Crisis Eile

This image appears in the current edition of Phoenix magazine. It is in the jollity section where the magazine takes the mickey bigtime. It has grafted Ireland's real Minister for Europe, Looselips Lucinda Creighton, onto a press conference by the fictional Irish EU Commissioner, Maeve Kelly Clarke (Bláthnaid Ní Chofaigh), in the TG4 tv series Crisis Eile.

So far so good. But look at the EU flag on the lectern. It's upside down. How clever of Phoenix to add this little satirical touch. We all know flying the flag upside down indicates a crisis. Nice touch.

This is how it should be in real life. The top point in the five pointed star always points upwards. As someone who has had to deal with EU Commission demands for signage, and with protocol for distinguished visitors, it wasn't long before I realised that this, apparently vertically symmetrical, flag could actually be flown upside down, but that this had better not happen on my watch.

So, out of curiosity, I went and had a look at the original TG4 shot, and, lo and behold, it was the guys in TG4 who did the clever thing.

Well done guys (incl gals). I have already drawn attention on this blog to the upside down flying of the EU flag at the French and Hungarian embassies in Dublin and at the Dublin office of the EU Commission itself. Sinn Féin are probably also in the sin bin in this regard. So it's nice to see this little lapse put to constructive use for a change.

At least, I assume TG4 did it on purpose. Otherwise we will surely have a real crisis eile on our hands.

Kangaroo Butter

I don't know if anyone remembers upsidedown rice and Kangaroo Butter. They were part of an Australian food marketing campaign in the last century (but within my lifetime).

Well, the upsidedown rice was a clever joke but the Kangaroo butter backfired as many people though it actually came from Kangaroos and were not prepared for this indigenous innovative leap.

With this sort of stuff in the back of my mind (it never leaves you) I was taken aback, just before Christmas, at the Panda sign above which suggested that pet pandas should now be binned.

I was even more taken aback at the post Christmas revelation that you can now apparently get your pet dog in a tin in your local supermarket.

Not only that, but it comes in convenient chunks and apparently accompanied by a chicken and some gravy. Whatever will they think of next?

For any non-Irish-speaking readers, I should explain that MADRA is simply the word for dog in the Irish language, and it has been chic in recent times for products to bear an Irish language name. Fiacla toothpaste, for example, springs to mind.

For an older generation there is always the story of Moggerly's sausages but that is probably best left for another day.

And hopefully the current horseburger controversy will not last long enough for that product to attract an Irish sounding name.

The Versatile Blogger's Lovely Blog

I have to finally confess defeat.

Last October, Paul Waters, the writer, kindly nominated me for two awards: The Versatile Blogger Award and the One Lovely Blog Award. I consider the nominations an honour coming from someone with Paul's background and current output. You can check him out here.

To actually claim the awards two sets of conditions had to be fulfilled. And therein lay the problem. The first condition was to nominate 15 other blogs for the awards (and they in turn would have to nominate a further 15 and so on) and the second condition was to share 7 random things about yourself.

I fell at the first fence and couldn't come up with 15 other bloggers on whom I could rely to pass on the obligation. Unlike many other bloggers I only follow very few other blogs and even then don't have any contact with most of those bloggers.

The 7 random items was not a problem and you can see those below.

So I took my case to conciliation and arbitration, with Paul in the chair, and the finding was that the 7 random items would suffice and I could display reduced size award logos in one blogpost only but not on my template.

So here are the awards

and here are the 7 random things about me:

1. Slept overnight in a police cell in Longford
   
2. Was stood up by Hoppalong Cassidy in Butlins
   
3. Skipped a visit to a bra factory in France to visit the local newpaper
   
4. Got a French computer in Paris to respond to English language voice commands.
   
5. Bounced the President of Ireland (Mary Robinson) off a VIP luncheon guest list in London.
   
6. Lived on Yeats's Isle of Inisfree (for a week)
   
7. Accepted an offer from an RUC man to look after my (southern registered) car outside the Guildhall in Derry for a whole day

Thanks Paul.

BINMAN 2

You will be familiar with the Me and the Binmen saga from a previous post. If not go read it for background.

You will have gathered that I am not at all thrilled with the crowd Dublin City Council handed over bin collection to. The binmen toss the bins all over the place and the company seems to have a very under-developed sense of customer relations.

Well, I was struck this afternoon when out shopping by the number of red coloured bins which were appearing around the place. On closer inspection these were City bins and it looks like I am not the only one passing an adverse judgement on the present crowd.

These emptied bins were neatly stacked against the wall where they did not impede traffic, pedestrians, or residents exiting or entering their driveway. I must keep an eye on this new crowd. I haven't yet looked at their terms but it is clear that it is worth some people's while changing over.

City apparently have the South Dublin County Council contract and are big in Galway. They are putting the wind up somebody, or some crowd are not happy with their success as evidenced by a recent arson attack on their lorries in Dublin.

This will be one to watch.

Meanwhile you might like to contemplate my own translation of a verse from Patrick Pearse's Ode to a Naked Binman.

Fornocht do chonac thú	The Naked Binman
... Do chualas do cheol, a bhinne na binne, is do dhúnas mo chluas ar eagla go gclisfinn. ...	... The sweetest sound in the morning Is made by the emptying bin All that whirring, compressing and churning A furious glorious din. ...

Serenity in 2013

After Dusk - Shanganagh Vale from Crown of Martello Tower No.7
31 December 2012
Wishing you as much serenity as you can muster in 2013.