Archive for August, 2007
How to feel just a bit stupid
Posted on August 25, 2007, by Conor O'Neill, under Gadgets, Technology.
I’m very technical, I can figure most things out given sufficient time, but sometimes I just don’t get it. Take for example my recent purchase of a Nokia N770 Internet Tablet.
It is a fabulous piece of kit at an incredible knock-down price of €107 plus VAT and P&P. I believe it was over €400 when it was released. It’s basically a little hand-held computer with a touch screen that works over Wifi or your mobile connection (via bluetooth). I’ve totally got the hang of it and use it every day.
Except it came with this:
And I just couldn’t figure it out. I decided it was part of a stand of some sort but appeared to be missing the other parts.
So I gave up and left it at the edge of the desk. Yesterday I was on a phone call and was playing with it absent mindedly. Then this happened:
Oh for the love of god:
I blame Nokia 
26 Comments
Our Peach Harvest
Posted on August 21, 2007, by Conor O'Neill, under Gardening.
Here it is:
Thrilled that it actually tasted ok, sadly not very juicy and a bit tart but given the summer we’re having, not a bad effort.
Next year we hope to get it up to two.
5 Comments
Irish Yokels Go London
Posted on August 19, 2007, by Conor O'Neill, under Family, Food.
In the next few months we’re coming up on the 10th wedding anniversary.
People gave us a week when we first started going out. Our eyes met across a power turbine in the Engineering building in Belfield. I fell for her shaggy perm, she fell for my wooly jumper and combats.
We’ve talked lots about what to do for our few days away (enabled by my fab parents). Paris maybe where last time we couldn’t fine Sacre Cour in the dark. Or Rome, which we chickened out of going to after my namesake’s wedding. We settled on London. She spent a summer working in the Cavendish, I’ve been there maybe four times in my life. Odd for someone who knows tons of Germany and lived in Sunnyvale for nearly six months, I have no clue of London. On a recent trip I spent the entire day saying “ooh I recognise that….off the telly”.
We have several aims:
- To do many of the standard sights like London Eye, Imperial War, Tate Modern, Natural History, Victoria & Albert, Science Museum. We are both engineers after all
- Stay somewhere nice. Not Holiday Inn, not The Savoy. Somewhere a bit special but not bank breaking
- Eat in all the places we’ve promised ourselves over the past few years
So Bandon-Fans, I need your brains. We have no clue where to stay but we want it to be central so we can do lots by foot rather than tube. All recommendations for “boutique” hotels appreciated.
Food plan was originally to go for The Fat Duck in Bray. Some day we are doing that or El Bulli. But not this time. Our idea right now is:
- Gordon Ramsey in Claridge’s. Lighter than main Ramsey restaurant
- Nobu. Cos I adore Japanese food. Worked for Toshiba for too long
- Locanda Locatelli. Cos Tony & Giorgio is still one of my favourite food programmes ever
We would love other restaurant recommendations. Happy to do high end cos it’ll be another ten years before we do it again. Hit us with your best material.
24 Comments
Brand and Quality
Posted on August 19, 2007, by Conor O'Neill, under Cork, Food.
Clonakilty Black Pudding is rightly famous and many people were saddened by the passing of Edward Twomey who made it into a formidable brand. Over the years they have diversified a bit and I see their sausages almost everywhere. We’ve tended to buy them as our “standard” saturday sausage when supermerket buying (going more with Caherbeg or Gubbeen for a treat).
This morning I spotted an extra sticker on the pack and initially had to giggle “This product does not contain Colour Red 2g (E128)……It contains Colour (Carmine E120)”. Then I thought “what the hell is food colouring doing in a sausage?”. Surely pork, pork fat, rusk and seasoning is all that is needed in a quality banger?
So I looked at the ingredients and got depressed. 53% meat! That’s worse than most discount “value” bangers in a supermarket. It continued “E221 preservative, E621 flavour enhancer, E120 colour, Spice extract, Antioxidant E301″
A quick decode via Google gives: E221=Sodium Sulphite, E621=Monosodium Glutamate, E120=Cochineal, E301=Sodium Ascorbate. You think MSG in a sausage is bad, wait until you see this. Wonder why the E128 that they were using was replaced with E120?
Following safety concerns raised by EFSA in its opinion of 5 July 2007 [2], the European Commission has prepared a draft Regulation to suspend use of E128 as a food colouring. This proposed course of action was unanimously approved by European Union Member States at a meeting of the Standing Committee of the Food Chain and Animal Health (Section Toxicological Safety of the Food Chain) on 20 July 2007
Now that I think about it, I normally associate “red” sausages with cheap and nasty. I was just led astray by the good name in this case. I hate seeing great brands ruined by a race for volume. We’ll be looking more closely at our sausage purchases from now on.
14 Comments
Oh and votes please
Posted on August 15, 2007, by Conor O'Neill, under Blogging, Technology, Wordpress.
For the new blog theme. Like or no like? Like but would prefer a Cork specific image in the header? Don’t like cos it looks like mud?
And while I’m here, we launched blognation Ireland on Monday. It is part of a fast growing global tech news network called blognation and it covers Web 2.0 and Mobile in Ireland. So if you are a techie or in a start-up and you read this blog but not Argolon (you nutter), check out the new site.
17 Comments
Worst growing season EVAH!
Posted on August 15, 2007, by Conor O'Neill, under Bandon, Food, Gardening.
My “stick it in the ground and it’ll grow” school of gardening thought has failed miserably this year. The only things that have grown are non-essential herbs, apples, strawberries, sorrel and radishes. And I don’t even particularly like the latter two. Actually, I nearly forgot the one rhubarb plant which provided seven metric tonnes of sticks. Lots of yummy tarts for me (as the bishop….).
So I got thick the other day and ripped up almost everything. All the bleedin mint and oregano, all the sorrel, the stupid radishes, the weeds, the 3 rocket plants (from two packets!). I’ve laid them flat on the bed to rot down but it made me think, surely that is a net zero as far as nutrients are concerned?
So gardening gurus, top tips please. I think I should dump a ton of home made compost in, maybe chicken manure or bonemeal, cover the lot over with newspaper and try again next March. Thoughts?
16 Comments
