Reeling the years (08)

I am stealing an idea from some French blogs (Fabienne and Olivier who started the thing ).

The idea is very simple and based on a simple question: Where was i 5 years ago, 10, 15 ...etc ?
So let's go back in time by 5 years leap...


1978
I am 2 years old, living with my parents and my grandad in a small village in Auvergne, France near the river Allier.
According to the pictures taken by my dad, i've got a brilliant future in construction or maybe woodworking.

May be i should have gone this road... because the shed we were building is still there.

1983
Still living in Auvergne, we move to a different house in the same village ( i've calculated that my father moved at least 6 times in his life without actually leaving the village ).


The familly got bigger, with th addition of my brother.
I am also starting going to school in Hauterive.
This is also the year, my first computer began to be sold: Alice (8kb RAM, no hard drive...), first contact with informatic which would become predominant in my professional career and also the comic artist called Moebius which made the packaging illustration.

1988
Moving to junior School, in St Yorrre "ca va fort", and also moved to the best computer in the world the Amstrad CPC 464. Yeah I know, from now on I am and will be a geek.

1993
High school, I am in scientific section (is it a surprise ?) and have strangely terribly low notes in my favourite subject: physic. May be i was distracted by girls...

1998
I am in Clermont Ferrand, still in Auvergne, student in Blaise Pascal University.
And guess what, I am studiying physics.
I've started taking interest interest in photography with an old argentic canon (an old T60).

This is also there, I felt deeply in love with cinema, mainly because of the International Short Film Festival.

2003
I've moved to Grenoble at the end of my master to (finally) start working in a small company but on the winter of that year, I was actually on a mission in Milano Italy.

My first real taste of expatriation, I did not stay long enough to be able to speak Italian fluently but it was 4 great months, with some disturbing discovery. I actually discovered that italian girls have the same taste for decorating their bedroom as my 12 year old cousin (except one room was red and black while the other was white and blue ).



2008
I am in Ireland, on the west coast, since 2005.
Enjoying a lot of scubadiving and a bit of guiness.

[FR] Nos Enfants...

un documentaire francais sur la nourriture, les dangers de l'agriculture industrielle reposant sur les produits chimiques.



Le website du film:
http://www.nosenfantsnousaccuseront-lefilm.com/

A ecouter en particulier, le podacst de Serge Orru a l'univeriste de la terre 2008:
http://www.actus-durables.fr/2008/11/podcast-de-serge-orru-a-luniversite-de-la-terre-2008/

Neil Delamere

Last saturday, I was in Glór (Ennis, Co Clare) for Neil Delamere performance. It was excellent, as i almost piss on myself, learn a new word (Ghee, butter in all Indian food restaurant), and finally become highly suspicious towards AnPost.

Neil Delamere is an Irish comedian, one of the regular panelist of the RTE show : The Panel.
I've put some videos of the show previously here.

So here's another one:

Maturity

On devient adulte lorsqu'on a accepté ces 5 i
Irreversibilité du passé
Imprévisibilité du futur
Imperfection du présent
Irrémédiabilité de la mort
Insensé du tout.

Carlo Moïso

Which you can translate by:
"You're becoming an adult when you accept thes 5 I:past is Irreversible future is Imprevisible present is Imperfet death is irremediable everything is Irrational ( the word insensé has actually a more powerful meaning)."

I was listening to the brilliant BBC program: Thinking Allowed (available in podcast), and they were talking about Male immaturity. Basically men today are no longer the manly men of the past, gone are the manly figures of John Wayne and Gary Grant from the movies, replaced by some eternal teenagers. TV, and movies seems to be all about teenage year not anymore about growned up. Men seeking eternal youthness, and playing video-games. An interesting thought by the guest, was that games enable men to play with power until the day the have real power... which does not seem to be the case.

The guest of the show was Gary Cross author of "Men to Boys: The Making of Modern Immaturity".

Reflecting on this, may be I should stop recreating Pirates battle with my playmobil:

Or try to make Godzilla vs Goldorak with my lego sets:


Thanks to "Ma Vie sans Moi" a French blog for the opening quotation.

Stand Up and Fight

In a replay of the famous 1978 victory over the All-Blacks (12-0), last night Munster played New Zealand in the newly renovated stadium... and what a game....

The 1978 victory is the beginning of the Munster legend, as Munster is the only irish side to have ever beaten the All-Blacks, the game also inspired a play : Alone it stands.



And the game last night was fabulous, even with a second string team ( most of Munster player were taken by international duty, O'Gara, O'Connell, Flannerys... were playing for Ireland last Saturday), Munster put all his heart into the game, pushed by its fantastic public. One of the best game of rugby I've ever seen.

So the song of the week is....

STAN' UP AN' FIGHT (TOREADOR SONG)

Thanks a lot! I'm sure glad to be,
To be where I c'n see
So many friends o' mine.
How've I been doin'? How've I been doin'?
If you really wanta know de truth,
I'm doin' fine!
Seventeen decisions in a row,
An' only five on points; de res' was all K.O.
Jackson an' Johnson, Murphy an' Bronson,
One by one dey come,
An' one by one to dreamland dey go.
How's it done? You ask me, how's it done?
I got a trainer man who taught me all I know.
Sure feels good to have him in my corner,
Hear his voice a-whisp'rin' low:
"Big boy, remember, you mus' remember...

Stan' up an' fight until you hear de bell,
Stan' toe to toe, trade blow fer blow,
Keep punchin' till you make yer punches tell,
Show dat crowd watcher know!
Until you hear dat bell, dat final bell,
Stan' up an' fight like hell!"

When you fight out in de open air,
In a patch o' light de ring looks small an' white.
Out in de blackness, out in de blackness,
You c'n feel a hun'erd thousan' eyes
Fillin' de night.
Cigarettes are blinkin' in de dark,
An' makin' polka dots aroun' de baseball park,
People are quiet den dere's a riot!
Someone t'rows a punch
An' plants it right smack on de mark...
Someone’s hurt, you kinda think it's you.
You hang across de ropes
Da's all you want to do.
Den you look aroun' an' see your trainer's eyes,
Beggin' you to see it through,
Dey say, "Remember, big Boy, remember

Stan' up an' fight until you hear de bell,
Stan' toe to toe, trade blow fer blow,
Keep punchin' till you make yer punches tell,
Show dat crowd watcher know!
Until you hear dat bell, dat final bell,
Stan, up an' fight like hell!"

Excursion in Dublin

So I went to Dublin, this Saturday, leaving the west for a tour in the big city... drop my car at the infamous red cow roundabout and took the luas for the town ( the best way to spend a day in Dublin, and not being bothered by your car).
As soon as i went through Temple Bar a strange feeling took control...

Yep french-attitude, the street were full of french tourist, students, I probably headed to the wrong part of the city between the Temple Bar Food Market to pay my homage to sir rory
and the Irish film Institute who is organizing this month a French Film Festival.
Did not have time to go to Howth as planned (next time).

As a result, during the all afternoon, I heard principally french followed by Italian and finally some english.

But where there the Irish ?

Actually they were all in the pubs, in great expectation of the: Ireland vs New-Zealand rugby game in Croke Park.
It did not turn out to be a success, as Ireland failed to beat the All-Blacks, again in 22 games, Ireland only manage to get one draw and 21 defeats.
All hopes are now on the shoulder of might Munster.

[FR] En avant la musique...

Noir Désir is back with some new music, you can see it there: Site Officiel http://www.noirdez.com/.

I want snow....

Please....

Feud

In those doom and gloom times, while Limerick was preparing itself for the replay of the big game, there is one word I wished would not appear: feud.
Last Sunday an innocent man died in a usually quiet area of Limerick, not very far from where I used to live. After a 6 months break, a 14th life has been claimed by the feud between rivals drug gangs of the city. This time, the victim is not even remotely related to the gang activities, but it was also the case for the burn children. Seems Saint Liam is replacing the saint patron of the city.
Limerick has a drug problem, actually Ireland too ( Cork and Dublin are no better ), with a very exposed coast ( 8 vessels to protect a 1,970.5 miles coast ), which means it's a gateway for drug coming from seas (this month another yacht full of drugs has been catch on the cork coast of Ireland ), and a sadly growing population of consumers.

The Limerick Blogger has more on this issue, with reactions of people of Limerick.

Note: There will be a march organized in Limerick: start at Perry Square, at 2pm on Saturday the 15th of November.

Addendum: The Limerick blogger community has been quite active, over the event.

Bock the robber

lo que dice candela (spanish blog)

Looking forward 2009

In those depressing time, where everybody's talking about recession, something to look forward in 2009, the next Pixar movie Up:



(From Trailer Addict)

Top ten things to do in Ireland

Recently Alison Curtis on her Today FM show, listed with the help of the listeners the top 10 things to do in Ireland, and this is what they came up with:

Top 10 things to do in Ireland before You Die
10. Wake Up Beside a Galway Girl
9. Visit Newgrange
8. Road Bowling
7. Pint in the Grave Diggers Glasnevin
6. Climb Carrintool
5. See a gig in De Barras Clonakilty
4. Paddys day in Doolin
3. Go to the Ploughing Championships
2. Attend the Culchie Festival
1. Watch an All Ireland Hurling Final in Croke Park

I personally only manage to do only one of those ( number 9, and it was worth it ) in the list.
So here's my personal top ten:

11. Listen ghost stories in Kinsale.
10. Watch the sunset over Rock of Cashel.
9. Circumnavigate Ireland in a sea kayak.
8. A night out in a Doolin or Brandon pub.
7. Spend a night on one of the Aran Island, after a day of cycling, you'll enjoy the best guinness in the world.
6. Watch a hurling game in Croke Park ( an all Ireland final would be a best, but even the club final on Paddys day is interesting ).
5. Visit Newgrange ( Ideally, on a solstice day, but you have to be drafted ).
4. Drink a pint in the South Pole Inn, on your way to Dingle.
3. Have an unexpected encounter with dolphins on the west coast of Ireland ( can be expanded to seal and basking sharks).
2. Climb all the way up to the Skelligs.
1. Participate to a Currach race down in Kerry or a Galway Hooker race up to the Arans.

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.

Scubadiving Photographer

And yes even underwater, you can see some starlet and other paparazzi...


See the starlet in all her splendor:

Traffic

As the oil crisis worsen, and the price of petrol continue to raise, more and more Americans are reconsidering their use of their cars, more and more decide to commute using bicycles with some unexpected results.
As more and more people take their bike in the streets of New York, more and more agressive behaviour can be seen between the different users of the roads: car driver versus bicycle user, and biker versus pedestrians. Car driver are not used to share their space with bicycle, unlike what is happening in Netherlands (where more than 15% of the population is using bicycles ), American car driver does not seem to know how to behave nor the cyclists as most of them are newbies in the bike commuter comunity.

And this highlight the weakest link of the car based transportation system: the human factor.
As explained in the book Traffic by Tom Vanderbilt, it seems we are behaving like total nonsensical idiots when we sit down behind the wheel of a car.

An interesting fact to think about next time you're driving:
- the safer a driver feels ( because he's driving a SUV, or he's on a straight road... ), the more dangeroulsy (fast, or careless) is going to drive.
As a result roundabouts, are probably safer than red-lights intersection as it forces us to take more attention to our surroundings.
Our perception of danger in a car is false, and falsed.


Trafic movie by J.Tati

Back Diving....

Back diving (seriously) after a couple of week-end were i was not very actively diving (interrupted by work travel, and my previous dive was only in 10 meters with a trainee).

Dive Site: Pinnacle in Kilkee.


I had a lovely siren/buddy to accompagn me :

USA - First Trip

For the first week of august 2008, I had my first trip to the USA, work related, no tourism, so no pictures.

Results:

• USA - checked.
• Portland (Oregon) - checked

A very long trip ( Shannon - Atlanta - Portland ), for a very busy and interesting working week.
Portland seems an interesting place, one hour from the sea, one hour from the moutain.
Just checked for the moment....

Off course even that far away from the rainy emerald Island, we found comforting ourselves with a pint of guinness.

Childhood Dreams ?

A moving lecture:


So what have you done with your childhood dreams ?

Is this post too long to read....

Contradicting the title, it will be a short post. I've just read two interesting articles about reading online: the first one form the New York Times about the generation gap existing in the way people read, and a more disturbing one called "Is Google Making Us Stupid ?" by N.Carr.

I have not realized it before, but online reading, fundamentally change the way you read, instead of immersing yourself in a lengthy article or a book, you mainly skim the surface of online article, jumping from one information to another. The online way is a fast, accumulation of data, and we don't really spend time to digest, re-think internally what we read, unlike the way you progress through a book.
And it seems that favoring the online reading, limits our concentration capabilities, because it's so easy to get distracted and jump to another subject.

Sea Kayak Level 2

Last week end, I went down to county Waterford to do two full days of sea-kayaking.
We paddle around broadstand pier, near Tranore.


I did the level 2 course with seapaddling.com.

Now I am seriously thinking investing in a kayak... and a surf.

Monday night I also went to see Wall-ee, brilliant, as every Pixar, but i probably need to see it again later when the hype will have disappeared.

Tonight I went snorkelling near Spanish Point:

Irish Petanque

Oh I've actually been busier than initially expressed, setting up at work a regular game of Petanque during lunch time



Great fun... but seems the Irish are beating the French at their own games... Sacrebleu.

Nude

No real news, still a cracked rib since the mountain biking event, did only one dive Sunday, spent a couple of hours for Bastille Day on Doughmore Beach before finishing the night in the Wicked Chicken (as Friday ).
And we finally had our beach barbecue yesterday ( "healthy" irish sausages and chocolate banana ) in spanish point (Co Clare).



Five more days before Wall-ee.....


Big Ideas (don't get any) from James Houston on Vimeo.

Other Radiohed remixes here.
Animated videos of Radiohead songs on Aniboom.


Songs of the week-end:
MGMT - Kids
Blondie - Atomic
CSS - Cannon Ball
Fourtet - Unspoken

Damo

Seen Damien Depmpsey in Dolans this saturday, absolutely fantastic

Quote of the day:
"Yesterday is history, Tomorrow is a mistery, Today is a gift, that's why it's called the Present!"
Oogway in Kung Fu Panda ( though the original quote is much older)

Kung Fu Panda, very pleasant movie, the combat scenes are really funny.

20 - 26

Et de neuf... et merde....
Félicitations Toulouse.
Bravo les jaunards pour cette belle saison... a l'année prochaine en H-Cup et championat.

Georges Carlin

Let's worship the sun

Moutain Bike

I went moutain biking in Ballyhoura moutain , a very moutain bike trail. I had not done moutain biking in a long long time ( first time since i moved to Ireland ), very good and off course i've fallen ( and will fall again ).

A video which shows part of the track:


A good website for outdoors activities in Ireland:
http://www.coillteoutdoors.ie

Radiodead Bis Repetita

Friday Night (6th June 2008), near Dublin, in Malahide Castle park.
I went to see Radiohead in concert in Dublin, again. The atmosphere was quite different.
Probably due to the tone of the last album, or the fact that i've been travelling the country up and down over the week end.

We had a bit of rain, but a good sign appeared in the form of a double rainbow, just as Radiohead went on stage:


And we were started by a lovely evening on the east coast of Ireland

Songs Played:
01 All I Need (In Rainbows)
02 There There (Hail to the Thief )
03 Lucky (Ok Computer)
04 Bangers & Mash (In Rainbows - bonus)
05 15 Step (In Rainbows)
06 Nude (In Rainbows)
07 Pyramid Song (Amnesiac)
08 Optimistic (Kid A)
09 Arpeggi (In Rainbows)
10 The National Anthem (Kid A)
11 Idioteque (kid A)
12 Reckoner (In Rainbows)
13 House Of Cards (House of cards)
14 Everything In Its Right Place (Kid A)
15 Faust Arp (In Rainbows)
16 Bodysnatchers (In Rainbows)
17 Videotape (In Rainbows)

Encore 1:
18 The Gloaming (hail to the Thief)
19 You and Whose Army ? (Amnesiac)
20 Myxomatosis (Hail to the thief)
21 My Iron Lung (The Bends)
22 How To Disappear Completely (Kid A)
Encore 2:
23 New Song (Thom on piano, ‘Super Collider’)
24 Just (The Bends)
25 Paranoid Android (OK Computer)

Source www.ateaseweb.com
.

Don't know why, but Thome spoke a bit of french ( "un deux trois quatre", "merci beaucoup" ) maybe in prevision of the next concert in Paris, or more simply due to the important numbers of french people present at the concert.

And soon too soon it was finished...