Queen Bee

My friend John as just moved to Rotterdam and speaking of beekeeping, he sent me this.

Thanks John.

Scary Mary

As anyone who knows me will be unsurprised to learn, I was raised by Mary Poppins. It was the seminal film within our house as kids. I watched it endlessly, or at least what seemed like endlessly - at least twice anyway.

Facebook has thrown up this little beaut, courtesy of Colm. It's very clever really, and I think it legitimately illustrates the concerns of a large group of people whom Mary Poppins scared the bejaysus out of.

What's really interesting about it is it shows how something can take on a different meaning when it is taken out of its original context. With a bit of clever editing, anything to be turned on its head; it's the essence of good propaganda. Note also, how important the music is. Mary's lullaby is used as a rouse, followed by those chaotic strings designed to make the heart beat faster. It's only a minute long, but it really is a very subtle and succinct creation.

I recently read the original book Mary Poppins by Pamela Travers. Once you read the book, you see that she wasn't as sugar coated candy sweet as Disney and Julie Andrews would make her out to be.

Hide the children.

It's all an illusion

Having seen the trailer for this last week, I bundled Grant off the the Lighthouse to see The Illusionist. It's a strange film; I'm not entirely sure that I got it. Perhaps it was too subtle for me.

It was beautiful though. The drawings are beautiful and the story was sad, weird, poignant and oddly silent. At the end of the film I turned to Grant and said "Well?" He was oddly silent too.

There's hope

"And my favourite show, which thank God only ran one season because it was truly distasteful - was The Littlest Groom where thirty desperate women competed to marry a dwarf!"

Smart, funny and fair.

It was Panti who had originally posted this on her blog, so I stopped to watch it. I was so impressed that I hunted down Savino's website and wrote her a quick email of thanks.

Stephen Slater

About two weeks ago, there was much ado in the media about a flight attendant for JetBlue airlines in the US called Stephen Slater. One day Stephen just had enough; one unreasonable passenger too many; he saw red. And then he saw yellow - the yellow of the inflatable slide as he bounced his way out of his airline career and into his fifteen minutes of international fame.

Whilst working on a Stephen Slater t-shirt design earlier, I came across this article. It is written by a fellow flight attendant on condition of anonymity. It's well written and thought provoking, and best of all it's balanced. It shows but the pros and the cons for what Stephen did. I recommend that you read it. You might learn from it. I did.

Denis Doherty

On the evening on the results of the Leaving Certificate, my mind strays to thoughts of Denis Doherty; one of the best teachers I ever had. With Denis, you either loved him or you hated him, either you got him, or you didn't. Quite like me, I suppose.

He was a small, beardy, bug-eyed man from Donegal. He wore odd-socks, he was a Joycean scholar and a rather subversive homosexual. He thought us about Fraud (sorry Mam) and a great many other things besides. And then he was gone; he vanished off to that place where wonderful substitute teachers go.

I'd quite like to seem him again. I would be nice to catch up and see what he would make of me and how I have done so far in this thing I call life. I suppose going back to study English would probably bring a certain wry smile to his lips. Wry smiles - they were something that he dispensed regularly.

In the meantime, I'll leave you with memorable line of his and a song which he so often quoted.

"That's what you'll find about UCD. Everyone there is either called Fiona, or Dave - and that's just the men."

- Denis Doherty,

Fifth Year English, Rang Sláine, Coláiste Cois Life, 2004.

Denis Doherty, this is for you.

His and hers

I'd heard a lot of good things about a new Irish film called "His and Hers" and I was really hoping to catch it before it left the cinema. So when the Lighthouse emailed me to say that they were still showing it, I informed Stephen that I was bringing him to the pictures.

It was fantastic. Stephen laughed and cried, poor thing. It was really really good. I'm so glad when a thing lives up to one's expectations... Not only that, but it was Stephen's first time in the Lighthouse. He loved it, which I'm thrilled about as it's my favourite piece of modern architecture in Dublin and I like when non-architects feel the same way I do about a building.

Anyway, here's the trailer for it here. It's wonderful to watch; perhaps even better to watch, having seen the film.

It's still showing in the Lighthouse for the rest of the week. Grab it while you can. It's worth it.

Dublin looking lovely

This caught my eye this afternoon. It's lovely to see my lovely Dublin looking so lovely.

"Dad! The car is broken!"

This is the latest offering from Specsavers. Pure understated brilliance!