In Spike Milligan’s version of Black Beauty, the famous horse is given an altogether less elegant name. Spike’s characters deem to call her Nigger on account of her blackness.
And while you’d be surprised to hear a commentator mentioning a thoroughbred called Nigger passing the post at Ascot, it has happened in the past, although a man who recently tried to register his thoroughbred as Nutzapper had it rejected as obscene. Interesting Slate article on horse names here.
Monthly Archives: September 2007
whimsyHorses of a different colour
September 27, 2007 – 8:24 am
2 Down: The Aisle
September 27, 2007 – 8:14 am
Everyone’s getting engaged these days. All my mates. It’s so clichéd. Some of them proposed in fancy places, some in Paris at the Eiffel Tower, some on top of a mountain. It’s all been done.
But this is original. Conspiring with the creators of a crossword that your girlfriend does religiously to propose to her. So nerdy it’s cool.
It’s all over bar the healing…
September 26, 2007 – 3:54 pm
The run is done, and my spindly little legs are slowly returning to normal. Yesterday and Monday were pure pain, as was Sunday night. I hobbled around like a someone who had bought cheap replacement hips on eBay and fitted them himself to save cash. Going downstairs was agony, so I tried to minimise it. This meant dehydrating myself considerably, as the loo in my house is on the first floor. I’m not allowed pee in the garden.
So, to the blow-by-blow:
T minus 2 hours: Up out of bed and eat a small breakfast and start sipping sports drinks. Wash down a few pre-emptive Neurofen. Think about taking a stash for later but forget. Re-shave the nipples and apply plasters.
T minus 45 minutes: At the start-line, queuing behind a guy in disturbingly short shorts with those 1970s slits up the side, waiting for a last toilet visit. The stench from the portaloos is unbelievable, a by-product of fear, I assume.
Bang!: We’re running! The Kenyans take off like scalded cats after scalded mice and I follow the old white pacemaker guy carrying the 3.45 flag.
5 kilometres: Already? Jesus, this is a piece of cake. (Realise I’m just 1/16th of the way through – feel slightly less smug) Catch up with the guy I was queueing behind at the portaloos and realise that all that smell was from one human being. Impressive. Overtake him rather than asphyxiate.
6 kilometres: Fall in behind a nice pace/blonde ponytail/bum combination that I’ll follow for at least another 5 kms. Motivation is key
8 kilometres: run along Oxford St, where the nightclubs are still emptying drunks onto the street to join assorted winos, yoohooing gayboys and abusive Aboriginals. Urban colour. I’m checked out a couple of times and I’m feeling like I deserve it. It’s the vest, isn’t it?
10 kilometres: Twinge in right hip, quickly joined by pain in left foot and stitch. Shit. This isn’t a good sign.
11 kilometres: Eat first carbohydrate gel pack. Ugh. The consistency of pus, with the flavour of orangey pus.
21 kilometres: Half way. I could happily finish now, but I’m not even close to town yet, which is rather inconvenient. Eat another pusbag, lemon and lime this time. Wow, athletes eat well.
22 kilometres: Hit first aid tent for Vaseline. The insert in my shorts is trying to saw off my legs at the groin. Run off with hands down pants. Self-image in tatters.
24 kilometres: Pass woman who is sweating so much her shoes are actually squelching and her back is shiny like a mirror. No hugs for you, lady.
26 kilometres: Feeling it. Definitely feeling it. And NOW they start with the hills – unreal. Wentworth Avenue is the pits.
28 kilometres: Out towards the Anzac bridge. It’s all up/down now and my body is a chorus of disapproval.
30 kilometres: Long, slow incline along the western link and it’s killing me. I hit the wall and the only thing that keeps me running is encouragement from another runner. The 3.45 flag guy is way ahead of me now, and the 4hr pack are catching me all the time.
32 kilometres: Stock up on jelly-babies and pusbags at the drink stop. I’ll need it all. We turn around to face the city again, and realise that it is ON THE HORIZON. How the hell did that happen? We have to go back there, now. Shite.
36 kilometres: Cramp! And it’s a big one, too, searing through my right quad like hot acid (which is exactly what it is). I try to stretch it but my hamstrings arrive with a cramp down the back of my legs that snaps my heel to my ass and makes me scream – the only option is to run it off. Good thing I have 6 kilometres of marathon to do so. Hurrah! How lucky! (Delirium clearly setting in)
39 kilometres: After more hills, various parts of my legs have been threatening to go on strike. Fall in with a guy who tells me he has a torn achilles tendon, which he sustained last week. He makes me feel like a total pussy, so I risk cramp to leave the smug bastard for dust.
40 kilometres: I can see the Harbour Bridge! Fuck, it’s far away. A quick look at my watch gives me false hope that I’ll make it inside 4 hours and I soldier on.
41 kilometres: Under the bridge and round to Circular Quay. I just want it to be over. I just want it to be over. I just want it to be over. Grimace for the camera. I just want it to be over.
42.195 kilometres: It is over. I immediately forget all the promises I made to God over the last quarter of the run, because I did this all myself. Stop watch at 4:01:15. Collect medal, hit first aid tent to deal with chafing. Stick a fork in me. I am done.
These could be Bertie’s battlers soon…
September 20, 2007 – 2:32 pm
Given the rate at which Aussie papers have been comparing MP John Howard to Bertie, it’s only fair to turn the tables.
With portents of doom and gloom emanating from Éire, this piece from the Telegraph
could almost be a glimpse of Ireland’s future. For Howard, read Bertie. For Sydney’s western suburbs, read Dublin’s M50 ring-fence and beyond.
Universal quote:
“It’s not just affecting young people like us, but older people as well,” he said. “We have older people in our street who are really struggling with the mortgage. They’re suffering because of all the rubbish from the politicians. When we bought three years ago, there was no drama, we could pay the mortgage. But if we sold our house now, we’d lose $30,000 to $40,000 – and the repayments have gone right up.”
Plucked from his croft by civilised Australia
September 19, 2007 – 1:25 pm
“On a small field in a tiny village in Ireland, a local apprentice electrician is practising his newfound trade every spare minute he has…”
The newfound trade in question, of course, is Aussie Rules Football, and the excitable tradesman is Carlow footballer Brendan Murphy, one of the contentious recent signings to the AFL, who will join Kerryman Tadhg Kennelly at the Sydney Swans. He might well be excited, for there is money and fame to be won in Australia for young men with talented hands. And if it all fails, he can be sure of employment. Australia is crying out for sparkies, and the weather is great.
The GAA/AFL relationship seems to be irreparably soured by the poaching of young talent for Aussie rules teams, and to be frank, the Aussies don’t seem to care. They are willing to pay handsomely for talent, and if the GAA won’t offer the same, it’s their loss.
That view is backed up by the emigré players who have seized an opportunity to make money from professional sport, and have done extremely well for themselves. Two of the most recent revelations are Tadhg Kennelly (finalist last year with the Sydney Swans) and the prodigious Down player Martin Clarke, who’ll play for the Collingwood Magpies in this year’s final.
The line above, not mine, comes from Sydney’s Daily Telegraph and conjures up an image of docile rural tweeness that would make a leprechaun vomit in his crock of gold. To be sure. And it goes on:
“Here in Australia, in the multi-million-dollar cut-throat business of AFL football, Brendan Murphy – the most talented young footballer in Ireland – represents a prayer answered at the Sydney Swans”
Ah, the bright lights of Sydney, the big shmoke of…..approaching bushfires. Sure, how could the simple bumpkin possibly resist? There surely ain’t no multi-million-dollar cutthroats in Ireland. Except for the Taoiseach. And most people in the back benches. And the CEO of the real national airline. Oh, and the guys who run Croker.
Read the rest of the Telegraph article, which improves hugely after the initial clichés, here.
<– I’m with Stupid
September 14, 2007 – 5:42 pm
Green Beer
September 14, 2007 – 3:11 pm
It’s not just for Paddy’s Day anymore. The Sierra Nevada Brewery is going totally green, installing solar cells and fuel cells to make it 100% energy self-sufficient.
Story here.
New Pollie Blog
September 14, 2007 – 8:29 am
Flagged by Damo comes a new political blog aggregator that picks TD names out of blog posts and presents them to you in a clean and tidy way.
Definitely a useful one for the poli-trackers.
It’s Politics in Ireland. Go click.
Doing the Marathon for Mum and MS
September 14, 2007 – 8:22 am
I had never seen this photo here before my mother died. It’s of her, aged about 21 (I assume), clutching a champagne bottle, with a glass on her head and obviously, from her facial expression, a fairly high blood/alcohol level. I found it as I sorted through her things in the house, tucked into an old briefcase she had kept since the 70s. I keep it in my wallet now.
This image of Mum is the best way to remember her. When myself and my sister were teenagers, the front door of our house was always open to every one of our mates, and parties were encouraged. Mum would often be the last up, drinking and chatting with our mates until the wee hours. It was fairly special, and we realised we had it pretty lucky.
Everything changed when she was diagnosed with MS. A substantial personality overhaul can be fairly common with MS, I found out later. Mum got less rational, more emotional and withdrawn, and then began the slide into physical deterioration. For someone so active, so alive, it was gut-wrenching to watch the person she was disappear. No more golf, tennis, sailing. We had to take the car away from her, and she went from using a stroller to needing a wheelchair. She could see it too, and the frustration of it drove her deeper into depression, and the spiral of decline steepened.
Mum spent the last year of her life, unable to walk and barely able to mumble a word or control her limbs, in a nursing home in Stillorgan. At 49, she was the youngest person in there by close to 20 years. read more
Fake Osama’s walkabout near Bush’s hotel
September 14, 2007 – 8:08 am
Forget Fake Steve Jobs, this week it’s all about Fake Osama. Australian TV is usually appallingly bad, but the odd time they’ll crack it, and often it’s down to the lads from Australia’s only satire worth a bean, The Chaser’s War on Everything. During APEC they drove a fake motorcade through the APEC security fencing, past the guards, and pretty much up to the front door of George Bush’s hotel, before jumping out dressed as fake Osama bin Laden. The footage is hilarious, and it’s here.
The lads face court on October 4, along with a horde of producers, etc, all responsible for making the PM, his photographer-bashing police and the whole APEC shemozzle look entirely ridiculous.
