As I mentioned last week, all the national holidays come in a big glut from now till June 1st after which we have ne’re a long weekend in sight till Christmas.

It all kicks off with the Queens day festival, 30th April, marking the birthday of the Queen Beatrix (well actually her mothers birthday, but as QB’s birthday is in January, the pragmatic choice was to leave things in March)

Anyhow, there is Koninginnenacht, the Queens Night, the evening of the 29th, mostly celebrated in The Hague, but also celebrated wherever there is alcohol. Once work finishes the bars open and all hell breaks loose. The next day is Queens Day, Koninginnedag. Amsterdam is awash with Orange, and stalls appear everywhere, selling anything from a broken teapot to a donut, from a dress mannequin to a dental mirror and everything in between. Needles to say with5 days left people are already laying claim to the “best” plots on pavements and the like, marking their turf by writing BEZET in some manner on the ground

Next week my Mum is coming to visit for the festivities, but I do promise to post a round up of it all here.

In honour of this National Day our cocktail this week includes 4 essential Dutch ingredients, no not Hash, Cheese, Tulips and Arrogance…..

Something from BOLS, Genever (Dutch Gin) Orange Colour and the word Dutch!

Comfortable Young Dutch

• ½ shot BOLS Genever (young)
• 1½ shots  Southern Comfort
• ½ shots  Freshly squeezed lemon juice
• 2 shots Freshly squeezed orange juice

Add all ingredients to an iced shaker.
Shake and strain into an ice filled old fashioned glass.

Liquored Up? now lets get Linkered Up!

All this recession talk would have you believe nothing is happening in the shops these days, but I think thats Bull!

And so do Panti, Rick, Redmum, Ian, the Guardian and even CNN

RTE 9 0′clock news

Click here to view the embedded video.

Full CCTV Video

Click here to view the embedded video.

Last night I got a wonderful invite from @kittynel to go for a cruise through the canals on her new boat!

It was gezellig hoor!

Twitter News

We all know Oprah joined Twitter recently, but not to be outdone on the emerald isle, our own fair female shlebs piled onto the social networking train…. Twink, Lorraine Keane, Grainne Seoige, Bláthnaid NíChofaigh, Amanda Brunker and Glenda Gilson all joined very recently and are trying to figure out what the hell is going on!

Speaking, or tweeting about whats hot, Friday saw #doylejoke day. On prompt of @lecraic’s jibe about tweetbombing @darraghdoyle for his “bad” jokes, AJ offered a limited edition Helvetica Moleskine notebook to the best “worst” joke tweeted by 5.30

My last top twitter tale, is this  – Development of a method of tweeting using brain activity

That’s right, no keyboards, just a red cap fitted with electrodes that monitor brain activity, hooked up to a computer flashing letters on a screen. Wilson sent the messages by concentrating on the letters he wanted to “type,” then focusing on the word “twit” at the bottom of the screen to post the message.

The development could be a lifeline for people with “locked-in syndrome” — whose brains function normally but who cannot speak or move because of injury or disease.

Blogger News

Some bloggers need YOUR HELP

The ladies of Gaelick what to know

What the velvet hearts on the tree trunks along East Wall are for?

Panti would like your help resurrecting a lovely turn of phrase

“To Beat the Band”

The Culchies are up in arms, about the possibility of a musical based on the life of Jade Goody with songs such as “DOH! Whats a Dear” and Lottie’s suggestion of Don’t Cry For Me East Anglia? Suggestions on a postcard to the Beeb, where we are sure it will be their new 12 part search for a star.

Other thing happening in the blogosphere, Lilly Collison has moved blog home, she’s now a WP blogger!
Check out her new WWW place of residence www.lilycollison.com

My 2nd appearance on Desked – My Home desk  —>

Biff Sniff has some pretty cool tshirts to mark the demise of the global market economy – click on the image to get your shirt!

Wantsies and Other Stuff

Every Elf has wantsies – and coming up to my birthday…. here are a few of my pointlessly favourite things:

Singing Gizmo from Gremlins – you have to watch the video

Click here to view the embedded video.

Zip up headphones
Mine are always in a mass of knots! They even have a volume control on the zipper!

Noma Bar’s May 2009 Limited Edition Cover for Esquire

and finally: I leave you with two natural wonders:

Northern Lights (as I know they are @fontfiddler’s favourtie thing ever)

Click here to view the embedded video.

and
Scenes from the zoo

According to the World Association of Zoos and Aquariums (WAZA), over 600 million visitors pass through the gates of over 1,300 zoological parks, reserves and aquariums worldwide every year. Springtime brings many new animals to these parks as well, as newborns. Collected here are some photographs from zoos and aquariums around the world from the past couple of months. Don’t forget that 2009 has been designated as the “year of the gorilla” by the United Nations. (37 photos total)

Giant Blue Hand

Yesterday, I took the nephew and his best mate to Dublin for the day. We had planned to see the Big Blue Hand in the ARK. Last year I really wanted to take him to “Beware of the Story-Book Wolves” but what with moving to Amsterdam, and tickets being more popular than I thought it never came to be.

This year I was a bit more organised, and on hearing the adverts on the radio I decided to book the tickets fast. With a bit of to-ing and fro-ing we got the dates sorted and told the boys.

It was good timing all the same (depending on your idea of good) as the Denny Family Day Out was on Sunday too.

Anyhow, after a train ride, where the boys were amazed at a teen aged girl applying eye makeup, who they proclaimed to be a Rockstar, we were on our way to the ARK in Temple Bar. Cue: many many questions on the route, I’m glad it was almost our saints day, cause two 6yr olds would try the patience of many saints.

Finally at the ARK and after a short wait, we get seated in the round. I have to say the theatre is fantastic, as are the staff.  The play began and it was everything I had hoped it would be. There were many levels of the play, and some things went over the heads of younger kids, but kept the parents and older kids entertained in a family friendly way.

The play is dark, and being a play, with real children that the younger audience can relate to and believe in it packs a solid punch. The themes of love and loss and fear and triumph, were well treated with the addition of with a good laugh thanks to some toilet humour and an action packed sword fight to round it all off.  It is aimed at the over 7’s and while I brought two 6yr olds, I do think that any younger than 6 would find the play a bit too much.

The cast were amazing, and as predicted Aunt Farticus Fume was both the most impressive and almost the scariest character after the eponymous Giant Hand. The younger cast members were the real stars, and very believable as they carried the majority of the story.

If you have a chance to beg, borrow, steal or just bring a child to this do. Tickets are selling fast and with good reason. The ARK plays are always a treat and this one is no exception.

I am going home to mind the spawn of Satan, otherwise known as my nephew.

He’s 6, full of energy, an only child and madder than a bag of squirrels.

I will be sleeping with one eye open lest he does something like this to me.

And while the weather cant be upgraded, its not the case for the festivities, especially in the larger cities. I can only speak for Dublin, but I loved the advent of the week long celebrations. So much to see and do to shake off the deep winter blues. I’m looking forward to introducing my young nephew to some of it this year!

And this year we have another addition to what will hopefully be an annual photoblogging/blogging community event

Pixie Ireland’s answer to Flickr, has been working with the organisers of the Irish St Patrick’s Festival on a huge photo sharing project to help document this year’s festival in photos from the perspective of those attending. The aim is to invite everyone bringing their camera to this year’s events to contribute their photos to the official St Patrick’s Festival group so that the experience can be shared with people from all over the world.

This is such a cool idea, its brilliant to have photos from so many all in one place, to be able to experience the festival through so many eyes. I love looking back on everyone’s photos of Pride, every year, the things you missed others spotted, and just another viewpoint on the whole occasion.

To celebrate this new venture, Pix.ie has developed a competition, details to be announced. There are fantastic prizes from Canon with a total value of just under €1,800, these are very generous prizes!!!

• 1st Prize – Canon EOS 1000D digital SLR camera, Selphy ES3 photo printer, 150 Euro photography training course, adding memory card and photo printing paper. Total value €1,050
• 2nd Prize – Powershot E1 digital camera and Selphy ES3 photo printer. Total Value €480
• 3rd Prize – Selphy ES3 photo printer. Total Value €240

But that’s not all, for the St Patrick’s Festival parade on March 17th, they are having the St Patrick’s Festival Pixie Party:

• 20 bloggers and photobloggers will be invited to watch the St Patrick’s Festival parade from a vetted viewing area. Each will be given an official wristband to gain access to this exclusive VIP area.
• 4 bloggers and photobloggers will be invited to watch the parade from the Festival Grandstand.
• 2 photobloggers will be invited to join the world media and take photos of the parade from the elevated position from the official open topped Media Bus which is positioned on the parade route.
• 2 Pixie users will chosen (subject to a security check) and given a Golden Pass which provides exclusive access to the parade route on the day. Only 12 Golden Passes will be issued this year to the international media and this is the first time photographers outside of the national and international media have been invited on into the parade route. This is HUGE.

So how can you get in on the act?

Write a blog post, post a photo on your blog, link to http://pix.ie/group/stpatricksfestival, re-tweet for @stpatricksfest and even if you don’t win one of the  amazing Canon prizes or the parade passes, there is more!

To celebrate the Guinness 250 year anniversary, the Guinness Storehouse are inviting 250 Pixie users, bloggers and photobloggers to continue the Pixie Party after the parade and join in the fun at the Storehouse’s annual Paddy’s Day festival on March 17th. Just go to the pix.ie blog here and declare your interest!

Fore more info and special twitter announcements follow @stpatricksfest and @pixie on Twitter for more information and news about what is going on. (Hashtag for St Patricks’s Festival is #spf09)

Today I spotted on wordpress.com mainpage

Hawt Cark Post Boy

Corklangerdan’s post about how Cork has “honoured” US President Obama by naming a street in the city “after him”

Barrack St in the city centre is the street in question. Pity we didn’t pass through it on our #iba09 photowalk.

I love the supposed text that Obama sent….

“The text reads ‘thnx 4 de shout out lds, nce 1, dat a hurley stcking outta de wall?”

Anyway, nice work Dan!

Note that todays post is about Dutch – Irish relations…. lol, how topical for me!

The 4th Irish Blog Awards took place last Saturday the 21st in
Cork International Airport Hotel

(Otherwise known as “some internet thing, you know like the twatty website” – by my mum)

It was my first Blog/Twitter Event, and it wont be my last!
Its been a (lax, badly run) year since I began this blog and 7 months since I began on twitter.

I never thought I would meet anyone from it, let alone loads of very cool, lovely, funny, amazing, madcap, fantastic, charming, welcoming, sweet, sexy, gorgeous, intelligent, inspiring antos as I did at #iba09

Wow! Bloscars are amazing!

I have no words really to describe it other than Loved

I met so many cool people, and I know I’ve only remembered a tiny weeny few, but believe me you all left a huge impression on this little elf!

Bloggers Roadtrip 09 – Amsterdam!
Anyone is welcome so long as you don fly WhineAir

Elf!

Apartment moving along….
Prina went to see it , camera at the ready…..

It is in the good lady’s own words

it’s fantastic!! It is really class

Photos turned out as expected, no real suprises.
Bathroom is in existence… and lovely too… small but perfectly formed (much like myself)
And the bedroom….. well it lives up to its name… a room with a bed (and not much room for aught else!)
Still I’m not one for the swinger parties; at least not ones that end up on my bed… that’s what the large sofa is for, so I’m happy enough.

Need to confirm the presence of washing machine and dryer (as advertised) as these are very important, and then its all systems go!

I’m interested to note that on the street (a bit down from me) is Cafe Chris, 
Amsterdam’s oldest Brown Cafe Est 1624.
I read in a guidebook that its reputed to be where Rembrandt came to have his schnapps on the way from his studio to his home on Prinsengracht.

Also there is Pancake Bakery (which will serve as something of a Lemon replacement)
I’m looking forward to trying Poffertjes.


And look a lot like that up there!!
They are tiny pancakes (akin to Silver Dollar Pancakes)

So anyway….

Think I’m happy with the apartment, its really the location that is prime and the living space is great (aside from the minuscule bedroom) so….. on confirmation of the presence of washing machine facilities I’m a happy bunny…..

(PS Hello Cameron, who managed to find this blog while not being on Facebook or finding a link to it on a search engine (its de-listed) its a pleasure to keep you entertained with the inner machinations of my minuscule mind! Big Brother is watching eh? )

I’m not sure if I had any expectations going into the job. Just needed away from the hell of the previous place and well something to get out of the house for as I had just broken up with someone.
In any event it was pretty much perfect (if a little rocky at first) but truly I’m not sure if an office can suit a person any better than that office suited me. After the many many many emails from the early jumpers will attest, I shall in their wake repeat, I have made friends there that I hope I will always have.

So having seen me through various chapters of my life from my cousin Kierans death, my grandmothers illness and eventual death, my relationship with Louise, my nephews babyhood (he’s now five) and many many other chapters, it really was a rock for me. To go in there day after day to people who cared about me and who I cared about. I cant say we felt we set the world alight with what we did on a daily basis, but I know we all felt we did what we did brilliantly and had one hell of a laugh on the way.

From the wreckage of last Dec/Jan when we realised and digested the news of the sale and closure.. or transaction as we (didn’t) like to call it, I have been given the opportunity to move to Amsterdam and work for CBS. Doing what, I’m not too sure, bit of this .. lot of that…. tad of the other I expect, but its an amazing chance and one that, for the most part (at least 72.4%) excited about.

I officially start on the 25th March and hope to move over on the 22nd March.

This, I’m hoping will be somewhere I can leave my thoughts of the experience.

Seeing as its now late… and there are many days to come… I’m off to bed!!!