hörður got a new supercool slr digicam last week, so i presume he hasnt slept since then taking thousands of pictures. he has put a new album on his site.

Var að setja inn nýtt albúm með fyrstu myndunum úr 300D vélinni sem er ennþá ó svo fín, þetta eru myndir sem ég hef mest tekið bara hérna heima og svo eitthvað smá frá því í dag þegar ég og AJ fórum í polakortið. albúmið er hérna

in the kaapelitehdas here in helsinki there is a photographic museum. last time i was there they had a panoramic of helsinki taken in 1866 from the top of the senate square church.

now, the main newspaper here (helsingin sanomat) has put that picture online with a picture taken in 2003 for comparison. you can view it here. then you can download/view the flash file here (2,2mb)

taken by my friend maeve in bryant park in nyc back in february. super cool.

taken almost two years ago here in helsinki. thats me with the (crazy green) hat.

i was in bed last night, trying to get to sleep. i remembered an irish author, joseph o connor, whom id seen lots of times on the late late show on rté back in ireland. always very funny and interesting. so i thought of asking my mum to post me over some books of his that she had read. then this morning i came online and was reading the irish times when i saw an article by him (need to pay to see all of it). nice little coincidence there.

an embarrassment of riches one night, about five years ago, i turned up to a reception at a dublin bookshop and was surprised to be greeted quite so warmly by the proprietress in the doorway. an excellent lady of mature years, and a resolute supporter of irish writers, she embraced me vigorously before happily informing me that my parents were inside. i was puzzled by this news - my folks hadn’t mentioned being invited to the event - but i allowed her to usher me through the throng of revellers. i must admit, i was enjoying the attention. as she led me along, she garlanded me with compliments: how extraordinarily well my novels were selling; each was more wonderful than the one before; everyone in ireland was proud of my achievements. i modestly replied that i was only doing my artistic duty, but was gratified, of course, to have lifted the nation’s spirits. yes, it was lonely on the rock-face of language, but one felt one had a calling - a vocation if you like. by now we had reached a corner where an elderly couple were quietly enjoying a glass of wine. “here is your son!” my admirer announced. to rory and ita doyle, the parents of roddy. i can’t actually remember what happened next, but remarks about spectacles were hurriedly made. i think mr doyle - or “dad”, as i prefer to call him - was kind enough to say i looked like his son, or would do, perhaps, if the lights were dimmer and roddy was fatter by several stone. i felt many emotions, only one of which was embarrassment.

a fantastic article (that has nothing to do with joseph o connor) that im currently half way through is one in a recent “new yorker” magazine.

war after the war: what washington doesnt see in iraq (by george pecker) in the pentagon’s scenario, the responsibility of managing iraq would quickly be handed off to exiles, led by chalabi-allowing the u.s. to retain control without having to commit more troops and invest a lot of money. “there was a desire by some in the vice-president’s office and the pentagon to cut and run from iraq and leave it up to chalabi to run it,” a senior administration official told me. “the idea was to put our guy in there and he was going to be so compliant that he’d recognize israel and all the problems in the middle east would be solved. he would be our man in baghdad. everything would be hunky-dory.” the planning was so wishful that it bordered on self-deception. “it isn’t pragmatism, it isn’t realpolitik, it isn’t conservatism, it isn’t liberalism,” the official said. “it’s theology.”

crazy.