Conor’s Bandon Blog

Patrick Naughton has been in touch to tell me about African drumming workshops that he runs for community groups, schools and festivals in Cork and the surrounding areas.

If you know of any such group that are looking for workshops or entertainers then do get in contact with him on pat.naughton@yahoo.co.uk

Quote:

Full Circles African Drumming workshops are an exciting, fun, addition to any festival or gathering that you have planned. We cater for both childrens and adults workshops on the day. In the childrens workshops we encourage parents to participate as well, especially in the case of very young members.

We are fully mobile and can provide up to 40 drums on the day with a variety of shakers bells, and African xylophones. Children and adults learn how to create their own rhythm, sing songs and chants, dance and listen to tales from Africa. Within five minutes we have people playing the drum, grooving, dancing and clapping to an energetic beat.

We cater to your requirements and needs on the day and can arrange a timetable to suit. We have done such festivals as the Dun laoghaire ‘Festival of World Cultures’ 2006 Terriglas Festival Tipperary 2007, Green Gathering 2008, Roundstone Summer Festival 2009, Feile Lispoil Dingle 2009. Bere Island Summer Fest 2008, Belvedere house Mullingar 2010 and all the major Cork Community festivals.Included are a list of schools and centres Full Circle has worked in including references from school.

Enquires are very welcome. As the summer period is a very busy period for us please book early to avoid dissapointment. Full Circle is covered under public liability insurance. Should you also wish to book a performance based percussion group playing and dancing to traditional rhythms from West Africa then contact us on 087 2176460 or e mail. For a preview check out YouTube ‘Nankama Ireland‘ or alternatively ‘Nankama drummers with ark vg dancers cork city‘

Just in from the people organising the West Cork Literary Festival:

PJ Lynch, one of the most celebrated children’s book illustrators, will give a special Children’s Talk on Monday 6th July, as part of the West Cork Literary Festival. He will also give a Public Interview with Robert Dunbar on the evening of July 6th.

PJ has won numerous awards including the Mother Goose Award, the Christopher Medal, three times, and the prestigious Kate Greenaway Medal on two occasions, first for “The Christmas Miracle of Jonathan Toomey” by Susan Wojciechowski, and again for “When Jessie Came Across the Sea” by Amy Hest. “The Christmas Miracle of Jonathan Toomey” has sold more than a million copies in the United States alone, and has recently been made into a motion picture starring Tom Berenger and Joely Richardson.

PJ has designed several sets of stamps for An Post, including four Christmas issues. His illustrated version of “The Gift of the Magi” by O Henry is published in October 2008, and PJ is now working on a book about Abraham Lincoln by Rosemary Wells for publication in 2009. He lives in Dublin with his wife and their three young children. His work can seen on his website www.pjlynchgallery.com

As well as Free children’s workshops ranging from creating a picture to reading and drawing, the Bantry based Festival, supported by RTÉ lyric fm, has a host of children’s talks and readings.

Francesca Simon, creator of the “Horrid Henry” books will read from these on July 7th. Saturday 11th sees an afternoon with writer, television presenter and artist, Don Conroy.

On Wednesday July 8th Sarah Webb will read from her novel “Amy Green, Teen Agony Queen: Boy Trouble” while Judi Curtin will read a selection from her “Alice” series of children’s novels. Sarah has written four children’s books as well as eight bestselling novels including, “When the Boys Are Away”. Judi’s first novel for children, “Alice Next Door”, was published in 2005. One of Thursday’s highlights is a reading by Darren Shan. Darren will read from a selection of his children’s novels which are incredibly popular – selling many millions – J.K. Rowling is one of his more famous fans. For anyone who would like to learn the secret to Writing For Children, poet and author John W Sexton will advise on the subject in a workshop during the festival.

West Cork Literary Festival Booking is on 027 55987 email: info@westcorkliteraryfestival.ie

I can’t bear to read the report. It sickens me to think what those evil scum covered up over the years.

I’m not a religious person but I take some comfort in imagining everyone involved in the systematic abuse of children in the 20th century burning in the eternal fires of hell.

Some comfort in imagining every priest, every brother, every nun, every bishop, every arch-bishop, every cardinal, every papal nuncio, every pope who knew anything about what was happening in this country and DID NOTHING, being raped by satan every day for eternity.

The Catholic Church in Ireland should have all of their lands seized immediately, held by NAMA and sold off when the economy recovers. That money should be ring-fenced to build the best system in the world to take care of children in need in Ireland.

There is a wonderful bunch of things planned in Cork as part of Science Week which will hopefully increase the interest in science amongst kids. The target audience is 10-16 year olds but I’m sure we’ll drag our 8 year old along to some of it.

It is on from 11th Nov to 18th Nov in various locations around the city. I believe the HQ is City Hall and local tech companies will have stands there. Many of the events will be in UCC.

Check out the web-site for a full list of what is happening and make sure to book the ones that require it.

I’d like to go to “It’s Elemental! Role of elements in our everyday life”.

So he is only five years old and this was his first ever GAA session.

He reported back that he played hurling and soccer. His Nana from Meath better have a word with him about Gaelic Football.

Next week we are sending him in Kilkenny gear to shake things up a bit

Bloody hell, now I have two hurlers in the house. Who would ever have thought?

Justin has done a great post on Patricia McKenna of the Green Party trying to justify non-vaccination of children on The Last Word radio show. The transcript shows what Cooper is capable of when he puts his mind to it. He slays the idiot and her nonsense.

If your child dies from the side-effects of measles, it’ll be due to you listening to uniformed clueless dimwits like her. Remember that when you are casting your vote. Oh and don’t drink the water, it’s CIA mind control.

UPDATE 1: On a related topic, the HSE have announced that all babies born in Cork from this October onwards will be routinely offered the BCG vaccine against TB. Welcome to the 20th century. Oh wait a sec, that’s over already. Wonder if there will be any civil suits taken against the individual bozos responsible for the current situation between now and then?

For some completely bizarre reason, each regional health board can decide whether to give babies a BCG shot or not as standard. Cork (all of Munster?) is the only region not to.

Catherine has just pointed me to a story in The Irish Examiner about a woman with TB who worked in two creches in Cork. They are now going to have to test every child in both of those locations for infection.

Other than saving a few quid in the short term, is there any medical reason not to provide it? How would you feel if your kid got TB because some paper pusher in the health service decided Cork people don’t need protecting? Maybe they’d like us all to return to the days of Seán Ó Riordáin living in a shed in the garden writing poetry? “Mar is poll im cheann gach smaoineamh……and the TB ain’t so hot either mum”.

Poor Oisín is terribly unlucky with his front teeth. When he was 2-ish he fell off a changing table and impacted one of his front teeth up into the bone and split the lip and gum. Nothing could be done except let it heal. That tooth was much shorter than the other one until yesterday. Then yesterday evening, he fell off a stool and did a repeat performance, this time knocking out his other tooth and making a mush of his upper lip again.

Once again, the advice from the doc was to do nothing and let it heal. He rang the dental hospital and they concurred particularly considering they are his baby teeth.

But we are worried about the full teeth and what the likelihood is that they’ll come down ok. Anyone else have kids where this happened? I’d hate for the poor mite to have to get implants at an early age. I know too many people with those already.

I hope he gets something nice in town with Catherine today. The tooth fairy gave him a tenner cos she felt so sorry for him.

My sister Orla bought me a pasta machine for Christmas and I finally got around to trying it out on Saturday.

Myself and Sibéal decided to make a mix of tagliatelle and spaghetti. Neither of us had made it before and her excuse is that she is only 3.

I had the usual recipe problem of not knowing which one to use. Jamie Oliver’s Italy book said 6 eggs and 600g of flour and that’s it. Another no-name one also added oil and water and salt. I went with Jamie but the dough was far too dry, so I added a bit of oil and that seemed to do the trick.

I clamped the machine to the worktop and ran into the first big problem, I don’t have three hands. Oh for that extra 1970′s ad washing-up hand to appear. You have to feed the dough in, feed it out on the other side and crank the handle. The first run through was not impressive:

This was mainly because i was attempting to fix a 2 inch think lump of dough through a millimetre wide gap.

Two more attempts went a lot better and we ended up with something which looked vaguely like a long sheet of lasagne. I then ran it through the wider cutters and got my tagliatelle.

Sibéal took over for the narrower cutters and ended up with far better looking spaghetti.

Fatal flaw was then discovered – we hadn’t floured the dough so all the strands stuck together again. I valiantly tugged them apart for twenty minutes, dumped the lot in boiling water and ended up with something that looked and vaguely tasted like pasta. None of the kids would touch it and they were right as the tagliatelle was undercooked and the spaghetti overcooked. Bin.

I’m unfazed and will go at spaghetti again. Or maybe lasagne if I lose my nerve. Any top tips for the next time? Except maybe looking at PodChef Neal’s pasta videos before we start? Should we rest the dough even when using a machine? Was the cheap book right when it said you only need minimal kneading if you are using the machine since it does it for you?

Technorati Tags: pasta, pasta+maker, Jamie+Oliver

Oscar is a bright kid who loves to read. His favourite novel is Le Catalogue d’Argos. In fact he loves the Horrid Henry series (and other similar ones). The only subject he is weak in is, surprise surprise, Irish. Unlike Oisín and Sibéal, he never went to Naoinra so started on it cold in junior infants. We’re hoping to get him into Irish as a bit of a challenge but the books have to engage him.

Anyone out there have recommendations for good exciting reads in Irish for kids aged around 7? Catherine found this site but most of those descriptions sound a bit boring e.g. where is Mamo’s tooth? Does something old fashioned like the equivalent of The Secret Seven or Famous Five even exist in Irish?

Technorati Tags: Irish, Books, Gaeilge, Adventure, Kids+Books