Socket to me, Monsieur le President

I've been having too much fun lately to write. The Fabulous Galway Gospel Choir did a couple of gigs over the past fortnight or so. The first featured a guest artiste who is a household name in quite a few houses. Yes folks the very holy James Kilbane sang with us! "It's an awful pity he wasn't born in the States" I thought looking at him in his lovely black suit. "Sure, Hilary or Obama or yer man who makes the chips wouldn't have a chance beside him. He'd be a gorgeous president". Then we did a gig with a French choir, who choreographed and acted out all of their songs. The Parish Priest wondered whether they sang religious songs. Then he read their pamphlet which explained the songs in English and asked no more. I think the ones about the garden gnomes and breastfeeding kittens proved most entertaining. My wife has been so nice and supportive of late, that on Friday, as a special treat, I let her take one of my teeth out. Down to 4 panadol a day now.

april schmool

Laziness, holiday changes in routine and the fact that the fecking hard drive in my (new!ish! as in 4 month old) pc screamed and died, have combined to make me less communicative than usual. All is well, Passed the twenty two years married mark yesterday, which proves there are saints living amongst us. Eldest has left Oz and will spend another two months on a series of beaches in Thailand on route home. He's already starting to panic about the weather. Number two son is coming close to the end of his final exams and is even grumpier than me. Son number three is back to school after a fortnight's clubbing/gaming/sleeping half the day/asking for money. 14 year old Daughter is independently wealthy, having run an easter craft,song and dance camp for twelve 5-9year olds in our kitchen last week. 9 year old daughter just gets cuter andbossier! Went to the doctor today and left most of my blood in her office as she tried not to snigger when telling me to stop eating crap and stop putting salt an the non-crap that i eat. I'm as healthy as an overweight middleweight trout, but a good buddy got a scare recently so I'm doing the sure-to-be-sure thing.

flexitime in prison

I admit it. I was being holier than thou about the GAA. We were having a discussion about thuggery at work this morning and i was harping on about the ability of the gifted GAA player to get away with all sorts of shennanigans on and off hte pitch and the spectators/guards/witnesses all seem to develop amnesia/selective blindness and a spot of wrist slapping is the usual sanction. Then I look at the Irish times online this morning and what tdo I see? two headlines one under the other:
Kearney begins life sentence for murder.
Kearney to play full back on Saturday.

Póltachts for the people

I was perusing the Central Statistics Office yearbook for 2007 the other day over a cup of coffee, like you do. It's like the Guinness Book of Records without the gross photographs. Anyway, I notice that the Polish population of Ireland has surpassed 63,000. Further on I notice that the number of people who speak Irish on a daily basis outside school is 53,471. So we should probably start looking at setting up a few Poltachts, where you can go to learn Polish, or build a house if you speak Polish well enough to pass an exam. It's only a matter of time before we have to put a Polish verse onto the God awful "Ireland's call" as they'll make up the front row of our scrum and hopefuly be able to throw the ball in straight. Once the intermarraige between east and west gets going we should be unstoppable. With their work ethic and our charm we'll conquer the world, not to mention the porn industry. We await with interest the father of all pornstars, Seánín Stopavitch!

stolen laptop containing data of over 171,000 blood donors

Galwaywegian:
Blood, A+, a bit sticky.
always tries to get a second bottle of Guinness with chat up lines which haven't been used since Frank Sinatra was a boy.

Marry in haste....

Feck Yer man Dunne and yer other man Dunphy in pushing the FAI into a decision on our new manager. If we'd waited one more week we could have got Castro! Now there's a fucker who knows a thing or two about defence!

why do they call it cold calling?

There should be a seperate room in hell for people who phone us in the evening wanting us to change phonecomapnies/insurancecompanies/alarm companies etc. Preferable in a particularly hot part, next door to the latrines.

Commodores can be saved

Great news for mankind.
http://www.reuters.com/article/healthNews/
idUSN0628232520080207?feedType=nl&feedName=ushealth600
(sorry, linky thing won't work)

Lettercrack

Bus trip coincided with the Ireland-Italy match, which proved to be a blessing in disguise. Dumped everything at the Old Monastary Hostel and proceeded next door for a rehearsal in the Church, which was small, cold but had a nice warm tone A sculpture dedicated to the boys who lived and died in the infamous reformatory was terribly poignant. An hour or so later we went back to the hostel with our host Leo and his lady wife Claire and had a wonderful veggie meal. We then went to tog out and went back to the Church, which had been heated and transformed, fresh flowers and candles on the windows. The concert went really well, the energy we got from the crowd was palpable, Mick Kinsella played south american tunes, gospel tunes, a Scottish tune and Amazing Grace, during which a lovely lone voice rose up from the audience to join him.
The gig finished, we hit the Bard's Den for a great shit-kicking bluegrass session with Nial Toner, his band and a few friends. Cans were purchased and the session in the hostel went on till half past oblivion.
Next morning three of us made 9.30 mass, had our throats blessed in honour of St Blaise (where was the fecker at 4.30am?). About 8 of us struggled through the snow up to the top of Diamond Hill. The walk is absolutely wonderful and the views make it worth the effort. the trip back was one of those surreal experiences where everyone was in exactly the same state of hungover nervous exhaustion and thing which were probably mildly amusing became hilarious, with people rolling around their seats holding their sides, with tears running down their faces.

Go To Letterfrack! there is an amazing sense of healing about the place and an enthusiasm about arts and music which is totally infectious. Long live the Prince!

lalalalalalala

The Fabulous Galway Gospel Choir is heading even westerer this weekend as we have been asked to give a royal command performance in the principality of Letterfrack on Saturday night, where we will be joined by Mick Kinsella of Mick Kinsella fame who will take us on a harmonica journey to the blues. The concert will be followed by a walk to the pub to hear Niall Toner and sidekicks do their bluegrass thang, before we retreat to the old monastery. Anybody left standing will attempt to scale Diamond Hill on Sunday morning. I'll be lucky to make it to base camp for the cure.

No White Smoke

Why have Ireland no manager yet, despite enthusiastic searching and outward hopefulness by the powers(?) that be. Bock figured it out yesterday. Someday, when it all comes out, John Waters will thank us.....

stop blogging!

Ok, everybody back to work. John Waters said ye were all a bunch of negative wierdo types whose views are poisoning the cybersphere. The cute gerbil-like one said to leave commenting on stuff to people like him, who has an editor to tell him when he's talking shite (as if he ever would talk shite!). In fact I wouldn't be surprised if the blogosphere was responsible for the negativity which stopped people voting for his wonderfully optimistic ditty in the Eurovision, thereby hindering a united Europe, which probably had a knock-on effect of destablising the fecking American economy and bringing the whole economy crashing down around us. Enough with the negative vibes already, as they used to say in Roscommon long ago!

heads down till Paddy's day

2008, feck that for a game of cowboys. Wind, rain and poverty. Too many pounds and too few euros. Calls from our 21year old baby boy, complaining about the heat in Cairns, ungrateful little fecker! Visa bills and having to sell my body to get some heating oil. Don't mention bloody sales either if you know what's good for you. The online scrabble addiction hasn't got any better. I'm also the only person in Galway who hasn't caught the dreaded flu, and the paranoia has got to the stage that I'm running away from anyone who looks like they might speak to me. Number two son is deeply depressed that college has restarted and he's not sure that he'll be able to remove his arse from the couch where he's been stewing in his own juices since late December. The dog still thinks he's a cat and the cat still thinks that we're his lazy, good-for nothing servants. Happy new year!

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?