On My Favourite Cartoon Character

Timmmmmaaaaaaay!!

Pure Genius.

On Trust

"No Parties!"

Not one.

Just informal social gatherings.

On Love...

A steaming bubble-bath.

Some dinner.

A big bear hug.

Caring thoughts after a hard day.

On Last Night's Drink Sodden Social

Truly revelatory.

The Google Generation

Googled my blog address today...
(anything other than doing real work).

1. 'Spanking' Betty.

2. 'Bold' Betty.

3. 'Husband and Wife Double Team' Betty.

4. 'Star of Adult Films' Betty.

5. '2nd Year Medical Student,likes dressing up from Toronto' Betty.

Hmmmm...

Think I'll stick with anomynity.

Irony

Shorthand. Tick.

History Essay. Tick.

Feature. Tick.

Blog. Hmmmmm...

Funny how learning the skills gets in the way of application.

Some Seasonal Cheer...

Evolution of the Blog

He comments.

She replies.

He responds.

She answers.

A Blog-ual relationship?

On Irish Ferries strike...

"Principles have no real force except when one is well-fed"......

And relying on public transport.

Kudos to Mark Twain for the quote.

Why???????????

"Mmmmm...he's cute" I thought....

He walked towards me, dark-haired,broad-shouldered,brown-eyed....

Our eyes met....

He smiled.....

I smiled....

His mouth opened...

A large ball of phlegm splattered on the ground.


Ah yes..The Irish Male.

Hint taken...

Thanks to my bro for forwarding me this article from Hotpress.
I take the hint.

The Catholic right has an unexpected ally, liberals aghast at the
unsavoury sight of binge-drinking young Irish women.
The recently published report of the Ferns sex abuse inquiry gives a
timely reminder of how things once were in Ireland. A generation ago,
the structure of our society was very different.

It's hard for anyone under 35 to understand just how different it was
before Gay Byrne read out letters from abused women on his radio show,
before the revelations of the horrors and cruelty of the Magdalen
laundries, before feminism and before the McGee case that paved the
way for the sale of contraceptives in this country.
Once, we danced at the crossroads and women had to leave their jobs in
public service on marriage. Just think of the presumptions!

Who now recalls the contraceptive train? Who now remembers that women
couldn't wear trousers in UCD? Who now recalls the craven compromise
of Charles Haughey's 'Irish solution to an Irish problem' which meant
contraceptives could only be bought on prescription? Who now recalls
the divorce and abortion civil wars?

Who now recalls Ann Lovett bleeding to death in the Granard grotto,
the revelation of her bleak and lonely death condemned by the parish
priest as 'giving scandal'? That misguided man couldn't see that the
real scandal was to hide from the truth, to refuse to acknowledge that
life was as we found it and that sexuality was the fast-flowing fount
of life without which we might have less heartache but without which
we also had no life at all...

Giving scandal? We didn't have a clue what was coming: floods of
revelation, dam-burst after dam-burst. Everything changed utterly and
our present terrible beauty was born.
There was a moment where you could see it take shape. The baby boomer
feminists and liberals had broken through to establish a bridgehead
into the modern world. The Pope's visit was intended to sucker Ireland
back into the fold. Instead, it turned out to be a watershed.

By the late 1980s, when the boomers had children, we had the youngest
population in Europe. As the economy stabilised we became consumers,
then we got rich. We became modern Europeans.
Our football fans charmed the continent. Cheap flights winged us
further afield. We sang and danced our way across the globe.

Being Irish was ultra-cool. Being Irish was sexy. I walked down
Grafton Street in 1994 and a BBC reporter stopped me and asked me
about this cool Dublin full of rockstars and models and designers. I
told her the city was full of young people and money and that when
those two combine you get sex and drugs and rock'n'roll.
And so it proved. Manhattan came to town. Sex and the city was us.
Sisters did it for themselves.

The relationships between women and society and between women and men
have changed completely. Whereas women's underachievement in education
was once a staple of feminist analysis, now the boot is on the other
foot, in Ireland as elsewhere in Europe. Women outperform men in
virtually all aspects of education. They also cheerfully exercise
their economic independence. Manolos to go.

There's a downside – young women also now out-drink young men across
(or perhaps that's under) the table. In fact, while Irish 15-year-old
males are only in fourth place in the European bingeing league, Irish
female 15-year-olds are in top spot.

The result? A media full of shock horrors about scantily clad and
drunken young women swearing, shagging, puking and fighting their way
through each successive weekend.
One priest gave us the memorable image of teenage girls in his parish
who 'only get down on their knees to give a blow job'.

Not representative of course, but the red tops love it. And it has
sparked an interesting development. Now Official Ireland choruses its
disapproval and incomprehension of its wanton daughters. Ombudsman
Emily O'Reilly triggered a chorus of cheers from even the ranks of
Tuscany last year with her sniffy disapproval of the way we have
become. And that means you, girls.

They don't quite want you to cover up, shut up and wear a veil, but
they'd like to see and hear you less. This is a common ground where
old Catholic conservatives meet embarrassed liberals in mid-life, or
perhaps parental, crisis. Now they're finding other allies. One of the
things that immigrants say, according to some reports at least, is
that they are offended by the amounts of flesh on show, by the
loudness and vulgarity of the language used and by the drinking and
assertiveness.

An interesting new challenge is emerging for Irish women as we enter
the 21st century and as we embrace the post-modern world. It's to
maintain their hard-won independence and freedom against inroads from
not only old Ireland but new Ireland as well. Interesting times ahead!

Obsession....

"I know quite certainly that I myself have no special talent; curiosity, obsession and dogged endurance, combined with self-criticism, have brought me to my ideas". Albert Einstein

And me to spending the last 3 HOURS reading classmates Blogs!!!!

AAAAAAAAAAARRRRRGGGHH!

Pardon the cliche but....

I'VE HEARD IT ALL NOW!!!!!!

Dear Santa..

how r u? i'm fine.

i've been such a gud gurl this year....and i'm not askin for much at all...

i really love playin toy soldiers with my pal george but my mummy says we've broken and lost so many of them that we really shouldn't be playin nemore..

but george really loves to play and says he wont be my friend anymore if i stop.

so pleease Santa...

could you pleease pleease pleease get me a new game which i would like very much thank you..

p.s it's on pge 376 of the Smyths katalog.

At last its here! My excitement cannot be quantified!

I knew some genius would eventually come up with it...

Goodbye Scrabble, farewell Monopoly....

hello Battle to Baghdad: The Fight for Freedom.

The Iraq war has spawned playing cards (remember Saddam as ace of spades?), countless books and even a TV series. Now it has its own board game. Yipppeeee!

Released just in time for the Christmas market, nothing says festive cheer like a game of maiming and killing.

Oregon construction worker, Rick Medina conceived of the idea whilst in the shower, proving its not just a place for scrubbing and singing but political thought too.

The game is set in March 2003, with U.S. forces racing across the desert.

"You will take out airports, night bomb cities, hunt down Saddam Hussein, and take over Baghdad," say the instructions. Perfect for the little kid in all of us!

The victor is the first to make it to the Iraqi capital without losing all his or her soldiers. And just like US military commanders and their political masters, players encounter some painful and unexpected hazards on their dangerous journey through the desert. Well who said it would be easy?

Based on events that actually occurred during and after the invasion, cards drawn by the players determine whether they gain or lose troops from their initial 3,000-strong force on Iraq's borders.

"Captures!" declares one, rewarding the player with 300 extra men for the ensnaring of Saddam Hussein. Sweeeeet!

"Deployment" announces the dispatch of another 200 men by the president. Nice one!

"Disgrace", however, appears on a card of a female soldier holding an Iraqi detainee on a leash. It reads: "Some soldiers are found guilty of unlawful treatment and inhumane acts of violence towards Iraqi prisoners. You lose 100 troops." Doh.

And in another, a "beautiful young woman" takes out 50 men in a suicide bombing. Shucks.

"I was hoping that this would show Americans what soldiers are really going through over there," says Rick. And show them it does. What better way to feel empathy for those laying their lives on the line than through the medium of card'n'dice? Equally perilous. Equally traumatic.

Yet inexplicably, the game has it's detractors. Mr Medina has received emails questioning the boardgame's subject matter.

One such email read "This is the height of American capitalist arrogance. A company can produce a board game so that our children can trivialise and misinterpret the destruction of a nation, the corruption of our nation, the slaughter of humans, American and Iraqi."

And a serving marine sergeant wrote: "Are you people completely insane? Have you no common sense at all? You think this is some sort of ******* joke!? You disgust me."

But the Oregon construction worker is undeterred by these criticisms.

In a defiant statement reminiscent of his leader, Mr Medina declared,

"As an American, I was raised to believe that we should have ideas and try to make money out of them. That's the American way."

Apparently so.

Thought for the Day

I like pigs. Dogs look up to us. Cats look down on us.
Pigs treat us as equals.

Sir Winston Churchill

Along Similar Lines

Just on the theme of the Sunday Indo....and Hypocrisy!

It was not so long ago. "It's now or never", I thought.
A feeling of compulsion. Spurred on by a belly full of beer. And lowered inhibitions.
"How's work?" I asked.
"Good" he replied. "I've been promoted, working on more stuff now".
Jealousy cursed through my veins. "Wow".
The word resounded off my tightly-clutched, lipstick-smudged beer can...and sounded twice as hollow.
Quick, say something else.
"Well I think it's a total rag anyway, totally tabloid, sooo low-brow".

The subject: The Sunday Independent.
The unwilling victim: The editor's son.

"That's fair enough" he responded jovially. "You're entitled to your opinion".

And that we are. Every single one of us.
Sometimes these opinions are coloured by likes,dislikes,personalities and beliefs but so often they are ruled by hypocrisy.

As I stood/swayed there that night I spoke those words and no doubt thought that I really felt them but in cold light of a hangover the guilt set in.

I had derided the paper, some of the contributors and ultimately my unwilling victim. It was a pleasant tirade, all the more enjoyable for the fact that someone was actually listening to my sh*t at 5 in the morning. But then the unthinkable happened. I was stopped dead in my tracks.

"You wouldn't be interested in a job then?" he gently enquired.

And there it was. The glaring hypocrisy.

As blatantly obvious as the beer that missed my mouth and dribbled down my chin.

An Editorial Decision

Saw this pic and thought again about the Gwen Halley article. They could have substituted it.
I think it shows what she was trying to get at.
Definitely more succinctly.
Possibly more intelligently.


Something tells me Sunday Indo readers might have a preference for pictures!

Gwen Halley...(yawn)..zzz..

A few thoughts...

(I would have preferred not to comment on this article as I didn't feel it worthy of one and only state the following because of a request to do so)

1. The over-riding feeling having read the article was one of ennui.

2. The author questions her position as a female journalist...I'd be doing the same if I'd just compiled a couple of hundred words about nothing.At all.Really.

3. The hypocrisy in the article is so blatant as to hardly warrant a mention but here's a few examples:

- Halley complains of Dowd succumbing to "Bridget Jones" syndrome but in essence there's nothing more "Bridget Jones" than whingeing about men.
- Halley complains of Browne's venemous diatribes but is not only engaging with them but folllowing suit.Poorly.

4. Halley speaks of intelligent women, "strong women". Yet she does not come across as one.
(Any intelligent woman knows not to emulate men but to transcend them).

5. Halley describes Browne "vomiting his bile". A crude description. And one which I matched in thought with Halley retaliating with a fart...capable of nothing more than a burst of hot air.

5. Overall the article is bland. It says nothing in particular. It was a waste of time...

I could have been reading Vincent Browne!

Green Eyed Monster

Despair: to be overcome by a sense of futility or defeat.

It began optimistically enough. Create a blog.

Hmmm..How hard can that be? But difficulty was not the problem.

Comparisons were.

And it just got worse.

Line after line of erudite entries, eloquent expression.

Engaging. Enjoyable.

ENVIOUS.

Skilled at MY craft. More so than ME.

Feelings of inferiority, worthlessness.

FEAR.

29/11/05 Breaking news...

"A Blog has been found abandoned and burnt out in the notorious 'Self-Doubt' neighbourhood. It may have been used in an unsuccesful hit-and-run style attack on Self-Expression".

And then the cliche.

A phoenix rising from the ashes....

My Blog.
My Struggle.
My Hope.

My Tragic-hero.

Food for Thought...

My boyfriend asked me what I wanted for Christmas yesterday.

"Hmmmm"...I thought to myself..."what do I want"??

After much soul-searching (the Christmas pressie's importance cannot be underestimated), I came up with two options.

1. An i-pod
OR
2. A cow

Strange. You might say.

Well yes it is...
One has the power to keep me entertained for hours...the other can keep a family in the developing world nourished for years.

This is thanks to a relatively new aid agency called "bothar".The simple premise behind this charity is 'helping people to help themselves'. This is done through the gift of animals and equipment. Its a departure from the wads of cash normally sent to allay the guilt inherent in spending 600 euro on your toddler.

Who cant walk. Or talk. And already has a mobile. And an X-box.

Bothar's Christmas catalogue grants more leverage to your seasonal shopping. No longer do you have to haul yourself around the shops. No longer must your ears suffer a barage of abuse from Rudolph and Co. Those years of buying that family member the present they didnt want, you couldnt afford and that they hate you for, are over. Now from the comfort of your couch (and indeed your conscience!) you can purchase that perfect Xmas pressie, an animal for Africa. And there are many to choose from; cows,goats,rabbits and even bees!
Last year I bought my brother some chickens and addressed the card Hugh Heffner...
old perv with flock of birds...geddit?? Hmmm...maybe not.

Despite my diabolical humour, the gift still made for a great Xmas pressie. I think if most of us were pushed to name something we need and/or want (in the real meaning of the term)it'd be a hard job. "Bothar" solves that conundrum.

Go on, send an animal to Africa.

It may not really be a gift for the toddlers but aren't they just as happy playing with the wrapper?

Literary Intellectual of the Day

"One of the great things about books is sometimes there are some fantastic pictures."
-George W. Bush Jr

Bertie On Ice

Its quite surprising what passes for entertainment these days. One glimpse at the cinema listings, television page or music chart...move over Medusa,I'm turned to stone(d).

Drivel,drivel,drivel...and here comes the cliche...no wonder I drink so much!

So in a desperate bid to defend my pint-loving posterior from the lure of Thursday night drinking I found that very rump, freezing and unstable, encircled by a vast menage of teeny-tots,teeny-boppers, yummy mummies,doting daddies and the odd bewildered boyfriend.

Ah yes. The "extravaganza" that is 7up's Christmas on Ice.

And what a magnificant evening it was.

It all began as I waited for the arrival of my friend Alice. This (long) wait was made all the more enjoyable by the harmony that reigned in the (incredibly long) queue. There were no little brats..i mean boys and girls...screaming, pulling each others clothes,hair,extremities,or kicking my person/belongings. They bore their impatience with great dignity and maturity beyond their years and material possessions, as spoilt..i mean cherished...little people.

This situation was made all the more refreshing by the fact that the long,long,long wait was conducted outside. None of these nice warm congregation areas for me. No. Excitement would only be dulled by the ability to feel your fingers and toes. And what better way to prepare for possible injury than decreasing the blood supply to these cumbersome limbs?

Yet what most enthralled me about queuing up in the cold was the sense of comraderie that ultimately developed. One young lady beside me declared "jaysus, bleedin freezin isn ih?".
"Bleedin freezin" I concurred. Also I was glad to see that in this day and age, at least on the Dublin scene, the Z-lister still reigns supreme. Jaime from the "Spinnies", Dublin's pre-pubescent pin-up, oozed glamour wearing ripped jeans and a designer girlfriend. Marty Whelan looked authoritative whilst serving up marshmellows to a gaggle of little girls. Ryan Tubridy was on hand to provide the head-splitting...i mean side-splitting..witticisms. Finally Luke Thomas of failed-popstar/head-to-big-for-body fame crooned away in the corner completing a veritable who's who of economical event attendees. It felt special just being there.

But the razzle-dazzle didnt end there. No sooner had I put my autograph book back in my pocket than a huge mercedes with gleaming bodywork,shiny alloys and decorative bird-sh*t whizzed up to where I stood. Oh how I beamed with pride seeing An Taoiseach scuttled out of the back seat and man-handled to the front door. And what testament to Bertie's down-to-earth character that he only shoved those closest to him out of his way. The Taoiseach's burly minders kindly propelled me to the left with just enough force for my 5ft 1" frame. Whats that they say about being touched by greatness?

Once I had recovered my balance (thanks to Alice who arrived at an opportune moment)it was inside for the opening speeches. I couldnt help admiring the poise with which Bertie negotiated the ice. Tubridy nearly tumbled and god knows he's only a whippet. But not our Bertie. All those fancy dinners and pints of Bass lent him an anchorage for dealing with slippery situations. Once shielded by the safety of the podium (something to cling on to!) the profundity of his words struck a chord. "Children love Christmas" he declared. Carefully backed up by anecdotal evidence, the audience were hard pressed to disagree. Bertie had done his homework.

Alas, the sweet,sweet stutterings were over and some guy from the ISPCC put us all on a downer by talking about "less fortunate" kids. But all was not lost. Tubridy saved the day by ending the ramblings on a high with those clever witticisms. Oh how we tittered.

The three amigos were then herded off the ice so the skating could begin in earnest. The queue for the skates only took 25 minutes. This was well worth it when you felt the gleeful terror of wobbling around in a crammed enclosure for half that time. Ice cracked as heavy bottoms toppled over. Children screeched as their chums went faster. Adrenalin soared as collisions were narrowly avoided. Christmas tunes blared from the speakers. Just loud enough to decipher your companion's roars. The spirit of Christmas had truly descended.

But no longer had it commenced than it was over. 10 minutes really do fly when you're having fun. We headed for the bar, and free thimbles of mulled wine which had the multiple benefits of heating one up whilst providing anesthesia for lacerated feet. (Made mental note to congratulate organisers on clever example of forward thinking).

It was at this late stage of the proceedings, amongst the mulled wine thimbles and free hot dogs that An Taoiseach again reared his head. "What a fine speech" iniated one doting Daddy. "Oh I dunno Jim" replied another, "does he ever say anything clever?"

At this "Christmas on Ice" someone was treading thinly...

New Beginnings

"Everyone is entitled to be stupid, but some abuse the privilege".

So here i am setting up my blog.Its a new beginning.
Try to be witty...
so did you hear the one about the...??
Try to sound intellectual...
So Einsteins theory of relativity eh??

Nope.Not working.
Oh well.

Its a new beginning.