That nice Handelaar fellow has been busy lately, working on a number of projects supporting an Irish version of WriteToThem (né FaxYourMP).

The most recent one is a mapping project, to enable you to place a given address on a map, without paying an absurd amount of money for the dataset.

So, here it is: The Holy Grail of Irish Geocoding. Put in a street address and town in Ireland, and out pops a lat/long pair and a Google Map to go with. With which, we discover that my sister lives in a field.

It's that day again. The day when some places go Green Bonkers (with absolutely no foundation in anything). Still, the Guinness flows, so that works. Just keep that dye away from my beer, thanks. Read on for a few topical images.

At last, we're following Ireland in banning smoking in all public places by Spring 2006. It'll be enforced with £2.5k fines on employers, and threat of removal of license from licensed premises, while persistent offenders will be fined up to £1k. Nice to see (a) The Scot Exec doing something good (b) Gaining all-party support.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/3999975.stm