Neil Danton

Not the Pelican Brief which was a movie, and it’s not called the Pelican Run, it’s called the Cheetah Run. (This post follows on from a recent one about last year’s run entitled Runners in the Park).

It’s a road-race through Fota Wildlife Park, but I wasn’t going into the Cheetah area to create an image, so I chose Pelicans instead, as they don’t have claws. Like the title of the movie though, I’ll be brief, so here it is:

TTFN

Had great fun last week at the launching of a couple of Currachs. A curragh is a traditionally built wooden framed Irish boat, usually covered in canvas nowadays although animal skins or hide were used in the past.

When I say launch, I mean literally:

That was the smaller of the two, a Boyne Curragh, sometimes referred to as a Coracle. They are paddled from the front with an action I can only describe as similar to stirring a giant pot of paint:

The larger Owey Island Curragh was a bit heavier so had a slightly more sedate launch. The moment of truth as it entered the water:

The boats were built by students at the Crawford College of Art & Design under the guidance of the good folks at Meitheal Mara and in particular Pádraig Ó Duinnín. Meitheal Mara (ma-hal ma-ra) translates roughly as Workers of the Sea, and is an organisation that build boats in the traditional way and also trains people to do the same.

Will it might have made an interesting image if one or the other had sunk on it’s maiden voyage, I’m glad to report neither did:

The only danger in sinking would have been from filling up with the incessant rain that we had that day.

TTFN

A bit of Friday fun – this image is several years old now, but I was driving down the same stretch of road yesterday and was reminded of this road-sign.

It’s genuine, no image manipulation whatsoever. I was assigned to shoot it by a newspaper that had received a report about it. It took me a few moments to figure out what the interest in it was.

It had me laughing all the way back home to think of someone going to all the secretive effort it must have taken, just to amuse themselves and others.

If you still can’t see-for-looking, check the available recreational facilities carefully…

TTFN

…one of these very often

It’s a double-headed, double-ended, push-me pull-you:

I wasn’t out and about looking for genetically modified animals, I just spotted this while on an un-related commission for my client.

The animals are Oryx, a type of Antelope.

TTFN