Spiritual Reading (Bishop Lucey Park, Cork)

Free Spiritual Readings in Bishop Lucey Park (17 May 2008, Cork)

















Free Spiritual Reading in Bishop Lucey Park (17 May 2008, Cork)

Public Toilet (Rutland Street, Cork)

Public Toilet (Rutland Street,Cork)

A public toilet with toilet paper, outside linc cybernet cafe! Can't remember when I last saw anything like it.
Clean, et al.

Graffiti Mania (Carpark, Cork)

Girl in front of wall (Cork)
















Please Pay Here (Cork)
















Bicycle (Cork)

Disco Dancing Angels (Washington Street corner Grand Parade, Cork)

Disco Dancing Angels (17 May 2008)

Wall, (Paul Street, Cork)

Hot Dogging Action

Dogging: a British euphemism for engaging in sexual acts in a semi-public place (typically a secluded car park or a cinema) or watching others do so. The original definition of dogging (and which is still a closely-related activity) is spying on couples having sex in a car or other public place. Internet and text messaging is a very common way of organising meetings. (wikipedia)

Evidently the Cork dogging community is active and thriving. According to swing4ireland website, there have been over 30 dogging locations and meetings arranged in 2008 alone, and no doubt this is not the only place to network on.

Ignorant to this past-time, the first I heard of it was when I moved close to a popular dogging spot some years ago.

It is post titles like By The Dole Office that really highlight the classiness of it all, or the desperation of Anywhere... Somebody let me know where and when, that leave one longingly think – can I join?. Yet, the executive level organisational skills that come to shine in seeing through the event with military precision, should at least be acknowledged.

One of the instructions reads, "Go towards airport ,Right at 'airplane' roundabout, towards airport, 2nd roundabout right,2nd avenue (ave 3000) right, after 3400 building left, and go to residents wall at 4300 building."

All this is short of is - "Bring a compass and a flash light, we have a Morse code specialist at the location, who will be able to assist." It is a bit like boy scouts. I wonder - do you get badges? Please advise.

Nature walk starting at Sarsfield roundabout ending Bishopstown court roundabout however, nearly endears these delicate creatures to me. Who knows what it must be like to be a dogging enthusiast.

Incidentally, dogging was initially cited as a purely British phenomenon.

Ipod

From


To

Bishop Lucey Park (14 May 2008)

Today in Pictures (Cork City)

Whatever happened to Sammy the Seal?

Around this time last year I spotted a seal in the River Lee as I was crossing the bridge to the Bus station one Saturday morning. As a city girl - the large city variety - the appearance of a seal was very foreign to me and it took me a good couple of minutes until I worked out that what I was looking at was not a bin liner but something that is one with nature, so to speak. It had its diver’s outfit type head half exposed above the water, staring at me with huge round dark brown eyes, no more than 5 meters from where I was standing. What loving, soft, brown eyes it had– but it’s hard to tell with seals. Stunned by my find, I stood there gazing back at him, with my not so unloving soft brown eyes, either.

Then I panicked. What do I do? Call the ambulance? Or, maybe the fire brigade? Who do I call? Will it need to be airlifted out of the river? I must need to tell someone that a creature of nature had ended up outside of nature. Something must be done! A year earlier I was living in London where a whale had mistakenly taken a wrong turn and got stranded a long way up the Thames in the city and no one knew what to do with it. This early Saturday morning, I was seeing a similar emergency unfold in front of my mind's eye. Finally I decided there was nothing to be done about it- at least not for now.

Despite telling everyone I met that day, the whole thing was met with a slight bit of enthusiasm and then the topic was changed, which led me to believe that my very urban upbringing and conceptions about life went into overdrive at the sight of something that to my perception should only be seen in nature programmes. It also led me to believe that a seal swam up the river every other day in Cork and therefore it was not really worth mentioning. So I dropped the whole thing.

A day later I saw it again and then, again. Soon it was privately christened Sammy the Seal. Over the following five weeks, Sammy was free-styling it up and down the river between the flour mills and The Gate cinema. If you stuck around for long enough, Sammy would make an appearance somewhere. The more time passed the further up the river I would see Sammy.

Then, he disappeared. After weeks of patrolling the river, Sammy was suddenly nowhere to be found again.

Ever since, I have sometimes longingly walked along the river, wondered if Sammy is doing alright wherever he is - if he finally found his way back into the wilderness or if his carcass lies at the bottom of the river.

The last I heard about the whale in the Thames was that after it died, stranded amongst seven million bewildered Londoners, its bones were given to the Guardian to keep, where it was put on display for a little while and then packed away in boxes to be archived. As far as Sammy goes, I would hate to think that employees of the Irish Examiner are currently using his skin for mouse pads.

Sitting Pretty in Bishop Lucey Park


Builder's Silhouette, Cork

Racism is Rife

The Irish Examiner published two news stories in recent memory. One was entitled Irishman dies after bingeing on Polish Vodka, published on the 22^nd of February 2008, and the other read Three in Four Foreigners not discriminated against, published prior to that. What seems questionable about these headlines is the wording. When a national newspaper can print headlines like these and no one twitches then there is something for everyone to worry about.
Firstly, in a country that has seen a surge of immigration, which appeared quite welcome as long as the people from abroad are doing the jobs no one else wants or are here to supply the workforce that could otherwise not be handled by a mere four million Irish, it is all very well and good. But, but,but... what if they outstay their welcome. Move in not to simply work but live, much like all the rest of us. What then?
So, if the survey may be believed, three in four foreigners do not feel discriminated against. That makes for interesting journalism because in most other places in this world the headline would go a little more like this: One in Four Foreigners feel discriminated against. The remaining 25% are still a hefty proportion of people that are shoved to the side and put in their place by being told to take a good look around and appreciate just how blessed they are that their chance of being discriminated against in everyday life is only one in four. Lucky them!
Irishman dies after bingeing on Polish Vodka does little to help in the way of preventing racism and to encourage thinking about everyone on equal terms. Whatever buffoon was allowed to put this heading on the story is either, as thick as two short planks and shackled with ignorance or there is another agenda. The fact of the matter is that the Irishman James O’Shea binged on vodka, whilst on a holiday in Jaworzno and sadly died as a consequence of alcohol poisoning.
The fact that the vodka was Polish of origin had little to do with anything. If the title is dissected, this is what is going on: the Irishman (in other words, the victim) leaves the safe haven of Ireland, goes abroad and does something rather silly (in this case bingeing). He is then caught out by the deadly evil that is Polish, which in this case comes in the form of Vodka.
This is precisely how the title reads and what it suggests. It says that the culprit is the Vodka; in particular the Polishness of it, although to any half intelligent life form it is clear that there is no culprit. The man drank himself to death and as sad as that may be there is no other way of looking at it.
These type of headings could be expected in a tabloid, in fact nothing better can be expected from a tabloid but when a respectable national paper can allow themselves to print these headings then it reflects a worrying trend in the thought process.
Introducing rules and regulations that meddle with every aspect of your life and enforcing them through engineering public opinion is a feature of the big brother state, which is hard to escape. Hence the smoking ban having taken off so fantastically well in Ireland whilst it is still struggling to establish itself in more free thinking places like Berlin, mainly because no one will abide by the new law. Not that I endorse Big Brother by any stretch, but would it not be descent if only once it could be used to do a bit of good and to spread the right message.