I like shopping for food, I have been known to lose track of time wandering around a supermarket. But I’ve noticed a disturbing trend recently while in supermarkets, ‘the trend of the disappearing food products’. I go to a large supermarket to buy a product that I regularly buy there and then suddenly one day they no longer sell the damn product. The Boy Who Likes To (TBWLT) has touched on this subject too with his ‘My Top 5 Discontinued Products’ post. One of my favourite snacks is Doritos ‘hint of lime’ flavour chips dipped in lashings of hummus. It’s been ages since I’ve had this because I haven’t been able to find ‘hint of lime’ flavour Doritos in any of my local supermarkets. I also can’t seem to get my hands on Amaretti biscuits which I had been able to buy in a large Tesco supermarket near me until one Saturday morning when I was frantically looking for them to complete a dessert that I had made for that night. I also checked two other supermarkets on the same day with no success. My sister suffered a similar fate until recently when she discovered that ‘L.A. Bagels’ stocks amaretti biscuits! I also had great fun when I tried to buy sachets of gelatin; Tesco seemed to be discontinuing them left, right and centre. I did find it very recently in Dunnes Stores possibly because the last time I went looking for it, it took three very obliging floor staff to tell me they didn’t have it. It’s not like I asked three separate people, I asked one girl and she couldn’t find it so she asked another girl in a nearby section who also couldn’t find so she asked the guy in the section two aisles away. All three of them came to the same conclusion i.e. that they didn’t have it in stock. I can put up with food companies changing the names of products such as marathon bars becoming snickers but when the product eerily disappears off supermarket shelves without warning or a good send off, it just freaks me out. Where will it end? I understand that companies are responding to the changing needs of customers and are producing lots of new products every year to satisfy this perceived need but for goodness sake when you make a half decent product try to keep it on the bloody shelves! Oh and don’t get me started on the amazing reappearing/disappearing act of Cadbury’s Wispa bar…

Guard well within yourself that treasure, kindness. Know how to give without hesitation, how to lose without regret, how to acquire without meanness.

George Sand
French author (1804 - 1876)

May February be the month of music!

Sun 03 Feb 2008 - 8:30PM - David Geraghty - Cyprus Avenue
Sat 09 Feb 2008 - 8:30PM - The Walls (unplugged) - Cyprus Avenue
Sat 09 Feb 2008 - TBC – Aaron Dillon - Meades Wine Bar, 126 Oliver Plunkett Street
Sun 10 Feb 2008 - 9.00PM - The Walls - De Barras
Mon 11 Feb 2008 - 9:00PM - Foy Vance - Cyprus Avenue
Mon 18 Feb 2008 - 9:00PM - Cathy Davey - Cyprus Avenue
Tue 19 Feb 2008 - 10:00PM – Oppenheimer - Old Oak (Free Gig)
Thu 21 Feb 2008 - 9:00PM - The Flaws - Cyprus Avenue
Sat 23 Feb 2008 - 9:00PM – Delorentos - Cyprus Avenue
Sat 23 Feb 2008 - TBC – Aaron Dillon - Meades Wine Bar, 126 Oliver Plunkett Street

If you ever happen to be in Montreal I would recommend a visit to the Botanical Gardens. I was there last October and really enjoyed the experience. The Montreal Botanical Gardens are one of the world’s largest and most spectacular botanical gardens. I was pretty snap happy during my visit there and was fascinated by the Chinese Garden. The display of Chinese lanterns at the entrance and the general layout and colour of the garden was amazing.

Tranche – Noun

Any of the parts into which something, especially an amount of money or an issue of shares in a company, is divided.

- Origin, Old French ‘slice’

No one has a finer command of language than the person who keeps his mouth shut.

Sam Rayburn
US politician (1882 - 1961)

Boy 1: Are you gay?

Boy 2: No.

Boy 1: I just found out recently that one of my close friends is gay. He is the fourth friend of mine that has come out as being gay.

Boy 2: You turn guys gay? Oh, I love you.

Boy 1 and Boy 2 both hug and laugh.

This was overheard in a pub and you can bet your ass that there was alcohol involved. :-)

It’s nomination time again and here are the nominations for some of the main categories of the 2008 Academy Awards.

ACTOR IN A LEADING ROLE

1. George Clooney – Michael Clayton
2. Daniel Day Lewis – There Will Be Blood
3. Johnny Depp – Sweeney Todd The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
4. Tommy Lee Jones – In the Valley of Elah
5. Viggo Mortenson – Eastern Promises

ACTRESS IN A LEADING ROLE

1. Cate Blancett – Elizabeth: The Golden Age
2. Julie Christie – Away From Her
3. Marion Cotillard – Ma Vie En Rose
4. Laura Linney – The Savages
5. Ellen Page - Juno

ACTOR IN A SUPPORTING ROLE

1. Casey Affleck – The Assassination of Jesse James By the Coward Robert Ford
2. Javier Bardem – No Country For Old Men
3. Philip Seymour Hoffman – Charlie Wilson’s War
4. Hal Holbrook – Into The Wild
5. Tom Wilkinson – Michael Clayton

ACTRESS IN A SUPPORTING ROLE

1. Cate Blancett – I’m Not There
2. Ruby Dee – American Gangster
3. Saoirse Ronan – Atonement
4. Amy Ryan – Gone Baby Gone
5. Tilda Swinton – Michael Clayton

BEST DIRECTOR

1. Julian Schnabel – The Diving Bell And The Butterfly
2. Jason Reitman – Juno
3. Tony Gilroy – Michael Clayton
4. Joel and Ethan Coen – No Country For Old Men
5. Paul Thomas Anderson – There Will Be Blood

BEST PICTURE

1. Juno
2. Atonement
3. Michael Clayton
4. No Country For Old Men
5. There Will Be Blood

It’s great to see Irish actress Saoirse Ronan nominated for best supporting actress and Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova’s song "Falling Slowly" from the film Once has been nominated for best song.

Ever heard about the Love Food Hate Waste website? I just found out about it recently and I think it’s an interesting site especially if you find yourself regularly throwing out food that you didn’t get around to eating. I always feel guilty when I end up throwing out perfectly good food. The website contains different sections that cover the following topics:

1. Perfect Portions – ‘Do you cook too much? We can help…’
2. Save Time and Money – ‘Meal making and food facts that really save money’
3. Recipes – ‘Top Chefs take on leftovers’
4. Storage and Tools – ‘Keep it fresh and eat at its best’
5. About Food Waste – ‘Why cutting food waste matters’
6. Add Your Voice – ‘Please add your voice to our campaign’

I really like the recipe section, you can pick which food you have leftover e.g. eggs and they provide you with a couple of recipes that use eggs. The section ‘About Food Waste’ talks about the financial and environmental consequences of food waste. It seems incredible that about a third of all food bought in the UK is thrown away and most of it could have been eaten. I wonder if there is a similar statistic for Ireland.

Andrew Davies has worked his magic again with the new adaptation of Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility that was shown on BBC 1 over the past few weeks. It was shown as a three part series that finished the weekend before last and it was repeated the following weekend on BBC4 and BBC1. The story is mainly about two sisters and the different ways in which they react to love. Marianne Dashwood wears her heart on her sleeve while Elinor, her older sister, is sensitive to social convention and struggles to conceal her own romantic feelings. I think the casting was very good and I enjoyed the fact that I found both Edward Ferrars (played by Dan Stevens) and Colonel Brandon (David Morrisey) more attractive than Willoughby (Dominic Coper). Andrew Davies is the same guy that produced the excellent adaptation of Pride and Prejudice containing the scene with Colin Firth emerging from the lake and bumping into Elizabeth in a sopping shirt. He even manages to work a wet shirt scene into this adaptation of Sense and Sensibility when he has Edward Ferrars chopping wood in the rain. I wonder if there is any chance that he would do an adaptation of Persuasion. My housemates have banned me from watching anymore Jane Austen inspired films/TV programmes for six months. Since Christmas I’ve seen the latest ‘Pride and Prejudice’ film starring Keira Knightley that was on RTE1 recently (which I detested when I saw it in the cinema but I liked it a bit more after seeing it a second time), the film ‘Becoming Jane’ about Jane Austen’s life and the BBC’s latest version of ‘Sense and Sensibility’. I think it’s probably time to balance that out with a steady DVD diet of Lethal Weapon, Die Hard, Rocky and Rambo for the next couple of months.

Old age, calm, expanded, broad with the haughty breadth of the universe, old age flowing free with the delicious near-by freedom of death.

Edith Wharton
US novelist (1862 - 1937)

The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity.

Dorothy Parker (1893 - 1967), (attributed)

Check out a new photo blog called pana-vision . This is a photo-a-day photoblog dedicated to Cork city and county. It’s refreshing to see the city from a slightly different perspective. Even though Pana-Vision is in its infancy I’ve already seen photos of parts of the city that I have walked past millions of times and not noticed properly. So whether you are a Corkonian or not there is bound to be a few photos that will catch your eye.

We must believe in luck. For how else can we explain the success of those we don't like?

Jean Cocteau
French dramatist, director, & poet (1889 - 1963)

I have an affliction that traditionally seems to affect more women than men; basically I have a terrible sense of direction. I believe this is something that I have inherited from my mother because my father appears to have a very good sense of direction. It could have something to do with the fact that I practically break out in a sweat when someone gives me a map to read. I always have the urge to try to step into the map to get my bearings like Joey from Friends. Unfortunately it’s not confined to maps, because when someone is verbally giving me directions I get tied up in knots as soon as they start using lots of street names that I don’t know. The weird thing is that I regularly get asked for directions when I am randomly out and about. It has even happened a couple of times when I’ve been on holidays. To make matters worse I’m also terrible at giving directions particularly in Cork where I don’t know the names of lots of streets and I resort to saying things like ‘do you know where X pub is?’ before launching into a convoluted explanation about the location of their destination relative to that pub. I’ve sort of accepted this defect and found through experience that I generally need to lose my way before I can find it!

You are a Romantic Realist

Okay, so you fall in the middle. You know that love isn't like a greeting card... Yet you can always find a greeting card to describe your feelings. You are the best of both worlds Girly yet independent, dreamy yet serious. Almost any guy can find balance with you.

If you have knowledge, let others light their candles at it.

Margaret Fuller
US Transcendentalist author & editor (1810 - 1850)

The following are some of the categories and nominees for the 2008 Meteor Music Awards.

Best Irish Band
Ash
Aslan
Fight Like Apes
Delorentos
The Flaws
Future Kings of Spain

Best Irish Male
Paddy Casey
Damien Dempsey
Duke Special
Glen Hansard
David Geraghty
Declan O’Rourke

Best Irish Female
Andrea Corr
Cathy Davey
Maria Doyle Kennedy
Roisin Murphy
Sinead O’Connor
Dolores O’Riordan

Best Irish Pop Act
Bell X1
The Blizzards
The Coronas
Brian McFadden
Roisin Murphy
Westlife

Best Irish Album
Paddy Casey - Addicted to Company
Cathy Davey - Tales of Silversleeve
Delorentos – In Love with Detail
The Flaws – Achieving Vagueness
Future Kings of Spain – Nervousystem
David Geraghty – Kill Your Darlings

Best Irish Live Performance
Bell X1 - Malahide Castle
The Blizzards - Oxegen
Duke Special - Vicar Street
Fight Like Apes – Whelans
Future Kings of Spain - Village
Damien Rice - Marlay Park

I’m glad to see that David Geraghty is up for Best Irish Male and that his album ‘Kill Your Darlings’ is in with a shot for Best Irish Album. It is also good to see Cathy Davey getting a nod for Best Irish Female and that ‘Tales of Silversleeve’ is up for Best Irish Album. I don’t know much about the Meteor Music Awards or how artists and their music are nominated for particular categories. It strikes me as strange that BellX1 have been nominated for Best Irish Pop Act as opposed to Best Irish Band. What makes them a ‘Pop Act’ instead of a ‘Band’? The other puzzling thing is that all the Best Irish Live Performances took place in Dublin except for The Blizzards at Oxegen. I know that Dublin has a large population and many fine music venues but music is performed in other counties around Ireland too. Is it the music industry or the public that put forward nominees for these categories? I couldn’t find any information about that on the Meteor website, it was all just about the voting categories and the non-voting categories!!!

I think the picture says it all!