Archive by Author
Annual Paddy’s Day Post
Posted on March 17, 2010, by Conor O'Neill, under Bandon, Cork, Ireland.
The cold seemed to reduce the numbers quite a bit this year but still a great display by the locals. Fire engines and tractors still firm favourites in our house with the Steam Tractor being my own personal highlight·
Lots more photos over on Pix.ie.
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Rosmini Community Event Needs Your Help
Posted on March 14, 2010, by Conor O'Neill, under Bandon, Cork, Entertainment, Family, Ireland.
I’ll keep it short and sweet. If you know of any family-friendly comedians or mind-trick guys who would be able to perform on March 26th in Bandon, can you get in touch with me and I’ll pass it on to the Rosmini Centre people? They do have some budget for it, so pro or semi-pro is fine.
Also the dog owned by one of the kids who was going to perform has gone missing. Please keep an eye out for a sheepdog in the Crossbarry area. If the same happens to you, I encourage you to post it on LostandFound.ie.
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Community Variety Show on March 26th in Bandon
Posted on March 6, 2010, by Conor O'Neill, under Bandon, Cork, Entertainment, Ireland.
Every year the great people who run the Rosmini centre for adults with an intellectual disability organise a fun and interesting event to promote community integration and inclusion for everyone. This year they are organising a community variety show.
It’s on Friday the 26th of March in the GAA Hall in Bandon. Doors opening at 7.15, show starts at 8 sharp. It is not a fund raising event so tickets will be at the very affordable cost of €5 each.
The show will include:
- A DJ
- Singing & Music
- Magic and Tricks (both kids and adults)
- Bingo
- Dance & Comedy
- Raffle
- Street Dancers
There will be spot prizes between performances.
Sounds like a great fun night for all the family. You should start seeing signs for it around the town soon.
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This is Masterchef not Master Scallops
Posted on February 28, 2010, by Conor O'Neill, under Reviews.
It’s time to put Masterchef out to pasture. I’m watching an average show in about 10 minutes using Sky+. The formula isn’t working any more. No tension, no excitement, the same stupid catchphrases. Cooking doesn’t get any harder than this. Yeah, it does.
Scallops. If I see one more bleedin scallop on that show, I’ll explode. Fabio Viviani, in the far superior US show Top Chef, described the same problem perfectly back in January 2009:
And to prove the point yesterday, whilst bent over double in pain from a tummy bug, I lashed this together in 5 minutes, and I’m not even a good cook!
So Greg and John. Time to re-invent Top Chef again or give it up. I don’t know what the viewing figures are like but the ways it’s going, the contestants will be shown working in a chipper in the next season.
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Learn about Twitter whilst having a nice glass of vino
Posted on February 22, 2010, by Conor O'Neill, under Cork, Drink, Entertainment, Ireland.
I know the whole Twitter thing is still completely alien to a lot of people. How many wondered what the hell the papers were on about when discussing Dan Boyle’s “tweet“?
Here’s a suggestion for dipping your toe in and getting a handle on it all. Karwig Wines in Carrigaline is running the third “Twebt” which is a Twitter wine-tasting competition (Bubble Brothers and Curious Wines ran the first two).
The idea is very simple. You get a bottle of wine from Joe and his gang in Karwig’s and it is wrapped up so you can’t see the label. At an agreed time, 9pm Sunday March 7th, people open the wine and start tasting it and putting their tasting notes up on Twitter.Then they start guessing the country, grape etc and maybe even the exact wine.
It’s a bit of fun and those taking part range from gurus to tipplers and everyone in between.
Full details on taking part are on Brian Clayton’s Blog and on the Karwig’s Blog. If you just want to watch what happens then you can see all the tweets in the run-up and on the night over at http://search.twitter.com/search?q=%23twebt.
1 Comment
Techie updates have moved
Posted on February 9, 2010, by Conor O'Neill, under Technology.
I know the tech stuff annoys the foodie readers here and vice versa. So last week I started up a new Posterous blog over on conoroneill.net. It is much more high volume than this blog and consists mainly of pointers to interesting tech stuff, opinions thereof and the odd funny bit. So basically pretty much anything except food/Bandon, which will remain here.
I’ll do the odd cross-reference when it makes sense. And hopefully the volume here will improve over the Spring as I get into a gardening groove. next post up is one on Jimmy Doherty’s “From Crop to Shop” which may be one of the most educational programmes about food broadcast in the past ten years.
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Fat Club Update
Posted on February 9, 2010, by Conor O'Neill, under Health.
The idea of relentlessly banging on about weight and fitness here and on Twitter didn’t really work. There are only two people that I follow on Twitter doing it and one of them is my sister. But I have been marking major milestones and today was one of them.
So from Dec 29th to Feb 9th, I have lost 20 pounds.
How? No booze, no snacking, no sweets, normal breakfast, normal lunch, smaller dinner, fruit whenever I’m peckish and a small amount of treadmill Mon-Fri.
My BMI, body fat and visceral fat are all still atrocious but on the way down.
On advice from @adventsparky on Twitter, we invested in a body fat analysis machine (aka tarted up weighing scales) on Amazon. This Omron BF510 Body Fat & Composition Bathroom Scales has both feet pads and handgrips to give a much more accurate analysis of fat by running a small signal through your body.
I then track that in a spreadsheet in Google Docs.
Next major milestone will be the 2 stone mark. I figure about another 2ish weeks for that.
Eventual aim is 4+ stone reduction by mid-late summer. Fingers crossed.
8 Comments
Just in case you haven’t seen/heard it
Posted on February 3, 2010, by Conor O'Neill, under Cork.
Very very funny.
3 Comments
Neven watchable but not memorable
Posted on January 12, 2010, by Conor O'Neill, under Entertainment, Food.
I’ve always been a huge fan of Neven. Anyone who can run a successful restaurant in the middle of nowhere in rural Cavan gets my vote. His energy is always fantastic too. This new show is ok but nothing amazing.
I’m surprised to see cookery programmes still being made that refer to “dinner parties”. Does anyone still have those?
His three dishes in the opening episode were asparagus and smoked salmon tartlet, confit duck and a tiramsu variant.
Whilst I loved the look of the first dish, it seems a bit ridiculous to have an asparagus recipe in January. Or a salad with Nasturtium flowers whilst we’re on the subject. Have the producers of the programme missed every single Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall espisode ever made? Where did the idea of seasonal produce go?
The trip to the organic egg farm was enlightening and provided another one of those interesting tid-bits. The farmer supplies most of his eggs to Lidl and Aldi. Weird then that most of the organic eggs in those shops in Cork seem to have either UK or German markings on them.
The confit duck looked gorgeous but I’d love to know how much the average punter would have to pay for a few litres of duck fat. I think I’ll stick with the canned one like most French people do.
The show has great potential given the presenter involved but it doesn’t feel fully formed or thought out. The show that RTE needs to make, that would become legendary, is to have Darina do one based on her new book. Show people how to cook lovely food frugally. “Feed your family for a tenner a day” or something. Review of that book coming soon. Summary: One of the top ten cook books of all time.
Neven is on RTÉ One, Thursday, 8.30pm.
8 Comments
The Rules of Fat Club
Posted on December 22, 2009, by Conor O'Neill, under Health.
Pat Phelan’s recent post about losing weight and giving up ciggies highlighted that we all stand a better chance of success if we do some online group supoort of each other via Twitter/Facebook. The bruv in law came up with Fat Club. So here we go:
#1 – The first rule of Fat Club is, you must talk all the time about Fat Club online.
#2 – The second rule of Fat Club is, you MUST TALK about Fat Club online.
#3 – If someone says stop, goes limp or taps out, the de-fatting has just begun.
#4 – Lots of guys fighting fat.
#5 – One kilo at a time.
#6 – Baggy shirts, running shoes.
#7 – De-fatting will go on as long as it has to.
#8 – Every night at Fat Club, you have to weigh yourself and Tweet/Facebook it
I’m in. Anyone else?
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As You Wish
Posted on December 15, 2009, by Conor O'Neill, under Bandon, Cork, Entertainment.
Well Bandon Film Society has gone and done it again with this brilliant idea.
In association with Partnership for Change they are organising a Special Christmas Charity Screening for Bandon Flood Appeal on Wednesday 30th December 2009 in St Peters Church, Bandon at 8pm
The movie is one of my top 5 of all time, The Princess Bride, starring the angelic Robin Wright.
If you don’t live in Bandon, get into your car and drive here for this. If you don’t live in Ireland, fly here. The recent showing of the original Phantom of The Opera in St Peter’s was a tour-de-force.
Not only will you enjoy a genius movie but you’ll be helping by contributing to the Irish Red Cross and St Vincent De Paul.
Further Information Contact:
Declan Waugh Tel: 023-8841933 M: 086-3853363
3 Comments
Wondering how to run your business?
Posted on December 11, 2009, by Conor O'Neill, under Business.
Watch this video from Tony Hsieh the CEO of Zappos, which sold this summer to Amazon for $928m.
I have ordered the Zappos Culture book he mentioned (just email ceo@zappos.com and they’ll post you a copy) and downloaded the Tribal Leadership audiobook from here (use California 90210 for your address in the registration screen). Wonderful stuff.
Most Irish businesses are still a decade behind the US exemplars when it comes to customer service. But one of our clients who really seems to get it is Louis Fitzgerald Hotels.
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Thinking of setting up a business? Watch this.
Posted on December 10, 2009, by Conor O'Neill, under Business.
The most inspirational thing I’ve seen in a long long time. Gary Vaynerchuk is amazing. Note, audio is NSFW.
1 Comment
Your Next Handheld Computer?
Posted on December 10, 2009, by Conor O'Neill, under Technology.
Fantastic mix of features in the PsiXpda. For those who loved Psions, this will suit you. For those who work in the corporate world, your IT department will love it, as it runs XP!
The PsiXpda handheld computer in action at Le Web from Conor O'Neill on Vimeo.
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Flood Updates on Bandon.ie
Posted on November 22, 2009, by Conor O'Neill, under Bandon, Cork, Ireland.
Trevor Collins is doing a phenomenal job over on the Bandon.ie blog with updates on the floods and plenty of guidance/links. If you live locally or travel through here, you need to be following it. If you are on Twitter, I auto-post links to all his posts over on twitter.com/bandon.
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The Floods
Posted on November 21, 2009, by Conor O'Neill, under Bandon, Cork.
Our thoughts are with all those families and businesses damaged by the horrendous floods in West Cork this week.
We were lucky. Apart from the inconvenience of no phoneline and some bad leaks in a bay window, we managed to escape pretty unscathed.
If you have any detour tips for those trying to get in and out of West Cork, please leave them in the comments. This route was still working at 2pm yesterday so hopefully it’ll work for you. (Click on it for larger size):
Bandon had been doing a large marketing push for November. Now more than ever, we should shop locally and help those businesses get back on their feet.
6 Comments
In a choir? Available to sing in Bandon on Jan 29th?
Posted on November 17, 2009, by Conor O'Neill, under Bandon, Cork, Entertainment, Family, Ireland.
I’ve just been contacted by a someone organising a lovely local event. They are looking for a folk choir or an upbeat church choir to get involved.
It’s on 29th Jan 2010 in Bandon.
They also need an audio system if you know of anyone willing to loan for the night.
Mail me on conor@loudervoice.com if you want to help out and I’ll pass on your details.
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LouderVoice BES 2009 (Business Expansion Scheme)
Posted on November 15, 2009, by Conor O'Neill, under Business.
The LouderVoice customer reviews system for business has moved into high-gear in 2009. Clients are deploying our EasyReview widget on their e-commerce sites every week. Our first US customer will go live this month along with many more Irish sites. Our second UK site will go live early in the new year.
The most recent research by Internet Retailer tells you everything you need to know about how important reviews are to businesses.
In order to expand the operational bandwidth of the company and aggressively pursue our channel partner strategy, we are raising finance through the tax-efficient Business Expansion Scheme (BES). Argolon Solutions, the company behind LouderVoice, is fully Revenue approved for BES and we will be issuing our investor pack in the coming week.
If you are interested in finding out more and receiving a copy of the investor pack, please contact Conor O’Neill on +353-23-8878257 or conor AT loudervoice DOT com.
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Time to build a Cork Computer History Museum
Posted on November 14, 2009, by Conor O'Neill, under Cork, Technology.
We have buildings all over Cork, empty. We have a recession. The hospitality industry is crippled. We need something that encourages tourism, makes use of some of that property and points the way to the future.
Can I suggest a Cork Computer History Museum?
What’s one of the biggest attractions in Silicon Valley? The Computer History Museum
What’s one of the biggest tourist draws in London? The Science Museum.
What’s one of Cork’s main tourist attractions now? The Butter Museum.
Where is the biggest cluster of successful tech companies outside of Dublin? Cork.
Randy Jordan has assembled one of the most incredible collections of classic computers anywhere. From IMSAI to Osborne to DEC PDP and Apple Lisa, he has it. Randy has offered the collection to be housed by those who should jump at the chance. They didn’t get it.
Those of us who do _get_ it have despaired when talking to Randy about his computers and the fact that they are almost never seen. The mini-collection he showed today at BarCamp Cork III blew our minds.
Watch this video:
Then think about the thousands of people who fly in and out of Cork every week and work for tech companies. Think about the brilliant but now sadly delayed idea of transforming the Cork docklands into a new tech hub. Think about all those tourists looking for something different. This could be the first step. A building full of technology that shows us the past so we can figure out the future.
Do you have a building lying idle and a vision for where you want Cork to be in 10 years time? Step up to the plate.
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Good Wine Show Day 1 Fantastic!
Posted on November 14, 2009, by Conor O'Neill, under Cork, Drink, Food, Ireland.
We spent this evening in the Clarion Hotel in Cork attending the fantastic inaugural Good Wine Show, held by Curious Wines, Bubble Brothers and Karwig Wines.
I’m not going to say much, I’ll let all the videos I took do the talking. Suffice to say that €15 to sample over 100 fantastic wines plus cheese from On The Pigs Back, bread from Arbutus and amazing smoked Duck, Salmon and Chicken from Ummera is an absolute steal. So get on over to the Clarion tomorrow from 11am and have an absolute blast. We did!
Mike Kane and Joyce on the Curious Wines Stand:
And 13 more videos here.
A few badly taken pics here:
