The Lifelong Learning Festival kicked off yesterday in Cork (Ireland), does anyone know it’s on? It seems very low profile - or maybe it’s just that I’m too much stuck at my computer!

Anyway it runs from Monday 26th or March to Sunday 1st April (2007) and there’s loads on so it’s worth taking a look at the program. All the events are free and I genuinely think there’s something for everyone in there, I’m not just quoting from a pamphlet here

For example today, Tuesday the 27th, the Cork Environmental Forum are showing Environmental films from 12 noon to 9pm and it sounds like there’s some really interesting titles in there such as ‘The Power of Community‘ and ‘The Future of Food‘. The films will be shown in the Lifetime Lab on the Lee Road - I’m not sure where that is but you can call 028 37884 for details.

There’s all kinds of other events on, like ‘How to Start in the Gym’, ‘Try Basketball’, ‘Dance Classes for Adults’, Lunchtime concerts, ‘Discover a little About Lithuania’, ‘A Batty Walk in the Park’, ‘Learn About Eugenics’, ‘Growing Up in China’, ‘Learn Some Basic IT Skills’, ‘Writing Skills Workshop’ and LOADS of stuff for Children too.

All free.

Donncha O’Caoimh brought my attention to the fact that today is Daffodil Day, a fundraising day for the Irish Cancer Society:

Every daffodil helps the Irish Cancer Society provide quality care and emotional support to cancer patients and their families through our free, nationwide nursing services.
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Donncha has made headers from one of his own photos (small version pictured) which can be used easily with the Kubrick WordPress theme to raise awareness.

I headed on over to the Irish Cancer Society website and made a donation online - quick and painless and something good done for the day!

Every donation, regardless how big or how small, is a significant gift, and enables us to provide more care for more people with cancer. Use our simple secure form to make a donation to the Irish Cancer Society now.

Eh…I realise I have violated loads of terms of their linking policy so I’ll take links down if asked by an Irish Cancer Society official, but I don’t have a fax machine and somebody please tell them how much this policy could hurt awareness of the society.

It seems the Taoiseach wants to have the general election on a Thursday.

IrishElection.com are not in favour and have reasons why.

They’ve started a petition to have the vote on Saturday.

Green Ink drew my attention to it and suggested I do a button, so I did! Simple and to the point and should work well with the Drug Test Dáil Éireann button!

Feel free to grab the button and put it on your own site with a link to the petition.

Post our Telecoms illustration to your blog or website to be entered into a draw for an iPod shuffle!

Have we lost our minds? Possibly we’ve been carried away on the wave of enthusiasm that swelled up in us upon seeing the quality of the entries to our caption competition!

Seriously, it’s amazing - they’re all funny!

Anyway, what happened was this - some people like Blogorrah, Twenty Major, Green Ink and Adam Beecher actually put the illustration up on their own websites.
(*edit* missed lynchtp when posting this)

That gave us an extra thrill and we thought people who do that deserve a competition of their own!

Anyone who posts the illustration on their site is entered into a draw for an iPod shuffle.

If you have a caption as well, you’re also entered in the original Caption Competition.

So:

• If you’re listed above you’re already entered the draw.
• To enter the draw, post the illustration with the poodle on this page to your blog or website.
• With a caption gives you two chances to win an iPod Shuffle, without a caption gives you one chance to win an iPod Shuffle
• Pingback to the original competition post (not this post - comments and pings turned off here for clarity!).
• OPTIONAL: as well as a pingback to the competition post, why not root out your favourite news story, blog post or website on the subject of the state of telecommunications in this country and link to that too?
• Closing date - 1st April 2007

Obviously posting a caption to the comment section is still a perfectly valid way of entering the original competition.

Pingbacks were a bit broken - I fixed them last night, but if I have missed anyone who has already put the image on their site, let me know!

Pingbacks should be working fine now, but basically we need to know about your post to enter you, so do please check that you’re listed in the comments after you post your entry.

Pingbacks and comments are moderated, so if you haven’t posted before it might take a few hours for you to see yours. If for any reason you think your pingback has failed just leave a comment with a link in it.

So get posting, let people know your views on the Irish Telecoms market and have some fun doing it!

That’s right! Win an iPod shuffle - and it’s fun, it’s a caption competition.

The only way we could make this more fun is if it was spot the ball, but I don’t know anything about football…

Anyway, look at the image at the end of this post and come up with what goes in the speech bubble. You can also have more text under the image, but that’s optional.

The rules are simple:

1. Leave a comment below with your incredible caption
2. Be sure and fill in a valid email so I can contact you if you win.
3. Closing date is the 1st of April, unless there are less than 25 valid entry comments in which case closing date is extended.
4. You don’t have to link to this post to win, but I’d sure appreciate it if you spread the word so we get as many quality entries as possible!
5. I decide who wins on the basis of who I think has been most funny. My decision is final!
6. I’ll contact the winner for delivery details and get an iPod Shuffle to them.
7. Your caption doesn’t have to have anything to do with this.

UPDATE: For details on how to be in with a chance to be entered into a draw for a SECOND iPod Shuffle see here.