From Bath to Cork with Baby Grace

An audio version of this blogpost is here (10 minutes) 

Last Friday night I got an idea.  Just as I was hoping to slip off to sleep without excitement, I thought about Twitter.  I thought about how good it was to be connected to people all over the globe via such a brilliant tool.

This pleasant thought led to another - more questioning - thought : how well connected am I really?  How many counties in Ireland do I have contact with via Twitter?  Where are my contacts based?

I went to sleep with a new project forming

- I would like to have at least one engaging Twitter contact in each county of Ireland…

Usually those sort of ideas fade in the sleep.  So often I wake & move on to something else -  the idea goes off to haunt somebody else…

On Saturday morning, it was different - the idea rose with me.  Within a couple of hours I found myself formulating a plan to seek out someone from each of the 26 counties of RoI.  The idea had taken root.  And I’d begun to say to myself - "if the idea has survived the night, there must be legs in it…"

I’d like to tell you what happened next.

The first thing I did was tweet my intention to find at least one engaging tweeter in each county.

"Last night’s big idea: get at least one engaging Twitter contact in all 26 counties of RoI #project26"

I simply announced that via Twitter - I didn’t poke the plan at anyone, at first.  (I soon sent a few tweets like "@Paraic @dogfoodlady You are fine engaging people#omaniCork #project26 - Co Limerick next".

You can imagine how thrilled I was when @SundayTwist responded with enthusiasm for the idea.

That’s how our collaboration began.  We exchanged a few tweets about it,  agreed to spend 48 hours seeing what we could come up with.  

I live in Cork & know plenty of engaging tweeters there.  She lives in Dublin - and I was sure she would know many engaging tweeters there.  But I didn’t know much about the network of @SundayTwist.  This felt like a great advantage  - because together we might dovetail well. 

By the end of Sunday, we’d cracked the job of finding two per county.  We had a few blank counties - Offaly, Roscommon & Monaghan proved to be the toughest for us.  But we got great help.

Boy did we get great help from the following people :

(1) @eirepreneur introduced me to @giftedkidsie & @harrypig in Co Clare 

(2) @bobgreenmonster introduced @lawlorchiro @golfchiro @DIBayliss @Laois_offaly @unlaoised @cebyrne in Co Laois

(3) @susankilkenny helped with Co Kilkenny

(4) @aoifep helped with Co Sligo

(5) @elaineLarkin with Co Wexford & "sunnysoutheast list"

(6) @topgold helped with intro to @manaboutcouch in Co Donegal

(7)  @CliffHouseHotel introduced @tanneryDungarva in Co Waterford

(8) @sineadniriain helped with Co Tipperary

(9) @IvanSantry introduced @PaulaCoMayo from Co Mayo

(10) @dannifromdublin helped by RT - as did @NaughtyNikKit

(11) @jonathangrimes introduced @adam_melvin from Co Donegal

(12) @cotisgal helped with RT  - as did @siobhancoyle & @susanalustiza

(13) @scottyccfc helped by asking why this wasn’t a 32 county project

(14) @mimistores appeared and helped with Co Meath

(15) @primaryposition helped with RT of our quest re Co Galway & introduced @antonmannering

(16) @domybooks popped up from Co Galway

(17) @celav from Co Cork recommended @allancavanagh from Co Galway

(18) @danmorris63 disqualified himself from Co Kerry

(19) @diarmuidcogan Co Cork offered to help & introduced @paddyjkelly from Co Kerry + @debz from Co Offaly

(20) @Ritchhh helped by RT re Co Offaly 

(21) @cotisgal recommended @donegalabu from Co Donegal

(22) Roddy Jenkins helped, recommended @oconnellbrian in Co Cork + @alisonwells from Co Wicklow + @janetravers Co Kildare

(23) I can’t remember who recommended @kieranmurphy & @dinglesurf from Co Kerry

(24) @johnpeavoy helped by clarifying that he was no longer living in Co Offaly

(25) @suzybie  & @conor_pope helped by RT of search for Co Offaly tweeter

(26) @trevorvaugh & @siobhancoyle  helped us on the Co Offaly search 

(27) @CJohnson103 helped on Co Roscommon 

(28) @burbage1 recommended @mduffywriter from Co Dublin

(29) @sandrahennessy RT’ed our search for particularly engaging tweeters

(30) @misIJenkins helped us with Co Offaly

(31) @donegalabu helped us with thanks in an RT

(32) @allisonwells helped us with encouraging comments

(33) @berniequinn helped us use the correct #project26 hashtag

(34) @adrianBarry98FM helped by asking what this was all about + suggested we hold a vote on Twitter

(35) @scarie recommended @mammyskitchen from Co Westmeath

(36) @angevf helped by recommending @john_mcguirk from Co Monaghan

(37) @berniequinn recommended @monaghanpenguin from Co Monaghan

(38) @dinglesurf helped by chipping in a bit of humour from Co Kerry

(39) @doogarry helped us from Co Monaghan 

(40) @ladydotty from Co Sligo helped by asking what #project26 was all about

(41) @reddav14 & @angevf helped by questioning why we kept to 26 counties 

(42) @monaghanpenguin helped by asking what #project26 was 

(43) @reddave14 helped by questioning the decision-making process to pick engaging tweeters

(44) @aloliver + @martineCork + @FinbarrWilson @thickeytom also helped.

If I’ve left anyone out of this list, I’d be happy to edit them in - so that the historical record will be accurate. I suspect there are contacts of @sundaytwist who’ve helped without me being aware of their role.

Audio helped on the way: 

I made two audios on the way.  One was early on and the second was later - those links on AudioBoo were useful & enriching  - they gave us an easy way to fill people in on what this was all about.  [I must remember to make an audio version of this blogpost.]

This began with a simple idea - one person per county.  But it spawned more complex ideas - and a new collaborative team.  @SundayTwist & I stumbled into the idea of going the same for the counties of UK and the States of USA.

It’s been a wonderful way to realise the value of location-specific connections.  It’s opened up fresh prospects.  It’s enabled us to offer a suggestion to others - that they do the same for themselves…

Our list is now a Twitter List - it’s available to anyone who’s interested.  It may even become useful to someone else.

It was particularly satisfying to get the idea & complete the project as a collaboration in a few days. 

Writing an epic poem is epic work - the result may be epic too - or disastrous.  I remember spending huge chunks of time in November 2009 - writing this poem in a Moleskine Notebook - as I travelled round Ireland [& UK too].

Recording an audio version of an epic poem is another epic job.  I’ve been doing my best.  Now it’s reached the 8th stage, canto 8  [I wonder where Dante was at this stage of his epic Inferno?]

You might like to listen to this version  [I’m gradually reading it into iPhone & sharing it via AudioBoo.]

Canto 1

Canto 2

Canto 3

Canto 4 part 1 & Canto 4 part 2

Canto 5

Canto 6

Canto 7

Canto 8 

What I’d love you to do is listen to some, and write (or audio) a review which let’s me know how you found it. 

Would it be useful to gather my recent audio broadcasts together in one place on this blog?  Would that be handy & attractive for others - especially those who don’t use AudioBoo themselves?

Let’s see…

Here are sounds of my last couple of weeks: [after each I’ve put the number of times each has been listened to - so far]

 I went to London

(1) My son Benjamin O’Mahony played Ibsen at Arcola Theatre Hackney, London by Mahdi Yahya [67]

(2) I felt encouraged by others  [35]

(3) I reviewed "The Emperor Self" and wished I’d seen it twice [158]

(4) I walked towards AudioBoo HQ [26]

(5) I interviewed Mark Rock, CEO  - and met team AudioBoo on Tower Bridge Road, London [125]

(6) I wrote a poem "AudioBoo" after the style of Rudyard Kipling’s Mandalay  [15]

I returned to work in Cork  

(7) I worked for a start-up "On-Line Senior Citizen" [25]

(8) I read my own Epic Poem: Irish Epic Poem in 33 Cantos - canto 7  [11]

(9) I listened to views of others who’ve given up Twitter  [708]

(10) I walked in the city of Cork on a Saturday morning, hear music  [24]

(11) I read Grace a bedtime story : Pinocchio (but audio ran out) [12]

(12) I vowed to take up golf again - after the Ryder Cup team was selected by a Scot [21]

(13) I celebrated Grace’s 5th birthday  [24]

(14) I started the school run from Glanmire thru the Jack Lynch tunnel  [22]

(15) I complained about traffic congestion in Douglas Cork - while I added to it [21]

(16) I experienced chaos on first school day - relived my childhood [27]

(17) I read out a blogpost letter to Grace : her birthday & first day at "big" school  [19]

(18) I worked for another start-up : In Hand Guides & discovered Innovation Vouchers  [25]

(19) I got my car repaired by AutoMotif in Cork, a team led by Paul Allen [35]

(20 I interviewed a policeman, Garda, about cancer - what Boston cops do with Cork Gardai [32]

I’ve started using AudioBoo.  This enables me to talk to people - or at least broadcast.

I’ve gradually realised many people don’t like to read.  They simply don’t love the act of reading.  Of those who avoid reading, there are many who love audio.

Irish people particularly love radio.  

Maybe I’ve been cut off from many people?  Maybe, if there was an audio version of my blogposts, I would be more inclusive - and more popular?

I found AudioBoo by accident, and got into using it via my iPhone. [You can contact the CEO of AudioBoo via Twitter @MarkRock.]

So far I’ve made over 30 podcasts - all raw, unedited, each no more than 10 minutes long.  You can find them all here. 

Yesterday I made 4 podcasts:

(1)  Water explosion in Cork - after the water supply to many people was suddenly cut (1.46mins)

(2) My newest business idea - sharing thoughts from my business life (2.41mins)

(3) Blackrock Castle Observatory today - on my way there: what was on my mind (2.56mins) 

(4) Where’s best place to visit in Cork City?(1) - all about Blackrock Castle Observatory & Fota Island Wildlife Park (5.18mins)

I hope you find something interesting & valuable among them.  My plan is to keep this up and move towards a situation where there is always an audio version of each blogpost.

What do you think of that idea?  Share your view in comments below, please. 

You might like to see today’s The Cork News article about TransformCork.

The Cork News is one of the two "free" newspapers in Cork.  It has George Hook & Neil Prendeville  as regular columnists.

The photo in the article was taken by Roger Overall - while he was documenting a Smarter Egg group. 

Special thanks to Jonathan Amm from Think-Tank for making this happen.  Extraordinary thanks to The Cork News.  The article will be there forever as a sort of public reference point - as TransformCork grows over the years ahead. 

The TransformCork blog is here:

http://transformcork.posterous.com/

I have an opportunity to write an article for a newspaper.  The deadline is tomorrow.  I couldn’t ask for a better local opportunity to share my thoughts and feelings about Cork City.

I’m nervous.  Can feel the knotting.  Even though I’m a fluid writer, who’s developed a sound method of preventing writer’s block, I still feel the tension.

This is good.  The edge I need to write well is helped by the feeling of fear the instrument won’t play.  If I can cocky, I’d be a poor writer.  If I was complacent, thinking "I can easily knock this off" - wouldn’t such a mentality serve me badly?

How do you use your nerves?  Do you fear the sense of block, or do you see it was a welcome reminder that you are only as good as your last vowel?

Share the feeling… it’ll do you good. 

I began the Irish Epic Poem on 1 November 2009.  A new Moleskine Notebook… In the front page I wrote these words

"started Abercrombie & Fitch (London, UK) on 31 October 2009
- a book for one purpose

= write 50,000 word poem in November 2009
30 days"

Inside that page I later wrote:

240 pages

30 lines x 7 = 210 words per page [I think at one point I thought I was writing an average of 7 words per line]
127 pages to go in 8 days = 16 pages per day
109 pages to go in 5 days = 22 pages per day
92 pages to go in 3 days  =  30 pages

178 pages @ 180 words per page
= 32,040

These numbers kept me going.  50,000 words was the original challenge: NaNoWriMo.  Miyjoue Radersma introduced me to it.  This was a worldwide movement that encouraged people to write without stopping during  November. Most people wrote their novel, or part of it.  I latched on to the movement for the heck of it: I relished the challenge.  I was so pleased when Patrick Stack in Co Clare joined in.  

There was a website and discussion groups that sustained writers.  I got a buddy, Aaron Howard, in NYC.  We kept in touch encouraging each other.

I failed to write 50,000 but that was the only failure.
Otherwise the writing of the Epic Poem was a complete success: it gave me a platform on which to express myself, during a period of great national turmoil in Ireland.  The poem is personal in the sense that my autobiography is there, albeit sublimated. The poem is political: it’s littered with invective. The poem caused me to gather many of the key influences in my life together.  The writing was furious & sustained; it was also great fun.

I was so glad that it had an ending: it came to some sort of conclusion: it is not unfinished work.

I decided to publish it on this blog.
Typed the first part on  a date I  can’t remember (must check).  72 parts later, I finished the typing today.  The typing journey has been rich.  I’m glad I didn’t give it to someone else to type it up for me.  I got to re-experience the language in a different way while typing, confronting many issues of form, display and punctuation en route.  Typing it up for the blog has challenged my spelling: I’ve used Google all the way to check the spelling of words, and also names of people & places.

On the way I wondered what would happen if I hyperlinked it.  So many of the words are from my autobiography, I can’t imagine anyone reading it without coming across many bits that seem perplexing.  Typing the Epic Poem has made me think about the future of the book - in the context of the incredible potential modern media provide.

I owe so much to Walt Whitman.  He self-published.  He even wrote & published reviews of Leaves of Grass, under a pseudonym.  If he did that, I can certainly self-publish a small edition.  I plan to sell Epic Poem at Listowel Writers’ Week Festival in June. Must print so few that it’s sure to sell out.

Would like me to reserve you a copy? 

CANTO XXXIII (the conclusion)

The Man from Snowy River

There was movement of the lawyers, for the word had got around
That the dog from the Four Courts had won the day,
And had eaten the wild-grown garlic - he had mastered all the sound
So all the wigs had gathered to the fray
All the tried and trusted judges from the circuits near and far
Had feasted by the courthouse late at night
For the constitution’s strong where the wild-grown garlics are
And the mastiff growls the gravy-train delight.

And down by Newcastlewest, where the monastery stands
Their torn and rugged vestments still on high
Where gossip is clear as prism, and the blond stars hang on praise
There is light on that street where lawyers fly
And where along the water’s flow the ghostly weep and sway
To their beliefs, and the molting stains are wide
The Man from Snowy River is a household fool today
And the bankers tell the story of his slide. 

You can fill in the gaps yourself,
that’s the rhythm we want,
a bit of pace, and the march of the foot-soldiering consonants,
with their vowels prepared to go into the valley of death
for the cause of jiggery-pokery
- that’s what your filí were brought up on. 

We are at the end now,
the grains have all fallen,
there is no happy finality
nor easy resolution.
It might have been,
perhaps if we hadn’t started from there.
If we’d eaten different food,
the thoughts would have grown apart
in a different style.

There never were any Englynion,
they stayed stuck in their valleys,
noble lords, warriors unused,
blades blunt, never given a punt.

It was the ELEPHANT that opened the floodgate
and found a willing pen
prepared to take the plane back to a country
it had emigrated from,
a trunk of power
a tail for distractions
killing them
keeping to the line of blank verse
preserving the pace
distributing the echoes
balancing the airs and graces.

To all who’ve come across to the other side of the stream,
I beg you remember there’s reality in every dream.

The End 

CANTO XXXIII (continues here)

"Fuckit Boss he’d disappeared
one minute he was asleep in the gutter
pissed as arseholes snoring farts
I had him Boss
I was standing over him the bollocks
ready for the chop
and some fuckin tarte picked that moment
to spew up her guts over him
First she covers his mug with puke
then she throws off her clothes
and falls on him starkers
fuckin stitchless Boss…

"What? What’d you say Boss?
the reception’s shyte here
the pair of them in the gutter
the the bloody fuckin stormwall broke Boss
the fucking tide took them away
just fuckin washed them off the face of the earth Boss
I was lucky I wasn’t drowned
you know I can’t swim Boss…

"What’s that Boss?
"you wish I’d been washed Boss…

"ah Boss 

he’s gone, no one could get out of that flood Boss
I’d say he’ll be washed up off fuckin Rathlin Boss
Jees I had him Boss
if it wasn’t for that cunt
I’d have the corpse for you Boss
look as soon as I find some dry trousers
and another pair of shoes
I’ll carry on Boss…

"ah no Boss don’t say  that Boss
haven’t I been good to you Boss?" 

Oh dear, oh dear, my dears
it looks as if we’re about to lose another character.
I used to enjoy all that ‘fuckin’,
I’ll miss him.
He was my crudité,
I was writing a note for him. 

(Canto 33 to be continued: one more part to come) 

CANTO XXXIII (the last one begins here)

Wake up lazybones,
get up, you lump of wisdom gone small,
time for you to make your grand entrance.
Zap them with your eloquence,
insight and decisive reversal of all the rules.
Time you proved you didn’t need water to work on it.
We’re looking up to you.
The Redeemer cometh,
prove you are a mighty mouse.

She was a cross between Gráinne Mhaol and a boa constrictor,
she was loud with mouth,
uninterruptable.
She carried a bag of many bags,
each loaded with memories of slights,
bitter glances, overlookings.
She spoke for half the Universe,
as if she were the whole Universe.
Here was a genuine God,
not some frumpy Goddess
or queen.
Here was a woman who knew she knew it all
without peradventure.

"I am the Alpha and Omega of your phantasies,
we don’t really need you.
If we wanted to, we could birth children
unaided by your masculinity.
We are divinity,
you’re an infinity of consanguinity.
We’ll take over the world
when your verses are all reversed.
Look at you Wotan,
all those stains, egg on your tie,
fat on the shirt we picked for you.

God you’re a mess,
and your hero
he’s a lost projection.

You should have listened to you,
or, better still, stayed stillborn." 

The ALMIGHTY was jelly now,
wobbling and melting,
fit for consoling Himself,
but no one else.
The ALMIGHTY knew the final solution was on the cards:
the only way to avoid the failure of the quest
was to kill the flower he’d grown from seed,
accidentally stop the fruitless effort
to clone the human race of the Irish debris
from the one true gene of a quadruple helix.
It certainly looked as if the Irish were a lost cause
led by Archbishop Martin,
the trickster from the Roman Bath.

The ALMIGHTY plunged a hand inside the garment
on which the Milky Way was fashioned.
He drew out the dice,
the pair that clashed and caused the Big Bang
- He was ready for a second throw. 

(to be continued)