Cork City Libraries are hosting a competition again this year which invites 14 to 18 year olds to write and submit a short story. More information can be found on-line. Also, the writer John Boyne will be in town over Easter on April 24th. More information about that can be found by contacting eibhlin_cassidy@corkcity.ie. To enter the short story competition you’ll need a cover sheet. I can provide you with one of these or you can go on-line and print one off...

CloudofThink – 2018 Creative Writing Competition AND MORE! CATEGORIES for COMPETITION THEME: THE ONE AND THE MANY: THE INDIVIDUAL AND THE COMMUNITY OR HOW TO BE ALONE WITHOUT BEING LONELY. WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO BE AN INDIVIDUAL? WHAT’S THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN BEING ALONE AND BEING LONELY? IS IT MORE DIFFICULT TO BE YOURSELF TODAY THAN IN THE PAST? HOW DOES A PERSON MAKE THEIR STAMP ON THE WORLD? WHAT IS THE ROLE OF CREATIVITY IN INDIVIDUALITY? CAN IT BE LONELY BEING ONESELF? Flash Fiction (50-250 words or between a quarter of an A4 page and a whole page)Short Story (500-2500 words or somewhere between two and ten pages)Poetry (unlimited but generally will fit in one page.) PRIZE DISTRIBUTION Winning entry in each category to be published on CloudofThink and also in Spioraid Signals at end of year. Book vouchers will be awarded too; the winner of each category get a €15 voucher for Waterstones.Runner-up entries in each category to be published only on CloudofThink. DEADLINE: MONDAY 25TH OF FEBRUARY IDEAS FOR MORE Is there time to invite a writer to the school? Could be done in conjunction with the launch of the competition. For example, Cork performance poet Billy Ramsell (very cool guy, worth looking up – if anyone could change a student’s mind about the value of poetry, it’s him). I believe Poetry Ireland has a fund for writers to visit schools (must be confirmed).Book Club Vibes and Scribes Wordsworth Classics (out of copyright). You can buy books that are out of copyright for very little in Vibes and Scribes. Bletchley Park idea:  a challenge on the website every week. Collaboration Book in teams, each team doing a different category. Social Media Reddit  – sub-reddits, different category: writing prompts. Opinion piecesPrinted anthology History of the school?WATA?...

Julius Rosenberg wrote a letter to his son Michael on August 16th 1951. Julius was, a few months earlier, sentenced to death by Judge Irving Kaufman for selling atomic secrets to the Russians at a time when the US was “engaged in a life and death struggle with a completely different system,” that is, Communist Russia. Julius’ crime was to threaten democratic institutions not to mention American lives since the atom bomb was “a missile of destruction which can wipe out millions of Americans.”  A few months later Julius wrote to his son Michael saying that he was confident that he and his wife Ethel, “will be set free because Mommy and I are innocent and we will fight in every possible way and through the courts to win our freedom as soon as possible.” In that August 16 letter, Julius wrote to Michael that he’d make more pictures of trains, buses, cars and boats if he liked. He signed it, “Your own Daddy – Julius.”  A couple of years later Francis Crick wrote to his twelve-year-old son who was also called Michael that he had, along with Jim Watson, discovered the basic structure of DNA. He tells his son that “[their] structure is very beautiful” and that “D.N.A. can be thought of roughly as a very long chain with flat bits sticking out.” He draws a diagram of the double helix for his son. He goes on to assert that “we think we have found the basic copying mechanism by which life comes from life.” In 1962 Crick and two others received the Nobel Prize for their work.  References from Schrecker, Ellen, The Age of McCarthyism: A Brief History with Documents, St. Martin’s Press, 1994 and Usher, Shaun (ed.) Letters of Note: Correspondence...

I, Martin Luther are disgraced with the Catholic Church. They proceed to lie about the Bible to the innocent people who cannot speak Latin. They sell indulgences to people who are rich. This means that people whom are rich and bad can go straight to heaven, the poor people who are poor and good will spend a long time in purgatory. I believe that you must suffer to go to heaven. Check out my web page of 95 theses of how awful the catholic church is....

I recently spoke with a man who met Robert Kennedy. There can’t be too many of them left about the place. It was years ago now, back in the sixties, I think, when he was in Washington DC on some kind of GAA junket, probably to promote the sport, to remind the Diaspora in the States of what it had left behind it back on the Emerald Isle. Robert Kennedy was his brother Jack’s Attorney General, the chief lawyer in the country, the legal adviser to the president, the representative of the law. I thought of politics back then and how it must have seemed that the country was being remade what with Civil Rights and the Cold War, the Red Scare, McCarthyism, the era of Free Love and the rise of the Teenager with a capital T. This was the eve of the Vietnam War and the exportation of at least 58,000 American lives, young men for the most part who never grew to be old men. I thought of that word “veteran” and reflected that my interlocutor was in his way, in his own ways, a veteran too, like we all are. We grow into that identity, fill the long cloak of that stature the more we live, the greater the repertoire we amass. Story after story gets told and experiences come and go; we encounter others and their lives and compare them with our own and probably never fully appreciate the full story, the complicated richness of existence. Then the silence. When, upon the next scandal or concern or affair of state, we think we see a pattern, something to decry over a pint or in a breathless fashion between two daily chores, we arrogate to ourselves a wisdom, the illusion...

I recently bought a collection of Aesop’s Fables for a few euro somewhere. It’s got the hare and the tortoise on the cover and the tortoise, without looking behind him, seems to be able to sense the hare’s presence. His neck is outstretched and his mouth is tight; he wants to win alright and hasn’t had a rest. “I’ve worked too hard for this to let it slip from my grasp,” he appears to think. The hare is alarmed, his ears drawn back, his body stretched out, his eyes alert. He knows he’s been complacent. He thought he had it in the bag as it were. He had over-extended himself, if only in his imagination, too early in the race, oddly enough by having a sleep. Now he’s really under pressure. It’s reminiscent of another Fable, that of the Astronomer who goes about at night looking up at the stars in wonder and not looking where he’s going. Inevitably he falls down a well and a stranger appears at the top of the well and says to him, “Why, in striving to pry into heaven, do you not see what is on earth?” I thought about all the money we spend on exploration of space and on self-driving cars and Presidential dinners when there are so many more deserving causes like homing people and feeding the starving children of the world. Why are we always reaching for things that are far away and reflecting on how great we are when we manage to reach them when, within our grasp and without too much effort or ingenuity, we could help those who need help now? There’s a fable for every occasion, it seems. In that of The Hart and the Vine, a hart is chased...

1.  Go ahead, judge a book by its cover. What does it look like? It’s got an elephant on it and he’s jumping in the air only he’s wearing pyjamas and he’s got a cigar in his mouth. There’s a lot of yellow behind him and you think first it’s the sun but it’s actually an enormous orange and it’s rolling toward him and the book is called Get Out! Get Out Now! 2. You’re having lunch with a friend. Your friend gets a call in the middle of the meal. Write down your friends part of the conversation. Yes I gladly go with you there is a brilliant movie in! Yo’ll go That’s great I’ll look forward to seeing you at eight. see ya there! 3. The general manager of the New York Yankees’ personal to do list LOSE TO THE RED SOX!!!!!!! 4. Write a bucket list for your favourite superhero Die Eat Drink Walk (optional) run 5. Describe an eccentric person in action. Mr. Wilson threw a basketball at my cat then splashed me with holy water and mooed at me. He then proceeded to yell a story about Jesus fighting Donald Trump. 6. Write an ode to an onion. Oh dearest onion, You are so fun-ion, You have many layers, Not that I care!...

I’ll begin by saying that unlike many I understand that most news is biased. It’s an unavoidable fact of life and something I’ve learned to live with. That said, regardless of the political allegiances of  news companies, the way that they handle mass shootings (and smaller ones) is just purely idiotic. I am, admittedly, pro gun. I think that they are a good thing to have in society. Contrary to what many might believe, that does not mean that I love mass shootings. I despise them and their perpetrators. Chances are that I care about shootings that happen in the U.S more than most liberals do. My solution just happens not to be banning firearms in the U.S. There is, however, one thing that really annoys me about news networks’ coverage of mass shootings and that is the way that they handle the perpetrators. This is a problem for both conservative and liberal news agencies. I get that news of the tragedy must be spread, that’s fairly obvious. What is unnecessary, however, is plastering the name of the shooter all over your network and website etc. I don’t know the names of any mass shooters and if I did I would refrain from saying them. Why? Because that’s what they want us to do. People go on rampages because they have nothing left. They want to be remembered for good or for bad. So why in God’s name would you go around making the shooter a rockstar for several weeks, or even years in some cases? This is a problem for both liberal and conservative news networks, but I see it on liberal networks more often. It’s truly ironic, wanting to stop mass shootings and then granting the final wish of the very people...

Fairytale of New York is a 1987 hit Christmas song for Irish-British band The Pogues. Fairytale, although having an enduring popularity in Britain and Ireland, only peaked at No. 2 in the British charts that Christmas, beaten by Pet Shop Boys’ song Always on My Mind. This song was a cover of a song previously released by Elvis Presley. Elvis Presley, one of the best known singers of the 20th century, originally became popular in the 1950s, a decade synonymous with the emergence of many singers and entertainers, including Little Richard, Frank Sinatra and Bobby Darin. Darin, an actor as well as a singer who died in 1973, was the subject of a 2004 biopic Beyond the Sea, which was co-written, directed and starred the actor Kevin Spacey. Spacey was, as of the time of writing, a subject of many allegations of impropriety and, as a result, was recast in the film All the Money in the World just weeks before its theatrical release, and was replaced with Christopher Plummer. “All the Money in the World” is the story of the infamous kidnapping of John Paul Getty III, grandson of the industrialist J Paul Getty. Getty was, in his day, one of the wealthiest men in the world, and is remembered for his frugality. John D Rockefeller is similarly remembered as one of the world’s wealthiest men; he was, in fact, the wealthiest American of all time. Rockefeller opened the Rockefeller University in New York and endowed his new foundation with part of his fortune. Rockefeller University was not the only university in the United States to be founded by a magnate; Carnegie Mellon University was formed through the merger of Mellon Institute of Industrial Research and Carnegie Institute of Technology, which was founded by Andrew Carnegie, a man as well-known for his business acumen as for his philanthropy. Carnegie donated large sums of money to various good causes,...

Francesco Goya was a Spanish painter and portraitist whose career reached its peak in the late eighteenth century. He was a contemporary of another painter, a British one, Joseph Wright of Derby. Another British artist you might have heard of is Mick Jagger and despite what some of you think, Wright and Jagger were not contemporaries. However, one of Wright’s most famous paintings is called An Experiment with a Bird in the Air Pump. Now, you might have heard of the word “pastiche” and in case you haven’t I tell you what it is: it’s a work of art by one artist that closely resembles that of another’s, but in a respectful way – this differentiates it from a parody. The Rolling Stones’ 2005 album, A Bigger Bang, features as its cover a portrait of the band but with strong resemblances of Wright’s aforementioned painting. On that album is a song called Back of my Hand. It’s a song about a clairvoyant, a visionary who can “read [the future] like the back of [his] hand” but specifically he see “paranoias” and, yep, you’ve guessed it – Goyas, that it is to say, paintings by Francesco...

Hello and welcome to an angry rant from an angry man. You’re certainly in for a treat on this day of days because you can now be battered brutally over the head by none other than me, the most petty person you will ever have the honour of meeting and I will argue to the death with anyone who disagrees to even the slightest degree with that sentiment. Now that I’ve managed to turn even my intro into a rant in its own right we can now start raving about today’s topic. Alrighty, I wanted to talk about video games, then movies, then books, then music and then TV but I realised that they all share the same problem that makes them all equally crap in my eyes and so it begins, the quest for me, through my pointless rantings, to educate you on the one thing that is ruining not one but several multi-billion dollar industries. Now the non-super high IQ Rick and Morty fans in the audience may be wondering, “How can you claim to know what’s ruining literally all of modern-day media?” Surely if you do then the people in Hollywood who stand to make millions off such a revelation would act on it, and you’re a kid on the internet typing an essay at midnight because you drink too much coffee. And you’re right, but what if I told you that there lies both parts of the same problem that has been killing media since the 1980’s. (Ya see what I did there? Yes I know it wasn’t very funny, why don’t you try writing this?) Part 1: You’re part of The Problem., Most people don’t have a firm grasp on what makes modern art in media “good,”yet like those...

Childhood troubles  It was a cold summer’s night. The moonlight was glistening peacefully over the sea in Blackthorn City. The wind howled, knocking bins on to the streets with a thud; fallen branches blocked lanes on the road. One lane led to the now ruined Lakewood. Birds were nowhere to be seen though they were usually chirping in Blackthorn City. Naomi, a seven-year-old girl young girl was walking with her parents along the quiet road when she heard a gentle whisper in the blackened night causing her curiosity to spike for a few seconds before her father, who wore his marine army suit, called her, his voice raspy. He was a general in the army; two medals hung from his neck. He walked on the stony wet pavements with his clunky black boots. Another whisper attracted the little girl. This time she followed it. Her father and mother followed, running past the forest. Naomi’s mother was forbidden from entering. As she entered the forest the whisper sounded like her father, making her believe he was lost in the forest. Her father heard a loud cry which sounded like his daughter Naomi. When he entered,  a gloved hand which was as dark as the night sky, covered his mouth. He didn’t know until it was too late. His wife spotted her him dangling off a tree with the branch running through his head. As she let out a cry for help she felt a gloved hand cover her mouth and a moment dropped to the floor, her neck snapped. Naomi wandered through the forest, stricken with a terrific fear. A dagger slashed at her ankle. She fell to the ground and, kicking and crying, she was dragged off into the depths of the forest. The...

The marvels of today’s world are technological. Technology is responsible for the state of the world, good or bad, present and future and that in itself is something to marvel at. One of the things I truly love and consider a marvel are video games. They are, in my view, more than mere entertainment. Take the graphics for a start. As technology advances so do graphics and so games become increasingly realistic, testing the boundary between the virtual and the real. “Uncharted 4 – A Thief’s End” looks incredibly, as long as you have an equally incredible TV. But realism isn’t the only thing a game needs to be deemed a classic. Old games like “Doom,” “Final Fantasy” and “The Legend of Zelda” are amongst a multitude of games still beloved by the gaming community despite their old pixel graphics. Even some of the infamous “RPG maker” like “Mad Father” and “Corpse Party” games have attained cult status. The fact that games with inferior graphics can still be fantastic is something to be admired. Another aspect of video games that I love is artstyle and how much variety there can be. Games can be realistic looking but they can be cartoonish, hand-drawn, anime, pixelated and so on. One recent example of a game with a gorgeous artstyle would be “Cuphead.” Despite its funny name, I would say it is one of the most stand out games this year.It is done in the old, cartoonish style like the very first Mickey Mouse animations. The game is made with such love and respect for the artstyle it even has old-school sound effects as well. This game has quite the nostalgic factor to it though I may be too young to fully appreciate it! “Obami” is another...

Mario, like I said before, is one of the most recognisable gaming icons of all time. The Rabbids? Not so much. They’re often hated for their annoying humour and stealing Rayman’s spotlight. Personally, I’m actually a fan of the Rabbids, with Rabbids Go Home being an amazing adventure game and their TV show being pretty funny too. So Nintendo and Ubisoft decided to mix these two together into… a tactics game? It’s better than it sounds. The story is that a Rabbid is fusing everything with Rabbids thanks to stealing a merging headset from an inventor. Her robot companion Beep-O ends up in the Mushroom Kingdom and it’s up to Mario and Co. and some Rabbids dressed up like them to save the kingdom and defeat Bowser Jr. The game is very funny and the characters are likeable. The gameplay is like X-COM, but with Rabbids and Mario. There are eight playable characters and you can equip them with blasters, sentries, shotguns and grenade ducks. Don’t ask. Each hero has different abilities: Mario can attack even when it’s not his turn with Hero Sight; and Rabbid Mario can lure enemies in closer with Magnet Dance. The game is fun to play and all of the characters have great weapons and abilities. Every world has a mid-boss and a boss. Phantom is my favourite boss, especially with his song. It’s always satisfying to win a level. However, there are some flaws. The game can get pretty difficult, with the Spooky Ziggies’ ability to stop you from attacking and the escort missions and getting to point B missions can take forever. While I’m not done with the game, Mario + Rabbids’ Kingdom Battle is a great game. With its good humour and gameplay, I’m proud to...

                                                                         something more you’d like to know about “History.”           (Jason Foley)                                                           Imagine yourself being eight years old. what would you tell yourself. “Be nice to people.” “I’m eight years old” (Hugh)                                                                                   what’s the worst nightmare you  remember. “Vegetables.”           (Michael Buckley) something more you’d like to know about “Life.” last thing you’d want to do in life  “Jump off the Empire State building!”    (Gene)                                                                        what you ate for breakfast “Cornflakes.” “I ate cornflakes”                                                                              your best birthday “2014 when I got a trampoline.”                (Gavin) your favourite hiding spot “Under with the blanket covering the sides.”    (Liam Cassidy)        ...

DAY SEVEN Schluß. This is the end. The time has come for me to end my seven-part series on the wonders of Köln, or, as they say in westernised Germany, “the time has come for me to end my seven-part series on the wonders of Köln”. Anyone who has been to Köln before or who is familiar with the city from any vague glance at a travel book should know that there is one major part of the Kölnisch landscape that I have neglected to mention. That major part is, of course, the majestic museum to the memory of the inventor of Eau de Cologne, which basks triumphant on the corner of the cathedral square. So I think it is only fitting that I end my series of accounts by not writing about that at all, and writing about the second most major part of the Kölnisch landscape instead – the Hohenzollernbrücke. I was fortunate enough to get a chance to cross this monument on the final day of my travel diary in a frantic search for an U-Bahn station that wasn’t undergoing repairs, and dank Gott for it – it is sublime. In the simplest of terms, this is a large bridge composed of several steel arches that straddles the Rhine just as it passes the Köln cathedral, and it features both train tracks and walkways for pedestrians. As a piece of engineering alone it is not particularly attractive, especially when compared to the sleek genius of the bridges in places like Düsseldorf, and it is surrounded by four statues of famous German leaders on horseback which include, to my moderate bafflement, Kaiser Wilhelm II. Even though the view is pleasant and it is readily accessible, there is nothing physically outstanding about it; but the real magic lies...

DAY SIX The layout of commercial Köln is very simple. There are two shopping streets, Hohe Straße and Schildergasse Straße. That is all. Well, alright, I exaggerate a little, but almost every shop you could need here can be found at some point along both of those streets and there really is very little point in meandering off somewhere else, at least for the purposes of throwing away your hard-earned cash (though there are a few elaborate fountains in the Old Quarter that invite that sort of thing as well). The two aforementioned streets have a range of German and international shops, everything from Currywurst emporiums to Accessorize. There are even two H&M stores on the same promenade. The Apple store – because let’s be real, we all already know that there is one – has gouged out the innards of a classic-looking 19th-century building and features more hovering attendants than customers, ready to swarm you as soon as you put a foot over the threshold and jabber at you in what is probably seriously cool, hip Deutsch. There are multiple shoe shops lining the length of Schildergasse Straße, which for your convenience are all exactly the same (“Kämpgen”). And most significantly of all, there on the corner of the whacking big Neumarkt-Galerie (a word which here means “huge shopping centre that is 75% Primark with a few other outlets”) – there lies Mayersche, the enormous bookshop that I have been waiting for for the last 5 days. When I say enormous, I mean it. It is three stories tall. The second floor has a dedicated reading corner with a long table and chairs. There is a café and a piano on the top floor for the more uninhibited visitor (and believe me, they are common)....