Sacha Baron Cohen vs. Ryan Seacrest

You gotta love live tv - this was live on the E! red carpet last night at the Oscars - The dictator v Ryan Seacrest. Seacrest said after "I had another jacket - you always have to be red carpet ready"

Movies out this weekend!

If you're looking for some movie ideas for the weekend, here are some that are in cinemas from today!

Standing on a corner in Winslow, Arizona

So the other day I played The Eagles "Take It Easy" on the air.  I was on a road trip years ago with some friends and we diverted several miles so we could stand on the corner in Winslow Arizona.  Another item crossed off the bucket list! I'm the pasty Irish looking guy on the right.

Today is the start of Lent - for me it's no coke and chocolate.  This is what I picked up on the way into the radio station today to get rid of the sweet craving.  Hope I survive.

The Muppets sing Starship "We Built This City"

Saw the Muppets movie today. Brought back some great memories - particularly liked their version of Starship's "We Built This City" - enjoy!

Blogging from my phone

LOVE technology!

4 days at lifeboat college

So I was lucky enough to be sent to RNLI Lifeboat College in Poole, Dorset in the last few weeks where I attended a Lifeboat Press Officers (LPO) course.  I had heard great things about the college and the facility and was very much looking forward to my few days there, and it certainly didn’t disappoint. 

The course started on Wednesday but I got there at lunchtime on the Tuesday following an overnight bus from Ballyshannon to Dublin Airport, an early morning flight to Southampton and then a train to Poole.  My LPO duties were even called on in the airport as I waited for the flight doing an early morning soundbite with Ocean FM News as the 2011 statistics were released a few hours earlier – never off duty!

The first thing to do after checking into my room at the college, and after admiring the pretty nice view of Poole Harbour from my window, was to take the official college “discovery tour”.  This was given by a really knowledgeable lady who knew all there was to know about the RNLI and the college building itself.  There was capsize training going on in the survival pool which we didn’t want to miss so we got to go there first.  The Sea Survival Centre can only be described as a really large deep swimming pool into which they can put D-Class and B-Class Inshore lifeboats  which they will then overturn to simulate a capsize and then train the crews what to do in the event that this happens.  

The training our crews get is top class and they are prepared for every eventuality – including capsize.  It was pretty cool to see the capsize happening in the controlled situation of the Sea Survival Centre – all the time in the back of my head hoping that i would never see it or experience it in real life... It’s really impressive however that the boats can right themselves so quickly – here’s a video of the new Shannon class lifeboat undergoing its capsize testing recently.

From the Sea Survival Centre it was then onto the ALB simulator.  An ALB is an all-weather lifeboat – the larger ones that you see on the news generally – the Tamar, Severn, Trent and Tyne.   This was just like stepping into an aircraft simulator and pretty much replicated the bridge of an ALB complete with navigation equipment and “real life” rescue scenarios going on right outside the window.  We were tasked with heading to an oil tanker which was on fire – we had to navigate our way through debris whilst trying to avoid running over people in the water.  It was all going smoothly until the engineers showed up and started to simulate really rough seas and had submarines popping up out of nowhere!   Even though we felt we were moving we actually weren’t – the simulator wasn’t moving and neither was the screen – it was only the image on the screen that moved and did a pretty convincing job of tricking our minds into thinking that we were moving up and down – glad I didn’t feel sea sick!

From there it was on to explore the rest of the college and get some more history.  At this point the new Baltimore Lifeboat, the Alan Massey (pictured below) , was just returning from a training exercise ahead of their journey home which was to begin on the Friday.

After a couple of hours rest it was time to head downstairs and meet the rest of the LPOs from all over the UK and Ireland who were on the course and have some dinner in the Riggers Restaurant – my fellow LPOs came from all over including Kinsale, the Channel Islands, Wales, Scotland and the north of England – a great geographical mix and lots of stories to exchange.

The course started on the Wednesday morning at 9am where we got an introduction to the RNLI as an organisation and then got to hear how social media is such a useful tool when it comes to spreading the word about the good work of the RNLI.  In the afternoon we got to work with the Film and Image Unit who told us all about the video gathering element of the organisation which forms such an important part of promotion of the RNLI via the onboard cameras, helmet cameras and stills cameras, all of which can take the viewer right into the heart of a rescue.  We also went through press release writing at this point.  Before dinner there was a chance to hit the impressive college gym and run up an appetite!

Thursday was the day we were both looking forward to and dreading at the same time – the day started with a further introduction to video and photo editing which proved really interesting.  Then after lunch it was four hours of media interview training where we were put through our paces with the different types of interview we might face in our careers as lifeboat press officers – both for good news events and also if something bad happened.  There was a bit of pressure but we all survived!! 

That night it was time for the last supper as our group commandeered the largest table in the restaurant and exchanged stories from the day’s activities.  We were joined at this point by Tim who is one of the Divisional Media Relations Managers (DMRM – EVERYTHING in the RNLI is centred around acronyms I’ve come to realise!!!) based in London and pretty much became the life and soul of the party – particularly when his guitar came out and he rattled off pretty much every song requested of him – a nice chilled out night in the bar watching the snow falling on the lifeboats moored right outside the door! It was also a chance to sample the exclusive "lifeboat ale". 

Friday was supposed to start in the gym.  It didn’t needless to say.  We met for breakfast and then convened in the lobby of the college where we were escorted to the original RNLI Headquarters building across the street complete with statue of founder Sir William Hillary keeping an eye on things over the front door. 

Here we were introduced to the new website which will be rolled out in a few months time.  Also as part of this tour we were brought to the Operations Room from where all the boats, callouts and personal safety device signals are monitored – pretty impressive and we LOVED the big screen.  We were also introduced to the Service Information department which looks after collating all the information on callouts from each of the 235 lifeboat station across the UK and Ireland – they are also the people who will recommend crew for various gallantry awards – generally VERY hard to come by!

The RNLI Operations Room

Our day wrapped up early as we were presented with our certificates and the obligatory group photo!  All in all a great few days - met some great people - watch out for lots of Bundoran Lifeboat updates!!

Johanna, Derek, Ifer, Me, Alex, James, Barry, Carl, Patricia & Pat

OK Go - Needing/Getting - Official Video

What an insanely clever video from the guys of OK Go! Done for the Superbowl!