Previously on le craic….

For Focal Sake - A 32 County Guide to Irish Slang. Hugh Jarce from slang.ie left a comment on the original post so I chanced my arm and sent him an email to see if there were a few promotional copies for the good readers of le craic.

Hugh duly obliged and has very kindly offered 3 copies of the book for any of ye that would like one. You know the drill by know - leave a little note with the words ‘wantsies’ in the comments and Hugh will dispatch one to you. (Update : All books gone now)

Do check out the website as well - slang.ie

Actually, Hugh turned out to be Cian Foley who put together the whole slang.ie website and then went ahead and compiled the book and got it out for sale into the shops.

My hat goes off to him - it’s a great achievement. I bought 2 copies of the book myself - one for me and one went to my Dad for Father’s Day (which he loves, and he doesn’t read books normally), so even if you don’t win a copy it’s well worth the €9.99 price (which includes p&p).

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“A book written by de focal payple for de focal payple is finally heeyur”. So goes the intro on the slang.ie website which invited the public to log on and submit slang words from their locality. The result of this is the book, ‘For Focal Sake’, which has just been published and features entries from all of the 32 counties on the island.

Top county for slang in Ireland? That would be Cork and who could have expected anything less from the lovely city on the Lee. Looking through the list of slang terms attributed to Cork leaves me scratching my head, as I would consider quite a few to be slang used all over Ireland rather than just Cork exclusively. But that’s being a little pedantic as the book isn’t meant to be an etymological tome but something to dip in and out of and add new slang to your own arsenal.

My own personal favourite from the Cork list is “Throwin’ a Ghand”, which is defined as :

Freaking out like Ghandi (walking along quiet like and peaceful, and then all of a sudden lets out a massive scream/roar. I didn’t know that was something Ghandi did, but it made me laugh anyway.

I took a gander at the Wicklow entries and was happy to see ‘Quern’ was in there. Definition: really, extremely, very. Example of use : “That’s a quern round satsuma”. I would add one that I sometimes use “He/she is quern thick”.

Don’t know if the word “trog” is in there - but it is slang used to describe a person (usually female) that’s very ugly. Comes from the word troglodyte, meaning a member of a supposed prehistoric race that lived in caves or holes; a caveman; anything that lives underground.

For Focal Sake - The 32 County Guide to Irish Slang is avalable direct from the publisher or in Eason and other booksellers around the country. List of where you can get it is on the link above as well.

Anyone who has ever had an ambition to have a book published, now has the ideal opportunity to do just that with WEbook.

This is not another of those sites that allow a person to self publish. WEBook is probably the best route an aspiring author could take to see their book in print. Although WEBook allows many people to collaborate on a book, single author titles are also welcomed. Once an author is happy with their book, they can put it forward to be rated by the WEBook community and those titles that are highly rated are then considered for publication under the WEBook imprint. The author and contributors receive 50% of profits on sales.

So, there is no excuse for any would be authors to take matters into their own hands and get published. Even if a submission to the WEBook community doesn’t go all the way to print, at least it is a step in the right direction.

I think I need help. I can’t stop buying books and I seriously don’t have the time to read them all. Actually, I probably do have the time but my eyes get tired too easily + that quote from Einstein about reading keeps haunting me:

Reading, after a certain age, diverts the mind too much from its creative pursuits. Any man who reads too much and uses his own brain too little falls into lazy habits of thinking.

He doesn’t indicate what the certain age is though. Is it 20, 30, 40, 50, 60? He doesn’t say if women suffer from the same fate as men, but I wouldn’t be surprised if there was some study that says reading makes women more intelligent and men less so. I keep saying to myself that he doesn’t mean my age and anyway, what would a fuzzy haired, left brained genius know about creativity?

The little stack above shows a selection of current and upcoming reading material. I’m just about finished ‘The Last Lecture’ by Randy Pausch. I bought America Unchained, The World wihout us and Quirkology during the week. Was down at the recycyling yesterday and picked up Modern Ireland and One Hit Wonder off the “take a book” shelf.

Proof of my book problem is that I’d never have bought either of those 2 books. One is a school book and the other is chick lit. My greed for books just meant I had to take them off the shelf. I didn’t suffer any buyer remorse, which was great for me as I do suffer from that particular condition quite often. Although I had no symptoms of the big BM, I still had to justify my taking them home by saying that maybe my nephews or nieces will need the Modern Ireland book and my sister would like the chick lit book.

It’s a terrible and unrecognised condition. Anyone that ventured to set up a 12 step programme for book addicts would surely be hampered by the fact they couldn’t hand out any reading material to help the addicts find their higher god. To do so would be like passing around a spliff at an NA meeting or bringing cream buns to weight watchers.

The first step of any programme is to admit you have a problem, and so I have. Maybe this is the beginning of a whole new journey for me. A world without books? Somehow I can’t see it happening and I really think Einstein was wrong in his assessment of reading after a certain age. Any thoughts on this?

I first heard about the book “That’ll never work” when I read an extract from it in the Sunday Business Post a few weeks ago. Being a bit of a business book junkie, I was straight out the next day to pick up a copy.

Featuring 12 private businesses in Ireland, the book aims to answer the question “what is an entrepreneur?” by allowing the owners of these businesses to tell their stories in their own words. The collection of stories is compiled by two partners in KPMG, Michael Gaffney and Colin O’Brien. It was they who came up with the idea of compiling this book which “would help the contribution of Irish entrepreneurs to be recognised as well as being an enjoyable read.”

Some of the businesses are familiar (e.g. Celtic Bookmakers, Aer Aerann), others less so (Green Cone, JFC Manufacturing). Familiar or not, the common theme running through all the stories is the amount of determination and hard work it takes to set up and run a successful business in Ireland (or anywhere for that matter). Reading Padraig O’Ceidigh’s story about the early years of Aer Aerann makes you wonder how it is possible to work so hard without physically collapsing. The belief Kevin Coleman of Green Cone had in his product meant spending hours trudging around housing estates doing leaflet drops. The unique way that business is done in Ireland is most evident in Norah Casey’s story of Harmonia (publishing business), and is very instructive.

The story of 2 Limerick teens becoming millionaires made the headlines some weeks ago and I guess it is the one most people would like to read as inspiration for their own entrepreneurial ambitions. Whilst it is a great story it isn’t an inspirational one to me. The 12 stories in “That’ll never work” are what I would see as being more worthy of headlines and admiration. They contain a lot more heart, drive, energy, passion and inspiration than most of the dot com buyouts we hear of.

“That’ll never work… Success stories from private Irish business” is published by Mercier Press and is on sale for €14.99.

Book Competition

With thanks to Mercier Press, le craic has 3 copies of the book to give away. I recently wrote a post in praise of an Irish company, PJ’s and Prose. What Irish company have you dealt with recently that deserves a bit of praise? The business can be online or offline, it doesn’t matter. Goods, services, whatever. It’s the opposite of the name and shame we read far too often in blogs and other media. It’s time to spread some love for a change. Either leave a comment here with your praise for an Irish business or (preferably) write a post on your own blog and link back here.

I’ll keep the competition open until next Monday, 12th May when the 3 winners will be chosen.