Wine Tasting in Bubble Brothers
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.
Posted by Conor O'Neill on Sunday, September 21, 2008
Environmentally friendly investing
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.
Posted by Conor O'Neill on Friday, September 19, 2008
SOHO Solo West Cork
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”.
Posted by Conor O'Neill on Monday, September 15, 2008
Creativity and Education
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.
Posted by Conor O'Neill on Saturday, September 13, 2008
Now THIS is how to make an ad
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.
Posted by Conor O'Neill on Friday, September 5, 2008
Food Culture in West Cork
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.
Posted by Conor O'Neill on Tuesday, September 2, 2008
Bat Advice
That has to be the strangest blogpost title I’ve ever used.
We arrived back from our much-needed and many-years-delayed holiday to France yesterday (long blog post to follow soon on that). A few hours later Catherine picked up a j-cloth in the kitchen sink to find……a bat!
It was absolutely tiny, barely bigger than my thumb and we had no idea what to do with it. I gently picked it up with a cloth (are they disease carriers?
Posted by Conor O'Neill on Sunday, August 31, 2008
Think your killer recipe would sell in a supermarket?
Aisling from RTE in Cork contacted a bunch of Irish bloggers about a new show they are doing. I’m thrilled she did, considering it’s exactly what I recommended only a few weeks ago in the context of my “Heat” review.
The idea is simple, it’s a 6 part competition show called Recipe for Success that will see 15 home cooks battle it out to have their own gastronomic creations stocked on the shelves of SuperValu.
Posted by Conor O'Neill on Sunday, August 31, 2008
The Annual Slow Food West Cork Lough Hyne Picnic
I just got a note from Anthony Creswell of Ummera Smokehouse to let me know about the annual Slow Food picnic. It is on this Sunday August 17th.
Climb up Lough Hyne and treat yourself to a scrumptious picnic while gazing at the spectacular view. Meet at bottom of Lough Hyne to collect your pre-ordered picnic at 1:00pm. They aim to start the climb at 1:30pm
Packed picnics by Stephen Canty of Food for Thought Catering
Posted by Conor O'Neill on Monday, August 11, 2008
Fun Food in Arthurstown
A brilliant gift of a cookery course in Dunbrody by my fabulous sister-in-law Paula led to one of the best day’s out I’ve had in ages. Interesting and enjoyable in every way without a dull moment in a gorgeous location.
We did our annual extended family meet-up on the August Bank Holiday weekend in Rosslare recently. On Friday morning I borrowed my mother’s car and drove the 45 minute journey to Arthurstown near the ferry in Ballyhack.
Posted by Conor O'Neill on Monday, August 11, 2008