This is quite cool - a website that shows you the distribution of people with your surname in Britain in 1881 and in 1998. The 1881 distributions are a lot more interesting because they’re more regionally concentrated, with a much more diffuse pattern in 1998. Here’s the distribution of Gleesons in 1881, and here are the Gibneys, Caulfields, Ryans, Geoghegans, and Gannons (sorry, no Tonras).

Most Irish names were clustered around Liverpool, Western Scotland or London in 1881, unsurprisingly enough. The non-Irish names I tried were each quite different - here’s Stephenson, Myles, Bell, Ansell and Fielding.

These pages give even more information, such as how many of you there are overseas - apparently Australia has shedloads of Gleesons, I wonder why. It also tells you “% of people with a more high-status name”, which tells me that “Gentleman” Jim Ansell has the highest-status name out of all those I tried, with only 12% posher. He hides it well.

The shortlist for the first (annual?) Irish Blog Awards has just (last week) been announced.

I don’t know who’s running these (shadowy, mysterious) awards so I don’t know how to vote (cheat). All I know is: they mean business (.ie domain).

But if I was going to cheat for any particular site, it would be in the photo blog category, for the actually quite spiffing (friend of Al and myself) caitriona.net.

 

Dublin today:

I suppose it’s nice to be the one asking this question for a change, but: is everyone alright over there?

Hopefully it looks much worse than it really was, everyone’s fine, and we can all get back to laughing at the idea of a “Love Ulster” parade.

Behold the solution to the Tube’s funding problem - sponsored stations!

They’ve obviously run out of inspiration in spots (Dovewark?) but some of it is genius, like the simple replacement of ‘Finchley’ with ‘Crunchie’. Now I’m off to Habitattenham Court Road …

PS Loads more silly Tube maps here - and thanks to Justin for the link.

Real, no-foolin’ aerial photos of Mexico City. Some of them are astonishing. Captions are from the photographer, a helicopter pilot. Visit the original page for full-size versions.

REAL PICTURE! 300+ low income homes in Ixtapaluca, complex has more than 10,000!

Xico volcano crater, behind is Chalco where few streets are paved.

Interlomas looks like another planet in this picture

The biggest bullfighting ring in the world, (45,000 cap.) Impressive when full.

Chapultepec Park and one of the lakes.

This is where most of the water suppling the city used to come in from Lerma

More of Nezahualcoyotl

This apartment building is pretty intersting, Interlomas.

This review by David Archer of RealClimate.org of James Lovelock’s new book is fascinating. Lovelock is basically predicting a climate-driven catastrophe of some kind in the medium-term, along the following lines:

The analogy is to the failure of natural regulation of a human body, requiring artificial intervention. If the kidneys fail, a doctor has to take over regulation of blood chemistry using dialysis. If the pancreas fails, the patient requires manual regulation of sugar metabolism by insulin injection. It is generally bad news when the doctor tells you that your body’s natural regulation mechanisms are failing, because artificial, technological fixes are typically not as reliable as the natural ones. There is no doubt that mankind is taking over the reins of global geochemical balance. Industrial production of fixed nitrogen for fertilizer now matches the natural rate of nitrogen fixation on the planet. Rates of fossil-fuel CO2 emission dwarf the natural rate of CO2 release in volcanic gases. Lovelock’s conclusion, by analogy, is that the biosphere of the Earth will soon be beset by all manner of unanticipated complications.

This does not seem to me an unreasonable conclusion, I must admit. Consider Biosphere II. This was a sealed greenhouse in the Arizona desert, an attempt to create a managed, self-contained biosphere. A very humbling effort it turned out to be, all in all. Biological control proved to be completely out of reach. Several species of birds were introduced into the system, based on rational design of ecological balance, and all of them went extinct. The only birds that flourished in BII were a local species that invaded the structure while it was under construction that they never managed to eradicate. Ants and cockroaches became so abundant in BII that the biospherians took to sucking them up into vacuum cleaners and feeding them to their domesticated chickens. Geochemically, the oxygen concentration plummeted and nitrous oxide rose, until the structure became uninhabitable.

I’ve been doing a macroeconomics course recently, and maybe I’m just a sucker for facile analogies but I’m struck by the similarities to historical climatology. It’s all non-linearities and multiple equilibria, and the great depression of the 1930s starts looking like an economic version of global warming - short-termist behaviour stored up problems for the future, resulting in a tipping-point which pushed the whole system into a radically altered new equilibrium nobody could have predicted. The big difference is between the scale of time-lags - in economics its not that long until you notice the accumulated effects of present actions, maybe months, but in climate it takes decades or even centuries, making it much harder to stop and even harder to reverse. Which is funny when you think about it.

Headline on this evening’s Standard:

LOCK UP ALL CHICKENS SAY SCIENTISTS

I’ve a feeling the chickens might have something to say about that, but we’ll have to wait till tomorrow to find out what.

The Standard’s been churning out some good ones of late. After that fire at the oil depot in Hertfordshire:

POISON CLOUD HITS LONDON TONIGHT

(It didn’t, and it wasn’t)

But my favourite was a couple of days before Charles Kennedy resigned:

KENNEDY STABBED IN THE BACK

That complete lack of quotation marks is pure genius.

 From Roundstone, Co. Galway (via Crooked Timber).

We have certainly have had our ups and downs in the village this year what with somebody falling off the village wall, thank god not killed, and then in the wee hours of Saturday morning, a car goes into the Harbour, with a young man at the wheel, the car landed upside down and if it was not for the vigilance Mary King who alerted Sean de Courcey, Sean fair play to him pulled this man out of the car, which was nearly totally submerged in the tide and pulled him to safety, what ever way you look at it, Sean saved his life, yet again another near fatal accident, and then I suppose on the slightly humorous side and to add insult to injury, a tow truck was called out to pull the car out, now get this, the truck fell in while trying to lift the car, no don’t worry there was no one in it, it was remote controlled, but the machine was not heavier enough to lift the car out, therefore, a proper professional machine had to be called in, and the job was done, no loss of life, what was interesting the amount of people that came to have a look at this task you would think we had another social event going on.

 If that isn’t self-explanatory, the pictures are here.

GLAUBENSKRIEG

For those who don’t speak the language, it transliterates to “belief-war”.

I saw it written on German telly last night, in a debate about that Islam vs. Cartoons thing.

http://edition.cnn.com/2006/LAW/02/19/suing.al.qaeda.ap/index.html

Seems rather silly really, but I suppose someone has a reason.

Oh no wait, he was always like this:

Good to see Chris is doing his best to avoid type-casting as ‘Mad Drunken Giant’.

That’s right, I went a whole holiday without writing something depressing. Valentines day passed without a single gripe. The reason? Why, I was too busy at work on that special day, and the following day had a treat in store - the film ‘Cobra’ on TV. I have been trying to see this movie since time began, so naturally I was quite excited when I saw it appear on the TV (to the point where I threw away the remote).

This masterwork opens with a scene in which the titular Cobretti must blow away some psycho in a supermarket. Before wasting the perp he quips, “Crime is the disease, I’m the cure.” Finally, I thought, a left wing action hero. Yes, he carries a gun, but he believes in the essential good of mankind, and that criminality is a result of social factors.

Yet, as he exits the building he has an argument with a superior officer, who wounds his pride by pointing out that the shooting was perhaps an excessive use of force. Cobretti retorts that he is willing to kill “scum”, and that said superior should tell that to the “little boy’s family.” Within seconds of this, Cobretti physically abuses a member of the press corpse after the reporter says “No matter what you think, everybody is entitled to protection under the law.” My hopes of a lefty cop who plays by his own rules were dashed.

Cobretti is a man of confused politics, democrat and republican in one body; fascist and liberal in one pair of oversize sunglasses. His confusion drives him to engage with the world, and he spends the next hour and a half working out his politics (and finally attaining peace) by wasting a series of ever more threatening axe-wielding maniacs.

I’ve been reading the latest Ross O’Carroll-Kelly Book, The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Nightdress, and loving it. I seem to remember a couple of years ago Ross kept having attacks of something resembling conscience, but so far this latest volume reads more like “Irish Psycho”, as he’s spent most of time basically focking people over. The constant stream of genius slang is still the best thing about it - like, Ross variously describeing the, eh, working class parts of the city where his son lives as Pram Springs, Knackeragua and, my favourite, The Fleck Republic.

I don’t have anything in particular to say here, so I’ll leave you with:

Chin-stroking analysis bit: Ross O’Carroll-Kelly represents the debasement of Ireland’s rich heritage of cultural and linguistic creativity into the habit of thinking up ever crueller (but funnier) names for people you don’t like. Discuss.

Surely-too-good-to-be-true Wikipedia extract:

Ross O’Carroll-Kelly is something of a cultural phenomenon within Ireland, and his name has become a byword for all that is perceived to be wrong in Celtic Tiger Ireland. Though it is largely viewed as satire, there are those who view Ross O’Carroll-Kelly as a role model and an idol. For example, some people have imitated Ross’ pastime of driving through disadvantaged areas in expensive cars, shouting “Affluence!” at passersby.

… and I approve Frank Miller’s forthcoming comic.

Brownstein: Politics often shift you work. Your next work is blatantly political.

Frank Miller: It’s called HOLY TERROR, BATMAN. I have 120 pages done so far, I expect to have 200 when I’m done. It’s the best artwork I’ve ever done–

Brownstein: I’ve seen some of it and I agree.

FM: It’s blatant propaganda. It’s Batman going to kick al-Qaida’s ass. (applause) It’s a reminder to people that we’re against a ruthless foe. I just wish the entertainers of our time had the spine of the ones who faced Hitler.

Brownstein: What is it you hope to acheive?

FM: Superman punched Hitler, so did Captain America. It just seems silly to have Batman out there chasin’ the Riddler when there’s al-Qaida out there!

Brownstein: What should people expect?

FM: (creepy voice) Be afraid. (laughter) It’s Pulp-y. It’s my love letter to the city; it’s Gotham under attack. Batman is in love with the city. It’s emotionally raw; if you mean emotion between a man and a woman, a man and a city or a man kickin’ al-Qaida butt.

Brownstein: Culturally, how does the use of superheroes help crises?

FM: I don’t know the effect, but I know it helps. The Greeks had the Gods. [In America] during the biggest urban crime wave, we had Dirty Harry. People always say ‘Superman is an icon.’ An icon of what ? The flag-bearer of WWII ? The Golem ? The confused guy of the 60s ? The glam guy of the 70s ? I figured him being so powerful had to make him on the bad guy’s side.

I am trying to stop posting exclusively about maps, but there’s just too many geekishly fascinating examples out there. Like this Hypermedia Berlin thing, which has lots of nice zoomable, clickable, interactiveable maps of Berlin going back through the years all the way to, crazily, 1237. See below (to give ex-Berliners an idea of the scale, that’s ‘Spandow’ on the far-left):

Warning, it might take a long time to load on a slow computer.

Speaking of which, here’s A Literary Map of Manhattan: Where imaginary New Yorkers lived, worked, played, drank, walked and looked at ducks.

Michael Baldwin is doing some fascinating work at Commoncensus.org to map the cultural or personal borders of communities in America, as opposed to the political or admininstrative. He simply asks people what they consider to be their local area, and using their physical location aggregates the answers up into maps like this (click to go to the site proper):

There’s variations on the theme, too, like the Manhattan Neighbourhood Map and, ingeniously, maps of sports team fan areas. Reading all this, I thought it would be interesting to ask people whether they identified themselves primarily in terms of their local community, or their state, or their country, but of course he’s already done that too.

It’ll be great to see how these maps develop as they fill up with more entrants. Also, I’d love to see the patterns of affinities this method produces for Ireland and England - according to the FAQ Michael intends to extend coverage to Europe, and has already been repeatedly pestered by English football fans presumably wishing to establish beyond doubt that all Manchester United fans come from London.

I’m thinking of getting involved with this whole Kingdom of Loathing thing, but can’t decide which character class to go for. Any thoughts?

http://members.aol.com/leojean/abductiontherapist.html

Rivetting reading.

Senator David Norris is Ireland’s only openly gay person. So it stands to reason that he’s in demand a fair bit. On Tuesday night he appeared on the Podge and Rodge show where the discussion naturally turned to Joyce.

Alright, so the discussion turned to The Gayest Biscuit in Ireland. The good Senator would judge from a whittled-down panel of three contenders. The competition was tough - not even the “exceedingly gay” Viscount had made it to the final. The three were brought in on a silver tray by an attractive female co-presenter, whereupon Podge noted that she would be safe enough around David Norris (he’s gay, i.e. eschews vaginas). “Don’t be so sure,” frothed David, “I’m a convertible, darling!”

And convertible he is. After Rodge put it to the Senator that the Kimberley Mikado had won out due to “the squirt of jam between the cheeks”, I changed channel to RTÉ1 and the unpopular panel show Questions & Answers, where right at that moment my flexible friend David Norris was also a guest. A female panel member bemoaned how difficult it was to make criticisms on a certain, apparently boring, issue. “Very often,” she revealed, “you get accused of being a man-hater”. “WELL” trilled Norris, “NO-ONE COULD ACCUSE ME OF THAT!! AHAHA!”

I just hope he didn’t get separate appearance fees.

• The Gateway to Astronaut Photography of Earth
• Neu-York: An obsessively detailed alternate-history map, imagining how Manhattan might have looked had the Nazis conquered it in World War II
• A really annoying brain-type test from Ali G’s dad
• Musical genres mapped out on the London Underground map (I live in Buddy Holly, and Jamie Cullum’s a dead end)
• An exploration, related in excellent Engrish, of the amazing Kowloon Walled City.

If you’ve yet to see this film and don’t want me spoiling it for you, don’t read the rest of the post. If you have seen it and don’t want me spoiling it for you, tough.

(more…)

I think it was Andy Warhol who recently came back from the dead and said that in the future, everyone would have fifteen blogs. Or that there would only be one blog, updated fifteen times a second - I forget which. Anyway, I’ve been having a few ideas for new blogs to start with:

• Brickonomics: A rogue housing researcher explores the hidden side of housing and bores everyone to tears*
• Deadblog. Around the world someone famous dies, like, nearly every day. Someone should collect all their obituaries together on one blog for celebrity-obsessed ghouls in a hurry.
• Lastly, I’m thinking of becoming a rent boy, just so I can write a blog entitled Bum Notes.

*Unfortunately, I’m actually going to do this one.

I wonder who we are inadventently paying to write on Wikipedia that Charlie Haughey invented the Information Superweb

So I’ve been offline, involuntarily, for some time. In these days I’ve become aware of a brilliant coup. Well it could be, it could also be grasping at straws, but the last month or so has had all the markings of an bad Oliver Stone movie.

So, two months ago, my crazy flatmate says “The Amir [of Kuwait] is dead, and all the people in the royal family are acting very strangely because they’re covering it up while they decide who is to replace him.” Assuming the truth of this, the cover-up lasts about 4 weeks from early December to early January. He’s on ice or something.

In a move lauded by the western world as a step towards democratic rule, the Kuwaiti parliament votes to depose the new Amir (on health grounds). Except, he had already sent a letter to the parliament abdicating (it arrived soon after the result of the vote came in). I saw some footage of the former Amir, the most recent video of him. He appeared about as sensible as a brick. Totally unaware of anything. He is suffering from Alzheimers and is pretty far gone. One wonders if he could have written any letter at all.

A few days ago, the new Amir, Sheik Sabah al-Ahmed al-Sabah read the oath of office to the parliament marking the official start of his rule. The day before, there was a fire in the main communications tower in the country. This fire effectively knocked out internet access for the country, and generally disrupted communications. This fire was also covered on local TV. Their footage consisted of one person, without any apparent burns or smoke stains lying outside the building being attended by firemen. In wider shots of the building, one could see no fire.

So, we have all the right elements for a coup. The motivation: 10% of known world oil reserves, and the desire to quickly reassure world markets of the reliability of oil production during any transitional phase (especially given the recent spikes in oil prices because of “problems” with Iran and Nigeria). Control of the media: all major media outlets are either state run, or have royal family members at high levels. Communications disruption - to limit any coordinated response. Parliamentary collusion. Small cabal planning the coup (in this case, within the royal family).

This stuff is brilliant, even if none of this is true, which is probably the case, I choose to believe it, since it makes the country so much more interesting. I’ll be working on improving this conspiracy theory in the coming weeks, trying to distort history to support my crazy ideas.

According to Kieran Healy, some guy called Garrison Keillor doesn’t like some book about America by some other guy called Bernard-Henri Lévy, but that’s not important. What’s important is the extract Kieran posts from an old New Yorker article called “In the New Canada, Living is a Way of Life.â€? Read on:

The cabin attendant on our Air Canada flight answers a request for the correct time in almost perfectly unaccented English. She will not be the last Canadian in this new Canada of hers to try meeting a question with an answer, to make her reply her way of dealing with a query…

The plane approaches the airport runway cautiously, as if the Canadian pilot were unwilling to risk landing until his airspeed was throttled back to almost nothing and his wheels were fully down.

Everywhere the same gradations of blue and green and yellow and red and brown and orange and purple and taupe and mauve and pink and beige; city and countryside, summer and winter, in this new Canada, the only color is that of a single spectrum attempting to encompass all the hues of the rainbow…

In this land of the musk-ox, the beaver and the moose, there is no musk-ox or beaver or moose meat to be had. The man behind the counter at the meat store is little more than a butcher. The remains of cows and sheep and pigs are all he has to sell…

“They say we’ll get some rain today.� “They tell us you’re up here from the States, eh?� “They never let you park in that spot without a permit.� Who are “They,� who seem to know all, to control all, in this new Canada? The Canadian we ask blurts out the answer we expect. “I don’t know what the heck you’re talking about,� he sputters, careful to not look us straight in the eye.

The church, save for the minister, the choir, the sexton, and perhaps a hundred parishoners huddled in a space easily large enough to accommodate a hundred and thirty or more, is empty. The stone walls lack paint. Bits and pieces of colored glass serve as windows. Music is provided not by orchestra but by a lone pipe organ. Men shuffle among the worshippers solicting coins and paper currency—-anything anyone can afford to give. There is no talking, no playing checkers, no smoking allowed.

There are no schoolchildren with bouqets to see us of at the airport. Just as there had been no folk dancers to greet us when we arrived. This is the new Canada.