Games for sportsmen

*buzz buzz buuuuuzz*
*buzz buzz buuuuuzz*
*buzz buzz buuuuuzz*
*buzz buzz buuuuuzz*

It's 7AM and our hero is tangled up in his duvet.

Niall: (aside) It's too early for my alarm.

Niall finds his phone and discovers it's his mother is calling him.

Niall: Bleughyaherrowhaddyawant?
D'Ma: Niall. It's mum here. How do you turn off this phone?
Niall: Wh'huh?
D'Ma: The phone. How do you turn it off?
Niall: Do you... wh... uh... Do you see the red button? Keep that prressed.
D'Ma: I read what?
Niall: Button.
D'Ma: I see a green one. That the one? Do I press that?

*beep*

Niall: Red.
D'Ma: The green one?

*beep*

Niall: No.
D'Ma: Which button then?
Niall: The red. Two buttons to the right of the green one.
D'Ma: But you said it wasn't the green one.
Niall: The red one.
D'Ma: OK. I see it. Thanks. How are you?
Niall: Amazing. Toodle pip.
D'Ma: What?
Niall: Bye. Enjoy Germany.

Scene Ends

....

Something has been bothering me for quite some time. Ever since the Olympics in Athens in 2004 when I saw adults competing for gold medals in professional synchronised swimming[1], in fact, something has been resting in the back of my mind. Resting and growing in confusion.

What is it, exactly, that qualifies one event as being a sport while another seemingly well structured activity remains in the limbo of and bears the encumbering stigma of a lowly game[2]?


Truly I don't know. In principal I can understand the distinction, of course, but if we were to take an objective step backwards and take a number of subjective out-of-species moments for a second ... how, as an intelligent genus, we have come to accept these avocations as professions is truly and utterly bizarre. Three examples...

• Soccer: two teams of eleven people kick a round thing with their feet over a rectangle green field in a team effort to getting this round thing in their opponents' net thing more times than their opponents do to theirs.
• Boxing: Two people wear these glove things on their fists and hit one another until one person can't handle it any more or they run out of time.
  
• Quidditch: Two sets of seven wizards on broomsticks try to catch a small round flying ball thing with wings while at the same time a number of other ball things are thrown through round things to get points, and still more ball things are hit in the direction of the wizards to knock them down. Lots of rules[3].

I am not commenting here on the skill of the individuals who compete in these sports, as it is only in Quidditch that Ireland will ever win a world cup, but I comment on the goal and purpose of these games; the 'why bother' point.

As a past time they're great. As a hobby they're beneficial. As entertainment they can be gratifying. But... why do we take them so seriously? How have we allowed those who are quite good at them to be paid so much? That they are is an oxymoron of greatest misrepresentations. How have these sportspeople commandeered so much respect from the public while the inventor of Sky+ is unknown to us? Dammit, George Hook. You were right.

Now, Gloucester cheese rolling is a noble sport -- http://www.cracked.com/article_15209_10-most-insane-sports-in-world.html

---

[1] These three words should never follow concurrently in a serious and sensible sentence, nor should the latter two ever be depicted as being professional, but rather identically the opposite. Misguided, is a good one, daft is another.

[2]Consider the definition:

Game, n, animal hunted for food or sport.

I suppose the game/sport distinction is necessary for this definition otherwise it could in fact read...

Game, n, animal hunted for food or game.

which would be infinitely recursive.

[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quidditch#Fouls Blagging: No player may seize any part of an opponent's broom to slow or hinder the player.

Chris: You blag?
Niall: I do.

Fair is foul and foul ain't fair ...

... when you hover through the fog with Ryanair.



Introducing "Macbêter" (the Sheffield play) a romantic tragedy based on the life events of NT, featuring critical adaptation by AH Horn!!1!



Act I Scene I
[Niall, Brendan and Mike are at their respective computers chatting over Google Talk]
Niall: I think we should go to Sheffield to watch some snooker.
Brendan, Mike: Yes.
[Exunt]

Act I Scene II
[The heroes have agreed to go to Sheffield to watch the world snooker championship, and have arranged transportation, tickets and accommodation. Niall realised he has lost his passport so calls Ryanair's helpline for assistance.
Having dialed the number and waited for like five minutes Niall finally gets through to someone on the other end]
Generic outsourced Indian customer service man one: Thank you for waiting. My name is Generic oursourced Indian customer service man one, how can I be of assistance?
Niall: Hiya, I'm an Irish citizen and will be flying from Dublin to Doncaster on Sunday. However I've lost my passport. Will I be able to fly with my national age card [an identification card saying you're over 18 for pub-access]?
Generic outsourced Indian customer service man one: Yes you will sir.
Niall: That's fantastic. Just to clarify I can fly with the age card?
Generic outsourced Indian customer service man one: Yes sir.
Niall: Thanks a lot. Have a good day for yourself.
[Hangs up]

Act I scene III
[Mike, who organised the plane tickets, has the facility to check himself and Brendan in online before even being at the airport (with their respective passport numbers). Niall, having found out that he doesn't need a passport to fly to the UK, phones the Ryanair helpline, once more, to determine if there's a means of exploiting this early check-in to save time. He phones the helpline and minutes of waiting pass ...]
Generic outsourced Indian customer service man two: Hello, I'm Generic outsourced Indian customer service man two. Thank you for holding. How can I be of assistance?
Niall: Hi there. I'm planning to fly to Doncaster from Dublin on Sunday with two friends of mine. They both plan to check in early online with their passport numbers, but I've only got a national age card. Is there any facility for early check-in with this?
Generic outsourced Indian customer service man two: I'm afraid not sir. Your friends may check-in early, but you will be required to do it at the check-in queue with your age card.
Niall: OK. That's great. Thanks for your time. You've been very helpful.
Generic outsourced Indian customer service man two: Have a good day, sir.
[Hangs up]

---

Act II scene I
[Time has come for the heroes to voyage across the country to watch the forces of the worlds greatest snooker players do battle for the title of world champion... more or less. Brendan, Mike and Niall are in a train on the ways up to Dublin.]
Niall: I'm so excited!
[Exunt]

Act II scene II
[The heroes have ventured from Cork through Limerick junction and other unseemly places, done battle with foes unmentionable, and lived to tell the tale. They met up with a friend in Dublin, Richard, and proceeded to a public house.]
Mike: Lets go to <insert random pub's name here>
Others: OK.
[<insert pub's name here> was full]
Mike: Lets go somewhere else.
Others: OK.
[The heroes find another pub, enter and order a coke, Smithwick's, Guinness and Budweiser.]
Niall: I'm so excited.
[Scene closes]

Act II scene III
[After a single drink in the pub the night before, the heroes were tireded from the journey, the heroes wake up in Mike & Richard's living room, ready and prime for the last leg of the journey. They rise at about 10AM. Richard, injured from a battle along the route, was unable to continue* to the final cycle, but the other heroes did vow to avenge his injuries on Sheffield.]
Niall: I'm so excited.
[They ride the Luas to the city centre and grab a convenient bus from there to the Airport. Brendan and Mike have both already checked-in and Niall sends them upstairs as there is no point on their queuing with him at the check-in counter. Niall walks to the counter.]

Act II scene IV
Niall: Hi there. I'd like to check into this flight, please. Here're my crediantials.
Generic clerk: That's good, sir. Now can I have your passport.
Niall: Yeah. Here's my identification [Niall hands the national age card].
Generic clerk: ... we don't accept that form of identification for travel.
[Niall, who is genetically unable to show any emotion of much sort on his face looks genuinely shocked]

* Richard wasn't ever going, anyway. Just Mike, Brendan and Niall.

---

Act III scene I
[Same scene as before. Act change to add drama to the play.]
Niall: Excuse me?
Generic clerk: I'm sorry, but that's our policy.
Niall: I called the helpline and asked, twice, if this ID would suffice for travel. Travel between the UK and Ireland does not require a passport, afterall. but I did specifically ask twice on the phone if it would do and was told it would, twice.
Generic clerk: I'm very sorry about that. But there's nothing I can do to help you. I'll call my manager over. If anyone can help you out she can.
Niall: Thanks. I appreciate that.
[The genuine clerk leaves his cockpit and finds his manager, and brings her to the party.]
Bitch: What's the problem?
Niall: [... explains the situation ...]
Bitch: Too bad. You can't fly.
[Niall's eyes, who were proved not to open wide, go wide.
Niall reiterates the fact that he was informed he could travel.]
Bitch: That didn't happen. The passport-only policy has been in for five years. Nobody would say that.
[Bitch leaves]
[Niall looks to Generic Clerk whose mouth was open in surprise. Niall then proceeds to go upstairs to Mike and Brendan.]

Act III scene II
[Niall finds Brendan and Mike in a café upstairs]
Niall: [... explains the situation ...]
[Brendan and Mike are shocked. Exunt]

Act III scene III
Brendan: Lets go down and sort this out.
[Goes downstairs and can't sort it out.]
[Niall says farewell to Brendan and Mike and returns to Dublin city to go home, and tells Brendan and Mike to enjoy the crucible's finest snooker.]

---

Act IV scene I
[Niall finds his way to the train station and collects his ticket and the train leaves. He plays with his phone the way down, playing involving texting obscenities about Ryanair to his friends.
On the journey a random old woman walks over to Niall's seat.]
Random old woman: You know if you collect the bottle caps from cans you can give them to a shop in Dublin and they'll donate them to a charity in Africa that'll make artificial limbs from them.
Niall: That's fantastic! Why don't we get told about these things?
Random old woman: I don't know. I really don't know.
[25 minutes into the journey the train stops, and it was dead for 45 minutes. Eventually an announcement is announced that tells the passengers that the train needs to be towed backwards for 10 minutes whereupon the passengers would join the passengers of the next train.]

Act IV scene II
[Train has been towed back to the previous station. The passengers of the train have exited. The second train hasn't yet arrived. The skys empty their sponges of rain to complete the patheticfallacy. The train arrives 10 minutes later.]

Act IV scene III
[The last hero is on the train back to Cork again and an announcement is announced telling the passengers of free tea and coffee and cold drinks to the passengers who were so delayed. Niall indulges.]

Act IV scene IV
[Niall arrives in Cork an hour and a half after he was meant to and purchases comfort-steaks, comfort-ice cream, and is currently sipping on a whiskey.]

---

Act V scene I
[Bitch dies a horrible horrible death]

End.



So ends the telling of the tale.

My dad told my sister when she was young that she could call someone 'bitch' if they really deserved it.

Customer service

It has come to my attention that while the majority of my shopping experiences were non-eventful there have been a number (two have been noted here and here) which could be well described as noteworthy. Now, while these aforementioned events might also be tagged peculiar, with a slight bias towards the unpleasant bins of the spectrum, I give credit when credit's due, me, and present to you, my few readers, a rare manifestation of a casual shop.

I made toast with cheese[1] for dinner today but beforehand I headed down to the Sasanach Market for some ingredients. I grabbed some salami from some sausage stall and on the way out remembered that I needed to get some pasta so as I pass a convenient shop I stop and pick some op. I pass the pasta to the fellah behind the counter and he puts it into a bag (which he doesn't charge for, normally it's €0.25 for a plastic bag, a government levy to encourage reusable bagging) and gives me a free Aero chocolate bar[2]. So I get 500g of pasta, a bag and a (gone off[3]) Aero for €1.50. A lot can be said about the English, but the English market's savage.

If anyone feels inclined you can sign that petition against Heineken selling the Beamish & Crawford brewery here.

---

[1] Toast with cheese
Ingredients:

• 500/600g Pasta
• 2 large onions
• 2 peppers
• 3/4 cloves of garlic
• 150g chorizo/salami sausage
• Cream
• 6 to 8 rashers
• Black pudding
• [optional]A few egg yolks
• A bit of basil

Method:

1. Slice peppers, cut onions, crush garlic, chop chorizo, cut rashers, cut pudding (and half to make half-moon puddings) and finely grate cheese [and beat yolks, if using them].
   
2. Fry the rashers and the black pudding for a few minutes. Add the peppers, onions and garlic until they're soft and caramelised. [Allow the black pudding to spread through all the ingredients].
   
3. Boil the pasta in tall saucepan.
4. Add the chorizo and basil to the frying pan and leave fry for a few more minutes.
   
5. Drain the pasta when done.
6. Add contents of frying pan to saucepan, mix and add the cream and cheese

Serves a few, depending on gender, hunger and proximity to the source.
Note: Will not cure scurvy.

[2]But of course with my being a good and honorable Irish man I cannot contemplate eating this for another week and a half yet.

[3]Whether or not it was out of date is circumstantial. The actual 'best by' date was obscured by a permanent blue marker, but we feel safe in postulating it was past this date as it was advertising a competition which, after June '08, would no longer accept new entries.

Modern beamish-semantics pedantics

It is up to the modern consumer to adapt to the market trends. This is true for most benchmark establishments, shops, banks, and educational services, to name a few. Go down a level and it too is true for clerks, bank tellers, teachers and managers. Descend yet another and it's true for farmers, labourers, and henchmen and it is also true to the customers -- the last roots on the tree from source providers to end-of-the-line patrons, so it is also necessary for the market to adapt to the trends of the modern customer.

Consider, then, if you will, the typical Irish pub. Inside it's dark. It's fresh with the smell of newly poured drinks, yet stale with the truth that the air inside has been circulating the murky nooks and crannies since the establishment of the establishment. The pub has seen all, you would think. But last night she took a double take and tumble and got took aback.

I'm sitting at a table with a Brendan and there be some Beamish and 7up on front of us. Now, I've seen many a movie where cocaine has been snorted with the credit cards, the notes, the sniffing tubes, the rubbing of nose after and the quick rising of the head. What I had never seen before last Thursday is a fellow stout drinker snorting, not cocaine, but the head of a fresh well poured pint[1]. Yes. It sounds exactly how it is, see photograph below (note, photograph might not be to scale, and the nose is in the head).

Three pints were treated by three men in this manner. After the fact the drinkers requested a re-heading. The first pint was semi re-headed, but the same request by second and third were rejected. My point is this -- how will this market adapt when customers clearly desire this new service and the breadwinner will not facilitate the service?

Ireland are playing for their chance at the grand slam today. They're playing Wales. If Wales win by more than 13 points they win the championship. If they loose they can risk coming 4th. High stakes, eh?

--- --- --- ---

[1] For the Irish stout-drinker's pedantic nature the pint should be double-poured. No joke. This involves two thirds to three quarters filling the pint glass with the stout, leaving it nearly settle and then topping it up. I have no idea why this makes it better, but it does.

Tea drinker's block

Due to my current area of employment and my temporal location on this planet I have the handsome aspects of a pale Irishman who's stuck on front of a computer as our few hours of sunlight trickle through that alliterative atmosphere and flirts with the potential of nourishing our bodies with Vitamin D. This predicament leads to Ireland being the biggest consumer of tea in the world, per unit capita, and to my being a solid contributor to this impressive statistic. There has not really been much study in this area but I can safely postulate that tea's popularity is subliminally suggested by our government to quail the suicide rates during the long winters of misery and discontent all year around[1].

Now. I think it can be safely said that I drink at least 6-8 cups of tea a day. Dr. House leads me to believe that if one was to consume similar quantities of carrots they would turn orange. So why am I not the pleasing colour of a fine mug of Barry's Gold Blend but rather that of milk?This question keeps me up most nights, as well all deep questions should. I think more research is needed so I will be accepting volunteer applications for drinking tea. All welcome. This research only extends to Barry's tea. No inferior teas, such as Lyons, will be subject to this research.

--- --- --- ---

[1] See "Learn from Peig - How to laugh with life's ups and downs", by Peig Sayors, from the Peig Sayers 'Beating depression' series

Victory

Subject to this blog I can now happily report that the price of the bus ticket I was referring to has subsequently returned to the (still extortionate) price of €5.20.

-------

Update (2009/02/23): I spoke too soon. Just recently got a bus and it was back to €5.70. We are not amused.

In memoium of red

The Beamish and Crawford brewery in Cork was recently absorbed by Heineken, much to the dismay of the Beamish drinkers of Cork. While this was a worrying point in itself it was hoped that the change of brewing location wouldn't affect the taste too much. This quality factor is yet to be illuminated, but the hidden casualty of this transaction which has just now come to light was the fate of Beamish Red, lesser drunk (if possible) than Beamish proper but a smooth and enjoyable drink all the same.

An ale, but not an ale. Growing up under the dark shadow of its stoutier brother blew the pressures of brotherly tensions and rivalries soaring. Red first looked up to his brother and strove to be more like him -- starting by changing his head. This trend continues even today with ales in the south of Ireland; Smithwicks with a Guinness head remains a common variation which started with the sout-headed red ale from Cork. After this revolutionary proem to society, however, things did not remain good for Red. In his teens he fell victim to alcohol, drugs and gambling after failed attempts to measure up to Beamish. After years of struggling, rising and falling, legal proceedings and failed marriages, the straw finally sucked the final life from Beamish Red's last pint.

RIP Beamish Red.