My parents were down for a visit and we planned to go to The Poacher’s Inn with them and big sis, but when we went to book we were told the Tapas night was starting at 8pm and it was only a very limited menu before that. As we hate to eat late, we decided to go to Bandon’s other superb restaurant, Chapel Steps. We figured it wouldn’t be too busy around 6.30pm and we didn’t bother book a table. Boy were we wrong. They were jammed and didn’t have a table free when we arrived. Whilst it was a disappointment for us, I was thrilled for Siobhan and the team. They’ve got an absolute winner on their hands now.

So back to Poacher’s and not only did they have a table, they were happy to give us the Tapas menu early. I was chuffed! We ordered a clatter of plates for sharing. We knew we had to be out by 8pm and were relieved when the plates started coming thick and fast.

Not a single dud. Not one. Everything was gorgeous and lots of it was surprising. The tempura oysters with pepper sauce were a revelation. The sauce on the whole prawns was completely addictive. I could go on and on about the tastes but I think a few pictures are called for. Apologies for the rubbish picture quality. It was quite dark and I couldn’t find the option to turn on the flash as a light in the camera app on the phone.

Superb olives:

Local cheeses and meats (that pickled cauliflower was a thing of joy):

My favourite share plate. Everything on this was perfect:

Biggest surprise for those who thought they didn’t like oysters:

The incredible sauce. I need that recipe!

Beautiful brill with patatas bravas (best pickled artichoke ever):

By 7.30pm I think we’d tried everything on the menu. And then we had the desserts. That thing with the granita was the nicest sweet I’ve had in years. Seriously.

The others raved about this dessert too:

Rory told us that it was just a one-off experiment but can I implore Poacher’s to do this regularly? I know it had 5 chefs flat-out all night Friday so maybe once a month? And have it all night rather than the big-bang at 8pm? We haven’t eaten out much recently and it’s food like this that will get us out the door regularly.

When we first moved to Bandon, we were told that there were no good restaurants here because it was too close to Cork. So everyone went to Cork or Kinsale to eat. But Urru, Poacher’s and Chapel Steps have proven that was bullcrap and was just an excuse for mediocrity in the past.

If we get another couple of places of this quality in the town, it will become a serious foodie destination and rightly call itself the new gourmet capital of Cork.

I sent some questions/thoughts over to Brian and his responses convinced me that this thing has legs. But it will only work if as many people as possible know about it.

So if you are a parent, a teacher or even a student, let’s make this happen for your school. Get them to go to Tuairisc.me, sign the school up for the FREE service and grab that one line of code.

If the school gets stuck adding the code, I’m sure many people, including me, would be glad to figure it out for you.

Then get the message out. If your school uses SMS, send one. If it uses school-bag paper-slips, use that. Put posters in the school telling kids they can safely and securely report bullying via the school’s site.

Tuairisc is another perfect example of a motivated tech person getting us from “someone should do something about this” to actually doing something about it. I hope we see many more.

1. Why is it so hard to find detailed information about walks/trails in West Cork and the rest of the country? The Irish Trails site is very poor indeed.
2. Why is Coillte sticking to unreadable-by-normal-people Ordnance Survey type maps in PDF format in 2013?
3. Why doesn’t Coillte have iPhone and Android Apps for all forest activities?
4. Wouldn’t such an App be a perfect positive example of The Gathering in action?
5. Wouldn’t Google Streetview tours of the walks/trails/forests be an amazing resource?
6. Why can’t I tell from online info if a walk/trail is buggy-friendly or small-child friendly?
7. Why is signage in Irish forests so utterly useless?
8. Why are we talking about selling off our forests rather than turning them into strong tourism revenue generators?

In the case of Castlefreke, rather than just complaining, I turned on a GPS tracker on my phone during the walk and uploaded much improved data to Open Street Map afterwards. I’d do the same on Google Maps but they don’t have a Map Maker for Ireland yet. (Aside: Sign-up to be notified when it happens here)

On our next walk, my plan is to take a Contour GPS camera and video the whole thing with location info. So future walkers can see exactly what a trail is like rather than relying on vague text descriptions on web-sites.

So it was a real joy for me to read Margaret Jordan’s blogpost this morning about the new permanent Orienteering Trail in Ballincollig Regional Park.  I did a bit of orienteering as a kid in the Scouts and absolutely loved it. It turned forest walks into an exciting adventure. It’s a sport that people of every age and ability can do. The one in Ballincollig sounds perfect for families.

And if you think about what’s involved, the cost to add this feature to any recreation space is very small. You could transform many barely used forests into hives of activity. But huge kudos to Cafe Chico for sponsoring the one in Ballincollig.

Given that Bandon is now an “Active Travel town” and funding has supposedly been allocated for walking and cycling routes, wouldn’t orienteering be an ideal and inexpensive way of achieving the aims of that initiative? I know we don’t have many forests locally. I once tried to go for a walk in Duke’s wood and failed miserably after a few yards. I wonder if Castlebernard would be amenable to such a thing? Or Manch? Are there other places, not necessarily forests where this could be done safely?

In the rest of West Cork there are plenty of areas where orienteering could slot right in. Imagine Lough Hyne or similar.

Thoughts? Problems? Suggestions?

UPDATE 1: I just noticed from the Cork Orienteering Club site that Farran has a permanent course too. That’s two weekends sorted for us now!

UPDATE 2 (20/01/2013): Today we had a go at the course in Ballincollig. We printed off 7 maps and the guide and got our warm clothes on. Overall we had good fun despite the usual kids complaints. But (big but!), you have to do it in wellies at this time of year. Most of the route is either off-path or on mud-filled paths. We did a short loop of the first 6 markers or so and were very mucky by the end. It’s not really suitable for people with buggies or very small children. Also if you want to split up into teams, there are a lot of rivers/streams/pools which means small kids must be accompanied by someone with sense. Highly recommended tho!

I started “running” back in 2009. It was not an auspicious beginning.

2009

• 28.43km

2010

• 435.81km
• Timoleague: First 10km
• Half Marathons: Dingle, Galway

2011

• 394.39km
• First road race in Vibram Five Fingers
• Half Marathons: Bandon, Amsterdam

2012

• 849.41
• 10kms: Bandon
• Half Marathons: Cork, Clonakilty
• First Marathon: Dublin

2013

• Second Marathon: Location TBD

I never did a blogpost on the Dublin Marathon. Must have been the mental scars So here we go:

After the Cork Half in June, I stated, as I always do, that I simply don’t have a marathon in me. But over July I thought more and more about it and finally, after a lot of egging on by my wife, signed-up to do the Dublin City Marathon.

I decided to follow the official training guide for a nice slow 5+ hour run. I was starting a month late but I figured the Cork Half training was an acceptable substitute. Overall training went very well even if the loop around Bandon does get a bit boring after the 3rd time in a day. Hopefully we’ll get a path all the way out to the railway path some time this decade. My schedule peaked at an 18 mile run which was very slow but gave me a huge boost in confidence.

The day of the Marathon was quite chilly and we did the short walk up from the Mespil with windbreakers on. I was totally planking it. Despite lots of attempts at warm-up, I was very cold at the start, particularly my poor Vibram clad feet. And then we were off.

I decided to err on the side of total caution and went very slowly around Stephen’s Green and up O’Connell St. All felt good heading up to NCR and into the Phoenix Park. The Park is the longest and most boring part of the run. My right calf started to feel tight about half way through it. By the time I got to Chapelizod Gate, I was in serious trouble. The calf hurt more and more. The pain behind my knee getting worse with every step.

I finally took a breather heading up to Kilmainham around mile 10 and walked up some hills. Walking was no better. And that was the rest of my Marathon. A mixture of walking, slow jogging and a tiny bit of running, barely able to extend my right leg at all. All my attempts to compensate ended up hurting shin muscles and then my left leg. Pure bloody torture.

But here’s the amazing thing. At no point did I think I wouldn’t finish. Knowing all of the second half of the route inside-out was a huge help. I could just tick off sections in my head. Walkinstown, KCR, Terenure, Milltown, etc. That stubborn part of my brain simply decided that if it was going to take 8 hours, it was going to take 8 hours, even if I had to do it on all fours. I have Scott Jurek’s book to thank for a lot of that mental attitude. If he can run 100 miles with his ankle held together with duct tape, I can do a jog around Dublin.

The worst part was coming on to Merrion Road. The downhill on Nutley wasn’t bad and I jogged most of it but then I tried to walk on Merrion and saw that long long road stretching out in front of me and I wobbled mentally. So I stuck my headphones in for the first time and put on some Kermode & Mayo movie reviews to distract me. Then RunKeeper told me I was doing < 3 miles an hour. And I had more than 3 miles to go. Another hour of torture awaited me. So I bit the bullet and started jogging again. My speed was barely above walking. In fact many walkers passed me.

But on I went. And I got to the bloody end. 6 hours and 32 minutes after I began.

And the first thought as I crossed the finish line, apart from wanting to bawl crying, was “right, the next one is going to be a lot faster”.

Epilogue (In the best tradition of The Streets of San Francisco): Catherine had to help me get to a taxi and back to the hotel. I then peeled off the Vibrams and discovered I didn’t have a single blister. Not a one. Crippled but blister free.

6 weeks later I did the Clonakilty Half. Still some aches and pains from Dublin but otherwise a grand run which proved that I hadn’t damaged anything irreparably.

Now we are planning our next one. We’re signed up for Berlin but that’s a long way away. London looks great but is pricey. Copenhagen looks fantastic in May but may be too hot (and pricey).

The training begins tomorrow.

UPDATE 1: I decided to go for a short 3 mile run this evening. Very sore achilles but bloody hell, managed to do my all-time fastest average speed over any distance. 2013 is off to a great start!

Right now they are doing Alerts for Met Eireann Severe Weather Warnings in all of the County and for Flood Warnings in Clonakilty. I assume they’ll eventually integrate Bandon FEWS in too rather than running two separate systems.

Other Alerts they will add in the future (presumably on the same opt-in basis) are:

• Road Closure & Scheduled Road Works
• Road Gritting and Salting Updates
• Road Incidents and Accidents
• Water Service Disruptions & Boil Water Notices
• Community and Miscellaneous Events
• Major Emergencies

The system is powered by Map Alerter, an Irish company based in Carlow and run by Brendan Cunningham. They already have several other CoCos using the system and I look forward to all counties signing up.

MapAlerter has an API and RSS feeds available and I’ll do a post here soon on how to use them for the Cork data. It’s a brilliant example of real #opendata being made available rather than being talked about.

I have to assume some of the towns in the county are creating, or have created, iPhone/Android Apps for their town. Alerts would be a very useful addition to those.

Well done to all involved.

They are currently focused on Scratch, HTML and JavaScript. If you have any skills in those areas, they would really appreciate more mentors taking part.

Our eldest has just started using Scratch and is finding it good fun. Here’s a screenshot:

You currently need to have a laptop to take part in Coder Dojo. I know this excludes a lot of people but Camara Ireland has stepped in to help there. You can get reconditioned laptops from them via the Coder Dojo movement for between €114 and €125, which is a great price.

I also wonder if there is any possibility for school PCs to be used during the Coder Dojos too? Or perhaps, over time, Raspberry Pis which people can bring and hook up to the monitors there? This would maximise the number of people who can get involved with Coder Dojo, no matter what their financial situation.

Note that parents must accompany children for the entire session. If you have any questions about it at all, contact bandoncoderdojo@gmail.com

When I switched from running in Bikilas to these TrekSports, I started getting a sore spot just behind the ball of my left foot. It appears to be due to a seam on the VFFs rubbing me. Using a temporary pad worked during the week so now I’m hoping this Sugru fix will be permanent. I have to run 5 miles tonight so that should prove it one way or another.

Timoleague was formerly a place of some note, being much resorted to by the Spaniards, who imported large quantities of wine here and it is said there were formerly no less than fourteen taverns that sold sack in the town.

Looking at the wide slob lands when the tide is out, or the shallow waters at full tide, it is hard to believe that here was once a busy Medieval port where foreign merchants from France and Spain bartered their wines and Mediterranean produce for Irish butter, hides and farm produce

In Timoleague’s case, the harbour silted up through no fault of the town. In contrast, we can actually save Bandon from becoming  ”formerly a place of some note”.

Due to some catastrophic incompetence a few years back by the powers that be, when the two optical fibres were laid on the way to Clonakilty, no-one thought to spend a few quid running a spur to Bandon. So whilst Dunmanway has a MAN (for what?) and Clon has a fibre-enabled Technology Park, Bandon has residential-quality DSL, at best, for local businesses. In Old Chapel, we max out at 6Mbs down and sometimes 512kbs up.

Anyone setting up a business in the next few years will insist on decent internet connectivity. No FDI company will ever setup in Bandon without Fibre.

The Council is now about to spend millions ripping up the streets of Bandon to install a new drainage system. Why the hell isn’t Fibre being laid along all the new drains? It may not be able to connect to anything now, but in a few years time when budget is available again to run a spur here, Bandon could be the most advanced connected town in Ireland.

But of course, being Ireland, we won’t, and Bandon will slowly become Timoleague. A lovely place to visit and look at old ruins.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pqLRH6gS6c0

In March 2011, after doing 2 Half Marathons and a 10k, I was close to giving up on running. Every time I got on a treadmill in my ASICs, I got crippling shin-splints within minutes. It was like trying to run with two solid wooden peg legs. Running on grass was only slightly better.

18 months prior to that I had also destroyed my ankle by going over sideways on it twice in quick succession. A bunch of physio had helped and given me back some proprioception but I was still very nervous on uneven surfaces. I also got terrible pains during running in my ankle and foot where all the damage had occurred. Did I mention my scarily clicky knees? And of course, I was diagnosed with “fallen arches” as a kid after complaining that walking hurt. Picking up pencils with my toes never really sorted that out

So the day I tried running in my socks on the treadmill was hugely momentous for me. I ran like a small child on a beach. No pain, none. All gone. Then a bunch of people recommended Vibram Five Fingers and everything changed forever.

I got my first pair, Bikilas, in John Buckley Sports in Cork and they were a revelation. I have honestly never looked back. Those Bikilas did The Bandon Half Marathon, the Amsterdam Half Marathon, The Bandon 10k and finally, last Monday, the Cork Half Marathon. They have also done a few hundred km on a treadmill and some local road and grass running.

Of course they get laughs, questions and stares, rightly so. I’m always up for the slagging about them. Hell, I now own them, a pair of Trek Sports and a pair of KSO Treks so I’m setting myself up for some ribbing. But I’ll never go back to traditional running shoes. I can’t.

The only issue I have found with the Bikilas is running on Irish back-roads in those races. Unlike footpaths or nice tarmac, we have a horrible surface on most Irish R routes. The stones rise up out of the tar and create a really knobbly surface. After 21km on that, I always end up with two big blisters on the balls of my feet. I’m probably exacerbating it by landing on the inside of my foot.

Most people worry about the impact on your feet, ankles, knees and hips of running with no padding but it’s honestly the complete opposite. You land on the front of your foot, not your heel, so your foot does what it evolved to do: take the impact. My problem above is surface quality, not the fact that it’s a road.

I’ve also been getting new blisters on the Bikilas so my guess is that they are knackered. I’m not sure they were designed to handle this amount of weight I’ve worn the heels away quite badly but I don’t feel like I am heel striking so maybe that’s just a natural outcome or the treadmill is catching the back of them.

So it’s time to retire them and plan my next moves. First I’m going to try my Trek Sports for running. I see people complaining they lose foot-feel with them but that’s what I want on Irish roads. The extra knobbly bits on the sole may be perfect for the bad surfaces. I’ll also focus on adjusting how I land on my foot to aim more for the middle. And of course I need to do more road running to toughen the skin on the balls of my feet.

If I find the Treksports too clunky then I think my next pair will be Bikila LS. They have an expandable top which for someone with a high instep like me, should make them a slightly better fit than the Bikila.

If you are thinking about Vibrams or similar shoes but are afraid to try, please leave your questions below. I am the most atypical runner ever – I’m still 3 stone overweight and apparently (according to my sister-in-law) I run awkwardly.

Oh a final side-note. We found out recently that the main disties for VFFs in Ireland, barefoot.ie, are based in the Rubicon Centre in CIT in Cork. So support local!

UPDATE: How could I do a post on Vibram Five Fingers and not mention this brilliant XKCD from last week:

Plenty of activity in the past month, some good, some bad. Variety and texture remain problematic but overall, sticking to veggie and fairly vegan for the past few weeks.

Some product updates to share. First, the good ones:

• Sojade – A bifidus soya yoghurt-alternative. This is a shocker. Smells and pretty much tastes like natural yoghurt. Has that lactic tang which is so missing in most soy products. Used it in a curry instead of yoghurt and could not tell the difference. Pretty sure you could add pureed fruit to it to make normal yoghurts and not be able to tell it lacks dairy. Got it and several other recent products in Quay Co-Op in Ballincollig. It’s not as big as the Cork one but handier for me to get to.
• Silken Tofu – Found this shelf-stable stuff in Scally’s in Clon. Total disaster when I tried to fry it and use in curry. It just melted. However it makes a brilliant dairy alternative for many recipes where smoothness and creaminess required. I used it in a pea puree recipe instead of cream and it worked a treat in the food processor. I’ll post that recipe soon, it was a big success.
• Quorn Mince – Yesterday I made traditional spag bol for the kids but used Quorn instead of minced beef. All of the kids loved it and rated it delicious. I told none of them what they were actually eating. Proves, yet again, my point about a lot of foods being easily replaceable with plants, if you can get the texture right.
• Dal – After reading most of an Indian Vegetarian cookbook, I finally did one of the recipes yesterday (minus the relentless Usli Ghee on every page). This was a spicy dal with 6 chillis and red lentils. Utterly gorgeous. Had more of it today and will have more again tomorrow. Total win, full of protein.
• Darina Allen’s Cucumber Pickle Recipe – if you loved the jars and miss them, her recipe is identical and only takes a few mins with a mandolin to do. Apparently they cancelled the supermarket product as the stuff was fermenting and blowing the lids. You can still get it fresh in Midleton Farmer’s Market. I’ll post the recipe here soon with full attribution.

Now for the failures:

• Quorn Smoky Bacon Slices – Horrible. Imagine a plate of BBQ-flavoured Rancheros with the rest of your food. Nothing is right about this product from taste to smell to texture
• Quorn Chicken Pieces – I’ve gone completely off this. Texture is just so wrong.
• Some veggie sausages with leeks – You can’t just mush spuds and leeks together into a tube and call it a sausage. It’s a bloody croquette. Nothing wrong with the taste, it’s just false advertising.

Apart from that, still doing some Oatly but finding it too much in every cup of tea. Tea is really my downfall for the vegan bit. Still doing low-fat milk there and in the morning porridge. A bit of goat’s cheese in the two-weekly homemade pizza too. That’s about it for dairy.

More stuff on recipes in the coming weeks. But in the meantime, seek out that Sojade, you won’t believe how good it is!

Overall, it’s still entirely vegetarian except for the Friday chicken curry and I’m be strongly tempted to replace that with something veggie soon due to a great Indian Veggie book my sister got me. Apart from milk in my tea and porridge and the odd bit of cheese on a homemade pizza, I’m still also pretty close to vegan. Those fake cheese really did turn out to be disgusting and were binned. Oh I nearly forgot, I also still love mayo which has eggs. Those vegan alternatives were like cheap own-brand salad cream. Texture people, texture!

One big problem is that I’ve been totally unable to find an acceptable milk substitute. Soy Milk is the work of the devil and Rice Milk is the work of his assistant. Try either in tea and you will pour them down the sink immediately. A Chai Tea Latte in Heuston Station was one of the most disgusting things I’ve ever put in my mouth and I’ve eaten pigs brains.

But a few weeks ago I bought something called Oatly and I just tried it in a cuppa and wow wow wow, it works! No nasty aftertaste, no horrible texture, just a nice creamy addition to my tea with a not off-putting different shade to the usual milk one. I’m thrilled and will buy lots more the next time I’m in Quay Co-Op.

The Oatly stuff is really interesting on several levels. It’s made from oats, water and oil using a process from the University of Lund in Sweden. I love the idea of using products that are grown locally in a country to try and find new uses for them. As we all know, oats are very good for you too. So this is a win, win, win for me I think. Tomorrow I will try on my porridge which is amusing I guess, since they are both made from the same thing.

Week to week I am sticking with the tempeh, smoked tofu, lots of veg, lots of fruit, hummus, falafel, ramen, curries, miso soup and a jam-packed morning porridge with goji berries, chia seeds and honey. Those Chia seeds are mad and I’m a fan. If you’ve read Born to Run, you’ll already know all about them. A guy in Waterford is selling them branded Chia Bia which is a nice touch so I’ve bought those.

I continue to buy Dee’s Burgers but we have failed to spot her new ready meals in the usual West Cork haunts and I really want to try them. Maybe in Scally’s today?

The main thing lacking right now is variety and that’s down to time. I need to dig deeper into the Veganomicon for fast recipes. I had a real win last week after watching an episode of River Cottage Veg Every Day where Hugh FW and the guys had a veggie sambo competition. I would never have thought of putting orange or carrot in a sandwich but they were gorgeous. However both myself and my bro-in-law Phil would lay claim to having invented the beetroot sandwich many years ago, so hands off!

What else? Oh yeah, I tried some of the Quorn fake sliced meats (turkey and ham). Nah sorry, completely the wrong texture and too dry. I’ve been banging on about the texture problem since the start so I was thrilled to see this NY Times video posted on Facebook by my old collegemate Bernard who has been a vegan for decades and is currently trying out the raw food approach. If this product hits the shelves I’ll be a very happy bunny:

More updates when I’ve tried a few curries and sandwiches.

Quick, I’m sure it’ll be gone by April 2nd.

And here’s the video that explains it. Just fantastic.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rznYifPHxDg

Sidenote: The best picture quality you’ve ever seen on this blog. Guess who finally got a proper camera?

There are two reasons I’ve been doing this. The first is that I use a miracle stomach drug called Omeprazole which solved over 20 years of chronic stomach problems when I finally discovered it (and other PPIs like Nexium). Getting the branded versions via prescription here would cost an arm and a leg but it is available as a non-prescription (i.e. OTC) generic in the US.

The second is the criminal difference between the cost in Ireland of normal NSAIDs like paracetemol/ibuprofen and the cost in the US. How about 500 ibuprofen for $12.99 or 500 paracetemol (acetaminophen) for $11.99? Compared to maybe €2 for 24 generic paracetemol here? Also, it’s 500, not some idiotic packet of 12 that Micheál Martin forced on us during his reign.

Whilst the products were cheap, the shipping and customs really added up so we would buy 6-9 months worth of products at a time and made big savings. Unfortunately drugstore.com decided to stop doing direct international shipping a few months ago which had me very worried. However they did say they were happy to use a third party shipping agency in the US. They recommended one but I decided to go with US Unlocked, with whom I already had an account.

US Unlocked is a great service. I signed up with them to get an online US Credit Card to buys things like Amazon VOD TV shows etc but their core business is providing people with US shipping addresses. The idea is that you have a unique address with them in New Jersey and when you order, you provide that address to the vendor. You can order from multiple vendors and wait until everything arrives there. They notify you of each arrival. Once you are ready, you tell them what you want shipped and they quote you a price via UPS. You pay the fee (normal credit card, PayPal etc) and they ship. Simple.

I did an order recently with drugstore.com and another from Florian Tools who make a superb ratchet pruners that my mother loves. Florian used to have very cheap shipping to Ireland but when I checked recently, the shipping cost more than the product! This is a common issue in the US.

For this order, US Unlocked quoted me $67 to send a few hundred dollars worth of stuff, which I thought was very reasonable. No other fees were involved and all the US-based drugstore.com deliveries were free. It took a week to arrive due to some weird hold-up with UPS in Germany but everything arrived perfectly today.

Note that you may incur customs charges depending on the products, so factor that into your spend. I’d recommend doing a big family order twice a year and share the shipping cost across the family.

I’m really thrilled how well it worked out. Big thumbs up for both drugstore.com and US Unlocked.

I’m still picking at the odd bit of ham/turkey and I’m still doing the Friday Chicken Curry but apart from that, it is all veggie. If I removed the milk from my tea I’d basically be vegan. But that ain’t happening.

Foods I continue to love on this diet:

• Hummus
• Falafel
• Asparagus
• Broccoli
• Avocado
• Portobello mushrooms
• Beetroot
• Tomatoes
• Salad leaves
• Pomegranate seeds
• Porridge with linseed and goji berries/prunes
• Ryvita
• Brown Rice (surprisingly)
• Dee’s Burgers
• Linda’s Sausages
• Home made pizza (one reason for needing fake cheese)
• A wide range of relishes, chutneys and pickles
• Lemon, Balsamic and Soy sauce for sparkle

Things I found a bit meh:

1. German Tofu with Kombucha
2. Quorn sausages
3. Quorn chicken pieces

Today I did a run to the famous Quay Co-Op in Cork to get some other things I wanted to try plus some staples. I’ll do an update after I try the new things but purchases included:

1. Sheese fake cheddar
2. Cheezly fake mozzarella
3. Quinoa
4. Chia Seeds (I literally just read about these in Born To Run last night. Some miracle seeds apparently. Or so the Beanstalk boy said.)
5. Tempeh
6. Udon Noodles
7. Miso Soup
8. Oatly oat-based milk substitute
9. Stevia sweetener
10. Sauerkraut
11. Prunes
12. Puy Lentils
13. Smoked Tofu
14. Apple puree
15. Ramen
16. More porridge flakes, brown rice etc
17. Agave sweetener

I have a blogpost forming in my head about how the veggie-world needs a giant processed food corporation (Kraft, Nestle, etc) to throw all the knowledge of their food scientists at making better substitute products. I’m convinced something far superior to all this extruded mushy stuff can be created. The fatal flaw in most of the products I have tried remains texture. The sponginess of the tofu, even fried, was particularly horrible. Looking forward to seeing if Tempeh is better.

Also, given how far removed a chicken nugget is from actual chicken, I am 100% sure McDonalds could do a Vegan McNugget that was indistinguishable in taste and texture to a “chicken” one.

So onwards we go. I need to expand the range of things so I don’t get bored. Time to dig into the Veganomicon more.

UPDATE 1: Just made a Sheese toastie. Not the worst thing I’ve ever tasted. The Sheese out of the packet smells rank and tastes like standard processed cheese. It doesn’t melt brilliantly but when paired with a decent mustard, I scoffed the lot. Needed a slice of ham or something tho!

UPDATE 2: Tried the Agave sweetener in my tea. Perfectly tasty but then it is mainly just fructose. It says low GI but really, I have to wonder. The Stevia thing is interesting tho. From the makers of Canderel. Very new product. No calories but lots of lactose. If it lacks the after-taste of Saccharin, Aspartame and Sucralose, I’ll be happy.

UPDATE 3: The Cheezly smells as rank as the Sheese but melts ok and tastes fine when melted. The third type of veggie sausage was nasty and dry. The ramen were lovely. And the real winner was the Tempeh. Nutty, solid, fries well, great texture. Gonna use a few different ways this week.

I was thrilled to see that Kinsale has kicked one off too and they had 103 kids at their first one. Well done!

Annnd I’ve just spotted that they now have one on Sundays in Blackrock Observatory.

If you are anywhere even vaguely close to either club I would encourage you to go with your children. I am absolutely convinced that early exposure to “computers” in a creative setting (not as consumers reading web pages or playing games) gives children a swathe of new opportunities in life that they would otherwise miss out on. They may never be programmers but they may become designers, engineers, scientists or artists.

This is also absolutely not a thing only for middle class, technical parents. The clubs have plenty of spare computers and people there who can help/guide the kids. You just have to be there to mind them

The contact details for the City one are here. It is on every Saturday morning in the NSC in Mahon.

Kinsale details here.

The Kinsale one is on this evening at 7pm in The Trident Hotel. Please contact them if you are intending to go so they have an idea of numbers. They use an SMS system to gauge numbers each week where you just send Y/N in reply to a text message.

Blackrock details here.

Munster Programming Training

I should also mention the granddaddy of them all, the brilliant Munster Programming Training course which has been going for many years in UCC. Coder Dojo founder James Whelton attended it himself so it must be good! It is targeted at Transition Year students as preparation for participation in the “All Irish Schools Programming Competition”. Full details here.

As I have been officially obese for the past few years, I was in my regular new year weight loss mode and wanted to do it in a healthy way. The book sounded like an intriguing approach so I bought it on Kindle.

Unlike the relentless quackery that surrounds diet and diets, this was written by a man who worked his entire career as a doctor and researcher. His credits include the NIH and the Cleveland Clinic. I have to say, he makes a very strong case. If you can’t face the very very long book, grab a copy of the Forks Over Knives documentary which summarises his and other doctors’ thinking.

The core argument is that the gigantic increase in meat and dairy consumption is to blame for many of our ailments and these problems can be stopped and even reversed by switching to a much more veg-based diet. Basically like we used to eat in every society before we became rich.

So for kicks and giggles I have decided to try a mainly plant-based diet for the next “while” (duration TBD). I haven’t given up meat and dairy completely but I have cut down hugely.

In the past two weeks I have had no red meat, no eggs, cheese once, some weekend rashers/sausages and a smattering of turkey/chicken. The only dairy I get is a splash of milk in my tea. I tried both rice milk and soy milk and they are gross. A soy latte is an abomination.

On the veggie side, I have had lots of veg (duh), lots of fruit, seeds, wholemeal breads, porridge, hummus, salad and pickled veg. On the pure veggie side I have had Dee’s Spicy Bean Burger (not bad), Linda McCartney’s veggie sausages (surprisingly spot-on both for texture and taste), Brendan’s Vegetarian Burritos (nice taste but pure slop) and fried tofu with a ras el hangout coating (texture is too squishy).

Things I cannot stand about most veggie food in cafes etc are the ubiquitous bell peppers, aubergines and courgettes. Everything tastes the bloody same.

Tomorrow I’ll do a middle-eastern type thingy with falafel which I have become addicted to.

On the recommendation of several veggies I got the Veganomicon cookbook which I have just started and is a good fun read.

Plan for next week is more beans, more texture and less chicken/turkey. The only thing I’m not giving up is the Friday chicken curry. I did a butternut squash curry last week and I’m sorry, but no.

Texture remains an issue with all the non-meat proteins. I’m going to take trip into Quay Co-Op on Saturday to see what else they have. Seitan maybe? I’ll also see what else Tobairin in Bandon has (they do the burritos and the tofu).

Funnily enough I’m doing more a vegan thing than a vegetarian thing. Who would have thunk? Let’s see how long I last.

Another update in a few weeks.

However, it it critically important that anyone who relies on their standard roof aerial to get RTE, TV3 etc knows what is happening on Dec 31st 2012. Whilst there have been Saorview flyers in the post and the Dept of Communications has put together this horror of a web-site, I have severe doubts that those whom it will affect most are even aware of the analogue TV shutdown. My biggest concern is that older people are the ones most likely to be still using non-digital TV and they simply won’t know that the switchover is happening.

I strongly recommend that if you know anyone who is not on Sky/UPC/etc and is still using a roof aerial to get their small set of channels, let them know they need to move to a digital receiver in the next 12 months. In fact they can move now, since the Saorview service is working really well.

Given the dire financial situation in the country, any extra cost on people is going to be a strain so I was thrilled when Barry from tvtrade.ie contacted me about the Xoro DTV-M5 Digital TV Receiver. He had read my review of the Ariva and wondered if I would review their inexpensive Xoro box for them. At €49 for a fully-functional Irish Terrestrial DTV box, of course I said yes. He shot me down a review unit for free a couple of days later and I’ve been beating it up for the past few weeks.

Short aside: I need to clarify the difference between “Saorview” and Irish DTT. You will see a lot of boxes on the market like the Xoro that are labelled Irish DTT or Irish Digital TV but which are not Saorview-certified. You shouldn’t worry about this in the slightest. Either the boxes obey the relevant standards that Saorview uses or they don’t. If they don’t, you simply return the box for a full refund. It’s a bit like saying your PC is certified to access the internet. That’s why we have Standards in the tech world. The key thing with Saorview is that the box can decode MPEG-4 video and can display the Programme Guide (EPG). The Xoro does both perfectly.

First the basics. The really nice thing about Saorview is that if you have an alright RTE aerial signal now, you literally unplug the aerial lead from the back of your TV, plug it into the Xoro box, plug a Scart or HDMI lead from the Xoro back to your TV and you should now be receiving RTE, TV3, TG4 and some other stations (not UK) in crystal clear digital. You also get a bunch of Irish radio stations in digital too. It really is that simple. In fact, even if you have a buzzy RTE signal, it’ll probably work perfectly and fuzz-free for Saorview.

Now on to the Xoro box itself. It’s tiny! I love getting neat units like this which can fit into the smallest nook or cranny. The front panel has just Power, Channnel+, Channel- and USB. I really wish all the box manufacturers would put the USB on the side or the back but most have it on the front. More on USB later.

This picture shows its size compared to an XBOX (excuse the messy cable setup, I moved it quickly between rooms last night so the kids could watch the Toy Show):

Usage is dead simple simple and the box goes from off to showing a TV programme in a couple of seconds. You can channel change up/down as you’d expect and Saorview has a 7-day Programme Guide, so you can see what’s coming-up on-screen. You can use Scart (for older TVs) or HDMI (for LCD/Plasma) to connect to the TV. It handles all the various picture resolutions up to 1080p but I’m pretty sure nothing on Saorview is at that high-res yet. There is teletext handling there too but as it’s not 1987, I didn’t bother check. The remote is fiddly compared to a Sky+ one but is fine and you get used to it in a few minutes.

Like all Irish DTT boxes, the TV channel list is as follows:

• RTE One
• RTE Two HD
• TV3
• TG4
• 3e
• RTE News Now
• RTE Jr
• RTE One +1
• RTE Aertel

Radio is as follows:

• RTE Radio 1
• RTE 2fm
• RTE Lyric fm
• RTE Radio na Gaeltachta
• RTE 2XM
• RTE Choice
• RTEjr
• RTE Gold
• RTE Pulse
• RTE Radio 1 Extra

The bit that really impresses me with the Xoro is the USB/PVR. Basically you plug a portable USB harddisk into it and you now have the ability to pause/play/record/timer-record anything that is being broadcast. The overall setup is similar to Sky+ but obviously isn’t going to be as slick. Unlike the hell that is the Ariva 120, it all works really well including getting the programme name right (helllllo Ferguson, can you sort that out?).

I did have issues with one harddisk but it turns out that this is a very common problem. Harddisks of around 500GB capacity that are USB-powered struggle to get enough juice from many USB ports. In fact my troublesome one doesn’t work on any of my PC’s USB hubs either, I have to use a split-cable for it. The same split-cable trick worked on the Xoro. In general (not Xoro specific) you should either use a smaller less power-hungry HDD, which are hard to get, or use one that has it’s own power supply. Also these set-top-boxes prefer to format the harddrive themselves. It only takes a second.

If you have a bunch of media files (movies, tv, music), you can copy them onto the harddisk and the media player on the Xoro should be able to handle them no matter what the format. I tried an SD AVI, a 720p x264 MKV and a 1080p AVI and they all worked perfectly.

There’s not much more to say. It’s a very impressive piece of kit at a shockingly low price and no-one should have any hassle figuring out how to use it. If anyone asks me to recommend an Irish DTT box from now on, I’ll point them to the Xoro.

And please, let older relatives and neighbours know that the switchover is coming and they need to get a DTT box. In the UK they are doing information days and a travelling roadshow across the country to let people know. What are they doing here?

13 minutes really just left me wanting more. Given that the Late Late cannot compete for “celebrity” guests with the UK chatshows, how about more time on fewer meatier guests like this from now on?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-sc_i-5FivE