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Drought in Australia Small talk isn’t so much an art, as a reflex. When you’re left alone with a stranger in Ireland, the standard small talk (when accidental eye-contact starts a conversation) tends to quickly settle on the weather. It’s not really an invitation for earth-shattering observation, as we tend to have climate rather than weather [...] Back before Christmas, I landed in Delhi Airport from Heathrow and headed to the hotel. As I sat down for dinner, I looked at a local paper to find that the airport had distributed incorrect airfield maps to incoming pilots. That wouldn’t have been the best of reads before I was safely on the ground (nor [...] Here’s a view of beautiful Gurgaon. The city is on the outskirts of Delhi and is one of the Indian capital’s IT hubs. I’m out here on business at the moment, and I’m struck by something that first hit me last year in the Bangalore. It seems India has only two types of buildings – those [...] People back home seem to see Australia as a never-ending funland – a once in a lifetime place to go. Having been down here three times in as many months, it doesn’t really hold the same attraction for me any more. Don’t get me wrong – Sydney is great, but Canberra gives off a certain air [...] When you’re not interested in shopping, Saturdays on the road can really drag. You can’t hang around your hotel room all day, because at some stage the staff have to reconstruct everything. So what do you do? Well, during the week I had constructed an elaborate plan culminating in a return to Batemans Bay down on [...] Back when I was in college, I spent a summer packing boxes and moving pallets in a factory in Kildare. The job involved shift work, and so for one week in every three my working day began at 11pm and kept going through 7am. It’s a strange feeling knowing that most people are at home [...] After a late night in Sydney on Friday, I decided to skidaddle to the seaside on Saturday morning to let the salt air blow away the cobwebs. So where better to go than Bondi – especially as it was shaping up to be quite a nice day. Anyways – there I am, pasty faced and not exactly [...] I like Wellington. It’s a nice compact city, there are some great Indian restaurants and it has a pretty dramatic backdrop of mountains with the city pressed into the shoreline and up the slopes. But it’s Friday already and time to head for Sydney. For the unitiated northern hemisphere reader, New Zealand is actually a long [...] So here I am in Wellington again. It seems that my curse this year is to keep one step ahead of any pleasant weather. No sooner had the sun finally popped out back home, then I was off down to a windy New Zealand spring. Still – anything beats -35C in Edmonton last February [...] |
Tony O'Donnell is a Fine Gael member of Kildare County Council in the Kildare LEA. He is a 30 year old engineer living in Kildare Town. You can read more by clicking About Tony O'Donnell. |
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