Conor’s Bandon Blog

For some reason I completely missed that this was coming. Thanks to Mary Wedel for letting me know. From Fri 26th to Sun 28th September, we’re having an Arts Festival in Bandon. Things were actually kicked off on Thursday with the CruX Dance Company in the Town Hall. There will also be an exhibition of local artists in the Miriam Bailey Gallery from Wed 24th.

The line-up next weekend is below. I’m genuinely blown away by all of the events they have arranged. It reminds me very strongly of growing up in Kilkenny with the Arts Festival every year with the added bonus of lots of kid-friendly stuff too.

FRIDAY 26TH SEPTEMBER

• 10AM -5PM LOCAL ARTIST’S ART MARKET FACTORY LANE / FUCSHIA FRAMING
• 11AM -6PM LOCAL ARTIST EXHIBITION MIRIAM BAILEY GALLERY
• 11.00AM CHILDREN’S READING BANDON LIBRARY WITH IAN WILD
• 6.30PM OPENING RECEPTION TOWN HALL, ART EXHIBITION, KIT FRENCH/CATE MURPHY/LOUIS WILD, CANTILENA STRING QUARTET
• 8.30PM BAROQUE ENSEMBLE (?20)* ST PETER’S CHURCH OF IRELAND
• 10.00PM WENDY MARLATT – DAVIDA, HERON COURT, TRIBAL BELLY DANCE
• 11.00PM LATE NIGHT PHILOSOPHY CURTIN’S, ALLEN SQUARE

SATURDAY 27TH SEPTEMBER

• 10AM -5PM LOCAL ARTIST’S ART MARKET FACTORY LANE / FUCSHIA FRAMING
• 11AM -5PM CHILDREN’S WORKSHOP WEIR ST. ARTISTS’ STUDIO ART (?5 PER 1 HR SESSION), GLYNNIS TRINDER, ELLEN MCGALEY, DERIDRE GILLESPIE
• 11AM -6PM ART EXHIBITION – BANDON ARTISTS MIRIAM BAILEY GALLERY
• 11AM -5PM ADULT WORKSHOP MOSAIC (DAY 1) WEIR ST. ARTISTS’ STUDIO, JULIE TYRRELL (?150 FOR 2 DAYS)
• 11AM -1PM ADULT WORKSHOP (?10) WCPHC, WEIR ST. CREATIVE WRITING, ADAM WYETH
• 11AM -5PM CONTEMPORARY ART EXHIBITIONS HOWARD COURT
• 11AM -1PM MELISSA BAKER -STORYTELLER OLD MARKET SQUARE (BARREL-TOP CARAVAN)
• 1PM -3PM TXUTXUKAN – FRENCH GYPSY BAND TOWN CENTRE, AKASHA DANCE TROUPE, MISCELLANEOUS STREET EVENTS
• 2PM -4PM CHILDREN’S WORKSHOP(?7) MUNSTER ARMS HOTEL, DRAMA / PAULA MCGLINCHEY
• 3PM -4PM CLONAKILTY BRASS BAND RIVERVIEW SHOPPING CENTRE
• 5PM POETRY READING – TREVOR JOYCE BANDON BOOKS
• 3.30PM -5PM CHILDREN’S WORKSHOP(?5) FIONNUISCE, HERON COURT, COOKERY / DEBBIE BATEMAN
• 3.30PM -5.30PM ADULT WORKSHOP (?15) WCPHC, WEIR ST., FUSION BELLY DANCE / BELLA HANCOCK
• 4.30PM CHILDREN’S ART COMPETITION RESULTS BANDON LIBRARY
• 6.30PM LECTURE – JACK LYONS – THE WHO WCPHC, WEIR ST.
• 8.00PM PATRICK GALVIN EVENING TOWN HALL, READINGS, FILM, MUSIC
• 8.00PM LIVE MUSIC – ORANGATWANG FUNKY FISH YOUTH CAFE
• 9.00PM MUSIC EVENT (?12.50) MUNSTER ARMS HOTEL, DJ ROCKSTEADY, LIVE MUSIC – ILYA K, AINE DUFFY

SUNDAY 28TH SEPTEMBER

• 11AM -5PM CONTEMPORARY ART HOWARD COURT
• 11AM -6PM ART EXHIBITION MIRIAM BAILEY GALLERY
• 10.30AM HISTORIC BANDON WALK MEET AT ST. PETER’S, CLARE MCCUTCHEON
• 11AM -5PM ADULT WORKSHOP WEIR ST. ARTITS STUDIO, MOSAIC (DAY 2), JULIE TYRRELL (?150 FOR 2 DAYS)
• FROM NOON JAZZ BRUNCH DAVIDA
• 1PM -4PM ART / FILM EXHIBITION TOWN HALL, KIT FRENCH, CATE MURPHY, LOUIS WILD, ED GODSELL
• 2.30PM PUPPET THEATRE HOWARD COURT
• 4.00PM FESTIVAL FINALE – (?12.50)*GRAMMAR SCHOOL HALL, THE MOVE TRANS-THEATRE COMPANY**
• 8.30PM LIVE MUSIC – (?12.50) MUNSTER ARMS HOTEL, LERNER, KARMA PARKING

Like blogs? Like wine? Then Julian over at Bubble Brothers is having a wee tasting this coming Thursday. All details over on the blog.

This coming Thursday, 25th September, Emilio Saez van Eerd of Casa de las Vides and Javier Navarro from Tintoralba (earlier tasting summarized in this post) will be making a flying visit to us, and I’d like to give them and their wines as much publicity as possible. Check out the EWBC stuff on Vinus TV.

The day’s events have not yet been decided – but I think it would be great if as many blog and twit and wine folk as possible could come along to a leetle tasting here at the Marina on Thursday 25th. I’ve already had encouraging responses from a number of people, both on the wine side and in techno-trousers.

Got this from my brother-in-law today:

If you had purchased £1000 of Northern Rock shares one year ago it would now be worth £4.95, with HBOS, earlier this week your £1000 would have been worth £16.50, £1000 invested in XL Leisure would now be worth less than £5, but if you bought £1000 worth of Tennents Lager one year ago, drank it all, then took the empty cans to an aluminium re-cycling plant, you would get £214. So based on the above statistics the best current investment advice is to drink heavily and re-cycle.

SOHO Solo West Cork is the West Cork Chapter of SOHO Solo Ireland, a small business networking and support group. It offers the opportunity to connect with other independent small businesses in the region, to share, collaborate and socialise with people who face similar challenges.

Calvin Jones has recently taken over as organiser and is doing a fantastic job of re-energising it. He is giving a talk on Wednesday called “Harnessing the power of social media to help your small business”. It’s on in the Celtic Ross Hotel, Rosscarbery from 12:30-14:00.

If you are a small biz in West Cork and you want to build your professional network both locally and further afield, then you should pop along to this. It’s a free talk but please register your interest here.

What started off as a throwaway comment on Twitter today led me to one of the most inspirational talks I have seen since Hans Rosling at Le Web.

Sir Ken Robinson talks at TED about how the current education system kills creativity and continues to take the 19th Century approach of generating people trained for industry.

It’s 20 minutes long and I encourage you to watch every minute. It isn’t just thought provoking, it is also hilarious.

Thanks to Des Traynor for making my week.

The new Vista ad from Microsoft. I think it’s an all-time great. Brilliant writing (by Seinfeld I assume). Not once is Vista mentioned, just the logo at the end.

When you get tired of “buy buy buy, buy this, NOW, do it now, limited time offer, for you, blah blah blah”, then funny oddball ads like this put a smile on your face. I swear my opinion of Vista has gone up since I’ve watched this. Now if they did one with George Costanza, I’d go out and buy Vista Ultimate on the spot.

I’m thrilled to see more and more great Irish food blogs being created and I was recently told about a real cracker.

Ivan McCutcheon, who works as a rural development officer with West Cork LEADER Co-Op and is heavily involved in the the Fuschia Brands initiative, has started Food Culture in West Cork. A must-read as far as I’m concerned. Check out his great piece on Fishy Fishy and Ummera.