Lean time for writing

I have not posted anything for days and days. That is not good.

I've been busy, mostly watching movies and doing things I have not had time to do over the past 3 years in Business School. So now that my time at Business School (I refuse to write B. School because I think it's just a weird thing to do) is coming to an end I'm rediscovering some of the things I have had to forego during that time.

I won't name the movies that I've been watching because I'm afraid someone will try and spoil the endings etc. for me (talk about paranoid).

I've also dabbled in reading non-business material (I know !!! shock horror !!!)

So I have found some space in life again to do things with my wife and children and unashamedly I have been taking the chance to do fun things.

It's hard being responsible for a blog and knowing that someone somewhere checks occasionally to see if you have bothered to write something while you personally don't have the motivation.

But I want to keep it going because its fun and looking at that map of the world showing where people are reading from.. well it's just amazing.

So let's agree that I'll post a little more frequently and you in return might tolerate the occasional gap between posts :-)

Nani, Eder, Zico and Pele - sign here

Football players, soccer to those of you reading this on the other side of the Atlantic, are often accused of being, well, thick. You don't have to search too hard to find stories that would make you scratch your head in dismay at the behaviour of a so-called professional sportsman (professional footballers are almost exclusively men) earning big money to ply his trade for an hour and half a week, such as this, this, this or this.

But then something got me thinking that this might not be as generalisable a truth as it seems.

For example what about the following famous footballers?
Edson Arantes do Nascimento
Arthur Antunes Coimbra
Luís Carlos Almeida da Cunha
Ricardo Izecson dos Santos Leite
Éder Aleixo de Assis

They have all done something that the average footballer has not. They have figured out that when you are knackered tired after a hard training session, or trying desperately to get out of the stadium after an exhausting game past the hordes of fans scrambling for your autograph, the last thing you want to have to do is write our your quadruple-barrelled name 50 times.

Solution?

Come up with a four-letter alternative (not one of those four-letter words however) and call yourself that.

Time saved, money saved and much easier to remember.

Gosh those lads are clever.

World record pants-change

Today I am entrusted (!) with potty training my 3 year old son. He is not keen.

There seems to be no standard way to effect a smooth transition from nappies to pants without having to go through the odd puddle on seats, carpet, tiles etc.

He appears to be going for the world-record number of changes of pants in a single day.

And he is not fond of the idea of sitting on the potty at all.

He is a very discreet child and in the past would often slip off to a quiet corner of the house to 'do his business'.

Now we are asking him to showcase his bowel movements and he is not best pleased.

Right now he is sitting at the kitchen table with play-doh and a rolling-pin and I am watching him like a hawk in case he suddenly gets the urge.

Tonight I will research best-practice in potty training.

Play, damn you!

I was over on Youtube today looking at music videos and was very taken with a comment from one particular user.

The comment was about a song from a certain group and the user commented that this was their favourite song. Then they went on to say that they were annoyed that when the group toured their area recently they didn't play this song.

They were aggrieved that not enough groups take requests from the audience at concerts.

Call me odd but I thought this request, this expectation is just, well, mad.

I know if I was a member of a famous group and the audience was shouting up stuff at me, you know "play blah blah song" or whatever I think I would be less than impressed.

Unless of course I was playing the 'Dog and Duke' pub in some obscure suburban part of London and charging a fiver in at the door because my career had gone south fifteen years previously.

Anyway.

None of this is my fault

I was down in Portarlington yesterday visiting some friends and two things struck me about the journey down from my home.

The first was how much the roads have improved, with motorway almost the entire length of the journey. That makes a big difference and really made the drive very straightforward.

The second was how stupid some people become when they get behind the wheel of a vehicle. I use the word stupid advisedly here because there is no other term for what I observed.

Winding unlit country roads, cold nights with temperatures close to zero Celsius and no ostensible need for anyone to rush anywhere. And pitch dark.

And what I encountered was idiots driving too close, too fast, and with no concern for anyone else's safety on the roads.

And then I saw this horrendous story and picture on the news this morning. Is it any wonder things like this happen?

It was the first day back to work after Christmas and New Year for many people. Maybe this could be offered as some kind of excuse for all the rushing about and unthinking driving behaviour.

I'm not the first to write about this worst of Irish behaviour and surely won't be the last. This kind of outcome is tragic.

But for most they fail to connect their own behaviour behind the wheel with stories like this. A terrible start to the new year for this horrendous aspect of modern Irish life.