Christmas Poem 2009

14 little ducks sitting in a row,
one fell over and just said ow.

a snowflake fell and landed on his head
an old man passing gave him some bread

the 14th duck waddled to a gutter
on his way to find some butter

3 days later hungry and very cold
Santa picked him up and Duck 14 he did hold

to the North Pole they did head
where Santa gave him buttered bread

every day the duck lacked nothing
he ate everything from bread to pudding

on Christmas Eve Santa began to cry
he bid the fat duck a last goodbye

his trip took him from west to east
and he returned to a delicious duck feast

Santa, Mrs. Claus and all the elves,
and thirteen ducks stuffed themselves

for what seemed like an innocent fall
was a conspiracy between the 13 ducks all

Duck 14 had the time of his life
stuffed his face and shagged Santa's wife!

and what he's happiest about the most
is now he'll haunt them as a ghost!

Cat Poem for Friday

a cat
a cat a cat cat
sat on a mat
asleep or awake
bam bam bam
cat cake

scoop up the cat
slice it, dice it
serve it to a mouse
who lives in your house

big fat mouse
sitting in your house
happy little mouse
fat little mouse
stamp stamp stamp
no more mouse

clean up the mouse
feed it to your dog
the dog sits beside a log
boom
exploding dog
dog on the frog, no more log
dog in the bog, dog fed to the hog
it was a nice dog

sitting in the garden
an elf appears
hello he says
bang bang bang
shoot him in the balls
smalls balls small balls
no balls no balls
bleed to death little elf
he said to himself

flying through the cloud
a noise was loud
green goats falling from the sky
why? oh why?
i could not deny
their destiny was to die
green goats fell, splat splat splat
hit them with a bat
but what about the cat?
dead cat

Shame of Irish History

A true gentleman, humble and articulate spoke of his horror at the hands of those given the responsibility of his care by the Irish state and the Catholic church in Ireland on the RTE current affairs show Questions & Answers on Monday night last.

That he had the ability to be so articulate and well spoken while speaking of those horrors made his piece more striking and silenced everyone on the panel. How will the Irish government respond to this one simple piece of evidence?

The Irish nation is always seeking justice for its people from the British nation but this time the Irish government and Catholic church in Ireland needs to pay the price for its ills. We can then hopefully learn from our mistakes and move on.

There is no more to be said than just watching this video and make your own mind up about how you feel about this shameful chapter in Irish history.

ROG, the Queen and 'Gaelic names'

Mr. Brian Robert Kenney of Baggot St Dublin writes that people who "sign their names in Gaelic...tells us something about their anti-British motivation."

Firstly, lets get down to the base of this subject. Ronan O'Gara did show a lack of respect by his actions when the Queen of England visited the Irish rugby team at Stormont. For sure, Irish people should be mature enough and confident enough to show respect to the head of state of any nation, especially our closest neighbour.


The Queen of England is the head of state of the United Kingdom and should be shown the same respect as the President of Germany, King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden or the Emir of Kuwait. Moreso, because the Queen of England is for some of the team mates of Ronan O'Gara, their head of state too.

But Mr. Kenney pushes it too far when he brings in the fact that people sign their name in Gaelic or not. Firstly, the Irish language or any language should have no place in politics. The Irish language is beautiful and becoming ever more popular and trendy with TG4 and new Irish speaking 'celebrities' leading the way forward in this revolution.

There are people from outside of Ireland learning the language too, I myself encountered a Japanese man and an African learning the language at classes recently.

The problem Mr. Kenney is that despite your glee in labeling certain people as bigots is that you yourself are one too. I agree with some of your sentiment about being sick of people pushing their Ireland is not Britain agenda but you've shown yourself to be a bigot on the other side and this is often the problem in these disputes and the way people show their feelings in conversation on these topics.

So, get over yourself and allow people the freedom to choose and speak whatever language they wish and express themselves this way without fear of prejudice from people like you.

For the record, I am a British citizen and an Irish citizen, proud of both (at times, sometimes not too as recent news from both countries brings shame on both nations).

Polish Crew Cutz

What is it with female Eastern European Barbers (are girls allowed to be called barbers?) and their need to butcher ones hair every single time!?

I know that Polish and Slovakian guys walk around for the most part like they have just left army training but surely the girls from the east who come to work in the fine hair dressing establishments of Dublin can see from Irish men that we don't need to be butchered too.

What does the translation of "just a little bit off the top please" mean in Lithuanian?

Even dogs are talking about the recession!

I was up in the Dublin Mountains the other day when I saw this sign, very funny to think of dogs telling sheep they look fat in their wool or that the ESRI has predicted a rate of 17% unemployment next year. The poor sheep will be worried sick!

But fear not, the farmer has a plan, a drastic one at that. He will shoot any of these dogs that are worrying his poor sheep. Drastic times call for drastic measures.

The Alcove - Dar es Salaam

The restaurant seemed to be the only one open on a Saturday night in Dar es Salaam, which is not the most exciting city in the world.

I joined my friends inside the nice looking and potentially atmospheric restaurant. We ordered our food and awaited the Goan Fish Curry, Chow Mein and Chicken Noodle dishes we had ordered in this Indian & Chinese restaurant. Then we waited some more and waited and waited. Then we watched as all of the tables around us, where Indian people sat, were served before us.

Finally the food arrived a full one hour and twenty minutes after we had ordered. The food was average and was more expensive than in Europe. Then they had they audacity to add VAT to the already extortionate prices!

This restaurant is by no means gourmet or top class and wouldn't feature in Europe at all. It is far far too expensive and the service is terrible - the waiters don't seem to be paid much and so don't care either.

My advice - don't eat at Alcove. Try somewhere else, eat Tanzanian food!

Rally against murders in Antrim and Armagh

There is absolutely no reason why people in Dublin, Cork, Limerick and Galway among other towns should not rally against the recent murders in Antrim and Armagh. Thousands are expected to take to the streets today in Belfast, Derry and Newry to protest against recent murders.

ICTU, who are involved in organising these rallies should promote the same in all town centres around the country. They should be promoting this right now as we speak and all political parties in Ireland should be joining with them.

Minimum charge on debit/credit card usage

Well well well, I don't usually eat in O'Briens anymore but I was hungry for a snack so I had a poke in the door to see what they had but immediately saw the massive sign they had up "MINIMUM CHARGE €10 ON DEBIT/CREDIT CARD".

Now I do not understand this policy. Why, oh why, would anyone refuse business just because it is on a card? It makes people like me walk away and it loses them income. It does not help the economy in any way.


In Holland, they have a system called Chipknip where your chip acts as cash, you can put money onto the chip part of the card and spend it in stores, any amount whatsoever.

I asked in one shop, a Spar in Glasnevin, why they wouldn't accept cards for transactions under €10 and the shop assistant was bewildered. He said he wasn't sure but that he thought it was because it meant more work for them at the end of the day so they tried to minimise transactions on card to save them work.

Hopefully, Ireland, the Ireland of the Celtic Tiger, will realise that we have not only to be at the same level as other countries around the world in how we embrace technology but we should try to be ahead of them. Let's take the lead in embracing technology that accelerates our economic wellbeing.

iPhone 2.5G - Pros & Cons

Pros:

• It allows you to surf the internet easily
• The camera is high quality and works well
• The clock functionality is good (although it would be nice to be able to set a song as the alarm)
• Youtube works well
• The map and direction functionality is great (although limited if you don't have data as part of your deal)
• The Notes function is very handy
  

Cons:

• No MMS, it lets you take photos but you can't then send them to someone via MMS
• Can't forward text messages
• Can't delete one text message, only a whole conversation
• It lets you enter contacts company details but doesn't let you list the contacts by company
• Vodafone doesn't support it
• The phone freezes (after owning it less than 12 months!) quite often and sometimes it seems out of coverage but indicates otherwise
  
• You can't set songs on the iPod as ring tones
• There is no video phone capability
  

Overall I would recommend that you look at the other products available out there and see whether they have the missing functionality. It seems that Apple didn't make any attempt to solve these with the move to the 3G iPhone which is a pity. I would be ditching mine and probably moving to a new Nokia or the Blackberry Storm except that I am not in the economic position to do so.

New York Post Cartoon Apology Unnecessary

The New York Post today issued an apology for the controversial cartoon that has sparked much anger among some people.

Those commentators who have overreacted to a cartoon that is clearly innocent and meant to mock those politicians and lawmakers who wrote the much flawed stimulus bill in the United States. Their overreaction has in fact heightened racial tension and highlighted racial stereotypes. For them to assume that a chimp represents Barack Obama is to have racial sentiment themselves and instead of ignoring it and seeing it for what it is, it only gives ammunition to those who wish to further propagate those stereotypes.

The cartoon was topical and recent, taking influence from a recent news story about police officers shooting dead a chimp that had attacked a poor unfortunate lady. The cartoon was also relevant to the political debate about the strength of the stimulus bill, yes championed by Barack Obama, but not written by him. Does anyone really think he sits in the Oval Office typing out a huge document like this? Absolutely not.

The stimulus bill is flawed. It has provisions which were inserted to satisfy certain politicians who would not support it otherwise. It also brings into question the strength of the economics upon which it is based, that of spending money just for the sake of it to put more liquidity into the economy and hence stimulate it.

The good news is that Barack Obama is a black politician who has moved on from the reactionary angry politics of Rev. Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson and is more conciliatory and is a politician and not a black politician. This is the process by which racism will be removed from society and that is why he is a natural leader. Anyone still looking for further apology or clarification from the Post needs to get over themselves and move on. History is history, lets get on with the future and help restart the economy.