Tom Crean

English: Photo of Tom Crean taken aboard the Endurance, 1914.

I went to the theater last night to see a wonderful performance about Tom Crean, at the Belltable. I've already talked about him in a previous post.

He went three times to the South Pole with Scott and Shackleton, and survive all of them.
Terrific story, remarkably brought to life with some humor by the comedian Aidan Dooley. The piece is called : "Tom Crean - Antarctic Explorer" (Written and Performed by Aidan Dooley).

There is a highly recommended book by Smith, Michael: Tom Crean: Unsung Hero ( Mountaineers Books ).

And if you're on your way to Dingle, don't forget to stop in Anascaul, and have a pint in the blue pub after the bridge: the South Pole Inn.

The Bisounours go to the Pub

I've seen an interesting comparison between the land of the "Bisounours" (Care Bears, Bisounours is the French translation ie kiss bears) and Ireland, in another expat blog (Estelle), since I have in my head pictures of Bisounours drinking in Pubs, getting drunk.....



When doing this, I actually discover that in the care-bears there is an Irish connection through "good Luck Bear" ("Grosveinard" in French), who is green and bears a hearted shamrock. And you actually can see its influence in that ad:


Have a Great day.

Beach Horse Race

Last Sunday, I was in Kilkee ( trying to dive as usual), absolutely gorgeous day, blue sky.. absolutely perfect, and despite the gale warning in operatiosn on all coast, the sea was nice to us.
But the main attraction was on the beach, as a horse races were organized there. It's an annual event and a very enjoyable one.

Preparing the racing Field:


The Track:


Reconnaissance:


And here we go:


















From the pier:


....

2nd Blog

I've been looking for a while a blog called Grenoble Daily Photo , it shows a picture a Grenoble everyday. I used to live in Grenoble before coming to Ireland, so it's interesting to rediscover part of this city ( and even some parts I did not know).

So it kinda of inspirate me to do the same with the town I am currently living in : Limerick.

So here we go: Limerick Daily Photo

Lisa Hannigan

Eventful week, i started it by missing my plane to France, sinking rock-bottom a planned week-end of diving in Marseille.
Anyway, i use the time to move house, I am now living in the city center of limerick... we'll see how it turns out.

On the bright side, I went last wednesday to the Univeristy of Limerick see Lisa Hannigan in concert, you probably heard her already on Damien Rice album ( 9 crimes for example ), she had a wonderful new solo album: Sea Sew.


This is taken from the RTE show Other Voices.


Songs of the week:

• I don't know - Lisa Hannigan
• Lille - Lisa Hannigan
• The Steady Song - Republic of Loose

Sachons cacher notre joie [FR]

Dailymotion a signé un accord de diffusion sur les sketchs de Desproges.

Sachons cacher notre joie
Uploaded by pierredesproges

Etonnant non ?

Too much time

May be I've spend too much time in Ireland.
Let me explain, last night i find myself watching the "Rose of Tralee", laughing at Ray D'Arcy silly dancing, wondering about Dubliner, at the end Aoife won the tiara.
The Rose is so different from, let's say "miss France", there is for example no swimsuit walk ( which is a bit hypocritical, when one of the requirement is not to have posed partially or completely stripped), somewhat refreshing in term of innocence, at the same time the women competing seems more outspoken than there french counterpart (or is it due to Genevieve overall control ).

In 3 years, I've seen a "brilliant" Taoiseach disappear. Bertie Ahern has been pure candy for any Irish Comic, how can they survive without him ? Just an example: as a finance minister in the 80's he did not have a bank account ....


Talking about watching stuff on TV, a series of excellent documentary can be seen at the moment on the BCC, it's called "Pacific Abyss". It follows the adventure of deep diver (-100m) in the pacific in search of new species of fishes using rebreathers.