Northern Ireland vs England

In light of my post about the great Northern Irish football team, lets remember that famous night less than two years ago when the country started to believe in their team again.

Ricky Gervais Comic Relief 2007 Red Nose Day

Why is it that the best type of comedy has an element of truth to it?

Are you one of those people that are always cynical about celebrity's motives for getting involved in relief projects. If so, I am sure you will enjoy this video.

Ireland, it's still where its at

Has there ever been a better time to be an Irish sports fan? First of all, the rugby team win the Triple Crown (i.e beat England, Scotland and Wales) and indeed almost won the 6 Nations Championship only to be denied in the last minute against France.

Then the Irish cricket team (including my good school friend Andrew White) upset Pakistan in the cricket world cup and advanced to the Super 8 stage.

And then tonight, the super football team just went and beat Swedan ranked in the top 10 soccer nations in the world. In doing so, N.Ireland actually have a chance to qualify for the European Championships. Sure, it is a long way to go but you never know.

All this and Ian Paisley coming to an agreement with Gerry Adams and hopefully restoring home rule to the country.

Our wee country. Sometimes I still want to leave it but its hard not to also love it.

Are you serious?

I have just gotten back from a great weekend in Edinburgh watching Ireland kick ass at rugby, Ok, so maybe they didn't kick ass but at least they won!!

However, I have been meaning to post a wee story from about two weeks ago. Picture the scene. It's a Tuesday morning and I have just written an exam (one of about 15 that I have to write this year in order to finally qualify). The day is now mine for the taking and I am looking forward to seeing Dave Matthews in Belfast that night (and yes, I can't quite believe that he came to Belfast either).

So, a few of us solicitor trainees decide to spend the afternoon bowling and potentially partaking in a few beverages. I rush home and then start walking to the bowling alley. Upon my arrival, I reach into my coat pockets and to my complete shock, horror and disgust I realise that the Dave Matthews tickets are no longer there. My merry plans for the afternoon therefore changed rather quickly and instead of the afternoon of fun that was planned, I spent the next few hours rushing to the venue in an attempt to convince the organisers that I had indeed bought tickets and that I must have just dropped them on the street. Eventually, after somehow producing various bank records and the like, I was able to convince them to re-issue dublicates.

Now, my question is if you were the person who found my tickets do you think that it is fair game to suddenly just assume them as your own and go to the concert? Or alternatively, given than they had my name and address on them, should they have made some sort of effort to contact me. Because, let me tell you that upon my friend and I gaining entry to the concert and arriving at our seats the following conversation took place.

Me - "I think that you are sitting on our seats"
Them - "No, I don't think so mate"
Me - "Really, let me show you my ticket"
Them - "hmm, there must be some sort of mistake because our tickets say we are here as well".
Me - "Strange, do you mind if I have a look at your ticket"

Me - "Yes, I see what you've done. You see the way that my name and address is on the ticket. Obviously you have found these tickets on the streets and decided to use them for yourself. Now, I won't say anything if you leave now and there are a few other empty seats that you can maybe sneak into."

Them - (Slightly embarrassed) - Alright then.

I would honestly like to think that if I had found the tickets myself I would have made some sort of effort to track down the rightful owner. Am I really that naive??

An Historic Day?

The term "historic" is perhaps the most over used term in all of Irish politics. From the "historic" IRA ceasefire in 1994 to the "historic" Good Friday Agreement in 1998 followed by the ,yes you've guessed it "historic" assembly shortly thereafter and then finally the all together now "historic" St Andrews agreement in November of last year. So perhaps you can forgive the people of this country if they turn their eyebrows of the talk of today being such a day.

Nonetheless, the potential for today to be a defining moment in our wee country's history is certainly there. For those that don't know today we voted (again!!) in an effort to set up an assembly that would take away direct rule from London and give the long suffering people of Northern Ireland direct access to politicians who would rule for the most part from Belfast. Essentially, the American/Canadian equivalent of state/provincial government.

It remains to be seen whether our politicians can cease this opportunity as to be fair we have been in this position before. However, anyone who has been to Belfast in the last couple of years will tell you that finally the place is booming and surely a local government can only further improve things.

I am not going to publically post who I voted for but I will say this. I honestly don't care (that much) who gets in so long as they stay there and try to sort this place out.

Bringing back the Blog

I last updated this blog just before Christmas and at that time I honestly thought that I would close the blog in the New Year. I had started to find maintaining a blog more of a hassle than a privilege and needed a rest. Now two months later, I am back and am going to give this thing another go. I honestly do think that my writing can be somewhat decent at times and it is only by continually writing more and more that it will improve yet further. There are numerous ways that these improvements can be made and hopefully over the next few weeks I'll be able to adopt a few of them.

Quite a bit has happened in the last few months but I will stick to the one major event that many if not most of you who already know about. It was only 7 weeks or so ago that my mum told me that she had been diagnosed with breast cancer. Yet incredibly and wonderfully, as I now write this, she has just phoned me from the Swiss Alpes where she is resting (skiing!!) following a successful operation that has apparently removed all signs of the cancer and somehow increased her life expectancy.

The outpouring of support for my family from various friends around the world was really quite staggering and I still feel extremely humbled by it all. As I say in truth, I haven't gotten my head around the whole thing - I mean who beats cancer in two months and futhermore how come my family is so blessed in so many ways when so many others continue to struggle. As strange and perverse and it seems, I actually feel slightly guilty when I think about the recovery my mum continues to make in the light of this reality. So many people were so kind to me and took time out to encourage either myself or my family directly and yet there are probably things that have been going on in their lives for much longer and in my ignorance I have said nothing to them about.

However, I'm not going to get too deep too quickly into my re-entry back in the blogosphere. For all of my feelings of guilt, there is a much stronger feeling of joy that overwhelmes those emotions. My mum is well, my family is happy and life is good. So basically, all I want to say for now to whoever is reading this is thank you.