- Multimedia
- English Language
- European Life
Portfolio
This is a kind of audio-visual online CV
My academic qualifications and certificates are on the Qualifications page).Radio Journalism
My Programmes for Radio Slovakia International January - March 2006
I worked for the English department here for a couple of months. It was great training because I did a bit of everything. Slovak Radio owns the copyright to the soundfiles, and they are available here solely as samples of my work. I have added some of my own photographs to illustrate the features.- My radio debut reading the news
MP3
2006-01-25 1.02 MB 00:02:14 My radio debut reading the news. I was very nervous.- MP3
2006-01-27 2.27 MB 00:04:58 Reading the news and a topical issue.
- MP3
2006-02-01 2.56 MB 00:05:35 News and a topical issue again.
- MP3
2006-02-14 2.63 MB 00:05:45 More news and another topical issue.
- MP3
2006-02-21 1.92 MB 00:04:12 Even more news and a different topical issue.
- MP3
2006-02-26 10.7 MB 00:23:23 The Listeners' Tribune - Studio chat and listeners' letters.
Features
MP3
2006-02-11 5.27 MB 00:11:31 My first radio feature, about a Slovak Roma band called
Kokavakere Lavutara.
MP3 2006-02-23 MP3 10.01 MB 00:22:08 Two features: Online networking and a Slovak Dance House night.
Open BC online networking people
If you want to try online networking, there are many different networks to choose from. The one featured in the sound file is Open BC. It's a worldwide network, but is based in Europe and has many European members. English and German are its main languages. These pictures are not from the same meeting or venue as the audio file.
Tanecny Dom - Slovak Dance House
Anyone can learn Slovak dancing and join in the fun at Tanecny Dom events in Bratislava and other places.
MP32006-03-30 MP3 4.32 MB 00:09:26 Features: The Candle Demonstration and Fasiangy (Slovak Carnival).
Bratislava Candle Demonstration
The original candle demonstration took place in March 1988. It has been commemorated every year since then.
Fasiangy - the Slovak Carnival
The fasiangy parade takes place every year on Shrove Tuesday
Academic Work
If you click the links you can see:
a short example of my academic writing, Summaries and Critiques of two Ethnochoreographical Readings.
the main pages of my world dance website. I developed it for a module of the Master's degree course in Ethnochoreology. For more information see the Qualifications page.
Greyhounds
Breeding, rearing, training and writing about them.
Greyhound Ballad Sheets
The Iron Dog from Clare
is a song that was loosely inspired by an encounter between a fast greyhound called Callura Snowball, and a specialist greyhound vet named Plunkett Devlin. They met at a seminar in Ennistymon in the west of Ireland, organised by a company that was promoting a range of Australian veterinary products for greyhounds.After giving his talk, Plunkett said he would examine a few local dogs. When he looked at Snowball he called him a freak, because there were so many things wrong with the dog that he shouldn't have been able to run at all, let alone win as much as he did. He also called him an iron dog. Well that's how I remember the situation, although the dog's owner P J Reynolds disagrees that the word freak was used. Whether my memory is correct or not, he was a freakishly good and gutsy dog, and the story in the song is only slightly exaggerated.
Charlie's song
is about a greyhound called Saleen Charlie that belonged to the O'Connors from Saleen in Kerry. I got to know them through breeding a bitch to their Derby-winning stud dog Swanky Star. Another day when I was visiting, Tom asked me to look at a litter of pups out of their good bitch Star Razor and tell him which one I liked best. I picked out the brindled dog pup.Tom told me they were having problems registering that pup because there was a dispute over his parentage. This dispute
with the Irish Coursing Club, which is the official body in charge of the Irish Greyhound Stud Book,
continued for several years, until the O'Connors eventually proved their case in an enquiry and were allowed to name the dog. Then they asked me to write a song about it all. Easier said than done because it was a long complicated story, but I managed to fit it into eighteen verses and posted a hand-written copy to Tom and his wife Chris.
A few weeks later I went to Clonmel for the National meeting, where I went into a pub I'd never been in before, got talking to some people I'd never met before, and was astounded when one of them started singing my song. They were equally surprised to discovered that I was it's author. The story in the song is completely true as far as I know, except that I'm not certain of the exact sum of money involved. I expect the stud book people have a different interpretation of events, but they can write their own song if they want to.
Ponies
I bought this Welsh section A mare in Ennis in the mid-west of Ireland, but she probably arrived in Ireland in a bunch of foals brought from Wales to the Ballinasloe Horse Fair. I bred her to a small Thoroughbred stallion called Lynford Bay and the result was this bay filly foal. I heard later that she turned out to be a great jumping pony, and was sold for several thousand pounds to the North of Ireland.
Ennis Women's Group
Information Sheets
These were made in the days of real cutting and pasting with scissors and glue. Soon after moving to Ennis, I put up some notices looking for other people interested in starting a women's group. Marie Needham and Patsy Scammell replied and we took it from there. We held regular weekly meetings and also some special events and workshops, such as self defence training for women and a women's music session. It unfortunately came to an end shortly after Marie and Patsy moved to London, when I was the victim of a crime that turned my life upside down for a while.
Marie showed us how to put these information sheets together, and the first few were very much group efforts, but the ones shown here were mainly my work. The information is probably out of date, and the reproduction quality isn't good, but anyone involved with women's groups or gender studies is welcome to make use of them.
Scientific Work
This was all a long time ago. I hope I have remembered the terminology correctly.Marine Microbiology
Just as my contract at the FBA was finishing, I was accepted for a research studentship that had been advertised by the microbiology department of University College Galway (now called National University of Ireland, Galway). I started in February 1978, my supervisor was Dr John Patching, and my project was to study the bacteria at the bottom of Galway bay. It was terminated after 1˝ years without completion. The main reason was that they had run out of funds to pay my grant, which came directly from departmental funds. This was long before the Celtic Tiger arrived. The microbiology labs in those days were temporary huts in very poor condition, allocation of boat time was very limited, and I found that I had to make some of my own basic equipment. I think things have changed a bit since then.Freshwater Microbiology (FBA) I was a research assistant in the microbiology department of the Freshwater Biological Association. This was a one-year contract from Febrary 1977 to February 1978. My first supervisor was Dr Richard Horsley and my personal project was to isolate autotrophic thiosulphate oxidising bacteria from lake sediment.
I cultured and isolated a number of samples of bacteria from the sediment of lake Windermere, using autotrophic thiosulphate media under anaerobic conditions. I tested for the products of thiosulphate oxidation using a paper chromatographic method. I then inoculated all the positive cultures into heterotrophic media to check whether they were strict autotrophs. All cultures grew in these media, and in most cases grew better than in autotrophic conditions. My conclusions were that bacteria capable of oxidising thiosulphate were common in the Windermere sediment, and probably played an important role in the sulphur cycle, but if strict autotrophs were present much stricter laboratory conditions would be needed to isolate them.
I was then switched to working under Dr Gwyn Jones. My work for him included a methodological study of “most probable number” techniques, and the development of an acid nigrosin stain for filamentous bacteria.