Big.  Fucking.  Wow.

They seem to think that this is a big honour but I can’t think why.  Flames are quite common these days with the invention of the match and all.  In fact, I have just lit the central heating.  Maybe I should have invited the neighbours in to admire The Flame?

I am dreading the Olympics.  I am dreading the endless reports, replays and analysis.  Any decent programming on television will go out the window to make way for endless film of wankers chasing each other around a track.  How fucking boring can you get.

It wouldn’t be too bad if it were ordinary Joe Soaps taking part, but the whole business has descended into farce with millions being poured into the training.  It’s like a clinically well oiled machine now and the best drop of excitement can only be achieved by someone shaving a millionth of a second off the previous record.  We will also get the inevitable accusations that some contestant should be disqualified on the grounds [pun!] that they drank a cup of coffee in the previous six months.  So fucking what?

To make the Olympics more interesting they should really allow performance enhancing drugs.  Each contestant could wear the logo of the drug company and we could watch with baited breath as the runners cross the finishing line only to explode in a blaze of glory.  The contest would then be between the drugs and not the contestants.  I reckon that would liven things up considerably.  We could even see contestants being disqualified for not taking drugs.  Heh!

In the meantime, if I see some tosser running past the house carrying a flaming torch, I suppose I can always ask him for a light?

Having said that, I have partaken in the past.

I once played rugby for my school.  I was damned good at it too, but was suspended from the team after scoring five tries for the opposition. They should have realised that being short sighted was a handicap?

I once played hockey for RTE. For some unknown reason I was co-opted onto the team as an emergency measure.  We won the match too, mainly because the opposing team ran out of players.

I used to play darts.  A lot.  It was the one sport where my abilities radically improved in direct proportion to the number of pints I had consumed.  That fell by the wayside though as I was banned from too many pubs.

I have played golf in the past.  Once.  I even have a full set of golf clubs.  Actually I have two sets, as TAT left his set here and forgot about them.  It’s not a game that would appeal too much though as it involves a lot of strenuous exercise.  Having played it though, I can testify that it isn’t as easy as they make it look on television.

Where is all this leading ……  ?

Oh yes.

Doug over at Broadcasting From A Shed pointed me in the direction of a bit of a kerfuffle about Rory McIlroy and whether he is Irish or British.  He pointed out that The Journal had a vote on it.  For those of you who are sensible enough to dislike sport, apparently McIlroy has won a major golf tournament.

This shite happens every time someone from Norn Iron wins something or loses something.  If they win, the Irish call them Irish and the British call them British.  If they lose then the Irish call them British and the British call them Irish.  It is unbelievably childish but you can regularly witness this phenomenon on both RTE and the Beeb.  Who the fuck cares?  Is it that important?  The fucker played well [apparently] and won the damned thing so what does it matter where he comes from?

The Journal obviously got wind of the fact that I was writing this.  They ran scared and added a third option to their poll.  Yes – they added the ‘who the fuck cares’ option, but dumbed down on the language a bit.  I’m glad to see that that option is in the lead.

Are we actually beginning to see signs of maturity in these Fair Isles?

-oOo-

I forgot to mention…….

If anyone so much as hints that “we are all Europeans now” or any other similar shite, you’ll get what’s coming to you.  The Fourth Reich thrives on acknowledgement.

This sub-set goes about its business, reading the tabloids, backing horses, swilling lager and having illegitimate children, and I go about mine.  Thankfully our paths rarely cross, but occasionally they do something that leaves me wondering at the sanity of the world.

For the last short while I have been seeing mentions of a thing called a super-injunction in the UK.  Apparently this is a device to prevent anyone talking about a subject. By its nature, you don’t even know who has taken one out, or why.  Now I could imagine the Windsors taking one out if  one of their offspring had been caught shagging corgis or something, but beyond that I couldn’t see any justification for one.

Yesterday I read that Ryan Giggs took out a super-injunction to prevent the press writing about a ding-dong he has been having with Imogen Thomas.  Or was it the other way around?  Who cares?

Lets have a closer look at this.

First of all, if I have a secret, I shut the fuck up about it.  I don’t go screaming from the rooftops that I have a secret and that I will sue anyone who talks about it.

The next point is Giggs.  Who the fuck is he?  He is a bloke who kicks a plastic ball around a field and gets paid obscene wads of cash for the privilege.  What exactly is his contribution to society and the advancement of the human species?  Sweet fuck all.  Our bin man contributes more and probably gets paid in a lifetime what Giggs gets in a week.  In other words, Giggs is a waste of space.

And what about the Thomas lass?  I had never heard of her up to yesterday, but apparently her entire claim to fame is that she was once part of a fucking reality television programme.  Is that the best she can do?  Is this her entire claim to fame [apart from shagging Giggs]?  Quite frankly both of them are a waste of oxygen and the world would be no worse off if they were both Raptured off to Deep Space.

What worries me is not that Giggs was porking Thomas or even that he got out an injunction to try to keep it a secret.  No.  What worries me is that people actually give a flying fuck.  That sub-set of humanity actually gets itself in a tizzy over something that is a complete and utter non-event.

There are times when I despair.

Yer Man – what’s his name – the black fella – Tiger Woods was shown strutting around and being interviewed.

I turned up the sound a bit to see what crime he had committed, and fuck me, but they were all talking in hushed reverent tones about him.  He is making his first public appearance since his minor major indiscretions were revealed.

So fucking what?

Here is a bloke who stuck his mickey in a few places where he shouldn’t and the missus caught him out.  It’s all part of the great game of life.  It goes on in every fucking parish in the world, so there is no startling news there.

What is Tiger Woods world famous for?  Apart from having a stupid name, he is world famous for whacking a ball around a field with a fucking stick and for screwing a few waitresses!  How daft is that?  If he had discovered perpetual motion, or was the person who solved Fermat’s Last Theorem, then maybe I could just understand, but hitting a ball into a hole in the ground?  Fuck off!!  And now they are making a huge deal about his making a comeback?

During a press conference, he put on a meek doleful voice and said that from henceforth he was going to give a good example to people.  What idiot is going to take example from a golfer?  Is he the new Messiah?  Is he the new spiritual leader of the world?  I know we could badly do with one, but a fucking golfer?  He needs to be taken down a peg or two.

I don’t even like him.  He plays like an automaton, with no sense of playing a game, which is all it is.  It’s not fucking rocket science.  There is no art or talent involved – just a bit of practice.

I could beat him any day.

I can guarantee he can’t sail one of Sandy’s dried deposits through the neighbour’s window like I can.  

Tosser.

I was under the impression that American Football was supposed to be the ultimate in macho-male sports.

Until I saw this:

Though apparently English Soccer is no different?

I live and learn.

Next week we are about to enjoy the next best thing to a general strike.

Over four hundred thousand people are out of work.

To say the country is in a crisis is like saying that Everest is a bit of a hill.

And what is our government worried about?  Questions in the Dáil, and representations by Biffo to the French government?

A fucking football match!

For fuck’s sake – get a grip!

This is a game we are talking about.  Nothing less and nothing more.  A game where a few nancies prance around after a piece of plastic for an hour and a half or so.  It is nothing to get worked up about.  There is no need to get any knickers in a twist.  It’s a fucking GAME.

If the French had come over here and deliberately burned down Guinness’s Brewery, we might have something to complain about, but what actually happened was that a bloke touched a ball with his hand.  Boo fucking hoo.

Suppose Ireland had one the match, then that means that they would be playing in South Africa.  Half the Knuckle Draggers in the country would be mortgaging their grannies to travel to see Ireland get thrashed in the next round, and we would end up with more debt; more home repossessions and more broken marriages.

The Knuckle Draggers of this country should be grateful to the French for putting the team out of its misery.

Biffo should be sending telegrams of thanks instead of whinging like a petulant child.

So let’s forget about it.  OK?

Let’s worry about something more important.

Such as planning to handle Biffo’s balls with a baseball bat.

I should have known better.

Fucking tennis.

I used to like watching Wimbledon.  Back in the 60s it was the era of the amateur.  It was the era of Newcombe and Laver.  Billie Jean King ruled supreme.  In 1969 they fucked it up by allowing professionals in.

So now the players are truly remote from the likes of you and me.  They spend their weeks in the gymnasium and training until ultimately they cease to be tennis players, and become tennis playing machines.  They are honed to perfection and are soulless.

I watched it for a bit.  I watched them swap rackets because the Titanium was getting warm or the laser sights needed retuning.  I listened to them grunt as they tried to break the sound barrier with each serve.  I wasn’t impressed with the fancy footwork or the incredibly well placed shots, because I knew they had practiced each shot a million times.

Of course, seeing as it was sport, it took precedence and my programme was cancelled. 

Wankers.

In this digital age there is a clatter of television channels dedicated to sport.  Why the hell can’t they be used? 

At last Wimbledon is over.  The endless football has finished.

Now we have the fucking Olympics breathing down our necks.

Oh God!

I have never liked the game, or any aspect of it.  The game itself is just a crowd of overpaid nancies running around a field kicking a ball.  Then there is the hysteria and [worst of all] the interminable analysis that accompanies each game.

I have a little proposal to make the game a little more interesting.

Soccer is played on a very large pitch.   10,800 square meters roughly.  Including the referee, there are 23 players on the pitch at any one time.  Correct me if I’m wrong?  Each player takes up only one square meter, so, in the course of a match, the players take up one five-hundredth part of the pitch.  That leaves a hell of a lot of spare space.

My proposal is simple.

Why not hold two games at the same time?

All you need is two different colour balls, and four different team colours.  Each match will be entirely independent of the other.  You would only need to introduce a couple of extra rules about players using the wrong ball or tackling a player who isn’t their official opponent.

Semi-finals could be played on the same pitch.  Think of the excitement!

Also we could get the damned soccer season over in half the time.

In fact, this principle could be applied to a lot of games.  Rugby?   Cricket?  Tennis?  Baseball?  The list is a long one.

It might even make the game interesting enough for me to watch a game or two.

And, bless her little cotton socks, she has passed it on to me.

She wants me to write a post that uses every tag. It’s all very well for her – she only has a few. I have loads. The cow!

Now I may be getting old but I find these difficult. I had a hard days blogging yesterday, as I had a good rant on a podcast to America. That was after I did my post on Cully and Sully.

So today I went for a ramble around the garden, trying to think of a topic. No go. There was no inspiration around the house either, and I’m damned if I’m going around the village or around the town for something so trivial.

Back in the 70′s life was a lot simpler. There were no computers or Internet, or even television so there were no memes. I had no irritating daughter in the family either. We found our pleasures in simple things. I remember learning to drive so we could go on holidays touring in the West, with no worries about flying and Global Warming. We had such simple sports as children in times past, like watching spiders spin their webs, and the designs they’d make. We’d go for rambles through the woods and have picnics of tea and spam sandwiches. We were a lot healthier for it.

Nowadays, work is the new religion and people have lost the use of their imagination. People only get worked up over celebrities and smoking out corrupt politicians. They panic over property prices and have lost sight of the soul of life.

No.

I can’t think of anything.

I elect not to do it.

I’m going to file this under Uncatagorised.

Maybe Sixty should have a bash at this?

Or how about Kirk at Just Thinkin’? I haven’t tagged him before.

And it’s a while since I annoyed Grannymar!!

F*cking memes….

It had been getting quite long and the dog kept getting lost. But it’s short now.

So I decided to practice my golf as I hadn’t tried my new clubs yet.

Now the only problem is that I don’t have any balls. And I mean golf balls before any of you come up with smutty remarks. So I thought I’d try out with pine cones. I have thousands of those from the woods. They work extremely well, though they aren’t very aerodynamic so they tend to curve in flight.

It wasn’t long before I was sailing them across the road and into the valley beyond. At one stage I managed to sail one in through the open door of a tourist bus that was driving past. With a bit of luck, I might have hit someone.

Then I remembered our K8′s idea about using dog turds. So I brought in a pile from outside the gate. They were nicely sun-dried and ripe for driving. All I needed was a target.

Our neighbour put up a rather ugly extension some years ago that blocks part of our view. I always hated that extension. But it made a perfect target.

If anyone is interested, dog turds are much more aerodynamic than pine cones. I could aim straight and true. The neighbours extension now bears a remarkable resemblance to a large Jackson Pollock. It looks a lot better. As long as the wind doesn’t blow from that direction.

I have to wait now for the local dogs to produce more golf balls. Assuming it is from dogs, of course.

And in years to come, if the pine cones take root, I’m going to have a lovely forest in the valley across the road.