Susan Hated Literature

If you do a search for Zinedine you’ll be told by google that there are over 3,034 results for news stories relating to the headbutt incident. Never mind all the other stories listed and linked to. or just blogs about him. Isn’t it amazing? And don’t you feel just a tad sorry^[1] for Italy whose world cup win is being ignored by the world?

But Zizou’s apology wasn’t really an apology now was it? I’m sorry for the kids that saw it, but I have no regrets? I wonder did he pay attention to what Roy Keane said after the Saipan Incident? Saying sorry, but I’d do it again if I had to? Is that really an apology? Surely if you are sorry for something then you wish you hadn’t done it?

Despite Zidane’s red card, he was handed the Golden Ball as the tournament’s best player. It’s a testament to both his brilliance against Spain and Brazil, and to his personality.

Err, no. He got the Golden Ball because the voting happened before the red card, so it can’t have been despite it, cause it hadn’t happened yet.

I finally got around to taken some photos of the new art in Dublin. There is a collection of statues on O’Connell St, and as Tues was a sunny day you can also see blue skies. If only there was an Elmer Fudd to go wabbit hunting it’d be great.
Although they are actually hares.

There are a collection of these bronze sculptures along O’Connell St & Bridge. Mainly hares, although there is one which looks like a monkey sitting on an elephant^[2] but according to Dublincity.ie it is actually a cougar and an elephant.

I’ll have to take a walk up Parnell square to see if I can see the rest sometime over the weekend. Unless I can’t be arsed. Or it rains. Or I forget. Or something else intervenes.

The sculptures are the first outdoor exhibition by the Hugh Lane gallery, and are all by Barry Flanagan.

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The Last Waterloo Cup was a show on the BBC during the week. All about, as you may have guessed, the waterloo cup. So what is the Waterloo Cup? Well, it was an annual festival of greyhound coursing, but this is the last year it is going to be held as hunting with dogs has been made illegal in Britain.

Now, on a gut level I dislike the idea of coursing for sport. I mean, how can it be enjoyable to watch two dogs chase after, and rip apart, a hare? But watching some of it… It looks fantastic. The dogs are shit fast, and unlike greyhound racing, they have to swerve and turn because the hare can turn, at speed, in a body length. The dog cannot.

I’ve read, but don’t know how accurate these figures are, that one in five hares is caught and killed by the greyhounds, and that it can take up to 30 seconds for the hare to die.

Now, is that any crueller than shooting? Where you might wound an animal and end up leaving it to a lingering death?

I don’t think I’d ever be a fan of coursing. But I’m not sure if I agree with the ban as it seems to be in Britain (or is it just England?). I mean, is it wrong to use dogs if you are hunting for food? And not just for flushing purposes?

Of course, if, as it seems, the Irish Hare population is in danger of extinction, then surely we in Ireland should introduce a law to protect the animal rather than one which simply bans everything?

As far as I know coursing is legal here, but the dogs are muzzled. And I’ve seen pictures of muzzled dogs chasing lures, which seems a bit bizarre. Still, just like the “people out of work” argument used in relation to fox-hunting, can’t they just organise drag-hunting or lure coursing?

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