Category Archives: Thoughts

Thoughts

U2 360 countdown: post #4 & Happy Birthday Jen!

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My U2 song of choice for today was pre-determined by the fact that it’s my friend Jenni‘s birthday & aside from it being one of her favourite U2 songs, it has a special happy memory attached for both of us.

One Saturday night while walking towards the taxi rank on O’Connell St, we were singing our way through the U2 catalogue (as you do) and when we tried to start ‘Mysterious Ways’ we got in a pickle over what the first line was. So we decided to ask the highly approachable pair of young Gardai outside the GPO to see if they could help. It went something like this…

Jen: “I’m sorry but we were wondering if you could help us? We’re trying to remember the first line of a U2 song.”

Gardai: “Oh right.”

Jen: “Yeah, ‘Mysterious Ways’ – we can’t remember the first line.”

Gardai: “Oh geez that’s a tough one now. Tell you what if you hang on there for a minute Johnny will be able to answer that one, he’s mad into U2. He’s just gone to the shop for sweets & will be back over in a minute.”

And sure enough, Johnny did arrive back from the shop & did supply us with the line “Johnny, take a walk with your sister the moon”. So we thanked him & continued on our way singing & dancing to the taxi rank & thinking “only in Ireland”.

So from the fabulous Achtung Baby, here’s Mysterious Ways. Happy Birthday Jen & fair play Johnny :)

Thoughts

U2 360 countdown: post #3

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Today’s song is a cover version that I hadn’t heard in possibly years before I heard it last night in a pub in town. The city seems to have started it’s own countdown with every second shop, cafe or pub I passed through over the weekend playing U2 in the background.

It’s a cover of the 60′s classic ‘Everlasting Love‘ which has been covered by many over the years from Carl Carlton to Gloria Estefan to Jamie Cullum. It appeared as a b-side to the single ‘All I Want Is You’ in 1989 alongside what I think is a dodgy interpretation of ‘Unchained Melody’. As modern covers of this song go, I think this is my favourite.

U2 – Everlasting Love

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U2 360 countdown: post #1

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Only a week until I go to my local stadium in Drumcondra to see U2 on their 360 Tour. I’m starting to feel the goosebumps. I’m not a diehard U2 fan but I really love some of their albums & the last time (and first time) I saw them in Croke Park in 2005 I was blown away by their live show.

So for the next week I’m going to post some of my favourite U2 songs and give a little insight into why I chose each one. Apologies to non-fans or Bono-bashers, might want to tune out for a little while :)

The Fly: Live in Boston

This recording was part of the Elevation tour DVD shot in Boston in 2001. I remember seeing it on TV. I don’t know what I was doing at the time that I didn’t have time to sit down and watch it but I distinctly remember stopping in my tracks at hearing the beautiful opening bars of this song, set in a lower pitch than the original recording. Magic.

Thoughts

Design copyright in the Irish Times

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Today I got to see my name in ink in the Irish Times Innovation supplement courtesy of an article titled ‘Lost Property’ by former print designer & now journalist Jason Walsh. You can read the article here on the Irish Times website or soak it up in the form of a PDF of the printed article. Jason approached me about the article about 2 weeks ago and in anticipation of giving my thoughts and reflections on the Fine Gael website fiasco, I had a look back at the website to see if things had changed. It appears to be more or less the same as when I last visited some time around the beginning of May.

I still maintain that the site is not fit for purpose but obviously, they have chosen to stick with it and try to make the best of it. There are a few important issues that should be addressed in my opinion, however:

1. Information Architecture: Finding your way around the site is currently a nightmare. There is a reliance on swapping content in and out of the same container on a single page that sits approximately 600px down the from the address bar. It is quite possibly out of the view of many visitors & many will miss the fact that the content they seek has loaded at all. At the very least a comprehensive search facility should be integrated to allow visitors to pinpoint information they need accurately and efficiently. Failing that, a detailed sitemap (if possible to generate based on the frame-like nature of the website) should be generated dynamically and links provided to it.

2. Remove or fix broken links: The ‘Help’ link on the main navigation appears to be an empty link along with the RSS link in the footer. While the ‘Register to Vote’ link in the main menu is faded out, it still appears as a menu item. Leaving it visible on the menu although inactive might be optomism on the part of FG looking to the possibility of a general election sooner rather than later but it is misleading to users and should be removed.

3. Multi-lingual content: What appears to be the Fine Gael ‘mission statement’ appears only in Irish (as far as I can see) – where is the English version? The ‘Polski’ version of the website appears to be one long page of a variety of information translated into Polish instead of the entire site being translated, something easy to achieve with a HTML website. At the very least, all content should be available as Gaeilge and more information available in other languages such as Polish, Chinese etc. Check out the brand new EU Matters website for an example of how it should & can be done.

If you’d rather keep up with all things FG via other online means, they’re on Twitter at @FineGaelIreland and Facebook and YouTube although things in the YouTube department seem to have dried up since the election fun all died down.

Want to know what heck the ‘FG website fiasco’ is/was? Here’s the story. Got any comments, thoughts or queries on the new EU Matters website launched by my colleagues at X Communications during the week? Drop them a tweet at @xcommunications or leave a comment below.