Susan Hated Literature

Ooops, almost didn’t post today. That would have been a disaster considering my ambition is to post every day this week. I know, I could have remained silent on that and no one would have known about my near failure, or indeed my failure tomorrow, or whenever it comes, but then I wouldn’t have had any opening sentence for this post. And that would have been a real disaster. After without an opening sentence I wouldn’t have gotten very far in this whole post, would I?

Can’t have a second sentence without that first one.

Was at footie this evening. We’re playing twice a week now. Once indoors, once outside. When I say we… well, I’ve missed the past few Thurs due to “other commitments”, jayzis, you’d think I had a life or something interesting^[1] like that.

Luckily enough we had a grand total of no injuries today. Which was nice as last week there was an incident involving a football being kicked and a football smashing into someone’s face. Not mine, which was good for me. But straight into the glasses of the person who was hit, which was not good for him.

I’ve also decided to upload a couple of batches of photos to flickr and have discovered that I haven’t stuck anything up there at all this year. My god! That’s shocking. I’m thinking that most will have to be private, what with the drinking and the actual peoples there, but sure if you don’t know me you wouldn’t be interested in pictures of me and my good friend Mr. Alcohol.

Also, and hugely importantly, the Six Nations kicks off this weekend^[2] Are we thrilled with excitement^[3] Me and de mudder are heading to Croke Park on Sat to watch Ireland kick Italy’s ass. And if we don’t win, convincingly, we’ll instead have a “wee chat” with Mr. O’Sullivan, so we will.

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Title from Titanic, see the link there? Disaster movie, but this post is instead a fabulous avoidance of disaster!

It is only Tuesday
I wantssess it to be Thursday. Okay, okay, I’d prefer if it were Friday and the working week over, but if I was going to go that far I’d have to hope it was the 20th and I’d be on my xmas hols, but that is wishing your life away and is ever so dreary

But Thursday’ll be fun as we are having a charity football match at work. Students v Staff. yay. And in a good cause, tis for concern, so we can feel good about ourselves.

To keep you updated, I still but nevertheless, here I am, typing away like a mad yoke. I spent ages yesterday putting photos up on my facebook account, and answering silly trivia questions. What else can one do when one is bored?

I’ve been reading Hilary Mantel’s A Place of Greater Safety but have decided to toss it for the time being. I’m getting nowhere with it, although I am enjoying it, it simply requires more thought and attention than I’m willing to give at the moment. Plus it, like, totally weighs a ton, so I can’t be dragging it about with me. Maybe over the break when I have the time I’ll get stuck back in.

My problem is that I don’t really know all that much about the peoples involved in the French Revolution, and that, together with their funny furrin names is confudling me. And the fact that I seem to only read it at weekends. Actually I’m guessing that last point is probably the real problem

I trying to figure out how much *fun* I should have at the xmas partay. Do I just be merry and go home early so I can go into work the next morning with no trouble? Or do I go out and get totally slaughtered and come to work still drunk? At the moment I’m veering towards the slaughtered option, it seems more fun.

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Title is a line from the first chapter of A Plave of Greater Safety, no real reason, I just like the way it sounds.

I owns a football club.

Well I have a share in a thingy that owns a football club. Yup, that’s right, I shelled my €70ish and paid for a share in MyFootballClub and now own a teeny tiny percentage in Ebbsfleet Utd.

C’mon The Fleet

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Title provided by GIANLUCA VIALLI

So there is this footballer named Stephen Ireland, and last weekend he scored a goal, and promptly dropped his shorts to reveal Superman Underwear^[1] I know, not a good move, but you know, worse things happen at sea. There was the Titanic incident, crappy film or what?

In response to Ireland’s celebration many of the papers have been giving out. Whatever. But one in particular struck me as amooosing as I wandered lonely as a cloud^[2] home. It was probably the Evening Herald as I was finished for the day which makes me suspect that it was evening time. But maybe it wasn’t. Who can say for sure. The truth is as cunning as a very cunning fox and often hides from us. Especially when memories are involved.

But this is all beside the point, the point is that it was a shitty tabloidy paper that I’m talking about.

You know the sort, jump down anyone’s throat. Print pictures of naked peoples. That sort of class operations.

So, you have that image of responsible meeja behaviour in your mind? Now, imagine what they said about Stephen Ireland’s behaviour? Will I reveal all …
They said he was crass. Which yes, he may very well have been, but I wonder did the editor think about the colour of pots and kettles, or what happens when you toss stones about and live in a glass house?

I’m guessing not.

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Title provided by Mr. Shakespeare in Troilus and Cressida

I’m hoarse today. So hoarse I can’t actually speak at all. Well, the odd croak and a bit of a wheeze. Totally the fault of the cough I have. And the playing football in the rain. Nothing whatsoever to do with the drunken singing in the pub. No siree bob!

So I spent the day watching telly. Showjumping at 11 or so. Quick hop out to the shops to pick up the essentials; Strepsils, cough medicine, sausages and wedges. Pour essentials. Then home to watch the GAA. Two hurling quarters were on. Tip v Wexford was on first. I switched it on thinking, ah sure, I’ll support Tip, you know, what with the family connection to that county. But then I found myself urging Wexford on. That old underdog sympathy thing got me. And they won. Which was great. And a drama filled ending.

The other quarter-final was between Kilkenny and Galway. Kilkenny being the favourites, and me having been to college in Galway I was going to cheer them on. But then I was reminded of Vanessa McGarry’s death by seeing her son and her husband (Kilkenny goalkeeper) in the players’ section of the stand and it seemed somehow wrong to be wishing the team till. Course, as some hurling fella said, life is real and can be tragic, but that is exactly why we have things like sport.

The other two quarters are on tomorrow; Luimneach v An Clár and Port Láirge v Corcaigh. I’ll be cheering on Limerick and Waterford. I think. Well, Limerick for sure. I’m not to definite about the other match. Waterford deserve their shot at glory. But then again, as I’ve mentioned before I do like to cheer Cork on. We’ll see how the teams play.

Anyway, back to my exciting adventures on the couch. I then watched bits of Coast as they were doing the West coast of Ireland today. I did miss most of it, but caught the end. Did you know that seaweed is used in the making of beer and ice-cream? Well, now you do.

After that it was time for Jekyll. The final episode. And it was good, but I’m not too sure about the final scene. Was a bit “we want a twist” rather than an ending. Still, I’ll be keeping my eye out for anything else that Steven Moffat writes.

I was thinking of going to bed then. But instead I pulled out a dvd; A Little Princess which I bought in a 3 for €22 thingie during the week. I’d watched it years and years ago when the kids I was babysitting had rented it. And it really is a beautifully shot and directed film. And the music is great too. And I discovered that Alfonso Cuarón directed it. I may do a proper review at some stage.

So, that was my thrilling Saturday. I know you couldn’t possibly have gotten upto anything more exciting than that!

Yesterday, about 3, after posting my Thursday Thirteen, it began to really rain. And the heavens made with the thunder, and the lightening, and the darkening of the skies. And I thought to myself “not going to football then”. But then it stopped. And I shrugged, and come half five I was out on the pitch. And come 5.35 there was more rain.

At first it wasn’t so bad. Just a soft pattering. But that turned into a drizzle. Which developed into a downpour. Eventually whole buckets were falling from the sky.

But we played on.

Are we ever hardcore or what

Course on account of the previous rain it was actually pretty hard to play, some of the fellas had football boots, and they managed to stay up more than us fools mud-skating in our runners. But is was good fun, even the bits when it rained so much that you couldn’t really see where you were going.

It’ll have done wonders for my cough; this running around in muck and rain.

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_{So who was a Garth Brooks fan and recognised the title?}

So it turns out that today is Thursday. Who’d have guessed that shocker following yesterday being Wednesday? Course yesterday was the start of my working week so part of me is busy thinking today is Tuesday. Gonna get a pleasant surprise when I wake up thinking “thursday, nother two days of work” only for it to turn out to be Sat. Course, this may then get extra confuddling when I arise feeling like a Sat^[1] and then remember, that no, today is Monday. You should be at work.

The perils of taking days off work.

Right, back to the blunt end of this post^[2] today is Thursday, which means Thursday Thirteens.:

Thirteen Sports related memories One of my earliest sporting memories, you know, apart from playing three and in in the park, or kerbs by the kerb, is radio related. Who’d have guessed in this modern age of televisual delights, HD-mebobs, youTube footage, bittorrented goodness and all the rest of the technological greatness that is modern sports-watching. But then again, I am almost ancient now, approaching my third decade. Mein gott! the wrinkles…[3] So back in the day, they had this device known as a radio. Whereby you could listen to people describing things that happened in front of them. I’m guessing I was quite young, because I know we were on holiday in Enniscrone, camping and that was why I wasn’t watching on the telly[4] I’m thinking 8. But that may be a purely random number pulled from the ether[5] Right, eight years old, in the car, listening avidly to… showjumping. Yes, the Dublin Horse Show’s Nations Cup competition. I don’t remember who won, but I think we may have[6] Whatever. Winners or losers, it doesn’t matter. All that matters is that I remember it, and lo, it was good. Another barely recalled sporting moment, which isn’t really a moment at all, more like a collection of memories, is of All-Ireland final day. Now back in the dim mists of time when I hadn’t the vaguest of interests in sport these two days[7] meant only one thing. No telly to watch. Because in those days there was no such thing a families having two tellies. Not a chance boys, nor did children enter into the equation when the parents wanted to watch something. So All-Ireland Sundays involved waiting for the sport to end. If it was a wet summer[8] then that would involve sitting around, popping heads in doors, and gradually watching bits of the game. Or if it was good weather, then that meant you could play outside til the game was over, and you could always tell, because sunny days meant glare on the screen, and All-Ireland days were the only ones important enough to allow the curtains to be pulled during the day to facilitate telly watching. So roller-skating[9] around the house, or whatever else, you could tell the moment the game was over by spotting that the curtains to the sitting room were now open. And now a real actual sporting memory: Watching Simon Geoghegan play rugby. I can’t give you a specific match or year, but sometime between 1991 and 1996 would be my best guess. This was when I started to get into rugby. As I’ve mentioned before, de mudder was always a rugby supporter, but I could never see the point of a game where you had to through the ball backwards[10] and one of the main ways of advancing was to kick the ball into touch. Seemed boring and pointless to me. But what with there only being one telly in the house you sorta had to watch those Five Nations matches, and Geoghegan always stood out. And of course once you start watching and understanding the game then it is fairly easy to appreciate the sport. The Dublin-Meath GAA encounters of the early 90’s. They seem to have spent the entire summer playing each other[11] Donegal winning the All-Ireland in 1992, beating Dublin. I’m not really sure why this sticks in the mind. I know I was supporting Dublin at the time, but it was still nice to see Donegal win. Living in Sligo you don’t really get too many sporting greats around, so seeing a neighbouring county do well is always nice. Euro ‘88, I was in 4th class. I think. And such was the soccer-mania that qualifying for the European championships brought about, we had more than a few art classes where we did nothing but colour in flags or draw the footballers. Course, there was one fella who was so enthusiastic that when Euro ‘88 was over he promptly set about preparing for Euro ‘89 before being laughed out of the classroom as everyone explained about there being four years in between championships. And I couldn’t mention the Euros without mentioning the World Championship, and Italia ‘90. The glory days of Irish football. I was on my yearly holiday in Tip when we played Italy. Fully confident that we would lose against Italy, but that didn’t dampen the excitement. And of course then I was proved correct when Scilacci[12] scored that goal. But we didn’t really care. The team had gone there and done us proud. Okay, so they didn’t technically win a single match, but that didn’t bother us. Watching Barry McGuigan, I have no idea who he was boxing, or when this was, but I do remember staying up late watching on the Granny’s small telly. I can’t even remember if this was a fight he won. Not much of a memory, but I was maybe 6 or 7, so you’ll have to make do with hazy memory. Michelle Smith winning in the Olympics. Great while it lasted, but now totally, and deservedly overshadowed by the sample-tampering/whiskey in urine incident. Cian O’Connor winning the gold medal in showjumping. Okay, another drug incident. But until the drug story came to light it was a great achievement. Michael Carruth and Wayne McCullough in the 1992 Olympics. I’m not even a boxing fan, but look, three boxers have already been mentioned here. Brian O’Driscoll scoring three tries against France. In Paris. Asked for a comment on the field after the final whistle, Keith Wood, the Irish captain, was too happy for words. “Woooooooooo,” he screamed into an interviewer’s microphone. Look at him, all young and unfamous, awww. Ireland V England in the Six Nations 2007. Croke Park, historical day and all that. The emotion of the anthems. The final score. Best rugby memory[13] in a long while. Links to other Thursday Thirteens! Selena Kitt The Flatland Chronicles Pistols, Passion & Potions the screaming pages (leave your link in comments, I’ll add you here!)

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