Freezing cold Reykjavik

I'm back on tour 1-2-3.

Greetings from beautiful but freezing cold Reykjavik. It's about -1 to +1 Celcius and with a clear blue sky pretty much since I arrived here it's great to get out of the non-stop rain that lovely Cork had to suffer from in the last few days.

Ah well, will be back in Cork tomorrow afternoon to show mum around for the long weekend. Should be great fun! Have a safe flight mum!

Thanks for dinner dad!

Okay, I was supposed to be on leave today, but I decided to go in this morning just for a few hours to ensure everything is okay before I fly to Reykjavik on Monday morning. Eitherway, I met up with dad yesterday afternoon on our hunt for blinds for the livingroom and small bedroom, but without any success. Except for Argos nobody has pre-made blinds and surely Argos' blinds were either 2 inches too wide or 9 inches too small.

Lovely!

Well, at least we had a great time walking the streets of Cork and enjoying a quick bite at Scoozi's!

'Get out! Quick, quick, get out!' - Part 2

The airplane emergency evacuation I wrote about last week actually made a local Cork newspaper. Thanks to Emma for providing the article!

Little Seamus

Seamus was at school this morning and the teacher asked all the children what their fathers did for a living. All the typical answers came out, Fireman, Policeman, Salesman, etc, but Seamus was being uncharacteristically quiet and so the teacher asked him about his father.

"My father is a dancer in a gay club and takes off all his clothes in front of other men. Sometimes if the offer is really good, he'll go out with a man, rent a cheap hotel room and let them sleep with him."

The teacher quickly set the other children some work and took little Seamus aside to ask him if that was really true. "No" said Seamus, "He plays football for Ireland but I was just too embarrassed to say..."

Flower baskets in Monkstown

Yesterday morning my dad flew into Cork Airport and as the rain finally let up for a few hours we took a drive last night to Monkstown and finished up in Douglas with a quick pint in Barry's.

Nothing strange planned for tonight, Dee is back to college as her professor has recovered from the flu, so I'd say dad and I will be making some grub and watching Milan vs PSV Eindhoven on Sky Sports.

Wouldn't ye just love to bring him home

A new-born giant panda has finally been named.

This only happens in Ireland

Motorcyclist dies in Limerick road collision
From:ireland.com
Monday, 17th October, 2005

A motorcyclist died following a collision with a cow in Limerick to bring the number of road deaths this weekend to four.

The man (42) was travelling along a country road near Barnagh, Newcastle West, at 1am this morning when the crash happened.

Inferno

Last night we went to see the Inferno Fire Show as part of Cork European Capitol of Culture. It's hard to impress me, but this was something spectacular! If you have a chance, go and see them if they're somewhere near you.

Irish Government Announcement

Bertie Ahern today announced that he is changing our emblem from a shamrock to a CONDOM because it more accurately reflects the government's political stance. A condom allows for inflation, halts production, destroys the next generation, protects a bunch of pricks, and gives you a sense of security while you're actually being screwed.

Euro English

The European Commission has just announced an agreement whereby English will be the official language of the European Union rather than German, which was the other possibility.

As part of the negotiations, the British Government conceded that English spelling had some room for improvement and has accepted a 5-year phase-in plan that would become known as "Euro-English".

In the first year, "s" will replace the soft "c". Sertainly, this will make the sivil servants jump with joy.

The hard "c" will be dropped in favour of "k". This should klear up konfusion, and keyboards kan have one less letter.

There will be growing publik enthusiasm in the sekond year when the troublesome "ph" will be replaced with "f". This will make words like fotograf 20% shorter.

In the 3rd year, publik akseptanse of the new spelling kan be expekted to reach the stage where more komplikated changes are possible. Governments will enkourage the removal of double letters which have always ben a deterent to akurate speling.

Also, al wil agre that the horibl mes of the silent "e" in the languag is disgrasful and it should go away.

By the 4th yer people wil be reseptiv to steps such as replasing "th" with "z" and "w" with "v".

During ze fifz yer, ze unesesary "o" kan be dropd from vords kontaining "ou" and after ziz fifz yer, ve vil hav a reil sensibl riten styl.

Zer vil be no mor trubl or difikultis and evrivun vil find it ezi tu understand ech oza. Ze drem of a united urop vil finali kum tru.

Und efter ze fifz yer, ve vil al be speking German like zey vunted in ze forst plas.

Same location - different sunset

We've got some amazing sunsets the last couple of nights - the good weather is stretching until Monday, so that's all good! I won't be seeing another sunset from this location tonight as we're meeting some friends after work for a pint. And we so deserve one! It's been a mad, crazy week!

Morals and values

I received this picture months ago but only found it again during the week; Hooliganism at an early age in Rotterdam. I'd better stay here in Cork.

View over Fota

Last night's sunset was absolutely amazing! Photo taken outside the Belvelly Smokehouse on the Fota to Carrigaloe road.

I entered it for the RTE Weaterphoto competition.

Shadows

On approach to Heathrow on a sunny morning

Eightteen minutes!

I've probably explained how small native the Netherlands really is.

Well, upon my return from Dubai I timed it; It takes 18 minutes to fly across the entire country. That's how small it is!

Jasmin tea!

Well, this is Jasmin tea, served basically as a bulb in a glass of hot water;

Give it a few minutes and it opens up like a flower blossoming in spring time!

Where do you get them? Well, probably online, but next time you're in London, make sure you drop by Ping Pong!

De Efteling

You have probably heard us raving about this themepark in the Netherlands. Well, Saturday week ago we went to the Efteling and we had a ball.



The poor creature with the red and white jumper wasn't looking too happy anymore when we got out of the ride!



And yeah, the Python is still my all-time favourite ride!



And this is the way to make sure there's no litter on the streets. Basically you drop you litter in yer man's mouth and he says 'thank you, thank you'. The result is that you have loads of kiddies (and adults too!) running around in search of litter!


Yeah, the 'Pagode' rises up fairly high giving you a nice overview of the park and surroundings.



And yeah, it IS fairly high!

Dubai

Well, this is what Dubai looks like:



But then, when you get out of the city, you're in the middle of the desert



And this is what it's all about: oil



Enough said; it's bloody hot out there!

'Get out! Quick, quick, get out!'

Before reading this post, let me warn you: If you are anxious of airplanes and don't like flying, DO NOT READ ANY FURTHER AS IT MAY RESULT IN YOU NEVER WANTING TO FLY AGAIN.

So what happened? Well, yer all nice and comfy on the bmibaby flight back from Birmingham into Cork waiting for push-back from the gate when you see some people running outside the aircraft and immediately afterwards one of the doors at the rear of the aircraft opens and you have crew members shouting orders: 'Get out! Quick, quick, get out!'

So yeah, first thing you do is just get off the jet and run to the terminal building, while you see three firetrucks and at least 8 people around the tug and front of the aircraft spraying the surroundings with some white foamy stuff. No flames or smoke to be seen, but a lot of people acting on full alert!

While back in the terminal building we were told what happened; The tug (that's the little truck that pushes the plane away from the stand and onto the runway) caught fire while trying to give us our push-back. Even though the engines of the jet hadn't started yet and none of the refuelling cables were connected, the emergency plan got into effect with a full evacuation of the aircraft. Even though the jet itself was not on fire whatsoever, they could not risk anything!

From the terminal we could see what was happening; the tug got towed away, no flames or fire damage to be seen on it, and the pilot (who was on board through it all) disembarked and went off for some debriefing.

After a 60-minute wait we just got a replacement jet, a replacement crew and we were off to Cork! 'Apologies for the delay ladies and gentlemen, we'll get you back to Cork as soon as we can. We hope you will enjoy the flight'.

Let's put it this way, it's good to see that the cabin crews are so well-trained and that the full emergency plan gets executed when there's even the slightest risk!

How did it all look like, well, like this:



Has this put me off flying? Not at all, it wasn't even the plane that had a problem and the emergency response was so excellent that it has reassured me that air travel is still the safest means of transport.

'Thank you for flying bmibaby and good night'

Nice try!

While overhearing the pilot apologising for being late, the girl at the check-in desks announces: 'Aer Arann apologises for the delay of flight RE401 to Birmingham. Due to technical problems this flight will now board in 10 minutes'.

Technical problems me arse!

Nice try though.... everybody bought it, except for this Dutch eejit standing at the top of the queue.

Will try BMIBaby on the way home; let's see if they're better at time keeping.

Unless we need to stay over here for another night obviously.

Eitherway, greetings from sunny Birmingham!

Monday night Birmingham

Back on Tuesday evening.

Back on tour 1-2-3.

Eitherway, it's off to Lauragh after work to see Dee's family from Chicago; should be great fun, haven't seen them in ages!

Enjoy yer weekends lads!

Win a trip to Ireland

Just saw this website, seems like fun! Give it a try!

The Irish Dancing Game