3v!

apparently galway versus kilkenny hurling match the other day was the best ever, i was reading a review of it online yesterday when this line made me laugh:

“it was like being in the gpo getting phone credit when 1916 happened.” tom humphries 22.8.2005 irish times reg. req.

(gpo = general post office in dublin. 1916 = shorthand for the 1916 easter rebellion that had the gpo as its focal point for the fighting and rebelling and what not.)

i never mentioned last week, but the wolf parade gig in liberté back on the 13th was goddam amazing. my poor ears afterwards. they are still recovering. gig was great - a tiny venue that was full and astonished by such an energetic and loud gig.

here is what i am studying this school period. from tomorrow until mid-december.

visualisointi ll (visualisation 2) elävän mallin piirrustus (live model painting (!)) elokuvan viestintä (film communication (i think)) vektorianimaatio (vector animation) multimedian suunnittelu ll (multimedia design 2) elokuvan kuvaus ja editointi (film filming and editing)

i am looking forward to a few months of saying “filum”.

its the stuff dreams are made of. spotted yesterday here in helsinki as we sat in a park.

a fantastic article in this mornings irish times written by their main foreign correspondent conor o cleary who is retiring from the paper after over 30 years of reporting. i remember reading his articles for the last ten years or so from when he was in moscow, bejing and america.

i remember reading the irish independent all the time growing up, i loved reading the international news on the back page but as i grew older i realised that most/all of their international stories were syndicated from english or american news sources (not a bad thing - but i just preferred reading things from an irish correspondents perspective) so i started reading the irish times which had a good network of international reporters for a newspaper of its size.

in todays irish times conor talks about his career, here are some snippets:

in moscow i presented myself, and a bottle of bushmills, to gennady gerasimov, spokesman for mikhail gorbachev. “aha! a small corruption,” he said, “i’ll take it.” irish whiskey was then a rarity in moscow, as were many basic foodstuffs. when asked in an interview broadcast in ireland what i missed most, i replied flippantly, “marmalade”, and soon received more than a dozen jars from listeners. communications were abysmal. telephone calls took a day to get through. i hammered out news copy on a big, noisy telex machine that left my knuckles out of shape. how i loved it! on my first visit home pat kenny asked me on rtéif i was ever followed in moscow by the kgb. i told him i didn’t think so. but i mentioned somewhat indignantly that the tass news agency correspondent in ireland, mikhail smirnov, was followed everywhere by the irish special branch - i had seen them do it quite openly when i met smirnov one day for lunch in dublin. some time later, after smirnov had returned to moscow, a kgb defector exposed him in a book as ireland’s kgb station chief, and next time i was on rtéi made a point of praising the special branch for doing their work. back home the fast-unfolding events in the ussr were followed closely. on a holiday in co leitrim, i encountered a taciturn old farmer, trousers tied with cord, who, when he found out what i did, asked me: “is it true that collectivisation is fucked?” i assured him it was. the end of the cold war meant that when elected president in 1992 bill clinton could take a new approach to northern ireland, and he started a process of bringing the political “untouchables” in from the cold. we entertained loyalists and republicans in the irish times residence in bethesda, just outside washington. when gustyspence and his pals came to dinner they surprised the guests, including irish ambassador dermot gallagher, by singing the nationalist song the fields of athenry - and then telling everyone they noted who joined in and now knew who the republicans were. during that hectic time [reporting from jakarta the time thousands died in uprest] i was introduced to a late-arriving american tv reporter who said (i’m sure he thought in a friendly way): “irish times? you’re a long way from home.” that remark rankles with me to this day - and the fact that i didn’t retort: “so are you!” it is now the rule, not the exception, that an irish times reporter will be there, covering the main world stories. i got revenge of a sort in kuala lumpur when i was singled out from a crowd of foreign reporters (including the american), clamouring for an interview with wan azizah ismail, whose husband, the deputy prime minister of malaysia, had just been imprisoned. i alone was called into the house by wan azizah, who, it turned out, had trained as an eye doctor for six years in dublin. she sat me on the couch and said: “now tell me all the latest scandals about charles haughey!” finally, on a personal note. i worked for several years as a civil servant in northern ireland, and then resigned to do a computer science degree course at queen’s university in belfast. the day i registered at queen’s the course was cancelled and, somewhat arbitrarily, i took english instead, and this led me into student journalism and then the irish times. i had not considered journalism before, nor had anyone in my family, as far as i knew. but in my last years in new york i wrote a column from wall street for the business pages, pretty certain that i was the first irish journalist to do so. then, out of the blue, i was sent some columns from the 1880s, written by a thomas mcconville of guilford, co down, for the ulster observer, when he was travelling in the us. one of these was a column from wall street. thomas mcconville was my great-grandfather. so it was in the genes after all. 20.07.2005 the irish times (reg. req.) here is a complete mirror or the article © the irish times

such a beautiful night here. we cycled into town just after ten - passing by töölönlahti and the biggest moon ive ever seen. the bay looked amazing. the centre was packed packed packed with everyone going to the south of the city to see this years fireworks competition.

the fireworks are fired off from the suomenlinna islands just off the bottom of helsinki. it was there 150years ago that the citizens of helsinki watched as the french and british bombared the fortress on the islands for three days and nights. apparently the citizenry of helsinki went to kaivopuito (a park) and watched the bombardment. well, same thing happened this evenign - except it was mostly teenagers and mostly slightly drunk ones at that. probably 100,000 people were out there looking at the competition amongst five different fireworks companies.

my favourite firework of the night was a part of the fourth teams entry, it was a simple firework that launched into the air - probably only 20metres into the air, then it started to fall - then it stopped and rose again for a few seconds before falling down into the harbour. an audible gasp went up around the audience. great stuff.

i just fixed a css bug that was making this template look strange in internet explorer. i never use ie any more so its probably been like that for months and i never knew.

anyhoo, im off to watch fireworks.

a really nice article about a new bus route that goes between busáras in dublin and warsaw in poland was in saturdays irish times. apparently 40,000 or so polish people live in ireland!. here is an extract from the article.

all aboard for warsaw bus éireann has begun a daily dublin-warsaw route to cater to the state’s growing polish population. this week carl o’brien joins the passengers at busáras on their two-day journey back home. busáras, dublin, wednesday, 7.55pm as she waits in the queue with her friend for the bus to warsaw , 27-year-old eva robaszkiewicz says she’s the happiest she’s ever been since leaving poland two years ago. “i’m not thinking of leaving,” says eva enthusiastically, who is working as a hotel receptionist in dublin. “it feels more and more like a second home. i came here to experience what you might call ‘the irish dream’: to live life here and earn money. people are so friendly, the taxi drivers are great, people smile a lot. i haven’t met rude people. everyone i know, they’ve had a very positive experience.” the queue of young people, laden with bulging rucksacks and suitcases, is a striking tableau: it’s an image eerily similar to the 1980s, when thousands of the pre-ryanair irish generation made their way from this same building to england and germany in search of work. dublin port, wednesday, 9.30pm the car ferry pulls out of dublin harbour, behind a darkening sky with strange swirls of pink and orange on the horizon. the poles stay away from the expensive bar and canteen, preferring to eat their packed lunches of rolls and fruit. employers in ireland often gasp at the work rate of poles, making sometimes glib comparisons that one polish worker is the equivalent of two-and-a-half irish. but their appetite for work is undeniable and it’s one of the reasons they are among the most populous nationalities working in the catering, cleaning, hospitality, construction and security industries. the reputation for hard work has also added to the stereotype of poles as dour eastern europeans, hungry for overtime with little time to socialise or relax. victoria coach station, london, thursday, 9.35am jozef swiellak, wearing a cheap patterned jumper and black slip-on shoes, is sucking on the remnants of a cigarette. he has been working in sligo as a welder for the last year. he’s now making his way to his home town, near krakow, for a two-week holiday and to see his wife. “do you ever feel homesick?” i ask him. he shrugs his shoulders. “yes, sometimes. a little.” “and your wife. it must be difficult being away for up to a year at a time?” again, he gives a non-committal shrug of his shoulders. “and how long have you been married?” “twelve years,” he says, grimly, as his two friends burst into laughter beside him. victoria coach station, london, thursday, 11am a polish man with bulging arms, wearing a green vest, is hugging his young girlfriend for what seems like an eternity. as she boards the departing bus, he stays at the side of the road for a while, trying to catch a final glimpse of her. the girl opens up a small letter, written in an untidy scrawl with words crossed out and rewritten. when she finishes reading, she stands up in the bus, trying to find her boyfriend amid the throngs of people in the station. she can’t find him. when she re-takes her seat, she hugs a stuffed tiger between her arms and re-reads the creased letter at least a dozen times as the bus makes its way towards dover. outside hannover, germany, thursday 7.15pm journeys to ireland in search of work aren’t always successful. karolina (21), a quiet and hesitant student from outside warsaw, arrived in the country with two other friends five weeks ago. the group had nothing, except for some small savings and the address of a friend. after a few weeks looking for jobs, their money ran out and they had no choice except to return home. “we heard from our friends that it was easy to get a job in dublin,” she says. “but there were polish everywhere! on the streets, in the shops. my friends couldn’t find anything.” warsaw, poland, friday, 1.35pm as the 42-hour journey draws to a close, michael nawacki (20) is in upbeat mood. he has spent a few months in london working on building sites during the week and in a pub in acton on weekends. after a frenetic, work-filled period, he’s glad to be returning home. “what i’m really looking forward to is some mielone schabowy [ fried pork] and pluki ziemmiac [ fried potatoes]. the food in england isn’t good. i ate sandwiches all the time. i didn’t have time to eat anything else,” he says. the 20-year-old says his earnings should tide him over the coming months as he continues studying for a degree in european affairs at a university in warsaw, although he’ll need a part-time job as well to make ends meet. while times have been tough in the past, he’s also upbeat about the future. “look at the houses, the office blocks and the roads,” he says, pointing about him. “things have changed a lot. people are getting richer. there is more of everything.” the bus passes a giant ikea store on the fringes of the city, while a gigantic steel-and-glass office tower is being constructed in a business park a little further down the road. not everything has changed. the bus station, in the southwest of the city, is as you’d imagine an eastern european bus station to be: a grimy concrete building straight out of the brutalist school of architecture. “there is a lot of change happening around us,” says michael. “ireland, i think, is an example for poland. and spain too, which has a similar population to ours. “they show how there can be very quick and very successful changes, if it is done correctly.”

full article on the irish times website, you have to pay to read it all though.
bus éireanns press release about the route.

helsinkis olympic stadium as the athletics finished the other night.