Weather Forecasting...

Definetely, the most efficient weather forecasting system in Ireland...

The Irish-Lisbon Treaty

The government remains confident it can get agreement today on the Irish legal guarantees to the Lisbon Treaty, despite British objections which caused the postponement of a decision yesterday. What the irish are asking, basically is to sign the treaty now, but leave an open door so they can change their minds later...

Does anybody see a problem with that?

Six Polish Poets

"6 Polish Poets: an Anthology" (part II) brings poets Dariusz Suska (born in 1968 in Złotoryja, 90 kilometres west of Wrocław) and Maciej Woźniak (born in 1969) among others. They will be reading the poetry as well... in English, I presume!

The old "Séimhiú "

Yesterday I (re)started my Irish classes - yeah! Even the class is on an advanced stage and I'm an eternal beginner, I asked Ciaran - the múinteoir - if I could just be a fly on the wall. Among several things I missed, I got something... this curio about the origins of the Séimhiú, the "h" after a consonant in the middle of a word, that in Irish generally silences the consonant before it. If found at the start of a word, it is generally pronounced as a "H" instead of the first letter.

The curio is that the original Séimhiú was a "dot" ("a Buailte) over the letter. When typewriters came into fashion in the country, the specialized ones weren’t freely available, and they decided to put the "h" after the letter instead!

pride... in the name of love!

The São Paulo Gay Parade is now the biggest one of its kind in the world. They say more than 3,000,000 people attended the Parade yesterday. One of the major tourist events in São Paulo, the event has official support from the city government of São Paulo. The Parade happens yearly in June; it is the beggining of Brazilian winter, when temperatures are lower, but rains are rare.

Unfortunately, homofobia still took place in the venue...

Official web site here.

The End of an Empire

Bowing to European competition rules, Microsoft Windows 7 will ship without Internet Explorer.

The company said it would make it easy for PC makers and users to get at and install the web browsing program.

In response Brussels expressed scepticism over the move and whether it went far enough to ally accusations of it abusing its market position.

The Long Way Home

I've finally applied for my Irish Citizenship (!) last Friday week. As a good disbeliever in anything related to governments and/or bureaucracy, I sent my papers by An Post as a registered post! You know, just to be in the safe side of the transaction. It is more to have a proof that they've received my package than to track it back, but An Post doesn't send you any confirmation - just a number which you have to look yourself in the web... so you are effectively tracking your item.

So I did. I got to the An Post website an give my track number to the "automatic search engine" which showed me the results: a receipt with not only my track number, but other 127! Assuming not every people register their posts, It's a lot for a single day!

Now I can imagine why they are processing applications from July 2006... and unfortunately - whith some luck - mine will take only 34 months to be processed!

Happy Red-Face Day!

The summer is coming! Since Thursday last week we are experiencing something very unusual here in Ireland - Sun! And after a Bank Holiday weekend, lovely weather, lots of things happening in the city... what would you expect? Red faces, of course!

Even for those more prepared - like myself! - the sun can trap you... you may think it's not strong enough, or due the cold wind which helps to dissemble the warmth... don't be fooled! Whip out your sunblock with no shame and stain allover yourself ! You won't feel like a fish out the water...