Food, Restaurants, Family, Tech and the usual obsessions live from Bandon in Cork by a blow-in.
2nd
MAY
Watch out for phone scammers
Posted by Conor O'Neill | Filed under Business
I’ve just been called by an automated system claiming to be Cork number 021-42790990. The message says that’s I’ve won some bullshit competition and to press 9 now to claim it. You can be damn sure this either results in me calling a premium rate number or they’ll just need get my bank details from me. So if you get some whiny American voice telling you to press 9 now, don’t! Usual rule applies, you will never get anything for free from strangers online or on the phone.
More discussion of the scam.
27th
APR
Retro Fans Rejoice
Posted by Conor O'Neill | Filed under Entertainment, Technology
I just heard about this site yesterday and it’s absolutely wonderful. They have a ton of the old ZX Spectrum games available to play online and your scores are included in various league tables. A perfect 21st Century improvement to 20th Century games.
Most of your old faves are there, I’ve just been playing the ever-brilliant Jet Set Willy. I love just clicking around and being reminded of many happy hours as a teenager in the 80’s.
Sure it’s nostalgic but it’s also bloody good fun. When the graphics were that bad, playability became the number one aim and that hasn’t diminished over the years.
So are you the best ZX Spectrum player in the world?
20th
APR
Motorbike Racing Today!
Posted by Conor O'Neill | Filed under Bandon
It’s that time of year again where men in tight leather pants race up and down the Clon road at Old Chapel on bright yellow motorbikes 
We’ve gone down for a look a couple of times over the years and it is genuinely a very exciting event. Noise, burning rubber, unburnt fuel and fabulous bikes. My kids think it’s fantastic and hopefully the baby won’t screech this time.
Now if only the rain would hold off so we don’t have any accidents.
Tags: motorbike, motorcycle, west cork
13th
APR
Review of Clonakilty Model Railway Village
Posted by Conor O'Neill | Filed under Cork, Family
I love finding something great almost on your doorstep that you’ve ignored for years. We finally took a trip to the Model Railway village last weekend and it was a resounding success. Kids, young and old will have some fun here.
I’ve lost track of the number of times I’ve said we must pop in for a look. The closest we got was some of the kids taking the road-train around Clon with their Granny last year. I decided to be brave and take all 5 with me to check it out properly.
It’s just on the edge of town past the GAA pitch on the way to Inchydoney. Lots of space in the car park which also acts as the start/end of the road-train. You are greeted by some lovely old carriages now doing duty as shop and cafe.
For the life of me I can’t remember how much it was in, but it wasn’t a hell of a lot. Baby got in for free. Our first stop was the indoor play area. Whilst very small (fitting into one single storey room), it’s ideal for wet days and all of ours had some fun there for 30 minutes or so. My only criticism is that with two doors, it’s too easy for a kid to sneak out. Maybe sliding bolts on half doors would make things a little bit more difficult for them.
We then headed outside and I was genuinely surprised by what I found. Lots of scale models of towns and train stations of the past in Cork. Bandon got pride of place and all were connected together by a long meandering electric model railway.
Each child found something different to occupy them. The 2 year old just ran around after the model trains. The baby checked out the models and the three eldest ran around, hiding, looking, and climbing.
The detailing on the model towns really is fantastic and it was a pleasure to see how The Shambles might have looked in the old days.
We finished off with a walk through the cafe and shop carriages and headed home happy after a good 1.5 hours of fun. All of the staff were extremely friendly and the whole place has a lovely feel to it. If you are in the area or just passing through, it’s a nice old fashioned relaxing way to hang out with your kids.
2nd
APR
Quick Poll - Who will replace Bertie?
Posted by Conor O'Neill | Filed under Bandon
Tags: bertie ahern, fianna fail, government, Ireland, Politics
1st
APR
An important one for Bandon residents
Posted by Conor O'Neill | Filed under Bandon
The bandon.ie blog has an important post about the Action Plan for the improvement of Bandon town centre. They have full details on what it’s all about but the critical bit is having your say. Let the consultants who are drawing up the proposals know what you think should be done to improve the town. Some off the top of my head are:
- Finish the bypass (I know I know, this isn’t in their remit)
- Improved street lighting, particularly on bypass
- Extended footpaths on all major routes out of town
- Changing junction priorities
- Traffic lights at top of Glasslyn
- Removal of some right turns in the town
- Better bus stops
- Encouraging the owners of all the land on Glasslyn to develop it
- Encouraging a new commercial indoor play area
- Presenting Bandon as a great location for hi-tech biz. Lower cost that Cork City and only 30 mins from the airport. I’m afraid Laragh doesn’t cut it. Some EI subsidised units in town or maybe a hotdesking facility like they have in Macroom
- Presenting Bandon as a full-service town for people moving to Cork. In particular the great schools and sports facilities
- Presenting Bandon as a great location for high-end restaurants. If Otto and Casino House can be huge successes in the middle of nowhere, why can’t we have high end places here?
- A toll for trucks that go through town, particularly those destroying North Main Street that could easily go via Baxter’s Bridge
- A major revamp of the North side of town with an effort to get more retail businesses and doing something about ease of parking. Revamp of The Shambles should only be the beginning.
So get over to the bandon.ie blog and let the consultants know what you think!
Tags: Bandon, Cork, Ireland, redevelopment, urban
29th
MAR
Recipe and Gardening advice by SMS and Web
Posted by Conor O'Neill | Filed under Food, Gardening, Technology
We’re just playing around with a few ideas on a site called Jaiku this morning (they were bought by Google a few months back). The idea is that you can have discussion channels on particular topics like technology, politics, Bandon GAA, whatever. What makes it (and other great sites like Twitter) so powerful is that you can interact with it entirely through SMS on your phone.
So this morning I created two non-techie ones that I thought might appeal to my more foodie readers. The first is #recipes and the second is #gardening. In both cases the idea was that they could be used for requesting advice (in addition to general chitchat).
The #recipes one was suggested by Michael Kiely and he thought it would be great if you were out shopping and spotted an ingredient and wanted suggestions for mini-recipes so you’d know what else to buy whilst you were there. A quick SMS, a bit more shopping and you might get some suggestions back by SMS.
I thought of the #gardening one and it could also be used in a similar way to #recipes when in a Garden Centre and wondering e.g. is X worth buying, it Y over-priced etc.
Of course you can use both channels on the web too (and obviously type a lot more than 140 characters!).
There are two flies in the ointment. The first is that it’ll need more people on these channels to make them work and the second is that joining Jaiku is officially closed at the minute. Both can be solved in one fell swoop by heading over to Jaiku Invites, setup by Ciarán Rooney and requesting an invite to join.
Give it a go. It’s just a bit of fun and I’ve already had two suggestions on how to cook the fennel bulbs I bought on a whim in Lidl during the week. Any problems using it, just pop a comment here.
28th
MAR
Companies offering summer work in Bandon?
Posted by Conor O'Neill | Filed under Bandon, Business
I just had a comment on one of my posts from a girl in Coláiste Na Toirbhirte wondering about summer work vacancies in Bandon. If you have any, or know of businesses that take in summer students, maybe post a comment here or drop me a line at conor AT loudervoice DOT com and I’ll pass the info on.
Are there any sites that provide some sort of service in Ireland for this? Like a lightweight free irishjobs.com? I’d be happy to host one for nothing if there is opensource software available.
Tags: Ireland, jobs, summer jobs, work experience
26th
MAR
Slow Food for Kids
Posted by Conor O'Neill | Filed under Bandon, Food
Just got this by e-mail from Slow Food Ireland:
Slow Food for Kids at Hosfords Garden Centre, April 6
Official Opening by Denis Cotter, of Café Paradiso.
- 12.00 noon: Market Opens
- 2.00pm: Official Opening by Denis Cotter
- 2.30pm: Cookery demonstration with Denis Cotter
- 3.30pm: Worm Composting Demonstration with Peter Fitzgerald
- 3.45pm: The Clown entertains
- 4.00pm: Denise Bushby will give a strawberry planting demonstration, strawberry ice lollies, demonstration grow-bag with cropping strawberry already growing. David & Denise Bushby grow strawberries and they supply their most delicious strawberries to the best shops & Restaurants in West Cork.
- 4.30pm: John Hosford will give a demonstration on growing vegetables for kids –pumpkins, courgettes + fun packed seeds.
A wide range of stallholders will be attending the market to entice you with their artisan products.
Location/Directions: Main Bandon-Clonakilty (N71) Road, 8.4km west of Bandon.
Tags: eating, Health, Kids, slow food, slow food ireland
19th
MAR
Have a Small Business and need IT help?
Posted by Conor O'Neill | Filed under Business, Technology
I know there are tons of small businesses out there struggling with IT, even basics like anti-virus and e-mail. Unfortunately, lack of knowledge can often mean you aren’t even aware that there are better and cheaper ways of doing what you are doing.
Last Autumn, the County Enterprise Boards launched Tech-Check to address this widespread problem. It’s a simple but highly effective initiative to help businesses sort out their most pressing technology problems.
For €150, you get up to two 3-hour sessions with an IT expert who will go through every aspect of your IT usage and needs. They then come back with a report highlighting your highs and lows and a small set of specific recommendations to improve things.
Disclaimer: I am one of the people used by the Cork CEBs to provide this service.
Unfortunately, the uptake on Tech-Check has not met expectations. I think there are a few reasons for this and I hope I can clarify things a bit.
- It’s not for IT companies, it’s for any small business (from 1-50 people) who needs guidance on any aspect of technology whether it’s mobile phone usage, internet access, security or even getting a small web-site up for less than €250
- You are getting far more than €150 worth of consultancy, it is very heavily subsidised and I think the value for money is amazing
- The CEBs are very sensitive to conflicts of interest and the consultants cannot offer their services to actually implement the suggestions they make
- The feedback I have received from clients so far has been phenomenal. I’ve advised everything from one man training businesses and solicitors to multi person sports centres and they have all ended up with better setups and in some cases, saving lots of money.
- You do not need to know the first thing about IT or technology to apply for a Tech-Check. The less you know, the more help we can provide.
Ignoring the fact that I help provide Tech-Checks, I genuinely think this is the smartest thing to come out of the public service in years. There are thousands of businesses who can benefit and your entire investment can be just €150. I think you’d be nuts not to sign up, even if you think you don’t need it!
Contact:
- West Cork Enterprise Board
- South Cork Enterprise Board
- Cork City Enterprise Board
- North Cork Enterprise Board
Tags: ceb, enterprise, small business, tech-check, techcheck
19th
Bandon Parade
Posted by Conor O'Neill | Filed under Bandon
We finally made it down to our first St Patrick’s Day Parade in Bandon. The kids really enjoyed it (2 year old loved the tractors and fire engines). I was a bit surprised how short it was and the person beside me mentioned the lack of music. Face painting and balloon shapes went down very well. I wish I’d managed to see all the old cars as the pristine Escort (Mexico?) looked fantastic from a distance.
I noticed the Scouts were allowed wear jackets. In my day in Kilkenny we didn’t even have jumpers
Here’s a few photos and videos:
Tags: Bandon, paddys day, st patricks day
12th
MAR
Cork Airport Incompetence
Posted by Conor O'Neill | Filed under Cork, Ireland
I meant to write this post a few months back and was finally reminded to yesterday when I was in Cork Airport yet again.
The old airport carparks had the most unreliable equipment on the planet, pure third world garbage. I spent more time stuck in queues trying to get out of there due to malfunctioning barriers than any other airport, including Dublin which I have used more.
So you’d think, when spending €180m on a new airport (and hoping we taxpayers will stump up the money for it), that they’d find a supplier of equipment that, ye know, actually works. Silly me, of course they decided to use the same rubbish as before. Does Cork Airport Authority understand that the phrase “competitive tender” does not mean “cheapest” or “close personal friend”, it means “competitive”?
In the past six months:
- I was locked into the carpark at 1am for 40 minutes. The barrier ate my ticket and the intercom system would not work. Of course if you embed an intercom into a barrier then the intercom will fail along with the barrier. What incompetent morons [a] designed this and [b] purchased it? A Thomas The Tank Engine Walkie Talkie duct-taped to the machine would be a more intelligent engineering approach to system reliability. I ended up running down to the terminal TWICE to ask to be let out and still failed to exit. Only the arrival of the hotel shuttle bus saved me.
- On another occasion, the ticket machine printed my ticket so badly that it could not be machine-read when I returned to pay. Of course the support desk was not manned and multiple calls had to be made before someone turned up and printed me a new one so I could leave.
- I have seen queues of people stuck coming out of the short term car-park due to equipment malfunction.
- One of the ticket machines has been broken for months. In fact, it’s been broken for so long that they have erected a permanent “temporarily out of service” sign! Has the airport not got an SLA in their service contract with the equipment provider? Or is that too complex for them?
A few simple steps:
- Dump the incompetent supplier
- Demote or fire the person who re-ordered this rubbish
- Replace the equipment with something that works. Maybe ring Frankfurt and ask them what they use
- Look up the acronym SLA
If Al-Qaeda wants an easy way into Ireland then Cork Airport is the route to take. There are obviously no CCTV cameras in operation or else these constant problems would be noticed far sooner by staff. If the Airport Authority is interested, I know a guy who could set them up with a reliable mesh of wireless enabled webcams for a few hundred Euro. Not everything has to cost €180m and reliability can be a default.
Tags: carpark, cork airport, cork airport authority, engineering, equipment, reliability, service levels
6th
MAR
Creative Camp comes to Kilkenny
Posted by Conor O'Neill | Filed under Technology
As someone who grew up in Kilkenny from the age of 6-18, I was very excited to see that Creative Camp is on this weekend. Not only that, but it’s on in the wonderful Kilkenny Castle where I spent many a day trying to find secret tunnels as a kid.
If you are wondering what it is all about, the idea is that the attendees are the presenters. It is in the BarCamp tradition of “unconferences” where the agenda for the day is very much made up on the day. You might think this is a recipe for disaster but the success of BarCamps in Cork, Waterford, Dublin, Belfast, Galway and PodCamp would suggest otherwise.
PodCamp was held a few months back in Kilkenny and was particularly interesting since it broke out of the “techie geeky” community and had many attendees and contributors from the world of media and the arts.
The aim of Creative Camp is to continue on in that vein and really get a broad cross-section of those in technology, arts, media and creativity to meet and exchange ideas and experiences.
If you are in the South East on Saturday, I highly recommend that you attend. It is completely free but it would be polite to register so they have some idea of numbers. The success of each *Camp is dependent on active participation by all who attend.
Some of the topics that have already been suggested for the day include:
- Outsourcing your development workload to free your creative time
- Branding an Arts organisation from the inside
- GPS For Developers
- Writing and promoting your book with social media
- How To Blog Like A Boy
- The Art Of Software Development
- Creating a vibrant, connected Arts Community in the South East
- How Friends Communicate
- GPS Drawing
- Building and working in a distributed startup
- Creative Ways To Reduce Your Carbon Footprint
- Personalisation and the Social Web
- Women & Technology - grabbing the blogosphere by the balls
Why not wander down and see what it is all about?
Tags: barcamp, creative camp, podcamp
5th
MAR
More on Cork Car Sharing
Posted by Conor O'Neill | Filed under Business
Mike Newham has updated us on Car Sharing in Cork:
We’re pushing out the introduction in Cork till July the 4th because of the massive VRT changes that occur on that date. We’ll start off with eight cars on the road - 3 Ford Focuses (Foci?), 4 Ford Fiestas and 1 Transit Connect for delivery’s and the like.
All will be low emission diesels with extra safety options and lots of helpful gizmos like bluetooth and sat-nav. They’ll all be positioned in and around Cork City Centre.
We’ve made a decision to postpone the new website till about mid-May when it will be fully operational to allow new members to join and book cars.
By the way CarSharing for us is not ride-sharing or car-pooling, its basically the service by which you book a car for a number of hours, use it for those hours and get charged for those hours.
I really hope the mainstream media really pick up on this.
Tags: car-sharing
16th
FEB
Ooh, very cool competition
Posted by Conor O'Neill | Filed under Blogging, Business
John Prendergast from Aonach just let me know about a competition a friend of his is running. It’s pretty damned impressive: Glengarriff Lodge near Bantry in West Cork is giving away a
Luxury Self Catering weekend worth €1175 to one lucky blogger who mentions it! The location looks gorgeous and the Lodge is interesting because the aim was to be both luxurious and eco-friendly/sustainable.
The concept might be of interest to Irish Bloggers who have a deep interest in sustainability like Tom Atkins or Rebecca Hillman.
Tags: eco, glengarriff, self catering, west cork
14th
FEB
Review of The Artful Eater
Posted by Conor O'Neill | Filed under Food, Reviews
This is an unusual book made up of a collection of 18 discourses on individual ingredients which were originally distributed as a newsletter. It was first published in 1992 and I was given this 2004 edition by my sister.
Initial impressions of the book are extremely positive; the writing is of very high quality and the opening treatise on salt catches the imagination. From then on however it seems to alternate between wonderfully interesting chapters and workmanlike almost Wikipedia-style dry listing of facts about certain foods. Very much in the “did you know” school of writing.
The good episodes are very very good with those on Country Ham, Eggs and Coffee being my particular favourites. He finishes on the coffee one and it is the highlight of the book. I really hadn’t a clue about that ingredient and learned a huge amount in a few compact pages.
One thing that may annoy some readers is the quite parochial US view of the food world displayed in the book. One almost feels as if he has never travelled outside of its borders. Of course Europe has to be mentioned in the chapter on mustard (another decent one) and apples (slightly disappointing) but I found the writing on dairy and beef to be very one-dimensionally American.
It is one of those books I’m glad I read and I recommend you give it a look if you want a slightly different view of food from a clearly obsessive character.
Tags: book, Cooking, Food, ingredients, non-fiction, rating=3, review
9th
FEB
Can you review a wine in 7 words?
Posted by Conor O'Neill | Filed under Reviews
I know a lot of the readers here are foodies and I’m sure some of you may even like the odd glass of wine. We’ve decided to take part in a regular event called Wine Blogging Wednesday. Event #42 happens this coming Wednesday and the challenge is to review an Italian Red in 7 words. I love a challenge and this is a tough one.
You don’t have to be a blogger to take part. The easiest way to do it is to send your review by SMS from your mobile phone to LouderVoice. We’re going to collect them all and point the WBW guys to them.
The steps you need to follow are simple.
- Sign Up on LouderVoice here
- Login to LouderVoice using the username and password you picked
- Tell us your mobile phone number here using format country area number, like this:
- Send us the wine review in this format to 087-9409325 (standard rate message)
Review Rating-1-to-5 NameOfWine: Seven Words of description. #wbw42
It should look like this:
-
That’s it, you’re done! Your review will be available immediately on the LouderVoice site
More details about the Wine Blogging Wednesday event over on the LouderVoice Blog.
Tags: loudervoice, Reviews, wbw, wine, wine blogging wednesday
9th
Review of The Old Post Inn
Posted by Conor O'Neill | Filed under Restaurants, Reviews
We got a voucher from my mother-in-law for The Old Post over a year ago and finally made use of it last weekend. It consisted of one night’s stay plus dinner. I’ve previously given it top marks in a review last year and had eaten there several times before, all good.
We arrived up about 4pm and they weren’t fully open yet but some hand waving got us in and up to the room. They had told us on the phone that the rooms are being renovated in the spring and it really can’t happen soon enough. Our room really worn out and the bathroom in particular needs to be gutted. One thing that annoyed me intensely was the broken toilet seat. Not only is it unhygienic, it’d probably only take €30 and 20 minutes to fix. But that seat is my abiding memory of the place which is unfortunate as most other aspects are fine.
We headed down for dinner later and found the place hopping. The building is really cosy and I love the genuine friendly local staff. We had a drink whilst reading the menus and waiting for the table. A good selection of my kind of food with a list of each individual supplier impressed me.
The meal overall was good but I felt it could been brilliant with some more attention to detail. Having said that, they were under pressure in the kitchen with a very full dining room and apologised for a delay at one point with a mini-dessert. To be honest we hadn’t even noticed.
For starters I had carpaccio of beef with a rocket salad. The beef was gorgeous and delicate but overwhelmed by the over-dressed rocket. You should definitely try it but ask for the salad on the side so the meat can sing. D’wife had prawns with a nice onion marmalade.
The champagne sorbet was very boozy but beautifully flavoured.
My main was Peking duck on celeriac which, whilst very tasty, had flabby soft skin instead of the expected crispness. Catherine had a duo of fish on risotto. The fish was lovely but the risotto looked more like long grain rice and had non-diced stringy rocket it in.
Her dessert was three mini creme brulees which weren’t very distinctly different in taste and I had a gorgeous tarte tatin.
Through the meal we had a bottle of Sancerre Dominique et Janine Crochet 2006 which was fantastic and I’d try again.
Being a popular local venue, the portions are seriously big (the side veg was a meal in itself). I always leave there bursting and I need to show some restraint in future!Our room suffered a bit from dining room noise and the place didn’t really quieten down until after 1am. But that’s to be expected. Breakfast the following morning had both fresh fruit and a really tasty full Irish. Service again was top class and friendly.
Once the rooms are revamped, I’d recommend The Old Post. It’s a lovely part of the country and you’ll come away refreshed. Oh and to echo a topic I wrote about on my business blog yesterday, they really need to get themselves a web-site!
4th
FEB
Review of The Pressure Cooker (RTE)
Posted by Conor O'Neill | Filed under Entertainment, Food, Reviews
The advertising for this programme had me hating its subject before it had even started. It depicted Dylan McGrath, who runs Mint restaurant in Dublin, as an obnoxious Ramsay-knockoff desperate to win a Michelin star. Two minutes into the show I wanted to turn it off. I had no interest in seeing this pompous, arrogant jumped-up little asshole.
Then the rent-a-critics and old men were put to one side and Dylan was allowed to speak. The scales fell from my eyes and I saw a driven, brilliant, witty creator at work. A Ramsay knock-off? You bet - everything that is right about Gordon, I saw in this young guy. Relentless work ethic, constant striving for perfection, inability to suffer fools and a desire to make magical food.
The show focused on his seeming need to win a Michelin star and kept showing clips of other chefs advising him to be patient, build a good business, lose the obsession, stop being so cocky. After a while they got very boring indeed. As Dylan said “this is Ireland after all”. I was thrilled to see the programme-makers really dig into his motivations, demons and formative experiences as a chef. His quips about collecting gooseberries with his Granny spiked the usual nonsense about where a great chef comes from.
His food is highly stylised and for a short while I was reminded of the infamous Conrad Gallagher. I was surprised the naysayers didn’t mention his name in fact. But the thing that struck me about the plates they showed was that they seemed unique and they looked gorgeous. The trip to his salad guy in the UK was a joy. Two obsessives discussing baby salad leaves in the shape of butterflies. Dylan mentioned that the guy had gone bust a few times. You could see why.
And then the highlight of the programme. After little more than a year and a half running Mint, he got his star. A lesser programme would have cut to scenes of the old bluffers looking bashful and apologetic. They didn’t need to, the message came across loud and clear; this guy is going to be huge.
Please please please RTE, make more programmes like this. The desires I expressed in my last review were all fulfilled by this show. Please tell me why it’s only a once off. I guess it is costly to make deep, incisive, educational, moving television. So dump the fluff and make more of these. Now, where’s the telephone number for Mint……
29th
JAN
Review of Guerrilla Gourmet (Ep 02)
Posted by Conor O'Neill | Filed under Bandon, Cooking, Entertainment
After the first travesty of an episode I swore I’d never watch another but the lure of Denis Cotter in Bandon was too much. This is Gimmicky Garbage TV with a half decent programme buried somewhere far far underneath.
In the first episode they send Kevin Dundon to cook a gourmet meal in a boxing club in poor area of Waterford. If you thought that was crass, in this one Denis Cotter set up a vegetarian restaurant in the middle of cattle pens in Bandon Mart!
What drives me insane about the programme is that Denis is interesting, his food is interesting, his walkabout with a botanist eating wild greens was interesting (albeit very Hugh FW) and getting average people to try vegetarian food is interesting. Setting it in a cattle mart is retarded. Whatever “right-on” TV exec came up with this whiz-bang idea should have a pile of cow scutter dumped on his desk because that’s what this whole series is.
Take all those great chefs, get them to cook from the heart, find out what motivates them, explain their influences and where they trained and you could have a legendary TV series instead of this steaming pile of crap.
Next week Kevin Thornton cooks pork in a Mosque. Or something.
Tags: chef, Cooking, loudervoice, rating=1, reality tv, review, tv
