Recent Flight Activity

July 21st, Monday
9.20am Dublin to Abu Dhabi

Feeling: Bit hungover to be honest. Went to a festival all weekend and though I haven't drank since Saturday, didn't sleep Sunday night thanks to beer monkeys*.
Beverages: A glass of wine at 11am from my Ethiad stewardess proves to be 60ml of tepid chardonnay. Two 330ml Heinekens because we're on holidays!
Culture: Fifteen minutes of pulling faces at baby in row ahead of me.  Snowpiercer.  AMAZING.  I have renewed respect for Chris Evans, please don't quit acting Chris. Lego Movie.  Awesome, obviously. 40 minutes of classical radio channel to promote nap, non-productive.  Wheee, we've landed!

9.40pm Abu Dhabi to Bangkok

Feeling: What? How is it nighttime? It was dawn when I left Ireland eight hours ago. What. Please let me sleep.
Beverages: ONE 330ml beer begged off our retiring stewardess is not enough for six hours, FYI Ethiad.
Culture:  100 pages of Jose Saramago's Blindness. WTF is going on there, I cannot even. I think I'll nap. Oh no wait that's not going to happen.  One hour of The Great Beauty. Surprisingly snappy and lush but I am simply not in the mood for thinking or reading subtitles.  Three episodes of Silicon Valley, which I have heard great buzz about. I am disappointed. OH THANK GOD, LAND.

July 22nd, Tuesday
10.00am Bangkok to Phuket

Feeling: WRETCHED
Beverages: Water, juice. Bangkok Airways serve us ANOTHER meal, my third in 18 hours of sitting down and doing little else.
Culture: InFlight magazine, cover to cover. FU Saramago.  I want to go to Laos now, thanks InFlight magazine.  Wait, we're HERE! Let's get on a boat for three hours and drink beer on no sleep, yay!

August 3rd, Sunday
8.30pm Phuket to Abu Dhabi

Feeling: Buzzzzing. Feeling good and well-rested. Bring it, long haul.
Beverages: Air Berlin give you BIG glasses of wine.  Me and Sally have two each before retiring for a sleep.
Culture:  I suddenly remember my body doesn't believe in sleeping when movies are available so I watch Twenty Feet From Stardom (excellent and well edited) and forty minutes of American Hustle before my headphones break.  Boooo, Air Berlin headphones. 6o pages of Curtis Sittenfield's Man of my Dreams.  Considerable turbulance over India. Sally told me she loved me while holding my hand and crying.

2.25am Abu Dhabi to Dublin

Feeling: Torrid. Smelly.
Beverages: Excellent. Juice and water when we board and lovely breakfast served four hours later.
Culture:  Grand Budapest Hotel. Beautiful and delightful to see Fiennes being arch but ultimately unsatisfying, sorry Wes. Wow, Tilda Swinton can play whoever she likes, can't she.  Seven minutes of Divergent.  No.  I can't.  2/3 of Million Dollar Arm which cut out before we landed. I wanted to see how Jon Hamm helmed something; answer is alright, but end product is slight, formulaic and patronising. Romantic thread is lazy and tired. As am I. I can see Ireland out of the window now. I hate it. Take me back to the East and I will never complain again.   Ugh ugh Ireland. Let's get a breakfast roll from a Spar on the way home.

END



*Beer Monkeys - AKA beer fear, copyright Clodagh Power 2011.

Nineteen Things That Will Break Your Heart When You Work in a Public Library

1. You cheerily accept books for checkin only to find they are coated in a strange unidentifiable mucus.
2. You cheerily accept books for checkin only to find pure, white grains of sand falling from the spine, sand from a land you will never visit.  Also the spine has been cracked from the heat and you'll need to repair it. Fuckers.
3. You gruffly accept books from a silent teen who never meets your eye and strikes you as sullen [It was a hard day and I didn't have sweetness left to squander on sullen teens, okay], only to be greeted with a whisper: "I really loved that one, the one with the 'Staff Loved' sticker on it".
4. Getting Copydex on your favourite cardigans (IT NEVER COMES OFF)
5. Throwing teenaged girls out of the library for throwing balled-up paper over the balcony.  One, wearing a Burger King crown (ironically, one assumes) mutters "fat bitch" at you under her breath as she slopes out; this girl you recognise moments later as the angelic child who had previously come to you for book recommendations for years of Saturdays, and who gave you a hug on your birthday three years ago. Your heart is rent.
6. Paper cuts  
7. When you offer your own favourite book as a recommendation to a carefully curated reader and, having checked it out to them with a knowing wink, receive it back from them three weeks later with the soul-crushingly dismissive comment of "I just couldn't get into it". [WOE]
8. Your personal pet, a bright-eyed, beautiful eight year old, who tells you he wants books on motorbike racing, because he wants to be a motorcyclist when he grows up, and drive very fast. When you express concern at the danger inherent in his chosen profession, he deliberates for about ten seconds and offers: "Maybe I'll work in the library instead so. Will you still be working here when I'm finished school?" When you tell him yes of course you will, he answers, "Oh good, I will be your boss then so."
9. Your terrific colleague who tells you to "go home, I'll stay" when it's your birthday and it's after hours.
10. When a favourite customer asks bashfully if you would mind awfully being a nominator on his Irish Residency application, and, after you have responded "absolutely!", starts to giggle delightedly when, under RELATIONSHIP TO APPLICANT you fill in 'friend'.
11. Speaking to a customer's daughter on the phone who has started crying because her father died last week and she just received an overdue letter from the library and she didn't even know he used the library and what on earth will she do next?
12. The woman who asks you for "happy stories, but no love stories, just women, being happy for themselves" on a hugely busy Saturday afternoon when there is a queue of ten people behind her waiting for you, but who then goes on to open her jacket and show you where her blouse lies flat because she got a double mastectomy four weeks ago, and "I just can't be dealing with sad stories at the moment".
13. The most glamorous, petite septuagenarian you've ever met, who walks into the library calling your name and saying "my gorgeous girl, so beautiful, you've lost weight again!" every day she visits, regardless of the hot mess you look on a particular day.
14. The regular, genial, gentlemanly patron who calls you by name and always asks how you are, then one day leans in to ask if you were planning on doing anything about the two teen boys holding hands in the Magazine area, because "it's just not right, there's children around".
15. Learning your favourite elderly newspaper-reader has died a month after he has been buried.
16. Showing a dad how he needs to fill in a form to get a membership card for his seven year old daughter, only to have him come back to the desk ten minutes later to ask you, in a whisper, to fill it in for him, because he can't read it.
17. This dad and his daughter goes on to visit the library every week and they take out ten books every time. The daughter happily tells you how much she likes reading because "Dad lets me read it to him!" 
18. The mum who turns back to the desk to tell you "thanks" for joking with her kids while they were checking out their books because "they're so shy, I'm trying to get them to be more brave and do things themselves, I can't believe they responded to you". Aw, jeez. 
19. The nervous mum who hovers as you chat about books you've both loved with her 17 year old who giggles like a ten year old and reads everything: "She had a brain injury last year and we want her to read novels about emotions because she has trouble recognising people's motivations since the accident". 
20.  The regulars who never check out a book but wait outside for the library to open every morning just so they can read the papers, tell you about the weather and say "enjoy!" to you as they leave. 

These things can be surmised into: people grow; they change; they get older; and they die on you.  You will never be worthy and people will always confound you.  Which is probably the root of all our heartbreaks. Let's all weep happy/sad tears together. 

Libraries and Social Media

"While libraries have been quick to take up social media technologies, creating blogs, Facebook pages, Twitter accounts and more, there has been little exploration of how successful these technologies have been in meeting library aims and whether social media is being used to drive a participatory service." 

 

Featured in  Library and Information Research Journal Vol 38 - 'Public Libraries'

High Fives All Round!

Storify. Who cares, really. I like the idea of it but, God, the effort.  And really, if you're only storifying one channel, why can't people just follow the hashtag on that one channel? These are the questions I asked myself repeatedly as I tried sifting through several hundred tweets from #LAICILIP14 last week. I gave up in frustration and tried again. I said "I don't care" and gave up again. Then I said "I'll do it at the weekend" and was proud of myself for structuring my procrastination so efficently. 

And now, I've just spent 45 minutes searching for and reading articles about Storify good practice only to start adding tweets and to find that you can't search for tweets over seven days old. OH WELL.

WORK SUCCESSFULLY AVOIDED ONCE MORE.

BEST THING EVER HAPPENED TO ME TODAY

"Oh there she is!"
"Here I am, Denis!"
"The woman herself!"
"Yeeeeessss"
"Your twin is all over the papers!"
"...Yes she is..." [?]
"You're getting more and more like her everyday!"
"...ahem.  Yes, my, uh, twin.  The one-"
"Yep! Your twin! With the hair!"
"Aha, the hair... who might this be now, Denis?"
"Ah Lucy, you know! The one! With the hair!"
"I don't, Denis!"
"Ah you do! ...Kate Middleton!"
"...."

I'm putting that compliment in my pocket for the cold, dark winter nights. 

Woe

 

Obsessive adoration for Tina Fey projects is a dealbreaker for anyone who wants to make it into my inner circle of friends, FYI. 

Bridesmaidin': A dirty job

"I can confirm, though, that the second you agree to be in a bridal party, you are actually committing yourself to addressing every e-mail with "Hello Ladies!" until your death or the conclusion of the festivities, whichever comes later."

From the comments on this.  Oh-meo-oh-myo, so much truth. 

What Do Women Want

"This catch-22 presents women with a few options, none of which are appealing. You can directly pursue a man, but only if you want to convey that you’re only in it for sex. You can choose not to pursue him, but then you’re relegated to this historic, passive role that doesn’t jibe with your active, considered approach to any other area of life, be it work or real estate or even friendship."

Well hell, the thinky editorial pieces that keep popping up around this Daniel Bergner book are getting me seriously intrigued.

Danny Boyle's AMA

"I'm open to most genres. I like to play around with genre though...28 Days later was a Zombie Movie with no Zombies in it in my opinion; Slumdog was a Fairy Tale in genre terms but there are moments of real darkness in it; 127 Hours was an Action Movie about a guy who couldn't move... Trance is supposed to be a heist movie or an amnesia movie, or a femme fatale movie. but it's all of those things and none of those things really. the genre hooks are macguffins that give us a route into exploring ideas about perception, reality and madness."

You really should read the whole thing. 

Some Reactions to my Losing my Phone for Seven Hours Last Weekend

...and then found it in my coat pocket.

What is heartening is the absolute lack of surprise either Gra or Aoife expressed upon hearing the news.  They know my ways. 

Word of the Day

^Shoehorn
transitive verb

Definition of SHOEHORN

1 : to force to be included or admitted

2: to force or compress into an insufficient space or period of time : squeeze

Examples of SHOEHORN1 : A parking garage has been shoehorned between the buildings.

2 : She's trying to shoehorn a year's worth of classes into a single semester.

3 : I don't know how they managed to shoehorn everyone into that little room.

Less frequent useage:

• It is amazing how Lucy manages to shoehorn 42 references into one essay that she wrote on the fly.  
• Well what do you know! Two days before a deadline and Lucy is furiously shoehorning incompatible paragraphs into some semblance of an essay.
• How many times can I shoehorn some Negroponte references into this essay to appear smart?! Lucy pondered passionately.

 

Thanks, LinkedIn!

It was my five year anniversary with Waterford Library last week. We're very happy together, thank you very much, and never let the sun go down on our anger. Thanks for all the anniversary presents, you dilatory, forgetful sluts. Whats the traditional gift for five year anniversarys? Why, wood! You know what's wooden? Boxes of wine! Get your cash out, folks.

Sociability of Reading Recommendations

There are good ways of discovering books online, through recommendations, or social networks, but the best ways remain offline—in book groups, in bookshops and in libraries.

AMEN

I would say I spend about an hour-and-a-half to get ready for something that’s important, because, of course, I’m texting, or getting water, or changing the music, or getting a cocktail… It’s a ritual, getting ready.

Realistically, there is very little difference between me and Dita Von Teese. Sure, yeah, her hair is darker than mine, but besides that: SOUL SISTERS.

Bon Iver - Beth/Rest

Did you know, I can't listen to this song without imagining I am watching the penultimate scene in an eighties movie set somewhere urban? Maybe Tom Cruise is in it? It's a montage? There's probably driving and rain involved?

I'm not saying this is a movie I've seen, just that I have a very very shallow imagination here by the way.

What happened on X Factor you guys?

 

Dunno, beats me.

Good news!

39 people came to my blog looking for cone-related dog pornography. Happy to thwart that so.

‘It would be cheaper for everyone to have a Kindle than save all libraries’

A giant of a man, he stands at roughly 6ft 5in and delivers everything in a deadpan monotone, which often makes it hard to know whether he is being serious.

*EYE-ROLL*

"He is a hugely entertaining public speaker, hurling mock insults at elderly members of the audience."

Wait, what?

Via publiclibrariesnews.com/

Instant mood changing tip

I don't know 'bout you, but personally I find a quick google image search for Joseph Gordon Levitt cheers me up no end. Feel free to sub in your own dapper chappy if Joe's winsome charms don't float your boat (BUT SERIOUSLY, WHATS WRONG WITH YOU).

This Week is Screen Grab Week, Hadn't You Heard?

A hilarious text prank I played on my sister recently. She totally bought it, LOL!