I have been continuing the work on moving my site from nasty tables to nice xhtml and css. The pictures page is the latest one to get a make over.

It now validates as correct XHTML according to the W3C’s validator and it looks okay in Firefox. Except it looks gack in IE. Some quirk of the fact that IE doesn’t properly support CSS means every second image box is jumping off to the left across the screen. It wouldn’t bother me so much but I have a bit of pride in my site, and I am not massively happy with the layout of the pictures on that page anyway. What you see is pretty much a conversion of the old tables based layout. And it just lacks something.

I need to have a think about a better approach for that layout. Suggestions are also welcome!

Tim Burton and Johnny Depp (both of whom I think are brilliant) are in the process of destroying a Christmas Icon. Thanks be to f*ck I say!

The first trailers for the new version of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory are out now. This is the one that the Dahl family have approved. They never liked the Gene Wilder version. It should be out in July.

I took this picture this morning and there is a bit of a story to it.

I was working on breakfast in the kitchen and I could see the man stopping to feed the ducks by the bank of the Dodder in Milltown. The ducks in the Dodder are no fools, they know free food when they see it. As soon as anyone stops by the side of the river they swim over to see what is on offer. This man quickly had a gathering of quackers.

There are some Moorhens in the areas as well. And they swam over too, but without webbed feet they can’t go as fast. The Moorhen is not as bold or cheeky as the duck. They are shy little birds, that don’t want to cause any trouble for anyone (which is why they are Laura’s favourites). So they sort of hang around discretly at the edge of the feeding frenzy.

Seaguls are not as polite. And they are also keen eyed. Within a few minutes they had descended on the ducks and were bullying their way in to feed. The man would pause to let them go away as he only wanted to feed the ducks.

But beside him his two dogs were confused – “Hey we thought we were your friends! Why can’t we have some bread too!”

A small moment on the Dodder early on a Saturday morning

I was planning to go out for a walk tonight, however the weather got the better of me. It’s -5°C and snowing here in Munich.

Ordinarily I would don some of my collection of warm, waterproof, bad weather busting, high tech mountaineering clothing to do the walk, but this is a business trip! All that useful stuff is back at home in Dublin. I have to make do with Gucci loafers, hand tailored suits and an Armani trench coat. I nicked all of them off some guy in the room next to me to replace my jeans and check shirt

I did get out last night for a bit of a potter. The photos you see here were taken then.

One of the things I have never understood about hotels, even after spending two and a half months living in them last year, is the “Turndown Service”. Around seven or eight in the evening a person comes to the room and turns down the bed sheets, leaving two small chocolates there. Or as happened this evening when they saw I was in the room, they just hand me the chocolates at the door. What is the point of this ritual?

It is something that luxury hotels trumpet – “we offer a turndown service”. But I fail to see what it is for. What is so luxurious about someone folding back a corner of the duvet. And while the chocolates are nice why just turn up with them in the evening. If the idea is to see do I want anything I still think it is a pretty dump concept. I could easily pick up the phone to reception if I had to, and I am more put out by the fact I have to see who is at the door. If it was my money paying for the hotel room a turn down service is not something I would be looking for.

Some people from Florida came by here a while ago. They were looking for the plot. They appear to have lost it.

I installed Denyerec’s Amazon Media Manager plug in this evening. This allows me to log the books, DVDs and games I am keeping myself entertained with at the moment. Thanks go to Janine at WYSIWYG for letting me know that there was a new version out for WordPress 1.2.

Hooray, a corrupt politician has got jail time. About bloody time. It’s just shame he didn’t get longer. I would have said 1-2 years would have been more appropriate. But it won’t be his last day in court.

In the taxi to the airport this afternoon RTE subjected us to vox-pops from people in Swords in Ray Burke’s old constituency. As if a person door-stopped on the main street shortly after the sentence was announced is representative of the public’s opinion? Of course RTE get’s to choose the number and range of opinions that were aired. For that reason I am not too concerned that more than half the people they talked to said the poor man was hard done by. Michael Lowry and Beverly Cooper-Flynn got re-elected despite their obvious involvement in dodgy dealings, so I have long despaired of the idiocy of Irish voters. (And don’t get me started on people voting for Sinn Féin, a party with established links to organised crime).

What really surprised me was the inability of the people interviewed to string together a coherent sentence. Now I will make allowances for the fact they were probably caught on the hop by the microphone wielding journo, but they really seemed to have trouble expressing themselves. Random words tumbled out, with bits of clichés. Phrases would make sense but sentences didn’t seem like they were constructed by people with English as a first language. I am guessing that was the best of what RTE had to broadcast as well. I suppose people were worked up, surprised at being stopped and their brains failed when they tried to say something that would sound profound or noteworthy when broadcast. Instead the people of Swords sounded like ignorant bumpkins that had been concussed before they were allowed to speak.

All this was at the tail end of the 1 o’clock news, which was then followed by the Archbishop of live line. He first caller wanted to talk about poor Ray Burke and all he had done for the people of North County Dublin. I had had enough! I asked the taxi driver to change the channel and we listened to Lyric for the rest of the trip. By some odd coincidence this was the same taxi-driver that had taken me to the airport last Monday as well. Small world or wha’?

Wow! I just saw Saturn. And not as a high quality Cassini shot either. But an indistinct, wobbly blob that seemed to have “ears” as Galileo put it. It was all the more surprising as I wasn’t expecting to see Saturn and I was on my balcony in Miltown about 18:30 this evening.

I had just returned from Limerick. Driving up the M7 the nearly full moon was in front of me for much of the way and I thought this would be a great opportunity to fire up my new telescope. Because of light pollution I thought I would really only be able to see the moon. However there were a few bright stars out as well, including Orion, south over the Dublin/Wicklow mountains. Just for fun I cranked the telescope down to the brightest one below and slightly left of the moon. As I twirlled the focus nob I thought “this one seems a little lop sided” and suddenly it lept into focus. A little yellowish white dot with what was certainly a ring around it.

It’s hard to describe the thrill I got looking at it. I felt like a child discovering some wondrous part of the world for the first time. The fact that it has been seen, probed and examined by countless others over the centuries didn’t matter. I had looked upon one of the heavenly bodies of the solar system myself, the hard way, and the view was more special that any number of high res photos sent back by advanced probes orbiting next door to the planet.

That is why I wanted a telescope since I was a child and the moment of truth was a special as I imagined. Thank you very much to all my family that bought it for me this Christmas. You have given me the cosmos as a present!

The delights of travel mean my cinema going has suffered considerably. Even when I am in Dublin I am usually so busy that I never seem to be able to make it along to see anything, and it is so much hassle to drive to a suburb-plex. So I was delighted to hear that the new Dundrum Town Centre will have a 12 screen ‘plex when it opens in a few months. It will be just a two stops up the Luas from me in Miltown and if they just ban popcorn and mobile phones it will have all the ingredients for a great cinema experience (I hold out no hope for enthusiastic friendly staff that are there for something other than the minimum wage pay).

Anyway I did make it into town last weekend to the UGC for a 12:50 showing of The Incredibles. That was an odd time, but I had nothing else on, and the €4.50 admission was quite an incentive. Actually sharing the cinema with two groups of smallies (there to re-watch it with their parents/minders/keepers) was a bit of fun as they cheered, laughed and really got into the film in different ways to me, the gruff oldie.

The film itself was great. I thought it was much more intelligent and thought out than the likes of Shrek. Whereas it was chock full of cinema references, they were not slammed over your head. e.g. the chase scene in the forest that owed a lot to the speeder chase in Return of the Jedi. The whole look and feel was reminiscent of a 60′s or 70′s Bond film.

For a “kids” film it seemed surprisingly adult as well. Only rarely did I feel that a scene was being played for younger viewers, and sometimes that surprised me into thinking, “what is a scene like that doing in an adult film?”. The humour, action and drama was nicely balanced as well. And it may be something of a feature of computer animated films but it was easy to follow what was happening at all stages of the action. Something that many “live action” films could learn from.

Special mention has to go to Holly Hunter for the amazing voice work she did. Too often celebs are just drafted in for the pulling power their name gives. But that woman certainly earned her money for this film! Through her voice alone she added greater depth and believability to the character. I don’t think I have heard the like before in an animated film. Or have I been seduced by her lovely southern accent?

This one is definitely a +2 “Must See”

Here I am back in Stockholm. The last time I was here I left in the middle of a blizzard. This time the weather here is a little damp and cool, about 4° C. Which is in contrast to back home in Ireland where it is snowing! Maybe this has something to do with the imminent arrival of IKEA to Ireland (imminent here being three years, but anyway). As part of this there may have been a friendly weather swap, Sweden has provided Ireland with snow and we have sent the Swedes “a grand soft day thank God” (i.e. a months worth of rain, mixed with mist and wind).

But it doesn’t matter me too much as I am in work most of the time. I only get to see the city when I potter about at night. This evening I was given a dinner recommendation by Fredrik who I am working with in Stockholm. So I found myself wandering up Drottninggatan, one of the main shopping streets in the city, idly window shopping for something in the nature of a surprise for Laura on my way to “Grill“, a trendy local eatery.

Their thing is grilling all their food (including the deserts) in one of five different ways. I was well impressed with the place. I had a gorgeous lamb in pita for starter. There was an amazing cornucopia of eastern flavours from it that wasn’t overwhelming. The main course then was grilled veal escallops done in a Mexican style with salsa, sour cream and guacamole. Also very good, but it lacked the exquisite edge that the lamb had. I would have to give this place a “Must Visit” rating for someone in Stockholm. Thanks for the pointer Fredrik!

Sometimes restaurant eating can be a perk of all this business travel, but you do have to watch your waistline. So, as far as possible I try to confine myself to eating out for dinner to once per trip. There are a host of tricks for keeping your meals small when abroad. A regular one with me is stocking up on the breakfast buffet and putting some of the food aside for later. The trick is to keep the housekeeping staff in the hotel from making off with your stash

The flip side to the nice meals though is you usually eat alone. So I make the effort to invite along guests. And tonight it was the eminent zoologist and author Richard Dawkins. He has been entertaining (and educating) me for the last few days with his book “A Devil’s Chaplain“. He makes a perfect dinner companion, being engaging, witty, stimulating and thought provoking. He can invoke feelings of awe, wonder, astonishment and rage. And this certainly beats making desperate small talk with some fellow traveller from the hotel!

A Devil’s Chaplain is a collection of essays that Dawkins has written for various publications and people down through the years. He covers a range of topics from biology, evolution (the field he is best known for), education and science in society, religion and so on. I am only half way through it so far but I have to recommend “Postmodernism disrobed” on the nonsense that is postmodernist criticism, “The joy of living dangerously: Sanderson of Oundle” on what education should be about and “Unfinished Correspondence with a Darwinian Heavyweight” on why real scientist should not bother debating with creationists. I am sure before the end I will have found other brilliant gems in this jewellery shop of delights, and I look forward to dining with professor Dawkins again.