Tomorrow, Saturday 01 March 2008, sees the launch of the Voices of Clare book and CD as part of the Ennis Book Club 2008 festival. The book consists of poetry by 17 poets who live in or hail from Clare. Having been involved in the proof-reading of same, I can categorically say that the poetry is of a high quality. The launch takes place in the Clare Museum at 12pm and will see some of the poets read from their work.

This coming Saturday 23 February 2008 sees the launch of Frank Golden’s new book of poetry entitled In Daily Accord published by Salmon Poetry. The launch takes place at The Burren College of Art in Ballyvaughan at 7.30pm, and will include a Performance for Three Voices, the three voices being those of Frank Golden, Valerie Whelan, and John Doorty, with music composed by Andrew Collins.

It promises to be an interesting night.

I took up the Vodafone 3G broadband 2 week trial offer a couple of weeks ago. As I spend several hours a week sitting in my car in Ennis (waiting for my children to come out of school) I could do with broadband access since I do a lot of programming directly on the server. I also thought it might act as a back-up for the odd time when my office broadband goes awol (which has happened 3 times since November last).
I’m sorry to report that the trial has been a failure for the following reasons:

1. The damn thing wouldn’t connect a lot of the time even in Ennis where supposedly there is 3G availability.
2. When it did connect, the speed was very slow - certainly no where near broadband speeds. Yes, it was faster than dial-up, but then anything is faster than dial-up!
3. It would not connect at all outside Ennis.

So, I took it back and got a full refund under the terms of the 2 week trial. I only wish it had worked for me. But I’m glad I got the chance to try it out. I would hate to have signed up to a 12 month contract and then found I’d been “sold a pup”.

The whole broadband situation in Ireland is absolutely ludicrous, and completely the fault of the Fianna Fáil-led Government, with one Mary O’Rourke being particularly to blame for what happened to the landlines after Eircom was first privatised and then thrown to the wolves in the persons of Tony O’Reilly and his associates to asset-strip as they pleased.

And, what about Ennis being Ireland’s first “Information Age Town” (as what turned out to be the official bullshit put it at the time)? What does Ennis have to show for it? Sweet Fanny Adams - that’s what! If the Information Age Town lark had been anything other than a money-making scam for a select few and a propaganda tool for FF, then we would now have free wireless internet access at broadband speeds throughout the town. Here endeth my rant of the week!

Happy Chinese New Year! May the Rat bring all good things!

Today is the second last day of the Chinese Year of the Pig. And it’s been a pretty good year for me at least.

Next Thursday, 7th February 2008, sees the beginning of the Chinese Year of the Rat. I’m hoping I will finally see some harvest from all the hard work I’ve put in since before my Dog year.