His commentary is brilliant, his sarcasim fantastic and his wit, hillarious, and when you see the silly goings on with the voting from the blocs, you need this humour to get you through the night.

Jonny Logan for next year has already been mentioned on other parts of the internet, personally I think we should not bother with it or at least get U2 to perform, being an island really does have disadvantages, I say boycott it and let the blocs fight it out with themselves.

On the bus this morning I went through 3 different voting areas and I knew that due to the amount of posters up along my bus route (the much talked about 145), and an idea came into my head, since all politicians are the same as each other and don't give to flying fucks about the general public, and are more interested in their own pay packets this makes voting quite tough!

Cue trumpet fanfare....

I have a solution use the posters for inspiration.

I will start off in my own constituency, Wicklow.

For the Greens we have

Deirdre De Burca - Her image is a bit soft and also the colours seem unnatural her face has a hint of green going on.

For Labour we have

Liz Mc Manus - All in all labour have done an excellent job in the photography of its members from what I can see the colours of the people seem natural and each candidate is in a very natural looking environment.

Fianna Fail

Dick Roche - As the outgoing minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government he really should lose that smarmy look he always seems to have and as for the heavy dose of St Tropez that the Fianna Fail party seem to have adopted for their images, it really does not work for me, more on the orange brigade later.

Joe Behan - This man has not put any posters on lamp posts etc but has billboards all around Bray he looks like a decent character, he avoided the suntan look and lo and behold the colours of his face seems correct, is this the right way to decide how to vote?

Fine Gael

Dunno whats happened here but these guys are obviously pretty bad looking as there are no images at all of them up on lamp posts etc the same applies to the PD's at the time of writing this post

Sinn Fein

John Brady - He again looks like a nice guy, the posters are colour corrected nicely, his image is sharp and he is smiling in a warm way. You never know that smile may make women swoon and vote for him.

So onto the rest of my journey to town. I am going to go party by party here not constituency

Fianna Fail

Barry Andrews - his picture is oompaa loompaish and if thats the sort of quality we are talking about for his printing, he would not get my vote.

Jim O Callaghan - He looks like a criminal enough said

Chris Andrews - Whats with all these Andrews anyhow poor ole Chris he has Jaundice from what I can tell according to his poster.

Fine Gael

Sean Barrett - When I was growing up in Killiney I liked this guy, he seemed like a good man and his picture on the posters seems to be as I remember him so thats good.

Eugene Regan - He seems happy but a bit on the blue side, I mean his photograph has a very light blue cast over it which I find quite cold.

John Bailey - I think this poor candidate looks petrified of the camera and seems to have a face of fear, not that great a quality for going into government.

Lucinda Creighton - She is the cute hottie Fine Gael have put forward in Dublin, so please tell me why plaster loads of orange shit on her face and put her in a countryside environment this makes no sense to me.

The Progressive Democrats

As twentymajor put it these guys are portraying a sense of intellectual beings, so why the hell did you have a flash right up at you face for the pictures. This applies especially for

Fiona O Malley - the picture is mental white so much so I cant tell if I like her or not, she is smiling, I know this due to the fact her lipstick did not over expose.

Liz O Donnell - For such an attractive woman this photo does no justice for her once again a victim to the flash gun or possibly built in flash maybe the PD's went the cheap route.

Labour

Ruari Quinn, Eamonn Gilmore and Oisin Quinn not much to be said that I did not mention above except Labour nailed the opportunity for some good photos, obviously a pro photographer and an excellent print house these guys will get votes from me according to how I am going to vote.

The Greens

Ciaran Cuffe - Ok the one thing I should get off my chest is, Are the posters these guys are using recyclable???? Anyhow back to Ciaran, ah good old Senor Ciaran he has been sunbathing far to much another for the "this is Ireland not Spain" campaign.

Now onto the leaders

Bertie Ahern - He has that lost puppy look in his photo, drawing us in and making us feel sorry for him, well I saw the same look in that interview with Bryan Dobson and I ain't falling for it "Now, the next steps" is the line Fianna Fail are using for this election campaign personally I am hoping its their steps out of government.

Michael Mc Dowell - His image leaves me feeling kinda dirty, spooked out or something he obviously gave out shit to the photographer when he/she tried to put the flash is his face as he ain't overexposed, but he does look evil. Of course the PD's have gone for the threatening line "don't throw it all away" throw what away, my money, my pacifier I am confused, maybe they mean the work of current coalition.... nah

Pat Rabbitte - Silly Name, great photo as all the images from Labour have been. I like Pat, I have met him once or twice and he is a lovely man. Labours Mandate "Ireland can do better with Labour" I don't agree with since I work my tits off already thanks very much there is also no talk of extra pay, do I get time off in lieu or something.

Lastly Enda Kenny - Oh my god, does this man think he is a God or something, there is something dictatorship about the photo love me or else, also it bears no resemblance to the man, this guys has dark hair and chiseled looks so I think photoshop, botox, face surgery or something came into play here. Also I have no idea what lines Fine Gael are going down other then "for a change" better healthcare "for a change", safer streets "for a change" heres my suggestion decent real politicians "for a change" perhaps?

So I know I have left some out but I could not write shorthand on my phone very well of my notes. Anyhow it looks like labour win my vote for their photo prowess although when they call to the door that may change. Lastly my good friend Damien has some tips on those said door canvassers give it a read its well worth it, I also look forward to Insidethemindofanidiots views on this election crap.

I have options open to me go down the advertising route but adsense made me all of 19 dollars in 2 years so I dont think its a runner, mainly due to the fact that I am not a writer but a photographer so what ads would you see take todays image I can see the ads now Buy your blossom trees here etc. So I have 2 options left for me

1. Sell prints of the photos online that I have put up. I see plenty of photoblogs going down this route, my question would be "do they sell" I have never heard of any one mentioning that they have suceeded but there again why would they tell me its not really something you would openly talk about.

2. Photo stock sites. I also see alot of familiar names in the photoblogging community on sites like istockphoto and shutterstock. Obviously the returns are quite small but is it worth more then the 19 dollars over 2 years I imagine it is.

So if anyone can offer any sort of help I would greatly appreciate hearing what options you may have gone down and your experiences.

Lastly I dont plan on becoming a corporate whore or have advertising all over my page but why let it sit there doing nothing, when I may be able to generate more cash to pay for that next lens or whatever.

Well Sinead Gleeson announced he got a 2 book deal from Hodder Headline, and sure enough Twenty himself has confirmed this.

I am thrilled for him, and I without sounding to wanky am thrilled for the blogging community in general, this once again shows the power irish blogs are having in Ireland nowadays.

I have to tell the world 5 things about myself that people may not know about me, so here it goes.

1. This is really weird, the hairs that grow above the second knuckle down of your hands I hate them and spend a long time plucking the little blighters. I dont know why this is but you will not find any hairs there.

2. I should open a record store, I have over 2000 cds now in my posession ranging from death metal to classical music, the majority of them are now stored away in the attic after I found mp3s to take up so little space

3. I pick my nose.

4. I love solpediene, this is sad but I do find them refreshing nowadays.

5. I am nearly 35 years old and I have never driven a car, and get this my father is a driving instructor.

I am meant to send this on to other people so the chain can continue, and I do have to say that being so perfect makes this a hard thing to do.

So I am going to send this to Oyvind, Anna and Kathryn

The reason for this is because of this man, Richard Hearne of redcardinal.ie.

Richard offered all the shortlisted site from the Irish blog awards 15 minutes of his time to do some search engine optimisation for each of the sites if they so wished.

Now with my lack of knowledge on this front I jumped at the opportunity to let him ramble through my site and see what he came up with.

I have spent 2 years constantly rejigging the site and had, I thought got it up to a fool proof site.

How wrong I was.

Check out Richards post on how I have gone wrong and if you are a photoblogger I highly recommend reading this as we have very thin content ie. images, making SEO even harder.

There are still some changes afoot but more background stuff that wont affect you really, but that will hopefully help me.

Lastly can I take this moment to thank Richard for his hard work, and if anyone is looking for help, talk to this guy or at least check his site out, he is a fountain of knowledge.

Rebecca has been on and off teething for the past 4 months so hopefully over the next few days another one or two may pop out. By jesus I hope so cause I hate seeing her go through that pain.

I was not to keen on it at first but since I knew the director of the ad quite well I knew it would be a great advert.

Ok babies and tv advert what do you get?

Thats right the trocaire lentern campaign that, well up to yesterday, was airing a heck of a lot. Yesterday the advert was pulled from tv and radio. The weirder thing is that normally when I hear this happening in adland as I like to call it, it is the national station RTE that would normally kick up a fuss. In this instance it is Today FM who called the shots. Even more interesting is that RTE self regulate themselves and so are continuing to run the advert whereas everyone else has been instructed by the BCI to pull the ad.

The reason the BCI felt the need to pull the ad was

Following detailed consideration...it is the commission's initial view that the advertisement is contrary to Section 10(3) of the Radio and Television Act, 1988, which prohibits advertising directed towards a political end.

Now I have not heard the advert on radio but from what I can gather it includes a section encouraging members of the public to access the charity's website to donate online or order a Trocaire box.

The website in turn asks individuals to participate in the campaign for gender equality by signing a petition lobbying the Irish Government to enact a specific UN resolution on the issue.

So the petition is the problem! But thats on the website not the adverts what the hell!

For fucks sake its lent. Ever since I was a kid in school, the lentern campaign was a huge money earner for the charity Trocaire. Now that the ad is off air they have lost a vital message for people to donate. Ireland used to be an amazing country for donating to charity now we have charity adverts banned, Fucking ridiculous.

I have seen a lot of crazy decisions over adverts before but this takes the mick, not only that what about my daughters staring role on TV taken away from her over a petition which is not even advertised on radio or TV.

In case you are wondering Rebecca is the baby who raises her hand up near the start and you can see her at the end second row down, last to the right.

Did you know it only takes 2 complaints in Ireland to get an advert checked out, madness.

Im up against a lot of my daily visits a day that I would consider mentors in the photoblogging community in Ireland and feel honoured to be in such company. So now I just have to wait till March the 3rd to find out the outcome.

Once again thanks everyone.

ebookers.ie have donated a fantastic prize to be raffled on the night of the Irish Blog Awards. The lucky winner will have the choice of flights & accommodation for 2 for a weekend in New York or a week in Koh Samui!

Well I was always going to the awards anyhow but now its a certainty.

On another note welcome to the new look Verba blog, which I hope you will enjoy. I have gone for the same look as my main site McAWilliams.com with a few differences which I am sure regular visitors will spot very quickly.

Also may I remind people to VOTE for the McAWilliams.com Photoblog which has been nominated in 2 categories, best photoblog and best blog. I apologise for harping on about the votes but they do end tomorrow at 5pm.

Also Richard Hearn of Redcardinal.ie has offered all the longlisted nominations a free SEO consultation. Now this is something I would be thrilled to avail of.

So Richard here are the details you need:

1. webpage : mcawilliams.com
2. Categories nominated in : Best Photoblog and Best Blog
3. Topic or Niche : Photoblog
4. Taget Audience : People interested in Photography and Ireland
5. How long have I been blogging : into my third year
6. How old is the domain : about 4 years old
7. Other sites like mine : http://www.photoschau.de/ http://www.chromasia.com/iblog/ http://chromogenic.net/ http://wvs.topleftpixel.com/ and lastly a good friend http://www.caitriona.net/c/

Hope that helps you Richard, I had to post this in my verba blog since my main blog is a photoblog and I dont generally write up posts there, the last thing I need to do for you is this link back for search engine optimisation hopefully that will work and thank you for the offer.