Kirribilli

He's leaving home.....

2007-11-04T16:25:00.000Z

After 300 posts the time has come for a change, not a big change, just a little one, been having difficult logging on to blogger so I've moved to wordpress.

For more of the same random meanderings turn on, tune in and drop out to:

http://kirribilli.wordpress.com

Same bat time, different bat channel.

Words on a bench

2007-10-29T10:44:00.000Z

Found this written on a bench by the canal, makes you want to know more about the story and what happened next.

Desert

2007-10-29T10:13:00.000Z

Desert. That’s what she said to me, we were just talking about I don’t know what and all of a sudden she says “desert”. We hadn’t been talking about deserts yet that’s what she said. I must have looked confused, she said she looked at me while we were talking and the word “desert” just popped into her head.

We were at a mind, body and spirit thing so I’d spent a few hours looking at some interesting complementary medicine and raising eyebrows at some of the more outlandish therapies and while her friend painted pictures of angels she had seemed relatively normal but I just can’t help but wonder what she meant by “desert”…

Had she said “dessert” then I would have felt she was being insightful, mmmm dessert….

He's lost control again

2007-10-27T09:32:00.000+01:00

As a moody teenager nothing gives you more pleasure than depressing music that you can dance to. Fortunately I grew up in the eighties so there was a whole wealth of possibilities to choose from. I was an undercover goth, revelling in the misery of Sisters of Mercy, Bauhaus and Fields of the Nephlim but there was one band that long before goth mastered the the concept of dull, depressing with a beat, Joy Division, and not only that the lead singer had killed himself when it got too much, what more could a teenager want?

Despite listening to Joy Division often enough and loudly enough to have my parents wondering if the "phase" would ever end, I never knew much about the people who made up the band so when "Control" came about I was curious. The music brought it all back, apart from the almost poppy "Love Will Tear Us Apart", I hadn't listened to the music in years but the revelation was the story and how it treated Ian Curtis as a character, despite his bad behaviour and strangeness you cared from this man and saddened by the end of the film.

Sex, Drugs and Rock’n’Roll

2007-10-26T21:25:00.000+01:00

There’s a new study that reveals that music makes you happy and that listening to music that you enjoy will release goog stuff into your system giving you that natural high that sex, drugs and chocolate provide.

Think of the best gig or concert you were ever at, remember the buzz, the excitement, the energy coursing through you and how long it took for you to calm down afterwards.

If music can the same effect as sex or chocolate, does this mean that you can become addicted?

Unable to start your day without a burst of "I Will Survive", start work without "9 to 5", prepare for a date without "You Sexy Thing", seduce your loved one without "Let’s Get It On"? You may have an addiction….

Do you like scary movies?

2007-10-24T08:15:00.000+01:00

Think of a movie, the baddie breaks into your house, you run to the kitchen, desperate for a weapon, pulling drawers open, scrabbling through the cutlery and implements until there it is, the biggest knife in the house...

They always go for the knife, the sharp and pointy solution to the problem. Let's consider this, the baddie is bound to be bigger, stronger and faster than you, he's well able to defend himself against one knife, after all he's a baddie, he's probably done courses..

You need something to even the odds, something to make quite a dint and make the baddie reconsider the whole endeavour. May I introduce you to my wok? Unlike those flimsy light woks you see from time to time, this is cast iron and packs a whallop, capable of breaking limbs and cracking skulls open, it's the only form of defence you need!

Oh and you can cook with it too.....

A day

2007-10-23T22:11:00.000+01:00

Lethargy

Warm bed and a long way to work

Twenty swans on the Tolka

Warm pastels behind the Pigeon House

A few hours at the coal-face

A long drawn-out beautiful sunset, starting off with streaks across the sky and slowly degenerating into a ball of ruby redness eaten by the surrounding inky-blue

Warm bed

Sleepiness

Hi ho, hi ho, it's off to...

2007-10-22T19:06:00.000+01:00

Consider the scenario:

In order to be able to work as an IT contractor I (Party A) set up my own company where I am the only employee of my company.

My company (Party B) then sells my services and skills to other companies for a fixed daily rate.

Currently I am working through a recruitment agent (Party C) who adds on an additional 100 euro to my daily rate and charges his client that new rate.

His client is a consulting company (Party D) and they have sold my skills on to one of their clients (Party E), adding on 350 euro to the previous daily rate.

So for very every day I travel in to work in the offices of Party E, money flies off to all corners of the city, my company gets it’s daily rate, my agent gets 100 euro, my client gets 350 euro and Party E gets the benefit of my years of experience.

Or so the theory goes….

The reality is somewhat different. If you were paying so much money for someone, you’d want to work their fingers to the bone and squeeze the most amount of value out of them, wouldn’t you?

Apparently not.

Most days I do next to no work, there’s nothing for me to do, I cannot do anything until the requirements for my project are decided and signed off, I’ve been waiting two months for them already and they don’t seem to want me to do anything else in the meantime!

In memoriam

2007-10-22T00:15:00.000+01:00

Take a stroll up our main boulevard, past the GPO, past Jim Larkin and his raised arms, across the Luas lines and around The Liberator and his flock of angels and onto the bridge that spans Anna Livia.

There once was a clock under the waters of Anna Livia and unlike most clocks it ran backwards, counting the ticks to the great millennium but Anna Livia was offended by this alien artefact and sought to obsure the flashing digits.

The people of the city listened to her wishes and the clock was removed, leaving Anna Livia with her collection of shopping trolleys, traffic cones and discarded bicycles…

If you stand on the bridge there spanning our glorious river goddess, you might find a plaque that says:

THIS PLAQUE COMMEMORATES FR. PAT NOISE ADVISOR TO PEADAR CLANCEY. HE DIED UNDER SUSPICIOUS CIRCUMSTANCES WHEN HIS CARRIAGE PLUNGED INTO THE LIFFEY ON AUGUST 10TH 1919. ERECTED BY THE HSTI

Think of your own city, think of all the monuments, statues and plaques you pass each day, all the ones that you barely spare a glance for, the ones dedicated to people you never knew or even heard of but they were important to someone and should be remembered.

Only there was no Fr Pat Noise and he certainly didn’t die when his carriage plunged into the river.

When the Millenium clock was removed from the river, there was a control box on the bridge which was also removed, leaving a gap for many years.

Someone, seeing the gap decided that it was a shame to have an ugly gap in the middle of such a proud and grand bridge and created the plaque.

If something new was added to a significant landmark like O’Connell Bridge, you’d notice it wouldn’t you? Maybe not immediately but quick enough?

The plaque was there for 2 years before someone investigated who this Fr Pat Noise was and it hit the newspapers but the story doesn’t end there….

After much discussion in the Dublin City Council, it was decided to leave it there.

Innocents Abroad

2007-10-20T08:57:00.000+01:00

It’s common to find books where the main character is thrown into an alien environment and the book explores their successes and failures in adapting to and integrating into their new environment. There are some writers who turn the concept on its head and write about visitors to an environment that is perfectly normal to us but alien to them and either makes a fool of the visitor or satirises the life we lead, these are difficult books to get right and many a writer fails terribly.

I’ve been learning a little about people with Asperger’s Syndrome recently and sometimes they can take what is said a bit too literally so phrases like “painting the town red” and “like a house on fire” will only confuse them. I think this is the problem with some of these books about innocents abroad, they read like the main character has Aspergers but what’s worse is that while a lot of people with Aspergers and autism are quite intelligent, the characters in the books seem to be stupid people with Aspergers.

This sledgehammer approach to satire is not enjoyable, a measure of subtlety is required.

You’ll find that subtlety in the hands of Eduardo Mendoza. He’s not a big name in the English-speaking world since most translations of his books are out of print, I’ve spent years looking for a copy of City of Marvels, it seems to be quite elusive, if only my Spanish was good enough to read the original?

I did come across “No Word From Gurb” hidden away in the science fiction section of a bookshop over the weekend, it looks like maybe a reissue of his work may be on the cards, I might not have to perfect my Spanish just yet!

An alien spacecraft lands covertly in Barcelona in an effort to learn more about our world and our culture. When one of the aliens doesn’t come back from an exploratory mission, the other has to venture into the unknown city in an effort to find his shipmate…

Blooks

2007-10-18T08:10:00.001+01:00

One interesting phenomenon arising from the spread of blogs is the increasing number of blogs that are being published as books. The question is whether this will continue or if there now are too many blogs out there for publishers to find the ones that could be considered publishable?

And is there a market for sales of books that are freely available on the internet?

I know I’ve bought two blooks already this year but I did it accidentally, I didn’t know that the book was a blog, I just found the topic intriguing. Will the market be for accidental buyers and not for the readers of the blog?

My latest blook is called “Greeting the 500” and it’s based on a stupid bar bet. The stupid drunken bar bet is a growing sub-genre popularised by comedians like Tony Hawks and Dave Gorman, in fact when the author of this book started telling people about his challenge a lot of them remarked on how it was something that Dave Gorman would do, the author apparently wasn’t too impressed with that.

The premise is that in the space of six months he tries to meet as many people on a list of 500 celebrities, if he meets less than 100 he has to perform a number of forfeits, if he gets more than 100, his friend does the forfeits.

And that’s it.

Perhaps it worked well as a blog but it doesn’t seem to gel as a book, it could probably have done with some editing to tighten it up and possibly the “bar bet” could have been somewhat more inane….

The Digital Age

2007-10-17T21:07:00.000+01:00

One of the arguments for digital cameras when they first came out was that they would help people learn to take good photos because they could see instantly if the image was good or bad and learn what they had done wrong.

It’s a great theory but I’m not sure how well it works in practice. I think what really happens is a “shock and awe” approach to photography, the hands that hold the camera take as many photos as possible in the hope that there will be at least one good photo lurking in the middle of the dross.

I also remember people proclaiming how wonderful it was to be able could adjust, alter and correct photos on the computer afterwards, so that even if you’d messed up with the camera you could make up for it by spending hours with photo enhancement software getting the perfect shot. None of them ever mentioned that it was easier to just take a good photo.

I was reluctant to jump on the bandwagon, being known as a technologist of sorts this surprised people but I was waiting for technology to catch up with what film could produce. I also wanted to be sure I knew how to use a film SLR before I had tackled the complexities of a DSLR.

I’m glad I took the time too, as leaping from a point-and-shoot to a DSLR could possibly be quite overwhelming, I wonder how others manage. Naturally you can use the DSLR on full automatic but where’s the fun in that?

I stepped into the digital age properly on Saturday and spent Sunday testing out my new purchase. It has its strengths and it has its weaknesses but it could be a very useful tool.

In Camera

2007-10-16T06:56:00.000+01:00

I take pictures, it excites me and gives me great pleasure but I wouldn’t say that I’m good at it. I can take some really beautiful photos and I can take some terrible ones, I just don’t go around showing people the terrible ones, I’ve a special hiding place for them.

When it comes to taking photos I am in a state of constant learning, I think one of the most important things I learnt in the last few years was when not to take a photo. I think that was one of the most difficult lessons to learn, to know when the light and the conditions are too bad to get a good picture, to fight the urge to snap away anyway and hope for the best.

One of the most bewildering questions I get asked when people look at my photos is what type of camera I have, it’s as if the camera is the only thing standing between them and gorgeous shots…

The camera is merely a tool and just like the brand new breadmaker that has pride of place in your kitchen, if you put in the wrong ingredients or use incorrect measurements you don’t get bread, you’ll only get a mess.

So what ingredients do you need to make tasty photo?

A camera - any camera, film, digital, disposable, box brownie or a simple pinhole camera, they all are capable of taking a good photo.
Light – there has to be enough light to get an image, you can add artificial light using lamps or flashes or you can use time to allow more light into the camera
A subject – something to photograph, a bit obvious but important to mention all the same.
Time – you should always spend time thinking about your photo, deliberating on the best position or angle. Do you want a close-up shot or a wide-angle one? Would you get a new interesting perspective if you took the photo from below or above and not just at eye-level? Where is the sun and how does that effect the image? Does walking around the subject give you a better image than the one you originally envisioned?

Take all the ingredients, pour them into a bowl and mix well together, pop into the oven for 60 minutes at Gas Mark 4 and voila, a beautiful shot.

Here’s one I prepared earlier:

In the Garden

2007-10-15T20:51:00.000+01:00

Nestled in the midst of the Dublin suburbs are the National Botanical Gardens, an ever-changing realm of wonder and delight, every month there’s something new and exciting to see. When one corner is drab and patient, another is bursting with colour and demanding attention like a spoilt child.

This month’s spoilt children are the dahlias and they really know how to put on a show:

Our strange summer of early rain and late sun has confused the plants somewhat and so there are still plenty of roses in bloom in the middle of October

Fleur

2007-10-14T21:46:00.000+01:00

The sun was shining, the skies were blue and it was unseasonally warm so naturally I did what any red-blooded man would do on a day like this, I took pictures of flowers...

Scott

2007-10-13T22:12:00.000+01:00

Reading fiction is a mystery waiting to be solved. You won’t know who did what to whom when or why until you open the covers of a book. It’s not always like that with non-fiction, especially if it’s a subject that you already know a lot about.

Reading about Scott’s journey to the South Pole isn’t about finding out about what happened in the end as we know that Scott and his team died on their way back from the Pole and that they were beaten to the Pole, not even having the satisfaction of being the first to reach the Pole.

Scott was the giant of the Antarctic exploration, explorers like Mawson and Shackleton ignored for many years because Scott had died for the cause and martyrs always fire the imagination a lot more than a survivor can. Even Admunsen, the man who got to the Pole first is only a footnote in the life of the great Scott of the Antarctic.

He’s not always painted as a great man in biographies, instead mistakes are highlighted, flaws in his character are brought to the fore, the race to the Pole being the only thing that mattered.

In my trawls through the Gutenberg archives I came across a book of Scott’s diaries from that fateful journey, it was time I saw the expedition through Scott’s own eyes.

While all you really want to read about is the race to the Pole it can be fascinating yet dull to read about the preparations made for the expedition, they were in Antarctica for a whole year before they made the attempt on the Pole, setting up advance food and equipment depots along the path to the pole, training team members to survive Antarctic conditions and testing new equipment.

During the long winter, they were not idle, there was always work to be done, the scientists were kept busy with their experiments, the men and officers were kept occupied with chores and by exercising the ponies and dogs. Invention and experimentation was rife during the winter, they experimented with different rations to see what the best amounts and types of food would be good for the expedition, they tried out a way of having a tent inside a tent (something that is very common and normal now but fairly unknown then) to keep it’s occupants warm and a new type of stove that could burn blubber instead of oil was invented.

One other interesting form of entertainment was the lectures. These lectures would be on any number of topics from travel in China, Burma or Japan to one of the many sciences represented by the scientific party. There were also practical lectures on taking care of the ponies and dogs used for hauling and matters relating to the expedition to the South Pole.

And all the time Scott was there documenting the life there, revelling in it, always amazed at the creativity and ingenuity of the men under his command. This was a man for whom science and discovery was a joy.

Once the South Pole trek starts, Scott is more focussed, the entries are shorter and more to the point. There is this invisible rivalry with Shackleton, who thousands of miles away is still a ghost on Scott’s shoulder. Their progress is measured against Shackleton, not just as a gauge but as a challenge, as something to beat.

Much has been made of Scott’s decision to send back the dogs and man-haul the sledges while Admundsen used his dogs more and to greater effect. In the diaries all Scott wrote is that he felt that the snow was too soft for the dogs to be able to make good progress. Hindsight is a wonderful science, Scott was there, he saw the conditions, he made the decision. Did he pay the ultimate price because of that decision? Or was it just a combination of bad luck?

The weather is a major character in the diaries, it was both ally and nemesis, tormenting and teasing Scott every step of the way.

Even though you know that it’s coming, it’s heart-wrenching when they discover that the Norwegians have arrived at the Pole before them, and not by a matter of day but by a whole month!

All that and they still have make the 800 mile trek back to safety…..

Dirk Gently's....

2007-10-12T22:17:00.000+01:00

Every now and again it happens, the search for the next job, the same questions, the same hassle, the same completely useless people wasting my time.

I put my CV on an internet jobs site on Tuesday and I've been suffering for it ever since, between 6 and 10 calls each day:

What is your preferred technology?
(none, I love them all)

What is your strongest skill?
(mathematics)

No, what is your strongest technology skill?
(No really, I'm pretty good at all of them)

What do you see yourself doing in your ideal job?
(Loving it, not clockwatching or counting the days until the end of the contract)

What do you want out of your next role?
(A challenge)

And what type of challenge are you looking for?
(I don't know, I'll know it when I see it)

Maybe I need to find myself a holistic recruitment agency...

The South Pole Inn

2007-10-11T07:14:00.000+01:00

Just stop for a moment now and consider where you would find a place called The South Pole Inn. Take your time, I can wait. I'll just put on some soothing music while you think….

Australia, New Zealand, Chile, South Africa - not even close, far away from the cold and ice of Antarctica is a small bar in the county of Kerry, not far from the Atlantic Coast in the South West of Ireland. The man who bought and owned the pub was called Tom Crean, like Shackelton both an Irishman and an Antarctic explorer but unlike Shackleton he's wasn't an officer and wasn't famous. He was an ordinary sailor in the Royal Navy.

So who was Tom Crean?

He was from a poor farming background, joining the navy was a way to escape the poverty and make some money for himself and his family. It was when he was enlisted onto the Discovery expedition that he first met the two men who would make him an explorer, Robert Falcon Scott and Ernest Shackleton and it was the Discovery expedition that brought him into contact with Antarctica, he spent two years there with the teams exploring and conducting experiments while Scott and his team managed to go further south than men had ever gone before.

Having impressed Scott on the Discovery expedition, in 1910, Crean was recruited for the Terra Nova expedition. It was during the Terra Nova expedition that Scott made his famous attempt to reach the South Pole.

Scott had decided to use man-hauling to carry all the equipment and food on their journey to the Pole. Instead of carrying everything on their back in rucksacks, instead they would load up sledges and haul these across the snow and ice but they couldn’t haul all that was needed for the long journey to the Pole and back. They needed to set up supply depots along the way, that way they only needed to haul the minimum amount required to get them from depot to depot.

It was on their way back from laying on of these depots that Crean, Aplsey Cherry-Garrard and Henry Bowers had to cross a frozen sea. The sea was filled with ice-floes pressed up against each other and normally this leaves no problems crossing but from time to time, the pressures ease and the floes are able to float freely. It while crossing this sea that the three men found themselves marooned on an ice floe and if that wasn’t bad enough the surrounding waters were filled with killer whales. There’s a very fine line between bravery and lunacy and Crean found himself walking it as he set off on his own to get help. He leaped from floe to floe where with one slip each jump could have been his last but within a few hours he reached base camp and a rescue team was sent out to retrieve the other two.

Getting to the Pole from Scott’s base involves a 400 mile hike across the Ross Ice Shelf, a terrible 120 mile climb up the Beardmore Glacier followed by a trek of 350 miles to the Pole itself and the same again to get back, it’s not an easy thing to do especially as they had a race against time to get to the Pole before Admundsen’s team. Crean was part of the twelve men who set out from the base on the trek and of the eight reached the top of Beardmore Glacier. Once the team were on the Antarctic Plateau ,Scott made his final decision on the team that would accompany him to the Pole. His plan was to choose three to accompany him and send the other four back but inexplicably he chose four and sent Crean, William Lashly and officer Teddy Evans back.

None of those three men were happy to have missed the chance of getting to the Pole, little did they know that they had been saved from suffering the same fate as Scott and his team, though there were times on the return that the three men thought they wouldn’t make it back alive…

Nutrition was always a concern for these explorers, only certain types of food that can be brought on these trips, getting sufficient vitamins is difficult, scurvy is a serious threat out there in the vastness of the Antarctic continent and so on their return leg, Evans became seriously ill with scurvy, the other two having to haul Evans on the sledge as well as the equipment and supplies. This slowed their progess and seriously weakened Lashly and Crean but they kept going, stopping for too long only meant death. Even with all their efforts, Evans worsened and the other two no longer had the strength to pull Evans and the sledge.

Leaving Lashly to take care of Evans, Crean again set out in a desperate effort to get help. Despite the sub-zero temperatures and his weakened state something drove him onwards and he managed to cover the remaining distance of 35 miles in a mere 18 hours. It was that solo trek that saved Evan’s life and both Crean and Lashly were awarded the Albert Medal for bravery for their efforts.

For most people, that would have been enough excitement and they wouldn’t be rushing back South for another go but Crean was obviously not most people so when Ernest Shackleton invited him onto the Endurance expedition, he accepted readily. Having missed out on being the first man to the South Pole, Shackleton had a new goal in mind, to be the first man to cross the Antarctic continent, passing the Pole on the way. He was not to have his wish and after being marooned for 15 months on packed ice-floes, escaped to the inhospitable Elephant Island.

When he picked the 6 men to accompany him on his 800km voyage from Elephant Island to South Georgia Island, Crean was there. Having landed on the wrong side of the island, Shackleton, Frank Worsely and Crean had to cross a serious of unchartered mountain ranges, never sure if they were going in the right direction or if they had chosen the best route until finally the three arrived at Stromness Whaling Station and began their efforts to rescue the remaining men.

He never returned to the Southern Continent. When he left the Royal Navy, he got married and settled down. He bought the pub and made his living there.

The sad part of his tale was that when he came back from the navy, he couldn't tell anyone of his adventures and travels. It was in the wake of the War of Independence and Civil War that he arrived back in Ireland, and having worked with the Royal Navy wasn't something you wanted people to know about, so he kept quiet and the stories of this hero remained little told…

Old words but true words

2007-10-10T22:32:00.000+01:00

Soaring

2007-10-09T07:30:00.000+01:00

There's a sculpture in the middle of the Garden of Remembrance which illustrates a key scene from the story of the Children of Lir.

One of the many tribes of people who came to live on these shores were the Tuatha de Dannan, and one of their leaders was the Lir who had a beautiful wife Aoibh and four adorable children. They were the heart of his life, nothing mattered outside of these five people.

And then Aoibh died. The family was bereft.

Aoibh had been the daughter of Bodb Dearg, a rival of Lir's and king of the Tuatha de Danann, and so Bodb gave another of daughter of his, Aoife as a new wife to Lir but Aoife always felt apart from this tight-knit family group, she became jealous of Lir's love and adoration of his children, she saw them as an obstacle in the way of Lir's love for her...

One day she brought the children to visit her father in his fort. On the journey there she ordered her servant to kill the children. He refused and suffered for his disobedience but none suffered more than the four children, they were transformed into swans, cursed to spend 900 years living as swans, only regaining their form when the old beliefs were gone and a new faith came to our land...

Reaching out

2007-10-08T22:59:00.000+01:00

Saturday in Dublin and the streets are thronged with people. It's hard to imagine that there are places where you can escape and hide from the crowds but even in the heart of the city there are havens of peace.

In one of these havens you will find this hand, reaching out, desperate to hold you, to hang on to somebody, something, someway to stop that transformation that is racking its entire body...

Heart

2007-10-07T19:01:00.000+01:00

There was a time when Ireland was a devoutly religious country, there was no real separation between Church and State, the Pope was king in all but name and everyone bowed down to his greatness, no matter how out of touch he may have been.

When my parents were young, images of the Scared Heart were very common though the ones with lights to make the heart glow could look quite eerie. Things were changing when I was young. There was a woman who walked up and down O'Connell St with a cross in her hands saying prayers, we thought she was mad.

There was also a statue of the sacred heart in the middle of the street. When the street was redesigned the statue disappeared and no-one really noticed...

Saturday and while exploring my city I rediscovered the statue, right back where it used to be, it's nice, like a little piece of history restored.

Shackleton

2007-10-06T21:36:00.000+01:00

Anyone who's a fan of survival stories knows the name Ernest Shackleton. He's probably the most successful failure of Antarctic history.

He tried to be the first to get to the South Pole. He failed.

He tried to be the first to cross the Antarctic continent and cross the pole. He failed.

He's probably more respected than Scott and Scott actually got to the South Pole and achieved his goal, so why is one man who never achieved anything worthy of being remembered and respected?

Because he did one thing that Scott failed to do, he survived. Not only did he survive but he never lost a man and as a result he's held up as an example of an admirable management style, he made the tough decisions and saved lives.

In Scott's first attempt on the pole he never included Shackleton on the main team and this rankled with Shackleton so much that when Scott failed, he organised the next attempt. When he made his expedition to the Pole, he really wanted to beat Scott and he got to within 100km of the pole. It was then that he made the discovery that they didn't have enough supplies to get to the pole and back again. He had success within his grasp, all he had to do was keep going and hope for the best but he didn't, he turned back, giving up his only chance for glory.

The South Pole was conquered, Scott died, Shacktleton needed a new challenge and his mind returned to the Antarctic, probing the continent to see what it would throw up. He would cross the continent, stopping off at the South Pole along the way.

He raised the money, bought a ship, stocked it with supplies, assembled a crew and set sail southwards. He never made it to the continent, he and his boat got stuck in the ice off the coast of Antarctica, unable to get any closer to the shore and then unable to get back to the open sea.

They were trapped them in the middle of the pack ice, their ship was slowly being crushed and they were moving slowly away from the continent, the chance to achieve their objectives melting with the ice around them.

They were trapped on the ice for months, they saw their ship crushed and fall beneath the ice, they had no hope of rescue, no-one knew they were in trouble, they had to save themselves because no-one else would.

It's then that the real adventure begins. With three lifeboats he gets his men off the melting ice-floes and onto the windswept bare Elephant Island. They've got their feet on dry land but they're still far from safe, Shackleton makes the difficult decision to split the group. He takes 5 men with him and attempts to get to South Georgia Island. It's not an easy task to travel 800km across an iceberg-filled sea and find a small island in the middle of the ocean.

Somehow they manage to get to the island, cross the island and enlist help to rescue the remaining survivors from Elephant Island. Shackleton had grasped survival from the jaws of failure and that's why he's considered the great man we know and love but there's one story of that expedition that remains relatively unknown….

Myanmar

2007-10-05T07:10:00.000+01:00

All around the world yesterday was a day of silence for bloggers. Instead of writing their usual blog, instead they placed a little image that said “Free Burma”. It was a nice gesture of solidarity but that’s all it was, a gesture. It will not make the world sit up, it certainly won’t make the ruling generals throw up their hands and say “we give up, that image of the innocent holy monks has convinced us”

Let’s look at it this way, the world has been ignoring the problems in Myanmar for 40 years, why is that going to change?

The sanctions don’t work, not because they’re only implemented by a limited number of countries but because they don’t effect the ruling elite, the only people effected and hurt by the sanctions are the very people the sanctions are “designed” to help.

So what should you do? Go to Myanmar, see the country, talk to the people (and they will talk to you, they will want to know all about you and your life), experience the beauty and problems of the country, give your money to the local people by eating in their restaurants, staying in small hotels/ guest houses, using local businesses and stay away from government-owned companies.

Think of the cyclo driver who might get his first and only customer late in the evening and of his family hoping each day that he will earn enough money to feed them.

Support charities and NGOs that educate the people of Myanmar. Education may not be the quick fix that the people who care desire but education is a proven method of helping a country, slow but effective.

Don’t talk, don’t wring your hands in dismay, don’t have days of silence – DO!

Marcel Marceaux comes to visit

2007-10-04T19:12:00.000+01:00

As I walked into the kitchen of my family home I met my father. He looked me up and down, from head to toe and toe to head. In case I hadn’t noticed it the first time he repeated the gesture but this time he had his eyes wide in mock astonishment.

Moments later my mother walks in and repeats perfectly my father’s gesture, it’s almost as if they’d spent the day rehearsing it, this pantomime shock at the clothes I was wearing.

Was I:

(a) Draped in a toga?
(b) Wearing hot-pants and a tube-top?
(c) Wearing nothing but a pair of sexy boxy shorts with “STUD” emblazoned across the top?
(d) Looking hot in a short, slinky dress?
(e) Wearing a blue shirt and cream trousers?

If you chose option:
(a) Like really, how boring a choice was that? Now go back and choose another option and I won’t tell anyone about it.
(b) Hmmm, there’s an idea…. Sadly no, it wasn’t that but perhaps tonight….
(c) I did once have a pair of silk boxer shorts like that, hardly ever wore them though, I always felt it would spoil the surprise…
(d) Been there, done that.
(e) Yes indeed, I had been worried that when I bought the trousers for work that I might look more like I’m only my way to a boating trip on the Thames than ready for a day’s work but according to my parents it was worse than that – I looked respectable!