London Bloggers Meetup

We had another great London Bloggers Meetup last week with our guest speakers Leo Babauta from Zen Habits and Arvind Devalia from Make it Happen. I thoroughly enjoyed both of their talks, not only interesting and informative, but very inspirational too.

Rather than me tell you all about it, why not watch some short clips from the night below.



http://zenhabits.net



http://www.arvinddevalia.com/blog



www.daithaic.blogspot.com

http://www.londonbloggers.net

Bob Geldof and Me.

Bolton Street College

Dublin in the 70’s was a dreary spot. Ireland was in the grip of the old certainties and the thought control mechanisms were still in place. I found myself studying architecture at Bolton Street College of Technology. Here, there were a number of third level courses (Architecture, Surveying, Engineering and Geo-surveying) grafted onto what was basically an inner city college with no campus run by the worthily titled Vocational Educational Committee. It was a clever way of ensuring you had all the disadvantages of university in terms of stress and pressure without any of the advantages of decent campus facilities and a social mix.


The Sage as a student at the 1975 USI Congress, Wexford

However if you wanted to study Architecture you were presented with Hobson’s choice. The only other course in Ireland was at UCD, University College Dublin, and this had been through years of turmoil resulting in it being derecognised by RIBA, the British Architect’s Institute, for poor standards. Either way in those days the grant system in Ireland was so restricted you had to be the 10th son of a smallholder with less than 10 acres to get a grant so student poverty was not an abstract concept. Bolton Street had the other advantage that its fees were a lot less than UCD; the payoff being that very little was provided when you got there.


The Rats

In 1975 I was Secretary of the Student’s Union and a few of us decided we needed to do something to lift the place so we planned the first “Bolton Street Student Festival”, just like the proper universities had! Being Secretary of the Union was not comparable with Oxford or indeed anywhere else. We had no Student’s Union or Bar but rather had an office in a forgotten room somewhere on the top floor and a Common Room with a shop / snack bar at the back of the canteen in the basement and a modest budget based on a capitation fee. In the previous year we had been at loggerheads with the college on a number of issues with canteen boycotts, sit – ins and all that good stuff. This year everybody wanted a fresh start and the college authorities enthusiastically backed the festival – even they realised a gloss needed to be put on the place.


Early Rats

So the week took shape, parties were organised, an art exhibition was to take place in the canteen, a film week was to take place in the “Kinema”, the only proper lecture theatre in the college, a programme of speakers was organised and we were to have a week of lunch time concerts in the common room. It had some hilarious moments such as the Art Exhibition. One of our lecturers was the well known Irish Artist Charlie Harper and he volunteered to help us get exhibits for the Art Exhibition.




Charles Harper and a Burren Landscape

What actually happened was that Charlie and I spent a day touring the art galleries of Dublin in his Renault 4 (with the back seats folded down and Dougal from the Magic Roundabout on the side!). In each gallery the routine was the same. We arrived unannounced, Charlie would be greeted warmly and introduce me, we would be offered and take a drink, explain why we were there and eventually leave with 2 or 3 paintings by well known artists from the gallery stocks. By nightfall neither Charlie nor I were in good condition and I crashed on the floor of his mews in Monkstown whilst outside there was a Renault 4 parked with 25 valuable paintings. All this lending of paintings was done without one shred of paperwork or indeed insurance, we must have been mad!



Three of the group which became the Boomtown Rats were studying at Bolton Street. Pat Cusack, (aka Pete Briquette) Gerry Cott and Johnnie Moylett (aka Johnnie Fingers). Gerry approached me and said he was in a band which had gone down a storm at student gigs called the Nightlife Thugs. I never heard of them but he was anxious to do the gig so I offered him our standard fee of 30 pounds which he accepted. The Common Room only held 300 and 20p was the most we could charge.

On the day of the concert the Common Room had filled up with apprentices. I should mention these were all big guys who wore Boiler suits and generally walked around with vice grips and wrenches! Just 15 minutes beforehand this tall dishevelled guy wearing boots and an ex-army greatcoat came up and asked to talk to me. He said he was Bob Geldof the leader of the band, he hadn’t known the fee was so little and there was no way they were going to play for that sh#t money! My mind immediately turned to the common room full of oil stained monsters and the consequences of the gig not going ahead so after some haggling I agreed to double it to 60 pounds. We shook on this and he then mentioned that I was to introduce the band as the “The Boomtown Rats” as they had now changed their name. The name came from Woody Guthrie’s autobiography “Bound for Glory” and belonged to a gang formed by the kids of newcomers in the oil boom in Oklahoma City who were excluded from existing gangs.


Give us your Effin Money!

So that was how in October 1975 I became the first victim of the now famous Geldof “give us your effing money” technique and nervously I went in front of a common room of oily monsters and for the first time ever introduced the Pop Group “The Boomtown Rats”. Can I tell you it was a wonderful gig? Well no actually, the acoustics were horrible in the bare brick walled Common Room but even still the Rats, whilst making lots of noise, were bloody awful. Some of the audience did start dancing and saved the day but I was mightily relieved that the first historic gig by the Boomtown Rats didn’t end in a riot. Bob describes the occasion in his 1986 autobiography “Is that it?”

“Well, if you’re so bloody clever, you go and talk to them.”

“I did, but my bluff was called. When I said that 30 pound was an insult and we wouldn’t do it for less than double that, the college promoter said: “All right, 60 pound then.” We were committed.”

So this insight into our respective negotiating skills probably explains why Bob Geldof is a millionaire and I’m not! I become part of pop history and Bob can’t even name check me in his book! After all these years am I not entitled to ask the question “Is that it?”


St. Bob with another Deity - Paul Hewson t/a Bono(vox)

Useful Websites

I'm often asked for a list of useful websites so at last I've compiled the best 100 or so. I’ve kept the commentary to a minimum as it is long enough and website users generally know what they want and move on if they don’t see it! Apologies it is UK / Irish centric but there is enough US stuff elsewhere!

Activism

www.faxyourmp.com
www.netaction.org
www.timebank.org.uk
www.allaboutgiving.org
http://act.greenpeace.org
www.amnesty.org

Art

The second last two sites are two wonderful and little known collections in my home town of Dublin - The National Gallery of Ireland and the Chester Beatty Library, a wonderful collection of Islamic and Oriental Art and manuscripts. Lily Allen is here because I'm one of her 54,000 close friends on MySpace!

http://us.imdb.com
www.operabase.com
www.nationalgallery.org.uk
www.abebooks.co.uk
www.allmusic.com
www.nationalgallery.ie
www.cbl.ie
http://www.myspace.com/lilymusic

Blogs

The first one is a favourite!

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/
www.typepad.com
www.statcounter.com
www.technorati.com
http://blogdex.net
www.ipodder.org

Buying and selling

www.ebay.co.uk
www.amazon.co.uk
www.kelkoo.co.uk
www.apple.com/uk/itunes/store
www.joshrubin.com/coolhunting/

Community

www.slashdot.org
www.orkut.com
http://craigslist.org
http://del.icio.us
www.flickr.com

Education

www.skoool.com
www.nrich.maths.org.uk
www.stagework.org.uk
www.learningcurve.gov.uk
www.britkid.org
www.ratemyteacher.com

Email

www.bluebottle.com
http://mail.yahoo.com
http://gmail.google.com
www.hotmail.com
www.walla.com

Gaming

http://ign.com
www.spong.com
http://games.slashdot.org
http://gamefaqs.com
www.esrb.com/esrbratings.asp

Health

These are all official sites with objective advice and are not pushing product or crank theories.

www.nelh.nhs.uk
www.hpa.org.uk
www.food.gov.uk
www.bmj.com
www.avert.org
www.stroke.org.uk

News

Journalism net is a great site which brings the media of the world together and makes searching much easier. Ireland.com is the Irish Times site.

http://journalismnet.com
http://news.bbc.co.uk
http://nytimes.com
http://news.google.co.uk
http://ohmynews.com
http://scotsman.com
www.ft.com
www.ireland.com
www.independent.ie

Offbeat

www.snopes.com
www.theweirdsite.com/Otherlinks.htm
www.b3ta.com
www.ringsurf.com/netring?ring=museum;action=list
www.easilyamused.com
www.theonion.com

Phones

www.mobileburn.com
www.gsmarena.com/
http://wgamer.com
wap.yahoo.co.uk
http://cellphones.engadget.com/

Politics

The search engine on the CIA site is limited with no results for "South America Torture" or "Extraordinary Rendition". Don't they believe in their product? Oh, and one more thing - your computer doesn’t register a cookie when you go in - Yeah? The Whitehouse site on the other hand is full of hilarious material such as "President George W. Bush's message to the Muslim's of America for the feast of Eid." Priceless!
Namebase is the site the CIA would like to shut down devoting itself to publishing information released under FOIA Laws in the US - Put in the right name and it will even draw you a diagram of their CIA connections!

www.number-10.gov.uk/
www.theyworkforyou.com/
http://electoralcalculus.co.uk/
www.voidstar.com/ukpoliblog/
http://directory.google.co.uk
www.cia.gov
www.whitehouse.gov
www.namebase.org

Public services

www.direct.gov.uk
www.nhs.uk
www.nationalarchives.gov.uk
www.inlandrevenue.gov.uk
www.parliament.uk

Radio

Shannon community radio is run by friends of mine!

www.bbc.co.uk/radio
http://radio-locator.com
www.live-radio.net/
www.last.fm
www.traffic-island.co.uk/
http://www.shannoncommunityradio.org

Reference

Airport City Codes is a mine of information for aviation heads and can give you the great circle distance between any two airports. Wunderground.com is a great weather site but my favourite feature is the night sky for years ahead from any point on the globe. The last two are the UK National Archive and the British Library - two user friendly resources with an amazing range of material accesible.

www.martindalecenter.com
www.onelook.com
www.multimaps.com
www.infobel.com/teldir
www.encyclopedia.com
www.yourdictionary.com
www.airportcitycodes.com/
www.wunderground.com
www.nationalarchives.gov.uk
www.bl.uk

Science

http://dir.yahoo.com/Science/news_and_media/
www.eurekalert.org/
http://space.com/
www.nhm.ac.uk
www.palaeos.com/Timescale/
www.nasa.gov/home/

Search

www.google.co.uk
http://search.yahoo.com
http://beta.search.msn.co.uk
www.blinkx.com
www.searchenginewatch.com

Sport

www.soccerbot.com
www.cricinfo.com
www.bluesq.com
www.onemickjones.com
www.tigerwoodsisgod.com

Travel

Fleetway Travel is the only non biased travel search engine I've found which works well. Opodo, Expedia et al all have a bias as they are owned by airlines or push you to providers who pay for the privilege. ITWG and AccorHotels are an Italian and French hotel booking websites. ITWG is an Italian company whose site I’ve found easy to use and reliable, Accor are the French company whose brands range from Etap, Ibis, Mercure to Sofitel. They both have the advantage that you don’t pay up front and can cancel your booking without penalty up to the day of arrival.

www.ryanair.com
www.visitdublin.com
www.traveljungle.co.uk
www.viamichelin.com
http://journeyplanner.tfl.gov.uk
www.internet.xephos.com
www.seat61.com
www.fleetwaytravel.co.uk
www.accorhotels.com
www.itwg.com
www.thetube.com
www.davros.org/rail/culg./

And finally ..................

http://www.linkedin.com/Fin/davidcaldwell
http://www.digg.com/users/daithaic
http://www.facebook.com/people/David
http://daithaicaldwell.bebo.com
http://www.myspace.com/daithai
http://www.tripadvisor.com/members/daithai