From today anyone travelling to the US from visa waiver countries – Ireland included – will have to be fingerprinted and photographed to enter the US. This comes on top of a recent agreement by the EU to hand over US bound passenger’s name, address and credit card information to the US. I don’t understand why the EU agree to these demands if they stood fast and refused to accept these conditions there is nothing the US could do about it.
I’m just back from a trip to the US on the way through Shannon there were about 100 american soldiers in desert camouflage marching around, I wasn’t sure if we’d been invaded or not normally when you see foreign soldiers in your country that’s whats happened. While over there I saw some of Bush’s election ads, you know it’s one thing hearing about them but seeing them playing in ad breaks takes your breath away. It all went to strengthen my sinking feeling that Bush is going to win and win big and that we don’t really understand americans at all.

Now why don’t we have graffiti like this in Dublin? Some great Argentinian street art from the Wooster Collective

A wonderful exchange of emails between Dennis Borisov, russian translator of Scarlett Thomas’ new novel, and the author as he tries to figure out what the colloquialisms actually mean. A fascinating insight into the nuances of language, of particular interest if you are trying to advance beyond the basic levels in learning one

I eventually got to hear dEUS’s new single if you don’t get what you want (available only from their website), it’s a more stripped down raw sound with lots of energy – in my opinion what they do best. There’s also a (video) interview with Tom Barman and they’ve put the video for Turnpike online which is one of my favourite videos ever. Hmm that’ll have to be your dEUS fix until the album comes out in about 7 months!

We had some nice weather over the weekend (at last!) so some pastoral pictures

Sad news that Ilford the market leader in B&W film and paper has been forced into administration due to falling sales of B&W photographic materials. There is still hope that the B&W business can be sold as a going concern, it would be a crime if Ilford’s products just ceased to exist. A sign of our digital times.

I’ve been reading all the online and press material about the US election and the RNC in NY and I had almost convinced myself that Bush was going to lose, but then I saw this picture and now I’m sure he’s going to win.