I wonder if there is a link.