Writing for life

I’ve written about the Tuesday Push before.

It’s a great idea — and a wonderful way to harness the collective influence of passionate and motivated people. The fortnightly “push” is all about bringing truly worthwhile Irish companies and concepts to a much wider online audience, and is the brainchild of Irish Web Awards and Irish Blog Awards organiser  Damien Mulley, of Mulley Communications (Mulley, you have far too broad a web presence man… my mouse finger is worn out with all the linking).

The Tuesday Push isn’t about pimping a product or service for the sake of it, or about garnering links for search engine mojo — although it certainly won’t hurt in that regard. No, it’s about prompting individual bloggers to feature a company, product or service they genuinely believe in, and encouraging them to do so in a coordinated way that maximises impact and exposure.

There’s no compulsion, other than the desire to promote something genuinely outstanding, and everyone is free to decide whether to “push” the nominee or not in any given fortnight.

You can find more about the Tuesday Push on the associated blog, where you can  also request a “push” for your own company, product or service.

You’ll find Damien’s take on it here, and don’t forget to follow @TuesdayPush on Twitter to keep up to date.

You might also want to check out some of the previously featured recipients of the Tuesday Push. There are some great companies and great ideas there that are well worth following.

Reduce, reuse, recycle.
 
The venerable three Rs of sustainable waste management. We’ve heard the mantra time and again: the powers-that-be urging all of us to be front runners in the race against waste. It’s a laudable goal, one that we’ve wholeheartedly embraced, and that we have tried to instil in the girls from day one. But while central and local government are pushing the green message, their record on the ground leaves a lot to be desired.

Human nature dictates that people only change their behaviour when there’s a compelling reason to do so. While a few conscientious souls will go to extraordinary lengths to reduce consumption, re-use materials and recycle as much as possible, the vast majority of the population are quite comfortable leaving things the way they are. Convenience and value are the order of the day. If local authorities are serious about the mass adoption of sustainable waste-management practices they need to make it easier and cheaper than the alternative.

So what do the “geniuses” at Cork County Council do? They implement a blanket €3 levy on people bringing their recycling to the local Civic Amenity site.

It’s completely bonkers! First they cut back on the recycling facilities at local village “bring sites” across the county, forcing tens of thousands of households (or at least those who are willing) to drive their recycling to a central Civic Amenity site, and now they introduce yet more inconvenience. You’d swear they were trying to put people off!

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The finalists of the Irish Blog Awards have been announced!

Unfortunately neither this blog nor the SOHO Solo West Cork blog made the cut — but I can’t say I’m surprised. The shortlisted blogs are superb, and I’ve been neglecting mine a bit of late. I was plenty stoked just to make it to the long-list .

Anyway, this is just a quick post to congratulate all those who made it through, and to wish them all the very best on Saturday night in Cork.

If you haven’t already, check out the blogs that made the cut… they’re well worth a look.

A report released in Britain recently suggests that the headline grabbing woes of a plummeting economy could be the least of our worries. What we really need to concentrate on, suggests the “Good Child Report”, is getting this parenting thing right. And according to the report, which was commissioned by the Children’s society, the British seem to be getting it oh-so-wrong.

Statistically Ireland doesn’t fare quite so badly on the parenting front, but looking at some of the questions the report raises I can’t help thinking that we can’t afford to be smug. Have you ever argued with your partner in front of your children? Do you ever take the easy approach and let them sit in front of the television instead of going for a family walk? Have you ever shouted at them for no reason other than the cumulative frustrations of parenthood? Do you sometimes give in when you really should stand firm?

Any parent would answer yes to most, if not all of those things. That does not make them a bad parent, of course, but all of those traits, if they become a dominant factor in the parent-child relationship, can lead down the slippery slope to parenting oblivion.

A very talented software developer I used to work with way back when — Walter Higgins (@walter on twitter) over at Cork based Sxoop Technologies — has developed a cool little application that builds a clickable photo-montage of all your twitter followers’ avatars.

People are already putting the resulting Twitter Mosaics on their blog posts, desktop wallpaper, mugs, T-shirts, bags, business cards… you name it. The application has evolved somewhat since I first looked at it — and now lets you selctively delete avatars from the resulting mosaic and even order printed products. It also presents you with the HTML code to embed the mosaic on your own website or blog post.

So if you’re on Twitter, why not check out your own Twitter Mosaic.

Great work by Walter and the crew at Sxoop, and proof, yet again, that when it comes to Twitter application ingenuity Ireland in general, and perhaps Cork in particular, is leading the charge.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Sxoop Technologies turn a buck on Twitter (patphelan.net)
• Tuesday Push: Twitter Mosaic from Sxoop Technologies (ewritecork.com)
• Twitter Mosaic: Using the long tail to make money from Twitter (antonmannering.com)
• Tuesday Push was Sxoop (web2ireland.org)

Yay! This blog, and the SOHO Solo West Cork blog that I look after, have both made it to the Irish Blog Awards longlist.
 

I’m delighted… although a little curious that I’m in the “journalist” category. I’ve been accused of journalism (very) occasionally, but have never really considered myself a journalist, as such. I write about stuff that interests me… and I’m very lucky that sometimes people pay me … but you won’t find me actively hunting down the latest scoop, or unearthing some nefarious government scheme.

This post is very much a case of “Better Late than never”. I meant to post about it last week when the longlists were announced, but decided to migrate to a new operating system (I ditched Microsoft Windows Vista in favour of the Kubuntu variant of the Ubuntu Linux Distribution — but more on that in another post) which took more time than anticipated.

So I’m rushing this out just before the shortlists are announced. Whatever happens I’m over the moon to have made the longlist… twice.

It’s refreshing when you see some genuinely good television.

Refreshing, but depressingly rare. Our screens are flooded with vacuous celebrity talent shows and patently unreal reality programmes. Television schedules crossed the  boundary into the banal a long, long time ago, and with the exception of a few pinpoints of light among the shadows of mediocrity, show no sign of returning to a more cerebrally stimulating norm any time soon. Little wonder that the youth of today are eschewing TV and are spending increasing amounts of their leisure time online, interacting with their peers in all sorts of ways.

As I write this, as if to reinforce the point, a mid-morning re-cap of dancing on ice is flickering across the TV screen in the other room. The off switch really is the only escape.

But despite the tidal wave of mediocrity television still has the power to enthrall and inform.

Last night I had the pleasure of watching David Attenborough present an exploration of Charles Darwin’s tree of life — a look at the celebrated naturalist’s extraordinary journey as he struggled first to unravel the mysteries of natural selection and evolution, and then to prove his controversial theories to a sceptical world.

Attenborough, naturally, was at his seasoned and consummate best: an inimitable presenter who engages and informs with just the right amount of gravitas, but without overshadowing programme content. Who, you wonder, will take up the mantle of television’s most celebrated wildlife presenter when he inevitably hangs up his microphone? Please television gods, let it not be Bill Oddie!

I’m writing this sitting on the viewing balcony of Dunmanway public swimming pool. The girls are doing swimming lessons, and though Mum usually takes care of business, this week Dad’s on duty!

Now, swimming isn’t exactly what you’d call a spectator sport. Once every four years, when the Olympics roll around, maybe, but any other time forget it! Watching children learning is… well, let’s just say it wouldn’t be too near the top of my list of things to do before you die. Swimming with them is another matter, of course. Getting into the pool, or even better the sea, and playing with the children has to be one of the highlights of any holiday.

The lessons though, are important. We don’t live far from the coast, and are often on the shore, and sometimes even in the sea during the summer months. We also have a small boat that we’ve been threatening to do up and get into the water for the last three summers, but that might actually make it to sea again this year. So swimming lessons are crucial, and the girls are coming on a treat.

The twins are tall and thin, and glide through the water effortlessly – or at least they did until their current teacher started getting them to do an appalling straight-armed version of the front crawl. I’d defy anyone to move gracefully through the water while swinging their arms like demented windmills.

The little one, on the other hand, is possessed of a more robust build. Her natural swimming style? You can only describe it as brick-like!

It doesn’t matter what she tries, she pushes off the side with gusto, kicks her little legs valiantly, does absolutely everything right… and sinks like a stone.

It’s a twist of fate – she’s a natural sinker. The human body is more than 80% water, and is usually neutrally buoyant: with our breath exhaled most of us will float with our heads just below the water’s surface. But as with most things in nature this isn’t a hard and fast rule; some people float, others sink.

The little one sinks.

Luckily, sinking doesn’t seem to phase her too much… she just proceeds under the water, sticking her head up when she runs out of air. Every week she’s loving the water more, and every week the teacher does her level best to coax her to the surface. Meanwhile, down in the deep end the twins have stopped learning how to do the front crawl wrong, and are now treading water while clapping their hands – which of course is a vital skill to have if you’re on a cruise ship and fall overboard whilst applauding the cabaret act.

This is one of the reasons I don’t bring them to swimming lessons more often. My pedantic nature, and the fact that I’m a pretty good swimmer, means that I often spend the car journey home correcting what the swimming teacher has taught them. I shouldn’t, but sometimes I can’t help myself. It confuses the issue and does more harm than good.

Then again, I remember my Dad doing the same thing when I was their age. There was one swimming teacher in particular who’s methods clashed with Dad’s view of how swimming should be taught. Every week he’d tell me not to do it that way, do it this way instead. It was hard at the time, but as I improved and moved on to more advanced classes with other teachers, guess what I found out? Dad had been right all along.

I suspect something similar is happening here… but what to do? Do I let things run their course, or intervene and tell the twins that, actually, you don’t keep your arms straight when you’re doing the front crawl? Or perhaps I should focus on teaching the little one how to float first, and let the twins sort themselves out.