Stuckinthemilli.eu

For anyone who hasn’t discovered it yet, Les Concerts à Emporter is a treasure trove of gorgeous live tunes by around sixty different artists. The website itself is in both French and English, with the recordings taking place mostly in Paris. They bring people to rooftops, they ambush them outside bars, they film them in houses, they have them in empty grain silos… the list is endless.

As an example, here’s Bloc Party’s This Modern Love.

Bloc Party, ‘This Modern Love’ – A Take Away Show from La Blogotheque on Vimeo.

[Edit: That ain't working. Sorry.]

The videos are in gorgeous high definition and the recordings are pure quality.

A couple of my favourites are:

R.E.M (Especially Sing for the submarine. You need to listen to that.)

Vampire Weekend

Animal Collective

The Shins

God I listen to such indie stuff.

Really, I could sit and watch these videos for the entire day. But I gotta head to Paris. Speaking of which, due to me being away this weekend, I won’t be able to do a Website of the Day. Day 3 and I’ve already failed? Yeah, I know. But check back on Monday for more stuff on the blog.

Bon weekend!

So, here’s a new feature on the blog, akin to Damien’s Fluffy Links and Alexia’s Red Links (and all the other links that are out there). I will endeavour to put a site of the day up, with a brief description and maybe a screenshot. I’ll see how long I can keep this up anyway. Here’s the first attempt:

Save The Words is a website that brings together words that are falling out of fashion in conversation, and which allows users to “adopt” a word, thereby pledging to use it in conversation. (The words also beg you to use them when you hover over them. Weird.).

Example:

Screen shot of Save the Words

It’s run by Oxford Faja, which is part of the Oxford University Press. It’s aim is to make sure that we don’t forget old words and bring them back in to every day usage. Given that I really like words, I kind of like this site. My girlfriend had a similar calender last year, of old words that are no longer with us. Anyway, I really like the way that they’ve taken a traditionally offline format (a dictionary) and put it in an online context.

So, make sure and adimpleate your blateration to obstrigillate your vocabulary. Ahem.

From here:

Sligo-based Nigerian woman Pamela Izevbekhai has lost her latest legal challenge in her fight against deportation.

Ms Izevbekhai says her two daughters, aged seven and five, will be subjected to forced female genital mutilation if they return to Nigeria.

Oh yeah, sure why not just deport her, it’s not like she’s in genuine danger or anything. It makes you wonder, what kind of proof does the Minister for Justice need to intervene and not deport someone? In this particular case, you have an Irish doctor with experience in Nigeria saying:

she believed Ms Izevbekhai’s daughters would not be safe from FGM if returned to Nigeria.

The doctor said she believed there would be no protection from the state against FGM as the police force there was under resourced and corruption and bribery was rife.

You also have Amnesty International saying:

 the State of Nigeria could not protect young girls from such practices

And you have the fact that

Pamela Izevbekhai’s first born child died as a result of female genital mutilation in Nigeria in 1994

The response to these facts?

The State claims her fear of FGM is unfounded and says she could be relocated in Nigeria to protect her children.

They’re appealing the decision to the Supreme Court, which thankfully means that they won’t be deported in the mean time. The case is also due to be considered by the European Court of Human Rights.

What the hell is the point of offering asylum if we’re going to ignore people who will be in imminent danger if we deport them?

In a move that I’m sure wouldn’t surprise many people (at least many people outside of France), this Thursday has been declared (by the country’s biggest unions) to be a national day of strike. Thus far, the groups set to strike will be (takes a breath):

The national train company, the Paris transportation company, the urban transport companies, the postal service, the French national telecommunications company, the teachers, the national electricity company, the French radio, the civil servants, the hospitals, the gas company, naval construction companies, the public employment company, the airports, French national television networks, the national French bank, the banks, the magistrates, the automobile manufacturers…

This is the list thus far. This also means that anyone trying to get to work will be unable to get to work, so whatever you do, don’t come to France this Thursday. Or Friday for that matter.

Speaking of which, my girlfriend and parents are visiting me in Paris this weekend. If I get there. Or they get there. Balls.

And of course all this comes on the same day that Ulster Bank ups and drops 750 jobs, and Iceland announces that it is selling Sigur Ros to fund its crippled economy.

Actually, for an interesting insight into Parisian life, take a look at A Year in the Merde, by Stephen Clarke. I borrowed it from Adrian and enjoyed it immensely.

By the way, the French are under the impression that every other country in the world strikes as much as they do. I really didn’t understand how much they strike before I got here.

Right, I might start plotting a walking route to Paris, just in case.

Photo owned by J.D. Abolins (cc)

So, the results are in and have been counted. Based upon the poll in the previous post, the two new domain names I will be registering are:

• stuckinthemilli.eu (Stuck in the middle) – 42% and
• conorp.eu – 70%

What I think I’ll do is adopt stuckinthemilli.eu as the name for the blog, and then keep conorp.eu for a shorter and snappier offline address, so that people can find it easier. Both will direct to the same blog.

As for the changes to the blog, over the next few days I will redesign it, so that it can be used as a blog for both my personal life and for my posts about civil partnership and other same-sex family stuff. As always, if you have any suggestions e-mail them to me at conorpendergrast[at]gmail[dot]com or Twitter me.

Finally, the RSS feed is here.

Happy Thursday,

Conor P

POLLS CLOSED. Results tomorrow.

Thanks to the wonderful people over at Blacknight, I managed to win two .eu domain names via their Twitter page! (If you’re on Twitter, have a go yourself by following them and watching their feed… but you have to be quick off the mark).
So, I thought I’d be semi-democratic and put it to a vote to decide what domain names to register. Since I have two to register, I decided to make two different polls. So, have a look and vote in each. Please.

All this is happening with a redesign of the blog in mind. Should be fun I’ll be making it more personal, and be posting more regularly.

Conor P

[edit: Voting ends next Wednesday 5pm French time ]

[edit 2: More suggestions include sacrebl.eu and filmbl.eu. To vote for these two leave a comment below!]