Posts from — June 2007

Lebanon’s little first-person Irish ray of sunshine, Macdara, got out of the wrong side of bed this morning:

‘MacDara went into work this morning; he was not the most motivated person. Maybe it’s the post holiday blues; maybe it’s the constant worry about bombs or maybe he just hates the people he works with.‘

Luckily, the People’s Front of Judea were there to cheer him up.

Splitters!

And while I’m on the subject of blogiticians, I didn’t realise that Ciaran Cuffe’s “Deal with the Devil” comment regarding Fianna Fail came from his blog.

C iaran’s a plain speaker:

‘We would be spat out after five years, and decimated as a Party. But, … would it be worth it? Power is a many faceted thing.’

He still has my vote.

Jaysis but them blogs are fierce for getting you into trouble at work.

More:

SHUT UP, Ciaran (Indo)

From the SMH comes news that Australia’s vote-whores are to trawl the internet for influential youngsters as the election approaches.

Will they keep it up afterwards, as per Damien’s query?

There’s a friend of mine back home, now a surgeon, who we referred to and still refer to as “The Ass”. It’s not a slur on his personality, because he’s widely recognised as a golden boy, star pupil, all-round nice guy and, through the tall poppy glasses, a bit of a prick. All in a good way. Nor is because he’s a rectal surgeon. (For the record, he’s working to get into the cardio-thoracic field.) The name came from his unfeasibly large ass. Nothing more, nothing less. [Read more →]

A marathon is a very short run in the grand scheme of things. Yes, it’s 42 kilometres in one go, and that single stint of it can sure take its toll. During the Dublin marathon I saw people seize up with such violence at around the 20km mark I began looking for the glint of a sniper’s scope on nearby rooftops and grassy knolls.

But having laid out the bones of a marathon training plan yesterday, the long bit at the end is merely the short home stretch in a longer line of heavy runs. There’s a lot of running to be done between now and September 23, and it has to be done according to a serious structure. The marathon plan may seem a bit of a tuxedo, like I’m overdressing it. It’s true I’m no Haile Selassie, but if I’m to do this in under 3hr 30mins, it’s got to be better than completely amateur. That means, firstly, planning, and planning well, to avoid injury and to make sure I hit my targets. Job number two, aptly, is bringing my left and right buttocks to something approaching parity in terms of strength. [Read more →]

Just a quick link to a review I did of Amy Berg’s doco on abuses in the Catholic Church.

It’s been nabbed by the good folk at Catholica, for which I must qualify by my Christian brother upbringing. The film is a must-see, but it’s hard going.

“Pump a haven for great tits”

Courtesy of the Irish Examiner.

Money quote:

‘Come to think of it, it can’t be the same pair of great tits.‘

As a huge Fela Kuti fan, this would top my list were I in Dublin next week. The Antibalas Afrobeat Orchestra – Myspace here – hit Crawdaddy on June 13th. If you like endless, pumping, sweaty dance tunes that draw on latino cuban beats and african drums, go see them. They’re not quite Fela, but they’re good fellas. You might spot a pun there. Subtle, innit.

More on Fela Kuti, for the uninitiated, here.