Susan Hated Literature

Yesterday at work Bhí cúpla caílíní ag suigh in front of the desk. Psychology students. And as they were studying they were chatting^[1] and got on to discussing suicide.^[2] Now I’ve always felt that suicide is something of a selfish act, because lets face it, it is the people left behind who have to deal with the aftermath. But at the same time, if someone is contemplating suicide then obviously they have problems.

But one of the girls was dead certain that it was only ever selfish people who committed suicide.

Some of the others made half-hearted attempts to persuade her that usually those with suicidal tendencies weren’t ag iarracht daoine eile a gortaithe but she was having none of it.

And her a psychology student! Lack of understanding of what.

Since the O’Gara-incident^[3] I’ve been reading a few comments from those on both sides of the argument. And it never ceases to amaze me how vitriolic people can be in defence of something they know nothing about.

First of all nobody, apart from those actually involved know what happened. You can watch all the you tube vidjos you want, they don’t show what happened. And they don’t show the mental processes of what went on. They do however show Donncha O’Callaghan being punched in response to him holding on to a jersey, is this acceptable behaviour I wonder?

But for all the people screaming that Eddie O’Sullivan should resign and utter a grovelling apology to all Scotland? Well, ye can dream on. Not going to happen. Do I think O’Sullivan should’ve said what he said? No, not so soon afterwards, not until he knew as much as possible. However, presuming that what he said was true then he would have been remiss if he had said nothing. As for the Scottish players? Well, they are all innocent until proven otherwise, and nothing has been proven. So therefore, they are innocent.

And comments about smoke and fire are never welcome.

If it ROG really was choked deliberately, and if the players think that that happened, I think we’ll all find out about it the next time Ireland play Scotland.

Then again, life is so much more entertaining when you leap to conclusions without thinking. Let’s all shout Dúnmharú! nó iarraidh dhúnmharaithe without thinking. Accusations are what make the world go round after all, don’t you agree.

fx: gollum-type-voice “dúnmhartóir! fuathaím thú”

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Well, obviously enough, with the weekend just gone my first topic of this post has to be… the role of the Catholic Church in the political life of Ireland.

Or maybe not.

I’d much prefer to ramble on about the rugby. I didn’t catch any of the England-Scotland match, though I hear Wilko was fabtastic, but his try wasn’t one. I am a fan of Wilkinson, and in one way I do hope his road to recovery is straightforward, but then again, we play England fairly soon and I really want to win.

I didn’t see much of the France-Italy game either. Was at the aunt’s having lunch. But I’m very disappointed in Italy. This was to be their year to win a game, but they played horrendous rugby^[1] and it’ll be the Wooden Spoon if they continue on like that.

And so on to our match, and could you get much more intense than that?
And yes Ireland were lucky not to have O’Callaghan penalised, but there were more than a few occasions when I saw Wales not releasing the ball when tackled. Turns and roundabouts. Three tries to nil means we finished better on the day. And on a day when O’Gara had a horrible first 40 minutes that says a lot.

Injuries now are the big worry for Sunday against France. Darcy is supposed to be fine, O’Driscoll may make it. Although that might just be talk to keep the French guessing. The big worry is Stringer, who has a hairline fracture in his hand.

We’ll see what happens.

In today’s weather update it looks like winter has finally arrived now that it is spring. Bloody freezing out this morning so it it. And the last half an hour or so on the drive home on Saturday was through freezing fog so dense that you couldn’t see nuttin’.

Still the trip home meant I was finally able to stick all the music on the mp3 player. Only around 2,500 songs or so, but while I was adding them I also spent a few hours^[2] deleting all the duplicates from the PC. I’m not really sure why we needed ten copies of some songs on the hard drive, though I’m sure there was a very good reason for it.

And you’ll all be pleased to know that the newest cat is still alive. And as stupid as any cat. Put out by the mutt leaping about the sitting room chasing a ball she decided to leave the room, but as she jumped down from the chair she slipped on the wooden floor and smashed into the ironing board, but instead of realising that she was the cause of her collision she promptly turned and blamed the innocent hound. Spitting at him until he nosed her out of the way.

The gasúr had his birthday while I was away. He is a whole year old now^[3] and taking a few steps, though he prefers to crawl.

How was everyone’s weekend?

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Ah, youtube, you never let me down, do you. For lo, the footage of Mr. O’Callaghan has surfaced, uploaded by Georgi Casy, where more rugby-type vidjos can be found:

Let me just chortle^[1] away to myself for a while now…

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You know the drill at this stage, Luna Nina says:

1. Research ::
2. Chuck ::
3. Insert ::
4. Bang ::
5. Lousy ::
6. Rehearsal ::
7. Critics ::
8. Memory ::
9. Squid ::
10. Remove ::

Anyways, I’ve been a very bad blogger over the weekend, wasn’t even online once, so I wasn’t. Not like I was doing anything else, but I didn’t get home on Friday till round half three on Sat and then spent the next three hours in one of those oh-so typical “how to save the world” conversations^[1] that one has when one has spent the night making friends with alcoholic beverages.

So despite getting up really really early on Sat^[2] I did absolutely nothing all day long. Well, nothing that didn’t involve sitting/lying/reclining on the couch watching shite on the telly. Did you know that paramount blank out evil words during the day, although they aren’t very constant. Cause ass was ebil and so not heard on Scrubs, but made it through on Two and a half men but they really don’t like any reference to masturbation.

Then I watched the “extended highlights” of the rugby on Sat night^[3] which was lovely as we got to watch a great sprint by Brian O’Driscoll followed by scenes of him puking on the pitch. Not as entertaining as Donncha O’Callaghan on Sunday though. I have never laughed so much in my life. I bet the fellas doing the lifting at the line-out were glad the ref decided to pause the match till he got himself a new pair of shorts.

Donncha O’Callaghan was standing there in the line-out with nothing concealing his privates but the briefest of briefs. The second row looked completely baffled when the referee stopped the game and demanded he put his shorts back on. Had Christophe Berdos failed to notice that he and his Munster teammates had just been working their damned pants off?

I’m pretty sure there’ll be footage up on youtube at some stage, but I haven’t seen it yet. Munster won, btw. So did Leinster. Ulster lost. And Connacht won in their European Challenge Cup. So all in all a fairly good weekend for the Irish teams.

However, being out on Fri meant I missed Dara O’Briain on the Jonathan Ross show, and fucked up when trying to tape the repeat by sticking in the wrong date^[4] So that is another thing I’ll have to keep an eye out for on youtube.

Continue Reading »

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Edited to add For all your Munster Rugby Facts, 100% true^[1] all the time.

Sunday morning dawned with blue skies and a trip to the christening. Then the aftermath and the chatting, the ooohing and awwing over the baby. But as the clock got closer and closer to 3 the boys began to look at their watches. The telly in the kitchen went on. There was a half argument over whether the build up to the match should be shown, or whether B#3 would be allowed to watch some of the Grand Prix. He had a bet on you see.

But at around 2.45, laden down with cheesecakes and sandwiches we all headed for the cars. There were two loads of us, and only a limited number of seats at home, so I told the mother to facking floor^[2] it, but she didn’t. Luckily the father was still messing about with his camera so we made it back before the larger car, and nabbed some good seats.

And for all my dithering over what team I was going to support, once the match started there was no doubt. My head may have been wondering, but the rest of me said Munster.

Even before the second car had arrived Munster were three points up, and from there on there was no real doubt about the outcome. The Munster forwards were simply fantastic.

It was billed as a “clash of cultures” in some of the papers, and while that is certainly an exaggeration there was a sense that although these teams know each other so very well, have played together on so many great occasions, have been willing to, as Paul O’Connell put it, die for each other, they were stereotyped as opposites

Leinster versus Munster has been reduced to country against town, Barry’s tea against café latte, ale against champagne. Munster are perceived as being about blood and thunder and apocalyptic skies, trundling around rugby fields in one, indistinguishable red mass. Leinster, though, are a bunch of amorous Frenchmen with south Dublin accents pirouetting around the field at 100 miles an hour, all the better to showcase their Byronesque hairdos.

Paul O’Connell, man of the match, man of the tournament. Who doesn’t have a grá for Paul? Brian O’Driscoll may get all the press, but it isn’t the Leinster captain that we all adore. We may respect him, we may think he is the best rugby player Ireland has produced, we may admire him. But he just doesn’t have that place in rugby hearts that O’Connell does. A place cemented not only by his displays on the pitch, but his attitude off. He gave a lovely interview just after the match.
And then there is O’Gara. You’d have to feel some sympathy for Contepomi, his opposite number who made quite a few mistakes, but O’Gara was superb, and none more deserving of scoring that wonderful try. And it was a great sight to see him leap over the hoardings, running straight for the red army faithful.

“If I could turn back the clock, I wouldn’t do it again.” O’Gara reflected on of his soccer like celebration.

“But your emotions get the better of you at times, and, if I can’t enjoy that, I won’t ever enjoy any moment I’ve had. I couldn’t believe there wasn’t a second line, and I was through.

“I could just see a sea of red in front of me and that gave me an incredible buzz.”

Although I’ll confess that when I say him jump I thought to myself, he’s going to tap an ankle and go flying, and then where’ll you be against Biarritz? But he didn’t, and for a fella just out of hospital, with boots that were too small for him, and a cut opening up didn’t he do well
And then there’s Stringer. And O’Callaghan. And poor John Kelly who went off injured, replaced by Rob Hernderson, who also had to be carried off injured before the game was over.

So congratulations to Munster. But you’d have to feel for Leinster. After their fantastic display against Toulouse they go and lose the bragging rights for the next year. I’m sure they’ll be back, better than ever for next year’s competition, but for now, has anyone got any spare tickets for Cardiff?

And I just have to end with a comment from George Hook. He was talking just before the match started about how little the Munster coach, Declan Kidney, gives away in press conferences, and said “If you lined 100 Kidneys up, you still wouldn’t reach a conclusion.

Final score in the European Rugby Cup semi-final was Leinster 6, Munster 30. And while Munster did dominate, and boss Leinster around a little, I think that final score is a little flattering to Munster. Which I’m sure they know.

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Why do I even bother watching sport anymore? Every team I support is shit. Worse than shit. I’ve mostly given up on even looking for Villa’s results. The Irish football team couldn’t even beat an average under-11’s. And the rugby team?

Honestly, I thought that game against the All-Blacks was bad, but today, against Australia. Un-fucking-believable how bad they are. I know there are a few key figures missing^[1] but still.

Both teams played shite. How many errors and fuck-ups were there. But Ireland were the worst of two crap teams. As this rate we’ll barely scrap past Romania.

Course, just as I type this, and am about to lament the fact that Australia scored three times Ireland’s score, we get a try. That’s all to the good I suppose. But a very slight consolation

My big gripe is that we can do better. D’Arcy, O’Connoll, O’Callaghan and Murphy are better than that. We just don’t tackle. We stand back and let them run past us. Or we take the wrong option and run into nothing.

Still, at least New Zealand beat England as well as everyone else they’ve come up against.

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