Ireland vs. France

Heh, the following conversation might not have happened (unless the Consulat Général De France is located in “Joker Street”, but anyway, it’s hillarious. Either read the quotes or find the (largish) Image:

Ireland-vs.-France

20 October 2009

Dear Sir,

I am writing to you on behalf of the French President, Monsieur Nicolas Sarkozy. Following the recent announcement of the World Cup play-off match between our two countries, the President has requested that you provide a VIP box for the game as he is very keen to attend.

Yours faithfully,
Jacques du Maurier
Directeur
Consulat Général de France
12-24 Rue des Blaguer
74139 Paris
France

23.10.09

Dear Mr. Du Maurier,

Thank-you for your recent letter concerning box arrangements at Croke Park. We are delighted that President Sarkozy wishes to attend and look forward to welcoming him. We would just like some clarification regarding the VIP box as there are a number of options available. Do you have any preferences re: size?

Yours faithfully,
Bill O’Leary
Liaison officer
Department of Diplomatic Affairs
28 St. Stephens Green South
Dublin 2
Ireland

26.10.09

Dear Mr. O’Leary,

Thank-you for your prompt response. We were not aware that the boxes at the stadium came in different sizes. Do the dimensions have any bearing on one’s enjoyment of the game?

Yours faithfully,
Jacques du Maurier

29.10.09

Dear Mr. Du Maurier,

The overall match experience will certainly be influenced by the President’s choice of box. The first box is 30cm high and will allow the President to see most of the Croke Park pitch, though he may not be quite able to see play in the North-West quadrant. The second box is 60cm, but whilst this would afford the President a panoramic view of the pitch, it will also make him visible to Press photographers which may compromise his privacy.

Yours faithfully,
Bill O’Leary

2 Novembre 2009

Dear Mr. O’Leary,

There appears to have been some confusion. When we requested a “VIP box” for our President, we were not looking for a box for him to stand on. Whilst we expect the foreign press to make humorous remarks about the President’s diminutive stature, we do not expect this from an official representative of the Irish government department.

Yours faithfully,
Jacques du Maurier

5.11.09

Please accept our apologies and those of the Executive Hospitality Committee at Croke Park. There was certainly no intentional attempt at humour on our part and we hope that you will accept this as a genuine misunderstanding. Naturally, we will make a VIP ‘Executive’ box available to the President, with full security and hospitality arrangements in place. The boxes will then be placed discreetly inside.

Yours faithfully,
Bill O’Leary

9 Novembre 2009

Sir,

In light of the lack of respect we feel your office has displayed in response to an official request from a visiting Head of State, the President has decided to watch the match in Paris instead. Rest assured that we will be lodging a formal complaint regarding your conduct at the highest levels.

Jacques du Maurier

12.11.09

Fair enough. We look forward to seeing the boys in green give your lot a good hammering.

Bill

GNOME Membership stats

In case you are interested in the GNOME foundation, here are some quick stats: During the second quarter of 2009, we have received 22 applications for a new GNOME Foundation membership, plus 24 applications for renewing the membership. Due to applications arrived before 2009/Q2, 24 applications for a new GNOME Foundation membership have been accepted. During the same period 13 members haven’t renewed their membership and we ended with 368 members.

We can also see the number of members over time on this (pretty huge) graph:

GNOME Foundation Members over time from 2001-10 until 2009-08
GNOME Foundation Members over time from 2001-10 until 2009-08

We actually managed to cut our membership base by 25% within the last two years. Nothing too much alarming though because we still have more members than we ever had on average. But still, the trend goes slightly downwards although we probably should catch steam for GNOME 3.0. I would not mind if the people come after they have seen GNOME 3.0 though 😉

Let’s get a closer look onto the new foundation members:

Count of new GNOME Foundation members from 2009-01 until 2009-08
Count of new GNOME Foundation members from 2009-01 until 2009-08

Actually, nothing interesting, I think. 6 new members per month on average.

And the members who dropped out:

Count of GNOME Foundation members who dropped out between 2009-01 and 2009-08
Count of GNOME Foundation members who dropped out between 2009-01 and 2009-08

And we can get that compiled into one graph as well:

New and Dropped Members 2009-01 until 2009-08
New and Dropped Members 2009-01 until 2009-08

If you have ideas for interesting graphs, don’t hesitate to comment. Note that we don’t have much data though, because we don’t collect that much data anyway. And I really think this is a feature! Actually we could do even better because we currently have no policy when to delete data. So once you are a GNOME foundation member, you’ll be in the database forever. I guess we should fine a policy some time to not keep unused data.

In case you wonder what status your application is in, check the status page of the tickets we receive. New means, that nobody has done any action on it yet. Open is waiting for information from the contacts you’ve supplied and stalled is either no or a not satisfactory answer from your contacts yet.

Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported
This work by Muelli is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported.