Belated congratulations on your Geburtstag,

Tá dó caca milis bhreithla í teach mé féin. Agus tá mé ag ithe . Yum Yum.

Happy Bippy Audi !

Lá breithe shona dhuit Auditor!

And let's not forget America. Happy birthday Yankee imperial dogs! I was offered fries in a restaurant today; I opted for the baked potatoe. And they pronounced champ 'chaump'.

Evoting machine: Tabhair dom an cáca milis. That add was misleading in its Irish. He stressed the 'dom' in 'tabhair dom an cáca milis', rather than merely saying 'tabhair domsa...', which is better Irish. I shall write a strongly lettered word to someone on the matter.

Happy Birthday Auditor #9 - hope the sun is shining for you

Go raibh maith agaibh! The sun isn't shining in Las Palmas at all this fortnight but it's muggy and heavy anyway. Has anyone else been down to these islands? I don't understand why they don't have more vespas here like in the parts of spain I've seen ... you've been here riadach I think.. They have no motocicletas anyway and instead drive fairly large cars (which I interpret as blind ignorance against the looming reality) and petrol is around a euro per litre - 96 centimos or 103 centimos for un litro de diesel. Very cheap at present in comparison to at home but has been as little as 70 cents recently so is rising.

I've had the impression that this place - Gran Canaria - must depend very heavily on petrol or fuel so that the level of imports (and exports??) needed can happen and I've just read an interview with a government official in the local paper highlighting the effects of petrol prices and falling house prices and the indebtedness of the local economia - moreso than mainland spain - and the bureaucratic inefficiencies that exist here where yer man said that he was told recently that you have to negotiate as many laws to install a swimming pool as build a nuclear power station ... All that sound familiar? Apparently tourism still isn't affected though if that's what they are depending on ...

I've seen very little food grown here for an island of one million or so - looks incredibly dependent on imports. Water too - where do they get it? The island is about the size of Clare, maybe smaller, and a million people live on it and there is very little food and no fresh water and a strong propensity for the locals to drive thirsty vehicles ...

They have tons of wind turbines though

A belated but very happy birthday Audi.