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Do we want an economic recovery or not?

I’m starting to think we don’t. I saw an ad for a 2 bed house just down the road from me. They wanted 1000E per month.

It’s not a big house, it doesn’t have a private garden and to my knowledge, based on what I know of the estate, it doesn’t have private parking either. It’s not semi detached; it’s one of four in a block. This will cost you 1000E per month, such is the wishful thinking of the landlord.

The biggest problem this country has right now is the cost of doing business here and living here. When I look at what I have, and what it costs me to live here I really and truly have to question the wisdom of staying here. The biggest expense I have every month is putting a roof over my head. I can’t live on my own if I want to have any sort of a garden, but to have that garden I get utterly shafted. In a city that isn’t short of property.

I earn enough to be paying high tax. Being single, I am paying disproportionately more tax. I want this country to grow but there is no way that can happen until it actually costs less to live here. To put a roof over your head.

Not one politician in this country considers reducing the cost of accommodation to be a good thing. They’d find it a good deal easier to create jobs if the cost of living and working in Ireland was lower. There’s a chance they wouldn’t have to steal from our pensions, for example.

So, Michael, here’s some ideas.

Deal with the fact that accommodation is too expensive in this country. Face up to it. And kill that problem. Rents should be at least 30% less than they are in this godforsaken twobit city. Houses should be half the asking prices they are still looking for. Murder that market as fast as you can because the sooner you do, the sooner you might get some economic and retail confidence back.

Oh wait – you can’t do that because to do so would probably drive a stake through the hearts of our vampire banks and we can’t be having that, can we?

I love this island. I hate this nation sometimes.

2011 06 23 windsandbreezes living in Ireland
looking to the future Comments (0) Permalink

Looking for online development environments

Anyone know of same?

Where you have repository and code editing and compiler – IDE say – online and nothing stored locally?

Preferably not in a particularly obscure language – something Javaesque would be okay, and I’m looking at things like Python as well.

Needs to be completely browser and remote based for various reasons that I can’t go into.

If not, maybe – just maybe – I should look at developing one. I know GitHub can act as a repository but it doesn’t look to me like you can do remote compilation/codewriting there. I could be wrong of course.

Any ideas?

2011 06 23 windsandbreezes looking to the future Comments (2) Permalink

Languages in schools.

This from the Irish Times today.

Why are we so bad at languages? There’s no mystery there. Most students in Ireland take up a foreign language for the first time when they enter secondary school at age 12 or 13; by this stage most of their counterparts in other EU countries are already well ahead – even fluent – in a second language. The lack of any oral component in Junior Cert foreign language exams compounds the problem. It should all begin much earlier, of course, at nursery or primary school. But just 15 per cent of primary-school children take a modern European language – and only in fifth and sixth classes.

There are two questions which get raised almost every year with regards to the Irish education system: why are we so bad at maths and why are we so bad at languages.

Declaration of Interest – language grad with a background in translation and interpreting and international administration.

We are bad at languages – to a great extent – because we are lazy. Yes, we start too late. I’m not sure we need to start really early in the primary system – we really need to concentrate on basic literacy and numeracy at that level (and we’re really not fully up to scratch there. I don’t see any real need to start a foreign language before the age of 10 but I don’t think we should really be starting any later than 11 either. So the 15% of primary students who get it in fifth and sixth class are doing well.

But a key impediment to getting Irish kids to do well in languages very often is “sure everyone speaks English”. Our radio stations rarely if ever play any foreign pop music. When I was fifteen or sixteen there were two French songs in the charts. When I was about 25, there was maybe one Spanish song in the charts. There are musicians producing fairly decent pop in French, Spanish and German. They’re not typically performing at the Eurovision.

There is a lot of scope to improve media access for teenagers to foreign languages – I think TG4 gives us France24 from time to time and most cable providers have Euronews in a bunch of languages. In my view, even if you start at 13, there’s no excuse not to be reasonably competent in a foreign language at the age of 18. The opportunities are there; DVDs can be orders with English subtitles if they are in French, or with French subtitles if in French. I learned a lot of French from watching Beverly Hills 90210. Sad to admit it, but still….Radio is available online. There are millions of sites appropriate for teenagers available in French and Spanish and German.

Put simply, the opportunities are there. I don’t think it’s only that we start learning late. I think we just can’t be bothered.

2011 06 23 windsandbreezes living in Ireland Comments (0) Permalink

The past is just a place we cannot visit.

I was at Take That in Croke Park tonight. Look, it’s still 19 June for me, regardless of what the clock says. Anyway. I am not a Take That fan. I was an alternative rock and folk fan when they hit the big time first and I was utterly scathing about pop music. But for various reasons such as “Are there any decent concerts on”, and the memory of what it sounded like the last time they played 2 years ago (you can hear concerts in Croke Park in my front garden), plus with Guns’n'Roses providing the “How Bad Can It Possibly Be” standard, I figured it would probably be very entertaining. It was. I may be scathing about pop music, but have to recognise the following useful pieces of information about Take That:

  • they are consummate professionals at what they do
  • they are better looking as men than they were as boys
  • all of them can actually sing
  • they have some very good songs
  • Robbie Williams is a one-off.
  • I have never seen so many people enjoy themselves at a concert as I did tonight
  • It didn’t rain
  • Everyone was smiling
  • Most people were singing.

All told, it’s hard to be scathing about a band who really made 78000 people very happy tonight.

The set up was fairly simple – six songs from Take That minus Robbie Williams, six songs from Robbie Williams and a substantial set from the lot of them together featuring some of the stuff from the new album. I want to talk about Robbie Williams’ set however.

I’m not a huge fan of Robbie Williams. I have one or two of his albums. I think he has a couple of terrific songs of which The Road to Mandalay is one and Let Me Entertain You is another. The bloke sang his heart out tonight. I cannot fault him for that. He has one song called Angels which I have never bothered to acquire because I wouldn’t listen to it all that often. For me what makes that song is the sound of tens of thousands of people singing it at a concert. Apart from that….

I imagine Robbie does at most concerts what he did tonight which is dedicates that song to anyone you know and loved who is dead, who is no longer with you, and calls on you to reach out to them while he sings that song.

June 19th is the anniversary of someone I miss a lot.

2011 06 20 windsandbreezes Uncategorized Comments (0) Permalink

Revolving around late nights.

There are times I hate Ireland and today is actually one of them. It’s the assumption that when you go out to meet people, it’s normal that they’ll write off half the following day because you stay until some crazy hour.

I can remember, some years ago, going to a hen party and bailing at around 1 or 2 am – which is way late for me anyway – so that I could get up the following morning to go surfing. I live in Dublin. Surfing is not something I get a regular chance to do. Everyone else thought I was nuts to get up to go surfing, into the cold wet sea. None of them had ever surfed before. I don’t think any of them have tried since. Anyway, when I got back up from the surfing, a few of them had surfaced enough to go to the hotel to get coffee where they do a roaring trade in post-surf hot chocolate (in my experience) so I met them there. They were all utterly shattered, completely hungover, and complaining about how tired they were. I must have been their worst nightmare because I’d just be surfing, along with how utterly great that makes me feel – just the pure wave catching action, even if I fall off the board immediately, changes my life – and I was in great form. Plus, I wasn’t hungover because I hadn’t been drinking because I knew I was getting up early to go surfing.

I know people who regret their hangovers. But no hangover is without an element of choice.

I was out late last night. Not too late – something like 1.15 when I got home. But I was tired, and I am still, this morning, very tired and I’m not running on all cylinders at all. I knew this would happen but occasionally my life does crash into people for whom socialising means going out for a drink and staying out late. But that whole scene slows me down a lot and I really don’t like it. I remember when I lived in Belgium, it didn’t really happen all that much. You want out at a reasonable hour, like around 8, and you were at home at a reasonable time – 11 or say 12 at the outside. And you got a lot more done. I went swimming and skating on Saturday or Sunday mornings, I read a lot more, I did a lot more cooking, a lot more shopping. I got far more done in my life rather than recovering because I’m so shattered. And this is pure tiredness – I wasn’t drinking so I don’t even have a hangover to contend with.

I don’t know. I need coffee right now. Maybe it will all be a bit clearer after breakfast.

2011 06 18 windsandbreezes living in Ireland Comments (2) Permalink

Green fingers.

IMG_7707

I grew these.

I am very happy about this. They are still there, stilll fighting their way, still giving me hope. I love them.

Please please let them not ripen till I get back from my holidays on Monday.

2011 06 07 windsandbreezes Uncategorized Comments (1) Permalink

THSM’s Wannabe bruschetta starter.

While you are making Jamie’s risotto and lazily allowing it to suck in the water without spending hours stirring it, you can make a high speed starter. You will need the following items, all of which you can get in your local Tesco and some of which you can, if you’re flaithiúl enough, get in TK Maxx much more stylishly.

  1. the toastable/reheatable ciabatta bread
  2. Some small tomatoes, preferably the deep red ones that are abit elongated and look like small – natch tiny – peppers. But which are definitely tomatoes. They will have Tesco Finest on the label and some Italian sounding name. If you can’t find them, other small tomatos will probably do but I haven’t tried them yet.
  3. Some rocket lettuce. Meant to grow this myself this year.
  4. Some Parma ham. The one I use costs about 2.87 and has a Tesco Finest label stuck to it. I think it’s the 14 month one, therefore less expensive than the 18 month one. The cheaper option anyway. I have not tried this with Spanish equivalents so if you decide that you prefer Serrana to Parma, that’s entirely your call. I’m not guaranteeing then…
  5. Some olive oil. I go for either the Supervalu extra virgin or the Tesco extra virgin. Mainly Tesco lately. I like the bottles which is almost definitely the worst possible reason to choose a particular type of olive oil. But I never said I was rational about these things.
  6. A decent sized clove of garlic per ciabatta roll. You will definitely need a garlic press too. I’m not going to go around chopping this stuff.
  7. that pink peppercorn pepper stuff which is definitely in Tesco, and definitely in Superquinn and occasionally in TK Maxx for five times the price but in a huge really sexy pepper dispenser that belongs in the sort of Italian restaurant you go to for significant birthdays. The last one I saw there was 16.95. I entertained the notion for a minute and then said sod it, I already had some from Tesco and I was nowhere near runnning out. We are in a recession, you know.

Okay. That’s what you need. Here’s how you do it.

  1. Slice the ciabatta roll lengthways.
  2. Toast both halves of the ciabatta roll.
  3. Shove the garlic cloves through the garlic press. Spread half of it on one half of the roll, the rest on the other half.
  4. Dribble a sensible quantity of olive oil on the ciabatta stuff. When I say sensible, I mean the objective is to get olive oil in there without making the stuff soggy.
  5. Decorate each ciabatta half thingie with a slice of parma ham. My advice is to tear each slice into little bits because parma doesn’t cut cleanly when you’re trying to eat it. At least if it’s in small bits already, it should be easier to consume.
  6. Arrange some rocket on top of the parma ham. Make it look healthy. Do not under any circumstances even entertain the notion of substituting a different type of greenery. Only Rocket qualifies here.
  7. Slice/quarter/render smaller into bitesize the tomatos. Arrange on top of the rocket salad.
  8. Sprinkle some of the swank pink rosy pepper. Don’t over do it if you’ve got guests – they may be a little more reticent on the subject.
  9. Eat. I served it today with freshly squeezed watermelon juice but water or some nice Italian red wine may be nice too.

Happy eating.

2011 06 05 windsandbreezes food to woo me with. Comments (0) Permalink

it’s got me.

So I have an iPad a few weeks now. I am really happy with it. It has had a key impact on my life – my laptop is switched on very rarely now; in fact only when I want to do something with iTunes on it (which reminds me – I need to do something on iTunes on it) or when I want to write something which will require a keyboard. Like half a dozen blog entries. I sometimes wonder if I am talking to myself on that front though but Daren’t Risk It.

Anyway, I bought the iPad because I wanted to be able to read on it. I have a shocking number of books, and a shocking number of boxes of digital art magazines. And while I was strong enough to recycle surfing and kitesurf and photography mags, I tend to keep the Photoshop and digi-art related ones. I came to the conclusion that the best thing to do would be to read them electronically. That was a drag on a laptop so now we have iPad, Kindle and Zinio software. The books come in through Kindle and although a key contributor to this was to reduce my outlay on technical books I have read some “normal” books there as well. I have, for example, started re-reading Bernard Cornwell’s books about the Arthurian legends. As well as books about user interface design and how to write Python (not getting so far there).

The magazines come through Zinio, and currently I have subs to Digital Arts, Computer Arts Projects, Kiteboarder Magazine, .Net Magazine, Interweave Crochet, Islands, Outdoor Photographer. I will be adding some surf stuff and NatGeog to that. When the site loads up correctly for me.

But I’m using it in ways I didn’t expect to use it. It is turning into a real Filofax and tool for me. I use some of the planning and ideas software in a way that I’d have never used a notebook and Autodesk SketchBook Pro is having a profound impact on my art work. I’m really happy with it.

From the point of view of reading broadening my mind, both Zite and especially Flipboard are changing my life. From reading practically no news a few weeks ago, I now regularly dip into Forbes and other related magazines and I feel a lot more in tune with what’s going on in the world. On the plus point, I don’t go near the Independent’s website or, indeed, any Irish news media. It leaves me a lot freer in terms of knowing what is going on in the world. I know who Michele Bachmann is. That I can customise Zite and Flipboard to pick up some specialised stuff in the surf, environmental, photography fields only ads to their attraction. Having died under the weight of stuff on the web, I’m finding that these are bringing me closer to the stuff I’m interested without me having to plough through too much drivel. In a way, I wish something like Flipboard existed for the web – it would be terrific.

I will put my hand up and admit that when the first iPad was announced, I thought Apple were crazy. All I can say in my defence is at the time I did say that I would probably only use it for things like magazines and books and that is exactly what I am doing with it. It is working a treat. An expensive treat – and if I had one thing to say to Apple on this front, it would be “Half the price of the damn thing”. But there is no way they would listen to me.

2011 06 05 windsandbreezes techynerdstuff Comments (0) Permalink

EWAC – Shortbread from the kitchen gifty book.

Shortbread made from butter, some sugar and a lot of flour, and because I felt evil, quite a lot of ground ginger. Then I used a heartshaped cookie cutter to make them. If you use the smaller heartshaped cutter, you wind up with far more cookies than the recipe says you will.

Think they look quite cute however.

2011 06 05 windsandbreezes experiments with a cookbook Comments (0) Permalink

EWAC – Donal Skehan’s fishcakes

Donal Skehan’s television series is about 4 deep at this stage. I have the book for a while and have done a couple of things out of it. It’s coming to be a very, very useful cookbook. I think I’ve done two things out of it at this stage.

I bought it and Jamie Oliver’s 30 minute Meals in short order and both of them have lists of stuff you must have in the kitchen. Donal’s list is shorter and more accessible so frankly I think if you’re going to start with someone, go with Donal’s. I don’t have everything in Jamie’s list and I seem to do okay. Also, if you watch Donal’s series, you’ll notice that much of what he uses can be got in IKEA.

Anyway, on my list of toys I want to know how to make are fishcakes and Donal has a recipe for same in his book/series. In fact, I find RTE have helpfully put the recipe here in case you want a look. I wish to say that 1) they are easy to do and 2) mine wound up slightly on the way-too-mushy-side when I made them. As a result, I added “extra flour”.

Other than that, however, they were a doddle to make and so this gets a thumbs up from me in terms of preparation.

Following that, they were very nice to eat as well. I loved them. So that gets a double thumbs up. The one thing I would say is if you can grab the television episode where they are made from Player, it might be worth doing as he does the preparation in a different order and I suspect the telly order leaves less mess in the kitchen which is alwasy a good thing in my view.

2011 06 05 windsandbreezes experiments with a cookbook Comments (0) Permalink