Sea Life in Bray marks ‘Shark Week’ with a call to the government to protect Ireland’s native Basking shark population. Pictured are Lockie Keogh (11), Niamh the Shark and Anna van der Reek (9). Picture: Jason Clarke Photography.

THINGS WE LEARNED

#CIAO: Former Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi has been found guilty of involvement in a corporate tax fraud involving his media giant Mediasat. The 76-year-old has been sentenced to four years in prison, but this was reduced to one year because of an amnesty law. The sentence – and a €2.5 million fine – also need to be affirmed by another court first.

#BAILOUT: Enda Kenny has tried to discourage any thoughts of a second bailout, after a spokesman for Angela Merkel’s CDU party said new conditions would probably have to apply if Ireland was to recover some of its bank debts from the ESM.

#HOUSEHOLD CHARGE: The latest figures for household charge payments on a county-by-county basis show Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown is still the most compliant county – and Donegal the least.

#MISSING: The family of missing vet Catherine Gowing have visited the search site in Wales to speak to the police teams who are continuing the search for the missing vet from Co Offaly. This evening marks two weeks since Catherine was last seen.

#SYRIA: 61 people are reported to have been killed after an agreed ceasefire to mark the Muslim holiday of Eid broke down in several areas. Car bombings are said to have occurred in Damascus, Aleppo, Homs and at a military base.

THINGS WE LOVED

• This Chrome extension from Buzzfeed, which will filter out any mention of ‘Obama’ or ‘Romney’ in your Facebook feed and replace them with pictures of cats.
• The fact that, in the human sanitation world there’s such a thing as a ‘fatberg‘. This is when food fat is flushed down the loo and cools down, hardening as it does so. Our thanks tothe Guardian’s list of 10 Things You Shouldn’t Flush Down The Toilet for that nugget.
• This awesome photograph sent in this evening by reader Orla O’Grady, of the unusually golden autumnal sky over Dublin this evening.

THINGS WE SHARED

• This collection of 35 awesome billboard advertisements.
• This animated GIF of someone in the crowd at a gig, being hit by a cake. (Nuff said.)
• This video of the Tall Ships leaving Dublin Bay in August of this year, by filmmaker Rachel O’Connor, which does a really nice job of capturing the excitement as the entire flotilla left Howth.

(Vimeo/Rachel Sian O’Connor)

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