GAA and Kipling

Here's an advert for the GAA featuring the poem IF by Rudyard Kipling.

Why the GAA, those staunch Defenders of Hibernian values, would agree to have their "product" promoted using poetry by Kipling, that staunch Defender of Colonial British values, is ... well, when I come to think about it, not that bloody surprising.

How To Bet Properly

On Friday night I was in the pub watching the Galway races. The place didn't have the usual feel of a Friday though. Most of the punters looked like they'd been going hard at it all week, drinking and gambling, and they had a jaded look about them.

But I hadn't been drinking or gambling all week. It seemed that with no more than a cursory glance at the racing pages I could pick a winner or, at the very least, get a decent run for my money. In the end I had three winners. I did this more or less by following jockeys I'd heard of. None of the other punters in the pub seemed to be sharing my luck. Perhaps they were making the school-boy error of following horses they'd heard of. Or worse, tips they'd been given.

Then I realised. As I looked around the pub I noticed with growing disbelief that nobody, except me, was wearing a bookie's pen in their ear. It's far too easy in life, I thought, sipping my cider, to lose sight of the basics

Celtic in Mayo

Due to what can only really be described as stupidity, although, now you mention it, idiocy would serve equally well I ended up, not in Berwick Upon Tweed, where I should have been, but in Westport, Mayo, where I patently shouldn't have. I'll spare you the details.

Even though Westport, Mayo was entirely the wrong place it was, is, a very beautiful place. We spent Saturday morning on the beach and could happily have stayed there all day if it wasn't for the fact that Celtic were playing on the telly. So we went back to town to watch it.

Every single pub, in that west coast Irish town, was showing the Man United game though. Each place was thronged with West Brits avidly watching their beloved Manchester heroes. Finally though, I found one pub with only two people in it. They were both West Brits themselves but they had some Irish sympathy. So they took pity on me and let me watch the last half hour of the Celtic game.

That small gesture made me very proud. And I sipped my pint of black blood in celebration of this free state.

Work Your Magic

Quidditch?

Royal Support for Colonies

One of the most inspiring aspects of my weekend was undoubtedly watching Princess Anne and Prince William supporting the Scottish and Welsh rugby teams, respectively.

I know it means heaps to both those countries and their right royal patronage is not in the least bit patronising to anyone of a unionist/royalist persuasion from those countries. Anyone else can just get over it.

I'm going home to Ireland tomorrow.

Strange Game

I went out walking at lunchtime and, mercifully, no birds suddenly appeared every time I was near. But I saw something else strange.

There was a group of men, on a large green field, hitting a ball about with sticks. The field had rugby posts but the posts had football nets. They were picking the ball up, running with it and then hitting it into the air. It all looked most singular. I approached a spectator and asked him what this game was.

"Hoorlin", he replied.

"Hoorlin?", I asked. "How do you spell that?".

"H-U-R-L-I-N-G", he explained.

I told him I'd never heard of it and asked if it was a new sport. 

He told me that the game had been played for "over a hundred years in Ireland".

I assured him that I'd lived in that free state for nearly ten of those hundred years and that I'd certainly never heard of it.

He turned back to watch the game and I walked on. Thinking:

The Cheeky Bastard. Over a hundred years! He must think I just stepped off the boat!

Snooker Loopy

After a good dinner of John Dory (he'd had a good innings), sauteed potatoes, minted peas washed down with a rather fine bottle of Chablis I settled down to satisfy my audio visual requirements. I watched some tv. 

The snooker was on. It was reassuring in these days of reality-talent-DIY-cooking shows to see something so simple as a tv-shaped game of snooker on the telly. Everything looked the way it did twenty odd years ago when I used to watch it avidly. 

Ronnie O'Sullivan, the greatest player in the history of the game, was playing a blinder. He was virtually unplayable. There was no sign whatsoever of a celebrity panel voicing their opinion on proceedings. The winner was decided by who won the most frames and there was no ability for viewers to change the result by voting for their favourite. 

All very strange. Is it any wonder poor Ronnie is bored off his tits?

Whore House

"This time", he said, "We won't scrape it", adding, "We'll cut it".

"We?", I replied.

As usual, he ignored me.

As he did so I screamed and shouted "FUCK!".

"Sorry", he said, adding, "Mind your language. You're not in a whorehouse now, son".

Next he said, "Can't you relax a bit, you're bleeding too much".

I told him it was rather uncomfortable.

"Good", he mused, adding "Just relax, and you'll bleed less. Good boy".

It only took about ten minutes but it felt like an hour. As I left I said goodbye to the women in the waiting room. They ignored me. Too busy watching tv. I looked up at the screen and wondered if mine eyes were deceiving me. They'd only put the bloody racing back on!

Horse Racing

In the waiting room they had the racing channel on. Horse racing.

I thought this was a bit strange but I didn't say anything. Instead, I watched the 2:35 from Uttoxeter which was won by the favourite Here's Johnny by a short head.

Then I picked up my paper and started to read it. What did I care if the racing channel was on? It was a odd, sure, this was a hospital and not a turf accountants. I looked around and there was myself and six older women waiting. Waiting and watching yesterday's racing from Uttoxeter.

I was reading my paper. I put the whole racing thing out of my mind and read about the war. I wasn't annoyed about the racing. Then I realised. I was annoyed that no-one else was annoyed. Why were these women not complaining about the racing being on? Frankly, it was simply inappropriate for a hospital waiting room.

I stood up. "Is anyone watching this racing?", I asked.

"No, switch it over, son", said the woman next to me.

"What do you want to watch?", I asked.

"Anything but bloody racing", she replied.

I found Sky News and looked around the room. Everyone looked at me approvingly thinking:

He must work here.

Then a nurse called my name. "The plastic surgeon is ready". She said.

Prefab Sprout

He was at it again.

He didn't say Mr Prefab Sprout. He said "some Sprouts of the Prefab variety". Honestly, what a dolt!

He played "The King of Rock'n'Roll" which sounded great. 

Last time I was back in Edinburgh I met an old mate who is a massive "Sprouts of the Prefab variety" fan. He's also a big football fan and there's nothing he enjoys more than combining his two loves. Thus, one day, in 1989, whilst excelling in a holding midfield role he also reviewed "The Sprouts" latest album "Protest Songs".

As he played a square ball having intercepted a forward pass he told me about the mordant wit that inter played throughout the album. As we went up for a corner, he on the six yard line me holding back to time my run, he eulogised over the extraordinary romanticism of certain songs which never spilled over into sentimentalism. 

He was a great player. A tanner ba' player as they used to be called. He just seemed to have so much time on the ball. I remember at one point, he beat 2 players with a brilliant turn, and whilst still in possession of the ball, he told me how much he admired the Gershwin-esque genius evident on the albums' penultimate track "Til The Cows Come Home". He then slipped the ball through the legs of a 3rd player before spraying a perfectly weighted ball beyond the opposing left back and into the path of the right winger, Roger Chesterton. Podge took one touch before crossing the ball perfectly onto the head of our star striker Walter Winterbottom. Wally couldn't miss.

But he did. He missed the ball completely. The idiot.

Modern World

Apparently Ronnie O'Sullivan thinks snooker is too boring. 

He suggests that it needs "someone who's more up to date in the modern world" and "a bit more dynamic" to run the game.

He might be right. But then, by way of a suggestion, he says two words. Simon. And Cowell.

Can you believe it!!! 

Is that fatuous fuckwit Simon Cowell dynamic and up to date with the modern world?

[thinks] 

Yes of course he is. None more so, in fact.

Well fuck the modern world. The modern world is rubbish.

Hoy!

Seeing Chris Hoy for the first time ever last night without a union flag draped over him it struck me that perhaps I've been a little unfair on the boy. He is a tremendous athlete, there's no question about it. He looked normal enough and spoke well. 

So, today, when he woke up as "Sports Personality of the Year" and threw back his union jack duvet, ready to meet another red, white and blue day, I wonder, will he feel the same? 

Or different.  

Men

I used to play golf. I'll play again when I have the time.

I don't give a shit about it or anything. I'm not mental. I just enjoy the fresh air and a bit of a laugh with my mates. Now and again you might even see some boxing hairs or a magenpie stealing a golf bag. These are the moments that make golf great and, believe me, these thieving bastards will take anything. They're only wee but they have great strength.

Back in the day we would talk of many things. It may have been the rise and fall of Worcester Sauce crisps or the difficulty in playing both Neil Lennon and Paul Lambert in the same midfield. 

It could have been virtually anything but, for sure, the approach to the third or the length of the rough on the twelfth would have been a mere sideline to, say, Roy Orbison's stunning version of Elvis Costello's The Comedians.

I overheard a chap in the airport the other day saying that watching Mamma Mia was a waste of time if you'd seen it in the theatre. He felt strongly about this. Apparently the film was just a rehash of the show.  Tonight in the pub I heard two men discussing the relative merits of the contestants on the X-Factor. I even have one friend who watches Strictly Come Ballroom. A man, yes.

Can someone tell me what the fuck is going on?

Lightning

The best footballer ever to come from my home town was without doubt John White.

John played for Spurs and was known as "the ghost" for his uncanny ability to appear as if from nowhere in the box. And when the ghost appeared he invariably scored. Like in the picture above where he's probably scoring against Blackpool.

Tragically John was killed by lightning whilst playing golf in 1964.  He was only 27 years of age and at the peak of his career.

My uncle knew him well and tells me he was an absolute gentleman as well as a genius on the football park. 

On the eighteenth green today watching Lee Westwood about to putt I felt a few wet drops on my neck and assumed it was merely the drunk kid behind me pouring lager down my back for a laugh. But within a few seconds the rain was pouring and there was a loud rumble of thunder. Soon after there were streaks of magnificent lightening across the sky.

For heavens sake, I thought, surely it's not about to take the second best footballer ever to grace that honest toun.

Golf

I'm off to Sun City tomorrow for the gowf.

At dinner last night I told a brilliantly imagined story about peering through my binoculars on the 1st fairway watching Miguel Angel Jiminez repeatedly trying to mount a recalcitrant Sergio Garcia from the safety of my safari jeep. It's an enduring image.

This is a golf tournament. I ain't gonna play Sun City.  Just watching.

Brian

A broad categorisation of Celtic and Rangers fans might be:

Celtic : nasal whiney

Rangers: slow witted

M'colleage and erstwhile friend Brian suggested that, if this were true, then that made me a "generic Old Firm supporter".

He's wrong though. I'm not nasal and whiney at all.

SHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIT!!!

Predictive Text 3

It doesn't even like me swearing...

I don't need no moral guidance from a bleedin' phone.

I don't swear that often but the notion of deciding the 2011 Rugby World Cup seedings 3 whole years in advance for "logistical reasons" is ducking? ridiculous.

Butcher v Maradona

Would Terry Butcher at least have the decency to act Scottish?

Diego Maradona is an icon, a legend in Scottish football. He doesn't deserve the nasty, petulant, babyish side-swiping and whinnying from Butcher who refuses to forgive and forget the infamous Hand of God goal.

Anyway, as you can see from the picture, it's far from conclusive yet.

 

Phones and McGonagall

My mate Andy phoned me last night. He phones now and again for a chat. He enjoys chatting.

So I took the phone through to the place in the house with a poor signal and answered. I could just about hear him but he couldn't hear me. Eventually the poor signal deteriorated to no signal at all and the line dropped. So I went back to watching the Munster game in peace.

There was a time, not so very long ago, when phone conversations with my mates were along the lines of:

Hey

Pint?

Yup

Friday at 8, Staggs?

Aye, see you then

Bye

Sometimes the above conversation could be obviated entirely by actually arranging the pint the week before. In person, while drunkenly staggering out of Staggs. And, regular as clockwork, everyone would be there the following week at 8. These were simpler times.

Now everyone wants to chat. Even men. It's all gone a bit arse over tit, if you'll forgive the expression.

From what I could make out, Andy wanted to have a chat about the Scottish poet William Topaz McGonagall. Now I'd normally be more than happy to discuss the merits and demerits of McGonagall at great length so long as I was safely ensconced in the snug of Milne's Bar with a pint of 80/- in front of me (and possibly 3 or 4 behind me). Certainly not over the phone. 

Honestly, if it wasn't for emergencies, I'd seriously consider disabling my phone's voice function.

Settings / Phone / Voice / Off.

Scottish Football

I wish Irish people would stop picking on me about Scottish football. 

Pick, pick, pick, pick, pick.

They're being beastly unkind.

Ok, we don't have a big, fancy-shmancy league in Scotland like the English league they have over here in Ireland, but we're only a small country.

We're doing the best we can for Goodness Sake!