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That was no mob! A pitiful performance! You should be ashamed of yourselves - those who didn’t make the effort. Its a team effort people!
In this photo are a few of the mobsters.
Here is all the space available for potential mobsters
Those who were there were awesome! A small group, who gathered afterwards, included Duke Special who was just passing through after getting a Costa Coffee (seen below just leaving), discussed future plans in a very mob-like manner.
Next time will be better.
TODAY Flash Mob gathering in Belfast
Victoria Square ground floor
1pm
Like this, only more people - hopefully.
It may not be quite so populated as London’s Flash Mob on Friday 11th April, but we can try.
This Thursday I have a very special photographic exhibition to mark the opening of Belfast City Office. This is an office space centre on Elmwood Avenue, close to Queens University and the Students Union.
Merging premium serviced-office space, top-notch in-house IT support from Xootec, administrative & business support and very smart facilities for meeting, greeting and networking, the BCO team have fashioned a fantastic alternative to the traditional rented office space.
“…We are a small and greatly motivated team here and we strive to ensure our clients receive top quality support. If asked, why BCO? We would answer because, We Care for Your Business.”
…[They] have successfully brought this period building bang up to date as beautiful Victorian architecture fuses effortlessly with dynamic modern design.
The photographs on display are of sights around two contrasting cities; Belfast and New York City, both continuously growing at a rapid rate in all directions; culturally, economically, musically, artistically as well as in architecture and cityscape.
The launch of the centre is the only time members of the public will have the chance to see these photographs, so please do stop by on your lunch break for some free lunch! It begins at 11am, though will be open throughout the day.
SNAP! Screening a series of short documentaries from FourDocs and 3 Minute Wonder.
Thursday 27th March 2008
The Drawing Office, Titanic Quarter, 2 Queen’s Road, Queens Island, Belfast [MAP]
Doors open 7pm, screening at 8pm
Free admission
Part One
3MW: Mouthing Off: Scoring (Ken Wardrop)3MW: Lee Kern’s A-Z of London: Love (Lee Kern)
4Docs: Kebab (Khaldoon Ahmed)
4Docs: Rose Thieves (Jane Cheadle)
3MW: Little Worlds: Maria’s Story (Sally Hewitt)
4Docs: Flora and Thieves (Xanthe Hamilton)
4Docs: I Remember Lebanon (Zenia Aboul Hosn)
Part Two
3MW: People in Order: Age 1-100 (James Price & Lenka Clayton)3MW: WarTorn Stories of separation: Anna & Rissell (David Modell)
4Docs: Twenty Lenghts (Katie Barlow)
3MW: Beside the Seaside: Ice-cream (Julie Moggan)
4Docs: Weston Super Mare (Dan Blore)
3MW: Preparing for the Worst - Gordon Francis (James Caddick)
4Docs: Country Commute (Robin Field)
Well I live in Ireland so I can’t forget about St Patrick’s Day now can I.
I like to keep it pretty quiet - see last year’s rant for why. The plan was to take photographs of the parade as it made its way from the City Hall to to Custom House Square, but of course the two batteries I had with me quickly died. Thankfully I got a few shots of the parade - though I had other plans for the afternoon anyway.
Two friends from England were over for the weekend and so we went to Pizza Hut in Victoria Square (all-you-can-eat buffet for £6!) then to Roast Coffee (note to self: free wi-fi!) to chill.
Random Saint Patrick facts:
-There is no histrocal evidence St.Patrick ever went south of the border hence the name of Downpatrick which is abbreviated from its origianl Ulster Scots name Donchabeegoingdowntherepatrickhey
-The south was entirely pagan until the introduction of the Euro when its animal worshipping coinage (dolphins, horses, deers etc) was replaced by sensible looking bridges and pictures of other European heads of state brought back from holidays. Juan Carlos of Spain is particularly popular in Mayo.
-St.Patrick built the first ever UTV transmitter on the top of Slemish. It was made of sheep bones.
- As well as killing the Loch Ness Monster, Goliath and leading all of the rats into the lagan with his magic flute, he, in a race with the Pope cut of his hand and threw it onto Ulster (Gods Own Soil) thus proclaiming it a non papal state for all eternity.
- St Patrick’s real name is Steve.
- St Patrick is actually allergic to the Black Stuff.
- St.Patrick leaves the toilet without washing his hands if there’s no one else around.
There had been rumours that this year would be better than the previous two, and with the addition of intros, music and a few words from George Bush it was. Once again, but very deservedly, Twenty Major won the award for best blog, coinciding with the recent release of his book the two prizes go hand in hand. Maybe it’s time to give someone else a chance next year.
Highlights of the night include Robin Blandford’s mum collecting his prize on his behalf, Kieran Murphy of Ice Cream Ireland’s dress sense, Nialler9 winning once again, Grannymar and Grandad sharing the same stage.
The award for best photoblog this year went to Claire of Gingerpixel and with her blog being filled with so many brilliant photographs, especially her great portraits of people she has stopped in the street she definitely deserved this prize.
He tried, he failed, he left. But he won a prize finally. Jett Loe was honoured with a special prize this year for being “shafted” in previous years, and truly shafted once more being 3899 miles away in Nashville, Tennessee. However I retrieved his prize and have brought it back to Belfast - not before taking it on a journey around Dublin first.
Jett, I’d be happy to bring it to you…
For me the award ceremony was better than previous years, especially with the super-enjoyable photo meet beforehand, and meeting more people than before. Unfortunately I regret meeting less people than I would have liked, and for leaving too early due to Andy telling me that he had gone to another bar, but in the end turning out to have changed the plan and ending up going back to the hostel, while everyone else was still drinking back at the Alexander.
Before leaving I did get plenty of photographs of random people hanging around - many of whom I don’t know. If you know their names, add tags on flickr
However, as usual the whole weekend was one big motivator to organise my blog better, to figure out a real agenda and better acquaint myself with more bloggers.
I also hope to get down to Dublin, and maybe other cities in the South of Ireland before the next Bloggies.
Finally, congrats again to all the great bloggers who won, to everyone who was there and made the weekend so good, and of course to Damien and everyone who helped put together another great awards ceremony.
For more photos of Jett’s ‘Shafted’ award click here
For more photos of the Irish Blog Awards 2008 click here
We awoke early on saturday morning, in true tourist style. I took my first photograph of the day by 9.20am, of Andy eating his very tasty croissant in a small café down by the quay. After breakfast we began taking photos for real. Heading to Temple Bar, Grafton Street and St. Stephen’s Green.
Walking really is tiring, so we found a nice bar called Sinnotts underneath the St Stephen’s Green Shopping Centre. Sat down, found free wireless and used their facilities whilst contemplating what we were going to select from the menu, not realising that it was 11:45 and we had to be at the Spire in 15mins for the photo meet.
We left the bar, grabbed an Abrakebabra on Temple Bar which tasted terrible, then met Red Mum, Ellybabes, John, Owen, Ryan, Gingerpixel, and Keith. We headed towards Trinity then off to St Stephen’s Green, via Grafton Street. I had never been on a photo meet-up before and really enjoyed it. Quite simply amazing. So many factors involved which I loved. Being with some great people, taking photographs in the street, talking blogs and general nerdiness - it doesn’t get much better.
It was all finished off with a few pints before myself and Andy headed to Wagamama on South King Street - he’s been going on about it for a few weeks, so we had to do it. It was indeed very nice, though next time I won’t go for the very spicy noodle soup with far too much liquid in a huge bowl.
The rest goes of in a bit of a drink fuelled tangent… the story will be continued later.
(Plenty more photos on my flickr stream)
It’s 2am and I’m on Andy’s lovely laptop in the hostel. Having spent almost 4hrs on the bus from Belfast we were pretty tired and in desperate need of restroom facilities, so grateful of the fact that we had to get a separate bus from the airport to the city centre.
Once we arrived we headed to a small pub by Trinity college called Bowes Pub where we met Niall and Aoife for a few drinks, before heading to the hostel, then to an Italian restaurant on Temple Bar for Pizza and wine.
After the meal we got back to the hostel where I continued to read Twenty Major’s book book which arrived in the post only this morning.
So far I’m enjoying reading it. There are some great one-liners.
The plan for tomorrow is to head to the Spire for a photo meet-up, get lunch/dinner in Wagamama then head to the blog awards.
I’m looking forward to seeing again the people I have met before. Not so much looking forward to constantly saying that I wish I had kept in touch better since the last time we met, and promising to do it this time. However, this time I really will try to keep in contact with anyone and every one I meet.
If anyone is up for getting drinks after, or before, provided I don’t drink to much at the event/it ends early-ish (not that I want that), myself and Andy are very up for that.
Hope to see plenty of friendly faces
Gary Lightbody doesn’t like bloggers.
He wasn’t too impressed with my ‘i’m blogging this’ t-shirt.
So he took my camera from my hands and took this photo of himself, Ian Archer and me:
Later Stuart Bailie, Terri Hooley, Gary Lightbody and Joe Echo sang Gloria by Van Morrison:
This was followed by a set by Iain Archer
This was my Friday night…
I first listened to Bruce Springsteen’s Nebraska album a few weeks ago. I tried hard to like it, but I just couldn’t. Each track has a story, more often than not quite a sad story, but the style of the album isn’t for me.
However, that doesn’t really matter. What is important is that each of the ten tracks from the album were performed brilliantly by ten local artists/bands.
the line-up was as follows:
Nebraska - Robyn G Shiels
Atlantic City - Ben Glover
Mansion On The Hill - Bap Kennedy
Johnny 99 - Jonny Black
Highway Patrolman - Rachel Austin
State Trooper - Boathouse
Used Cars - Desert Hearts
Open All Night - Matt McGinn
My Father’s House - Pixie Saytar
Reason To Believe - Brian Houston
My personal highlights were Rachel Austin’s intense version of Highway Patrolman and Boathouse’s unique take on State Trooper.
(more on flickr!)
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