Photo owned by pthread1981 (cc)
UPDATE: It’s confirmed!!!
Brilliant news for Galway:
TAOISEACH Brian Cowen is expected to confirm this week that the next Volvo around the world yacht race will finish in Galway in 2012. Mr Cowen is expected to make the announcement in Dublin, when he will explain that the race festival will be an “all-island” affair.
via Cowen to detail Volvo race’s Galway finish – The Irish Times – Mon, Mar 08, 2010.
Ancient journalist sharpens his pen.
A few strands of flyaway hair was all it took to reconstruct an ancient journalist whose remains were found in a remote region of Ireland, scientists have revealed.
The man’s remains were found in the permafrost of a region of Ireland that is completely cut off from reality and were well enough preserved for scientists to extract his DNA. Based on genetic markers they have been able to reconstruct what he looked like, and from archaeological remains can tell he talked and wrote regularly, but could not ascertain if this involved much substance.
The man, who researchers have named “Jonwatta”, seems also to have had an aversion to extant technology. Contemporary finds have already shown that there was a highly developed social network between tribes involving small parchment messages of around 100-150 characters being passed to each other regularly. Jonwatta conversely appears to have cut himself off from the rest of his tribe and continued to write on the side of a mountain with a big stick and his own fecal matter. These were recovered at the site.
Paleomusicologists are confident that some of the scribblings found were an attempt at songwriting, but these seem to have little impact on the rest of Jonwatta’s tribe.
One of the lead researchers, Dr. Julian Incredibleness, described the scene of the find as quite poignant. “Jonwatta seems to have been feverishly scribbling right up until the very end” he said. “We found him frozen with his big stick in one hand and a handful of fecal matter in the other, and he was around 400 words into his writing. He had little frozen tears on his face, which meant he had tears in his eyes as he wrote this”.
More details in the Irish Times.
I LOVE this strip from Eoin Ryan’s Space Avalanche. Check out the previous toons too!
Via Paddy Brown.
Click to embiggen.
I came across several shelves’ worth of old drawings and designs tonight. This one was an artist’s impression for a proposal that the then Mac Teo (now Arcana) was putting to Croke Park for interval entertainment at the 2001 Hurling Final. The proposal eventually took life as this.
More to follow!
Cartoon by Annie West.
Great craic on Twitter the other night. There was a spontaneous eruption of Charlie Bird Facts after @naoisen suggested it. #Birdfacts topped the trendlist for Ireland for a couple of hours, and there were a few curious tweets coming in from around the world wondering what the hell it was all about.
I’ve listed most of the good ones below.
AllanCavanagh Charlie Bird can detect Denis O’Brien even in an earthquake zone.
AllanCavanagh Remember ‘Nam? THAT’S BECAUSE YOU WEREN’T THERE MAN. Except Charlie Bird. He was there.
AllanCavanagh God was all for getting rid of the Angelus until Charlie Bird told him he quite liked it actually.
AllanCavanagh Charlie Bird can see Ann’s underwear, back in the studio.
SeanMoncrieff Like Ryanair, Charlie Bird has been in hotels quite close to some of the major stories of the past decade.
AllanCavanagh Charlie Bird knows a scene of utter destruction from mere rubble.
AllanCavanagh Charlie Bird has known how Lost’s going to end from the first episode.
tnteacherTim Charlie Bird taught McGyver everything he knows.
AllanCavanagh Charlie Bird has learnt off Google Earth by heart.
susankilkenny Charlie Bird has a bionic ear…but it’s broken at the moment. He’s deaf in the other ear.
AllanCavanagh Charlie Bird was Hunter S. Thompson’s inspiration.
susankilkenny Charlie Bird wrote a State of the Union for Obama…but he lost the address.
AllanCavanagh Charlie Bird is fighting swine flu with his fists, one cell at a time [Read more →]
Me on Culch.ie
