Nice Touch
At Drogheda United's home game on Friday evening it was heartening to see the number of children of primary school age who turned out to cheer their team on.
For that reason it was pleasing to read of the surprise sprang on a Primary 7 pupil from East Belfast's Gilnahirk School. A letter penned by the pupil to one of his soccer idols met with a response. When I was his age I would have been thrilled had one of the Glentoran team have answered a letter from me. For three years I attended a secondary school in Gilnahirk, a frequent passenger on the 76 bus. I also made it to many games at the Oval. But no letter.
On official club note paper, striker Danny Pukis told his young pen pal, 'most importantly, have fun playing the game you love. Football isn't just about winning; it's about enjoying yourself as well.'
True, but a win always makes things that much more enjoyable. The P7 kid was not born when the Glens last took the league title, about eight managers ago. When I was going to Glens games in the late 60s and early 70s taking titles was the rule rather than the exception. There are very few Glens fans under the age of twenty who have a living memory of the club securing a league title. If Warren Feeney can secure that he should become a man of letters.
Don't Marry Him, Marry Me
Today's Sunday Business Post Red C poll has Sinn Fein on 29%, Fianna Fail on 16%, Fine Gael on 22%, and the Greens on 4.%.
The government parties retain a huge advantage over its main rival for office. 42% for the Coalition parties against 29% for Sinn Fein. It seems the Coalition has got over the slump occasioned by its lifting of the eviction ban. Sinn Fein had been facing a small but consistent decline in the polls prior to the ban removal and from which it could have expected a bounce. The party surely hoped it would have lasted longer than it did. A drop by 5% at this stage with small increases for Fine Gael and Fianna Fail will give Mary Lou McDonald some cause for concern. By far the largest party, it is not enough to merely retain that advantage, it alone not being a winning formula. Will Fianna Fail effect a divorce and betroth itself to Sinn Fein? Short of that, on current poll figures, Mary Lou might yet experience being jilted by the electorate right at the altar of high office. People want change, but maybe not enough of them.
The government parties retain a huge advantage over its main rival for office. 42% for the Coalition parties against 29% for Sinn Fein. It seems the Coalition has got over the slump occasioned by its lifting of the eviction ban. Sinn Fein had been facing a small but consistent decline in the polls prior to the ban removal and from which it could have expected a bounce. The party surely hoped it would have lasted longer than it did. A drop by 5% at this stage with small increases for Fine Gael and Fianna Fail will give Mary Lou McDonald some cause for concern. By far the largest party, it is not enough to merely retain that advantage, it alone not being a winning formula. Will Fianna Fail effect a divorce and betroth itself to Sinn Fein? Short of that, on current poll figures, Mary Lou might yet experience being jilted by the electorate right at the altar of high office. People want change, but maybe not enough of them.
Journey To The Bottom Of The Sea
Much more than the mid-June mass drowning of migrants in Greek waters, thrust out for our attention this week was the plight of five people missing after having gone off to explore the Titanic in a submersible. It is the type of journey that most people will never have enough wealth to purchase.
Yet, in the midst of the sadness at lives lost, the sharp poignancy of my wife's observation was not lost on me:
Like a majority of others, I would hope, I wanted to see them rescued. Schadenfreude doesn't feature high in my emotional lexicon. The five failed to survive, the only consolation lying in the words of Eric Fusil, director of the Shipbuilding Hub at Adelaide University, who likened the catastrophe to:
crushing a can of soda to the size of a very small marble in your hand . . . a phenomenon where, basically, you are crushing a pressure vessel from the outside. It results in the instantaneous implosion of that vessel, killing everyone within 20 milliseconds . . . It is instant. The human brain is not able to process information at that speed. They wouldn’t have realised what happened.
Yet, in the midst of the sadness at lives lost, the sharp poignancy of my wife's observation was not lost on me:
It enrages me how many fucking alerts I am getting about the rich man’s folly when how many people just died desperately in the Med and no one gives a fuck about who they were, 20,000 dead under the sea but this submarine is important because the rich are fucking stupid. I’m gonna pay to be locked into a Houdini trap, you’re gonna plunge a mile down the ocean with no communication? Get fucked - the rich are idiots.
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