A festival for the whole family
One of Dublin’s most inclusive and creative community events, The Five Lamps Arts Festival, will be shining a light on the north inner city’s unique arts, culture and social life.
The Festival centres around and takes its name from the ‘Five Lamps’ – a decorated lamppost with five lanterns dating from around 1880 and situated on an island at the junction of Portland Row, North Strand Road, Seville Place, Amiens Street and Killarney Street in Dublin’s north inner-city.
The festival was first established in 2007 as an initiative of Marino College of Further Education, and is supported by State, city and philanthropic funding. It has grown into an annual event which celebrates tradition, history, storytelling, and performance, bringing all sides of the Dublin community together.
This year there will 43 events across 15 venues during March 7-11.
A timely addition for new parents: With a new baby comes new responsibilities, as first-time parents have to learn the ropes of how to properly bring up a child often in a sleep deprived state. Although this can be a challenge, a new gizmo is providing an easy way to get into the daily routine of taking care of your baby, from feeding time to nappy changes.
The Itzbeen Pocket Nanny is an on-the-go device that helps parents remember baby care details. The parent has to simply press a button once after each nappy change, nursing or feeding, sleep or awake time, giving medication or any other task. Once pressed, the one-touch timers count up, letting the parent know how long ‘itzbeen’ since completing the baby care tasks. This is an easy way to communicate the baby’s needs with grandparents, babysitters, and day care providers alike.
Link found between standing and weight loss
As children, most of us were told that in order to improve our posture we must stand up straight with our shoulders back, but a new study has shown that standing more during the day could also help people lose weight.
According to the findings carried out by US researchers, a person weighing 65kg (143lbs) could lose 10kg (22lbs) in four years by standing instead of sitting for six hours per day.
“Standing not only burns more calories, the additional muscle activity is linked to lower rates of heart attacks, strokes and diabetes, so the benefits of standing could go beyond weight control,” said the study’s senior author, Prof. Francisco Lopez-Jimenez, of the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota.
The researchers called for more research in this area, but concluded that standing instead of sitting could be another behaviour change aimed at reducing weight gain.