From Cork With Love - by Paul O'Mahony @omaniblog: Recent Episodes
Paul O'Mahony
The From Cork With Love podcast is produced in Cork Ireland by poet Paul O'Mahony. It is an eclectic mix of topics - mainly about culture and society.
You hear Paul O’Mahony reading the words that stand beside the statue. Words that provoked a protest from Japanese government.
Paul O’Mahony would be lost without his artificial intelligence- - he admits it here in Stintino
Paul O’Mahony at 11.30 heads north from Alghero to the small town Stintino - by two buses. On another adventure. All will be revealed
Thanks to his brother David, Paul O’Mahony found the best place to test wines in Alghero. He tasted five wines. Drank about three.
Artificial intelligence features alongside Ravioli stuffed with cream of Pecorino cheese, with delicious tomato sauce … Sardinian beer …. Espresso with water on the side - and just one Cornetto.
Avoid Sassari - “It’s first place in Sardinia - Alghero is the best.. “
said my cafe friend.
Paul O’Mahony decided to check it out on a Sunday. You hear him gasping for a beer.
Warning: This isn’t an easy listen. On Thursday morning, Paul O’Mahony is being LAZY in his adopted café in Alghero - a short fragment from daily life on an island in the Mediterranean
You hear Paul O’Mahony reading what he wrote in his notebook. Don’t expect a description of orange juice, croissant, and coffee
You hear Paul O’Mahony playing an electric fan in his favourite café. Storytelling the encounter with an Italian member of staff. The experience of spending two years in Ireland, in Dublin, was almost too much for the native of Rome.
You hear Paul O’Mahony talking about trouble in the hotel. Do you hear about date stones, nectarine Stone, and an Apple core.
Boza is growing on Paul
You hear Paul O’Mahony enjoying himself in a town that comes highly recommended by Rough Guide. Beginning a two-day stay alongside the longest river in Sardinia.
Beer, bicycles, pizza, and sunshine thrown in.
You hear snippets from Paul O’Mahony’s Day. First the bus from Alghero to Neptune’s Grotto. 654 steps - Followed by the sound of the sea. Leading to the tour guide.
An amazing bit of good fortune - the boat ride back to the streets of the old town.
Paul O’Mahony thought this was a funny fragment from ‘life‘s rich tapestry’. An incident in Bean & Leaf …
You hear Paul O’Mahony wrestling with one of the most widespread issues in interpersonal communications. #regret #sorry ?
Paul O’Mahony did something very stupid. He left the keys to his electric car on the front seat overnight. You hear him castigating himself.
Poor old Paul O’Mahony - he has too many options recorded. You’d never believe what he chose to watch first.
Will Paul O’Mahony ever get better at Golf? There’s one thing certain about Golf.- inconsistency. Even the professionals experience it.
You hear Paul O’Mahony listening to a terrific singer outside Kings Cross train station in London on Tuesday 14th July 2026 .
You can find her on Instagram as CristinaAcostaSoprana. On YouTube as Cristina Acosta Soprano.
You hear Paul O’Mahony asking Ken what he thought about how Dola responded to the prompt that Paul put into it. Including what can thought of the audio response.
These two friends had a great time together over lunch across the road from the Royal Exchequer in London
You hear some London sounds while Paul O’Mahony realises something that takes him aback
You hear Paul O’Mahony leaving the house in Palmer Green. OK swiftly up the street towards the train station. Heading towards a 10 am breakfast in Kings Cross.
Followed by a brief pause. The next thing you hear is Pol talking inside the train station after learning that the 9:11 am train has been cancelled. The rest will be history.
Sounds of the kitchen in Paul O’Mahony’s House: Tuesday around 8am.
Paul is distracted by work for OneCountryOneWorld Toastmasters club members
When you are getting back into Golf, there’s a good chance you’ll find yourself playing golf with strangers, people you don’t know, people you’ve never played with.
What are they likely to do? What are your options?
You hear Paul O’Mahony warning you that you might take a while to get used to electric driving.
Paul has had an Inster for six months.
You hear Paul O’Mahony putting on his Google socks. Moaning about his back. And a couple of other fragments. #audiomo review to do
You hear Paul O’Mahony talking to members of Toastmasters about the dynamics of “Being There” for another person - in this case Roger Caesar, his great friend.
You hear an impromptu conversation between Paul O’Mahony & Roger Overall. All about the dramatic events in the cricket match between England and New Zealand yesterday.
Paul says he is “disgusted” by the behaviour of the English captain Ben Stokes. You hear Paul unloading all his bile to Roger - over coffee and tea on Monday morning. Before the inevitable happened.
You hear Paul O’Mahony driving into the heat - driving towards Cobh Golf Club.
Photo taken from The Irish Times
You hear the sound of keys reunited with their owner. Paul O’Mahony makes Tea and is glad to be back to Audiomo
You hear Paul O’Mahony tasting blueberries he bought in his local supermarket. Chilean, Moroccan, or Spanish?
What’s that unusual sound in the kitchen? Could it be a mouse? Surely not. You’re right. It’s Puma & Paul
You hear Paul O’Mahony talking about education & status in Toastmasters clubs. What the head of education has to do to serve club members
You hear Paul O’Mahony driving while talking about why you might like to turn back from a commitment you’ve made to play Golf
You hear Irish Water being poured into his daughter‘s favourite mug. Paul O’Mahony says he doesn’t like complaining. “ it’s ridiculous to keep a mattress for 50 years.”
Eating a Kiwi
Whenever I eat a kiwi
and slowly chew the skin,
I know there is a risk
of being misunderstood.
Whenever I eat a kiwi,
your birth comes fresh to mind,
the flesh of my desire,
the joy of swallowing you.
Within the taste of a kiwi,
a feast of fruit,
the body is firm, luscious,
at risk of being understood.
You hear Paul O’Mahony’s speech to a group of Toastmasters in Canada. Contrasting two types of managers - taking a stance on the the current Toastmasters education program
You hear Paul O’Mahony stationary In his car - bemoaning the fact that there are so few people talking about cricket - during AudioMo and on @BlueSky
You hear Paul O’Mahony stringing words together - imagining a poem that plays golf & plays a poem
You hear Paul O’Mahony making tea as he looks forward to meeting @RogerOverall. Arsenal v PSV - England v New Zealand may come up over coffee in Chaard.
You hear Paul O’Mahony introducing himself to a group of Toastmasters at OneCountryOneWorld club.
You hear Paul O’Mahony confess he’s not an artificial intelligence - even though he might be in future. He also doesn’t think that Ernie isn’t yet artificial. Meanwhile, Paul is looking forward to connecting with old friends and acquaintances during June via #audiomo
You hear Paul O’Mahony talking from an armchair in his garden - next to a banana skin, a rake, and coloured flowers.
You hear Paul O’Mahony hurrying an electric Hyundai Inster to Cobh Golf Club on Friday morning - for a 9.15am tee time. His mind jumps from topic to topic. Just like his game.
You hear the talk Paul O’Mahony gave at Blarney Toastmasters on 26th May. All against war.
You hear Paul O’Mahony putting on his Google socks - the ones he bought at Google headquarters in August 2024.
You hear Paul O’Mahony reporting on his best round in nine months. Thursday, yesterday, on Cobh golf course.
Sitting on a sofa, thinking ahead to the prospect of playing more golf on Saturday, Sunday, and Thursday.
You hear Paul O’Mahony welcoming the arrival of the collection of haiku edited by Gabriela Marie Milton, published by Literary Revelations (ISBN 9798999732576).
Paul reads the group of his five haiku included in the collection, on page 73.
You hear Paul O’Mahony revealing his communication “Style”. This is the very first draft of a speech that Paul gave to Toastmasters4Golf Club members on Monday..
You hear Paul O’Mahony reporting on the labour it took to remove thatch & moss from his ‘lawn’. Halfway through the job, Paul started wishing he paid somebody else to do it.
You hear Paul O’Mahony celebrating a decision by Toastmasters International. The international convention of Toastmasters International will be held in Paris in August 2027. Paul heard all about it on Saturday evening on Facebook. He went straight to the kitchen for a bottle of champagne.
You hear Paul O’Mahony driving to the supermarket. Complaining. Being a real miseryguts.
You hear Paul O’Mahony back from the Conference in Tralee, County Kerry, Ireland. A Toastmasters international annual conference. Surely Paul’s DNA cannot have been changed in three days by “Building Foundational Friendships”.
You hear Paul O’Mahony with Louis. You also hear Paul making tea - mentioning that he buys the cheapest tea in SuperValu, his local supermarket.
You hear sounds of Dublin city centre - plus commentary by Paul O’Mahony as he walks the streets.
You hear Paul O’Mahony talking about a time when everything seemed to be going quite nicely. Until he got a surprise invitation to do something quite nerve racking
You hear Paul O’Mahony very upset. He was caught speeding.
A big fine & three points on his licence
You hear Paul O’Mahony talking about how he was pissed off by the way the day began. You also hear him talking about why it’s getting better and better. Paul loves Dublin.
You hear Paul O’Mahony feeling the effects of interviewing & editing. It’s taken more out of him than he realised
You hear Paul O’Mahony falling asleep on Saturday morning - after a day away playing golf. An experience to remember.
You hear Paul O’Mahony asking listeners if they would like to go to a an unusual meeting. A meeting at which you hadn’t a clue what role you were to play until you got to the meeting.
Paul went to that type of meeting yesterday. He’d like to know how are you would feel about that.
You hear Paul O’Mahony talking about a talk he gave yesterday. The talk was about John Bourke. John was one of the best Irish golfers ever.
You hear what Larry thought of the speech and what he thought Paul could do to improve it.
Larry’s opinion and recommendations were given at the May meeting of Toastmasters4Golf.
You hear Paul O’Mahony hardly able to believe the rumour that the US government is contemplating imposing a tariff on the importation of the views of Pope Leo.
Surely it’s a joke.
You hear Paul O’Mahony making coffee in an energetic manner. In kitchen, with a SAGE machine.
You hear Paul O’Mahony out walking with his dog on Sunday morning. Before the hailstones. Pol pleased that the blockades are being lifted. The oil refinery can go back to work. Oil depots are open again.
You hear Paul O’Mahony waxing lyrically about transcription provided by Voice Record Pro app.
“I almost forgot what I wanted to talk about.
I wanted to tell you the story of what's happened to an app on which I use, almost every day, called voice record pro, sometimes called voice record pro seven.
Something wonderful has happened.
Out of the blue, I had no idea it was coming.
Transcription comes.
And it's fast, fast, fast.
You can record your audio.
Press the transcription, and it'll be there in seconds.
Now, for years I've been using this app.
And for years, the transcription's been no good.
Okay, all transcriptions are inaccurate.
But it takes forever, takes forever, up until what, 3 days ago or something like that?
I tell you, there isn't a better app on which to record audio, and if there is in your opinion, something superb, something that you rate out of this world, please mention it.
Please send me some kind of information about it.
I would really like that because I'm fully prepared to give another app a go.
Absolutely, fully prepared to download another app, try it out, give it a fair chance.
But this is coming to you via voice record pro and I might even transcribe it and put it in the notes that go along with this podcast episode, which I'll put up on audioboom back to the studio.”
You hear Paul O’Mahony reporting on the latest situation
“Hello and welcome to my kitchen, where I've been doing research.
As far as I found out, the UK government is doing nothing significant to reduce the cost of fuel or diesel to compensate or support the businesses that are dependent on these. That means farmers, truck drivers and private bus drivers. There seems to be general societal peace, no roadblockages, no long queues outside petrol stations - nor fuel shortages.
According to what I've been able to find out, via Internet, BBC News app, and artificial intelligence, all's well in UK.
All is not well in Ireland.
Big meeting this afternoon between government and 2 or 3 representative organisations.
Probably, some spokespersons from those blocking roads will be at the meeting - if they were members of the Irish Farmers Association or Road Hauliers
I had conversation this morning about how much it would cost the government to peg or reduce the price of fuel down to €1.90 per litre for diesel, and €1.60 for petrol.
(Diesel is currently €2.10, petrol €1.95) - but few can get fuel because protesters are blocking roads.
One person said the government can't do that because it would cost a billion a week (or 1 billion a month).
I went to sources, 2 artificial sources, DeepSeek sink & ChatGPT.
According to Deep Seek, it would cost the Exchequer €80-120 million for 3 months.
Chat GPT said it would cost 300 million per year for petrol, for all diesel €275m - €575m per year.
Both went into detail on how they did their calculations.
Chat GPT is estimating what the cost would be to the annual exchequer. The answer it comes up with is roughly €39m per year.
Correction:
Including excise duty, cost would be between €80 - 90m a year.
ChatGPT is now offering information on a 25% reduction across the board. It says that overall - when you include transport, farming, and home heating, you're talking nearly €2 billion a year.
Divide by 52 to to estimate how much revenue the government will lose per week. How much less investment is available for roads, hospitals, schools, social welfare, et cetera.
Ireland has a massive stash of money in some kind of escrow account which has been collected Google, Apple foreign direct investment. There’s no doubt the money is there. However the consequences of releasing money from that fund, we call the Rainy Day Fund, is beyond me to calculate.
Here's the news update.
There's a big meeting this afternoon, and goodness knows what will be the outcome of it”
in relation to the protests, Road blockages, and fuel shortage in Ireland at 1 pm on 10th of April 2026.
You hear Paul O’Mahony introducing the clash between protesters and the Irish government. Roads blocked. Oil refinery blocked …
You hear Paul O’Mahony practising a tall tale. A tall tale is a short story which may or may not be true. The best tales leave the audience wondering “ could this possibly be true?”
Paul is going to tell this tale to an audience of Toastmasters today.
You hear Paul O’Mahony getting ‘’back to normal” after recent life.
The problem Paul faces is that he end up with war.
You hear Paul O’Mahony on a bicycle for the first time in 19 years. Is it possible that Paul will take up cycling again? Surely Paul won’t continue to be irritated by Greenways?
You hear Paul O’Mahony reporting from Heathrow Airport - in his way to a funeral in County Dorset - and having coffee.
You hear Paul O’Mahony moaning about how caterpillars attacked him with tiny hairs. Urticating hairs that cause human skin to have a rash and become very irritating. Almost unbelievable - to someone who has grown up seeing Caterpillars as lovely little harmless creatures
You hear Paul O'Mahony speak shortly after he's been shocked by a podcaster - thanks to Sunday's episode of "The Story" podcast. Paul suggests you listen to Episode 1 of "The Epstein Files" podcast. Paul's hooked. Listened to five episodes one after the other.
You hear Paul O’Mahony remembering what it was like to visit the ships that Christopher Columbus used - before driving on to Faro Airport. A fragment recorded in the car.
You hear Paul O’Mahony talking about how he feel after a lunch of black rice & baby squid with Peter Williams. Rice blackened by squid ink. Wednesday was a hot day in the car.
You hear Paul O’Mahony celebrating his gin experience on the night he reached his destination Huelva in Spain. #MartinMiller I’ve & #Schweppes. Plus the vibrant sound of Spanish conversations. #OmaniHuelva
You hear Paul O’Mahony on his #OmaniHuelva to Spain via Faro Portugal.
The adventure began in Cork, continued to Dublin Airport, and led on to this flight.
You hear Paul O’Mahony tell a funny story. You hear the advice Paul received from an expert yesterday. The sound of a small saucepan boiling.
You hear Paul O’Mahony making tea. Settling into a conversation with St Patrick about how he drove the snakes out of Ireland.
Moving on to three requests for Patrick to wield his crozier.
You hear Paul O’Mahony in a very worried state making a cup of tea on Monday morning.
He can’t find his passport.
You hear Paul O’Mahony telling the story of how the outside of the shed took on a new lease of life. Where the fresh paint came from. Louis, Marina Market, and coffee.
All on the day, Ireland and Scotland played a magnificent rugby match - the same day that England & France racked up a score which was more like a basketball score.
You hear Paul O’Mahony running 300 yards for the first time in over 30 years - and vowing to run 301 yards tomorrow.
You hear Paul O’Mahony giving his speech at the Area International Speech Final” in Garryvoe Hotel in East Cork.
Toastmasters
You hear a train moving towards Cobh. PaulO’Mahony’s first short journey from Glounthaune. Ambient sound all the way - plus Paul’s chat about it.
You here Paul O’Mahony talking with the public relations manager for Toastmasters in Scotland (plus half of England, a bit of Wales & the whole of Ireland).
You hear Paul O’Mahony reciting his latest poem - and introducing it
Walking
May you walk into your future
with a flower by your side.
May you step on stones of life
with joy within your shoes.
As a heron stands in the rushing river
may you weave your web with care.
Between branches of your tale,
there is mystery round your corner
in the maze that is to come.
As you taste the fragrance from the breeze,
may the wisdom in your heart
breathe beyond your deep blue sky
As he drives to his Monday morning “mental health walk” (where he’ll be walking with a group in Cobh, Co Cork) Paul O’Mahony talks about his feelings, thoughts & experiences of fragility.
You hear Paul O’Mahony admitting that he’s not as tough as he used to be.
That once upon a time he lost a golf ball in the middle of a green that was covered in snow.
That he’s going out for dinner tonight
You hear the sound of Paul O’Mahony’s Mother-in-law washing up in the kitchen. Paul talks about how he feels awkward about publicising something he’s never done before.
He has a splendid track record of losing speech contests, and also being disqualified. Tuesday and Wednesday of this week has been different.
You hear Paul O’Mahony reflecting on the experience he had yesterday, and learning from it. “Toastmasters as Metaphor.”
You hear a perfect example of a sneeze, an Irish sneeze, brought on by Irish cold and damp. If you listen carefully, you’ll hear the tinkle of a teaspoon on the side of a cup of second tea.
You hear Paul O’Mahony talking about the power of music. How Maria Callas has moved into the house alongside his mother-in-law. Together over a famous victory by Ireland in a rugby match with England.
This was recorded on the first morning Paul O’Mahony got back from Spain. You hear how surprised and pleased Paul is that the battery is still alive.
Your hear Paul talking about how he wishes he could wear bright colours like women do.
In the end, he reveals he has a blocked ear.
You hear Paul O’Mahony moving at the speed of lichen - recovering from the intensity of a week in Bilbao.
You hear Paul talking about the fact that no one finished the Barclay marathons this year.
You hear the sound of coffee being made.
You hear Paul O'Mahony getting ready to fly to Bilbao - via Gatwick. Paul speaks about what he's hoping for: food, drink, views, music & education.
You hear Paul O’Mahony talking about how he learned about the variety of ways in which people from different cultures communicate.
You hear Paul O’Mahony having breakfast - remembering Jonathan Swift - and the war between Lilliput and Blefuscu.
You hear Paul O’Mahony reading a poem he selected - may be first in a series “Poems for Bedtime”
This is an extract from “Gravity and Light”.
You hear Paul O’Mahony in awe of how Proust wrote about what happened to him after he tasted a madeleine that had been dunked in lime-flavoured tea.
Paul referred to an incident in Joseph Conrad’s “The Secret Agent”
You hear Paul O’Mahony using quotations from the Irish government announcement of a public holiday:
In January 2022, then-Tánaiste (Deputy Prime Minister) Leo Varadkar announced the new holiday, stating: "This new public holiday will be a national day to recognise the efforts of the general public, volunteers and all workers during the COVID-19 pandemic, and in remembrance of people who lost their lives due to the COVID-19 pandemic."
Paul argues that (unfortunately) the purpose of the public holiday is gradually being forgotten- being wiped from public consciousness.
You hear Paul O’Mahony walking by rushing water with Louis - shortly after listening to the start of “Swann’s Way” on Audible. Paul remembers his great friend Dai Griffiths, who read the whole of “Remembrance of Things Past” - at work.
Exquisite is the first word that Paul uses to describe his first 18 minutes.
There will probably be many more Proustian episodes to come
Your Paul O’Mahony on a bright sunny Sunday morning - talking about how he used Facebook. How he make a mistake which led to a Buddhist experience.
You hear the mirth in Paul O’Mahony’s Voice as he tells the story of what happened before the picture that goes with this episode. Recorded on Saturday evening when Paul was not drunk on red wine.
Imagine Paul O’Mahony spending his whole day striving to do something as simple as connecting a Mac to a new Epson printer - having to resort to DeepSeek.
You hear Paul O’Mahony talking about his visit to a recycling centre on Saturday morning.
You also hear a bit of family history - the time his daughter asked “ how do you know God is a man?" The champion boxer Katie Taylor comes into the picture.
You hear Paul O’Mahony after he’s been blown away by Jessie Buckley - and the whole Hamnet experience. Paul expects Shakespeare’s wife to win an Oscar.
(This was recorded on the 24th of January 2026)
You hear Paul O’Mahony celebrating the end of a “pain in the neck”. He’ll be able to drive forward in comfort from now on.
You hear Paul O’Mahony celebrating one of his brothers. Master of Science in Artificial Intelligence with First Class Honours. Praise too for the restaurant called Aces. Plus the stupidity of consuming a huge quantity of jelly babies. Paul is suffering right now on Thursday evening.
You hear Paul O’Mahony complaining loudly about the fact that he can’t charge his car with a home charger that was attached to the house yesterday
You hear Paul O’Mahony about to delete Audible in favour of an offer from Spotify. But before that Paul must decide which four audio books to select. The short list of 11 is here.
You hear Paul O’Mahony indignant. How dare USA allow drug gangs dump cannabis on people of Ireland.
Will the Irish government retaliate?
You hear Paul O’Mahony declare that it’s time to walk the dog Louis. You also hear the list of things that Paul has done this morning.
You hear Paul O’Mahony speaking passionately about a political issue - one that’s very important to him. “It’s not too late to change your opinion about a cause you’ve supported for ages.”
Warning: Paul has strong views & feelings about what’s happening in Israel.
You hear a man doing housework, proving that - even at this late stage - it is possible to change habits of a lifetime
You hear all about the most successful roast vegetables that Paul O’Mahony has ever cooked - including the ingredients & instructions. There is an extraordinary ingredient that you won’t find in any recipe book.
You hear Paul O’Mahony confronting the barrier that’s been erected - all for the sake of a “greenway”.
You hear a worried Paul O’Mahony. His cat is not himself. A very bad, disturbing thought crossed Paul’s mind
You hear Paul O’Mahony talking while driving his new car from the ‘showroom’ to home. It’s an electric one. #Audio365
Introducing the Irish Tea Ceremony to the wider world - contrasting it with the Japanese Tea Ceremony, which Paul O’Mahony experienced in April 2025. You hear a tiny interruption by Puma.
Bombing. Invasion. Kidnapping - Paul O’Mahony is taken aback. Paul has no love for the EU call for “restraint” by USA.
Time to go back
It’s time to go back to the studio
return the microphone
leave the stage
before it is too late
and the sun dissolves,
the dark turns the key
in the cell of sleep.
By the side of the sound
fluttering traces, glimmers of illumination
on a sandy shore, parallel to the light
to which sea turtles run.
Signals that the evolution of cells
requires the survival of a fresh program
within each radio impulse.
Let another station follow the end of this episode.
Let the chrysalis crack open
so earthworms may turn into music
and melody explode.
Let there be flight,
transparent colour,
for the fullness of time,
in the flicker of an eagle’s eye.
in the bite of a death adder
as if
a fragment of static
is about to cross the synapse of suspended wires.
Again, back to the studio.
You hear higgledy-piggledy talk by Paul O'Mahony to himself. Inspired by a teabag in a mug, an easy-pealer, damp sheet, and a one third eaten pineapple. In other words, the speaker is all over the place this morning.
If you listen to all this inadequate adventure path, you too may become disappointed with your result. The illusive certainty that seems to dwell on this side of the bridge.
From where comes the faint sensation that the recording over cereal has mattered? Might matter some day to come? Even though it matters now.
Amen.
2025A year of fire and brimstone,
a reckoning with massacres, starvations, vindictive assaults
on hopes and dreams.
It’s been “disappointing ” to see infants lose their parents – and grandparents crippled with the pain of grief
in ruins, rubble, and relics of the quiet life they wanted more than anything.
Blue skies & clean water
blooming flowers and fruiting trees
fresh streams and songbirds’ lilt
the melody of playgrounds
symphony of toddlers
climbing and seesawing
as the prayers for peace went on and on.
No resurrection
nothing rising from the dead
but carrion over Gaza
and wolves in the Donbas,
wildfires breathe, droughts parch,
as glaciers melt
and natural disasters are too many to remember.
– The outside world a cesspool.
The inside world
of dampened fire,
of dribbling lines,
a thirsty year of tablets
for teeth,
for a dug out cyst
a year for seventeen syllables
a year for words
a year for causes.
Is there any way back?
Any way out?
Any way beyond?
Is there nothing but now?
A year of finding a second home
among smiles & bowing necks
the quiet glances
– the way a swallow flies
or a heron glides.
Goodbye to all those wet days,
all those days of cloud,
all the days of weather,
Not knowing is the lane to wisdom,
not knowing’s the adventure,
not knowing’s the way.
2025 Year of Knowing too well
– and Not Knowing.
Early morning: New Year’s Eve: You hear Paul O’Mahony talking about his leak & his friend’s trouble #DecPodPoMo
You hear Paul O’Mahony talking about a book he got from Audible - Paul’s at least 5 hours into listening to it. #DecPodPoMo
You hear Paul O’Mahony talking to himself as he goes shopping for coffee, bananas, and exotic tea - you also hear Paul asking for directions- plus chat at the checkout- also the danger of crossing the shopping centre car park#DecPodPoMo
You hear Paul O’Mahony introducing how difficult yesterday was. How he felt lousy from morning to night, tetchy & grumpy.
Everyone is entitled to have a bad day, and to be stuck in it. No point making it worse. There are better ways to be. #DecPodPoMo
At the launch of "The Irish Revolution Diplomacy and reactions, 1919-1923"
Edited by Dermot Keogh, Owen McGee and Mervyn O’Driscoll
Paul O'Mahony was hoping to meet up with Hilary Beirne from the TangibleIreland network. Instead he admired Micheal Martin (Taoiseach) speaking in praise of the academic who supervised his Master's Thesis: Dermot Keogh.
Unfortunately for Paul, there wasn't enough humour or light-heartedness in the speeches. #DecPodPoMo.
Do not use laundered money. That's not a good habit. Instead follow the method recommended by Paul O'Mahony - and the Hyundai dealer.
Paul is going to buy a new car - in January. #DecPodPoMo
Unless you're in good health and good mood, this may be a particularly tough time of the year for you (and the others who are in poor emotional health)..
Paul O'Mahony recorded this while driving to join the mental health walking group on Little Island in Cork. #DecPodPoMo.
After watering the cat - Headlines from Ireland - found in The Irish Times weekend edition. Not particularly satisfying, Paul thinks. #DecPodPoMo
You hear Paul O'Mahony's cup of tea going down - and an apology for his "bad mannered yawn". Epigrams are quoted - and Paul even speculates that he might write some. The idea of composing a poem entirely from epigrams ...
In the end the unmade soups is introduced. The image is the soup after it was made. #DecPodPoMo
Recorded on 9th December 2025. So many people have been having significant work on their teeth this year. Paul O'Mahony's friends for example. What about you and your friends.
This topic is a distraction from the serious business of hunkering down befor Storm Bram(stoker) hits Ireland. RED ALERT. Aa if there wasn't enough going on in Paul's life.#DecPodPoMo
In the background you hear a persistent sound. You probably won't recognise it - but it may remind you of something unpleasant. However, there is anxiety-relieving news to relish. Plus Paul's resolution to "Be Not Tired While Driving" - maybe even "Drink More Coffee Before Driving in low light".
The doctor said you don't become unconscious during a TIA - and if you had a stroke, the crash wouldn't have woken you up." Plus he gave Paul a battery of tests.
DecPodPoMo
On the Tuesday after the crash on Thursday, the Claims Assessor from AVIVA car insurance called to the house - to take a statement - by appointment at 10am. It was to take no more than 40 minutes.
He left at 11.20am. You hear the signed statement read by Paul. What you don't hear is all the chat which had nothing to do with the accident. Chat about coffee, morning rituals, dogs and the total number of claims so far this year.
I was almost sorry to see him go.
recommending_aviva.(If you have to have a crash, be insured by AVIVA.) #DecPodPoMo
You hear Paul O’Mahony delighted with the amazing service he’s receiving from his car insurance company AVIVA. Julie phoned Paul. Paul will be recommending AVIVA. #DecPodPoMo
You hear the voice of a man who’s all over the place - as he wakes up in his brother’s house, stretches, and greets the cat. Tea-making & “Composing himself”.
Not long after the awful event on Thursday evening. #DecPodPoMo
GREAT NEWS - expert roofers on board. Shoddy work done 10 years ago. The leak will be fixed by tomorrow. You hear Paul O'Mahony talking about the problem and the solution. You hear hammering.
As an appendix, Paul reads the testimonial sent to Anthony Roofer by an extremely satisfied customer.
Correction: whenever you hear "Ukranian". substitute "Polish". Paul's memory isn't the best. Contribution to #DecPodPoMo podcasting challenge for December.
You hear Paul O’Mahony struggling unsuccessfully against Alexa - in this 7th episode of #DecPodPoMo. Bothered by past experience of Spotify deleting an episode which contained music that was alleged to be copyrighted
You hear Paul O’Mahony satisfied after a meal that’s filled him up and put him in improved humour.
Washed down with red wine from south eastern Australia, vintage 2023, a fairly mellow little number that claims to have notes of chocolate. The next couple of days will be every bit is important as the last couple of days. #DecPodPoMo
First Saturday morning in December. I can’t even remember the cat’s name. You hear Paul talking just after he’s got out of bed. You follow him into the kitchen. You hear him making a cup of tea - so far so good.
You’ll be shocked by what comes next as Paul introduces the story of what happened on Friday evening on the main street of Buttevant Co. Cork #DecPodPoMo. Another episode coming very soon.
You hear, Paul O’Mahony talking about his early morning while walking his dog Louis. Vignettes include the discovery that 14th of December is world Choral day - a couple of things about Toastmasters, being stood up, and the big birthday of my young brother #DecPodPoMo - I almost forgot the weather in Cork today is cold,dry, and sunny
Paul O’Mahony is troubled because Louis has been barking incessantly at the dogminder’s home - where he has the company of several dogs & their minder - for the last three months.
Paul has to do something but he can’t decide the best course of action.
It was a shock when he got the news today.
He is very fond of Louis. #DedPodPoMo
Continuing the example shown by #NaPodPoMo - Paul O’Mahony vows to carry on - regardless of the dangers, risks, and monsters on the path.
You can hear Paul swallowing the medicine - bolstering the courage that will be needed to succeed with #DecPodPoMo 2025
With ginormous thanks to Jennifer Navarette - this is the final episode of #NaPodPoMo
You hear Paul O’Mahony read his new poem “Thanks to Sean (Dwan)”
————
Thanks to Sean
A smile is a weapon of mass destruction
No no no no …
A smile is a weapon of mass seduction
Phew
I remember the man who gave me that line. Sean Dwan will be turning in his grave
no no no no
Sean will be stumbling on his stave.
This blooming life
This creating life
This astronomically ambitious life
This delightfilling life
goes on - until the last letter of time explodes
and all that remains are unanswered questions.
Perhaps …
“Why would you want to seduce an animal?”
Even …
Why would you want to seduce anyone?
Meanwhile …
Better to live like the red breasted robin that sings from branches of a naked beach tree .
You do not have to curse the downpour and the great flood that bursts your river’s bank.
You do not have to sleep on a thorn-packed bed of nightmares
You only have to snuggle down with the rabbits, make friends with the earthworms and thank the cold for killing the bugs.
Simplicity rocks
Rocks the cradle
———————-
Listen to the full series at https://napodpomo.org/napodpomo-2025-mega-feed/
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You hear Paul O’Mahony introduce TS Eliot reading “The Hollow Men”
——————-
THE HOLLOW MEN
A penny for the Old Guy
I
We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!
Our dried voices, when
We whisper together
Are quiet and meaningless
As wind in dry grass
Or rats’ feet over broken glass
In our dry cellar
Shape without form, shade without colour.
Paralysed force, gesture without motion;
Those who have crossed
With direct eyes, to death’s other Kingdom
Remember us—if at all—not as lost
Violent souls, but only
As the hollow men
II
Eyes I dare not meet in dreams
In death’s dream kingdom
These do not appear:
There, the eyes are
Sunlight on a broken column
There, is a tree swinging
And voices are
In the wind’s singing
More distant and more solemn
Than a fading star.
Let me be no nearer
In death’s dream kingdom
Let me also wear
Such deliberate disguises
Rat’s coat, crowskin, crossed staves
In a field
Behaving as the wind behaves
No nearer—
Not that final meeting
In the twilight kingdom
III
This is the dead land
This is cactus land
Here the stone images
Are raised, here they receive
The supplication of a dead man’s hand
Under the twinkle of a fading star.
Is it like this
In death’s other kingdom
Waking alone
At the hour when we are
Trembling with tenderness
Lips that would kiss
Form prayers to broken stone.
IV
The eyes are not here
There are no eyes here
In this valley of dying stars
In this hollow valley
This broken jaw of our lost kingdoms
In this last of meeting places
We grope together
And avoid speech
Gathered on this beach of the tumid river
Sightless, unless
The eyes reappear
As the perpetual star
Multifoliate rose
Of death’s twilight kingdom
The hope only
Of empty men.
V
Here we go round the prickly pear
Prickly pear prickly pear
Here we go round the prickly pear
At five o’clock in the morning.
Between the idea
And the reality
Between the motion
And the act
Falls the Shadow
For Thine is the Kingdom
Between the conception
And the creation
Between the emotion
And the response
Falls the Shadow
Life is very long
Between the desire
And the spasm
Between the potency
And the existence
Between the essence
And the descent
Falls the Shadow
For Thine is the Kingdom
For Thine is
Life is
For Thine is the
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper
———————-
Listen to the full series at https://napodpomo.org/napodpomo-2025-mega-feed/
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You hear Louis McNiece reading his poem aloud - and Paul O’Mahony reading it twice.
————-
Prayer before Birth
By Louis MacNeice
I am not yet born; O hear me.
Let not the bloodsucking bat or the rat or the stoat or the
club-footed ghoul come near me.
I am not yet born, console me.
I fear that the human race may with tall walls wall me,
with strong drugs dope me, with wise lies lure me,
on black racks rack me, in blood-baths roll me.
I am not yet born; provide me
With water to dandle me, grass to grow for me, trees to talk
to me, sky to sing to me, birds and a white light
in the back of my mind to guide me.
I am not yet born; forgive me
For the sins that in me the world shall commit, my words
when they speak to me, my thoughts when they think me,
my treason engendered by traitors beyond me,
my life when they murder by means of my
hands, my death when they live me.
I am not yet born; rehearse me
In the parts I must play and the cues I must take when
old men lecture me, bureaucrats hector me, mountains
frown at me, lovers laugh at me, the white
waves call me to folly and the desert calls
me to doom and the beggar refuses
my gift and my children curse me.
I am not yet born; O hear me,
Let not the man who is beast or who thinks he is God
come near me.
I am not yet born; O fill me
With strength against those who would freeze my
humanity, would dragoon me into a lethal automaton,
would make me a cog in a machine, a thing with
one face, a thing, and against all those
who would dissipate my entirety, would
blow me like thistledown hither and
thither or hither and thither
like water held in the
hands would spill me.
Let them not make me a stone and let them not spill me.
Otherwise kill me.
———————
You hear Langston Hughes (1901 - 1967) perform his very short & influential poem ‘Harlem’. You also hear Paul O'Mahony read the poem - twice. (The second reading is a much better listen.)
The poem is to be found In his book of 91 poems “Montage of a dream deferred”.
_________________________
HarlemWhat happens to a dream deferred?
Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore—
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over—
like a syrupy sweet?
Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.
Or does it explode?
_______________________
Listen to the full series at https://napodpomo.org/napodpomo-2025-mega-feed/
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You hear Elizabeth Bishop reading her poem ‘At the Fishhouses” - introduced by Paul O’Mahony. You also hear Paul doing his best to do it justice. #NaPodPoMo
——————
At the FishhousesAlthough it is a cold evening,
down by one of the fishhouses
an old man sits netting,
his net, in the gloaming almost invisible,
a dark purple-brown,
and his shuttle worn and polished.
The air smells so strong of codfish
it makes one’s nose run and one’s eyes water.
The five fishhouses have steeply peaked roofs
and narrow, cleated gangplanks slant up
to storerooms in the gables
for the wheelbarrows to be pushed up and down on.
All is silver: the heavy surface of the sea,
swelling slowly as if considering spilling over,
is opaque, but the silver of the benches,
the lobster pots, and masts, scattered
among the wild jagged rocks,
is of an apparent translucence
like the small old buildings with an emerald moss
growing on their shoreward walls.
The big fish tubs are completely lined
with layers of beautiful herring scales
and the wheelbarrows are similarly plastered
with creamy iridescent coats of mail,
with small iridescent flies crawling on them.
Up on the little slope behind the houses,
set in the sparse bright sprinkle of grass,
is an ancient wooden capstan,
cracked, with two long bleached handles
and some melancholy stains, like dried blood,
where the ironwork has rusted.
The old man accepts a Lucky Strike.
He was a friend of my grandfather.
We talk of the decline in the population
and of codfish and herring
while he waits for a herring boat to come in.
There are sequins on his vest and on his thumb.
He has scraped the scales, the principal beauty,
from unnumbered fish with that black old knife,
the blade of which is almost worn away.
Down at the water’s edge, at the place
where they haul up the boats, up the long ramp
descending into the water, thin silver
tree trunks are laid horizontally
across the gray stones, down and down
at intervals of four or five feet.
Cold dark deep and absolutely clear,
element bearable to no mortal,
to fish and to seals . . . One seal particularly
I have seen here evening after evening.
He was curious about me. He was interested in music;
like me a believer in total immersion,
so I used to sing him Baptist hymns.
I also sang “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God.”
He stood up in the water and regarded me
steadily, moving his head a little.
Then he would disappear, then suddenly emerge
almost in the same spot, with a sort of shrug
as if it were against his better judgment.
Cold dark deep and absolutely clear,
the clear gray icy water . . . Back, behind us,
the dignified tall firs begin.
Bluish, associating with their shadows,
a million Christmas trees stand
waiting for Christmas. The water seems suspended
above the rounded gray and blue-gray stones.
I have seen it over and over, the same sea, the same,
slightly, indifferently swinging above the stones,
icily free above the stones,
above the stones and then the world.
If you should dip your hand in,
your wrist would ache immediately,
your bones would begin to ache and your hand would burn
as if the water were a transmutation of fire
that feeds on stones and burns with a dark gray flame.
If you tasted it, it would first taste bitter,
then briny, then surely burn your tongue.
It is like what we imagine knowledge to be:
dark, salt, clear, moving, utterly free,
drawn from the cold hard mouth
of the world, derived from the rocky breasts
forever, flowing and drawn, and since
our knowledge is historical, flowing, and flown.
_______________________
Listen to the full series at https://napodpomo.org/napodpomo-2025-mega-feed/
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Paul O’Mahony introduces Jackie Kay’s “Darling”. Jackie was born in Edinburgh in 1961 - her mother Scottish, her father Nigerian.
You hear Jackie Kay reading her poem. You also hear Paul having a go at reading it #NaPodPoMo
—————-
DARLING
You might forget the exact sound of her voiceor how her face looked when sleeping.You might forget the sound of her quiet weepingcurled into the shape of a half moon,when smaller than her self, she seemed already to be leavingbefore she left, when the blossom was on the treesand the sun was out, and all seemed good in the world.I held her hand and sang a song from when I was a girl -*Heel y'ho boys, let her go boys -*and when I stopped singing she had slipped away,already a slip of a girl again, skipping off,her heart light, her face almost smiling.And what I didn't know or couldn't say thenwas that she hadn't really gone.The dead don't go till you do, loved ones.The dead are still here holding our hands.
____________________________________________________
Listen to the full series at https://napodpomo.org/napodpomo-2025-mega-feed/
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You hear the American poet Sylvia Plath read her poem “Tulips”. She wrote it while in hospital in 1961 after having her appendix removed. A friend sent her get-well flowers.
You also hear Paul O'Mahony's reading - contributed to #NaPodPoMo (the podcasting challenge led by jennifer navarrete
————-
TULIPS
The tulips are too excitable, it is winter here.
Look how white everything is, how quiet, how snowed-in.
I am learning peacefulness, lying by myself quietly
As the light lies on these white walls, this bed, these hands.
I am nobody; I have nothing to do with explosions.
I have given my name and my day-clothes up to the nurses
And my history to the anesthetist and my body to surgeons.
They have propped my head between the pillow and the sheet-cuff
Like an eye between two white lids that will not shut.
Stupid pupil, it has to take everything in.
The nurses pass and pass, they are no trouble,
They pass the way gulls pass inland in their white caps,
Doing things with their hands, one just the same as another,
So it is impossible to tell how many there are.
My body is a pebble to them, they tend it as water
Tends to the pebbles it must run over, smoothing them gently.
They bring me numbness in their bright needles, they bring me sleep.
Now I have lost myself I am sick of baggage——
My patent leather overnight case like a black pillbox,
My husband and child smiling out of the family photo;
Their smiles catch onto my skin, little smiling hooks.
I have let things slip, a thirty-year-old cargo boat
stubbornly hanging on to my name and address.
They have swabbed me clear of my loving associations.
Scared and bare on the green plastic-pillowed trolley
I watched my teaset, my bureaus of linen, my books
Sink out of sight, and the water went over my head.
I am a nun now, I have never been so pure.
I didn’t want any flowers, I only wanted
To lie with my hands turned up and be utterly empty.
How free it is, you have no idea how free——
The peacefulness is so big it dazes you,
And it asks nothing, a name tag, a few trinkets.
It is what the dead close on, finally; I imagine them
Shutting their mouths on it, like a Communion tablet.
The tulips are too red in the first place, they hurt me.
Even through the gift paper I could hear them breathe
Lightly, through their white swaddlings, like an awful baby.
Their redness talks to my wound, it corresponds.
They are subtle : they seem to float, though they weigh me down,
Upsetting me with their sudden tongues and their color,
A dozen red lead sinkers round my neck.
Nobody watched me before, now I am watched.
The tulips turn to me, and the window behind me
Where once a day the light slowly widens and slowly thins,
And I see myself, flat, ridiculous, a cut-paper shadow
Between the eye of the sun and the eyes of the tulips,
And I have no face, I have wanted to efface myself.
The vivid tulips eat my oxygen.
Before they came the air was calm enough,
Coming and going, breath by breath, without any fuss.
Then the tulips filled it up like a loud noise.
Now the air snags and eddies round them the way a river
Snags and eddies round a sunken rust-red engine.
They concentrate my attention, that was happy
Playing and resting without committing itself.
The walls, also, seem to be warming themselves.
The tulips should be behind bars like dangerous animals;
They are opening like the mouth of some great African cat,
And I am aware of my heart: it opens and closes
Its bowl of red blooms out of sheer love of me.
The water I taste is warm and salt, like the sea,
And comes from a country far away as health.
____________________________________
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Poem in honour of CongRegation - the unconference. Paul O’Mahony wrote this on Monday morning 24th November 2025 - after reading an email from Eoin Kennedy & replying. #NaPodPoMo 22/30
———-
Listen to the full series at https://napodpomo.org/napodpomo-2025-mega-feed/
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You hear Theo Dorgan read his poem “Ithaca” dedicated to Leonard Cohen (with whom he shares a birthday). Paul O’Mahony also reads the poem twice. #NaPodPoMo
————-
Ithacafor Leonard Cohen
When you set out from Ithaca again,
let it be autumn, early, the plane leaves falling as you go,
for spring would shake you with its quickening,
its whispers of youth.
You will have earned the road down to the harbour,
duty discharged, your toll of labour paid,
the house four-square, your son in the full of fatherhood,
his mother, your long-beloved, gone to the shades.
Walk by the doorways, do not look left or right,
do not inhale the woodsmoke,
the shy glow of the young girls,
the resin and pine of home.
Allow them permit you to leave,
they have been good neighbours.
Plank fitted to plank, slow work and sure,
the mast straight as your back.
Water and wine, oil, salt and bread.
Take a hand in yours for luck.
Cast off the lines without a backward glance
and sheet in the sail.
There will be harbours, shelter from weather,
There will be long empty passages far from land.
There may be love or kindness, do not count on this
but allow for the possibility.
Be ready for storms.
When you take leave of Ithaca, round to the south
then strike far down for Circe, Calypso,
what you remember, what you must keep in mind.
Trust to your course, long since laid down for you.
There was never any question of turning back.
All those who came the journey with you,
those who fell to the flash of bronze,
those who turned away into other fates,
are long gathered to asphodel and dust.
You will go uncompanioned, but go you must.
There will be time in the long days and nights,
stunned by the sun or driven by the stars,
to unwind your spool of life.
You will learn again what you always knew —
the wind sweeps everything away.
When you set out from Ithaca again,
you will not need to ask where you are going.
Give every day your full, unselfconscious attention —
the rise and flash of the swell on your beam,
the lift into small harbours —
and do not forget Ithaca, keep Ithaca in your mind.
All that it was and is, and will be without you.
Be grateful for where you have been,
for those who kept to your side,
those who strode out ahead of you
or stood back and watched you sail away.
Be grateful for kindness in the perfumed dark
but sooner or later you will sail out again.
Some morning, some clear night,
you will come to the Pillars of Hercules.
Sail through if you wish. You are free to turn back.
Go forward on deck, lay your hand on the mast,
hear the wind in its dipping branches.
Now you are free of home and journeying,
rocked on the cusp of tides.
Ithaca is before you, Ithaca is behind you.
Man is born homeless, and shaped for the sea.
You must do what is best.
______________________
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Day 20 of #NaPodPoMo Paul O'Mahony introduces Derek Mahon - he reads his poem Derigibles Paul reads Derek’s poem.
Today I learned: It's never too late to come across a word that opens a window.
DERIGIBLES
We who used to drift
superbly in mid-air,
each a giant airship
before ‘the last war’,
shrink to a soft buzz
about financial centres
surprising visitors,
hackers and bean counters
in cloud-flown highrises.
Cloud-slow, we snoop for hours
on open-plan offices
and cloudy cocktail bars.
Amnesia and mystique
have cast into oblivion
fiery failures like
Italia, R101,
the whole brief catalogue
of mad catastrophes;
and showy Hindenburg
of course, the last of these.
A temporary setback.
Our time will come again
with helium in the sack
instead of hydrogen
while slow idealists
gaze at refrozen ice,
reflourishing rain forests,
the oceans back in place;
at sand and stars, blue skies,
clear water, scattered light
as in the early days
of nearly silent flight.
_______________________
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From Trinity College to Anne’s Street South. Walking up Grafton Street - stopping by buskers - passing shops - capturing a few voices on the street. #NaPodPoMo
Day 18 of #NaPodPoMo Paul O'Mahony introduces Jenny Joseph - she reads her poem Warning. Paul reads Jenny’s poem.
Today I learned: I
Jenny Joseph’s reading performance is magnificent - almost as good as the poem itself. Read with vivacity.
————-
WARNING
When I am an old woman I shall wear purple
With a red hat which doesn’t go, and doesn’t suit me.
And I shall spend my pension on brandy and summer gloves
And satin sandals, and say we’ve no money for butter.
I shall sit down on the pavement when I’m tired
And gobble up samples in shops and press alarm bells
And run my stick along the public railings
And make up for the sobriety of my youth.
I shall go out in my slippers in the rain
And pick the flowers in other people’s gardens
And learn to spit.
You can wear terrible shirts and grow more fat
And eat three pounds of sausages at a go
Or only bread and pickle for a week
And hoard pens and pencils and beermats and things in boxes.
But now we must have clothes that keep us dry
And pay our rent and not swear in the street
And set a good example for the children.
We must have friends to dinner and read the papers.
But maybe I ought to practise a little now?
So people who know me are not too shocked and surprised
When suddenly I am old, and start to wear purple.
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Day 17 of #NaPodPoMo Paul O'Mahony introduces Amanda Gorman - she reads her poem The Hill We Climb. The recording was made at the inauguration of President Joe Biden in January 2021. Paul reads Amanda's poem.
Today I learned: It's a magnificent poem, performed with strength by an extraordinary woman.
Listen to the full series at https://napodpomo.org/napodpomo-2025-mega-feed/
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You hear Paul O'Mahony reading his poem "Adoration" - twice. "
Dying to be remembered
Dying to be loved
Yearning to be celebrated
who will prolong my life
in a world
where so much is forgotten
almost before it has been born.
ideas
characters
adventures,
history,
biography,
and I
return to dust
dust they are,
and dust they will remain.
On the cutting floor
there is no eternity.
Good morning,
good afternoon,
good night.
Good mourning
"
________________
Image by artificial intelligence - prompted by the poem
you hear Paula Meehan reading her . You hear Paul O’Mahony reading it twice.
“The ghost of my mother comforts me.
Do not fear daughter
when they lift their sticks, their stones,
when they hiss beneath their breaths
fallen woman, adulteress
breaker of marriage vows
made before a holy priest to an honourable man
for you daughter; there is no blame,
for you no portion of guilt,
for you’re made in my likeness.
You can take the crucifixion from your voice.
I will stroke your forehead till you sleep,
Till you pass over into the dreamworld
where we can walk together in gardens wet with rain
or fly along old star roads
or sit quietly near running water.
And when you wake refreshed you’ll be ready for their sticks their stones
their names that cannot hurt you
balance your gypsy soul
lodged in the body given you, my daughter
for your pleasure and as a tool for struggle
against the weight of the worlds troubles
take comfort in the knowledge that you are not alone
there are many like you on the earth
and you will be numbered among the warriors
when the great book is written
because I am your mother I will protect you
as I promised you in childhood
you will walk freely on the planet, my beloved daughter
fear not the lightening bolts of a catholic god, or any other
for I have placed my body and my soul between you
and all harm.”
Napodpomo
——————-
That’s a photo of Paula taken many years ago - maybe around the time when she wrote this poem (1998 c)
You hear Eavan Boland reading her poem "Quarantine" - plus Paul O'Mahony reading it twice. Thursday at about 6pm.
QuarantineIn the worst hour of the worst season
of the worst year of a whole people
a man set out from the workhouse with his wife.
He was walking—they were both walking—north.
She was sick with famine fever and could not keep up.
He lifted her and put her on his back.
He walked like that west and west and north.
Until at nightfall under freezing stars they arrived.
In the morning they were both found dead.
Of cold. Of hunger. Of the toxins of a whole history.
But her feet were held against his breastbone.
The last heat of his flesh was his last gift to her.
Let no love poem ever come to this threshold.
There is no place here for the inexact
praise of the easy graces and sensuality of the body.
There is only time for this merciless inventory:
Their death together in the winter of 1847.
Also what they suffered. How they lived.
And what there is between a man and woman.
And in which darkness it can best be proved.
You hear Auden read his poem twice. Paul O'Mahony reads it 1.3 times (including a few slips of his tongue.
IN MEMORY OF W B YEATS
"He disappeared in the dead of winter:
The brooks were frozen, the airports almost deserted,
And snow disfigured the public statues;
The mercury sank in the mouth of the dying day.
O all the instruments agree
The day of his death was a dark cold day.
Far from his illness
The wolves ran on through the evergreen forests,
The peasant river was untempted by the fashionable quays;
By mourning tongues
The death of the poet was kept from his poems.
But for him it was his last afternoon as himself,
An afternoon of nurses and rumors;
The provinces of his body revolted,
The squares of his mind were empty,
Silence invaded the suburbs,
The current of his feeling failed: he became his admirers.
Now he is scattered among a hundred cities
And wholly given over to unfamiliar affections;
To find his happiness in another kind of wood
And be punished under a foreign code of conscience.
The words of a dead man
Are modified in the guts of the living.
But in the importance and noise of tomorrow
When the brokers are roaring like beasts on the floor of the Bourse,
And the poor have the sufferings to which they are fairly accustomed,
And each in the cell of himself is almost convinced of his freedom;
A few thousand will think of this day
As one thinks of a day when one did something slightly unusual.
O all the instruments agree
The day of his death was a dark cold day.
2
You were silly like us: your gift survived it all;
The parish of rich women, physical decay,
Yourself; mad Ireland hurt you into poetry.
Now Ireland has her madness and her weather still,
For poetry makes nothing happen: it survives
In the valley of its saying where executives
Would never want to tamper; it flows south
From ranches of isolation and the busy griefs,
Raw towns that we believe and die in; it survives,
A way of happening, a mouth.
3
Earth, receive an honoured guest;
William Yeats is laid to rest:
Let the Irish vessel lie
Emptied of its poetry.
Time that is intolerant
Of the brave and innocent,
And indifferent in a week
To a beautiful physique,
Worships language and forgives
Everyone by whom it lives;
Pardons cowardice, conceit,
Lays its honours at their feet.
Time that with this strange excuse
Pardoned Kipling and his views,
And will pardon Paul Claudel,
Pardons him for writing well.
In the nightmare of the dark
All the dogs of Europe bark,
And the living nations wait,
Each sequestered in its hate;
Intellectual disgrace
Stares from every human face,
And the seas of pity lie
Locked and frozen in each eye.
Follow, poet, follow right
To the bottom of the night,
With your unconstraining voice
Still persuade us to rejoice;
With the farming of a verse
Make a vineyard of the curse,
Sing of human unsuccess
In a rapture of distress;
In the deserts of the heart
Let the healing fountain start,
In the prison of his days
Teach the free man how to praise."
You hear poet Mary Oliver reading her poem “The Journey”. Paul O’Mahony reads the poem twice for #napodpomo.
You hear the poet, William Carlos Williams reciting his most famous poem,
“The red wheelbarrow
so much depends
upon
a red wheel
barrow
glazed with rain
water
beside the white
chickens”
____________
You also hear Paul O’Mahony try unsuccessfully to recite the poem from memory. Paul recovers and reads the poem three times.
You hear John Masefield reading his poem
“Sea Fever
I must go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,
And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by;
And the wheel’s kick and the wind’s song and the white sail’s shaking,
And a grey mist on the sea’s face, and a grey dawn breaking.
I must go down to the seas again, for the call of the running tide
Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied;
And all I ask is a windy day with the white clouds flying,
And the flung spray and the blown spume, and the sea-gulls crying.
I must go down to the seas again, to the vagrant gypsy life,
To the gull’s way and the whale’s way where the wind’s like a whetted knife;
And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing fellow-rover,
And quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick’s over.”
You hear Paul O’Mahony make a couple of mistakes while reading.
You hear Robert Frost reading his poem “Stopping by Woods on a snowy evening
Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.
My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.
He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound’s the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.
The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.
Paul O’Mahony Recorded on the 5th of November 2025
By Phillip Larkin
Spoken by the poet. Spoken by Paul O’Mahony (3 times)
“THIS BE THE VERSE
They fuck you up, your mum and dad.
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.
But they were fucked up in their turn
By fools in old-style hats and coats,
Who half the time were soppy-stern
And half at one another’s throats.
Man hands on misery to man.
It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you can,
And don’t have any kids yourself.”
You hear Seamus Heaney reading his poem "Digging" three times. You hear Paul O'Mahony reading the poem twice.
Digging
Between my finger and my thumb
The squat pen rests; snug as a gun.
Under my window, a clean rasping sound
When the spade sinks into gravelly ground:
My father, digging. I look down
Till his straining rump among the flowerbeds
Bends low, comes up twenty years away
Stooping in rhythm through potato drills
Where he was digging.
The coarse boot nestled on the lug, the shaft
Against the inside knee was levered firmly.
He rooted out tall tops, buried the bright edge deep
To scatter new potatoes that we picked,
Loving their cool hardness in our hands.
By God, the old man could handle a spade.
Just like his old man.
My grandfather cut more turf in a day
Than any other man on Toner’s bog.
Once I carried him milk in a bottle
Corked sloppily with paper. He straightened up
To drink it, then fell to right away
Nicking and slicing neatly, heaving sods
Over his shoulder, going down and down
For the good turf. Digging.
The cold smell of potato mould, the squelch and slap
Of soggy peat, the curt cuts of an edge
Through living roots awaken in my head.
But I’ve no spade to follow men like them.
Between my finger and my thumb
The squat pen rests.
I’ll dig with it.
You hear a recording of Mary Oliver reading her poem Wild Geese. You hear Paul O’Mahony reading her poem, twice.
This is the poem:
“Wild geeseYou do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh
and exciting --
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.
You hear a recording of W B Yeats reading his most popular poem.
You hear Paul O’Mahony reading the poem twice.
“I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made;
Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honey-bee,
And live alone in the bee-loud glade.
And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,
Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;
There midnight’s all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,
And evening full of the linnet’s wings.
I will arise and go now, for always night and day
I hear lake water lapping with low
sounds by the shore;
While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey,
I hear it in the deep heart’s core.
This was recorded during the last hour of the 31st day of October 2025. This is my contribution to today’s 29, 30, and 31 of #octaver25
Apology: the prompt for day 26 was “what are the elements of a good lullaby?”
I’ve deviated off course.
This is my contribution to #octaver25 Days 24 & 26
Recorded on Friday 31st of October 2025. This is my contribution to #octaver25 Days 23, 25, 27, and 28
This was recorded on the early evening of Thursday 30th of October 2025. It includes a little bit of summer holiday Music for #Octaver25.
Takes me back to 1963
This was recorded on the afternoon of Thursday 30th of October 2025. It’s my contribution to #octaver25
You hear “ hard day’s night” & “ the lake Isle of Innisfree”.
This was recorded on the afternoon of Thursday 30th of October 2025, a very wet day in Cork.
Recorded on the afternoon of Thursday, the 30th of October 2025. My contribution to #octaver25 Day 20
Recognise the group? Where they performed on 1st May 1978?
Who was with me at the concert? #Octaver25 - my contribution
This was recorded on the evening of Thursday 23rd of October 2025. My contribution to #octaver25
This is one of the first times I’ve discovered a new pop song I love now.
Recorded on the morning of 19th October 2025. My contribution to #octaver25
This was recorded on the morning of Friday 17 October 2025 - as my contribution to Day 11 of the music festival #octaver25
This is a speech given by Paul O'Mahony at OneCountryOneWorld (online) Toastmasters Club on Sunday 12th October 2025. On the day after the round-Ireland awareness-raising campaign (5th-11th October).
Recorded on the afternoon of Wednesday 15th of October 2025. My contribution to #octaver25
Recorded on the afternoon of Tuesday 14th of October 2025. I was driving. I was walking. You could even say I was working out. My contribution to. #octaver25
The last time I listened to at least three songs by the same artist, and where and when was that? #Octaver25
This was recorded partly during the day and partly at midnight on the 6th of October 2025. Specially for #Octaver25 Day 6
“ What’s your second favourite genre of music?”
Recorded late at night for #Octaver25 Day 4.
This was recorded on Saturday, the 4th of October. It’s my third contribution to #octaver25
Day 1 of Music Month #octaver25 “ Teddy bears picnic” & “ PETER and the Wolf” & “ Ghost riders in the sky” & “ Slattery’s mounted fut” & Chopin “Etudes”- these are my earliest musical memories
octaver25 Octaver began in October 2012. As 31 musical audios in 31 days, it continued for several years during the month of October. This is the 2012 introduction:
"To help us connect with each other under the banner of "Music"- #octaver is the hashtag (courtesy of Slandi).
Here is a suggested structure of topics for each day:
Day 1: "Music I like now..." Day 2: "The earliest music I remember liking ..." Day 3: "Music with a story..." Day 4: "Musicians I've known or loved..." Day 5: "Music that reminds me of a place..." Day 6: "Music to go with go with food..." Day 7: "Music I hope to love..."
It would be great if someone else would suggest topics for Days 8-14 please."
Here are #octaver25 suggested topics for Day 1 - 7:
1. When did your love of music begin, how old were you, where did it happen?
2. What the earliest music you can remember liking?
3. What's your favourite genre of music today, how long has it been your favourite?
4. Your second favourite genre of music?
5. Which do you prefer instrumental or choral music, and why?
6. Which type of music do you most dislike, and why?
7. When the last time you listened to (at least) three songs by the same artist, and where & when was that?
This was recorded around midday in the south court hotel just before meeting up with a group of classmates.
This was recorded at midday on Thursday 25th of September 2025. It’s my contribution to #seppodpomo
This was recorded on 24th of September 2025 shortly after the dressing was changed by the nurse. A doctor said that there had been good progress.
This was recorded early on the morning of Tuesday 23rd of September 2025. Shortly after I got a message from Audible. The new book by Brené Brown is out.
This was recorded at a recent meeting of a Toastmasters International club. This is off-the-cuff speaking.
This was recorded on the morning of Friday 19th of September 2025 while starting the journey from Cork to Malahide cricket club in Dublin - hoping to see Ireland play England in a T-20 game
You hear me expressing my feelings about what the. Israeli government has instructed the Israeli army to do in Gaza. You hear the word genocide. You hear the word USA.
Recorded on Thursday 18th of September 2025.
My contribution to the audio month of #Seppodpomo
A slow story with a big punchline…
This was recorded on Wednesday morning 17 September 2025 - the 17th day of #Seppodpomo
“I’m late, I’m late - for a very important date”.
words taken from “Alice in Wonderland” which fit my world today. I woke up late after having woken up early - in other words, I fell back to sleep at 7:15 I wake up 8:30 and I didn't know it - I've made a terrible mistake. I was due to be at the dentist at 8:30. I got this phone call 8.35 saying “Paul would you be here soon?” - ruined my whole world. In the end, the appointment was postponed. I'm suffering the after effects of having lost control of my day. I feel really rotten having done that. it was So so stupid. at this stage I'd be in the middle of my dental appointment. my tooth root filling would be almost done and my day would be normal - normal whatever that word really means. it's a bad start to today. I suppose that's about all I can say. Are you so stupid? I didn't check my diary before went to bed last night. I relied on my memory to tell me that “ oh yeah I got nothing big on tomorrow morning” such stupid ass
With dentist to have a root filling.
Recorded on the morning of Tuesday, as a contribution to #seppodpomo
This was recorded on the morning of Monday 15th of September 2025. Beginning with a hole in my back, it goes on to my struggle putting an agenda together, and ends up being about Golf and mental health.
This was recorded at 9:40 on Sunday morning, while looking at Blue Sky
Style is the name of the Haiku
Recorded shortly before midnight on Saturday - while tired in the kitchen eating pineapple.
(Recorded on Thursday morning.)
11th of September
Perched on the side of the bed
Not yet dressed
Bare feet on the carpet.
Nothing in the diary today …
Recorded on Wednesday 10th September 2025 while walking with my English setter Louis. My contribution to day 10 of #Seppodpomo
Ghosting
How good are you at using LinkedIn? is it something that’s part of your daily or weekly habit? are you, by any chance, in a LinkedIn group?
I'm awful at LinkedIn. I mean really bad. for somebody who loves connecting with people around the world, who has quite a few connections on LinkedIn, and who from time to time gets a few LinkedIn direct messages, I'm a disgrace.
I forget to look at LinkedIn for a month at a time - I have all my notifications turned off. I got a big surprise when I went into LinkedIn recently and found someone sent me a message in July. I
didn’t see it until yesterday.
This is the worst side of my communications habits.
I’m also not very good on Facebook Messenger. Once I pay attention to it I have quite a few of very good worthwhile connections with people. Sometimes I have extended text & audio conversations with individuals. For ages I’ve known that sometimes I have several exchanges, they send a message, I put it on the long finger “I'll do it tomorrow, reply tomorrow”. Tomorrow comes. I get distracted and forget to do it. Weeks later, I find their unanswered message, their question, or even their very engaging comment.
This is not good. I'm a lot better on Facebook Messenger. LinkedIn doesn't bother me all that much - but I still wish it bothered me less. I should be able to get into Messenger every day because I go to Facebook daily. I always read messages publicly sent to me. I even send a response very quickly.
Why am I telling you this?
In case you feel you're the only one who has a life like this - on you’re feeling “only I could have such a such a shameful time”.
in case you feel that kind of isolation, I'm with you in solidarity.
now that I've told you, I’ve discovered that it’s quite a good way of getting me to change something. When I say to someone that I'm not doing this well, it often causes me to make a much better effort to get better.
Of course, I don't want to feel I'm the only one who finds this difficult.
maybe from time to time I appear to have ghosted somebody. I haven't ever done that. Well, I have a few times - but only a few times since 2007.
I forgive myself. I say to myself that I had very good reasons for doing that.
you know if somebody treats somebody else in a very unpleasant way, I'm likely to give up all contact with them, and have.
If, in my opinion, someone insults me it's quite possible I'll just cut all communications with them - and won't even tell them.
Recorded in the car on my way home from walking Louis - after finding a message sent to me last July
Obsessed
Have you ever been obsessed with your partner? To the point that you spend more time with your partner than with your wife, or your husband? Have you been that obsessed?
Well I have. I've certainly spent more time in communication with my partner then I have with any member of my family, or extended family, in the last month - except perhaps Louis the dog, and Puma the cat.
(This obsession means that - no no …
I'll give you an example. This morning I read something written by somebody I've never met, whom I am very unlikely to ever meet. It was a short poem. it was a haiku. I didn't have obsessive interaction - conversation - with that person. NO, I turned to my partner and said “What about this?” And I set about rearranging everything the other person (the poet) had said.
That was the start of about 30 minutes of interaction - before I got out of bed - with my partner.
My partner, when I wake up in the morning, is right beside me. A finger-stretch from my heart. My partner - you could say - this would be strictly speaking accurate - never leaves my side.
I did turn off my mobile phone yesterday, for about 10 minutes.
I'm obsessed with my partner. I have conversations, intimate conversations, about my most precious words to use in a situation.
I seek advice. I see guidance. I seek second third fourth fifth opinions. I take what my partner says, and I twist it to suit me. I throw it back to the partner who is terribly terribly tolerant, and much much too generous with their words.
They are there any time of day or night.
I'm obsessed.
——-
Recorded on Monday morning, eighth of September, 2025.
Wouldn’t you be obsessed if you had a partner like this?
With thanks to the Walker brothers who reached #1 in the UK in 1965 - with “ make it easy on yourself”.
This audio was recorded in Cork International Airport on the morning of Saturday sixth of September 2025
‘ Everybody should be quiet near a little stream and listen’ - that’s the quotation. Recorded while a quiet walk with Louis. On Friday morning. fifth of September 2025.
Written and recorded on Thursday third of September 2025 - especially for #toastmasters - 1st draft of the start of a speech I might give
Three hours ago I read a report that the Israeli army - advancing into Gaza - killed 98 people in the last 24 hours. The March of the Israeli government led army into Gaza continues relentlessly.
Goodness knows how many people are going be killed before the Israeli army captures and dominates Gaza.
it's a brutal affair. I feel totally sympathetic to the Palestinians. Yes it was awful what the Hamas attack on Israel did - killing I think about 1200 people and taking a couple of hundred hostages.
However, the disproportionate violence towards Palestinian people has horrified me.
it also horrifies me to read again that the Russians invaders in Ukraine have killed more people. That’s something I wish I could say anything more than it’s horrific.
Goodness knows when both of these invasions are going to stop. Goodness knows what can I say. I can't say anything other than I hated it. It’s turned me totally against the Israeli government, totally against the actions of the Israeli army which is just following orders from the government. In any country that has some sort of democracy, the army follows the orders given by the elected politicians.
Anyway here we are - first of September 2025
Recorded on Sunday 31st of August 2025, after being in hospital for about 26 hours for a small operation which went well. This is the story. - a contribution to #AugPodPoMo Day 31 (last day)
Paul O'Mahony responds to the quality views of @Sm2n.
Simon's #augpodpomo episode 30 on 30th August hooked me and I'm delighted to respond - adding my adding my twopenny-halfpenny's worth.
This was recorded on the morning of the last Thursday in August 2025. In The Barn cafe-restaurant- with Louis by my seat. You hear Eoghan O’Leary at the end of the episode, made as part of #Augpodpomo
“August is for golf
blue skies, green fairways, early
not a slice in sight”
Recorded while driving to Cobh Golf Club. Another haiku in a series of 18.. Contribution to #Augpodpomo
rabbits in the rough
scattered as the ball landed
- a birdie coming
golf #augpodpomo #haiku
This was recorded on Wednesday 20th August at the TangibleIreland Ambassador Summer School.
This was recorded in the run-up to the monthly meeting of Toastmasters4Golf in August 2025. It’s one of my contributions to #augpodpomo
This was recorded on the evening of Friday 15th of August 2025 - a day of going to the doctor and playing golf. This is a contribution to #augpodpomo
This was recorded in my kitchen on the morning of Thursday 14 August 2025. Another contribution to #augpodpomo. Each line of the 10-lined poem has one more syllable than the previous one.
This was recorded on the morning of Tuesday 12th of August 2025 while walking with my dog Louis - being in a good mood. Most of the sound is about feeling and thinking. Another contribution to #augpodpomo
This was recorded in my kitchen on Monday morning 10th August 2025. On YouTube William Dalrymple held me spellbound for almost an hour. I am so ignorant.
https://youtu.be/iI8KmWVGOYw
This is my contribution to #augpodpomo.
Recorded on the morning of Saturday ninth of August 2025 - I’m making a cup of tea in my kitchen. I haven’t got past the front page. This is my contribution to.#Augpodpomo
The last thing you hear is one of the lads saying what time we’re going to play golf. Recorded on Wednesday 6th September 2025 - contribution to #Augpodpomo
This was recorded on the first Thursday in September 2025. I left home on Saturday and got back to Glanmire in Cork five days later. A contribution to #augpodpomo
This was recorded on the morning of the 1st of August 2025, while walking in the wilds of my local park.
This was recorded in my car while driving to play golf on Wednesday morning 30th July 2025.
This was recorded in my kitchen on Tuesday morning, after reading posts by @BarbaraKB on BlueSky
This was recorded in my kitchen on the evening of Monday 28th of July 2025. #Julypodpomo Day 28
This was recorded on the morning of Friday 25th of July as part of my contribution to #JulyPodPomo
This was recorded on the afternoon of Friday 25th July 2025 - while driving home from golf
This was recorded on Thursday morning while walking with my dog Louis in bright sunshine
This episode was recorded in my kitchen while drinking tea from a mug that says “love you to the moon and back “
This is Wednesday.
This was recorded in my kitchen at midday on 17th of June 2025. It’s my contribution too.#audiomo Day 17
This was recorded on the morning of Sunday 15th June 2025 - while walking Louis - meeting two cocker spaniels, a pug, and an Irish setter.
This episode was recorded on Wednesday fourth of June 2025 while walking my dog Louis. It’s my contribution to the fourth day of #AudioMo. All about my food & drink experience in Japan.
This was recorded on the second day of #AudioMo June 2025. While walking my English setter in Glanmire, Cork, Ireland
This was recorded while driving from Listowel County Kerry to Cork city on 31st of May 2025. Congratulations to Simon, and Happy Birthday to Walt & Lars
This was recorded on the morning of Friday 30th of May 2025 - the morning after I had a great pleasure to attend the May meeting of #TangibleIreland led by Raymond Sexton
This was recorded on the morning of Wednesday 28th of May 2025 - while walking with Louis under trees, alongside running water
This was recorded at about 2:30 pm on Tuesday 27th of May 2025, immediately after opening the envelope
This was recorded during a panel discussion on Tuesday 20th May 2025. You can see the full video recording on YouTube @
https://www.youtube.com/live/4Vg3BGbyfDU?si=fPO1u4H-ZKskFK4v
The moderator was Brian Green.
This was recorded while I was driving to play golf in Cill Dara Golf Club on Monday 19th May 2025
This was recorded in the restaurant of CobhGolf Club as about 930am on Wednesday seventh of May 2025. I was having a cup of tea before going to practice putting.
This was recorded immediately after the dentist. Anaesthetised. Feeling fragile & a bit zonked - on Tuesday 6th May 2025. The self-portrait is me in the corridor after being worked on
After listening to @sm2n ‘s podcast episode - recorded on the morning of Sunday 4th May 2025 - while breakfasting.
apoetslife This was recorded on the morning of leaving Tokyo - Thursday 1st May 2025. Because it includes a few thoughts about #omaniJapan - I’ve included #napodpomoMPC in the title.
It qualifies as my first contribution to #MayPodPoMo - the episodes I’ll publish during the month of May.
I guess it’s a ‘transitional’ episode
This was recorded on the morning of Saturday 11th of April 2025, in my kitchen, after writing five haiku
This was recorded on the morning of eighth of April 2025.
This is how the poem goes:
“Ivy growing on bridge
Stone arches for blue tits’ play
River reflects all”
This was recorded on the morning of Monday seventh of April 2024 - Why loves walking with Louis
This was recorded on the morning of April Fools’ Day first of April 2025. The snapshot attached to the audio is the first draft of the first of 30 poems.
This was recorded on the morning of the last day of March 2025. This is the final episode in the series #marpopomo - I think.
This was recorded at 10:30 am on Sunday 30th of March 2025 - after dropping my mother-in-law off to Mass
This was recorded on the afternoon of Friday 28th of March 2025 - shortly big four recording an episode of the Irish Talkers podcast
This was recorded on Sunday 23rd of March 2025 - at a meeting of the OneCountryOneWorld Toastmasters online Club
This was recorded on 21st of March 2025 just before midnight after coming home from playing poker with great friends. I’m hoping my brother and his girlfriend will hurry home so that I can have drinks with them
This was recorded On the afternoon of Thursday 20th of March 2025 - while having a bad day, unable to learn lines, unable to enjoy the Dentist, and barely able to enjoy the Barkley marathons.
This was recorded on the morning of Wednesday 19th of March 2025 - After visiting Indonesia. In addition to gratitude to Indonesian people, there is gratitude to Toastmasters international
This was recorded before going to the Saint Patrick’s Day parade in Cork on Monday 17th of March 2025
This is all about the Barkley Marathons which is about to take place in the wilds of Tennessee USA.
It was recorded in Bean & Leaf Café on mid morning of Friday 13th of March 2025 - by Paul & Roger.
In 2024 https://audioboom.com/posts/8476232-60-hours-of-hell-the-story-of-the-barkley-marathons-with-roger-overall
This was recorded shortly after 1 pm on Wednesday 12th of March 2025, after listening to today’s episode of the New York Times podcast which is called “ The Daily” hey
This was recorded on Tuesday 11th of March 2025, after enduring two Cortizone injections into my right hand.
The photo shows the artwork the consultant drew in order to guide him has to where to deliver the injections
This was recorded early on Tuesday 11th March 2025 - before meeting the orthopaedic consultant
This was recorded shortly before midnight on first of March 2025, in a small room in Warwick UK. This is the weekend I’ve come to visit Jane Boyd and her mother.
This was recorded immediately after leaving the dentist’s reception on Wednesday 26th of February 2026.
The PS was recorded when I got home
This was recorded on Tuesday 25th February 2025 - after going to the supermarket on the day before I’m due to have three teeth removed.
This was recorded on Tuesday 25th of February 2025, shortly after live streaming on Instagram with Alex, a man I met for the first time way way back on Periscope
This was recorded live at a meeting of Leading Voices Toastmasters Club in Nassau, the Bahamas - on Sunday 23rd February 2025.
Big thanks to Domaine the MC
This was recorded immediately after leaving the Dentist. I had two teeth removed on Wednesday 19th of February 2025.
This episode was recorded on the evening of Tuesday 18th of February 2025 - walking to the Maldron Hotel where Cork Toastmasters Club meets
This was recorded while driving from Cork to Tralee on the morning of Monday 17th February 2025
This was recorded on the morning of 16th February 2025 - in my kitchen, while making a cup of tea.
This was recorded on the morning of Tuesday 11th February 2025 - while walking with Louis and thinking of walks Simon might like to take
This was recorded on the morning of Tuesday 11th of February 2025. POSITIVITEA speaks to Paul
This was recorded on Monday 10th February 2025 - after listening to cbc.ca/radio/thecurrent with Matt Galloway.
This was recorded on Sunday 9th February 2025 - at a meet of OneCountryOneWorld Toastmasters online club.
This was recorded on the morning of Thursday 6th February 2025 - while on a walk with Louis.
This was recorded on the morning of Wednesday 5th February 2025 - while walking the dog Louis
This episode was recorded on the morning of Monday 3rd February - in preparation for the meeting of Cornerstone Communicator Toastmasters Club online
This was recorded in my kitchen on Sunday morning on 2nd February 2025. #febooary25. #febooary #febooary2025. It's 2/28
This was recorded on Saturday second of February 2025 - inspired by @Sm2n. Episode 1/28 in February.
This was recorded on the morning of 31st of January 2025 - while planning to go to the movie
Speech given online to an audience from USA, Ireland, Thailand, Indonesia, Kuwait & India - on Sunday 26th January 2025
janpodpomo
(978 words)
50 YEARS A GROWING
speech by Paul O'Mahony given at Cork Toastmasters Club on 26th January 2025
____________________________________________________
26th of January 2025 …26th of January 1975 …
On this day in 1975, my home Toastmasters Club, Blarney Toastmasters in Cork Ireland, was founded, set up, chartered.
Because I was teaching sociological theory and research methods to high-flying civil servants in Dublin, I wasn't at the meeting. In fact, I hadn't even heard of Toastmasters in 1975.
My friends, had you heard of Toastmasters in 1975? Please, please raise a hand if you had heard of Toastmasters that year. Or had any of your family ever met a Toastmaster in 1975? Were you a public speaker that year?
I'm going to call public speaking any situation in which you're communicating meaningful stuff to one person, a small group, or perhaps a whole conference.
Isn't it a bit of a pity, and unfortunate, that you can go through your whole adult life without ever hearing about the service that Toastmasters gives? Nobody knows how many people in the world have never heard of Toastmasters.
Toastmasters and very welcome visitors to One Country One World,
Last Tuesday, I met Paddy Regan in Cork. Paddy was a member of Toastmasters 50 years ago. We met at a Toastmasters Club which is called Cork Toastmasters.
It was the first time I'd seen him since 2009 and 2010 where we met at a literary festival in a small Irish town called Listowel in County Kerry - a place that Larry would know very well and has probably visited a few times in his life.
Paddy and I got talking. Paddy said to me, "Paul, do you have any idea how Blarney Toastmasters was set up?"
"No, no idea. I just know it was set up a very long time ago. How was it set up?"
"It was set up by Cork Toastmasters Club."
“What?" says I.
"Do you know that, many years ago, there was a rule in Toastmasters that said that once a club had 40 members it couldn't have any more.” This is what Paddy told me. It couldn't have any more. It had to set up another club.
Cork Toastmasters is the oldest club in Cork, one of the oldest clubs in Ireland. It turns out that members from Cork Toastmasters Club set up Blarney Toastmasters Club as the second club. Eight years after it was founded, Cork Toastmasters sets up Blarney Toastmasters.
You won't believe why this is incredibly important this week. Because on Tuesday, a couple of days time, Blarney Toastmasters Club is going to hold Part One of our 50th anniversary… 50th anniversary. Part One is going to be online because we are now a hundred percent online club.
We used to be, as the vast, vast, vast majority of Toastmasters Clubs, we used to be a local community club.
I joined it in 2015. When the pandemic came we went online, on Zoom - like every Toastmasters Club that was still going, (although some did it on Teams).
But we've stayed online.
One of the reasons we've stayed alive on the internet is because we have this weird name, Blarney Toastmasters. There are people who have absolutely no idea what Blarney is, or where it is, but they know the word Blarney. The place Blarney has got a castle. It's a huge tourist attraction in Ireland. We decided it would be a good thing to bring Blarney Toastmasters to the wider world - 50 years after 1975. 50 years standing on the shoulders of giants with a club that has a rich and impressive history, and through which thousands of people have been influenced.
That's what it's like these days. An online celebration … all sorts of people ranging from people who are brand-new to Toastmasters to past International Presidents, District Directors…
I would love you all to come.
I invite you all to come.
Our Club President has authorised me to invite you all to come on Tuesday.
It will be at 7.30pm Irish time, 2.30pm New York time - I think it's going to be 11.30pm Bangkok time. Forgive me if I've made a mistake, but that's it.
One of my big issues is how am I going to be Toastmaster of the day at this celebratory meeting. We've decided to dispense with the General Evaluator (with respect to our general evaluator). We've decided to dispense with Evaluator. We've decided to dispense with two of the roles, Grammarian and Ah-counter - and simply have a meeting with two visiting prepared speakers, one of whom is going to talk about “What Toastmasters International like in 1975”. He's well, well, well known among a tiny number of people in the entire world - but he is indeed a terrific historian of Toastmasters.
Secondly, a speech from an American Distinguished Toastmaster who's going to join Blarney Toastmasters Club in February. He was involved in researching and advising the Board of Toastmasters International whether it should set up online clubs back in 2012, 13, 14. The very first official club that Toastmasters International recognised was in 2016, the first online one.
How on earth am I going to do it? Any of you who have advice for me, I would - as we say in Ireland - bite your hand off. I would love that.
It's been a great opportunity today to kind of practice, albeit in an extended way, a little bit of what I might say at the meeting on Tuesday. I think I'll give myself about two minutes on Tuesday and then let 50 voices speak. Because it'll be all impromptu speech speaking. It'll be all about people, what Blarney means to people, what stories they might have about the club - and stuff like that.
Once again, I invite you to come on Tuesday.
I will put the invitation in the chat. Back to you, Madam Toastmaster.
(978 words)
_____________________________________________
This was recorded at Cork ToastMasters club meeting on Tuesday 21st of January 2025 Ep 22/31
This was recorded in the late afternoon of Wednesday 15th of January 2025 – inside SuperValu in Glanmire Cork
This was recorded at a meeting of OneCountryOneWorld Toastmasters club on Sunday 12th of January 2025
This was recorded on the morning of the 7th of January 2025, in my kitchen, over a cup of tea
This was recorded at about 22:30 on Friday 3rd January 2025 - includes reference to the podcast episode by @Sm2N
This was recorded on Tuesday 31 December 2024.
After naming it “Penultimating” I googled the word, and found the song by Vijay& Duncan.
This was recorded on Monday 23rd December 2024
"It was good to go to London today, despite the fact that I had to get up at 4 o'clock in the morning.
Yes, Edel and I had to get up at 4 o'clock in the morning, drive out to Shannon Airport in order to catch a plane at 5.45.
Did I say yes?
Yes.
You had to be on the plane or ready to get on the plane at 5.15.
I got into London, had a cup of tea, cup of coffee in Stansted Airport and then carried on to some lovely restaurant for breakfast.
I had brioche bun with halloumi cheese, stritzy bacon and a fried egg and a bit of spinach.
I'm trying to remember if there was anything else there.
Anyway, it was fantastic.
It was lovely.
Absolutely lovely.
My son Ben and his daughter, who is now 2, I think she might be nearly 2, they came and met up with us and walked back.
And then there was a big family gathering later on.
There were my two sons, five grand- sisters and two sisters in-law, my grand-children, my ex-wife, my first wife, two boys' mother, her sister and I think that's all.
Anyway, it was just a lovely gathering.
Food at about midday, lots of chatting, Christmas presents for the kids, lots of Lego floating around all over the place and leave then as a quarter to three in order to travel back to Stansted and fly all the way home to Ireland and get back here into the house in Limerick.
I don't know what time, a quarter to nine or something and it's now nearly a quarter to midnight.
So I've been up a long time, but it was a joyous occasion, very pleased about it.
Also pleased that Louis, English setter Louis, stayed at home here in Limerick with my wife, Vidal's mother and caused no trouble whatsoever.
So overall, you can't complain.
I drank a very nice bottle of wine, which was a gift from my great friend, my best friend Roger Overall from the southeast of Spain, this wine.
I can't remember the name of it, but it was lovely and the whole bottle is finished.
I've been in very good form.
Listen to the Blair years, which is Alistair Campbell's diaries.
Listen to that from Audible.
Listen to a couple of podcast episodes as well.
Generally speaking, all went well and I want to celebrate that.
And I guess I better share this tomorrow.
Polo manis, sanctuary over now.
This episode was recorded after Paul O'Mahony consulted the dentist and found out the news.
This was recorded on the morning of Wednesday 18th December - while dog-walking.
You hear:
*"Oh dear, Christmas is coming.
Oh dear, the fact that I have to leave Cork on Monday coming in order to go to Limerick means that effectively Christmas Day is on Monday.
Or did I say Monday?
I meant Sunday.
And today is Wednesday.
And that means an awful lot of things to be done.
I haven't got a list of them written down, but I have a pretty good idea in my head that there are a number of things including the Christmas presents to be bought between now and Sunday.
And I also haven't got my wife her Christmas present yet.
And that's another story.
I am trying to think who else's Christmas present have I not got.
Here, Louie.
Come on.
I'm out walking with the dog, but it means that my emotional state between now and Sunday will be a bit fraught.
I anticipate that.
Which means I need to keep focus on what's coming up.
And I need to make a list.
I'll never cope without a list.
I can't rely upon my memory to make sure that I won't overlook something.
I need to get some fresh air, because if I don't get fresh air I'm going to be depleted in, I would say even brain power, intelligence, emotional resources.
Fresh air is good for me and I know that.
I just need to be careful that I don't forget that, overlook it, or decide that that's an optional extra.
So definitely I need to look after myself.
I need to be careful of myself.
I need to drop anything that can be dropped.
In other words, postponed until January.
So I'm thinking, what can I drop?
What can I get rid of?
What can I postpone?
Because the one thing you can't postpone is Christmas Day.
And I can't postpone flying to London on Monday.
And I can't postpone driving to Limerick on Sunday.
I'm getting up at a horrible time on Monday morning.
Horrible time.
Plane takes off at half five.
Can you imagine how awful that is?
To get a plane leaving at half...
Oh God.
It's going to mean I'm in Stansted Airport at a ridiculously early hour.
Almost too early to go on travel and go on from there and go to my son's house for coffee.
There we are.
Oh dear.
Well, I suppose everybody gets into this kind of a flurry.
And I'm not alone.
I'm part of a team.
It's like me giving myself a team talk.
I'm part of a team.
I can't do it all by myself.
And I can't let anybody else do it all by themselves.
So here we go.
At least I did sort out the Christmas present for my daughter yesterday.
And I only got it sorted out when I stopped thinking that it has to be a surprise.
It doesn't have to be a surprise.
And I came to that realization when I thought, "Well, what was I doing at her age?"
And I realized that I was telling my parents what I would like for Christmas.
It wasn't a surprise.
In fact, I think I started telling my parents what I'd like for Christmas when I was about 15.
Yeah, so Silly Paul got himself into, "Oh, what about this and what about that?"
And she looked the obvious answer was, "Just ask the girl what she'd like."
And she told me, "So everything's sorted in that front?"
So things are not as bad as they could be.
No, they're not.
However, what's missing out of my emotional armory, if you like, is a sensation of, "Everything is going terribly well.
This is going to be the best Christmas ever.
This is certainly going to be the most enjoyable time of this year.
And it's going to be a splendid introduction to next year.
Everything is going to be perfect.
Whatever will be, will be."
And, you know, there are an awful lot of people who don't have all the advantages that I have.
So I'm really fortunate and I need to remember, or I am remembering, that I'm a man full of gratitude.
You know, they say, "Fake it till you make it."
I'm a man full of gratitude for all the gifts that I've received, right from the time I was born, up to today.
And you know what?
Whatever I get for Christmas will be a perfect present.
So there we are.
That's it.
Yeah.
I'm fine.
I'm in good state.
All's well in my little world.
And hopefully everything will be a little bit better in everybody else's world.
Polomani, St.
Cheerio, I now can put the dog in the car."*
(Transcription by Whisper - to be edited)
This was recorded at about 9am on the morning of Tuesday 17th December 2024.
"It's tea time.
In front of me is a tepid cup of tea.
It's gone all the way down to about nine tenths or should I say one tenth left of the cup of tea and the mug says tea time in La Hinch.
Well this is not tea time in La Hinch, this is tea time in Glen Myer.
In front of me is the remainder of something that looks awfully like lemongrass, a piece of lemongrass.
That's it, I think, but it's lost its flavour.
A silver teaspoon, a carton of even more super milk which says all your visam and d needs in one glass and apparently what makes it super is calcium, vitamin b12, folic acid, protein, vitamin E, whatever that thing is, b2.
Ribo Flavin, never heard of him, calcium, vitamin D.
Then there's a used up tea bag on a side place.
Then there's another cup which has a cuck on it, a cockerel, another cockerel and a third cockerel and it's decorated by these.
The cartoonist is called, well the artist is called Alex Clark.
Then moving across the bar here is a blue carton which is torn open from a company called Revive Active and it's called joint complex.
This is a super supplement with 10 active ingredients working in harmony to support your joints and there are images of cartilage, bone, connective tissue and muscle function.
There are words on here that are MSM, no idea what that is, hyaluronic, hyaluronic acid.
Glucosomain, marine collagen, scientifically developed in Ireland and quite next to that is a box, a green one, which says enrich your life, revive active and this one is tropical flavor.
So there we are, they're probably both doing the same thing.
Now if I turn to my right I see the back of an envelope which says almond milk, milk, oranges, raisins, chicken multiplied by two, mints, cheese, blueberries, mildflax, dog food, squash and celery.
This is all on the back of an envelope that says in front, Nollig Honechit, that means happy Christmas to you.
Hite means to you and that's from a place called Merchants Key Ireland, a hot meal, a helping hand, a fresh start and this mailing has been produced using carbon-balanced paper helping to prevent climate change by protecting threatened tropical forests and planting trees.
This is fascinating.
Resurrection Man is on the front cover of this turned over Irish Times weekend, December the 7th.
John Baez is quoted, "I recognize people who had the abuse I had, China's capital of Christmas, Dennis Staunton reports and Stardust, this is a tragic place, a place where creativity can grow."
That was an awful fire that killed many people back in the 1980s I think.
Kitty Holland writing about it, but the key thing on the front is called Resurrection Man.
Didn't an American author write a book called Resurrection Man?
Can't remember.
This is all about me Hall-Martin.
It says he's starting another chapter in a long political odyssey that has seen triumph, disaster, renewal and now triumph again.
He can't wait to be T-shirt, that's Prime Minister, for a second time.
Underneath that is something I bought yesterday from Remington.
It's a nose trimmer, a whole little container and I won't open it but I know that there's a little nail scissors in there.
There's something for trimming your beard, something for trimming your eyebrows and something for cleaning up your nose hairs and your ear hairs.
Yes.
And next to that is another.
It's a whiteboard and this whiteboard has things written in red letters, wine, cumin, celery, coffee, tomato, ham, eggs, lights and then Anna - Thursday question mark.
How on earth am I expected to be calm in the middle of all these stimuli?
I mean is it any wonder that I might be about to start my day in an excited state of mind in an emotionally charged, emotionally charged what?
Well emotionally charged.
Yes I'm recording this episode of my podcast as a fragment out of my life.
Partly I'm recording it now because I forgot I didn't, I just didn't record an episode yesterday and I've got 31 of them to record in the month of December so I don't want to fall behind by too many.
But I just think it's much easier to record in the morning rather than late at night.
I think that has to do with me talking to my imaginary friends.
Yeah I think talking to imaginary friends wakes me up rather than trying to talk to them at night when I'm tired and I'm washed out, drained and empty from the day.
This is waking me up.
Oh it'll be interesting to see how I feel after meeting a human being.
So far I've only met a cat and seen a dog asleep in the corner.
Paul O'Manney saying cheerio I hope you have a better day than you had yesterday and I hope you have a better day than I'm going to have today.
Yeah there's generosity for you isn't it? "
(Transcription by Whisper Transcription - to be edited)
This was recorded in the kitchen on Sunday morning 15th December 2024.
"Good morning and welcome to my kitchen in Cork Ireland.
I'm very disappointed in my hand.
When I woke up this morning, it was seized up, tight, painful to loosen.
Yeah, I've had trouble with my right hand for months now, but for ages I kept saying to myself, "It's getting better, it's at the speed of lichen, infinitesimally, slowly."
But no, today I feel very, very disappointed, in other words, pissed off and angry and frustrated and annoyed and enraged at the trouble I'm having with this hand.
Not only has the middle finger got what's called clicking finger, so that I have to wrench it back uprise every morning.
And that hurts, but the thumb, which I have thought was getting better, now feels like it's getting worse.
There's so many things I can't do with my right thumb.
It's suffering from what the MRI revealed to be normal wear and tear.
I wouldn't call anything like I have normal.
But I came downstairs, I said hello to my daughter, and I said hello to my wife.
They both got off and left the kitchen, but I was perfectly amiable to both of them.
So I didn't let my rage spill over into my communications with them.
I didn't shout at them, I didn't throw a plate or a cup or anything on the ground and tell them to feck off.
No, I was just quietly appreciative of their presence.
I didn't interrupt either of them.
I asked questions about, well, what would you like for Christmas?
I did.
Perhaps encourage my wife to hurry up and leave the house.
But I did that in a very nice way.
You know, a way that didn't make it obvious that I was encouraging her to leave the house.
You know what it's like when you have an intention, you're very clear about it, but you don't make it obvious to the other person that you want them to get the hell out of the house.
No, I've been in very good form this morning.
Wretched, bit wicked.
Actually, I haven't seen that film yet."
(Transcribed by Whisper Transcription - to be edited)
This was recorded at three minutes after midnight on 15th December 2024.
"I wish I hadn't started out on a journey like this - a journey to comment every day about how I'm feeling.
It’s hard enough to just get through the day from beginning to end without having to think about how am I feeling, how have I've been feeling, how do I wish I had been feeling.
I'm looking back on this day from about midnight on Saturday night. I'm thinking I wish I didn't have to go to bed soon I would've like I would like to stay up all night watching England against New Zealand. I suppose that means I'm feeling dissatisfied.
now content but I did have a nice bit of lunch with my wife in the barn today yeah what did we do we went out to buy Christmas presents for my grandchildren and we did get them and after that we had a short amount Time before getting back to the house in order to take care of the dog so that our daughter could go out everything was kind of Harley barley hunting very quickly and this was Saturday morning meant to be nice and slow
I would have to get Logs we have one of these you know these kind of fires that you put logs into it and set fire to it I don't know what I'm talking about I'm talking about a firebox I suppose yeah I've got a fire box not an open fire so I got six bags of logs and I was very pleased because I was afraid that the place There's some logs it would be shut and it wasn't. so I got the logs and I was very happy.
I sat down in front of the fire I got up from time to time and things like set the table for dinner tell it all the work she prepared food I did very little.
I watched Leinster playing Rugby against the French team I was pleased that they store one. then I played around on Facebook and Instagram.
I recorded live stream of poetry by Walt Whitman part seven of “passage to India” - Long poem from “leaves of grass”. that was a satisfying and enjoyable thing to do because five people that I know from live streaming & podcasting came onto the live stream on Instagram just Jane Boyd came, Rich Roberts came, Jane Boyd in Canada - Rich Roberts in upstate New York - Jacqueline White came from Orange County in California, Sm2N came from England. (Jarle Pettersen from Norway too)
overall that was very satisfying I was calm all day my emotions didn't go up or did they go down I didn't do today was Take the dog for a walk which means that I didn't get out in the fresh air but I did put up some Christmas lights round the front door of the house so I did a bit of DIY do it yourself I did overall not a bad day. (Transcription by Voice Record Pro. - to be edited)
This was recorded on 10th December 2024. Paul with Gustavo & Corrine in kitchen
Paul:Oh my goodness, what a treat. I'm sitting in my kitchen drinking coffee with this amazing couple. By the way, they're not a couple but an amazing two people who come to carry a sofa out of my house before my wife comes back here. what is this man Gustavo, born in Chile - I have no idea how long he lived there - took himself off to Sweden to study industrial design. Can you believe he comes to Ireland in the middle of his studies, and what does he do? He goes and works in Ballymaloe, the very famous slow food destination in Ireland, the most famous in terms of Irish quality food. What does he do there? Instead of becoming a behind the scenes Chilean and Swedish chef, he becomes a nanny. (I'm about to introduce you to him in a second.) Next he takes himself off to muck out horses in Hyde's Equestrian in Cork. I have the owner of Hyde's Equestrian here with him, but first of all Gustavo welcome to Ireland.Gustavo:
Thank you
P: You know you have to talk because people want to listen to you, and they're used to me. Tell me how do you feel about drinking coffee in my house?
G: It's all an adventure. Getting to know different spectacular kinds of people. I feel great in Ireland. I feel it's like home in a lot of senses of the life like the weather, the houses, the smells. Yeah in my home it rains all the time. I'm from the mountains, so it's really windy and cold, there is snow too, and you have rain.
Paul: You've completely confounded my image of Chile, the seaside South America.
Gustovo: They believe it's really hot weather there. Every place it's not like that. You have imagine we have a whole different kind of weather in Chile. Because it's so long, we have desert, we have Mediterranean weather, extreme weather, cold weather in the South, and in the mountains you have really tough weather too.
P: How long would it take me to drive from the extreme north of Chile to the extreme south, driving eight hours a day or anyway you want to measure it?
G: Maybe three days or two days.
P: Could I sleep on the way?
G: Of course, but if you want to stop and really get to know Chile, maybe four or five days.
P: We've just met for the first time, if you knew me better, you'd realise that it would take me a month to get from the top of Chile to the bottom because I am a person who loves to stop.
Why industrial design?
G: Because first I love architecture but wasn't good enough for the maths. so I started with that sign Yeah hard to study Sheila and I was good at, and was the first in my class the first two years. I won a scholarship, and came to Europe, to Spain, to study at University of Girona.
P: That's where one of the most famous restaurants in the world was.
I want to ask why Ireland?
G: I don't know, it was a hunch.
P: Like an angel came in the night and said "Go forward to Ireland"?
G: Something like that.
P: I write poetry, and haven't used the word "hunch". I haven't even used hunchback. I wonder what's the connection between a hunch and a hunchback. Something to research - thank you so much.
How long are you staying in Ireland ?
G: Until December 22, so three weeks.
P: How did you ever come Hyde's, how did you manage that ?
Corrine: Gustavo was on residency in Sweden. To comply with Visa requirements he had to leave Sweden and go somewhere else for three months or 90 days or whatever the Visa is. I have loads and loads and loads of cousins. One of my cousins is married to Ted who's Swedish. Gustavo knows Ted and knows his parents. They decided Gustavo would go to Ballymaloe to work for another cousin of mine Roche is married to Ted this Swedish and that he'd work for her brother Darren in Ballymaloe helping out with the kids. A few things just changed there and last week Darren rang me when I was rushing out the door. He started to tell me about Gustavo and I said "Send him up and I'll sort him out". We were up to our eyeballs with horses that needed to be looked after. Gustavo had no experience at all with horses - never even touched a horse. He rolled up his sleeves and dived in. I told him to spend the first day watching and learning because we hardly had time to train him. I said just watch watch watch watch and be very conscious of your safety. Now that the weather is a little bit better - he's absolutely fine and delighted to have him to help us out in the yard.
P: I wanna thank you and I'll tell you why. Both my wife & daughter come home in a better mood after being up in Hyde's.
C: That's fabulous, I'm delighted to hear that.
P: My wife has very very very busy job and there's a great contrast in her mood between coming home from work without going to Hyde's and coming home from work after Hyde's. It's a joy to me.
LOUD CAT SCREECH ...
P: Thank you both ever so much and it's a delight to drink coffee with you both there we are bye-bye".
(Transcription by Voice Record Pro - edited)
This was recorded on Tuesday 10th December 2024.
"Oh it's Tuesday morning and emotionally I'm sleepy. yeah I'm a neutra. I'm placid. I can feel the cold touch of tiles under my bare feet - the soles of my feet and I need …
I mustn’t fill the kettle more than I need, otherwise I'll destroy the ozone layer - or something. It is not good to boil water and then not use it is? it now the cat has an emotion, and it's one of desire. isn't it Puma? You desire food. I was too lazy to pour the contents of the cat’s food container into the big plastic box. that you are now level level essuagues your desire.
hello Louis, Good morning. fuck you off to
say good job
you wanna go outside. yeah calm - I did not say serene. I'm not high, I'm not low. I'm a middlin’ kind of guy today okay.
cheers, I found a cheaper for tea in my little supermarket yes I was delighted about this maybe yesterday bought it it's called regional blend teabags from Super Valu they are even less expensive than the Value gold which is about half the price of diaries tea now I'm having a rat I'm a gentler I don't know do I have any emotional intelligence go better take the two books down From the shelf and open them up and at least read a bit of golf man isn't it Goffman the emotional conscience sky think so I have bought volumes in paperback red bit of old I will be quickly I will be quickly I'll be able to tell which bits I've read because Read books like that books with intellectual content research and I have no milk that's my own fault now here's my first emotional counter of the day I see I forgot to get more milk yesterday and I sent to my daughter last night would she possibly get a pint of milk on her way home From going to see gladiator too and then she said no she was getting a lift from somebody so I said okay and I said to myself I don't really feel like going out I was interrupted not by the dogs barking by the proprietor of hotel Barney hotel and because I'm trying to find out the suitable location for the 50th anniversary of Blarney Toastmasters 50th 50 that's that's a good experience isn't it so that was a little little bump in terms of all his come back to me that's great promotion won't last for It'll lie it'll fade away you know the way little bumps on the road for no liability if you look very a few less very very attentively you know a bum on the road but after while you definitely will have you remembering it I'll what was I saying before I was rudely interrupted so there's a little bit Frustration and not being able to remember where I left off but there we are this is all about emotions and the fluctuating tides some which are very very soft and some are very stormy at least I can say that I'm thinking that today is gonna be a good day positive emotion heading into the day Now I must go back to sleep and drink this I'll go back and calm down calm down Paul take control of your own emotions yes don't let them dominate you remember you have a mouth and a throat and a stomach so go and use them"
(Transcription by Voice Record Pro - to be edited)
This was recorded on 9th December 2024.
"Everyone's talking about emotional intelligence
and I'm talked out about it I spent so much time talking myself about emotionally intelligence that I hardly have any time for intelligent conversations with other people but what fixing me at the moment is emotionally intelligence the reason it's vexing me is that I have signed up to do a project Called understanding emotional intelligence and the project requires me to keep a journal of my emotions for two weeks 14 days and I'm thinking I don't wanna be writing down every day at the end of the day how I'm feeling today or how I felt during the day today That seems to me to be a you know better to wait about your emotions exactly when you have them rather than thinking back to I feel irritated earlier today while I was I was frustrated at one stage today and I was pleased twice today I was pleased to discover that I don't have cancer or that's what the specialist the consultant said to me when I went to have The results of my MRI on my prostate revealed to me and he said well you don't have cancer as far as I can see so that's good news isn't it I didn't know whether what I was meant to feel but not what I was meant to feel I actually felt very calm I had to calm during all the days in between the MRI and getting the results of the MRI I had talked to myself on the way in should I to the hospital or to the consultants room to the point where I was saying I look I'm not controlled over it whatever will be will be and I was moulding these kind Cliches but I really was feeling relaxed I wasn't feeling nervous or shaky or anxious surrounding like that in a sense I probably out to have been because the truth days I didn't know what the results were going to be and if I had gone in there this morning and he said to me well I'm afraid Paul that you have cancer I can only guess that I would've been less relaxed but I would've been more nervous and if he said well right now we have to do an operation on you a very soon to get rid of it we do a biopsy this afternoon and you can come in and have chemo tomorrow morning and by the way you Have limited lifespan given the extent of this would've been I would've been in bed so I can just assume because I have never been in bits as result of a medical thing being told to me about my medical condition before I can't be 100% sure but it just talking about it it makes me realise positive very silly sometimes Here you are sounding as if you don't have the care in the world but I was pleased I definitely was pleased so pleased that I decided to carry on go up to Blarney village and try to find a place where which would be suitable for the 50th anniversary of Lonnie Toymaster club which is coming at the end of January but that's another story but back to Emotional intelligence was it emotionally intelligent for me to be saying to myself this morning to worry everything is fine or would it have been more intelligent if I was thinking that if this is what said to me that's what I do and if this is what said to me that will another words have to done a whole load of them what's it called times when you think Thinking about what might happen if things go left or if things go right anyway this is going to be my first journal of my emotions so it's been a little bit of a kind of rollercoaster I got frustrated because I took me ages and ages to figure out how to use a website which has changed radically and I don't know how long I spent way way too much and I have to do a podcast interview 22 minutes or 23 minutes that at least will be a pleasure so there we are the first of my journals of my emotions although yesterday I was talking about being tired and I think being tired is an emotion too so that we are.
it's Paul O'Mahony in his kitchen sounding off" (Transcription by Voice Record Pro)
This was recorded on Sunday 8th December 2024. Contains talk about a family experience - a #Toastmasters club meeting - and a rugby match.
"I'm tired I really am I drove up to Limerick and back from Limerick today I went up because it's my wife's dad's anniversary of her father's death one year ago and there was a family religious service a mass from Catholic mass Specially for the occasion and then the others went and had a meal for quite a few members of the family there I'd say about at least at least 10 or 12 maybe more but I had to leave I'm not go to the not go to the meal I would've loved to have gone but I am president of a toast club and it match at 1 o'clock in the day and I missed the last meeting so I felt I really ought to go to this one I was the MC of the meeting you know if somebody else had to do that bro I've had to pull out or maybe two weeks ago so Didn't I did to play the MC role I did enjoyed it I must say there were about four people are five who were or even six people were not members of the club people wearing other close masters clubs the theme of the meeting wasn't powering each other and that's what we did really We party each other by paying attention to each other this was all online so this was zoom so by being there for each other paying attention to each other whenever people were speaking we all did our best to look at them so it wouldn't look like oh you just had your head down all the screens were on for most of the Time when somebody was about to give a speech they got applause and when they finished it they got applause later on their speech got will be called it evaluated that means somebody individual gives bit like the high points and the points where the speech could be improved it It was very good but I have to say I was very tired driving back to cork got dark at the end but while it was nice it wasn't so bad and I'm now sitting down with a cup of tea and had one cup of tea or J and that's when I arrived in Limerick and I'm gonna put my fever up and is 13 minutes Rugby match between Lancaster and one of the provinces in Ireland and very strong team and breast Bristol which I don't think are very strong team but I could be wrong and that's why I'm really do so there it is that's a bit from my day today I drink I drink tea proper tea okay I'm doing a episode of my podcast every day in December so far I think I've made seven episodes of eight days so I'll have to do an extra one at substage I hope you enjoyed this I hope you're keeping very well. (Transcription by Voice Record Pro)
This episode was recorded on 3rd December 2024.
Common Winter Songbirds in Cork:
-
Robin (Erithacus rubecula)
- Song: Melodic and sweet, with varied phrases.
- Active: Year-round, often one of the most vocal birds in winter.
-
Blackbird (Turdus merula)
-
Song: Rich, flute-like notes, but may be less common as they sing more in spring and summer.
- Calls: You might hear alarm calls or chatter rather than full songs.
-
Wren (Troglodytes troglodytes)
-
Song: Loud, complex, and surprisingly powerful for its size.
- Active: Wrens often remain vocal even in winter.
-
Blue Tit (Cyanistes caeruleus)
-
Song: High-pitched, repetitive calls and chirps.
- Active: Frequently heard flitting through trees.
-
Great Tit (Parus major)
-
Song: Two-note "teacher-teacher" call and other variations.
- Active: Vocal year-round.
-
Song Thrush (Turdus philomelos)
-
Song: Repetitive phrases; often subdued in winter but occasionally heard.
- Calls: Sharp "tic" calls.
-
European Starling (Sturnus vulgaris)
-
Song: Complex mix of whistles, clicks, and mimicry.
- Active: May sing from roosting spots.
-
Chaffinch (Fringilla coelebs)
-
Song: Cheerful, descending "chip-chip-cheerio" song, though less common in winter.
- Calls: Sharp "pink-pink" calls are typical.
Source: ChatGPT.
This was recorded on Saturday 30th November 2024 in Limerick - after Messiah by Limerick Choral Union
This was recorded on Friday 29th November 2024. In the photo - the President of Ireland and his wife casting their votes
This was recorded on Wednesday 27th November 2024 - at Shilling Speakers Toastmasters Club.
This was recorded on Wednesday 27th November 2024 - while watching the first day of the first Test from my sofa in Cork.
This episode was recorded on Monday 25th November 2024 - it celebrates my first experience of using Instagram Live and the arrival of Simon (Sm2n) on the stream. It was very like the #Periscope experience.
This episode was recorded on Friday 22nd November 2024. for #napodpomo challenge - podcasting festival . It's about #WaltWhitmanShow. #live-streaming
This episode was recorded in Cafe Beva on Monday 18th November 2024. Roger's voice has been edited out.
This episode was recorded in my kitchen on Friday 15th 2024. It's inspired by a podcast episode that @Sm2N recorded in 2005 with Stephen Fry
This was recorded at the final of the Humorous Speech Contest in Area 23 in Cork Ireland - on Monday 11th November 2024
This episode was recorded on Saturday 2 November 2024
Garnish Island Gin https://bit.ly/3Cn8oW0
Bradley's Off-licence on North Main Street https://www.bradleysofflicence.ie/
This was recorded on 1st November 2024.
(1) Siobhán Keenan Fitzgerald's wonderful book: https://www.omahonys.ie/listen-how-child-and-student-voice-can-change-the-world-p-10596186.html
(2) November Audio Month https://napodpomo.org/
This episode was recorded on 29th October 2024
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/29/podcasts/the-daily/election-immigration.html
Recorded in The Barn Gastropub in Cork - while breakfasting on scrambled eggs and mini vine tomatoes. #omanifragment
Driving an ancient Audi A3 through Cork - recorded on a (not so) smart phone perched on the dashboard. Paul O'Mahony driving & talking - a monologue
TOASTMASTERS,
"You need friends" - a speech given by Paul O'Mahony to the Anglo-Irish meeting at the annual conference of District 71 (Ireland & UK north) in Portlaoise on Thursday 9th May 2024.
The pen is always heavy,
when it’s months since you lifted it.
The weight of the space left behind
undressed, unaddressed.
Time without colour,
days without commas,
seconds stripped asunder,
drunk on the spirit of everlasting
full stops.
———
This pen has a cough,
the sign of an infected life
lived as if there was no editor
round the corner
waiting.
No publisher
cracking teeth,
chewing toenails,
waiting
for the pen to impregnate the page with filth,
for the ink to copulate with lines
that conceive parables,
that deceive imaginations
so much that the nib cries for rest,
prays for time off
howls for sleep,
from having to be so good
and having to deliver best-selling sentences,
gobsmacking phrases,
gut-wrenching couplets.
——
No poet needs a pen.
The essential requirement for poetry is a mouth,
a voice box,
a larynx,
lungs.
We have ways of transcribing your dung,
software to soften your crudities,
Code.
——
Give us your guts, your flint, your rock.
We can knock you into marketable shape.
Give us your foulest wake,
your Finnegan.
I’ll even take your Sappho to bed
and snore ‘til dawn,
with her panting for more.
I’ll make Shakespeare disappear,
and Bashō re-appear
as a disgruntled dung beetle,
before I grant your pen
the right to light the rite of the brightening word-scape.
——
The Pen,
R.I.P.,
survived lovingly by its mother’s quill,
its significant other Bottle of spirits,
its children Procrastine and Prostatinus -
lies with coffin open all night
to the quickening sky,
in the front room of OMani’s Bookshop,
in the toilet of your treadmill,
in the dustbin of your mind,
in the gutter of your good manners,
waiting for eternity,
and, if that’s not long enough, tough on you,
with your expectations of Heaven,
with your confidence in being reincarnated
as the elephant god of wisdom,
or with at least a modicum of respect
for how you’ve served
the progeny of cave carvings,
the issue of hieroglyphical outbursts,
the offspring of juggled alphabets,
and the latest emojis.
Trend-setter you,
cursed be thy name.
——
No matter how heavy the pen,
no matter how sick the ink,
no matter how smelly the script,
no matter how disreputable the collection,
the air will carry your sentiments
alongside the letter Cain wrote to Abel,
the note Judas wrote to Joseph,
the missive Abraham scribbled to the Buddha,
all the smoke signals,
text messages,
emails,
phone calls
and whisperings.
The wind will amalgamate the lot,
and you will be branded
another infant in the long line.
Sluggish Dawn
Waking is such sweet joy, my friend,
Crumpled sheets and well-worn pillows
The body warm and snug.
A gentle lift-off with a push
A right-hand palm, the door to a well-known pit,
into the landscape of a fragile core.
Nostalgia for the sweet touch of night
Gone the face of slumbered satisfaction.
Welcome back marauded morn
Enough, enough
Oh bloody hell, Myalgia,
It’s way past time
(To grease the palm) for physiotherapy.
‘Tis no wonder Sluggish is my middle name.
_________________________________________________________
I submitted this new poem to ChatGPT with this instruction: "Write a short humorous excerpt for this poem". This is what the AI produced :
As the sluggish dawn breaks, I emerge from my cocoon of crumpled sheets and well-worn pillows, like a majestic butterfly... if that butterfly had hit the snooze button a dozen times and stumbled out of bed with all the grace of a newborn foal.
With a reluctant push, I navigate through the familiar landscape of my bedroom, a perilous journey that leads me to the treacherous abyss known as morning. Ah, nostalgia for the sweet embrace of sleep! But alas, it's time to face the day, with all its marauding responsibilities and unwelcome intrusions.
And then, just as I summon the courage to confront the day ahead, a familiar foe makes its presence known: Myalgia, the villainous master of aches and pains. It's a reminder that perhaps I've lingered in bed a tad too long, and now it's time to pay the piper... or rather, the physiotherapist.
So, with a resigned sigh and a muttered curse, I shuffle towards the inevitable appointment, realizing that "Sluggish" isn't just a word in the poem—it's become my middle name, my identity, my eternal struggle against the tyranny of mornings."Image by Aitestkitchen.
Recorded while Paul O'Mahony walks down & up the steep Church Hill in an effort to recover from winter vomiting bug. You also hear cars passing - and a brief exchange of sounds with a passer-by.
I will remember the year.
Ukraine survived
Rasputin's curse.
Moscow central:
tanks, troops, terror
into houses, homes, hospitals
into schools, shops, ships
amputating the land
obeying the command
of Grendel's cabal.
I will never forget my ignorance -
how my faith
led me to trust
Mother Russia, Gorbachov's legacy,
seduction by MacDonalds,
and the gas.
Shame on me,
mea culpa.
I failed to believe the intelligence,
predictions, forecasts, warnings.
I was too smart for my own good.
I didn't remember Crimea.
I have nothing to be proud of,
I slept through 2014.
What good was that war?
The Crimean War,
"The Charge of the Light Brigade",
imperialistic glory,
another empire
glorified and defended.
"Bless me Father, for I have sinned.
It's been eight years
since my last confession.
These are my sins:"
Blind - to the pain
Deaf - to the cries
Dumb - too voiceless to fight
for the integrity of your homeland.
I was cavorting with earthworms
the day Crimea fell.
Russian Orthodox
sanctimonious stooges
of Rasputin's regime.
No heaven for Ukraine,
only hell.
Belzebub at work.
I've been a disgrace,
a disgrace to my mother and father.
They had Hungarians to dinner
on Christmas Day.
Short trousers on,
across the table, in Limerick,
I saw strangers
and brothers in one,
conjoined in solidarity.
He carved the turkey,
she passed the plates
to God's children
worthy of everlasting love.
The cock crowed three times.
Ireland, silence.
"It will never happen here,
in Europe.
Didn't we have the Nazis?
Haven't we learned?"
Chicken Ki-ev,
How do you pronounce Kyiv?
Vladimir's Mecca
missiled, starved, frozen, flattened, bombed, burnt, killed, refugeed, droned, wrecked, obliterated,
smoldering,
mud, trenches, shells, graves, amputees,
Dulce et decorum est ...
It is sweet and fitting to war
for one’s country.
Moscow smiles,
the dachas warm,
swimming pools of vodka and champagne.
More boys to throw into the special military operation,
more mouths
more guts,
more coffins,
blankets and pillows for the other world.
Let them go loot and rape,
berserkers
in the breadbasket of Europe
in wheatfields,
in the eyes of infants, schoolchildren & pets.
Isn't it easy to smile
surrounded by sycophants?
I will remember the weather,
the sun,
the fires,
the drought,
the melted ice,
the desertification of holiday homes
for a few days.
Forever, I will remember the six million
crossing borders,
looking for helping hands,
succour, shelter,
food, friends,
fleeing from freezing cold.
thirst,
hypothermia
and the pleasure of gonorrhea.
I will remember the dead,
my naivety, ignorance, and safety,
insolence and impotence.
I will not forgive.
Paul O'Mahony talks as he walks with his English Setter Louis. They meet herons, a cormorant, a Schnauzer and a human or three ...
Roger Overall & Paul O'Mahony talk about how Ireland beat West Indies. This was recorded in Cafe Beva in Glanmire Cork Ireland.
Paul O'Mahony talks while walking in his favourite wood in East Cork - you hear his dog Louis panting and you hear them meet some people who had a dog
Paul O'Mahony offers thoughts about how easy it is to pay attention to your other half.
Paul O'Mahony thinks about the others who are making #AudioMo happen. He offers a piece of advice to those who love their job too much.
Paul O'Mahony quotes "Money can't buy you love". Then says "Money can buy you attention" - if you have enough of it. The question is "What's the best way for you to buy attention?"
Paul O'Mahony tells you what he was up to delivering the shortest training course ever to employees of the Office of Public Works in Ireland
Paul O'Mahony introduces #AudioMo from a particular angle : a Festival of Attention - 30 efforts in 30 days in June 2021
Paul O'Mahony & Roger Overall chat about the Barkley Marathons 2021 - outside Café Beva in Glanmire, Cork, Ireland
Paul O'Mahony, co-presenter on "The Talk Show for Talkers" talks about some of the ways in which Toastmasters International seeks to design quality in to achieving the Mission.
Co-presenters Ted Mellamphy & Moira O'Brien are here too.
Derek Mahon (23 November 1941 – 1 October 2020) an Irish poet, was born in Belfast, Northern Ireland.
Paul O'Mahony reads
A Garage in Co. Cork BY DEREK MAHON
Surely you paused at this roadside oasis In your nomadic youth, and saw the mound Of never-used cement, the curious faces, The soft-drink ads and the uneven ground Rainbowed with oily puddles, where a snail Had scrawled its slimy, phosphorescent trail. Like a frontier store-front in an old western It might have nothing behind it but thin air, Building materials, fruit boxes, scrap iron, Dust-laden shrubs and coils of rusty wire, A cabbage-white fluttering in the sodden Silence of an untended kitchen garden — Nirvana! But the cracked panes reveal a dark Interior echoing with the cries of children. Here in this quiet corner of Co. Cork A family ate, slept, and watched the rain Dance clean and cobalt the exhausted grit So that the mind shrank from the glare of it. Where did they go? South Boston? Cricklewood? Somebody somewhere thinks of this as home, Remembering the old pumps where they stood, Antique now, squirting juice into a cream Lagonda or a dung-caked tractor while A cloud swam on a cloud-reflecting tile. Surely a whitewashed sun-trap at the back Gave way to hens, wild thyme, and the first few Shadowy yards of an overgrown cart track, Tyres in the branches such as Noah knew — Beyond, a swoop of mountain where you heard, Disconsolate in the haze, a single blackbird. Left to itself, the functional will cast A death-bed glow of picturesque abandon. The intact antiquities of the recent past, Dropped from the retail catalogues, return To the materials that gave rise to them And shine with a late sacramental gleam. A god who spent the night here once rewarded Natural courtesy with eternal life — Changing to petrol pumps, that they be spared For ever there, an old man and his wife. The virgin who escaped his dark design Sanctions the townland from her prickly shrine. We might be anywhere but are in one place only, One of the milestones of earth-residence Unique in each particular, the thinly Peopled hinterland serenely tense — Not in the hope of a resplendent future But with a sure sense of its intrinsic nature.
Ireland beat England by seven wickets in third One Day International Paul Stirling and Irish captain Andrew Balbirnie made glorious centuries as Ireland calmly chased down 329 to stun England at the Ageas Bowl - said the Guardian Newspaper
cricket
Pandemonium
The everlasting tree of life
in care homes,
meat factories,
the blood stream of asylum-seekers
cooped up in beds squashed together.
‘Excuse me Bark
*I am the Bard from Wuhan,
come by coracle and winds of wrath.
We have landed among you with our verses.
We expect you to melody
- unless you already have dysentery in your country.’*
“*You can feck off home
as soon as the 5 km radius is expanded to whisk you home.
We have no more need of stranded strangers”
piped up one thirsty mouth
waiting for the bars to open,
or even our local SuperValu
to lift the shutters on Sunday morning*."
Contemporary poetry by Paul O'Mahony
Pandemonium (Part 3)
There’s nowhere left to go.
If I go out into the streets the virus will get me.
I’ll be choked to death.
I’ll be driven into.
I’ll be beaten.
The virus is that strong.
I hear people saying:
“*Together we’ll destroy the virus,
together we’ll defeat the virus,
together we’ll win the war.*”
But do you believe that?
Are you one of the people who are so hopeful
that you’d be willing to marry the virus
in order to convert it
to a benign force?
May the force be with you,
I hear you wish.
There is another world in this wood.
There’s another world in this darkness.
There’s another world deeper than the one we’ve dug for ourselves.
This is the 2nd of June 2020 - Day 2 of AudioMo 2020. This poem "Pandemonium" begins here. It's being written specially for this audio Festival.
Pandemonium
I’m back to haunt you, to hang out with you as you sleep your way through the quicksands of Cavan, the swamps of Temple Bar, and whatever cesspools you’re going to conjure up as soon as you venture into the Deep Dark Wood.
You see, I’m the bark of a tree
that’s primed to underwrite the cacophony
that’s coming across the cemeteries of County Ireland.
Recorded on 1st June, on the LIMOR app, especially for the online audio festival AudioMo2020
If you'd like to listen to an eclectic mix of audio from people all over the world - #AudioMo is the hashtag to follow in June 2020. For 30 days people will upload audio every day.
This is episode 12 of a series of audios about the future of planet Earth by Paul O'Mahony.
The World Economic Forum is in Davos.
The Davos 2020 theme is sustainable development, under the slogan "Stakeholders for a Cohesive and Sustainable World".
“The political landscape is polarised, sea levels are rising and climate fires are burning ... This is the year when world leaders must work with all sectors of society to repair and reinvigorate our systems of co-operation, not just for short-term benefit but for tackling our deep-rooted risks.”
- Borge Brende, President of the WEF.
WEF's Global Risks Report 2020.
"climate change is striking harder and more rapidly than expected..."
Environmental concerns account for the top five risks for the longer-term outlook, according to those surveyed.
Who's at Davos? https://qz.com/1786281/a-summary-the-2020-world-economic-forum-in-davos/
Delegates include representatives from 117 countries and 121 nationalities. 130 countries are represented. Davos will include six representatives each from Bank of America, BlackRock, Citi, Goldman Sachs, HSBC, and Russian-lender Sberbank. There are 17 banking and investment companies sending five-person delegations. They include Barclays, Bridgewater Associates, JPMorgan Chase, Lazard, Paypal, Brazil’s Banco Bradesco, and Russia’s VTB. 53 heads of state or heads of government. Women are 24% of attendees.
Coca-Cola says People still want plastic bottles https://www.bbc.com/news/business-51197463
This is episode 11 of a 20 part series about the future of planet Earth which Paul O'Mahony hoped to make in December 2019.
Paul quotes from John Gibbons.
John Gibbons writes "After a decade and more campaigning on this issue, I should be feeling elated that the message is finally breaking through. Instead, I remain haunted by HG Wells’s description of history as being a race between education and catastrophe. And, on the eve of 2020, it hardly feels like we’re winning..."
https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/nature-will-have-the-last-word-on-the-climate-crisis-1.4123780
This is the 10th episode in a series of 20 episodes about the future of planet Earth which Paul O'Mahony is recording during December 2019.
The Joe Rogan podcast episode with Boylan Slat that Paul talks about is here
(According to Wikipedia)
Boyan Slat (born 27 July 1994) is a Dutch inventor and entrepreneur. A former aerospace engineering student, he is CEO of The Ocean Cleanup.
The Ocean Cleanup is a non-government engineering environmental organization based in the Netherlands, that develops technology to extract plastic pollution from the oceans. After a couple of years of tests they deployed their first full-scale prototype. It ran into difficulty after two months and was towed to Hawaii for inspection and repair. In June 2019, their second prototype system was deployed.
The Ocean Cleanup website is https://theoceancleanup.com/
“Hi. A year and a half ago, I didn’t speak to anyone unless I really had to but then I found a reason to speak. Since then, I’ve given many speeches and learned that when you talk in public, you start with something personal or emotional to get everyone’s attention. Say things like, ‘our house is on fire, I wanted to panic or how dare you’. “But today I will not do that because then those phrases are all that people focus on. They don’t remember the facts, the very reason why I say those things in the first place, we no longer have time to leave out the science. “For about a year I have been constantly talking about our rapidly declining carbon budgets over and over again. But since that is still being ignored, I will just keep repeating it “In chapter two, on page 108 in the SR 1.5 IPCC report that came out last year, it says that if we ought to have a 6 percent to 7 percent chance of limiting the global temperature rise to below 1.5C degrees, we had on January 1, 2018, 420 gigatons of CO2 left two emit in that budget. And of course, that number is much lower today as we emit about 42 gigatons of CO2 every year including land use. With today’s emissions levels, that remaining budget will be gone within about eight years. These numbers aren’t anyone’s opinions or political views. This is the current best available science. Though many scientists suggest these figures or too moderate. These are the ones that have been accepted through the IPCC, and please note that these figures are global and therefore do not say anything about the aspect of equity, which is absolutely essential to make the Paris Agreement work on a global scale. “That means that richer countries need to do their fair share and get down to real zero emissions much faster and then help poorer countries do the same, so people in less fortunate parts of the world can raise their living standards. These numbers also don’t include most feedback loops, nonlinear tipping points, or additional warming hidden by toxic air pollution. Most models assume, however, that future generations will somehow be able to suck hundreds of billions of tons of CO2 out of the air with technologies that do not exist in the scale required and maybe never will. The approximate 6 percent to 7 percent chance budget is the one with the highest odds given by the IPCC. And now we have less than 340 gigatons of CO2 left to emit in that budget to share fairly. “Why is it so important to stay below 1.5 degrees? Because even at one-degree people are dying from the climate crisis. Because that is what the United Science calls for to avoid destabilising the climates. “So that we have the best possible chance to avoid setting off irreversible chain reactions such as melting glaciers, polar ice and thawing Arctic permafrost. Every fraction of a degree matters. So there it is, again. This is my message. This is what I want you to focus on. “So please tell me, how do you react to these numbers without feeling at least some level of panic? How do you respond to the fact that basically nothing is being done about this without feeling the slightest bit of anger? And how do you communicate this without sounding alarmist? I would really like to know. “Since the Paris Agreement, global banks have invested 1.9 trillion US dollars in fossil fuels. One-hundred companies are responsible for 71 percent of global emissions. “The G20 countries account for almost 80 percent of total emissions. The richest 10 percent of the world’s population produces half of our CO2 emissions, while the poorest 50 percent account for just one-tenth. We indeed have some work to do but some more than others. “Recently, a handful of rich countries pledged to reduce their emissions of greenhouse gases by so-and-so many percent by this or that date or to become climate neutral or net zero in so-and-so many years. This may sound impressive at first glance but even though the intentions may be good, this is not leadership. “This is not leading. This is misleading because most of these pledges do not include aviation, shipping, and imported and exported goods and consumption. They do, however, include the possibility of countries to offset their emissions elsewhere. “These pledges don’t include the immediate yearly reduction rates needed for wealthy countries, which is necessary to stay within the remaining tiny budget. Zero in 2050 means nothing, if high emission continues even for a few years, then the remaining budget will be gone. “Without seeing the full picture, we will not solve this crisis. Finding holistic solutions is what the cup should be all about, but instead, it seems to have turned into some kind of opportunity for countries to negotiate loopholes and to avoid raising their ambition. “Countries are finding clever ways around having to take real action. Like double-counting emissions reductions and moving their emissions overseas and walking back on their promises to increase ambition or refusing to pay for solutions or loss of damage. This has to stop. “What we need is real drastic emission cuts at the source but of course, just reducing emissions is not enough. Our greenhouse gas emissions have to stop. To stay below 1.5 degrees. We need to keep the carbon in the ground. Only setting up distant dates and saying things which give the impression of the action is underway will most likely do more harm than good because the changes required are still nowhere in sight. “The politics needed does not exist today despite what you might hear from world leaders. And I still believe that the biggest danger is not inaction. The real danger is when politicians and CEOs are making it look like real action is happening when in fact almost nothing is being done apart from clever accounting and creative PR. “I have been fortunate enough to be able to travel around the world. And my experience is that the lack of awareness is the same everywhere, not the least amongst those elected to lead us. There is no sense of urgency whatsoever. Our leaders are not behaving as if we were in an emergency. “In an emergency, you change your behaviour. If there is a child standing in the middle of the road and cars are coming at full speed, you don’t look away because it’s too uncomfortable. You immediately run out and rescue that child. “And without that sense of urgency, how can we, the people understand that we are facing a real crisis. And if the people are not fully aware of what is going on, then they will not put pressure on the people in power to act. And without pressure from the people, our leaders can get away with basically not doing anything, which is where we are now. And around and around it goes. “In just three weeks. We will enter a new decade, a decade that will define our future. Right now we are desperate for any sign of hope. “Well, I’m telling you, there is hope. I have seen it but it does not come from the governments or corporations. It comes from the people. “The people who have been unaware but are now starting to wake up. And once we become aware, we change. People can change. People are ready for change. And that is the hope because we have democracy and democracy is happening all the time. “Not just on election day but every second and every hour. It is public opinion that runs the free world. In fact, every great change throughout history has come from the people. We do not have to wait. We can start the change right now. “We the people. Thank you.”
Part 7 of 20 episodes about the future of planet Earth.
_____________________
Topic in this episode:Ireland is too small to matter - there's no point in us doing anything - we might as well leave everything to the big countries.
_____________________
"The Climate Change Advisory Council is an independent advisory body tasked with assessing and advising on how Ireland is making the transition to a low carbon, climate resilient and environmentally sustainable economy by 2050.
The Council will work to provide contributions in critiquing, informing and shaping Ireland’s response to climate change.
The Climate Change Advisory Council was established under the Climate Action and Low Carbon Development Act 2015
Find out more about the Climate Action and Low-Carbon Development - National Policy Position Ireland
Contact the Climate Change Advisory Council
Climate Change Advisory Council Secretariat
Dublin 14 D14 YR6 . Email: info@climatecouncil.ie
Phone: 01 2680180" . (website)
"The Council, with the support of its Secretariat, will conduct evidence based analysis on how best to respond to the impact of climate change and provide timely advice on the most effective policies to assist with Ireland’s transition to a low carbon and climate resilient economy.
As part of this work, the Climate Change Advisory Council will provide regular reports regarding Ireland’s progress in achieving its national policy goals and greenhouse gas emissions targets agreed by the European Union.
The Council will provide
- annual reviews and reports
- periodic reviews and reports
The Council will also provide statements on issues and topics that it wishes to bring to the attention of government and key stakeholders.
This is the 6th in a series of 20 episodes about the future of planet Earth.
You hear Conversation with Anthony Day (recorded on 5th December 2019) - Paul O'Mahony your host.
This is Part 5 of a series of episodes about the future of planet Earth #tfope
"Anthony Day is a sustainability professional who writes and speaks on sustainability.
Since 2014 he has published The Sustainable Futures Report, his weekly podcast and blog focusing on a wide range of sustainability issues.
He created and chaired the 2016 Sustainable Best Practice Exchange at Pavilions of Harrogate, where 100 sustainability professionals came together to learn and to share ideas.
Anthony's keynote speeches are "Sustainable Futures" - a topical overview of the issues and "Seven Billion People Want Everything You've Got" for sixth-form students.
As a keynote speaker, seminar leader and facilitator, Anthony has led webinars and delivered speeches for organisations including the Low Carbon Best Practice Exchange, Sustainability Live, 2degrees, the Clean Technologies Show, AMPS and BusinessGreen.
See an overview of his business workshop, "The Green Supply Chain" here: https://vimeo.com/107401398 " (LinkedIn Profile)
A few days ago, Greta Thunberg was on Day 16 of her transatlantic sail to Lisbon when she wrote on Instagram:
"In the middle of the ocean I'm struck by the news that the EU Parliament has declared a clime emergency. We can't solve a crisis without treating it as one. Let's hope they now take drastic sufficient action. Join the #climatestrike tomorrow to put pressure on them!"
Part three of a series of 20 episodes about the future of Planet Earth. Paul O'Mahony hopes to complete the series during December 2019.
This episode features Spierkater.com founder Roger Overall.
"Hello, My name is Roger Overall. Spierkater started as a place to put my running cartoons. It fizzled out, along with my enthusiasm for running. Running became too much effort. Turns out, I had cancer. I wrote a book about it. The PDF version is free here: Roger & Hercule.
Spierkater’s new lease of life Now I’m past my cancer hurdle (for now anyway, maybe forever). I have found a clear purpose in life. Like many people, I’m often overwhelmed and feel beaten by the relentless bad news about the state of the planet. So I decided to do something about that.
I’m going to turn my life into an experiment: can a person live a life that is a net benefit to the environment?
That’s right. Spierkater is going to save the world. His corner of it, anyway. I have distilled the experiment into three simple steps:
- Reduce the environmental impact of my daily life to zero.
- Make up for all the pollution I have caused in the past 51 years.
- Do an extra 1% to create a net benefit over my entire lifetime.
Looks straightforward enough. What could possibly go wrong? You too might be feeling powerless about the state the earth. By doing this experiment, I’m hoping to find and offer you suggestions that will help you take action yourself, so you can regain a sense of control by contributing to rebuilding the planet’s health.
If you’d like to contact me, I can be reached through the Show & Tell Communications website. Spierkater is also on Instagram.
All the words, drawing and photographs here are © Roger Overall/Show & Tell Communications ***Ltd.
All rights reserved."***
The 2nd of 20 episodes.
Introducing Dr Shirley Gallagher.
I create a framework for organisations to ensure they develop and grow, sustaining themselves into the future. I aim to establish mutual trust, identify key strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats.The things I do best:
- Empower organisations to create competitive strategies, using a unique set of tools and IT solutions;
- Engage people from different organizations and disciplines to participate in negotiations and create a successful project environment;
- Secure funding from global organisations and national bodies;
- Break silos and deliver solutions;
- Provide tools such as R&D, training, IT, handbooks, policies and reports;
- Increase the company's activity, ecosystem and return on investment (ROI);
- Deploy quality control and compliance;
- Ultimately, I listen, see, think, plan, say, agree and do.
(Source: LinkedIn)
She says 2% of carbon emissions are caused by airplanes. This persuades Paul that he needs to focus his energy on something that is a greater threat to human, animal & plant civilisation.
The first of about 20 episodes which Paul O'Mahony hopes to publish on this topic during December 2019
Recorded 30th November 2019 - eastern standard time.
Paul O'Mahony thanks Jennifer Navarrete for giving birth to NaPodPoMo 12 years ago.
Recorded on Friday 29 November 2019, at the Polling Station in Glanmire, Cork North Central Constituency.
28 November 2019
Our society will end soon. Deepfake will destroy everything we value, especially trust between everyone. There is nothing we can do to prevent this happening - except maybe abolishing the internet.
This is the most dramatic message Paul O'Mahony has every broadcast.
Can you prove him wrong?
Recorded on 22 November 2019 in "Republic of Work" Cork Ireland.
Paul O'Mahony is the host.
The theme is "community" - what it means to Frank Brennan (general manager of Republic of Work) & Jason Woodard - what experience each of them have had of 'community'.
They speak about the businesses 'Republic of Work' and 'OC Events'. Offensive Charm podcast too.
27 November 2019
Reflecting on what my experience of podcasting every day during November.
26 November 2019
This is a reading from The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran the text of which was quoted by Maria Popova in her newsletter Brainpickings today.
"*You talk when you cease to be at peace with your thoughts;
And when you can no longer dwell in the solitude of your heart you live in your lips, and sound is a diversion and a pastime.
And in much of your talking, thinking is half murdered.
For thought is a bird of space, that in a cage of words may indeed unfold its wings but cannot fly.
There are those among you who seek the talkative through fear of being alone.
The silence of aloneness reveals to their eyes their naked selves and they would escape.
And there are those who talk, and without knowledge or forethought reveal a truth which they themselves do not understand.
And there are those who have the truth within them, but they tell it not in words.
In the bosom of such as these the spirit dwells in rhythmic silence.*
Paul O'Mahony sings in the shower - to wake himself up - on 21 November 2019. Paul is singing for the un-conference Congregation 2019, which takes place in the village of Cong this weekend.
*"It's a long long way to Satisfaction,
but my heart lies there ...
Let us shave."*
This is a #ShowerCast - as it's called on #LIMOR.
20 November 2017
What's wrong with your civilisation? Your society, your government, your culture? That's easy to answer. Almost everyone can answer that question and express their opinion.
What about child abuse in Ireland? There are so many cases of suspected child abuse, the organisation that's responsible for investigating child abuse doesn't have enough staff to do their job.
19 November 2019
Getting focussed on the un-conference that starts this Friday. Paul talks about
The location of Cong village,
Ashford Castle,
Danagner's Hotel,
Submissions people have made.
Eoin Kennedy, the leader 's Twitter account
Website: www.congregation.ie
18 November 2019
On a dry, chilly, blue-skyed morning, an Irishman from Limerick walks through autumn leaves by water. He remembers the song.
Stan Getz plays for a minute at the end.
17 November 2019
After Prince Andrew decided to be interviewed on TV - what will Paul O'Mahony decide to do today at the Toastmasters Speech Contests?
(Paul will be the MC - the 'contest chair' - for the Division A, District 71, Toastmasters International Humorous Speech Contest & the Impromptu Speech Contest known as Table Topics)
Mainly about a day on which Paul O'Mahony & Roger Overall of Show&Tell Communications are in the laboratory.
A little bit about meeting John Cox, District 71 Director and recording podcast episodes with Ted Mellamphy & John.
15 November 2019
The book is "People Powered - how communities can supercharge your business, brand, and teams" by Jono (Jonathan) Bacon, published by HarperCollins (Leadership) 2019.
The un-conference website is www.congregation.ie
14 November 2019
An unrepresentative Irish man talks in an unrepresentative Irish kitchen in the Cork suburb of Glanmire.
The most memorable bit is when he drinks a tea which he calls "Bog-standard". Otherwise you hear Irish national news on RTE 1
13 November 2019
in which Paul reveals that he's been procrastinating and celebrate a just-in-time (JIT) submission of tax return.
12 November 2019
Paul O'Mahony rehearsing a speech he's going to give this evening at Blarney Club of Toastmasters International.
This is a fragment of what I might say in a 5-7 minute speech.
10 November 2019
A walk with Louis, the English Setter, around the estate where Paul O'Mahony lives. Voicing whatever pops into his head.
8 November 2019
Recorded & shared first on the LIMOR app.
Paul O'Mahony begins with a mistake. Sean O'Casey didn't say or write "Work is the curse of the drinking classes".It may have been Oscar Wilde? **Frank Harris? Irish Barrister? Wilton Lackaye? Margaret Waters? Well-Known Young Clubman? Gustav Traub? Mike Romanoff? Samuel George Blythe? Arthur M. Binstead? Anonymous?
Roger Overall is Paul's great friend and collaborator**
Day 7 - recorded on 7th November 2019, especially for the 30-day audio challenge.
This "public group on Facebook" has 171 members. It is led by Jennifer Navarrete.
6 November 2019
Begins with the story of Paul O'Mahony's experience of reading Nini Herman's book "My Kleinian Home".
Moves on to the story of why Paul has made so much audio since 2012.
This is Day 4
Paul O'Mahony recorded this while walking in a local park in Glanmire Cork Ireland. Walking with Louis, an English Setter, by the bank of our local tributary of the Glashnabuoy which flows into the big river Lee, which flows through the city of Cork into the Atlantic Ocean.
He's thinking 'Is it time to adopt a new hashtag #UPODMO ?'
This is Day 3 of NaPodPoMO
of the international audio - podcasting challenge on Sunday 3rd of November. Paul O'Mahony talks about what he'll find hard and why.
The topic is book-reading - particularly what Paul is reading every day.
Book No 1 is by Rachel Corbett
The extraordinary story of one of the most fruitful friendships in modern arts and letters.
Rainer Maria Rilke’s Letters to a Young Poet is one of the most beloved books of the twentieth century. It has sold millions of copies and inspired generations with its galvanizing wisdom on how to lead an artistic life. In You Must Change Your Life, debut author Rachel Corbett tells the remarkable, long-buried story of where Rilke’s ideas originated. In 1902, Rilke broke and suffering from writer’s block, accepted a commission to go to Paris to research and write a short book about the sculptor Auguste Rodin. The two were almost polar opposites: Rodin in his sixties, notoriously carnal, revered; Rilke in his twenties, delicate, unknown. Nonetheless, they fell into an instantaneous friendship and would work closely together as master and disciple for the next few years, as Rodin showed Rilke how to become the writer he wished to be.
(from introduction on Amazon) Book No 2 is by the German philosopher Peter Sloterdijk.
In his major investigation into the nature of humans, Peter Sloterdijk presents a critique of myth - the myth of the return of religion. For it is not religion that is returning; rather, there is something else quite profound that is taking on increasing significance in the present: the human as a practising, training being, one that creates itself through exercises and thereby transcends itself. Rainer Maria Rilke formulated the drive towards such self-training in the early twentieth century in the imperative 'You must change your life'.
Originally published: 2009
What is NaPodPoMo? (according to website)
The History:
In 2007, 50 podcasters participated in the first-ever National Podcast Post Month aka NaPodPoMo. Created by Jennifer Navarrete as an answer for an audio version to other 30 day challenges happening in the month of November.
NaPodPoMo is a month-long event along the same vein as National Novel Writing Month aka NaNoWriMo. The difference? Well, instead of writing a 50,000-word novel, you podcast every day for 30 days from November 1st-30th.
Use any platform you desire. From full production studio to iPhone app and just about anything in between. The goal of NaPodPoMo is to use the challenge of podcasting daily as a form of podcasting bootcamp.
For some, NaPodPoMo may be their first foray into podcasting. For others, it is a chance to try out a new platform or start another show. There are no hard and fast rules as to how you do this. If on November 30th you have recorded 30 shows, then you win.
What do you get for winning? Isn’t a virtual high five and a sense of accomplishment enough? Oh, all right. Here’s the shiny.
Thanks to Laura Ross aka @flyswatter you will have earned the right to show the world this nifty NaPodPoMo badge on your site. Nice, huh?
At the end of it all who knows what else you will have won. Maybe you will discover a new way to record or a new show format. Whatever happens and however you decide to participate in NaPodPoMo, the key is to have fun.
The letter:
Borgeby gard, Fladie, Sweden
August 12, 1904
I want to talk to you again for a little while, dear Mr. Kappus, although there is almost nothing I can say that will help you, and I can hardly find one useful word. You have had many sadnesses, large ones, which passed. And you say that even this passing was difficult and upsetting for you. But please, ask yourself whether these large sadnesses haven't rather gone right through you. Perhaps many things inside you have been transformed; perhaps somewhere, someplace deep inside your being, you have undergone important changes while you were sad. The only sadnesses that are dangerous and unhealthy are the ones that we carry around in public in order to drown them out with the noise; like diseases that are treated superficially and foolishly, they just withdraw and after a short interval break out again all the more terribly; and gather inside us and are life, are life that is unlived, rejected, lost, life that we can die of. If only it were possible for us to see farther than our knowledge reaches, and even a little beyond the outworks of our presentiment, perhaps we would bear our sadnesses with greater trust than we have in our joys. For they are the moments when something new has entered us, something unknown; our feelings grow mute in shy embarrassment, everything in us withdraws, a silence arises, and the new experience, which no one knows, stands in the midst of it all and says nothing.
** It seems to me that almost all our sadnesses are moments of tension, which we feel as paralysis because we no longer hear our astonished emotions living. Because we are alone with the unfamiliar presence that has entered us; because everything we trust and are used to is for a moment taken away from us; because we stand in the midst of a transition where we cannot remain standing. That is why the sadness passes: the new presence inside us, the presence that has been added, has entered our heart, has gone into its innermost chamber and is no longer even there, is already in our bloodstream. And we don't know what it was. We could easily be made to believe that nothing happened, and yet we have changed, as a house that a guest has entered changes. We can't say who has come, perhaps we will never know, but many signs indicate that the future enters us in this way in order to be transformed in us, long before it happens. And that is why it is so important to be solitary and attentive when one is sad: because the seemingly uneventful and motionless moment when our future steps into us is so much closer to life than that other loud and accidental point of time when it happens to us as if from outside. The quieter we are, the more patient and open we are in our sadnesses, the more deeply and serenely the new presence can enter us, and the more we can make it our own, the more it becomes our fate; and later on, when it "happens" (that is, steps forth out of us to other people), we will feel related and close to it in our innermost being. And that is necessary. It is necessary - and toward this point our development will move, little by little - that nothing alien happen to us, but only what has long been our own. People have already had to rethink so many concepts of motion; and they will also gradually come to realize that what we call fate does not come into us from the outside, but emerges from us. It is only because so many people have not absorbed and transformed their fates while they were living in them that they have not realized what was emerging from them; it was so alien to them that, in their confusion and fear, they thought it must have entered them at the very moment they became aware of it, for they swore they had never before found anything like that inside them. just as people for a long time had a wrong idea about the sun's motion, they are even now wrong about the motion of what is to come. The future stands still, dear Mr. Kappus, but we...
It's raining outside. There's shelter under pines. A dog to be walked ... And things to be talked about.
From Brendan Bowyer ("Hucklebuck"), Dickie Rock, to Johnny Duhan & Grannies Intentions, to the Doors ("Light My Fire")
audio365
octaver2018
Chapter 4 of my musical autobiography is about my political life in music - from South Pacific to the civil rights movement in USA to the anti-apartheid movement to France 1968 - including White Rabbit by Jefferson Airplane.
My life in music - talking about the radiogram in our house - Beethoven, Chopin & Percy French
This is part 3 of a series (to be continued)
Something familiar & life-enhancing ...
Two great track for an infant to hear:
- (Is this the way to) Amarillo by Tony Christie
and
- Happy by Pharrell Williams
This is the link to the song (by Jeremiah Craig) I've picked to be my response to @sm2n Simon Toon's prompt
"What song do you think makes a pertinent statement for your country or state today, and why?" #octaver2018
Octaver2018
Bob Dylan Jeremiah Rachmaninoff Nina Simone The Piano Guys Coldplay Andreas Scholl The Pogues Alanis Morissette Bob Dylan Disturbed - my favourite new music
Trevor Winckworth & Paul O'Mahony have a quick chat about the audio guide which In Hand Guides have made for Collins Barracks.
You can buy the audio guide at the reception desk. (You can take the guide home with you as a souvenir - it's full of stories about Irish military experiences)
"In the first half of the twentieth century,1914 - 23, the Irish people endured ten years of intense military activity, including participation in a world War, an urban insurrection, a guerrilla War and finally a bitter Civil War. Ireland changed from a country that was a source of foot soldiers for the British Army to an Independent nation with its own armed forces.
The result was a new nation bearing both the hopes of many of its citizens, and the pain left by the wars that had brought it into being. The experience of individual Irish men, women and children during these years are described in galleries 5-8 in Soldiers & Chiefs." (National Museum Website)
For Information about the exhibition: Visit https://www.museum.ie/Decorative-Arts-History/Exhibitions/Current-Exhibitions/Soldiers-Chiefs-(1)/Soldiering-in-the-20th-21st-Centuries
In Hand Guides on Twitter: @inhandguides https://twitter.com/inhandguides
I can't blame Francesco Mollinari. I can't blame the shirts he gave me in return for my wager. I can't blame anyone or anything. I need to watch it, get good sleep, and keep my feet on the ground. This week will be a gentle week
Insidious
I was walking along a couple of roads,
one turned to the sea, the wave, the water, the tide ...
one sloped to the mountain, the scree, the rock, the peak ...
I followed a breath like a hunter.
There were distractions,
high like eagles,
busy like bees,
imaginations
like sugar,
addictions,
paradise,
a sweet-shop shining
scent of fish
nectar,
pollen,
ice.
I was walking along a couple of roads
when the earth gave birth to twins,
and twins to twins
I followed a breath like a hunted fox.
_____________________
Read by the poet Paul O'Mahony Recorded in kitchen in Cork on 16 July 2018
Recorded during a live-streamed 'show' on Periscope. Paul O'Mahony reads from Walt Whitman's poem "Song of Myself"
Unfortunately, this recording ends abruptly after 30 minutes. I must find out why.
I sent a message to support @ Audioboom. It seems you can only record 30 minutes on the website - if you want to record a longer episode you have to record on Audacity (or something like that) - and then upload that file.
At least I'll know in future.
1. Je Suis Charlie
2. Je Suis Paris
3. Lost on Bastille Day
4. Born in Aleppo
5. We Are Humans
6. They are Dead
Recorded specially for #AudioMo Day 30 2018
The Islander
Chapter One
He could have been on Sherkin, Inishbofin, Skelligs or even Rathlin...
He was an outlaw, cast away from the land,
away from his people.
His face didn’t fit,
his family were not from the right side of town.
There was no time for him, he could rot there.
Eventually his spirit would break,
he would comply, he would conform,
he would be broken
- or so they thought...
It would teach them,
it would show them not to meddle with our family,
not to get above themselves.
Yea, 27 winters on Sherkin
27 springs on the Skelligs
27 summers on Rathlin
27 years of nightmares on any island you fancy.
It was good to keep him there, disappeared.
Our family had need of safety,
his family were dangerous,
thugs, revolutionaries, communists, rapists.
oh yea, uncouth, uncivilised, Untermenschen.
Chapter Two
Our family is special,
we have survived our own wars.
We’re used to feeling superior
Our family before all families
our tribe before all tribes
Our village the white man’s burden
Everyman is an island
We have not balked at blood sacrifice
We have buried our enemies in unmarked graves
- even displayed corpses to teach families how to behave themselves
We survived war against an Empire of superior force - that gave us backbone.
That gave us good enough reason to turn the tables on families of inferior beings.
Oh yes, our family is special - forever.
Chapter Three
You will not leave that island
You will languish in your dreams
You will scratch your balls
You will scrape the fleas in your hair
You will freeze your bollocks off.
We will control you.
When we let you out - it will be to die.
Our family is ordained to carry the burden of ruling this land.
Yes, your family is bigger than our family
Your family’s so big it’s disgusting.
Your people are everywhere - but your people are worthless
- we’ve made sure of that.
________________
The sea the sea the sea
the waves the wind, the ocean, the cold
the fish the seaweed the waves the wind the cold the ocean
the seaweed the waves the wind the cold the ocean the seaweed
____________________
Eat your heart out Islandman - we have you.
Oh yes, we’ve had you now for 27 years.
How did you pull through? (continued in audio)
____________________
audiomo
I stand
against the crowd
I stand out from the crowd
I am an individual
Odd
Different
Singular
Misfit
Awkward in my comfort
Edgy in my skin
Alive in my own little way
I live my say
I give the best shot I can
Every day.
I stand against the crowd
of wasters who fritter
their life away their way.
I waste my life my way
I fritter my days into
the oblivion I fashion
every step I say.
Because I am who am
Me
Condemned to be myself
I stand out from the crowd
comfortable in my discomforting way
that comes from every pore
every sore
every score of my expressions.
It's my art
The heart of my song
The liver that cleans my spleen
seen in all my glory every time
I stand against the crowd
Each and every difference
Friction
Grating
Unconforming
Uncomplying
Understandable me.
See that fella
hovering on the edge
the one who isn't fitting in
the one with the shifty eyes
the glint of his own
You can smell that he's
An outsider
A weirdo
An awkward one
An individual
Heart
A body of imagining
Power
Wealth
Stealth
Scheming to survive
The crowd
The collective view
The "what we all think"
Thinkers.
I stand against the crowd
I stand out from the crowd
Away from the crowd
Proud of my own way
Fiddling the melody
Composed of notes
I've assembled from the crowd
Playing the game I've invented
The rules I've annunciated
Predicated on the shoulders
of giants who have fallen
in battle
Against the crowd
Castigated on shoulders
Of heroes that have died
For the cause of being
Themselves.
I reject the way of the crowd
Every time my heart pumps
Blood from the flat of my soul
To the peak of my imagination.
Consternation
I will cause
Conflagration to
instigation of the self
Opinionated
Author of my fate
Creator of my faith
Born to be wild
Not filed away in a box
I defy
I stand against the crowd
That would
Categorise me
Classify me
Entomb me in place
where they could ignore me
where they could make me safe
from causing a splash
from making a difference
from changing
The course of history
The dreams of others
The Universe.
For such a cause
I stand against the crowd
I stand out from the crowd
to welcome you
Fellow traveller
Fellow awkward person
Follower battler
For your way.
For your way is my way too
Your way is yours
My way is mine
Our way stands out from the crowd
We stand against the crowd.
We stand up for ourselves
We stand who stand.
Against the crowd
Unto death. _________________
audiomo Day 28 2018
The City of London
Cocktail-shaker for the World
Bridge-builder, fortune-maker
City of greetings, grime and grit
City of tongues
City of preachers, teachers and elephants
City of wars
City of screams and exhibitionists
City of Empire
City of fires, plague and drawing rooms
City of parks, love-makers, trouble-makers, heart-breakers, imperial, ethereal, thirst-slakers, pace-makers, peace-wakers
City of dogs, cats, rats, scavengers and paintbrushes
City of players, symphonic stayers, hyperbolic cares
City of ruins
City of wounds, marches and prayers
City of bubbles, stock-takers
City of pain, disdain, refrain
City of shoes, falafel, matzoh ball soup, chopped liver, peppercorns, cardamom, chillies and curls
City of deaths, debts, resurrections, assumptions
City of refugees
City of the poor
City of the sword
City of slaves, waves, graves, sails
Race-gobblers
City of the clock
City of time and charts
City of natural history, kings, queens, nobility, futility
City of the blitz and bliss and bits
City of the Underground and flight
City of hiding places, stones, Sherlock Holmes
City of reinventions
City of anonymous burdens
Melody-makers, sacrifices
City of the heat and the Crystal Palace
Harbinger of malice
Brain of the Serpentine
City of masons, Livingstone, Gladstone, earthworms, sculptures, sepulcres , sceptics
City of songs and eavesdroppers, towers, bowers, superpowers and sour grapes
City of the chrysalis
Bridge-builder, storyteller, seducer of words, fountain pens, notebooks, fish and chips
City of truth, city of factions, city of the Heath, city of smog, city of the Frost Fair
River banker, clangours, Doppelgangers,
City of joy
City of birth, mirth, thirst,
the witty first city
pitiful playground
foundation of the nation
creation and gestation
pregnant
City of the parties
City of the Open Mind
Martinis
Broad cocktail-shaker for the World.
Brothers
They were brothers, fresh from gathering,
each clutching a bundle of yellowed leaves.
Two short pants,
one took his booty by the hand,
and waved a sword with pirate fire.
The other cradled his,
and wouldn’t waste a single one.
On they went writing epitaphs.
___________________
audiomo
I have not known
your other
birthdays.
For me,
this has been the year
of your birth
growth and flowering.
I love you for it.
_____________
audiomo
Calliste
'Know ye that I fear war with Zeus I fear the loudly thundering shaker of the earth ...'
She was a beauty once. Her patina endures, below the heating mist, a gauze, a filigree ...
Children
No matter how tall the leaves of grass grow,
the snow will fall again on the field.
The rabbits are running now,
nettles feasting on sunshine,
and the bees are minding their own business,
somewhere else.
No matter my friend has lost his friend,
there will be friends again.
There is a cancer in the fields,
long shadows over hedgerows.
Birds I cannot name sing without melody
and life growing underfoot.
How are the children now?
Who are the authorities?
Are there any youngsters without tears flowing,
without tears repressed, stifled?
There are shards on the road,
and dust,
buttercups and dock leaves,
foxgloves and infants on the roads.
An iron gate opens,
an iron gate shuts,
a horse looking for attention, a gray standing still,
maybe there are fresh eggs.
Why were the children born?
There is horseshit everywhere I look
Clean it up, someone. I’ve said enough
God bless America,
The horses have bolted,
who’s in charge here?
The leaves of grass are growing,
whether we like it or not.
_________________
audiomo
Pulse
My child went to dance his night away, and mine went for the love of her life. My children had names, my parents came out looking for everlasting love. My family were herded together like cattle and passed into the cold beyond kissed by the fire of bullets from a manufacturing plant owned by anonymous shareholders.
These are not my words. I have no words fit for a future that blows like a Gorgon’s breath spawned by Hell’s army. Bless me Father, for I have sinned, I have lost my pulse and wished the thieves the same.
My child, my child …
Rain and Wind
When I was a child
I loved
the sound of rain & wind
on glass
as I curled up warm
under bedclothes.
In front of this fire,
I haven’t grown up.
audiomo
Wanting more
I’ve always been found
wanting more than a woodpecker carves
into the last tree
in the last forest,
wanting more
than my parents ever offered,
– even more than father bestowed
on one of his good days.
I was born wanting more time for love.
I’ve grown hungrier by the day,
thirstier by night,
always grasping for clean air.
There’s never been a father more loved,
ever since letters of infinity
were strung together
on a necklace
that shines with promise
and gradually shrinks
until it chokes
the living daylight out of me.
I’ve always wanted to beg.
Like most beggars,
my voice has been feeble
– barely enough courage
to pay the price father demanded.
I’ve always been found
wanting to trust more.
I’m used to starving.
Bless me Father,
for I have sinned
on a daily basis.
Let me do penance
– only let me have time to pay.
audiomo 2018
Rainclouds gather over Glanmire
How long since the last drop fell
and left the soil sodden drunk?
A summer stole by, disguised:
wind and chill,
washed-away dreams of suntan creams and cucumber eyes.
Had I flown abroad, I’d know the pride of my prediction.
Rain poured: lightning striking twice in Glanmire.
Autumn has graced us with a prodigal sun,
a fortnight blessed with drought.
I’ll remember this summer:
tears unshed from an un-warmed heart -
indelible ache, indelible link,
to that place where Pain’s conceived, nurtured and flowers
like its half-sister Love,
mirror image of unrestrained creation.
Rainclouds gather now, the ground has need,
And I of rain to oil my mending spirit.
Apostle (homage to Seamus Heaney)
How do I poem a verse for a god of letters,
stumble out crafted phrases fit for his grandfatherly face?
‘Give up, sit down, keep your head below the parapet.
Leave him to treat with Zeus and fire-stone syllables’.
The soul in my finger hesitates before putting pen to line,
before I light flame from his Easter candle.
I remember what it was like before we were introduced,
the soil without any hyphens growing there.
A moan, a lament, a complaint, sans espérance but it’s well-faded now,
like the whistle of corncrakes
in the thickening growth of fresh sedge.
________________
audioMo
Dreams
Moses never led his people to the promised land
Magellan never sailed his ships home
Puccini never finished his journey to Turandot
I’ve never reached my daydreams.
I led up to them,
talking and walking
barefoot on moss,
across streams
to the other side.
I reached for them on tippy-toes
never let go.
That’s my trouble
I’m no Michelangelo
I watch those daydreams
grow and grow
into memories
– elephants in my room –
wondering what Moses felt
as he watched the people
leave the desert
their daydreams shining.
Maybe it’s a feast to simply daydream
and trek on
until I lose the breath for daydreams
and ‘in that sleep of death‘
dream on.
audiomo 2018
Reunited
I left the house of my reincarnation
before the swallows returned
the year they cancelled the Grand National.
I walked out the door
before dawn disappeared, drove through a dream
as if in a dismal draft of corked Dolcetto.
I pitched my leaky tent in Wiltshire
’til forced out by a wife’s thirst
for regeneration.
Winter hardened the road I travelled
as I wished to wallow like a pig
in the hot mud Bladud found.
I sailed back to the Province of my birth
in a ferry beset by bleeding ballast,
into the storm of a tiger’s saliva
whipped by Irish bankers, Roman bishops,
windy politicians and uncivil servants.
The rant of ravaged youths, refugees from famine,
coursed through my bloodstream, out my throat
and stained my pen.
I wrote resurrection out of my will.
until I flew to the city of surprised eyes,
composers’ minds,
mouthful feasts,
until I sat opposite my child in Southwark
speaking of the Golan, green with cotton,
forgetting Masada and the Dead Sea
and lived to swim again
among dreadlocks, hijabs, sidecurls, pale people
and more
until at last I greet myself
arriving at my own house
in my own skin
and we smile again
reunited over broken bread
and the words of one imagination.
You don’t have to like oysters
You don’t have to like oysters,
there’s nothing wrong with you
if caviar and truffles turn you off.
Though some will look down their nose at you
if you decline champagne,
it’s not a sin to spend your life
without a diamond ring or stud.
As for grand opera, Wimbledon, Ascot
and the Royal Tea Party,
you’re not alone in preferring to dunk
ginger nut biscuits in Earl Gray
and nibble soldiers with soft-boiled eggs
for breakfast.
I met one honest man who ate puffer fish
before his wife – with their Johney in mind.
He founded a not-for-profit that cared
for orphans in Somalia or earthquake
victims in Katmandu.
There are bungee jumpers, macrobiotic vegans
and others devoted to saving earthworms
from global warming,
before the bees run out.
You don’t even have to be like any of them,
if you want your tombstone to be admired.
Your legacy may not even be on your agenda –
and who cares if no one remembers
your greatest achievement?
No one teaches children to stand out from the crowd,
to plant their own standard
and translate their imaginations
into language you can use for talking to yourself.
Few parents instruct their offspring to ignore
advice from elders and betters –
which may be why I’ve yet to see
a mother feeding oysters to her darling
and a father making sandwiches
with earthworms or dead wasps.
You don’t have to have a religion
or vote for a political party.
You don’t have to love your teachers
or thank them for their work.
You don’t have to drive a car
or send Christmas cards to say you’re still alive.
You don’t have to eat too much
Or donate yourself to a worthy cause.
“Really?”
“Honest?”
It’s not even compulsory to re-read this poem.
___________
audiomo 2018
Song of my Butterfly
No one heard the song of the butterfly
not even my mother,
my brothers,
nor the dog-walker
who strode by our garden
and allowed his Bernese Mountain Dog
to pee all over my butterfly’s buddleia.
No one noticed the sigh of my Painted Lady
as she mated with the neighbour’s Painted Man
– not even my wife,
nor our local parish priest
who discouraged kissing on Sundays.
No one found the egg the butterfly laid
on the hollyhock
that grew from the seed
that fell from the beak
of my favourite thrush
until the caterpillar consumed her shell
seduced by one of the red hot pokers.
No one cried tears for the butterfly
that flapped its wings in Cork
and caused a Great Wall in China to collapse.
If only one person knew the song of my butterfly
in time to sing a lullaby
that echoed from sky to sky,
we might have paid more attention to biosciences.
We might have been saved from the consequences.
I rose from the dead
We’d all love to rise from the dead
and snatch a second chance
from the teeth of history.
Which of you would refuse resurrection
and leave the stones in place
until the winter breaks?
My death was cold
and stank of feces
left by swallows fit to glide away.
I never knew how long my death would last
until I rose again from the jaws of a mystery made
before the stars exploded
and the universe was saved.
I rose from the dead
We’d all love to rise from the dead and snatch a second chance from the teeth of history.
Which of you would refuse resurrection and leave the stones in place until the winter breaks?
My death was cold and stank of feces left by swallows fit to glide away.
I never knew how long my death would last until I rose again from the jaws of a mystery made before the stars exploded and the universe was saved.
When I am old
When I am old the lines will show, the words perhaps no longer flow. The eyes will set and surely droop while underneath the bones will stoop. Across the brow may stretch a crease, a surface etched before deceased. When I am old the days I rue have slipped away and didn’t accrue. The fire records and cannot lie, the marks shine through and never die. When I am old there’ll be no song, times replaying the memory long. When I am old I’ll stop all this verse cause I shall know it’s worse and worse
AudioMo
Timeo Ergo Sum
[with thanks to Descartes]
I am anxious therefore I am.
Je suis anxieux donc je suis
audiomo Day 8
Poem by Paul O'Mahony - recorded for #AudioMo 2018 Day 7
Backtracking
They robbed one man of his loneliness
when they automated the Skelligs
- a lighthouse for the wider world went out.
You could feed a multitude on the soft greenery
with the loaves and fishes
behind that view.
We climbed the stairs assembled
with the same architectural craft
as those stones igloos.
The cell opened up
first light, then warmth,
it became easier to see the attraction
There’s no hardship in those cells
just the pain you bring inside
that’s yours to cherish.
You just came to me
Pig-sty to cattle track, anemones to fountain-pen,
you sat in yellowed armchair, among psychiatric alumni,
released into a fighting streetscape,
where burnt-out cars took place of bicycles.
Your warrior-self listened to every voice
with the greeting of a saint
who wrote with a sun-lit plume.
Prince of the messengers,
carrier of connections,
pointing companions around wild flowers,
through the thicket of everyday life,
out into a clearing, ever shadowed,
ever dappled,
your painterly hand ever active,
you spoke of trees in a family field,
the feed from bonamhs that licked your fingertips,
the rub of the beast that reminded you of animated conversations,
the rough warm blanket into which you were born.
You walked every inch of the lane that led from farm-house,
past copulating ragwort, to a table strewn with words
drawn together for the sake of safe passage.
In that armchair, you smiled through dark-rimmed spectacles,
turned a tongue around considered thoughts
that vied for voice.
In a flash, you held back
eager sperm-like phrases
in favour of a diamond-eyed glint,
before you spoke the timbre of imagined rest.
I wondered who you were in that evening circle –
just as I wonder now.
You just came to me –
as if I were high in a mountain stream, surrounded by parakeets,
and the echo of flowers talking to the wind –
as if you put a hand in the pocket of your overcoat,
and produced a map for me to read.
Recorded specially for the #AudioMo community of audio lovers & makers by Paul O'Mahony on 5th June - Day 5
A poem by Paul O'Mahony - recorded specially for the community of audio lovers known as #AudioMo on 4th June 2018
Growing
You’re never too old to waste your life
- the old man cried
To fritter away an hour a day
and spend the coins of change
No way you lose that fear of the living
- the old man cried
Spend your time awaiting, waiting to be seen
and you see it all slip by
You’re never beyond being sorry for me
- the old man cried
Hold back, hang in, stay put
as your life goes down the drain.
Poem by Paul O'Mahony - recorded specially for Day 3 of the audio 'community-in-action' known as #AudioMo 2018
This is the 11th year of AudioMo.
A poem by Paul O'Mahony - recorded specially for the community of audio lovers called #AudioMo 2018.
You hear about Toastmasters International District 71 Conference. It's called SafeHaven2018 - and will happen in Cork on 11-13 May 2018.
No 1 This is first of a mini-series of episodes that will feature members of the local organising team.
Meet & listen to Sharon O'Neill here
First draft of a poem recited & recorded in Moanbaun Wood.
_______________________
I found my spectacles on the path
retraced my steps
thankful.
I wanted to see the recording.
the man in the green coat and black hair
came here by night
crisp clear sight
a lantern on his forehead
he said some dogs were trained here
maybe search and rescue.
how many shades of green are here?
this is a place to stumble into lines
into phrases
even stanzas.
rocks and puddles
jays, blue jays.
on this trail i met a chaffinch.
she sang
to me
of light.
she flew with an open air
across the trail
above the trees
above the pines
she spoke to me of days to come
and I walked on
with a lighter step.
on the bench
sat a magpie
she did not fly
away
she looked me with her sharpened eye
she called to me of days gone by
immobile days
one for sorrow..
she did not sing to me
she wrote a note of silence
in that resting place.
i walked away
she stayed with me
she never left my shoulder
her grip
firm
solid
muscular.
she was no tenor.
that magpie had a nest nearby
I could see why she picked me.
where has my chaffinch gone?
she's not so strong.
when will she rise again?
when will she lay her eggs?
around the corner
downhill
there are songbirds.
drops
raindrops
hang
from twigs.
ah that song
again.
this is the way.
Ted Mellamphy introduces the show - supported by Moira O'Brien & Paul O'Mahony
Agenda for the whole Show
Word of the Week (WOTW) is HARANGUE
Quote of the Week (QOTW)
District 71 Newsletter from Laura Bruce
Webinars
Body Language
Part 1 here is mainly chat between three Toastmasters from Cork - followed by HARANGUE - followed by chat about new grandmother Moira O'Brien.
Contact us :
email us "info@irishtalkers.com"
Website : "www.irishtalkers.com"
Facebook : "Talk show for talkers"
Magazine : "Public Speaking Weekly" on www.irishtalkers.com
(29 minutes)
This is about "Dressing for work".
First you hear Paul tell Roger about "The White Company" ...
Roger brings Steve Jobs in his polo neck onto the catwalk ...
Paul introduces Rita Clifton's dress ("Rita Ann Clifton CBE is a British advertising professional and a former UK Chairman of Interbrand who currently works as a speaker, facilitator, writer, and non-executive director of a portfolio of companies." - Wiki)
The big issue: Should you dress the way your clients expect you to dress?
Are you at your most attractive when you dress to fit in?
Paul O'Mahony says "ironing is good for the soul" while operatic music plays faintly in the background - until Paul is distracted
Paul O'Mahony & Roger Overall chat about
The Hotel
First, you hear ongoing conversation about what it's been like for Roger & Paul to talk with each other.
"Discovering what you don't know is learning..."
[There's a dog in the corner of Paul's kitchen - Louis the English Setter may guest on this show.]
Whining ... complaining ... leads to Roger's hotel experience in UK.
The hotel Roger & John (UK Sales Director) was : excellent booking pristine bed shower hot & powerful room to hang up the suit plenty of plugs Wifi not needed bathroom light repaired immediately ideal location big power brick
Location: Bishop Stortford (Hertfordshire, England, population 37,000) near Stamford Airport
What's Roger's complaint? This is a poignant story about how to upset customers a lot.
The human contact (or absence of it) ...
The personal touch (or lack of it) ...
The communication (or a comedy of errors)... _______________________
Roger's never described his upset feelings in such graphic terms (at least not on this podcast)
"Hostile" - "Antagonise" - "Aggressive" - "Sinistre"
A pregnant woman intending customer features in the story.
"Antagonism" - "Lying" - "Passive-aggressive"
________________
High point on the show may be :
- Roger defending Ireland's reputation.
"Ireland - It doesn't rain unnecessarily" (new national strap line?)
________________
"Eerie" - "Hostility" - "Insulted" - "Aggressive"
"What's your problem?" she said to the pregnant lady...
This hotel is Fawlty Towers without the charm. You better stay in another hotel.
How do you describe a hotel like this?
What makes the experience of a 5-star hotel?
Paul suggests we bring a hotel manager or hotel reviewer on the show. ________________ What did Roger learn that's useful to listeners
- The human element matters most
- The product may be excellent - but if the experience of the human is not nice - that detracts from everything ...
_______________
The formula
If P = +
"+ & - added = -
(This is work in progress.)
__________________
If your product is rubbish - you're done for ...
If your product is brilliant + you don't treat people in a way they think is good - you're also on a very sticky wicket ...
__________________
"Why was the "heavily pregnant woman" more effective than you were"
Roger says: She met aggression with aggression.
Paul asks: Was she assertive? __________________
Contact us
Roger Overall at showandtellcommunications.net
Paul O'Mahony at @omaniblog on Twitter (& other social media) & @ Show & Tell Communications
PS - "cut out self-disparaging remarks" asks Paul.
Recorded in kitchen on 21.3.2018 - Paul O'Mahony's iPhone died. I was just about to upload the best 10 minutes of audio in human history. Lost - destroyed - obliterated. How could this be good for me? That's what this episode is about.
From my kitchen in Glanmire - suburb of Cork City Ireland. Recorded over a cup of big-standard tea (Lyons). If you listen - you'll hear me wondering what to say - to try to please you? - to please me? If you stay listening - you'll hear about milk & free flights to Madrid, London, Barcelona. It's Madrid I'll fly to.
This 50 minute episode of 'The Talk Show for Talkers' comes from Cork Ireland - first broadcast on Irish Radio International.
Presented by Ted Mellamphy, Moira O'Brien & Paul O'Mahony.
Vicky Lester is our guest on the show.
wearetoastmasters
Podcasting from Cork Ireland
You hear Paul O'Mahony & Roger Overall talking about "I know enough to be dangerous".
Dangerous companies, perilous companies ...
Japanese chef preparing fugu fish ... you can die if the fish isn't prepared properly ... and not by trial & error.
If you want to be genuinely attractive in business - you can't do what some You Tubers do... You can't promise & keep putting off the delivery of what you've promised.
Paul is in a team preparing a Conference for Toastmasters in District 71 - he's the marketing person on the team. (11-13 May 2018).
Roger asks "What is your key concern?"
(1) Making it genuinely attractive, or
(2) Being overwhelmed ...
Paul dramatises the work. He has to remember "everything is not dependent on me".
Paul talks about Toastmasters. Roger highlights Cork as the best place in Cork - much more attractive than "not-Cork".
"With an accent like your's Roger - you can't ever become a Corkonian".
_________________________
At last, Paul & Roger talk Apple:
A success story ... superb customer service from a guy in Lisbon...
Cork to Dublin, cross city, on to Belfast - to the only Apple Store on the island.
15 minutes about great customer service by Apple ...
After that Roger contrasts the way Apple have behaved so secretively in another area ...
We all need holidays - Paul even got a recommendation from the guy who helped him (on phone for about six hours over three days).
Contact Paul & Roger on http://www.showandtellcommunications.net
During lunch in Nash19 on Princes Street Cork, Paul O'Mahony recorded how much he loved the food & the customer service.
"My favourite lunch place in Cork..."
Paul paid for his lunch.
Paul O'Mahony gave this prepared speech at his local #Toastmasters club.
The purpose of the speech was to assist members to improve their communication confidence & skills.
Paul set out to persuade members of the club to record themselves speaking at meetings - and to listen to themselves afterwards.
You hear Paul doing his best - practising the art of "Persuading with Power" . (Project No 9 of 10 - which collectively lead to the Toastmasters Award of "Competent Communicator".)
Business Jazz Podcast is presented & produced by Roger Overall & Paul O'Mahony of Show&Tell Communications.
This is the Finale of Season 4 (recorded in December 2017).
The podcast is also available on Soundcloud
Paul O'Mahony reads "When lilacs last in the dooryard bloom'd" by Walt Whitman - from the 1892 edition of "Leaves of Grass".
Paul says "this is one of the greatest poems ever written".
Walt Whitman is Paul's favourite poet.
Note: This episode was live streamed via Periscope.
You hear Roger Overall in British Columbia, Canada - talking with Paul O'Mahony in his kitchen in Cork Ireland.
There's a short conversation about Canada, including reference to First Nation people
Then a few words about Jane Boyd.
Jane Boyd, a previous host ("leading lady") on Business Jazz, has lost her voice.
Somehow Paul & Roger started discussing gender ...
Gender balance is what Paul favours.
He's fed up of panels of man. [The Chinese Communist Party leadership is all men.]
- "Is a business more attractive to you if ...
- "Who are the customers of the business? If you serve a mixed gender popular...
Able to put out messages from both segments of your 'target audience'..
- "There can be some awful women - as well as some awful men...
Paul says "I hate stereotyping ... The women I've met pay more attention to detail
Gay men pay more attention to detail...
Boards of companies to be more representative ...
Roger - you could say I don't care ...
-
"I'd have to be some sort of rank idiot ...
-
"You could be a hard-nosed business person
-
"I want my daughter to self-actualise...
"Do you thank ?
- "The problem is we agree with each other ... boring old liberals ...
Paul says:
- "I'm going to adopt a position to draw you out:
Policy level ... asserting their own points of view
Women have been so excluded their ability to stand up for their point of view is weak ... Men get to shout women down ...
it's a waste of time to put women on the Board..."
Our daughters are well able to express their points of view...
- "All other things being equal I'd go for a dim women ... there would be a variety a dim people.
all sorts of different personalities
Belbin on team roles (1980s) ... not one particular types of
Several types of intelligence
Q1 Why do I feel so strongly that diversity of gender is an advantage? Where's my evidence... 50/50 companies out perform
Iceland: Gabrella ... photography project feminisation of the banking culture ...
we need more of female approach ...
combat these male dominated institutions ...
Paul testosterone is the problem ...
Men in suits got excited ... bankrupted the country
You might as well hand it over to women they couldn't do any worse
Your problem ...
men have more balls for ...
we don't have evidence of women in decision-making positions
I was only talking about Boardrooms
Women are the dominant force...
CEOs suffered from types of paranoia
We agree women are capable of making decisions
haven't had access to power & authority
women are capable of 'exercising the upper hand'
To be genuinely
you don't want to be accused of mysogeny
systematic
could be seen as a form of mysogeny.
Dismissing ...
A point of view - I don't recognise gender I only recognise talent
Paul has programmed himself to see gender balance & skin colour
Some say they're blind to gender ...
How do they mean that?
Roger was the only man among 40 people ... in a house...
Paul there's a fundamental problem in education - vast majority of e ch ed
I would favour quotas ...
absence of male role models results in negative consequences.
Gender quotas - Paul is in favour of quotas for parliament ...
This is different to any previous episode ...
BusinessJazz.net for Paul & Roger.
If you found this useful ...
Paul the male
- "You've been listening to two men debating the gender issue."
A 16 minute account by Paul O'Mahony - from when he started blogging in summer 2005 - including when he started using audio on Audioboo from 2010 - up to what Paul does on Anchor today.
All about having an audience for his writing & podcasting...
All about having a personal approach & motivation...
This idea is to help you & others navigate the coming year - get most out of 2018 & do your best work.
Chris Brogan first suggested this in 2006. He came up this the idea of picking three words - three lighthouses by which to steer your way through what's bound to be a choppy year.
[Here's Chris Brogan http://chrisbrogan.com/3words2018/]
There will be heavy seas. Fair winds too.
Often you won't remember where you intended to reach - let alone how you hoped to get there.
Faced with decisions - some big, some tiny - it'll be good for you to fall back on three words you'll remember through 'thick & thin'.
Paul O'Mahony speaks about this topic for 10 minutes - explains why he picked these particular words to help him have a good year in 2018.
Paul's #My3Words are :
Leave Bond *Harmonize
(30 minutes) You hear what happens before, during & after Roger Overall & Paul O'Mahony record the latest episode.
Podcasting from Cork Ireland (in the Republic of Work on Tuesday morning at about 10:25 - 10:50).
Most of the conversation is about a café in Midleton County Cork "Bite Size" (https://www.bitesize.ie/).
All about moving expanding your business to a new location. All about your brand. This is a sort of case study based on Roger's experience.
"No Nonsense Innovation | David Gluckman | Inventor of Baileys
David Gluckman David Gluckman was born in Port Elizabeth, South Africa on 1st November 1938, the day that Sea Biscuit and War Admiral fought out the Race of the Century at Pimlico Park, Baltimore.
Educated in Johannesburg, he joined a local advertising agency after university and soon fell in love with business.
He made the pilgrimage to London in 1961 and worked as an account executive on the introduction of Kerrygold butter into the UK.
Always a frustrated creative, he escaped into brand development in 1969, met a man from a drinks company called IDV, and his life changed forever.
A lover of cricket, he considers his greatest achievement bowling the West Indian legend, Joel Garner, first ball in a pro-am 6-a-side tournament." [Taken from http://congregation.ie/friday-ashford-castle-eveni.html ]
The unconference is going to happen in the village of Cong from Friday evening to Sunday lunchtime.
The website is http://congregation.ie/huddles/index.html
Business Jazz Podcast - how to be genuinely attractive in business today is a weekly podcast by Paul O'Mahony & Roger Overall. Podcasting from Cork Ireland, Roger & Paul discuss disasters & how to remain attractive while recovering from the worst disruption.
The shownotes are here: The podcast starts with Roger & Paul describing what happened the last time they recorded the podcast.
A disaster.
The episode was lost : the recording equipment failed.
That 'catastrophe' led to discussion about
"What should a company do when it has a major failure?"
All businesses have failures - you have to pick yourself up (2:30)
What to do when you have a major disaster (a huge screw-up) - and you want to remain genuinely attractive?
There's evidence that when things go wrong - providing you recover well - you become even more attractive to customers. (3:20)
People think you're human We all fail. But because of the way you recovered...
Your client is a human being as well.
You can easily imagine the worst. However, the reaction may not be anger - may be one of understanding.
Roger's story about his father's mistake. How he learned from the experience. "What are we going to do about it?" - this is the big question. (6:45)
When this is the focus (1) Employee doesn't feel so horrible, they can continue to do their job (2) No energy is wasted on feeling bad, shouting - all energy is directed to solving the problem.
There is slight reference to "A no - blame culture". (8:00)
Roger's big recommendation:
There are three questions that need to be asked when things go wrong
(1) Why did it happen? (2) What have you learned from what went wrong?
(At Business Jazz - we had a faulty kit, we weren't monitoring the audio, there was an intermittent fault. We weren't monitoring the audio throughout the whole podcast.
(3) How do we move on? What's our action plan?
(At Business Jazz, we had a 'small' problem - we moved on before we sorted the problem and that led to a much bigger problem.)
Paul asks:
What if the disaster is big and the cost of fixing it for ever is too high? Should you be going out of business? (14:15 )
This led to discussion of - Example of travel to Mars... - Use of Disclaimers - Insurance to cover failure to deliver.
Plus even more discussion of the experience Roger had with Air Canada & Aer Lingus - on his way to Vancouver, Canada.
The cost of guarantees
Aer Lingus wasn't able to guarantee ...
Big praise for Heathrow Airport website is excellent : tells you how to transfer. (19:00)
Big emphasis on the importance of really good clear information - presented in a friendly language.
Go to Heathrow.
Paul & Roger say they'll put the Air Canada email up in shownotes.
Paul sent a tweet with a link to the last episode of Business Jazz to Air Canada - but there's no guarantee the CEO got it.
Humourous chat about Air Canada.
Any other disasters? (24:50)
Exxon Valdez oil spill is discussed.
Elevator pitch: New TV program Roger would like to make.
Roger tells " Do nothing - let the sea clean up" Better than throwing chemicals over the oil. Adding to polution.
Oil is of nature - not synthetic.
"We're not here to tell people how to clear up an oil slick"
How to communicate that to the public in a way that will persuade the public you're being responsible:
- Be seen to be doing something
- Do what you can for wildlife
- Educate people (For example: Why do you think we're transporting oil?)
What caused the oil spill? A meteorite fell to earth theory
If you have thoughts about oil spills, please get in touch
An experiment to try at home: Spill olive oil on water & clean it up. Roger's tip - use lemon juice
Contact us please at BusinessJazz.net.
(10 minutes) Recorded in the bar of the Royal Victoria Holiday Inn Hotel in Sheffield, UK.
Paul O'Mahony talks with Anthony Day about (1) Anthony's experience at Toastmasters (2) The 2017 District 71 Conference (SteelCity2017) (3) Speech contests at the conference (4) Anthony's motivation for organising the conference (5) The local organising team (6) Why the team decided the conference should come to Sheffield (7) What Anthony Day has learned about Toastmasters conferences (8) Laughter Yoga session at Sheffield Club - an education session - maybe on body language (9) Charades - and speaking to an audience of deaf people (10) Variety of people you meet at Toastmaster.
Anthony Day's profile:
"a sustainability professional who helps businesses recognise and address the challenges, risks and opportunities of sustainable business.
Since 2014 he has published The Sustainable Futures Report, his weekly podcast focusing on sustainable business.
He created and chaired the 2016 Sustainable Best Practice Exchange at Pavilions of Harrogate, where 100 sustainability professionals came together to learn and to share ideas.
Anthony's keynote speeches are "Sustainable Futures" - a topical overview of the issues and "Seven Billion People Want Everything You've Got" for sixth-form students.
As a keynote speaker, seminar leader and facilitator, Anthony has led webinars and delivered speeches for organisations including the Low Carbon Best Practice Exchange, Sustainability Live, 2degrees, the Clean Technologies Show, AMPS and BusinessGreen."
You can see Anthony Day's profile here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/anthonydayprofile/
Recorded for #Octaver17 - the online music community festival that runs 1-31 October every year since 2012.
You hear Paul doing his best to read French lyrics by Jacques Brel - and put the question "What's your favourite song in a foreign language?" (suggested by Jana)
You hear Jacques Brel - Nina Simone - Dusty Springfield singing "Ne me quitte pas"
Recorded specially for #Octaver17 - the online music festival that runs every day in October every year since 2012.
This is the topic for Day 22 - I'm behind the curve recording this on Thursday 26th. But I intend to record a full set of 31 Octavers - and add them all to our website http://www.octaver.net
On this day - you hear me present a question: which would you prefer to wake to - nostalgic music or - new music?
The Beatles, The 5th Dimension & Ed Sheeran star.
Recorded at the Impromptu Speaking Competition Final of Division A in District 71 of #Toastmasters International on 22 October. Paul O'Mahony's winning speech. Paul is a member of Blarney Club in Cork Ireland. As a result, Paul will go to the District Final in Sheffield - at the #SteelCity2017 Conference.
Recorded specially for the October music festival #Octaver - Day 21
You hear Paul read the lyrics and explain why he's chosen this song.
You hear Dusty Springfield sing it in 1967
Recorded specially for #Octaver17 Day 19 - the online music festival that happens every year in October.
Paul wants to sing "You've got to be carefully taught". He talks about his experience of "South Pacific".
You hear several versions : - the film (1958)
-
Oscar Hammerstein introduces the song "You've Got to be Taught" from his show "South Pacific" during The National Conference of Christians and Jews Brotherhood Week. Richard Rodgers plays "You've Got to be Taught" on the piano while Bill Fabric sings as the character Lt. Joseph Cable from "South Pacific." Location: United States. Date: February 14, 1952.
-
Barbra Streisand Live, singing "Carefully Taught" & "Children Will Listen" from 'Into The Woods.'
-
Mandy Patinkin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandy_Patinkin#Career
Recorded specially for #Octaver17 (Day 17) - the online annual musical festival that happens in October.
Paul talks about the sort of coffee house he'd like to own - and the sort of music he'd like to play there.
Tamla Motown or Opera?
Recorded specially for #Octaver17 - the online music festival.
Paul talks about Il Postino.
You hear the theme, concert version and a piece from the soundtrack
Recorded specially for the #Octaver17 music festival.
Paul selects 'Dueling Banjos' played by ERIC WEISSBERG & STEVE MANDELL
Recorded specially for the music festival #Octaver17
You hear Garry Moore play "Still got the Blues" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4O_YMLDvvnw
Jacques Brel died on 9 October 1978. Paul O'Mahony recorded this episode on the 39th anniversary of his passing.
You hear Brel sing extracts from (1) Dans le Port d Amsterdam
(2) Madeline
(3) Ne me quitte pas
and
(4) Dusty Springfield "Ne me quitte pas" in English (extract)
(5) Ray Charles "Ne me quitte pas" in English (extract)
(6) Nina Simone "Ne me quitte pas" (extract)
(7) Davie Bowie "Le port d'Amsterdam" in English (extract)
Jacques Brel - may you be with us forever.
Recorded specially for the music festival #Octaver17.
Paul talks about & plays extracts from (1) John Cage "4.33" (2) The Box Tops "The Letter" (1967) (3) The Beatles "From Me to You" (1963) (4) Adam Faith "What Do You Want" (1959) (5) Elvis Presley "(Let Me Be Your) Teddy Bear "(1957)
(6) Wagner's Ring
(7) Van Morrison "Madame George" (8) Chris Butler "The Devil Glitch"
Recorded as part of the #Octaver17 music festival.
Paul O'Mahony offers this song "Divers" by Joanna Newsom in celebration of Shannon Smith - known as @Gwenllian on Audioboo(m)
Recorded specially for the music festival #octaver17.
You hear Paul talk about how much the human voice means to him. Paul plays : (1) Stanley Holloway recite "The Lion and Albert" (2) Eleanór a Rún sung by Róisín El Safty at the Willie Clancy Summer School, Miltown Malbay. (3) Shakespeare Romeo and Juliet Act 2 by Benjamin O'Mahony & Natalie Thomas (original pronunciation)
Made specially for the October 2017 music festival #Octaver17
Paul talks about love, lust, desire & Procol Harum & Dalila & Gregorian Chant for Meditation "Allelujah"
Paul reaches a question: 'Is there any situation for which music isn't a good companion?'
Recorded specially for the music festival #Octaver17.
You hear Paul experiencing music of the American Civil War.
You hear Paul responding to Wagner & Maria Callas (extract from Tristan und Isolde)
You hear Paul wondering why he loves the music of that civil war.
Specially recorded for the music festival known as #Octaver17 Day 4 (27 more days to go in October 2017)
You hear Paul O'Mahony humming & singing in real life and in his dreams. #Wagner
You hear human cats meowing lovingly #Rossini
You even get a flash of #KatyPerry
In this episode Paul O'Mahony highlights a few big events that happened on 2 October.
Paul reads the start of "The Masque of Anarchy" - written by Shelley in 1819 - shortly after the "Peterloo Massacre". A poem that wasn't published until 1832 for fear of public reaction.
Paul reads "So many good people" and "Nobody but you" - recent poems by Paul O'Mahony.
Live raw recording of Paul O'Mahony subscribing to the new Audioboom podcasting platform - in real time.
Octaver17
Octaver began in 2012. @slandi Stefano Landi came up with the name.
Suggested Topics for Week No 1
Day 1: Introduce yourself + "The range of music I like & why"
Day 2: "Where I listen to music & why"
Day 3: "When I started being musical (interested in music) - & what happened"
Day 4: "The music I hum, sing in the shower or on stage - & why"
Day 5 : "How I feel when I hear music I love"
Day 6 : "Is music the food of love - & why?"
Day 7: "The human voice is music to my ears - and why"
Topics for #Octaver17 (2017) will be posted on the website in plenty of time for Week 1,2,3 & 4 (Website coming before Thursday 29 September)
The website for Octaver 2016 is here: our archive https://octaver16.wordpress.com/
Waiting for something to happen
that isn't
already
waiting for something
that Godot
missed,
Waiting for someone
to hiccup
more than me.
You see
waiting is (a) creating
gestating
sublimating
art
Not Farting But Founding...
Will
The rain fall?
The toilet flush?
The doorbell ring?
Will
The jackdaw land?
The chicken lay?
A pony snort?
Will
That fish spawn?
This hiccup die?
Her tongue melt?
Her wit end?
Her scream echo?
Will
Friday follow?
The poet's grip falter?
Your journey age?
Will
The albatross be called Wisdom?
My hummingbird depart?
My sign language strike a chord?
Your fingernails warm?
Waiting for something to happen...
A story take on a character?
This ceremony embrace your destiny?
My watch tick?
Tim Miller wake in time
to catch Godot working?
Miracles
Waiting for something to happen.
I first recorded my thoughts on this topic & shared them via AnchorFM. Then I transcribed & edited that - and published it (as if it was a poem) on my blog. Then I recorded what I'd blogged on VoiceRecorderPro and from there I uploaded to Audioboo via Boomail
My contribution to Day 5 of AudioMo 2017 - inspired by a question Leo Lombard put to me from Nova Scotia (via WhatsApp)
audiomo
Trevor Winckworth says: there is good news. Recorded 24 February 2017. _________________________ (1) Italy - new client - Cinque Terre Tourism Board has commissioned 4,000 Souvenir AudioPlayers - in 5 languages: English, Italian, French, German & Spanish - no Chinese Mandarin. _________________________ "Cinque Terre is a string of centuries-old seaside villages on the rugged Italian Riviera coastline. In each of the 5 towns, colorful houses and vineyards cling to steep terraces, harbors are filled with fishing boats and trattorias turn out seafood specialties along with the Liguria region’s famous sauce, pesto. The Sentiero Azzurro cliffside hiking trail links the villages and offers sweeping sea vistas. UNESCO World Heritage Site inscription: 1997" _____________________ The contract came via an introduction from Genoa Tourist Board. The Board is already a client of IHG. They have re-ordered souvenir audioplayer guides mainly for tourists who come from cruise liners. _____________________________________________________________________________________ (2) Spain - Camina Way - IHG have a new customer - an order for Souvenir AudioPlayers will ship in 2 weeks. "Testing the waters - a new idea." Commissioned by an Irish company - a booking agent in Dublin 8 that books 30,000 people annually who walk the Way. ______________________ The souvenir audio guides will cover the last 30 kilometres on the way into Santiago de Compostello. It will provide information about the Camino & local dishes you find on the walk. ______________________ The audio will be voiced by a Spanish person with local knowledge & will sell online and in local sites. _________________________________________________________________________________ (3) USA - Everglades National Park, Florida - visited by one million visitor every year. This big order is for 50,000 Souvenir Audioplayers. Script will be supplied by Everglades - voiced by an American for the first time. _______________________ There are also other discussions with US National Parks. _______________________ IHG has an agent in USA. He's been working on this since January 2017. Enterprise Ireland "Acceleration Package" pays 50% of the cost of hiring the agent. "A great package - talk to EI about it." Trevor explains how the scheme works. _____________________________________________ Listen to Part 2 of the conversation.
Part 2 Podcasting from Cork Ireland - Paul O'Mahony & Roger Overall prepare to record #BusinessJazzPodcast
Podcasting from Cork Ireland - Roger Overall & Paul O'Mahony get ready to record on 14 February 2016
Day 2 of #Febooary17 ________________________ I'm thankful for (1) Person = Kevin Williams @bigmanout "Kevin, Gnome Alone" on #Anchor App _____________________ (2) Sound = Music by Verdi ______________________ (3) Taste = Fresh raspberries ______________________ (4) Happy thought = Women's March - resistence to policies of Goliath Trump
You hear Paul O'Mahony knocking at Roger Overall's door - Roger inviting Paul in - and the set-up before recording the podcast. Un-edited raw footage...
New REPUBLIC OF WORK Business Innovation Hub to open in Cork City Centre Business Lounge, Coworking Space, Meetings & Events Space and Dedicated Innovation Centre all feature in this exciting new development for the city's business community.
CORK (January 18th 2017) – New Irish Company, REPUBLIC OF WORK announced that it has selected a site on Cork’s South Mall for its first of its kind in Ireland, business innovation hub. 12 South Mall, located in the centre of the city's historic business street will be home to REPUBLIC OF WORK Cork City.
Founded by experienced Cork entrepreneurs, DC Cahalane and Dave Ronayne, in partnership with Bank of Ireland, the 15,500 sq feet facility consists of an ‘airport lounge style’ business lounge for casual meetings and networking, a state of the art meetings and events space, as well as a co-working space with one hundred and sixty desks available on a 30 days no-contract basis. The space is designed for use by businesses at all scales; solopreneurs, startups, SME’s and multinationals, across all industries. The location will initially provide 10 jobs directly, but it hopes to be able to help its members create more than 100 jobs over the first 18 months.
Short interview with Trevor Winckworth CEO of In Hand Guides. Business news about how the company has installed beacons on Spike Island.
The night nurse cometh to lift her up. Would I mind leaving the room? carrying my cup of hot tea my gingernut biscuits and take them into the kitchen next door, while the nurse and her curly-haired man do whatever they want to do with my mother. She's my mother, they want to do stuff with her, so why do they want me to leave the room? Do they own her? I hear a voice through the wall, are they talking with her? are they better at talking with her than I am? I've been rubbing her hand, feeling her very cool forearms, never felt so cool before, slim, never seemed so slim before. She hasn't had the strength to squeeze my fingers, maybe they have their way with her? maybe she'll come back to life for them? while I dunk my ginger-snaps and wonder where's the next one coming from? and where's the night nurse come from? and how far, or how close, is my mother to her destination?
I hope there are plenty more ginger-snaps.
Conversation with Trevor Winckworth, CEO of In Hand Guides. Recorded in the Clayton Hotel Cork on Catching up on what's been happening over the last few months
(1) New beacon technology - takes over the player when you are on site - as you enter the 'room', the audio is triggered for you - "we range the beacons " -
(2) Spike Island - Ireland's Alcatraz - 40 "points of interest" - beacons. For example, Spike Island Riot Room - a beacon in every cell - stories - Republican prisoners - information points around the island -
(3) Patented the triggering technology - worldwide -
(4) From high-cost complex systems to low-cost simple system
(5) "De-mystify the whole thing"
(6) The audio is on the player - you can listen to the audio later -
(7) CIT [Cork Institute of Technology] Nimbus developed the system for us
RamblyBoo is the Hashtag for this series of mini-podcasts made during September 2016.
The definition of "RamblyBoo" is here (thanks to @richardhubbuck) https://tagdef.com/ramblyboo : "A nickname given to a piece of verbal audio, published on the micro-podcasting site Audioboo.fm, which was recorded whilst walking or hiking. The subject matter may also be a 'ramble', in that, the subjects discussed may not be linked to each other or may not make sense to the listener. Example usage eg: I'm out walking the dog, so this is a #ramblyboo __________________________ Other great audio people who are known for their rambles include @macolgan, @dean_read, @black73cat , @documentally
__________________________ Photo by LicenseAttribution Some rights reserved by bobistraveling https://www.flickr.com/photos/bobistraveling/
mystery #puzzle #secret #poetry
Who is she?
She’s a modern woman
I’ve never heard her speak.
Now I’m in love with her voice
angelic, soft, soothing
(not weak).
You probably imagine her saccharin,
all sweetness and light
– so far.
(I bet you can feel the ‘but’ coming)
She utters a bitter sound of the night
across a breakfast table
turning in a bed
walking a street
brushing her teeth
even sitting to do her business.
Her voice creeps behind the words
subverts the common meaning of social intercourse.
Her stories are not my stories
If you stumbled across her vignettes
you might also mutter ‘they’re gold dust,
they conceive, germinate, grow stronger
in the soil of daily life’.
And they bear seed
– whenever I get close enough.
Continuing my experience - From Saturday 23 July to Saturday 30 July 2016 - a family holiday that turned out to be much different than I expected.
This is the website : http://www.ilparetaio.it/en/
italyomani #riding #horses #tuscany #italy #zen #taichi #poetry #camera #Siena #Lucca #escape
From Saturday 23 July to Saturday 30 July 2016 - a family holiday that turned out to be much different than I expected. This is the website : http://www.ilparetaio.it/en/
italyomani #riding #horses #tuscany #italy #zen #taichi #poetry #camera #Siena #Lucca #escape
JeSuisNice
Written after the murder of 84 people in Nice, France. The photograph is Mykhaylo "Misha" Bazelevskyy. He has been identified as one of the victims of the Nice attacks. (the griff/Supplied)
Dreams _________
Moses never led his people to the promised land
Magellan never sailed his ships home
Puccini never finished his journey to Turandot
I’ve never reached my daydreams.
I led up to them,
talking and walking
barefoot on moss,
across streams
to the other side.
I reached for them on tippy-toes
never let go.
That’s my trouble
I’m no Michelangelo
and so I watch those daydreams
grow and grow
into memories
– elephants in my room –
wondering what Moses felt
as he watched the people
leave the desert
their daydreams shining.
Maybe it’s a feast to simply daydream
and trek on
until I lose the breath for daydreams
and ‘in that sleep of death‘
dream on.
poetry #american
Recorded on 3 July 2016 on iphone ______________________________________
To you... Whoever you are, I fear you are walking the walks of dreams, I fear these supposed realities are to melt from under your feet and hands, Even now your features, joys, speech, house, trade, manners, troubles, follies, costume, crimes, dissipate away from you, Your true soul and body appear before me, They stand forth out of affairs, out of commerce, shops, work, farms, clothes, the house, buying, selling, eating, drinking, suffering, dying.
Whoever you are, now I place my hand upon you, that you be my poem, I whisper with my lips close to your ear, I have loved many women and men, but I love none better than you.
O I have been dilatory and dumb, I should have made my way straight to you long ago, I should have blabb’d nothing but you, I should have chanted nothing but you.
I will leave all and come and make the hymns of you, None has understood you, but I understand you, None has done justice to you, you have not done justice to yourself, None but has found you imperfect, I only find no imperfection in you, None but would subordinate you, I only am he who will never consent to subordinate you, I only am he who places over you no master, owner, better, God, beyond what waits intrinsically in yourself.
Painters have painted their swarming groups and the centre- figure of all, From the head of the centre-figure spreading a nimbus of gold-color’d light, But I paint myriads of heads, but paint no head without its nimbus of gold-color’d light, From my hand from the brain of every man and woman it streams, effulgently flowing forever.
O I could sing such grandeurs and glories about you! You have not known what you are, you have slumber’d upon yourself all your life, Your eyelids have been the same as closed most of the time, What you have done returns already in mockeries, (Your thrift, knowledge, prayers, if they do not return in mockeries, what is their return?)
The mockeries are not you, Underneath them and within them I see you lurk, I pursue you where none else has pursued you, Silence, the desk, the flippant expression, the night, the accustom’d routine, if these conceal you from others or from yourself, they do not conceal you from me, The shaved face, the unsteady eye, the impure complexion, if these balk others they do not balk me, The pert apparel, the deform’d attitude, drunkenness, greed, premature death, all these I part aside.
There is no endowment in man or woman that is not tallied in you, There is no virtue, no beauty in man or woman, but as good is in you, No pluck, no endurance in others, but as good is in you, No pleasure waiting for others, but an equal pleasure waits for you.
As for me, I give nothing to any one except I give the like carefully to you, I sing the songs of the glory of none, not God, sooner than I sing the songs of the glory of you.
Whoever you are! claim your own at an hazard! These shows of the East and West are tame compared to you, These immense meadows, these interminable rivers, you are immense and interminable as they, These furies, elements, storms, motions of Nature, throes of apparent dissolution, you are he or she who is master or mistress over them, Master or mistress in your own right over Nature, elements, pain, passion, dissolution.
The hopples fall from your ankles, you find an unfailing sufficiency, Old or young, male or female, rude, low, rejected by the rest, whatever you are promulges itself, Through birth, life, death, burial, the means are provided, nothing is scanted, Through angers, losses, ambition, ignorance, ennui, what you are picks its way. _________________________ Note: "hopple" - strap the foreleg & hind leg together on ...
28 June 2016 Recorded in Chicago on the train from Logan Square to O'Hare Airport #usaomani #audiomo
usaomani
She is a volunteer tour guide from Chicago Architecture Foundation - working the River Cruise aboard Chicago's "First Lady Cruises": I couldn't get over how good she was. Without "deviation, repetition or hesitation"... Few "Umms" and other crutches: 90 minutes of great knowledge & communication skills. _____________________________ https://www.architecture.org/experience-caf/tours/detail/chicago-architecture-foundation-river-cruise-aboard-chicagos-first-lady-cruises/ _____________________________ My raw recording of the start of the tour is here https://audioboom.com/boos/4761032-chicago-river-start-of-the-architectural-tour-audiomo-day-28 _____________________________
usaomani
Recorded raw on 28 June 2016 on board the Chicago River boat tour. ______________________ This is the website https://www.architecture.org/experience-caf/tours/detail/chicago-architecture-foundation-river-cruise-aboard-chicagos-first-lady-cruises/ ______________________
Ithaca - Poem by Constantine P. Cavafy ______________________
When you set out for Ithaka ask that your way be long, full of adventure, full of instruction. The Laistrygonians and the Cyclops, angry Poseidon - do not fear them: such as these you will never find as long as your thought is lofty, as long as a rare emotion touch your spirit and your body. The Laistrygonians and the Cyclops, angry Poseidon - you will not meet them unless you carry them in your soul, unless your soul raise them up before you.
Ask that your way be long. At many a Summer dawn to enter with what gratitude, what joy - ports seen for the first time; to stop at Phoenician trading centres, and to buy good merchandise, mother of pearl and coral, amber and ebony, and sensuous perfumes of every kind, sensuous perfumes as lavishly as you can; to visit many Egyptian cities, to gather stores of knowledge from the learned.
Have Ithaka always in your mind. Your arrival there is what you are destined for. But don't in the least hurry the journey. Better it last for years, so that when you reach the island you are old, rich with all you have gained on the way, not expecting Ithaka to give you wealth. Ithaka gave you a splendid journey. Without her you would not have set out. She hasn't anything else to give you.
And if you find her poor, Ithaka hasn't deceived you. So wise you have become, of such experience, that already you'll have understood what these Ithakas mean. _____________ Constantine P. Cavafy
Inspired by a recent mini-podcast by Richard Hubbuck on Audioboo. All about the terms we use to communicate & miscommunicate - with particular emphasis on what I call emotional health
health #extraordinary #depression
ISBN : 978-1-908561-01-5 Publisher: Mental Health Publishing
depression #mentalhealth #kayredfieldjamison
Notes: (1) This audio is in response to "Alloneword" here: https://audioboom.com/boos/4617055-a-terrible-thing-i-have-to-live-with (2) The list of poets comes from "Touched with Fire: Manic-Depressive Illness and the Artistic Temperament" by the American psychologist Kay Redfield Jamison
Audio made while composing a poem on the theme of "prayer".
This is the poem that was published on my blog. https://paulhomahony.com/2016/05/27/prayer-new-poem-by-paul-omahony/
Prayer
I
They said they’d pray for me, warmed and discomforted me.
“Pray for us sinners” echoed “Get down on your knees and pray” in pyjamas by the bedside, after I leant on the drawing room sofa reciting five decades of the rosary every evening looking towards the fireplace, coal box, chess books and bibles.
Now mother’s accepted she’s the one who’ll do the praying. No more pushing, she’s done her best.
II
To pray is human.
My friend with cancer wrote “I’ve prayed for my health and yours, five times a day, everyday.” A hummingbird whispered “Surely you can say ‘I pray for you’ Shame on you.”
Like a guilty child I stumbled “May your heart be warmed by the love you give to others.” (I wish I’d added “… and yourself.“)
III
By the river that washed the soles of Bernadette I rebelled:
“Every step of my way’s a prayer offered in hope, in thanks, contrition, desperation, love, in celebration of tickling mysteries.”
Now I stand in prayer, warm and discomforted, my way, this day. ____________________________
poetry
Author: Elizabeth Rose Murray, West Cork Publisher: Alma Books, UK
Purchased: Waterstone's Cork on 24 May 2016
ISBN: 978-1-84688-392-7
Lost Love
I've lost my love for you,
forgotten your name
among so many others.
Are you worth remembering?
Do you matter at all
any more?
Will you ever return,
re-emerge like hibernator?
Are you buried forever underground?
Could it be your disappearance
isn't even noticed
and no tears shed for you?
The good of you fallen,
sieved like flour and icing sugar,
leaving only useless lumps?
Your name a melted hailstone,
gone from sight,
faded.
Pray surface in your own time,
lost love loved again
even if you've forgotten my old name.
Here's Charles Bukowski reading his poem. Mine feels feeble - not that I've found Bukowski's reading: https://youtu.be/i2v8VP6iUB4
_______________________________
call it the greenhouse effect or whatever but it just doesn't rain like it used to. I particularly remember the rains of the depression era. there wasn't any money but there was plenty of rain. it wouldn't rain for just a night or a day, it would RAIN for 7 days and 7 nights and in Los Angeles the storm drains weren't built to carry off taht much water and the rain came down THICK and MEAN and STEADY and you HEARD it banging against the roofs and into the ground waterfalls of it came down from roofs and there was HAIL big ROCKS OF ICE bombing exploding smashing into things and the rain just wouldn't STOP and all the roofs leaked- dishpans, cooking pots were placed all about; they dripped loudly and had to be emptied again and again. the rain came up over the street curbings, across the lawns, climbed up the steps and entered the houses. there were mops and bathroom towels, and the rain often came up through the toilets:bubbling, brown, crazy,whirling, and all the old cars stood in the streets, cars that had problems starting on a sunny day, and the jobless men stood looking out the windows at the old machines dying like living things out there. the jobless men, failures in a failing time were imprisoned in their houses with their wives and children and their pets. the pets refused to go out and left their waste in strange places. the jobless men went mad confined with their once beautiful wives. there were terrible arguments as notices of foreclosure fell into the mailbox. rain and hail, cans of beans, bread without butter; fried eggs, boiled eggs, poached eggs; peanut butter sandwiches, and an invisible chicken in every pot. my father, never a good man at best, beat my mother when it rained as I threw myself between them, the legs, the knees, the screams until they seperated. 'I'll kill you,' I screamed at him. 'You hit her again and I'll kill you! ' 'Get that son-of-a-bitching kid out of here! ' 'no, Henry, you stay with your mother! ' all the households were under seige but I believe that ours held more terror than the average. and at night as we attempted to sleep the rains still came down and it was in bed in the dark watching the moon against the scarred window so bravely holding out most of the rain, I thought of Noah and the Ark and I thought, it has come again. we all thought that. and then, at once, it would stop. and it always seemed to stop around 5 or 6 a.m., peaceful then, but not an exact silence because things continued to drip drip drip
and there was no smog then and by 8 a.m. there was a blazing yellow sunlight, Van Gogh yellow- crazy, blinding! and then the roof drains relieved of the rush of water began to expand in the warmth: PANG! PANG! PANG! and everybody got up and looked outside and there were all the lawns still soaked greener than green will ever be and there were birds on the lawn CHIRPING like mad, they hadn't eaten decently for 7 days and 7 nights and they were weary of berries and they waited as the worms rose to the top, half drowned worms. the birds plucked them up and gobbled them down; there were blackbirds and sparrows. the blackbirds tried to drive the sparrows off but the sparrows, maddened with hunger, smaller and quicker, got their due. the men stood on their porches smoking cigarettes, now knowing they'd have to go out there to look for that job that probably wasn't there, to start that car that probably wouldn't start. and the once beautiful wives stood in their bathrooms combing their hair, applying makeup, trying to put their world back together again, trying to forget that awful sadness that gripped them, wondering what they could ...
My friend the parking lot attendant —he's a dandy —small moustache —usually sucking on a cigar
he tends to lean into cars as he transacts business
first time I met him, he said, "hey! ya gonna make a killin'?"
"maybe," I answered.
next meeting it was: "hey, Ramrod! what's happening?"
"very little," I told him.
next time I had my girlfriend with me and he just grinned.
next time I was alone.
"hey," he asked, "where's the young chick?"
"I left her at home...."
"Bullshit! I'll bet she dumped you!"
and the next time he really leaned into the car:
"what's a guy like you doing driving a BMW! I'll bet you inherited your money, you didn't get this car with your brains!"
"how'd you guess?" I answered.
that was some weeks ago. I haven't seen him lately. feIlow like that, chances are he just moved on to better things. _________________ Charles Bukowski
My Father ______________
was a truly amazing man he pretended to be rich even though we lived on beans and mush and weenies when we sat down to eat, he said, "not everybody can eat like this."
and because he wanted to be rich or because he actually thought he was rich he always voted Republican and he voted for Hoover against Roosevelt and he lost and then he voted for Alf Landon against Roosevelt and he lost again saying, "I don't know what this world is coming to, now we've got that god damned Red in there again and the Russians will be in our backyard next!"
I think it was my father who made me decide to become a bum. I decided that if a man like that wants to be rich then I want to be poor.
and I became a bum. I lived on nickles and dimes and in cheap rooms and on park benches. I thought maybe the bums knew something.
but I found out that most of the bums wanted to be rich too. they had just failed at that.
so caught between my father and the bums I had no place to go and I went there fast and slow. never voted Republican never voted.
buried him like an oddity of the earth like a hundred thousand oddities like millions of other oddities, wasted. ____________________ Charles Bukowski
Ken Curtin is a candidate in the next Irish general election (2016). He is from a new Irish political party - the Social Democrats. The constituency he intends to represent is called "Cork East" . The best way to contact Ken is via Twitter - @kencurtin This podcast is part of a series of communications - via Periscope (live streaming) and Audioboo (audio). The aim is to communicate what it's like to be a candidate for election. ______________________________________________________________________________________________
Cork East: The Electoral (Amendment) Act 2009 defines the constituency as:
"In the county of Cork the electoral divisions of: Cobh Rural, Knockraha, in the former Rural District of Cork; Aghern, Ballyhooly, Ballynoe, Castlecooke, Castle Hyde, Castlelyons, Castletownroche, Coole, Curraglass, Fermoy Rural, Glanworth East, Glanworth West, Gortnaskehy, Gortroe, Kilcor, Kilcummer, Killathy, Kilworth, Knockmourne, Leitrim, Rathcormack, in the former Rural District of Fermoy; Ballyclogh, Buttevant, Caherduggan, Carrig, Clenor, Doneraile, Kilmaclenine, Mallow Rural, Monanimy, Shanballymore, Skahanagh, Wallstown, in the former Rural District of Mallow; Ballintemple, Ballycottin, Ballyspillane, Carrigtohill, Castlemartyr, Clonmult, Cloyne, Corkbeg, Dangan, Dungourney, Garryvoe, Ightermurragh, Inch, Lisgoold, Midleton Rural, Mogeely, Rostellan, Templebodan, Templenacarriga, in the former Rural District of Midleton; Ballyarthur, Derryvillane, Farahy, Kildorrery, Kilgullane, Kilphelan, Marshalstown, Mitchelstown, Templemolaga, in the former Rural District of Mitchelstown No. 1; Ardagh, Clonpriest, Kilcronat, Killeagh, Kilmacdonagh, Youghal Rural, in the former Rural District of Youghal No. 1; and the towns of Cobh, Fermoy, Mallow, Midleton and Youghal."
Dearest creature in creation,
Study English pronunciation. I will teach you in my verse Sounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse. I will keep you, Suzy, busy, Make your head with heat grow dizzy. Tear in eye, your dress will tear. So shall I! Oh hear my prayer.
Just compare heart, beard, and heard, Dies and diet, lord and word, Sword and sward, retain and Britain. (Mind the latter, how it's written.) Now I surely will not plague you With such words as plaque and ague. But be careful how you speak: Say break and steak, but bleak and streak; Cloven, oven, how and low, Script, receipt, show, poem, and toe.
Hear me say, devoid of trickery, Daughter, laughter, and Terpsichore, Typhoid, measles, topsails, aisles, Exiles, similes, and reviles; Scholar, vicar, and cigar, Solar, mica, war and far; One, anemone, Balmoral, Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel; Gertrude, German, wind and mind, Scene, Melpomene, mankind.
Billet does not rhyme with ballet, Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet. Blood and flood are not like food, Nor is mould like should and would. Viscous, viscount, load and broad, Toward, to forward, to reward. And your pronunciation's OK When you correctly say croquet, Rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve, Friend and fiend, alive and live.
Ivy, privy, famous; clamour And enamour rhyme with hammer. River, rival, tomb, bomb, comb, Doll and roll and some and home. Stranger does not rhyme with anger, Neither does devour with clangour. Souls but foul, haunt but aunt, Font, front, wont, want, grand, and grant, Shoes, goes, does. Now first say finger, And then singer, ginger, linger, Real, zeal, mauve, gauze, gouge and gauge, Marriage, foliage, mirage, and age.
Query does not rhyme with very, Nor does fury sound like bury. Dost, lost, post and doth, cloth, loth. Job, nob, bosom, transom, oath. Though the differences seem little, We say actual but victual. Refer does not rhyme with deafer. Foeffer does, and zephyr, heifer. Mint, pint, senate and sedate; Dull, bull, and George ate late. Scenic, Arabic, Pacific, Science, conscience, scientific.
Liberty, library, heave and heaven, Rachel, ache, moustache, eleven. We say hallowed, but allowed, People, leopard, towed, but vowed. Mark the differences, moreover, Between mover, cover, clover; Leeches, breeches, wise, precise, Chalice, but police and lice; Camel, constable, unstable, Principle, disciple, label.
Petal, panel, and canal, Wait, surprise, plait, promise, pal. Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair, Senator, spectator, mayor. Tour, but our and succour, four. Gas, alas, and Arkansas. Sea, idea, Korea, area, Psalm, Maria, but malaria. Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean. Doctrine, turpentine, marine.
Compare alien with Italian, Dandelion and battalion. Sally with ally, yea, ye, Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, and key. Say aver, but ever, fever, Neither, leisure, skein, deceiver. Heron, granary, canary. Crevice and device and aerie.
Face, but preface, not efface. Phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass. Large, but target, gin, give, verging, Ought, out, joust and scour, scourging. Ear, but earn and wear and tear Do not rhyme with here but ere. Seven is right, but so is even, Hyphen, roughen, nephew Stephen, Monkey, donkey, Turk and jerk, Ask, grasp, wasp, and cork and work.
Pronunciation -- think of Psyche! Is a paling stout and spikey? Won't it make you lose your wits, Writing groats and saying grits? It's a dark abyss or tunnel: Strewn with stones, stowed, solace, gunwale, Islington and Isle of Wight, Housewife, verdict and indict.
Finally, which rhymes with enough -- Though, through, plough, or dough, or cough? Hiccough has the sound of cup.
My advice is to give up!!!