Writing by aj@lecraic on Sunday, 25 of May , 2008 at 5:42 pm
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?
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Writing by aj@lecraic on Tuesday, 6 of May , 2008 at 2:07 pm
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.
Writing by aj@lecraic on Sunday, 27 of April , 2008 at 12:35 pm
I’ve been working on this project on and off since the Irish Blog Awards on March 1st. It’s a book of the award winners ‘in their own words’. I know that there are tons of posts and links on various websites where people can read the words of the winners for themselves. I thought it would be a good idea to compile them all together into a single place and presented in a book format.
I’m a fan of issuu.com and their free service provides a nice platform to share the book and, hopefully, spread the word about Irish blogs to a wider audience.
I have to say that all the responses from the winners were extremely positive and it is only thanks to their generosity of time that this has been made possible. To each and every one of them a big thanks once again.
I didn’t have a blog at the time of the blog awards and had vaguely thought about setting one up. It was really the accounts of the awards night and the various posts following the event that pushed me towards the creation of le craic and I’m glad I did now as I have somewhere to “launch” the book.
This is the 1st edition. Not all the winners are included in the book. I didn’t get a response from some and it’s possible my attempts at making contact could be sitting in a spam folder somewhere. If any award winner reads this I’d love to make this book complete by having the full compliment of winners included, so please get in contact via the Talk to le craic link.
So, it is with great pleasure that I declare this book launched. You can view at
Writing by aj@lecraic on Tuesday, 15 of April , 2008 at 9:15 pm
Popped into Eason this morning to pick up a copy of Gulliver’s Travels (remember April is One City One Book month) for the ridiculously low price of €2.14. It was included in part of a promotion of Penguin titles which are all at 25% off.
I’ll be dropping back before the promotion ends to pick up On the Road by Jack Kerouac, One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey and probably a good few others as well – all for under a tenner. Good value – although I’m sure I could rummage around charity shops and find them too if I put my mind to it.
Writing by aj@lecraic on Monday, 14 of April , 2008 at 7:42 pm
I see Denny are running a campaign called Rasher Cravings. The aim is to get all the meat eating savages in Ireland to send in photographs of their Denny cravings. Doing so could win you a luvvly meat free holiday* to the Maldives or to South Africa. Sounds great. There’s only about 19 entries in so far and closing date is 31st May 08.
Current leading the field of 19 entries is this:
Looks like chocolate chip cookies with icing and then a crispy rasher on top. WTF? Who would eat that. Some of the entries are coronary inducing just looking at them.
Wonder would this Bacon Bra get anywhere in the competition? Flickr original
* It’s not a meat free holiday. I made that bit up. You would be free to eat meat if you wanted, I’m sure. I wouldn’t be eating meat or rashers though, as I’m vegetarian. You didn’t need to know that but I felt like saying it, so there.
Writing by aj@lecraic on Wednesday, 9 of April , 2008 at 8:54 pm
Ok, I like lolcats but it’s going a bit far now. The lolcat bible??
From the Book of Genesis:
Oh hai. In teh beginnin Ceiling Cat maded teh skiez An da Urfs, but he did not eated dem.
Da Urfs no had shapez An haded dark face, An Ceiling Cat rode invisible bike over teh waterz.
At start, no has lyte. An Ceiling Cat sayz, i can haz lite? An lite wuz.
An Ceiling Cat sawed teh lite, to seez stuffs, An splitted teh lite from dark but taht wuz ok cuz kittehs can see in teh dark An not tripz over nethin.
An Ceiling Cat sayed light Day An dark no Day. It were FURST!!!
Shuffle on over to the website and see how far you can get.. Not very? Hmm, just like the bible bible then.
Writing by aj@lecraic on Monday, 7 of April , 2008 at 9:53 pm
If you’re in Dublin it won’t have escaped your attention that the One City One Book initiative is running for the month of April. This years book is Gulliver’s Travels.
I like the idea behind One City One Book, and I’ve never read the books from the previous 2 years, so I think I will give this one a go.
Dublin City Council have set up a website with lots more information and this post on their site, is where you should go to discuss the book. The library section of the council also have a One City One Book flickr stream – oddly, all the photographs are shows as “All Rights reserved”.
I shouldn’t have used one of their images and created the header for this post. But I have in the hope that maybe they will see that these type of images should be released under a Creative Commons License.
le craic is a blog based in ireland which will feature various items that take my fancy. the "i" in question is me, aj o flaherty - an irishman. although the blog is based in ireland, it is not specifically and exclusively about ireland, so everyone is welcome here. thanks for dropping by, hope you enjoy your visit.
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:
