goodbye to all that

Had a great lazy Christmas with family and quite a few nice evenings with friends. Our first Christmas without one of the kids at home, but our eldest rang Christmas morning and chatted for half an hour or so. Told us to turn the turkey upside down for the first three hours. Didn't do it any harm. Had two humbling experiences over the week. One was getting to play a session with Mairtin O'Connor and his lovely young daughter at a friend's house. The second was reading Kurt Vonnegut's last book. It's incredible how people of true genius (not a term I bandy about)make everything seem so simple. Anyway, go mbeirfidh muid beo ar an am seo aris! (that we may be alive at this time next year!)
love and lunacy to all!

singinging

Went to hear Declan O'Rourke Weds night. The boy can sing. Going to hear the third class Christmas play at 11.30. The girls can also sing. The bedroom is filling up with things which need wrapping, leading to a lack of floor space which has necessitated the temporary removal of the bathroom scales (en suite being too small for same). hohoho indeed. Finished work for Christmas already The old mince pie fetish is starting to kick in and the kids are pacing up and down in the hall complaining about dad's "24/7 online scrabble addiction". While we're on the subject, what kind of deluded wierdo would use a scrabble site to try and pick up "saucy young girls" or "hot young gay men". It's SCRABBLE, for God's sake. Scrabble is what you do when you want your social life to be temporarily suspended. When you want to prove to yourself that your brain is not dead, just because it hasn't been used for a while. It's not for writing dirty words and sniggering to yourself. Is it?

blank expression

So if you're supposed to do lots of stuff on Saturday, starting early in the morning and you have to go to the pub Friday night (in the line of duty), you limit yourself to a small number of pints. Obvously. Then when you get home you go upstairs to bed and go to sleep. Naturally. you don't look into the room where your new pc with the big colouredy screen is sitting there, newly installed broadband box winking at you from under the table. Even if you're stupid enough to have a quick spin, you do not start to investigate the online scrabble thing that one of the Fabulous Galway Gospel Choir pointed out to you the previous week. Upon deciding that you might have a quick look you ABSOLUTELY DO NOT START EIGHT ONLINE GAMES, INCLUDING ONE IN BLEEDING FRENCH AND STAY UP TILL FIVE BEING HAMMERED BY PEOPLE FROM COUNTRIES WHERE IT'S STILL BRIGHT OUTSIDE!
when will we ever learn, when will we ever learn?

busy w/end

The fabulous Galway Gospel Choir are doing their Christmas thang at 8.30 tomorrow in the Abbey Church in Galway city, immediately prior to going on the piss. Before that my u14s are playing Offaly Lions at rugby. Sunday my two ballerinas are flitting across the stage in the Town Hall Theatre in their biennial show. Looking forward to a rest at work on monday!

too much information!

Been tagged by Jack mcBastard.
Seven facts about me.
1. For my third birthday my Grandad bought me a drum. My parents hid the drumsticks and told me it was a stool. I sat on it for six months.

2. Though totally not superstitious, not interested in tarot readings, palmistry and would run a mile from a seance, I have seen three ghosts in my lifetime, all of whom were cycling bikes at the time.

3. Once peed on Dermot Morgan's shoe (accidentally).

4. Gospel music makes me cry (listening, not singing)

5. Ditto brass bands

6. Are we there yet? no? shit! I've developed a safety valve which stops me drinking any more when I'm (just about)pissed.

7. I get annoyed whenever anyone mentions star signs or enneagrams.

Right then, I tag macdara, http://macdara.wordpress.com/, Ellie. http://whenthebelfastchildsinsagain.blogspot.com/, Tonii,http://next2lastchapter.wordpress.com/, govstooge, http://govstooge.blogspot.com/ Annie,http://annierhiannon.blogspot.com/ savannah,http://savmarshmama.blogspot.com/and Bock,http://www.bocktherobber.com/

generation gap

Scary thing happened the other day. I was teaching a song to a 12 year old, so I told him I was going to record it so he could play along with it at home. I produced a blank cassette and went to put it in the recorder. "what's that?" says he. "A cassette", says I. One you can record on? Cool!" says he. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised, having spent the last week or two trying to find a mini hi fi system that incorporates a cassette player, but still!

Word games.

I suppose I'm probably the last person on the planet to know about this, but just in case I'm the second last, www.freerice.com was recommended to me by someone who should know better. Bad enough that I'm addicted to verbotomy and that none of my family will play scrabble with me any more, (me? Smug expression? me?) and that I'm a three sudoku a day man, (Irish Times). I had one of my madey-uppey words published in a Toronto newspaper last week, which has to officially confirm my anorakdom. So midway through the busiest week of my working year, this Swiss git sends me the url of a friggin word game!

OK stop press! I was pausing a couple of seconds ago, wondering what noun to use after the word Swiss, when my phone rang. I picked it up, to find it was a call from Geneva! How scary is that! I know two Swiss people, both of whom live in Galway (but only one of whom is a git). Maybe that big particle accellerator yoke that they built over there picks up on Swiss vibes or something. Where's that Scully bitch when you need her?

christmas fear

Just reading about Govstooges' pre-christmas panic (http://govstooge.blogspot.com/) is enough to put the fear of God into you about the Christmas shopping. I know it's irrational, but I hate people who have their Christmas shopping done by the time the kids go back to school. What the fuck kind of lives do these people lead? I seceretely (well, not secretely any more now) hope that all their presents suddenly become useless through sudden onset allergies, baldness, impotence or legal proceedings. The only people more deserving of our sympathy than last minute shoppers are the poor shop assistants who have to try to assist, talk down, and suffer the moods of us panickers. I spent a decade or so in retail management in the nineties and the re is nothing quite like the dread of waking up on Christmas Eve morning, knowing that you would be dealing with a lethal cocktail of panicking punters, hungover staff wearing santa hats, bosses phoning on the half-hour looking for up to date figures, drunk punters, thieves, pickpockets, staff wondering can they leave early to get a bus to Donegal/Roscommon/London, staff not wanting to work in the same area as the staff member they shifted at the drunken staff party three days before, lost children, lost parents, lost grannies and the knowledge that you had to come in on Stephen's day to organize the displays for the sales.
Ho Ho Ho indeed!