Tuesday, November 29, 2005

The burning of Cork

RTE had an interesting documentary tonight about the burning of Cork by British Crown Forces. It was disturbing to see a city being destroyed by a part of the supposed forces of law and order. Witness reports from the night reminded me terribly of Kristallnacht - police standing idly by, police starting fires etc. Of course Kristallnacht is rightly widely condemned but the sacking of Cork seems to have been generally ignored.

It was also shocking to be reminded of the murder of democratically elected Lord mayors - in both Cork and Limerick - by these self-same forces.

Interestingly neither of us remember learning about this in school but we have it on DVD now so the boys will know about it.

The Cork Corporation website has some info here

A dreary day in Mahon


A dreary day in Mahon
Originally uploaded by despod.

Friday, November 25, 2005

More changes

I have changed my phone again. I now have a K700i which has the added features of Bluetooth, panorama shots, larger screen and more memory. I would like to get the K750i but its out of my budget !

The shots in Cobh were taken with the new phone and the shakiness is due to the strong wind at my back. One of the photos shows a navy ship standing off from two Japanese tuna boats - I wonder did it arrest them or are they just in for supplies ?

Taking a panorama is simple just like any other camera you take the first shot and the screen for the next shot has an overlay of part of the last shot which you cover, this makes it fairly seamless. Of course if you can have an identifiable object at the extreme right of the shot it makes lining up much easier.

Cobh panorama


Cobh panorama
Originally uploaded by despod.

Cobh view


Cobh view
Originally uploaded by despod.

Friday, November 18, 2005

I'm back !

Got an email from Blogger saying the blog has been whitelisted so now I'm back in action. I'll release all the delayed posts. It's a pity it didn't happen before I went away but better late than never.

Tuesday, November 15, 2005

Eifel tower in the mist

Eifel tower in the mist Originally uploaded by despod.

The car in front is a Toyota

The car in front is a Toyota Originally uploaded by despod.

Morts de France

Morts de France Originally uploaded by despod.

Mobile(15)

Mobile(15) Originally uploaded by despod.

Paris by night

Paris by night Originally uploaded by despod.

Notre Dame

Notre Dame Originally uploaded by despod. Editing posts is a pin - my pics are still on flickr www.flickr.com/photos/despod

Roll out the red carpet

Roll out the red carpet Originally uploaded by despod.

Arc de Triomphe

Arc de Triomphe Originally uploaded by despod.

Dans le metro

Dans le metro Originally uploaded by despod.

Paris. Dupleix

Sitting here in a bistro with a coffee. It has started to rain and the evening rush is in full swing with people coming in off the metro for a quick one before heading home.

The hotel is a few mintes walk around the corner. Its no great shakes but its clean. The area is a normal residential area with bakers, fishmongre, wine shop, butcher etc.

Next stop will be the Champs and a visit to FNAC

On the RER to central Paris

On the RER to central Paris Originally uploaded by despod.

Be my, be my baby

Be my, be my baby Originally uploaded by despod.

And I'm easy....

And I'm easy.... Originally uploaded by despod.

Saturday, November 12, 2005

New terminal in cork airport

New terminal in cork airport Originally uploaded by despod.

Go to flickr for my pics

Until the issue with my blog being marked as spam please go to http://www.flickr.com/photos/despod to see my pics.

I've changed the cameraphone to a K300i and I think the pics are better. The holidays in France were shot using a Sagem My-V56(sort of darkened the pictures) and the Cobh shots up to Mahon Point were taken with a 6610i which I thought suffered from a fisheye effect. The K300i seems to be the best screen in the sun as well.

On a side note - I wish blogger would unmark my account so that I could post via email.

Friday, November 11, 2005

Blogger / Blogspot and spam

Having a bit of a pain in the neck at the moment because Blogger have marked this blog as spam and I have to manually approve all of my posts by logging in and enetering those funny verification codes. That would be all well and good but I usually post by email and I was wondering why posts weren't showing up when I was testing a new cameraphone. Their help files were rubbish and it took a trawl of another forum which pointed back to Bloggers own blog and an onscure entry about how to resolve verification issues. Putting this fairly high in their help files especially in the "post via email" section would have been a great help. Anyways the upshot is that I have to wait for a human to review the blog and accept that its not an automated splog but rather a genuine site. I hope its done before tuesday when I go to Paris..