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Not at all inspired at Peter Donegans attempt to make everyone happy with a stupid meme blog post thing and ideas of making this country a better place, I decided to get real about Ireland and post up what we are all at, at the moment, moaning!

So without further ado here are my 10 thing that make me moany!

1. Ignorant people, I have come across so many of late!
2. Charity Muggers, fuck off I do not have any time, leave me alone, I have already joined up, go back to Australia.
3. Falseness, people who pretend to be something around you then change behind your back.
4. Working, not that I dont love my job, I do, But want more time with my daughter.
5. The Government, Stupid feckers all of them, except Joe Behan who will get my vote in future.
6. Not understanding how to get good pictures, but is something I am working on.
7. Technology and how quick it advances even in recessions, bastards always want my money!
8. Lazy people really get on my nerves in a big way.
9. Not getting my own way really makes me moany ask my wife!
10. this fucking eye shit that I have going on at the moment has really pissed me off.

So there you go happy go lucky Donegan hope I fucked up your day!

I live in Bray, I do not drive, I work in Dublin city center, I get the bus every day.

Now that I have established all of that, I would love to show you what I have to contend with each morning and evening getting to work and back home. I travel on the 84X, an express bus that I get on the N11, near the turn for the Enniskerry Road (or 29 bends) and on the way home I get off at the Honda garage across the road. In 2005 plans were put in place to create a Pedestrian Bridge to join the southern end of Bray to Enniskerry (across the N11) and last year at a cost of approx 4 million euro the bridge was opened. This made using the 84X, which runs along the N11 possible for me, I was thrilled.

It was my first time to walk down the Herbert road and experience what I am writing this blog about.

The bridge is fantastic and worth the money spent on it, it does not look out of place and gets people across the busy N11 safely, that is, if they can make it down to the bridge. You see, if you are coming from Ashton Wood, Richmond Park, Clover Hill, Herbert Park, Killarney Heights etc, you have to endure a walk taking your life into your own hands in order to get to the bridge, which was built to prevent fatalities. As you pass Ashton Wood the footpath ends, but thankfully, pedestrians do not have to walk along the bends of the Herbert Road towards the hairpin, but can walk down a mud track through overgrown forest, when you eventually make your way down, this “path”, you are greeted with the Herbert Road again, but there is still no path except for one a good bit down the road, and this is the part I love, on a corner.

I was taught never to cross the road on a bend or corner as young as 5 years of age, by my parents, in school, and even by the green cross code man on TV, yet Wicklow County Council seem oblivious to the fact that this is in fact a death trap. As mentioned the Herbert Road is full of bends with very short straights in between them, so by the time you have looked right to see if the road is clear then checked left to do the same, generally while checking right again to be sure you will find a car on top of you thats how quick they appear. The other thing we were taught at a young age was to listen for traffic, for starters thats damn hard with the N11 directly beside you and also because of the trees surrounding the road, dampening the sound further.

So why build a bridge that no one can safely access from Bray for that cost is beyond me! Only recently footpaths got relaid outside Clover Hill and the road got a resurfacing too, I believed this was the start of the work to make this walk safer, I was wrong, the work actually stopped exactly where the mud trail starts how typical.

During the winter months this is even worse with no street lighting to speak of and when wet, the path is treacherous and many’s the time I have seen people slip and fall backwards ruining there clothes going to work and causing themselves bruising at the same time. This is just not good enough and something needs to be done about it.

The other thing about all of this is that it is impossible for people with disabilities, the elderly or parents with prams/buggies, even young toddlers, to get near. The amazing thing is that the bridge has been built with accessibility in mind with a ramp going up to it on the Enniskerry side whereas to get up from the N11 to the Herbert Road on the Bray side you need to go all the way up to the church at the turn off for the Herbert Road and go along the footpath to the top of the bridge, yes its longer but it can be done safely, also this path was built the same time as the bridge, its just a shame it stops so short.

On the way home its pretty much the same in reverse, how nobody has been killed is beyond me! the road has a speed limit of 50km yet the cars are moving much quicker then that generally.

So I decided to Qik my walk up from the bus stop, this shows exactly what I am talking about. For those that don’t know Qik is a way of streaming live video to the web from your mobile phone, I will also say that I held the camera up to the side of me never holding it up to my face, obviously since the road is so dangerous I would not do something stupid like that, and it also explains why the picture is so jerky at times. I plan on getting in touch with as many people in the council that I can and would appeal to anybody living in the area to do the same. The Qik movie I took is only 8 minutes long I do hope you watch it and please, leave me a comment below with your thoughts!

I decided today to ask a question relating to my other love then Twitter that of Photography.

“What type of picture do you love looking at what makes you all fuzzy and warm inside? Portraits, landscapes, architecture, animals, tech etc?”

The replies for this came much quicker then I had anticipated.

Chrismehigan was first with “Candid photography, street photography, life in passing etc. Dare I say the works (style) of Henri Cartier Besson, and Robert Doisneau (really like Doisneau’s post war Paris)”

Icedcoffee was next to reply with “Portraits, but also A photo that makes me want to *be* there, in the landscape, with the person, in the building etc, yeah portraits, people, street photography, docu etc”

Mitzs answered me with “Landscapes and animals. I love the outdoors. Nature, give us nature damn it!”

Terrywogan is he the real deal I don’t think so but highly entertaining replied “Pudsey Bear - hands down, inch for inch - nothing surpasses a photo of that bundle of joy. Mind you, the guy that’s inside.”

Kesouthall said “oh, difficult! I like photos using colour in an artistic way. Super-saturated or colour-accented. Subject is less important”

Davymac after advising I may get some dodgy answers said “My answer: A photo that makes me want to *be* there, in the landscape, with the person, in the building etc. Photo has to generate an emotion of some sort, otherwise I’m not going to be interested for long. Of course the great masters of photography were able to capture that moment exactly. Most *great* images are emotional ones” Great answer from Davy.

Gingerpixel was someone I was looking forward to hearing what she may add, I was not disappointed “For me I love a photo that suggests a story, usually that involves a person or people but it could be an old room or building. I know for me I get the tingles when I see a photo that could be a frame from a movie.”

donncha winner of the first ever Irish photoblog award answered “Simple, pictures of my family. Oh so original eh?” indeed it was no one else had come up with that yet!

It was lovely to see Distantrambler take part with “ok I quite like architecture”

K_traveling really pushed home what grabs her attention “people, people, people! and their homes. but animals, esp. wild ones are great for getting your heartstrings pulled too!”

Firecracker replied with “For inspiration: DeviantArt.com, for classic warm-fuzzies: nature, animals, friends, family. Desktop designs are fun too.”

Grannymar came up with the best one yet that I still don’t understand “cotton wool!”

PixieVonDusts choice was “defunct industrial landscape typographies and anything by Paul Klee, also Geiger.”

Redwinegums took his time with the question which was what I was expecting and asked a question which I had also expected “Don’t have a fav as such. Portraits maybe, but my favourites on Flickr are a mixed bunch. Hard to quantify really” indeed but no one said I was going to make it easy!

Marramgrass was next with “Dunno about warm and fuzzy, but I love street and architecture. And pretty laydeez.”

Followed swiftly by Jkeyes with “old family photos and believe it or not otters. Yes I know, WTF.” Yes WTF indeed!!!

goodonskis and her name kinda gave away her answer a bit “mountains covered in deep snow!”

As is often the case the final answer came from Bigstevie1275 and “I love pictures of nature animals mostly being natural also of my other passion Mini’s (old/classic) although I have both. I think the classic takes a better pic I have hundreds of mine and friends on my pc and a wall of fame in my garage LOL (sad)”

Well just goes to show what I need to be taking more photos of! thanks again everyone for taking part in TTQT and lets see what we have in store for Thursday!

Todays question comes because of the many tweets I have seen all week in relation to spammers on Twitter.

“This week spammers have been at large on Twitter, will this surge bring you to protect your updates to avoid them or is that in turn ruining the social side of Twitter. All opinions welcomed”

Kenmcguire said “Nope… think if we ignore them they’ll just go away? It’s a bit much alright, I’m noticing 2-3 a day but not enough for me to lockdown, am comfortable with public tweets!”

Icedcoffee added “there have been spammers for ages - if I spot any I just block em, it hasnt caused me too much hassle in the past and cant check tweetrush if updates are protected.”

GavReilly took a different view to blocking “I’m not bothered about being followed by spammers, I simply choose not to follow them back. That way they’re off my radar. I don’t consider it a victory for them if I’m not following them. If they spend time following me pointlessly they’re losers. Rather, I mean ‘fruitlessly’. It takes no input from me to ignore them, but someone on the other end has wasted *their* time.”

PixieVonDust who has locked her updates responded with “I started protecting my updates recently but it was the privacy aspect rather than spammers that pushed me. When I got that security guy to ‘hack my identity’ online he found loads of personal info via twitter. That freaked me out.”

My own opinion to locking the accounts is that it takes away from social networking to which PixieVonDust replied “I might open it up again now that you’ve mentioned that. I don’t want to lock out potential friends I guess.”

Debbiemet said “Protected updates to me just means people I want follow me and I turn down the spammers. No less social. I keep an eye out and follow others, and I do get requests from friends of friends when friends reply to me too.”

Jkeyes gave an interesting view “no, I protected my updates before and it’s a pain in the arse, I just block them”

Marramgrass agreed “I like meeting new people. I can lock a few a day. If it gets to hundreds of spammers a day, then I’ll rethink.”

Moonstruckmania joined in to give a stateside view “I would only close updates If I felt there was some stalkerish type activity. I understand why people do it, but it sure takes out some of the fun for us nosy folks ;o) oh and good morning twitterville! but thinking those of you who twitter from work may have a very good reasons to have locked updates, I might if I worked”

BenKenealy replied with “I wouldnt have protected updates because of spammers. I did it because keeps my insane rants comments from public domain im a private enough person. I can come up with random stuff that I wouldnt want sticking in the real world.”

I was thrilled to see some followers from earlier answer the question and I welcome them to Question Time
AsteraPallas was first with “I won’t protect my entries to avoid spammers. I’ll just block them. ;^)”

Then 10zlaine replied “as one of the more paranoid, I’ve done both & decided to unlock & block, else why tweet?”

Another person with locked updates is Redwinegums who said “Nah, spammers don’t concern me. Potential job conflicts do with tweets. Why I use the pseudonym :-)”

Mitzs also said “I’ll be keeping mine open too. Miss to many great people otherwise.”

As usual last tweeter to join in was Bigstevie1275 “well if the spammers wanna read posts about what I had for lunch then fine but I’ll not follow anybody that that I havnt seen posting they Are a pain on the arse but can they be stopped ? Prob not”

So its great to see locked or unlocked the spammers are not dictating how people use twitter but rather privacy is the main driving force behind the lockdown.

Many thanks again to everyone who took part today, especially those who have contributed for the first time and see you all again hopefully for my next random question on Tuesday!!!

As you all know, I am addicted to twitter, I love everything about it and after this post will post up Thursday twitter question time which is getting so many people contributing it makes twitter even more worthwhile.

In my job I get to meet lots of celebrities, Matthew McConaughey been one most famous, but also a host of Irish talent like Colm Meany, Gabriel Byrne, Patrick Bergin, Stephen Rea, Brendan Gleeson, Ardal O Hanlon, Brian Dowling, Westlife to name a few and I have learnt not to get star stuck with these people, but today the weirdest thing happened.

Stephen Fry who’s work I have admired for many many years has started to use twitter to keep him entertained while shooting a documentary for the BBC in Africa. He has accepted everyone as Friends on Twitter and has now amassed a huge 6086 followers. He is keeping us all up to date with his travels, with typical Stephen Fry wit, and its a pleasure to follow. Obviously with that many followers trying to get your reply seen is next to impossible, but by sheer fluke he spotted a reply from me today and he replied the shock still has not sunk in!

Basically he was leaving Nairobi on his way to Uganda, in the twitpic he put up showing of his luggage, was something to do with money and this is what happened.

Oh my god I made Stephen Fry comic genius laugh, well imagine how I felt, but not only that, he replies very seldom so I was over the moon. But the thing I love mostly about this is how someone so famous is conversing with the normal Joe through twitter, thousands of us, that is a ballsy thing to do, but on reading his twittering I think he is really enjoying it!

Even stranger still is I must be considered funny because within 10 minutes I had 30 new people following me, so the pressure is really on!

So thank you Stephen Fry, you made my day today!

Ok it’s Tuesday Twitter question time, and of course it had to coincide with some guy called Steve Jobs talking about some fruit things. Anyhow on budget day here in Ireland what better question then “how do u see your run up to Christmas, suppose this applies Around the world with financial crisis still happening. Will it be a quiet one, do u see big purchases coming up to Christmas etc?”

Darragh Doyle replied “my run up to christmas? Slow and steady with a distinct lack of spending money. In a word quiet. One of the things is a lot of more personal, handmade and smaller gifts rather than some argos purchase.”

LeCraic was next up with “I don’t go overboard with spending at Christmas anyway, but I am worried about retail trade after this budget and the impact it will have on spending generally. A .5% increase in VAT and a 1% across the board income “levy” isn’t the way to encourage consumer confidence. I’d have stuck in on higher income as was suggested by the V de P e.g. 85k.. It’s not fair on people on lower income.”

Redwinegums answered aswel with “If I get a job. Happy Days. If not it’s Kinder Eggs for everyone :-)” Hope that happens for you RWG.

So far some excellent replies but no female responders until

Cufa “I’m going to make use of my sewing machine for some hand-crafted xmas gifts. That or cookies.”

Darragh came back with another point “I don’t know. Non food/essentials retailers who do clever discount/loyaltly marketing might get the opp to shine now.”

LeCraic replied “Yeah but Darragh, there is only so much can be done with margins squeezed tight - increased costs, rent never goes down” to which Darragh said “oh no doubt. Tis a tough time coming but it doesn’t necessarily mean cutting price to the quick. Large will always beat small overall, but those who cultivate loyalty and looks after customers will survive. Agreed rip off republic is dead. Quality is going to become v important.”

LeCraic said “it’s a very delicate juggling act. think it’s time I dusted off that customer loyalty marketing course I bought ages ago :-)”

Moonstruckmania from America joined in at this point with “Ours have been low key once eveyrobe became adults, but this year will be less low key due to new grandson. Mother in law however will go crazy and spends like the money is going to expire ! :o(”

Bigstevie1275 Veteran question timer came on saying “At our house we will be cutting back on gifts and buy more charity gifts for people eg. Chickens from oxfam. As for me with working in retail we are always busy but it has slowed down a bit. Trade is down spending is more at the weekend let’s hope it picks up.”

At this stage everyone was still going on about apples and jobs so I decided to call it a night but on arrival home I saw some more answers firstly

Jkeyes with “I’m planning on spending as little as possible on presents as always, no expense spared for food and drink though.”

Then Icedcoffee with “Im sure I will have no more money than I have no so little spending from me.”

Also Grannymar added “Same as every year, wishing it was over! Why is it necessary to spend for Europe in a few short weeks? Time is a much better gift” What a fantastic answer.

Darragh finished the evening off with “Just thinking, big winners before christmas will prob be charity shops in terms of people clearing out but also looking.”

Well it looks like this apple farmer Jobs may well have a tough time attempting to get folk to invest in his fancy stuff for Christmas, bad timing Mr Jobs looking at these answers.

Thanks as always to those that took part today and hopefully the budget wont be as hard on you for 2009.

I suppose I should put up a bit more on why I was so quiet last week on the blog and twitter.

The videos, we had a plan, we had a meeting, but in the end myself and Damien decided for the audiences sanity to cull 30 minutes of edits that were done and to be honest it was for the best, the culled stuff did make an appearance on the big screen while Brian Greene Dj’ed the night away, you may have spotted the archive stuff playing away. Well these were meant to introduce each category, would have done your head in!

I would also just like to say a big thanks to Jenny Greene for doing the voiceovers for 22 categories, a mean feat, and all done with such professionalism and grace that Rick O’Shea can only dream of, only kidding mate.

Another reason the editing was such a time consuming affair was due to the fact that I had to take screengrabs of all the shortlisted, to put it in context thats roughly 100 screengrabs, great fun.

But it did allow me to create this.

So for Thursday Twitter question time I decided to take a risk with a very simple idea, let people ask me anything, anything at all probe as deep as you like and I promise to answer honestly. It took about 20 minutes for the first question to come in.

@mitzs asked “Are you still glad you went with the Canon EOS 350d or wish you chose another brand?”
At the time I was very happy since I never used slr before, but did want the 30d really! But 350d has done me proud!

@threnn “What’s your favourite colour? ;)”
It’s between 2, I change from light orange to grey.

@aileenwilliams “do u help in the house?”
hehe mum, that’s more like it, not as much as I should, I is bad!

@raptureponies “who’s the first girl you ever kissed?”
Her name was Siobhan Fitzgerald in 5th year I was a late starter, down on Killiney Beach.

@aileenwilliams “why are u such a d head on occasions and why do u slag people”
Got some of my dads genes didnt I and why do I slag people, hmm think this goes back to primary where I got slagged about my height but I always took the slags then in secondary school/college I stood up for myself and slagged back and now its in my personality, but I always try to make it fun or at least know the person can take it, that has failed me on a few occasions

@bngr “What’s the answer to all your troubles?”
the answer to all my troubles, hmm probably to have a bit more money cause other then that I have a great family and extended family what more could you want!

@mitzs “I have another one. Do you have trout over there you fish for?”
yep we have trout and salmon in rivers and some lakes over here brown and rainbow ones but you need a game fishing license to fish em

@aileenwilliams “Where will u be in ten years time and where are u going on holiday next year”
Bray I imagine still doing the same thing! and holiday wise Majorca!

@davymac “OK question: *Why* do you hate someone randomly shooting a better pic using your camera? Ohhh, Matron ;-)”
Why do I hate it! hmm I have been trying to take pictures for over 3 years now, attempted to learn about slrs for years then people who are not into photography and have never used slr can take a better picture then I have ever taken! makes me feel useless.

@raptureponies “can i have some more questions? what’s your favourite food?… i’m sure i’ve a few more in my brain somewhere :)”
Sure thing favorite food has to be Lasange simple as that! especially @aileenwilliams one, dont tell Paula

@Pixievondust “ok! What is your earliest memory and have you ever had your heart broken?”
earliest memory and I dont know if it was real was my parents first house in Tallaght, going to the shop crossing a bridge in a field I would have been 3 or 4 years old, heart broken you betcha was engaged before I met Paula and that cow went psycho for no reason at all, still dont know why? but she kicked me out of the house we had moved into a week earlier, I felt like shit.

@Pixievondust “more: would you consider yourself to be a spiritual man and have you ever stolen anything?”
Spiritual no not really, I do believe there is something there and also believe strongly in ghosts think i have seen 3, have I ever stolen anything yep I have.

@aileenwilliams “why did u go off bigbrother”
Why did i go off big brother, cause the formula is now known and its full of wannabes!

@aileenwilliams “why do u sit at comp a lot?”
why do i sit at the computer a lot, cause my friends are in there!

@karenquinn “Have you ever been genuinely sexually attracted to a man? (assuming you are straight here)”
Ever been attracted to a man, holy fuck! I would honestly say no sexually, but yes personality wise!

@elfinamsterdam “are you really as gurmpy as you like to make out or are you a not so secretly optimistic soul?”
I have been known to be grumpy, the good thing is people can take the piss out of me being like that and that makes me laugh

@bigstevie1275 “what is ur biggest regret?”
Getting engaged to Samantha and her fucking with my head mentally for years without even being there!

@Lolagrrl “Gah! Tooooo much pressure!!! ;D Ok… What’s your favorite beer? (I know… LAME) ;D”
fav beer, well dont drink much but would say stout wise - guinness, lager - budweiser and cider - bulmers!

@benkenealy “whats the most expensive thing you’ve ever robbed”
A 250 gig hard drive

@moonstruckmania “what fears keep you up at night when it comes to your child”
What fears keep me up at night when it comes to Rebecca, not hearing her move about or snore scares me most!

And so ended question time, this one was like a therapy for me very weird and not as punishing as I expected.

Thanks everyone for all the questions, I really enjoyed it.

Blog Digest 2nd of October 2008

Today in the Irish Independent Neswpapers business section, McAWilliams.com was reviewed in the blog digest section, by Marie Boran from Silconrepublic, wow.

And what a lovely review it was too, thank you so much Marie for what you wrote, it means a lot to me, although “philosopher” is getting some laughs here in work, but I just don’t think they understand me after 13 years! They also dont participate in my TTQT which is where the philosopher you speak of came from.

Well that has given me one heck of a buzz for today