Clearing out the house…
I am getting a bit rusty at the ol’ blogs! I haven’t written one in ages; it’s because I haven’t had much free time in the last few months.
Thanks to the recession, I finally got around to buying a small little house in my home town of Kinsale. The previous owner passed away in 2008 and I went over to clear out the property at the weekend.
Amongst the previous owner’s belongings, were a couple of World War One medals which I wanted to share with ye. They were in their original envelope and addressed to a Mrs C Ahern of Higher Street, Kinsale, County Cork. Her husband must have died in the war..
When I opened the envelope, there were two little boxes inside.
On the sides of the boxes, it read: “James Ahern Dec’d”
Must have been awful for his wife to open the envelope and receive these in the post.
Inside each of the boxes, was an accompanying letter:
The first one had a Buckingham Palace Letterhead…
And the medal her husband never got to hold:
And this letter came with the other medal (dated 28th February, 1922):
And the medal:
I kept all the old photographs that were in the house. They have names written on the back of the photographs identifying who is who, so I will post them on here when I get a chance. Maybe people will be trying to piece a family history together and they may be of use to someone out there…
I downloaded his card from the National Archives Website, it doesn’t give much information other than his year of birth, which is 1874
There you have it now…
Ages ago I found another World War One Medal, read all about that here
I got some energy for 2010…
There must be something fundamentally wrong with me; as a human being and I put on this planet for just a flicker of a moment and I behave like this…
There was I, all alone on the top deck of a double decker bus, on new years eve afternoon. I sat in the very front seat when all of a sudden a friendly girl, just a few years older than me, with an accent hard to define, sat in the other front seat opposite me.
She smiled at me as she took her seat and I half smiled back. When she settled into her seat, she kinda leaned over and said “this is beautiful isn’t it?” she could hardly contain her excitement… It kinda took me by surprise.
I looked out and saw grey buildings towering over me, traffic everywhere, people zig-zaging on the pavement. I tried to see the beauty, I replied “its a nice view from up here”, she agreed and her whole persona was poised for a fully fledged conversation. It was at that point, I reached in to my bag and pulled out my Ipod…
I could feel her watching me and I continued to plug my ears despite this innate feeling that it was the most ignorant, ugly thing any human could do in a moment like that.
With my ipod clogging up my ears, I couldn’t shake off this feeling of self disgust, so i put my ipod away and angled for a chin wag.
By that time she had a magazine open on her lap; I noticed it was called “voyage”.
I broke the ice and we had a loose, on & off chat for the duration of the journey across London. She was so excited to be here and had only just arrived from Paris. I told her that I too felt like that when I first came here, but now I’m sort of like a horse with blinders;
She said she feels that way about Paris. We agreed that things always look better when you’re just passing through… and I said “Yep, a rolling stone gathers no moss…”
I then thought to myself how cool it would be to be a rolling stone again, a wanderer, just roaming around from place to place and settling for a while, then moving off when the time felt right.
Imagine if we just followed our every whim and we never settled down… Like if I just went home now, packed my bags and walked out on all that’s familiar and just headed off, just headed off and just went where ever the wind blew me…
Anyway, she got off the bus when we got down south of the river and I said, “Happy new year to you”. She said it to me too. I said I hope its a good one and I really did mean it. She told me that it has already got off to a great start as she has just received the best news ever. She was beaming. I said I hope some of that energy passes over onto me, she raised her two hands over me in jest and said, “I’ll give you some of that energy now!”…
We both laughed and that was the end of our encounter.
I am kind of excited about 2010 now and waiting for my good news…
Short Eared Owl
I was woken up at about 5am this morning by the strangest sounding creature. It was an eerie sound to hear in the dead of night, in the middle of the country (I was at home in Ireland) – I wasn’t sure if it was a fox or an owl, but I just had a look online now and I found out what it was:
The Short-Eared Owl…
I heard a male AND a female. The female kinda sounded like a scratchy ol’ fox.
Click here to hear what the male sounded like…
And here is what the female sounds like.
I have been reading all about Owls today and fantasising about living in the country again….
When I first meet someone…
I sometimes find myself having a conversation with someone, but while they’re talking, I drift away from the conversation -but only if its safe to do so. You can always tell when the time is right to start drifting, you know yourself.
Some people like to talk and talkers will always find listeners. More often than not, I prefer to listen than to talk, yera, I wouldn’t be much of a talker really…
Some random people talking... or are they?
When I meet someone for the first time, or the first few times, I like when they talk because it allows me to ‘take them in’. I’d say they think I am listening to them and sometimes I am, but sometimes I am not! …and they are fooled, because I go through the appropriate motions; I am still nodding and responding and laughing and smiling in all the right places.
Things get a little difficult when I meet a like minded creature and when I do, I start talking – only because I feel as though there would be silence if I didn’t, so I am somewhat forced into the talking role, which feels uncomfortable at first but once I get into it, I’m capable of a bit of waffling. I will talk about anything when I am in those situations. Anything to fill that gap.
Today I was in a three way conversation. They are the best for this kind of thing because you can easily slip out of the conversation to have a little ’sniff around’. Dogs have been doing this ever since they were dogs and they do it much more openly; there are no social graces with dogs and that’s why I love them. When a dog encounters another dog, they have a good ol’ sniff.
Having a good ol' sniff...
They fill up their senses and gather all the information they need. They then make a judgement based on this and don’t have any qualms about it; they will either hump the other dog or lay into him
I make those judgements too, but in more subtle ways. I have to do it the human way, I wait until the person is in full flow and then I look at their eyes and how their face moves as they talk, their hair, their clothes, their shoes, their hands…the list is endless but I make a judgement as snappy as a dog.
Anyway, this particular conversation I was having today was with a tall skinny man and a swarthy twenty something girl. The girl was rabbiting on and I took to studying the tall skinny man, keeping the twenty year old girl for another time. The tall skinny man will probably be in my life for a while, in fact both of them will be if things go according to how I think they’ll go, but you can never tell – I could be knocked down by a bus tomorrow, but anyway, this man, he had an unusual shaped head. It was attached to his neck where you wouldn’t imagine it to be attached. Who ever made him, must have been distracted just as they were positioning his head onto his neck. While he was talking to me, I was imagining how I would re-position his head given the chance… Isn’t that awful?
The Irish Coffees that bombed…
Irish coffees have always been my forte. I make them so well that when people see me coming, they start seeing visual images of Irish coffees and begin to salivate.
At Christmas time, I usually make a batch after dinner for all the clan to enjoy. It had become a bit of a ritual by 2006, but unfortunately that year there was a little eh, ‘mishap’ that jeopardised my position as Champion Irish Coffee Maker and since then… well, I haven’t been asked to make them again. That year there was no cream you see and I had to improvise…
I found some whipped white stuff in a bowl in the fridge that looked just like whipped cream and looking back, I suppose I just wanted to believe it was cream…
I went so far as sticking the tip of my index finger into the mixture for the purposes of taking a sample. It tasted ok, it was mild enough to do the trick and looking back, I suppose I just wanted to believe it was cream.
Functionally, it worked a charm. It sat in beautiful dollops on the dark coffee underneath and when I came around the corner with the tray of Irish coffees, it was like the climax of the evening… there were ‘ooooohs’ and ‘aaaaahs’ and ‘mmmms’ and enormous smiles – My mother nearly ruined the moment by asking me where I got the cream. I think I must have convinced myself she didn’t ask me that and proceeded to hand everyone their drinks.
Everyone started sipping and supping and gulping… then there was a sort of silence that grew… I don’t know, the atmosphere just started to change and my imaginary bubble began to sag. People started to spit and cough and make faces and push the coffees away.
My mother then started to home in on the ‘cream’ side of things. I felt like I was in a courthouse. She was badgering me on what I used for the cream especially when she didn’t buy any. I finally confessed that I had used the ‘mixture in the fridge’ and they jeered at me when my mother revealed that it was marscapone cheese.
I drank all mine as they laughed and pointed. I thought it tasted lovely…
I don’t know…Looking back, I suppose I just wanted to believe it was cream.
That’s it! I am Boycotting SONY…
Right, I am going to have an unmerciful rant now…
My head is bursting, my veins are pulsating and my brain is pounding away like a caged bull inside my skull.
I don’t care if nobody reads this but I am going to put it out there anyway for the following reasons:
1. It will make me feel good to bitch about SONY.
2. I hope people will read this and think twice about buying SONY laptops, especially the following models: VGN-AR1xx, VGN-AR2xx, VGN-AR3xx, VGN-FZ1xx, VGN-FZ2xx, VGN-FZ3xx, VGN-FZ4xx, VGC-LT1xx, VGC-LT2xx because they have been manufactured with faulty NVIDIA Graphics chips!!!
In December 2007 I purchased a Sony Vaio laptop from Micro Anvika. I spent £1300 on the floggin’ thing. It was my pride and joy and I used to skip home every night to use it.
13 months later the graphics went bananas and it never worked again…
Click here for blog on symptoms…
That’s £1300 for a laptop that only worked for 13 months.
I rang Micro Anvika (the shop where I purchased this piece of Junk) and was told that because it was out with my 1 year store warranty, they couldn’t do anything for me; “I’m very sorry” – eh, no you’re not, you don’t give a damn so shut up.
I did a little bit of research online (with my new cheap laptop that I had to buy) and found that a lot of people were complaining about the same problem, so much so, that Sony themselves were forced to release a statement about it on 08/03/09.
The Statement can be read here:
http://esupport.sony.com/US/perl/news-item.pl?mdl=VGNFZ190N&news_id=349
In a nutshell, they were acknowledging the fault with the NVIDIA Graphics card and were offering to repair faulty laptops.
Meanwhile back at the ranch, I decided to contact Consumer Direct and ask them what rights I have as a consumer in this situation.
http://www.consumerdirect.gov.uk/
They told me that I should write a letter to Micro Anvika and quote The Sale of Goods Act 1979 as amended.
According to this Act, it states that goods should be of satisfactory quality and free from minor defects, have good appearance and finish and are durable, safe and fit for all the purposes for which such goods are commonly supplied.
My laptop had a fault and was definitely not durable.
I came off the phone feeling like I would like to take this further.
I sent the letter to them by registered delivery. That cost me £5, they should receive it today.
This morning I decided to phone Sony to see where I stand with them.
I called 0905 031 0006 which cost 35p a minute. I got talking to a nice chap. I explained the situation and without delay he assigned a case number to me and told me that DHL will pick up my laptop tomorrow for repair.
It all felt too good to be true.
It was.
An hour later, I had a phone call from someone who was very, very difficult to understand . I had to embarrass myself and her by constantly having to ask her to repeat herself and on some occasions to spell words so I could get the information I needed. It was near impossible to decipher what she was saying. It was almost comedy, if I felt like laughing, but I was so far from laughing about this. I was frothing at the mouth with bubbling anger…she proceeded to tell me she was from SONY and would like to ‘discuss fees with me’.
This pushed me to the edge of the cliff that overlooks raving madness…
Just an hour earlier the other fella acknowledged the fault and told me it was a problem with the NVIDIA chip and knew all about it. Now this girl was saying that I had to pay.
I went into rant mode with her and relayed the conversation I had earlier with the fella. She said “Ooh I don’t know why he would say those things”… She said she would check with the technician to see if there is a known fault of this nature. She said she would call me back but “couldn’t guarantee it would be today”. She said that line so many times I thought I was going to have a breakdown.
In hindsight, I should have asked to talk to her supervisor although I imagine he would probably be programmed to speak complete gibberish…
Moments later, I got a blank email from Sony quoting a different case number to the one that the original guy gave me; so are they going to pick up my laptop tomorrow or not!?!? I don’t know as they don’t have the courtesy to call me back today.
I have two case numbers now; one says I have to pay, the other says I don’t. One says I am having my laptop picked up tomorrow, the other says I am not.
This is it.
Me against SONY.
I suppose this is why we as dissatisfied consumers don’t like to go down this road. It’s a pain in the brain and their ’system’ is designed to make you go baloobas so you’ll give up trying.
You phone one number and talk to a moron, they give you another number, which costs 35p/min and after a half an hour wait, you get talking to someone you can’t understand…. You call the shop, they blame the Manufacturer, you call the Manufacturer, they blame the shop… round and round you go until you give up in the end and then they win. They take your thousand pounds with their greedy mits and laugh all the way to the bank.
Dirty animals.
Thieves and robbers and bullies.
It’s disgusting… I hate the way our world is going.
Evil… pure evil.
An aborted meeting…
I was in Starbucks this afternoon to fulfill an internal hankering for a Latte.
Standing behind me in the queue was a peculiar man with a pair of interesting looking Winkle Pickers. They were similiar to these ones:
He looked like he was from another era.
He also wore tweed pedal pushers and had a handle bar mustache.
We collected our coffees at the same time and brought them over to the special counter where you put your sugar in your coffee and get those wooden poky things to stir it with.
We stood side by side and did our business; tearing sugar sachets, pulling out napkins, licking foam from the stirring sticks and readjusting our coffee lids.
All of a sudden I felt compelled to turn to him and ask:
“Do you think we will ever stand side by side again?”…
Dublin City Marathon 2009 – Under my belt!
I was shooting for a 4hour finish in the Dublin City Marathon on Monday, but I somehow managed to do better than that… I completed it in 3.44 – not bad at all for my first Marathon!
It was the most amazing experience ever and I enjoyed every single millisecond of it.
It was a lot easier than I was anticipating actually and that surprised me. I didn’t get hung up on mileage, I just knew I had to sustain a decent pace for about 4 hours and I focussed on that. The weather was perfect; sun shining down for the duration of it, yet it was crisp enough that you didn’t overheat. I felt like a wild monkey at times because children were feeding me jellies from the sidelines on little plates. When I ran past them, I grabbed such handfuls that their plates toppled and the remainder of their jellies fell onto the ground, as I stomped away stuffing them in my mouth… the people standing at the sidelines cheering us all on really makes the world of difference. I found I ran faster in the designated cheering zones than anywhere else and it’s cuz they were shouting encouraging things and making us feel good about ourselves. Encouragement does wonderful things for the psyche begorrah…
Whilst I was limping to the airport like an old woman, I got an email from my friend Tom, who informed me that I might qualify for automatic entry to the London Marathon, based on my time, sex and age. Without further ado, I looked into it and it looks like I just might… The cut off time was 3.45 and I did it in 3.44 and 54 seconds. If I finished another 6 seconds later I wouldn’t qualify! I then remembered the point where I was running through a cheering zone and I got an almerciful burst of energy; with 2.2 miles to go, I just started sprinting like a madwoman thinking I could sustain that until the end. I heard people say “Jeeze yer wan is flying it!” ha! I managed to keep it up for 2 minutes and then I went back to my usual pace, feeling a bit wobbly. I think if I didn’t do that then, I would have come in later than 3.45
I am confused about one thing though and that’s the times. Mine are as follows:
My results
I started my own watch timer as I crossed the black mat (the official starting point). When I finished, my watch said: 3.43, the Marathon Timer Clock said 3.47.
The race website said my finish time was 3.44 and my chip time was 3.47. Surely they have the chip time and the finish time mixed up, do they? How could your chip time be higher than your finish time? I can’t get my head ’round it at all…
Anyway, well done to all of you who ran…
Goodbye Galway…
Ah Jeezis, Galway was beautiful yesterday morning as I was leaving it. Why is it that you can only appreciate something intensely in the moments just before it’s out of your grasp?
The streets had that Sunday morning air of abandonment, a stark contrast to the night before, where throngs of drunken, belligerent, scantily clad females paraded around with gaping pizza boxes and mouths full of chips and curry sauce…
I was desperately trying to stop time and stay in the moment but as soon as you realise you’re clinging, you’ve already suffocated it and I was soon on my way to the airport. It was too late then, i had to let go; the scenery was already whizzing past the car window and everything started to speed up.
The delightful Corrib River…
Kinsale…
I’m going to take a trip back to the ol’ sod…. I’ll hop on one of these things:
While I’m waiting in the airport, I’ll sit at the bar, and have a few pints of the loosening juice and read a few pages of my book
The pints always get me in the mood for going out slapping backs in Kinsale after I touch down… First port of call is the Greyhound, have a sniff around, see who’s about… then I’ll get dragged to the Bulman which is a bit of a trek, but the sister’s a big fan of the place and she’s doing the chauffeuring. So off to the Bulman:
If it’s a blustery night, you’ll always feel it over at the Bulman because it sits at the edge of the harbour. A few more pints to get the beer coat on…and if we’re lucky there might be some of this going on:
It’s close to closing, so away back into town, tuck ourselves safely into a pub before last call.
Then if I’ve enough pints in me, I may be persuaded to go to the local nightclub, God forgive me – terrible kip of a place – the white lady, they still have a slow set there where men come up and ask you to dance to the likes of “Unchained Melody” etc. If you go out for a dance with any of the ol’ codgers, you’ll soon be wrestling with more than you bargained for… This is the white lady:
Away home in a taxi – Mike will be driving, he’s sound. He always remembers me and we have great craic driving him mad on the way home. Next morning, I’ll cook Jerry, my Brother one of my world famous breakfasts. After, he will mark it out of ten. I always get about 9 and a half out of 10. He’ll dock me half a mark for the smallest things…just to be annoying. He loves when I come home cuz he gets quality brekkies…
I might take a walk out the old head of Kinsale to clear away the cobwebs:
If my Brother, Johnny is in from sea, he might give me a tuna like he did the last time:
If not, I’ll head into fishy fishy:
This place is amazing. They have the best food in the world. I might go for something like this:
Might have a pint of Kinsale Lager to keep it company in me belly:
They say that Kinsale lager doesn’t have any chemicals in it, so you can drink it to your hearts content without getting a hangover.
Did you know that a giant lived in Kinsale once? His name was Patrick Cotter O’ Brien and he was born in 1760. His shoe is inside in the museum in Kinsale. I don’t know where his other shoe is. He was eight foot and three inches and was the tallest man in the world at the time. When he was 18, a travelling showman discovered him working as a bricklayer and brought him to England to star in his “freak of nature” show.
There you have it…
Cuttin’ Trees
In 1998 all the elm trees in Ireland had to be felled due to a dutch elm disease that caused em all to rot. Having an elm tree on your property was a terrible liability as they were falling all over the shop and so everyone in the country was ordered to chop them down immediately before someone was killed 
My Father asked Jimmy Mac from Ballinspittle if he wouldn’t mind helping him chop down the elm tree we had in our garden. This is the village Jimmy is from:
Jimmy and himself arranged to do it on the following Sunday. So my father and Jimmy arranged to meet in the pub as you do before you have to cut down a tree. About forty pints later, they emerged from the pub ready for action. They got the chainsaw out and scoped out the situation. They had planned for the tree to fall to the left, so Jimmy naturally stood to the right. My father had the chainsaw and started it up. I came out of the house to watch. About a half an hour later, the plan went a bit awry and the tree didn’t fall to the left as planned, it fell to the right and Jimmy was under it. His head was split open and the scalp was flapping in the wind. I saw his brain. Jimmy was rushed to hospital. He lives to tell the tale. There are two morals to this story:
1. Never drink before operating a chainsaw
2. Never get an Irish man to cut down your tree
The Moving Statue of Ballinspittle
So I am brushing up on my Irish at the Irish Centre at Hammersmith. I always like going to the Irish Centre, they have great goings ons there. I went to see Finbarr Furey there last year; I sat up in the front row in what reminded me of the parish community halls you’d find in rural Ireland.
Anyway, I was waiting in the foyer of the Irish Centre, waiting for my class and having a suppa soup when I looked up on the wall and I saw a painting of what had to be the statue of Holy Mary in Ballinspittle. The reason I say it had to be of Ballinspittle, was because there was an almerciful crowd gathered round her, arms folded all staring up at her expectedly. Among the crown of people was a “Mr Soft Whip” Ice cream van…
When I saw the painting, I said to myself “jeez thas funny now” and I only thinking of the moving statue’s the other day.
What in the name of God came over Ireland in the early eighties that led everyone in the country to believe that the Holy Statues were coming to life? What kind of mental state were we in at all? Ballinspittle didn’t know what hit it, normally a sleepy ol’ village; all of a sudden there were people coming in bus loads, travelling for hundreds of miles to the grotto, they had to pour concrete over the adjacent field to make a car park, the roads were widened to accommodate the traffic, two new jaxes were built, a couple of telephone boxes were put up…
It was mass hallucination at the grotto, everyone standing around, the rosary blasted out of the loud speakers and the crowds joined in, in prayer.
In its peak, prayers burst into hymns, it was like a big concert.
The prayers were interrupted now and then by murmurs such as “She nodded” or “Jesus, Mary and Joseph, there’s a tear rolling down her cheek, la”
People were claiming to have been cured and everything. Some deaf one said that she came home with her hearing intact, I don’t know…
I think it all came to abrupt end anyway, when a few fiends felt it was getting out of control and took the matter into their own hands. In full view of everyone, they climbed up to the statue wielding an axe and hammer, they took a few chunks out of the face of the statue, everyone sort of slowly emerged from the trance after that. The statue was replaced but the people stopped coming.
It’s the kind of thing you think back of and say to yourself: “did that really happen?…”
For proof that it all happened, watch this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kZjM83wZmWw
I’d love to buy a statue… Can some one buy me one – I want a life size one…
The Honeydew II
This was on a night when it was blowing gale force 9 or 10 and just hours after one trawler had already gone down (The Pere Charles sank off Hook Head claiming the lives of all five fishermen on board, both boats sank within 20 miles of each other and they only about four hours apart)
A Naval Service spokesman said the VMS was introduced under EU regulations to monitor fishing activity in EU waters and was never intended as an emergency service for trawlers. While I understand this statement, it doesn’t sway my belief that on a stormy night the lads at Haulbowline could have been a little more vigilant. I mean, on a human level; to keep a watch out for your fellow man, because you can, because you are sitting in front of equipment that makes this possible, then why not? Because it’s not intended as an emergency service???
The last radio contact with Ger was at 11.55pm on January 11th. The search operation for the Honeydew II was only launched about 6pm on January 12th
Tomasz Jagla
Alter ego compulsions…
RE: Your black dog in the pub
He has the begging down to a T, I have seen him use and abuse people for their snacks. As soon as they were finished their snacks he would jilt them like lost lovers. He is a cunning piece of stuff.
He is an attractive dog and I suggest you put notices up so that the public don’t ruin him. He has the body of an athelete. If I was a dog myself, I would most definately take him. He has the best hind legs I’ve ever seen in my life. God bless him.
I look forward to seeing him in peak shape next year
All the best now,
—–
From: ////@thebulman.com –> –> –> –> –>///@thebulman.com –>
Date: Jul 3, 2006 11:19 AM
Subject: Re: Your Black dog in the pub
To: Mick Magee –> –> –> –> –>///@gmail.com–>
Hello Mick,
Thanks for the info. I will let the owner know. The Dog does not belong to the bar but lives behind The Bulman. She is a great manipulator with those sad eyes and cute face, it is hard not to give in to her.
Glad you enjoyed your time here and I hope it will be as good on your return visit.
Regards,
C/// R///
Bad Luck & Allah…
Once my driving instructor told me that she was teaching this very holy Muslim girl how to drive. When it came to do her test, she got the day off work and went to the test centre only to be told that her test was cancelled. She was completely unphased by it.
The Driving Instructor said “Jeez that’s an awful pain it was cancelled isn’t it?” and she said “Nah, It’s what Allah wanted”…
That story always stuck with me for some reason…
It’s quite a calm way to think… Like anytime anything went wrong or didn’t go ‘my way’, I could just say “Allah wants it that way…”
Well I hope Allah wants what I want… Ay there’s the rub, methinks…
Hmmmm….
Mean man…
This man was mean to me.
I sat in front of him on the bus this morning and he said something. I turned around and said “sorry?” (politely) and he mumbled again and I said “sorry?” again and we went round and round until he lost his patience and shouted “turn your head around, I’m talking to him” (nodding at the fella on the right of this photo, who didn’t know him from Adam as he got on at the same stop as me).
So I duly turned my head around and while I was doing that I decided to sit somewhere else altogether, somewhere well away from him. As I did so, he muttered “good choice”.
Then he said “You’re all fools”…
Bit of a wreck really…
This man is a bit of a wreck.
Saw him on Old Kent Road…
He had a dog that sat on the ground and repeatedly scratched his snout with his paw.
The man stood in front of me and was chatting on a mobile phone. I heard him tell his friend that he was “just sittin’ on a bench having a drink, just chillin… ”
His eyes told me that he had been doing that for a very long time.
He said his ‘Key Worker’ just passed by and saw him with a drink and gave him grief. He said the Key worker nagged him saying ”what are you doing with your life and you shouldn’t be drinking and blah blah blah”…
I then heard him say that he was just a bloke and that’s what blokes do…
The Thames Seal…
This is another photo of the Seal.
I saw him the other morning at the crack a dawn again.
Seeing him is almost a religious experience I tellya… especially when it’s just me and him and we’re looking at each other in the peace and quiet of the morning.
Me looking at him and him looking at me.
Dog of the sea.
We dwell in two different worlds, yet our daily routines are entwined. I wonder where he is when the tide is out and he’s not on his wooden floating pallette.
I want to swim in there and go with him for some adventures under the sea.
I really wish I was a selkie…
Horizontal Man…
I was in Central London today. I walked past this building and there was nothing remarkable about it at first glance…
but upon closer inspection, I spotted some shoes…
And attached to the shoes was a man…
He may have been asleep, he may have been dead…
I didn’t take it any further…
Willie the Chocolate guy…
This guy Willie the Chocolate guy, have you ever seen him?
He is a deeply annoying human being. I hate the way they continue filming him when he has chocolate all over his face after one of his fancy chocolate tasting evenings. It just looks foul. Channel 4 obviously think his passion for chocolate surpasses any need for personal hygiene.
Despite this, I still find myself watching him when he is on TV, to be annoyed is to be entertained.
Since watching his Documentary/Series thingy on chocolate making, I have been buying good quality chocolate, sometimes with 70% cacao in it. I am turning into a bit of a chocolate snob…
Anyway, I bought this bar today…
and let me tell you, it is very very satisfying!
Go out and buy it and taste it and tell me what you think…
Yes…
In November 1966, John Lennon went to the Indica gallery in London, where Yoko Ono was preparing her conceptual art exhibition.
He was impressed by her Hammer & Nail piece:
He was also intrigued by her Ceiling Painting:
This required the observer to climb up the ladder, pick up the dangling magnifying glass, which was needed in order to read the micro print on the framed piece of paper affixed to the ceiling.
There was only one word on the piece and that was “YES”.
I like that.
I find pieces like that very uplifting in a world where there are a lot of “NO”s.
Word on the street has it that, that is how they met.
My world is so very full of “NO”s at the moment, is it because I am on the wrong road? Or must I just battle through the “NO”s to get the the “YES”s?
I wish I knew that in advance and then I could decide which road to take.
But that’s life…
John was my favourite Beatle. George was my next favourite. Paul is my least favourite. He’s a pain.
There you have it…
Go to Gozo…
I am just back from Gozo!
It’s one of the Maltese Islands, south of Sicily… I would definitely recommend visiting the island if you are looking for a quiet getaway.
The first thing that I pointed at after I hopped off the plane were the giant cacti…
Cacti in Gozo
It is everywhere!
You would expect the land to be barren when you see all the cacti growing and it is in places, but it is surprisingly green everywhere else. Every corner of every field is blooming with cabbage, potatoes, figs, lemons, artichokes and other things I didn’t recognise.
The roads are quiet and perfect for long meandering walks, all you can hear are birds, loads of birds and would you blame them for hanging around Gozo when the land looks like this:
Gozo Fields
This is a very Catholic island… The first give-away are the names of the houses; they are all named after Saints. I passed this house which was called “St Joseph” and another called ”In God we trust” and they often have a plagues like this on the front of the house too…
Holy Plaque in Gozo
One thing you sense immediately is how safe the place is. I passed several cars with the keys left in the ignition. The front doors of houses had keys left in them too… even the shops…
Keys left in the door - Gozo
Wherever you have Catholism in large doses, you have supressed sexuality; I found this torn porno magazine discarded in a hedge at the side of the road. Torn up in shame I imagine; guilt and shame…
Porno Mag in Gozo
The people of Gozo are warm and friendly.
Gozo (Malta) joined the EU in 2004 and they are now using the euro so it’s handy for the other countries in Europe.
English is their second language and all of the signs are in english. This makes it easy for dopey tourists like myself. The food is outstanding… They are fond of eating rabbits. I reckon they should start eating cats as the island is rampant with them… rampant!
Dogs of Gozo…
I love dogs.
When I was in Gozo I found myself taking more photos of the dogs than of the scenery. Most of the dogs used to hang out on the roofs of the houses and they would look down at you and give you a few barks as you were walking past just to show who’s boss.
Good Guard Dog - Angry Bark - Xaghra, Gozo
Dog at Dusk - Xaghra, Gozo
The envy of all dogs - Xaghra, Gozo
Best looking dog in the neighbourhood - Xaghra, Gozo
Feisty Dog from afar - Xaghra, Gozo
Cute little dog - Xaghra, Gozo
Dog on Balcony - Xaghra, Gozo
Dog on Balcony, Gozo
Dog on distant Roof - On way to Ramla Bay, Gozo
Clean up after your dog!
Breadman of Xaghra…
While we were waiting at this bus stop in Xaghra…
We saw the breadman out on his daily delivery.
He drives his van around the town and beeps at every street corner .
The people come out of their houses with bags and buy fresh bread and cakes from him.
Some people didn’t come out, they had left empty bags hanging on a nail outside their front doors and the Breadman filled it up with bread for them to bring inside later.
Kittens in Gozo…
I sat on a wall admiring the view when I was staying in Xaghra. I heard some meowing coming from the hedgerow below. It was very faint and I wasn’t quite sure where it was coming from.
I decided to get a big stick and try to separate the hedgerow to see if i could find where the sound was coming from. As I poked the bushes I heard another cat meowing and realised there was more than one in there somewhere. I wondered if maybe a cat had given birth in there.
A little while later, I spotted a plastic bag off to the left. I poked it with the stick and it felt like there was some meat or something in there. I began to climb down the wall so I could get closer to the bag.
I was then joined by some tourists who asked me what i was doing. They got involved and held onto my arm while I fished out the plastic bag.
I managed to hook it with the stick and put it on the wall. One of the girls opened the knot on top. There were two sheets of newspaper inside which we unwrapped to reveal two tiny kittens clutching onto each other for dear life.
I asked the tourists if there was anywhere we could take them but they said there would be no such place in Gozo. We found a clearing within the hedgerow and lay the newspaper out flat so they could at least breathe freely.
I made the decision to walk away then as I didn’t know what else I could do.
I don’t know their fate after that…
Create your own bubble…
To survive happily in London you have to create your own bubble and then maintain it so no one can penetrate it.
When you’re in your own bubble, no one can annoy you or stress you out. Ipods, Blackberries and Electronic Devices such as these are great for building up bubble walls. Closing your eyes in public also thickens the walls of your bubble, but only do this whilst sitting on the tube or bus. Bubbles tend to get burst if you try this whilst in the pub or walking down the street because you attract unnecessary attention to yourself or you may have an accident.
Bubbles are designed to float, they should be light and airy and full of dreamy thoughts and fluffy feelings…
Conked out on the Circle Line…
Look at this pair!
They’re a bundle of laughs altogether!
I’d say they’re sleeping buddies; joined at the hip, they travel the length and breadth of London, dozing away on the tube… shur isn’t it grand for them! Yer man on the right is a close contender too I’d say, he’s about to drop off at any moment and the heavy eyes on him…
Snoring and slobbering and sudden head jerks, then waking and looking around, then settling back down to the slumber again… Round and round they go on the Circle Line…
Thats the Life!
Shopping trolleys…
I like reading other people’s blogs as much as I like writing them. When I was blog surfing the other day I saw the ultimate shopping trolley:
The blog writer was living in Spain and he was writing in praise of his shopping trolley. This all happened a week before Joe’s birthday so I thought that it would be great to get him one for our grocery shopping trips. They’re really handy like…
Yeah, shopping trolleys are so under-rated.
I couldn’t find the spanish shopping trolley anywhere anyway, which was disappointing as I really wanted that particular one – I mean, I really wanted to buy it for Joe. I even contacted the blog writer but he chose not to reply to my query.
After hours and hours of googling, I decided to settle for this one:
I bought it online and it arrived on Joe’s Birthday…
…And oh my God! It is a HUGE thing, I’d be able to jump into it myself! It comes up to my waist and I’d be half scandalised going grocery shopping with that thing!
It’s proper old lady style.
I brought it to the supermarket today to give it a test drive.
I think I must be London’s youngest old age pensioner…!
It serves me right for getting him something that I wanted for myself…
Future Projects…
Myself and my acting buddies keep ourselves busy in between acting jobs by getting together and shooting some little sketches. It’s all very casual and we do it for the craic…
As well as acting, I love messing around with editing software and use this as an opportunity to learn about the software and gain more experience about that aspect of film making. I think it helps as an actor too, to know what is involved behind the scenes, if ya pardon the pun.
I have also started doing a bit of directing which I am definitely keen on doing again.
At the moment, I am penning a little sit-com (episodes only like about three minutes long) which is going to be set in my flat! It is about three flat mates living in London. I haven’t written any scripts previously so it’s all new to me and i don’t know how it will turn out.
I am planning to shoot the first episode soon! I will be playing the part of one of the flatmates, I don’t know yet who will shoot it as I really want to shoot it myself but I want to be in it too, so it may be a joint venture. When it is completed, I am going to post it on here and create an online mini soap opera for your viewing pleasure, so please check back and tell me what you think. Your input will be taken on board… (if it’s constructive!)
Here is a sketch that I shot at one of our little gatherings recently. Tanya Mackenzie & myself directed it. The Actors are Kim Falconer & Tom Shepherd. I edited it with Adobe Premiere software.
Let me know what you think anyway…
And don’t forget to check back to see my mini soap!!
Toodle pip for now!
The Lift Sketch from Shirker on Vimeo.
Fingerprints…
I often try to guess which way the world is going to turn out…
Like I was thinking today that in order to combat fraud we will have to start getting rid of all these codes and numbers and passwords; they’re too hackable. And all these credit cards and things are too stealable.
So I was thinking that everything will be replaced with fingertip identity patterns.
Like maybe we will just have to swipe our fingerprints at the ATM and purchase things by swiping our fingertips into a special fingerprint reader machine in the shops.
There will be no need for purses or money…
Maybe our personal computers will be fitted with chips that read our fingerprints too and allow us to log in that way.
Maybe we will be fitted with an internal chip which will slot in just behind our index fingertip. This chip will carry our hard drives and of all the information will be stored in there.
So laptops and things like that will be just a shell… this will inevitably lead to a new kind of crime… it will lead to fingertip robbery.
This is how far I got in my daydream tangent, then the boss walked past and asked me if i was alright!
Thumb-suckers of the World UNITE!
You know what? I am proud to be a thumb sucker…
It’s the most lovely thing in the world to come home after a long day, give your hands a soothing soapy wash and then settle down to a good bit of thumb sucking.
I suck the thumb on my right hand only. I know of people who suck both thumbs, but I really only suck my right thumb.
Once or twice I have had to suck my left thumb due to a burn or cut on my right thumb and I can only describe the experience as weird. It’s like wearing your left shoe on your right foot. It just didn’t feel right…
My Dad really badgered me to give up sucking my thumb when I was in my teens, I suppose he felt that it was going too far. When we’d be sitting looking at the TV, he wouldn’t let me suck my thumb so I used to sit behind a plant and do it there.
I have been thinking about how lucky I am to have my thumb and to enjoy it so much. It really is an incredibly unique experience and I feel at one with other adult thumb-suckers. I always smile to myself when I spot them. They are as rare as albinos, but they are out there.
Once I had a bad skin disorder on my thumb. I mentioned it to the doctor in passing, when I was in for another ailment which I won’t go into now, I’m sure you wouldn’t be interested in that anyway. The Doctor told me that the digestive juices are at work when my thumb is in my mouth and it’s causing the skin to be broken down. I didn’t believe a word of that and sucked my thumb until it felt well again. It’s been fine ever since but it’s down to the bone now.
That’s alright though…
A Tongue Twister I invented…
I invented this tongue twister today… here we go…
Lesley liaised with the lovely Lebanese lesbians
Say it five times over really fast and let me know what ye think…
Good for welsh accents and maybe indian accents too, actually it’s really really hard to say it in an indian accent…
I’m gunna run a Marathon!
Jeekers, It’s been a while since I wrote a blog!
Well as if my life isn’t hectic enough, I thought I’d add something more to the mix… A marathon!
Yip, I am now in training to run the Dublin City Marathon on the 26th of October 2009. I am doing it because I have always wanted to run a marathon.
I specifically wanted to run the Dublin City Marathon cuz Dad ran that one and we have a photograph of him just finishing the race and the clock behind him declaring “3 hours and 5 minutes”. I remember when he was training for it too, I was quite young at the time and I remember coming in from school and asking my mother where he was.
She said he was running over to Garrettstown and back again. I remember thinking that was very strange altogether and I asked her if his car was broken or something (there were no local taxi’s then – ha!).
Well there’s no way I will beat the Walsh record… Who knows what’ll happen in the future, but for now I just want to complete the floggin’ thing.
So I am midway through ‘Week Two’ of my 21 week intensive training programme. At the moment it’s easy as I am just kind of doing what I normally would do, but every week it increases 10% .
In about 6 weeks time I will be foaming at the mouth I’d say and the ol’ joints will be giving me gyp, especially my knees. I’m obsessed with my knees, I am afraid of getting a knee injury. I might use some of them knee improving machines at the gym.
As it is, I cycle 83 miles a week in my commute to work. This combined with 50 hours work and 20+ miles of running actually kinda makes me laugh in a kind of mental way. I have given up the drink too as i know what I am like. If I drink I will lose focus.
My summer is therefore a social write off.
Oh, I am raising money for the Donkeys at the Donkey Sanctuary in Mallow:
http://www.thedonkeysanctuary.ie/
Can ye sponsor me?
Will be buggin’ ye all closer the time anyway…
Lemon Meringue Pie…
I don’t know where I read it now, but I read it somewhere and it said that training for a marathon is like being pregnant! It takes over your life for several months and everyone gives you advice and tells you how they did it…
Well I don’t know if that’s true but I thought of that analogy when I experienced an overwhelming, almerciful craving after my run tonight and I just can’t shake it off…
My craving was for a slice of this:
A Slice of Lemon Meringue Pie
I still can’t get it out of my mind. My mouth is watering at the thought of it. I haven’t had a slice of it in years…
I remember where and when I had my last slice of it though, it was here:
Good ol’ Patsy’s Corner in the heart of Kinsale Town… and the Lemon Meringue Pie was made with Patsy’s own hands.
I would kill for one of Patsy’s Lemon Meringue Pies now…
She makes the best Lemon Meringue Pie without a doubt…
If anyone knows where you can get good Lemon Meringue Pie in London, please drop me a line…
Adventure at Sainsbury’s and mean Irish man…
Went grocery shopping last night, walked down to Sainsbury’s with the trolley, it was a lovely evening for it. The trolley fits really nicely under the Sainsbury’s Shopping trolley too. See the trolley’s there on the right hand side?
They’re the ‘half measure’ trolley’s. Well those are the ones that our shopping trolley fits under. It stores it out of the way so you don’ t have to be carrying it around while you are shopping. Not many people know of this. People watched me store it under there too and you could see that they were well impressed with my finding such a storage space for it.
I went over to the stack of trolley’s anyway, I had a pound coin in my hand.
There was a man putting his back and he was kinda loitering there for longer than it takes.
He turned to me in a gentlemanly manner and said something along the lines of “Here you go… here is a trolley for you” I was feeling a bit dozy and said ”Oh right, so how does this work, I give you the pound and you give me the trolley” and he said “you can give it to me for 50 pence if you like as it’s second hand” I laughed then and he smiled at me, I felt a connection with the man, as he too was Irish.
I looked at him as he walked away across the zebra crossing and out of my life.
I just kind of studied him for a split second, the way you do when you have an interaction with someone for the first time, you kinda take them in, don’t ya? You kinda make a judgement about them based on the way the hold themselves in their skin, their clothes, their walk and their shoes… you can tell a whole lot by someone’s choice of shoes.
I snapped out of that anyway and got on with my grocery shopping. I bought this lot with my money:
What you don’t see clearly in the above picture is my little chocolate collection for the week:
I have turned into a terrible chocolate snob altogether. I spent £9.00 on the chocolate bars in the photograph above. I never tasted any of them before and wanted to try them out.
I finished my shopping anyway and paid for what i bought.
When i tried to return the trolley to the stack I discovered that the pound coin was jammed in there and it wouldn’t let me take it out. I swear to God, i was cursing that man. What a sneak…
When I looked back in hindsight, I remembered that he was attempting to take his coin out of the slot before i came along. Way down deep inside the bowels of my psyche, there was a part of me that twigged it too, but I never kind of allowed that feeling to surface. I guess it was an instinct.
He had a sneaky way about him too and he palmed it off on me, that gammy trolley. He ripped me off… So out of principal, I decided to queue up at Customer Services to get my pound back. I was waiting in line for about twenty minutes. For all of those twenty minutes I was seething. I was thinking evil thoughts about that man and was also thinking how strange it was that i walked into that situation all knowing. There was a part of me that knew exactly what was happening… and that intrigued me.
There was a Greek lady with a moustache in the queue in front of me.
She turned around and we had a brief two way conversation about city life and she said she has been living next door to the same neighbours for twenty five years and she doesn’t know them and in Greece it isn’t like that. The conversation then went into a one-way conversation and I just kept saying “yeah… yeah…. yeah….” but couldn’t tell you what she was saying, she was kinda hard to understand anyway.
I wasn’t in the mood for chit chat. I just wanted my pound back…
Winning brekkie this morning!
Woke up for a 9am run.
5 miles.
Was hungry after it.
Ate this:
The egg was a bit over-done.
Over the years I have come to be a bit funny with my eggs. They have to be free range and they have to come from happy hens. I used to like them sunny side up but now I have them ‘over easy’. I used to like to see the yolk gush out when you slice through it with a knife, but now i don’t. I like it very soft and gooey in the middle but it mustn’t spill out all over the plate. The yolk mustn’t run past the circumference of the white part of the egg. It mustn’t have that kind of film of see-through goo over the yolk either. That turns me off.
As a result of my fussiness, I never have fried eggs in a restaurant. If I did, I would have to go in and cook it myself and chefs don’t really like people doing that kind of thing.
It was a winning brekkie all the same.
Chocolate Tasting…
So I was telling you last week that I bought these three Chocolate Bars…
I couldn’t wait to get home and tear the covers off em and ram em down my throat.
I restrained myself though, as these are sophisticated creatures of delight. I knew I had to play it cool with these…
I really had a bit of a pain in my head trying to decide which one to eat first. I pondered over them and fondled each of them one by one. I read their wrappers and took in what they had to say about how they were made, what they were made of and where in the world their innermost beans came from.
I decided by eliminating one from the list. I decided to leave the Mora Mora Bar ’til last, for two reasons;
- It was the most expensive – It cost a whopping £3.21
- It says this on the wrapper:
“Worlds best Chocolate Winner – Silver Award 2007″.
I thought it must be pretty good tasting stuff and best kept for last. I placed it carefully back in the fridge.
So it was a toss up between the other two.
Seeds of Change just seemed to beckon me with it’s pieces of figs, so I went for it.
My God.
My God is all I say.
This is one flippin’ mouthwatering piece of chocolate.
Look at the bits of fig in it:
The whole thing was just perfect. The texture was divine and I didn’t want the consumption of it to end. I wanted more when I had finished, so I moved onto my second conquest.
The Chokolit Dark Orange – Biting Back Bar with the pic of the cute chimp on it. He kinda looks sad… hmmmm… anyway…
This chocolate was just beautiful.
It had the perfect consistency. I’m no professional taster; I can’t go on about the fruit tones and the flowery essence and all that waffle. I’m just a simpleton who knows what I like in a bar of chocolate. I know I like this one. The texture is perfect. It’s got a hint of orange, you’d be a pure eejit to miss that cuz it says it on the wrapper too. It was just another magical experience.
The Mora Mora Bar was consumed on the next evening.
It was a momentous build up…
What an anti-climax.
This was really disappointing.
A glorified Bourneville.
It was hard and plastic-y tasting like Bourneville too.
I wouldn’t recommend it at all.
What a rip off too…
9 mile run, under the belt…
Woke up at the crack a dawn yesterday morning.
This was the immediate sequence of events thereafter…
I ran 9 miles in the local park.
It was the furthest I ever ran and it felt great.
I finished the 9 miles thinking I could easily have ran further… Then I kinda thought that I should have pushed myself more. I did it in 1 hour and 28 mins. It’s not the best time but I am only 4 weeks into my training and I am not very confident with the whole distance thing yet.
I have been doing a 3 mile run 3 times a week, as well as a long run on Saturdays. I have really started pushing myself on the short runs. I am down to 23 mins on the 3 mile run, I have been managing to whittle down the time bit by bit every week. My immediate goal is to run 4 miles in 30 minutes and to sustain that pace for the short runs.
Here, this is my training plan:
I got it off the internet, It’s based on Hal Higdon’s Novice plan. I reformatted it onto an excel spreadsheet and tweaked it to suit. It was an 18 week plan but I had 20 weeks to go, so I added an extra two weeks in there (in red). The plan is designed to increase the recommended 10% in distance each week.
I put it up on the pin board and we tick it off as we go!
I usually run the short runs in the gym. The treadmill is great because you set the pace and the time you want to do it and that’s it, there’s no cheating! It gives my joints a break from running on concrete as well, that’s another plus.
Running outdoors is far more enjoyable though…
4 weeks down and 16 to go!
Strange thing spotted in the Park…
On a shortcut through the Park yesterday, I stumbled upon this…
Initially I got a fright, but was relieved it wasn’t moving.
Does anyone know what the hell this is all about?
A building gets dressed…
Think about your life in the last twelve months.
Now look at the first twelve months in the life of this building.
What a difference a year makes…
(I won’t bore you with the other 361 photos!)
London’s skyline is ever changing…
Bring back the Barmbrack!
Does anyone remember Barmbrack!!?
For those of you who don’t know what it is and find yourself in a rare situation where you have the opportunity to eat it, you better read this first or you’ll be at risk of choking to death.
It is a kind of a light traditional Irish Fruitcake that used to make an appearance around Hallowe’en when I was a young wan.
Haven’t seen it around since…
Anyway, it’s a nice tasting cake, nice and light, I normally don’t like fruity loafs but I really like Barmbrack. It’s even nicer with a thick layer of butter on top and a cuppa cha on the side.
Once you bite into it and start enjoying it, you’ll soon be picking at the contents in your mouth, the reason being that you will find all sorts of random objects in the cake. Rings and sticks and hard peas and pieces of clothes…
Each object has a meaning and foretells your future…
If you find the pea in your slice - you’ll never get married…
The stick – you’d be beaten by your husband or if you were a man, you’d beat the wife. This was an ever so subtle way of saying you were going to have an unhappy married life.
The piece of cloth – you’d be skint
The coin – you’d be rich.
The ring meant you would get married that year.
I remember one time, I was eating it and unknownst to myself, the stick was in the particular bit of cake I was chewing. Whatever way I chewed it anyway, it made the stick go vertical and it slotted into one of the nukes and crannies in my bottom back tooth. When the top teeth came down from above in the midst of the chewing, it shafted the stick further into my tooth and I’ll never forget the pain it caused me. I had to yank the stick out from my tooth which caused it to bleed and it kind of put spinters into my gum. I couldn’t chew on that side of my mouth for about a month after…
You’d never get away with having such a cake on the market these days…
Bring back the Barmbrack!
I ran 10 miles today…
Woke up at the absolute crack a dawn today to do a 10 mile run.
I like to go for my long distant runs as soon as I hop out of bed (after a decent stretch). If I hang around any longer, then I run the risk of getting hungry and I’ve never been able to handle being hungry; I always get really shaky and weak.
I’ve become kinda neurotic with the eating and running thing actually… It’s just that I am very prone to getting stitches so I have to wait about 4 to 5 hours after eating, otherwise I am crippled. The less food I have in my belly, the more enjoyable the run… But, this means that at the beginning of a run, I am borderline hungry. It’s a thin line.
Running first thing in the morning is perfect cuz I have nothing in my belly and the run always feels more comfortable. I swear, when I get going I feel like a panther or something! I am now doing longer runs in the build up to the marathon, so lately, my stomach starts rumbling mid way through and this has been making me feel a bit nervous. Well, I have recently discovered the solution to this neurosis… and it comes in the form of these energy gel packs…
They’re just the job. You eat them while you’re running. They keep the edge off the hunger and they’re light enough on my stomach that I don’t get a stitch. The whole thing could be psychological, but I know I’m alright if I have my little gel pack with me.
The run was good today but not great. In the first half an hour, I got a few stones in my shoe. I was too stubborn to stop and take them out. There were about four small ones in my left shoe all rolling about and then embedding themselves in various locations on my foot before moving off again. They niggled at me for most of the run.
Anyway, me and the stones did the run in 1 hour and 35 mins.
That wasn’t too bad. If I keep up that pace then maybe I can run the marathon in 4 hours. That goal is beginning to surface now despite promising myself I wouldn’t set a time goal for the marathon. I told myself I would be happy just to run the 26.2 miles.
I don’t want to go over the 4 hours though.
I will be happy running it in 4 hours or under…
Willie’s Chocolate bars are really…
I wrote a blog before about Willie Harcourt-Cooze and I slated him. Well I kinda take that back now… because I went to Selfridges one day a few months ago and I saw his chocolate bar for sale.
I proceeded to purchase it for a whopping…
When I got into the bus, I felt the urge. I took it out of my bag and had a little look at what all the fuss was about.
Nice packaging.
Nice logo.
Nice little note underneath the seal, telling me to ‘tuck in’…
Two slabs of chocolate wrapped in gold…
I put it back in my bag.
It was far too fancy to eat on the bus.
Eating a bar of this caliber required a bit of fuss. I needed a cup of tea and a comfortable seat. I needed to put my feet up. I needed a few cushions. I needed a punkah wallah. I needed… well, i just needed to get off the smelly bus so I could really savour these glorious looking chocolate slabs of delight that lay seductively before me…
When I got home and made myself comfortable, I tucked in to what is now, most definitely my favourite chocolate on the planet.
The texture is like, sort of harder than fudge but the same kind of soft quality to it, your teeth sink into it. It’s not like all those plasticky type dark chocolates on the market that make that cheap ’snap’ noise when you crack a piece off…
The taste is so rich and tangy. It boasts of subtle tropical fruit tones, and it delivers them with every bite. The after taste has a zing too and you just have to wait before taking the next bite because the experience continues on in your mouth after…
It was so good, I had to buy two more today!
I invented something AMAZING in my dream!
God, I’m a genius. I actually INVENTED something really amazing in my dream last night.
I hope it’s not one of those things that I am the only one who thinks it’s amazing… and then when I tell someone, they think it’s not only weird but really stupid.
Let me tell you it anyway and you can tell me what you think… I was going to patent the idea and bring it to the Dragons Den, but it would cost me a fortune in concrete to actually make it.
Here it is anyway, in a nut shell.
It all came from my subconscious genius-of-a-mind don’t forget…
It’s going to be really hard now to translate it into words as I just saw images of it in my dream…
Right, so… em…
Ok…
Well basically it’s made from concrete. If that’s not feasible, then fake concrete may suffice and may be the better choice for emergency reasons (this will make sense later).
Right, what you do is, build a MASSIVE block of concrete, like about the size of a twelve story apartment block. There is only one entrance and one exit to the concrete mass and in between is a kind of maze, similar to that of an ant farm…
But should be as complicated as this:
The narrow burrows should only fit one human being with enough space to maybe scratch themselves if needs be. The burrow should not be wide enough for them to be able to give up and turn around and pull themselves back out. The reason being, that once you enter, there is no wimping out. This teaches the individual the all important lesson of sticking to an important decision… a lesson in strength of mind.
Method of travelling through the burrow is by pulling your body, worm like through the maze. Elbow pads would be supplied free of charge to anyone willing to partake. Tunnels may be fitted with a sort of mechanism that doesn’t allow you to go backwards even if you tried.
Some tunnels/burrows may lead to a dead end; where this is the case, the tunnel would not have the mechanisms that prevent you from turning back (otherwise I’d be done for manslaughter). The idea behind these traps are again, for building up strength of mind and for teaching people to relax and focus under extreme pressure.
I think that these human concrete ant-hill mazes would be great in amusement parks or maybe army training camps or even boot camps for delinquent adolescents.
If someone does have a heart-attack in the middle of the concrete maze, there is an emergency procedure whereby the building can be pulled out in four parts and the person can be plucked from the maze and treated.
Under no circumstances is the person allowed to be removed from the maze however. They must continue on after receiving medical assistance.
These human concrete ant-hill mazes can be a wonderful way to raise money for charity. People would be sponsored to partake in it and spectators could come and watch the concrete while they are inside trying to get out.
There could be an opportunity for further developments to the idea in so far as, the outside could be fitted with glass whereby the spectator could see the individual struggling within but the individual could not see out.
For even more fun, you could add another element. If the person doesn’t make it out by 5pm, then they get locked in the maze overnight! The exit would be bolted shut like….
So what do you think then?
They look interested to me!!!
YES!
The Stolen Child…
WHERE dips the rocky highland
Of Sleuth Wood in the lake,
There lies a leafy island
Where flapping herons wake
The drowsy water rats;
There we’ve hid our faery vats,
Full of berrys
And of reddest stolen cherries.
Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world’s more full of weeping than you can understand.
Where the wave of moonlight glosses
The dim gray sands with light,
Far off by furthest Rosses
We foot it all the night,
Weaving olden dances
Mingling hands and mingling glances
Till the moon has taken flight;
To and fro we leap
And chase the frothy bubbles,
While the world is full of troubles
And anxious in its sleep.
Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world’s more full of weeping than you can understand.
Where the wandering water gushes
From the hills above Glen-Car,
In pools among the rushes
That scarce could bathe a star,
We seek for slumbering trout
And whispering in their ears
Give them unquiet dreams;
Leaning softly out
From ferns that drop their tears
Over the young streams.
Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world’s more full of weeping than you can understand.
Away with us he’s going,
The solemn-eyed:
He’ll hear no more the lowing
Of the calves on the warm hillside
Or the kettle on the hob
Sing peace into his breast,
Or see the brown mice bob
Round and round the oatmeal chest.
For he comes, the human child,
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world’s more full of weeping than he can understand.
William Butler Yeats.
Born into a pack of ginger nuts…
I have just been chinwagging for the last hour about twins.
I never knew that identical twins were created from the same egg which then divides into two. I felt like a bit of a moron when I revealed that ignorant nugget of information about myself in the midst of the flow of conversation. I don’t really know how I thought they were created. I think it’s amazing now that I’ve been educated about it and I will be smiling to myself in my knowledge when I see a pair of them next.
I wonder if my ignorance is due to the fact that I went to a convent school…
The nuns never told us anything about the birds and the bees now that I think of it. My parents never said a word about it either. I just kinda found out myself ha! – I would have preferred it that way anyway because I would have died of embarrassment…
Anyway the conversation sort of went off in a tangent and we wound up talking about foxy haired people.
I have been informed that they’re ‘dying out’.
I come from a family of six fine foxy haired red blooded Irish creatures, complete with white eyebrows and freckles, the lot of them. I was born with jet black hair then, slap bang in the middle of all the ginger nuts. They called me the postmans daughter. No one ever knew me as a Walsh, it was great, I could get away with murder.
One day, waaaaaaaay back when Taytos were only 9p, I was walking down the road with the ginger nuts. It was a beautiful Summers day, I remember it well and we heading to a pool in the rocks where we used to swim. An american couple passed by in the car anyway, stopped suddenly, then quickly reversed. All I heard was “aoh my god, look at their hair! – Oh wow! freckles too!!!” as they jumped out with a camera. They asked us all to sit up on the gate and pose for a picture. I was asked to step aside out of the picture and that they’d take one of me on my own later, as she wanted to get a picture of the ginger nuts together.
She proceeded to take a number of photos of all the foxy ones and then she jumped into her car and sped off! [insert violin music here]…
Builders Bum…
I just saw a fella at work bend over to study the labels of boxes that were stacked on the ground.
He was down there for a while cuz he needed to do a bit of rummaging.
He had a classic case of builders bum.
In all seriousness, isn’t it great that we have introduced the wearing of clothing as an enforsed law?
Imagine how horrific everyday activities would be, if we didn’t wear clothes;
simple things like running down the stairs or being in a crowded train or eating your sandwiches…
Doesn’t bear thinking about…
Marathon Training Update – Shin Splints
I’m doing my absolute nut these days…
I’ve been doing great with my training and for the last ten weeks I’ve been slowly building to my peak which was a sixteen mile run on Thursday. I did it in good time so was in great spirits altogether.
The run itself was hard work definitely and I felt where my weaknesses were by the end of it. It was the first run in my training programme that actually had me aching after it. I was also aware of the need to be more toned up and well compacted in the abs/core area and made a pact with myself to really strengthen up in that respect.
Then on Sunday, I did a four-miler on the treadmill to give my joints a rest from the concrete. I like to combine the two, keeping the treadmill for short runs and while doing so, try and push myself a bit on time. Anyway, On Monday I woke up to my worst nightmare… the dreaded shin splints. Now I don’t know if it is shin splints, I kinda diagnosed myself.
Shin Splints cover a range of different injuries in and around the shin bone and the surrounding muscles. From my google self diagnosis, I know the pain is in my Tibial anterior muscle:
The most painful bit is that part that kinda narrows down as it reaches the ankle. I can’t walk on it for long without it becoming painful. The part where I have to lift my foot up to take another step is the tricky bit and then my foot sort of stomps down. Banjaxed.
I can cycle fine, though I had the misfortune of getting a puncture on my way to work and had to walk with the shin splints and my punctured bike for about two miles. We were like a double act, the bike and me and I was in agony by the time I got to work. I haven’t run since Sunday and it is killing me to abstain. I can’t figure out which is worse, the actual injury or having to stop training.
If it persists, I am hoping to see a physio. I am going to the gym this evening to do some leg presses and use that elliptical trainer thingy and see if I can do some strengthening exercises:
(That’s not me on it by the way! ha! no, I haven’t changed race)
I really hope this is a short term thing and that I can get back into training soon…
Injury feels as though it’s healing…
For those of you out there who have no interest in running, you’re probably finding my blogs very boring lately… maybe you have always found them boring and you’re just humouring me by reading them… who knows. I will continue typing anyway…
I just wanted to share my hope with you y’see.
My newfound hope that I may be running again soon! My shin splints (self diagnosed with the help of google) seems to be healing. I am lucky in the sense that the shin splints were like a delayed effect and came on the day after a run. So I have never actually been running with the injury or through the injury as I know some people do. I haven’t ran since the injury, allowing it the time to heal. It was hard not to, but I had to keep reminding myself to listen to my body. I had to summon up the physiotherapist in me and adhere to the advice. Now if this persists, I am going to have to visit a physio but I am going to see if it will heal by itself first.
I did go to the gym and did 40 minutes on that elliptical trainer thing I spoke about in a previous blog. I also did my usual 17 mile cycle and did the ‘climbing stairs machine’ in the gym also, all of which didn’t aggravate my injury. The only thing that seems to aggravate it is the motion of walking and the contact my foot has with the ground, so running is out of the question. Walking is being introduced gradually and today it feels a lot stronger.
When I did my running plan, I added in an extra two weeks in the event of injury or say, if I got swine flu or something that would prevent me from running. So, I do have up to two weeks to rest without jeopardizing my training.
If it heals, I will start running again on grass or preferably sand. I am off to Galway tomorrow for a couple of months. I am sure there will be a beach there I can run on that will lessen the impact.
It’s funny but when you have been enjoying doing something for a long time, like running and it suddenly becomes a forbidden activity, you start to become a little obsessive about it. I find myself rubbernecking when joggers pass me by and then filling up with envy.
I have got to get back out there soon and I have got to run in the Dublin City Marathon.
Fingers and toes and shin splints crossed.
The knuckle-chewer…
We stumbled into a late night bar there in Galway last night.
As we were horsing the pints into us, we started to become aware of an ol’ fella walking around the bar; observing him was better than watching any TV programme. He was interesting because he was in his own world – a world where it seemed no one else existed… and he was up to something.
He had a kind of a 70’s bouffant hairstyle and wore a battered black tracksuit jacket over an old fashioned pair of trousers.
We watched him go up to the counter and order a pint of Smithwicks but then cancelled the order upon counting his coins – He was obviously a few coins short of the price of a pint; literally and metaphorically.
He proceeded to circle the bar for the next ten minutes, looking at the ground. He must have been looking for coins, we thought…
We planted two euro coins under the hat stand and sat back in our seats waiting for him to come around again. It was all very exciting.
He came around the corner a couple of minutes later and shuffled past the coat stand and then stopped. His beady eyes spotted the euros and we watched him bend down to pick them up.
With his pockets jangling, he took the quickest route to the bar and got himself a pint of Smithwicks. He seemed satisfied… for a while.
When he got halfway down his pint, he started acting a little strange; talking to himself at first and then graduating to some knuckle chewing. He then put his hand around his mouth as if to silence himself, but it was as if his hand belonged to someone else. I think he had some foes in his head who were giving him a serious talking to.
The more he drank, the more he seemed to wrestle with himself and I came away realising that life is exactly as it should be and I felt somewhat guilty for interfering with his fate…
