Halloween and uses and mis-uses for children.

Huzzah! Huzzah for Halloween. This is my favourite holiday. Actually this is my favourite time of year. I am very much an autumn type of gal. I love the colours, the weather, the smell of decaying leaves, the darkening evenings, yep, I'm pretty in my element right about now.
Also I like Halloween. I like scary movies, eating my own body weight in jellies, and all the kids going around in their costumes, as long as those costumes don't them look like hookers from Vegas. I mean, seriously.
I like that you can wander into town and see people wearing devil horns and rabbit ears. It's funny, and because it's a short holiday it's much less bloody wearing than christmas. So yay for Halloween. I have goodies here inside the door for the trick or treaters. They better come this year, I can't eat that much mini Mars and milky way bars. ( or caaaann I?)
Anyway, this neatly brings me on to my next topic, the use and misuse of small children. T'was the bold Gimmie who reminded me of this tale, as he fought the sugar rush and breakage wrecked upon his home by his beloved child.

Sometimes small children and sugar are a very bad combination.

Very recently I was sitting in the kitchen of my eldest sister's home. We were both drinking shiraz, she was cooking, I was flicking through Hello Magazine while her brood argued back and forth over Bratz dolls, (the boy was trying to behead them, the girl was trying to save them and the baby was trying to eat them).
I watched them battle it out for a few moments. 'They're very excitable today are they not?'
'Their granny was here earlier, she brought Smarties with her.'
'Ah.'
'You know how they get.'
'I do indeed. I can hear how they get.'
Then my sister told me a story.
She has a friend who has separated from her husband of ten years. Well, he left her, for much younger totty. So natch she's just the tiniest bit touchy and bitter-even though she got the fine house and the kids. Frankly he wasn't all that, I'd take a house over his lady patch hair and moobular self any day but then that's just me.
Where was I? Oh yes. Well he takes the kids every other weekend- they have a girl of eight and a boy of four. According to my sister-and I have no reason to doubt the veracity of this, the night before old wandering dick picks them up, she-the mother- lets them stay up as late as they want, gets them up early the next morning and lets them drink coke and eat crap before they are picked up. Cue, two hours later, a vicious sugar drop and cranky, wild, teary, exhausted children and a stressed father and a new girlfriend who is convinced the kids hate her and that they might just be spawn of the devil and really, she's doesn't like moobs that much.
I did point out to my sister that this woman an absolute shite for using her children as weapons, but my sister just shrugged and went back to making cottage pie while yelling at her own crew to stop fighting so loudly. Or if they were going to kill each other take it into a different room.
I took a sip of wine and stole a carrot and resolved to store this story for future fatcat imaginary children that might one day be babysat by my mother.

Using children as pawns in marriage, I am against it!

Dressing dogs in capes, I'm all for it!

The Pope over steps his mark.

Seriously, I really wish these old rich men would keep their noses out of everyone's business.
He's not likely to ever need emergency contraception now is he? Pharmacists should do their damn job and leave the moralizing to rich old men who have no wives or children, who we the public can then freely ignore.

The Dublin City Marathon

Good morning a resounding ouch to you all. As well as battered from yesterday's run I am hungover as a goat and I have a cold. Ah yes. I knew adding a bourbon and coke to the mix was a bad idea.
Yesterday was terrific and I fear I have developed marathon fever, for despite the pain, I dribbled on to my oldest friend last night how much I was looking forward to next year. I was drunkish though, so it might have been the hooch talking. Certainly this morning I couldn't run from here to the kitchen and the outside of my right foot is so painful I can't put my full weight on it.
Anyhoo, yesterday. I got up at the crack of 6:15, a mythical time of still darkness. I had a bowl of Ready Brek and juice while the paramour made me coffee, toast and rashers. Then I went back upstairs and proceeded to get into a flap as I lost one thing I'd previous had in my hand after another. I put down a pair of socks, only for them to disappear and then I couldn't find my running trousers, the same ones I had laid out the night before. Yes, that sort of a flap.
Eventually we left the house and got into town too early. 7:20. I sat in the car wittering and worrying about needing to wee.
Sitting about was making me twitchy so I kissed the paramour bye and made my way to Bewleys for said wee, and then over to the starting line up at Fitzwilliam Street. I was first one in my group, but after a while I was joined by two ladies from Dubai who were freezing in their tiny running shorts.

I got to stand around in the cold for another hour-shrinking my bladder further, so that by the time we began to run I was bursting again. I was amused to see so many black bin bags on folk, some customised and really surprised to see people tossing away their fleeces and gloves and what not. Astounded really. I had on a light running jacket and I tied that around my waist.
The need to pee became a pressing issue and unlike the chaps, I can't do it against a wall. Fortunately a very nice hotel on Pearse Street didn't bar its doors and me and about twenty other women availed of its pristine bathroom, so much nicer than the portaloos.
Lighter, I began to enjoy the run.
I have to say, I have never seen Dublin so beautiful as yesterday. The autumn sun lit the leaves on North Circular road. The old red brick Georgian houses were never more lovely. The park looked like a movie set. It was really stunning and I spent the first half of the race taking it all in and feeling incredibly fortunate. And what a reception we got. There were people out everywhere clapping, cheering us on, handing out biscuits and jellies and sliced oranges, there were kids lining the roads with their hands out for high fives, there were home made signs and whistles and bells and clappers. It was terrific, (except for the man in the Celtic top wearing a devil mask on Parnell Square. He scared the shit out of everyone and it was funny to see the starling like swoop of runners as they crossed the road to avoid him)
The second half was tougher, but easier in another way as I was on home turf. I stopped into a pharmacy in Rathgar to buy painkillers as for some annoying reason my hip was bothering me and I was fighting a cramp in my left calf. I gobbled two anadins, drank water, stretched the muscle out and cursed. But after another mile it was no better or worse so I resolved to ignore it.
I had said all week long to any poor sod who would listen that the first eighteen miles would be the marathon and the last eight miles would be my Sunday run- this 'logic' is what I used to convince myself. But let me tell you, the last 8 was no Sunday run.
At 22 miles I had pains and aches. My chest was beginning to get sore and I had chafing under my bicep. Also my hamstring was beginning to whistle at me now and then. People were starting to drop off and walk. I met a man who was bleeding badly from what looked like a shredded blister. I gave him a plaster from my fanny pack and wished him luck, but damn, his foot looked like minced meat and he still had another four miles to go.
There is no gimmick to beat the wall, no trick or way around it. This is where your training comes in and any mental strength you may possess. You've got to dig deep and get on with it. So I did just that. I was muttering under my breath about how I didn't believe in walls and stuff, I also began to sing the mashed potato song to the tune of Falco.
Rounding the corner onto Nassau Street was thrilling. Everyone was clapping and screaming us on. I came up behind a chap who was walking and for some reason I cannot fathom ( I'm not normally so forward) I tapped him on the back and said, 'Come on man, we're almost there. Let's finish how we started.' He nodded and forced himself off into a run and we ran down the last 300 Metres together. I believe I even whooped when I rounded the corner and saw the finish and when I crossed it I was grinning like a loon.
The man and me exchanged names, shook hands and went off to collect our medals. We're bound by an identical time now and it's all a bit groovy.
Then I met the paramour and we went for a pint. I wore my medal on the outside of my coat. Yes, I am that nerdy.

Motivation for Fatcats. The Marathon.

Tomorrow is M-Day, I collected my bib number and timing chip from the RDS yesterday afternoon. I'm going to do nowt today but eat, check the route, my clothes, my jelly collection, my route again and twitter at the paramour. I feel portly and rotund from lack of running this week, which is ridiculous as I am neither, but this must be my version of pre-race angst.

I have purchased an OMM pouch- a fanny pack to you and me. Remarkable thing the OMM, I can fit all my gels, jellies, and a small bottle of energy drink into it and it doesn't jiggle at all. So lightweight. Colour me impressed.
I shall charge my iPod to the max and organise my music into running categories, 'terrible start, weeeee, tired legs, second wind, dreamy pace, steady pace, the wall, enter the dragon and the lands of Mordor.' For each of these I will have the correct soundtrack, meticulously timed to coincide with each phase as I poodle along.
It is a shockingly early start tomorrow. According to my race info I am to be in town no later than eight AM, which means I must be up and eating by half six. Half six! I ask you! Who can eat at that hour? This is why I am up early today so that I might sleep tonight.
It occurred to me yesterday at the RDS -as I watched groups of what I later described to Finn as 'real runners' chatting and greeting each other- that I trained alone for this marathon. But that's not true is it? I ran alone, nowt but me and the music, but actually I had you lot, you who have been hella solid in all your support as I went from huffy puffy 5k to a 30k run.
The paramour has been a true buttress too, whenever I have a 'what the hell am I doing' moment, he just says, 'you can do it' and lo, I believe him. (He is going to pick me up and get me home tomorrow after I will be right as rain. And after rum and food and painkillers and more rum I should be stellar)


So I just want to say thanks again for the last few months. It sounds ridiculous but you, my interwebby chumlies, have been the most delicious support and I'm chuffed to have you. It makes a difference, oh yes, it makes all the difference in the world.
YOu can do this Melvin.
Mwoah Mwoah.
FMC

Update- I"m back home, With mah medal! I will do proper post tomorrow, feeling fine, a bit sore and achy but also a bit high as a kite. Hit the wall slightly at 22 miles, but got through it and according to Miss Finn I finished faster than the half marathon to 30k mark, which frankly is a bit of a mystery to me. I was over the five hour mark, but as I always say, fatcats are not speedy.
Thanks a million for all the good wishes, you are darlings.
I must go, there is dinner and rum.

Happy Ginger day Chumlies!

Behold! A newer less eye-lined and right-angled fledgling carrot-top. He is young, he is ginger, he has a tongue... he is a maw-dal. I'd like to do an oil test on his peachy self to see if he is the new Lancelot du carrot, coz if he is, we'll be seeing a lot more of his gingery goodness of fridays.
And now, filled to the brim though I am with Spanish omelette, I must brave the wind and take CG's daoggy for his afternoons scamper, then to the hairdressers for my twice yearly cut, for verily it does look like a poodle's arse at the mo.
Avast scurvy knaves, avast I say!

Actually, I went in yesterday to the hairdresser to make an appointment, I said 'Hello there, would you have an appointment for tomorrow free?'
And the droid behind the counter said, 'For your hair?"
'er...yes.'

I mean It's not like I went into the butchers and asked for a roll of carpet. How velly odd making.

Deja Vu

Okay, just what in the name of freaky weirdness is déja vu?
I was eating another delicious carb filled and not even slightly boring bowl of Ready Brek this morning, while listening to the Paramour. I put my bowl down and then the back door blew open and the Paramour said...'we can grab a bite to eat before hand if you-'then the phone rang.
But God Damn it, just before it did I was already rolling in my head with 'hey I've seen this, I know what-'
Deja Vu, a big one.
Now I only get this now and again, and it's annoying that I"m NEVER quick enough to yell 'the phones about to ring!" or whatever before it happens, for that would be most cool and also I'd consider getting my own TV show if I could predict shit. I could do Derek Acora-escue shenanigans, 'eeee by heck love, yer husband, 'as 'e passed? Oh yes, 'e's telling me to tell yer 'e were a sick man. 'e died in an accident? Aye, that's what 'e's saying, one the say of the accident 'e were feeling right poorly. Oh ah feel him now, I feel him, do you feel him? DO yer? 'e says to tell you 'e's here with yer mudder, oh that's yer mudder beside yer? No no, sorry, the spiritual lines were caught in a spiritual storm, he's telling me no, yer grandmudder...did she were glasses? Yes, that's her... yes, ah don't cry.'

Anyway, I would like to know just what the hell deja vu is? No Matrix waffle either. Anyone? And what's the most deja vu-y thing to happen to you, and have any of you every managed to beat it and say what was about to happen seconds before it did?

Head Injuries and the Serial Killer.

From the Guardian.
"A Russian man who claimed he wanted to record a murder for every square on a chessboard was found guilty yesterday of killing 48 people in Moscow.
A jury took less than three hours to convict Alexander Pichushkin, 33, of the murders, most of which occurred over five years in a sprawling park in southern Moscow. After the five-week trial he was also found guilty of three attempted murders. The judge read out the hour-long verdict to a courthouse packed with journalists and relatives of victims."

The longer story can be found on the Guardian's website. This man was a cold blooded killer, determined to make a name for himself, proud of his diligence, scornful of the police and seemingly unaware or untouched by the enormity of his crimes. It is a good thing he has been caught because he is remorseless and there isn't a doubt in my mind he'd carry on killing.

But something struck me as I read of his exploits this morning, a throw away line in the Guardian piece that rang a bell in my subconscious.

"His mother charts the beginning of Pichushkin's downfall to when he was hit on the head by a swing aged four."

Ridiculous right? She's his mother, of course she's going to look for answers for the child that she delivered into the world.

But like I said it pinged about my coffee starved head until I remembered why it resonated with me.
I trundled upstairs to the bedroom, over to the book case. I scanned the books and laid my fingers on my copy of Manhunters, Criminal Profilers & Their Search for the World's Most wanted Serial KIllers, by Colin Wilson.

I opened the book and flicked through it and on page 145 my connector beckoned.

"Certainly the number of sex killers who have suffered head injuries is so high that it is hard to deny the probable correlation. The following lists only some of the most prominent.'

He then provides an interesting observation, to whit...

The French Ripper Joseph Vacher - Suffered from head injury after attempted suicide.

Fritz Haarmann German 'Cannibal Killer' -Suffered concussion from a bad fall in his army days.

American Earle Nerlson- knocked down by car and unconscious for six days as a child.

Albert Fish- developed a stutter and dizzy spells after fall from tree as a child.
Raymond Fernandez-perfectly normal man until he fell through a hatch while at sea, knocking himself unconscious.

JOhn Christie (british) KNocked down by car on arival in london, unconscious for several hours.
Richard Speck- Chicago- Suffered a number of head injuries as a child, but began having blackouts at 16 after being struck on the head by a police man for fighting.

Gary Heidnik- Fall from a tree rendered him 'mentally abnormal' Deforming the shape of his head so badly schoolchildren called him 'football head'

Randy Kraft-California- Fell down a set of concrete steps as a child and knocked unconscious for several hours.

Henry Lee Lucas- violently beaten as a child by his mother, and once knocked unconscious for three days after she struck him with a piece of wood.

Bobby Jo Long-fracatured skull after a motercycle accident, after which he developed an unquenchable desire for sex, then began to murder. He's interesting, after every attack he would wake up after a very heavy sleep unsure if he had even committed what he 'dreamed of' until he would read of his action in a newspaper. After an examination it was revealed Long had more than one head injury-one after falling from a swing as a child and one from being knocked down by a car. A PET scan showed he had a damaged left temporal lobe and an abnormality of amygdala, the part of the brain associated with violence.

Fred West-British- two serious head injuries-one form a motercyle accident that left him unconscious for a week and one the result of a fall form a fire escape- unconscious for 2 days.

Dennis Rader= dropped on his head as a child.

All of these men went on to abduct, murder, rape, sodomise, and in some cases eat their victims. They showed no remorse-except for Bobby Jo Long- and plenty of guile and cunning. But why? Could there be a connection to their injuries?

Of course this is all speculation. These were all violent predatory men, and who is to say what particular set of circumstances unleashed the base longing to torture and kill again and again. But as I read that article in the Guardian this morning I wondered. Is there a connection? Could it be possible that somewhere along the lines these murderous empathy free sadists have no control? Or is a head injury just the key that unlocks the door to an already vicious predator, a predator preordained to inflict as much misery and pain as he can while he still breathes.

Foster parents lose child over gay confusion.

I'm thinking confusion is probably the wrong word in the title but I have only had one cup of coffee this very morning and my head is deeply congested. The trees for the forrest analogy I wanted to use wasn't working either. Also if I was speaking instead of typing that would have been, 'by heb id deebly condested' so bear with me.

Now I read the following story this morning and was struck almost immediately with confusion and botheration.
As the world and it's mother knows I have gay friends and I love them dearly. For the record, being an frightful agnostic, I don't believe in god, I don't think the bible is the literal word of anyone, I don't believe in discrimination on sexual orientation and I get a deep pain in my inner ring piece when I read something like 'gays CHOOSE to be gay'. Right, that's like saying I chose to have delightful ankles. I didn't, I was born this way.
Are we all clear?
Good.
But I am old and I am from the country and I went to a catholic boarding school, a nifty combination that means I have dealt with all manner of weird folk who have differing view on things. And the older I get the more I accept that is the way the world works and there's just no point in getting all het up about shit like that. Pick your battles. If someone say something stupid in front of you pull them on it. If someone emails you with contrary views, pull them on it. If someone makes another suffer because of how they are, speak up.
But what if there was no cause for action. What if a person thought a certain way, did not act on it, and were too old to be any different? What if everything about them was gold star, except for one ridiculous view.
Let me give you a quick glimpse into my botheration today.
From that bloody addictive rag the Mail....

"They are devoted foster parents with an unblemished record of caring for almost 30 vulnerable children.

But Vincent and Pauline Matherick will this week have their latest foster son taken away because they have refused to sign new sexual equality regulations.To do so, they claim, would force them to promote homosexuality and go against their Christian faith.

The 11-year-old boy, who has been in their care for two years, will be placed in a council hostel this week and the Mathericks will no longer be given children to look after.

The devastated couple, who have three grown up children of their own, became foster parents in 2001 and have since cared for 28 children at their home in Chard, Somerset.

Earlier this year, Somerset County Council's social services department asked them to sign a contract to implement Labour's new Sexual Orientation Regulations, part of the Equality Act 2006, which make discrimination on the grounds of sexuality illegal.Officials told the couple that under the regulations they would be required to discuss same-sex relationships with children as young as 11 and tell them that gay partnerships were just as acceptable as heterosexual marriages.

They could also be required to take teenagers to gay association meetings.

When the Mathericks objected, they were told they would be taken off the register of foster parents.

The Mathericks have decided to resign rather than face the humiliation of being expelled.

Mr Matherick, a 65-year-old retired travel agent and a primary school governor, said: "I simply could not agree to do it because it is against my central beliefs.

"We have never discriminated against anybody but I cannot preach the benefits of homosexuality when I believe it is against the word of God."

Mrs Matherick, 61, said they had asked if they could continue looking after their foster son until he is found a permanent home, but officials refused and he will be placed in a council hostel on Friday.

She said: "He was very upset to begin with. We are all very close, but he's a mature young man and he's dealing with it."

The couple, who have six grandchildren and one greatgrandchild, are both ministers at the nonconformist South Chard Christian Church.

When they first started fostering they took in young single mothers and their babies.

More recently they have been caring for children of primary school age.

Mr Matherick added: "It's terrible that we've been forced into this corner. It just should not happen.

"There are not enough foster carers around anyway without these rules.

"They were saying that we had to be prepared to talk about sexuality with 11-year-olds, which I don't think is appropriate anyway, but not only that, to be prepared to explain how gay people date. They said we would even have to take a teenager to gay association meetings.

"How can I do that when it's totally against what I believe?"

Quite.
Now A part of me wants to say why doesn't he just sign the bloody thing and why on earth doesn't he understand that being gay is no more against the word of god than being black or curly haired. But then I thought more of it.
These people are deeply committed christians and as unpalatable as their view on homosexuality might be, they have their opinions and their faith and they live by their christian beliefs- which in itself is no bad thing. There is a lot of good in religious folk and I think ANYONE who takes on the difficult and generous task of raising a foster child is a special sort of person. Also these people are in their 60s and are hardly going to change the way they think at this stage ow are they?
Then there is their track record. They appear by all accounts a genuinely loving couple who have opened their home up time and time again to help children in dire need of love and stability, and this is how they are repaid? One aspect of their beliefs has been singled out and they are being punished for it.
How many families openly discuss a gay lifestyle with their children? How many families discuss any sort of sexual lifestyle with their 11 year old children? Is there such a wealth of foster families willing to take on older children in Britain that the foster services are happy to remove a child due to his other wise exemplary Christian foster parents being unwilling or unable to go against their firmly held beliefs?
I would have called CG but he's on his way out of the country, so I called FG instead.
'French Gay!' I said.'I need your opinion on something.'
'Oo iz thees?'
'Me, Fatmammycat.'
'Fatbabbycab? Alorzzz... snorg snorg snog...'
Anyway the French brat finally stopped laughing long enough to give consideration to my question. What did he think?
And he thought that the poor child was then one to lose out, that he's being removed from a loving home of two years with two people who cared for his well being and development, he thought his own parents didn't foster a great tolerance for the being gay but they just had to put up with it and they mellowed later in life. He thought most families did not do a whole lot of talking about sexual matter with their children apart from the rudimentary 'be safe and don't come home pregnant/get a girl pregnant'. He thought a stable home was more important than to be a pawn of a liberal council and he wondered aloud about the future of this boy when he was removed from his home of two years and plonked into a hostel and questioned how that bettered the life of that child.
'But don't you think they should talk to him about a gay lifestyle?'
'Offf, if 'e is gay 'e weel findz out 'eimself, non?'
'Probably. Thanks dahling.'
'Sorg sorg, you soundz 'orrible.'
So anyhoo, there we have it. On the one hand these christians have funny views on stupid things on the other, they have good hearts and a willingness to live and love and nourish a fledgling person.
I know which one I'd rather support.
How 'bout you?

Motivation for fatcats.

Ah, I might as well tell you I am fighting a headcold. This is typical as we are less than one week away from M-day.
I am determined not to come down with it, but the snotty nose is growing snottier by the hour and I am losing the hearing in my right ear.
To counter this I have decided to ignore it. And to ignore it I thought I might just toodle off on what is probably my last real run before Monday. So, to whit.
Fatcat- 15k easy peasy lemon squeezy, slow and bobbly. Listening to new Foo Fighters album, not sure about it really, switched over to Roisin, sure about her.
Ah woosh and bleaugh. No, we will not take any notice.
I can promise you this. Even if I am suffering from bubonic plague, pleurisy and leprosy and I need to carry a bag around with me into which to place the lung I cough up, this marathon will be completed. No puny cold is going to stop me, no sirriebob. Not after this many months of training. Hear that noodleyone? Not that.

Nasty Bitch attacks Cat.

This is Nicola Collinson, the charming young woman who sent a video to friends of her chasing, punching and drop-kicking a kitten like a rugby ball. She and a friend filmed their fun on a mobile and sent the video to friends. Hilarious.
Yesterday she was banned for life from keeping animals.
Nicola 21, pleaded guilty earlier this month to causing unnecessary suffering to the animal. She was sentenced at Gosforth Magistrates' Court in Newcastle to a 12-month community and supervision order, and a six-month curfew from 7am to 7pm, on top of the lifetime ban. OH, and she had to pay £420 to the RSPCA.

There's nothing I like less than cruelty. There's no need for it in any walk of life. Not with children, or animals or the elderly or anyone for that matter. If you don't like someone avoid them, there's no need to make their life a misery. How any woman could be cruel to an innocent animal is beyond my ken, how punching and kicking something that cannot defend itself and call it 'fun' is incomprehensible. Someone day this 'person' will have children, if she hasn't already, I don't even want to think what 'fun' she might have with them.
I will never understand wanton cruelty and I'm really glad of that. Because if I did I think there would be something wrong with me.

Read disgustedly in the Mail.

Ray La Montagne

This is who I went to see with the paramour last night in the Olympia. What a bloody voice. He's small and slender and really shy with a tiny soft speaking voice, but when he sings...oh my. This was one of his encores.

No Honour Amongst Thieves, Murderers or Drug Dealers.

Not so very long ago the Joe Duffy Radio show had that self-important knob Paul 'Insert catchy title' Williams on his radio show. Paul was doing his usual line of shtick talking about how Someone 'fats/the lips/Larry the lamb' Somethingorother had fled the country after a second man had taken out a contract on his life. It was the usual Williams self aggrandising tabloid style bleat, with lots of talk and very little concrete fact. So little in fact that when the Lips/lamb/Fats combo called the show to disprove his fleeing the country there was a talk off between them.
Now a talk off between a Journalist who chest beasts and scumbag who answers questions by repeating the same question is funny, but wearing after a while there's only so much...
'Do you deal drugs?'
'Do I deal drugs?"
...a person can listen too, even if you are delighted to hear it. However on that fateful day a most fantabulous thing did happen. The man-John Daly- who was supposed to have a contract out on Fats/Lamb/Lips/Lucky/The viper/The Wiper suddenly calls the show and WHOAH to back up Lam/viper/Sniper/Commander Riker, and suddenly it's on. Duffy couldn't believe his luck, right up to and probably including the moment when John Daly called Paul Williams a cunt live on air.
But there was fall out.
You see John Daly was in Portlaoise Prison serving a sentence for armed robbery when he called the show from a mobile phone. And in the subsequent uproar the prison was searched to see how he came to possess such an item. In the ensuing searches and crack down was ordered. The guards found the prisoners of Portlasoise to be surprisingly well stocked up on mobile phones, wide screen TVs and even a budgie. Feather were ruffled, and I don't mean the budgie.
All the contraband was confiscated and the miscreant fingers were pointed very clearly at one John 'Big Mouth' Daly.

Well, time and tide wait for no man, Gamma used to say, and last night the tide came in for John Daly.


He was sitting in a car on Cloonlara Drive in Finglas just before 2am this morning when he was shot a number of times.

He died a short time later at the Mater Hospital.

There is no honour amongst thieves, but in today's red top culture you can be sure there is no honour amongst 'journalists' either. I wonder how long it will be before Williams has himself another book deal?

Motivation for fatcats. The karma bites.

I don't believe in karma because it just doesn't fit in with my firm belief that all things spiritual are a load of bollocks.
However, last night I was on the blower to Etheline and I was all, 'Oh, I don't know, I don't feel so bad after the 30k actually, no no my legs are fine, I was a bit stiff after my shower and my abs ached but really it was no big deal...'
Yadafuckingyada.

I was at the gym earlier, as per advised, I skipped the rowing and concentrated on the weights. Now it was a mediocre sort of work out, to whit...
50 x knees to chest.
10x4x dumbell presses at 10k each
Usual 22k push press 10 x3.
60 pull ups on the grav 30k counterweight, split between over and under grip.

Felt fine, no great shakes, didn't feel I could have gone heavier but then I've been neglecting the weights slightly since it's closer to M day.
But to loosen my body up I thought I'd finish my lame assed work out with a mere 5k run.
Well fuck me.
By the time I was at 3k I had the weirdest aches and pains and twinges. I had a pain in the back of my ankle, not in a muscle or a tendon or anything serious like that, just a nondescript pain. My thighs ached, the crook of my right arm ached, my abs whinged, that knot in the middle of my shoulder muscles tightened.
Ouch.
I was never more glad to hit 5k in my life.
I walked another 2k to cool down just because and then hit the showers.
Like I say, I don't believe in karma, but every now and then, SOMETHING likes to give me a swift kick in the arse.

Drugs Money and Madness

Top of the mid-morning to you chumlies and another Gingerday rolls into sunny play. Today's lashings of Ginger were brought to you courtesy of Medbh. Any feelings you might have about that you can share with her. I'm sure she'd love to hear it.
When I woke this morning I just knew today was going to be a doozy, first of all there was a cat fight inches from my nose, as Puddy and the Bigger of the cats duked it out over who got the coveted right arm nook of the slumbering owner.
So many very sharp very fast claws so near a delicate item like a nose is not hella delightful.
Then, having finally cleared the battle field, I came down stairs and had to listen to Brenda Power (had to I tell you) break the news that Kathy French the underwear model had a seven page spread in Hotpress Magazine. Seven pages? Seven pages of exposure so that she can waffle on about how she has her own pussy to play with. Sheeeet.
And what of Britney? She has had her visitation rights revoked because she was 'unavailable' to take a drugs test. Seriously, how fucked up do you need to be to not be available to take a test if it meant seeing your two little boys? That girl really needs to put down the frappachino, put on some knickers and get her shit together.
Amy Winehouse was arrested in Norway for possession of drugs. I have a Norwegian chum, HE was arrested once for singing and trying to climb lamp posts on Grafton Street. That was back in the days when I had a social life and lived in the city and drank rum.
Oh how the world turns.
Jolie Richardson terrified everyone by turning up the red carpet by turning up looking more skeletal than ever. Anything Keira can do she can do better. Some wife of some chap from blur didn't eat any solid food for three whole week and lost sixteen pounds. She went to Thailand to not eat for three weeks, and did lots of yoga. I don't know what to make of that, but I figure I could stay here and not eat for three weeks and the results would pretty much be the same.
My day was not better served when the postie rang the doorbell and I couldn't get out owing to sliding door being stuck again. But he took pity on me and left my post in the window.
Huzzah! Good post and not the bill kind. Squeee. Thank you Miss Finn!
My gloomy morning improved just like that.
'merikans are tops.

Disgusting with a capital bleeee.

Good fucking god, I'm warning you all now, if you're eating or are slightly squeamish DO NOT look at the following. I am neither and it made my face go funny in disgust. Chumlie and all round pus-whore Twenty Major sent it. Now I must put some of my pre-planned evening to one side while I search for something to make him sick, cute bunnies kissing on cuteoverload.com maybe.

James Watson has some pretty odd ideas.

A sold out lecture in London has been cancelled due to geneticist James Watson's mind altering claims. I notice the crusty old chap did an interview in Focus magazine recently where he tried to 'temper' his views somewhat. But you can't really temper calling a whole race sub intelligent now can you?

Observe the beginning of the furore from the Independent. (UK)


"One of the world's most eminent scientists was embroiled in an extraordinary row last night after he claimed that black people were less intelligent than white people and the idea that "equal powers of reason" were shared across racial groups was a delusion.

James Watson, a Nobel Prize winner for his part in the unravelling of DNA who now runs one of America's leading scientific research institutions, drew widespread condemnation for comments he made ahead of his arrival in Britain today for a speaking tour at venues including the Science Museum in London.

The 79-year-old geneticist reopened the explosive debate about race and science in a newspaper interview in which he said Western policies towards African countries were wrongly based on an assumption that black people were as clever as their white counterparts when "testing" suggested the contrary. He claimed genes responsible for creating differences in human intelligence could be found within a decade.

The newly formed Equality and Human Rights Commission, successor to the Commission for Racial Equality, said it was studying Dr Watson's remarks " in full". Dr Watson told The Sunday Times that he was "inherently gloomy about the prospect of Africa" because "all our social policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the same as ours – whereas all the testing says not really". He said there was a natural desire that all human beings should be equal but "people who have to deal with black employees find this not true".

His views are also reflected in a book published next week, in which he writes: "There is no firm reason to anticipate that the intellectual capacities of peoples geographically separated in their evolution should prove to have evolved identically. Our wanting to reserve equal powers of reason as some universal heritage of humanity will not be enough to make it so."

The furore echoes the controversy created in the 1990s by The Bell Curve, a book co-authored by the American political scientist Charles Murray, which suggested differences in IQ were genetic and discussed the implications of a racial divide in intelligence. The work was heavily criticised across the world, in particular by leading scientists who described it as a work of " scientific racism".

Dr Watson arrives in Britain today for a speaking tour to publicise his latest book, Avoid Boring People: Lessons from a Life in Science. Among his first engagements is a speech to an audience at the Science Museum organised by the Dana Centre, which held a discussion last night on the history of scientific racism.

Critics of Dr Watson said there should be a robust response to his views across the spheres of politics and science. Keith Vaz, the Labour chairman of the Home Affairs Select Committee, said: "It is sad to see a scientist of such achievement making such baseless, unscientific and extremely offensive comments. I am sure the scientific community will roundly reject what appear to be Dr Watson's personal prejudices.

"These comments serve as a reminder of the attitudes which can still exists at the highest professional levels."

The American scientist earned a place in the history of great scientific breakthroughs of the 20th century when he worked at the University of Cambridge in the 1950s and 1960s and formed part of the team which discovered the structure of DNA. He shared the 1962 Nobel Prize for medicine with his British colleague Francis Crick and New Zealand-born Maurice Wilkins.

But despite serving for 50 years as a director of the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory on Long Island, considered a world leader in research into cancer and genetics, Dr Watson has frequently courted controversy with some of his views on politics, sexuality and race. The respected journal Science wrote in 1990: "To many in the scientific community, Watson has long been something of a wild man, and his colleagues tend to hold their collective breath whenever he veers from the script."

In 1997, he told a British newspaper that a woman should have the right to abort her unborn child if tests could determine it would be homosexual. He later insisted he was talking about a "hypothetical" choice which could never be applied. He has also suggested a link between skin colour and sex drive, positing the theory that black people have higher libidos, and argued in favour of genetic screening and engineering on the basis that " stupidity" could one day be cured. He has claimed that beauty could be genetically manufactured, saying: "People say it would be terrible if we made all girls pretty. I think it would great."

The Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory said yesterday that Dr Watson could not be contacted to comment on his remarks.

Steven Rose, a professor of biological sciences at the Open University and a founder member of the Society for Social Responsibility in Science, said: " This is Watson at his most scandalous. He has said similar things about women before but I have never heard him get into this racist terrain. If he knew the literature in the subject he would know he was out of his depth scientifically, quite apart from socially and politically."

Anti-racism campaigners called for Dr Watson's remarks to be looked at in the context of racial hatred laws. A spokesman for the 1990 Trust, a black human rights group, said: "It is astonishing that a man of such distinction should make comments that seem to perpetuate racism in this way. It amounts to fuelling bigotry and we would like it to be looked at for grounds of legal complaint."




Hat tip Parynugla/

Motivation for fatcats!

Observe chumlies! 30k, 3hours and 21mins which is terrific for me.
Music- oh well, Roisin Murphy's new album, Overpowered, liked it a whole lot, some Kings of Leon, probably a grower, Gnarly Barkley, some D Mode, some Dance, and then on the last 2k home, some Korn and some NIN.
Eeee, it were sunny, warm and cloudy-damn you global warming- and I had a right struggle with cramp somewhere at the 25k mark so I ran into a garage and bought one of those flavoured H2O thingies, whereupon I paid the chap in coins and jellies. Not deliberately, but the jellies were stuck to the coins. So that was a wee bit embarrassing as was the part where I fell off the footpath at around the 18k mark.
But no matter! A psychological battle has been won. I can run 30k, and if I can run 30K I can most surely run 44. After all-as I keep saying- it's only a gentle sunday run...on top of the 30k.
HUZZAH!
I'm starving.

Sympathy for the Kate McCann.

I find it harder to get up these cold mornings. Bed is warm and comfy and it's darker. Who in their right mind would want to leave warmth comfort and dark? Not me. Fortunately I have found that coffee and a quick look through the daily mail is enough to get my blood pressure raised on an almost daily basis.
Today's pressure spike came when I read Kate McCann's view on why she is being 'persecuted'. For anyone who has been living in Pluto for the last few months, Kate is the mother of Madeleine McCann, blonde cute toddler, who vanished from a holiday apartment in portugal five months ago.
Kate's latest theory on why folk might not be as sympathetic to her is because she does't look Mummsie enough. You know, like a Mammy.

"Kate McCann believes she has been persecuted because she does not look like a typical mother, her family revealed yesterday.

The GP told relatives she has been portrayed as a bad parent because she is slim and does not look traditionally maternal.

In an astonishing outburst she told her mother: 'If I weighed another two stone, had a bigger bosom and looked more maternal, people would be more sympathetic.'

Mrs McCann has faced five months of barbed comments about her composed appearance during the international manhunt to find her missing daughter Madeleine."

Yes Kate, that's it, by jove you've cracked it. If you were two stone heavier we'd all forget you and your husband left three tiny children under the age of four alone in an apartment in a foreign country while you and he toddled off to play quiz games and have dinner in a pub.
What a croc. If Kate and Gerry McCann had been two gougers, everyone and their mother would have been out in force to condemn them to the fiery pits of parental hell. But because they were middle class doctors, folk pulled their punches.
What rot. If she was fatter we'd be more sympathetic to her plight? How does that line of logic work?
I don't know what happened to Madeleine McCann and neither does anyone else apart from the person who saw her last. I have sympathy for Kate and Gerry McCann because they've lost their child. But I also hold them partially responsible for her disappearence. People say, 'oh give them a break, you can't watch your children every second.' Well of course not, they get older and unless you're going to smother them they need freedom to grow and develop.
But the job of any parent is to provide AS MUCH safety as possible for your children, and leaving them alone an vulnerable when they are nothing more than toddlers is NOT doing your job in my view.
Safety first, pubs and quiz games second.
I don't see how being fatter or bustier would makes people reconsider their views on that.

Terry Wogan's got balls.

Say what you like about old Terry, he's got a set.
The following nonsense is from the mail.

".....Viewers were initially placed at ease when the avuncular Irishman appeared on screen in jacket, shirt and tie for the teatime show - well before the 9pm watershed.

But then the camera panned down to reveal mustard-coloured slacks which offered him little in the way of, ahem, support and evoked memories of sprinter Linford Christie's infamous 'lunchbox'.

Even Sir Terry's most ardent female fans appear to have found the experience a little unsettling, if the BBC's on-line message boards are to be believed.

One said: "I have just watched Points of View with my daughter and my husband. When the camera panned out on Terry Wogan, I didn't know where to look.

"Both my daughter and I (who are in no way prudish) were totally embarrassed to see Terry with very revealing trousers on. I'm sure we can't have been the only ones to notice."

A fan of Sir Terry, who earns £800,000 a year, leapt to his defence, saying: "I think the cameraman was taking the proverbial."


Oh dear, she didn't know where to look. What a porkie pie.

A shaky foundation.

From today's independent.
"THE High Court has ordered the repossession of family homes in Dublin, Galway, Limerick and Sligo.

And a senior judge has warned that a slump in property sales is making it difficult for homeowners facing repossession to sell their homes -- despite dropping the purchase price -- in order to meet their mortgage debts and payment arrears.

In one of the starkest signs that mortgage holders are struggling to make ends meet, more than 45 repossession cases -- including 17 new applications by banks yesterday alone -- were heard or adjourned in the High Court in a two-hour session.

Four couples have been given a three-month stay on their repossession orders to try and reach a last-minute refinancing deal.

It was also revealed that one family apparently fled to England and abandoned their home when served with a repossession notice.

Lawyers have revealed that several debtors had attempted to sell their homes but were unsuccessful owing to the current uncertainty in the property market which saw potential buyers back down from purchase agreements.

Ireland's repossession figures are historically very low, but repossessions have been kept at bay courtesy of a buoyant property market that allows borrowers to clear their debt by making a profit on the sale of their homes."


It is very worrying to read that 45 homes have been issued with a repossession order in the highcourt. Worrying but not at all surprising. I know a number of people who are so unbelieveably over stretched that if I was in their shoes I'd never sleep a wink again. Every second advert on the radio suddenly seems to be some company or other offering remortgaging and loans, some even boasting that they will give you money even if your credit rating is poor.
Well, there's often a reason a person's credit rating is poor.
With the ridiculous rocketing of the property market in this country suddenly everyone is sitting on/living in an asset of grreat worth. But your home is just that , your home. It might be worth a bundle, but you live in it, so it's not like a piggy bank. You can't dip in and out of it to furnish a 90210 lifestyle, no matter how tempting. So okay, the house you bought in 2001 is triple what you paid for it. So is every other house. And now the prices are so elevated that the market has had the life blood strangled out of it. People are not buying, homes are not selling, there is blood in the water.
There's going to be a short sharp shock in Ireland over the next two years. We're haemorraghing manufactoring jobs, we're losing companies to more attractive cheaper work forces, our economy is riding on the back of the property market and right now that market is weakening.
My heart goes out to anyone who loses their home. It's a horrendous situation to find yourself in and must be soul destroying. But honestly, I don't see the 45 being the limit.

Food Phobia.

I was on the phone last night, listening to my oldest friend chatting away when suddenly my ears pricked up.
'She was sick everywhere.' My friend said, laughing, 'on the table on the floor, everywhere.'
She was talking about her daughter, a bright intelligent child of 5 who it seems cannot cope with tomato based sauces on food. She just does not like them. They make her sick. Actually sick. She knows this, my friend knows this, I know this, but apparently the mother of one of her little pals refused to believe it and insisted she eat spaghetti smothered in the stuff.
'Ridiculous woman.' I said, thinking of my cabbage horror.'Forcing her to eat something she knows will make her sick.'
'She'll definitely listen the next time.' My fried said.
Well we waffled on for a while longer and then said our good byes. But it got me thinking.
The paramour does not like and cannot abide mushrooms, his brother has a creeping horror of peas, Country Gay cannot eat fish unless it is disguised as some sort of breaded non-fish and even then is skeeves him out, but the difference is they don't vomit violently if they come across the foods they don't like. I have watched the paramour pick mushroom out of food and carry on eating for gawd's sake.
Remarkable.
Now, my mother cannot eat fowl of any kind and will flee a room if chicken is chopped up in front of her. Etheline will puke if you put her in the same room as kidney/or/liver and even the smell of cabbage makes my gag reflex wobble.
This is not food we don't just like, everyone has those, this is a primal turbo charged full on phobic response. A fight or flight reaction. A fie fie a cabbage is at large, sort of thing.
'It's because you're all half cracked.' The paramour said helpfully when I raised the issue.
He might be on to something.

Motivation for fatcats.

15k.
I'd like to say they were a good kilometres but they were not. They were a guilt riddled painful 15k, with me muttering furiously at myself. I thought you weren't going to drink in the run up to the marathon you fucking stupid idiot, I might have said, oh, those two little bottles of Ballygowan water are gonna cure your dehydration for sure, idiot, ah, tired you ale swilling twit? Hum? How's the body doing now when faced with this hill? betcha bottle of beer 4 is singing to you right now huh? Idiot...
And so on it went.
Nonetheless, despite my best attempts to hamper, belittle and impede myself I have completed my run. I am now going to go upstairs, vomit, take a shower and read the papers for a while. I hope you are all having a much nicer Sunday.

Motivation for fatcats.

20k- 2hours 15, which was dandy. Got a slight cramp in my left calf over in Orwell Gardens, I was stretching it out when a lady stopped and tapped me on the shoulder.
I removed my earphones and gazed sweatily at her.
'Got a cramp?' Said she.
'Yes.' Said I, resisting an golden opportunity to point to my straight leg and my gritted expression.
'Ohh, they're very painful.'
'They are indeed.'
'Well, good luck with that.'
'Thanks.'
And off she toddled. Which leaves me to wonder exactly what it is about my face that attracts old folk and their pithy comments. They take my drinks, shout at me and then actually tap me to pass comment. And another thing, it's all within a two mile radius of Rathgar. Are the oldies in Rathgar just chattier? Lonelier? Cheekier? What? It can't be me, I can't imagine I look that approachable with my lobster red head and pained expression, so what on earth is it?
And also, to the gardai in Rathmines. If you want to do a big dramatic screech onto the footpath outside Tescos to scare the pants off a 15 year old in a red hoodie, maybe watchout for the runner on the actual fucking footpath, you great big pair of lugs.

OH, and Happy Gingerday everyone!

While it is far too early for the bar, it is not too early for a dose of gingergoodliness, this was back in the gingergod's hayday, when he was less angular and more bouncy.


This seemed like a very looooong week, did it not?

Prayer, sleep and vile vile work.

Morning chumlies, and what a difference 6 hours sleep can make to a gal's humour. Why I had to spend almost one hour on the phone earlier and I didn't snap or snarl or disinfect my hands once. Huzzah.
And how odd that there should be a brouhaha brewing in Carlow over whether a council meeting should have the Our Father said before it convenes to discuss council meeting. It really got quite heated on Brenda Power's show earlier with the pro-prayer dude claiming that prayer helped folk make decisions and could stop blood and all manner of things and the anti-prayer chap saying prayer had no place at a council meeting.
Are we that secular? Does it do any harm? I can't make up my mind about it. I'm agnostic and don't for a moment believe in the power of prayer, but I allow that for others it is a source of peace and comfort so why would I object to it? MY mother often claims she's going to pray for me, I couldn't care less, it's rather like her saying she's going to plant daffodils for me out the back of her house.
Maybe I'm wrong though, I frequently am. I mean I hate reiki and that's a form of prayer, but a commercial version. Can I hold an undiminished and implacable hatred for reiki and yet be indifferent to a prayer before a meeting?
What do we think? Would reciting a prayer before a meeting skeeve you out completely or would you hold a benign tolerance for it?

Motivation for fatcats

I walked to the glass recycling bins and back, it took one hour and ten minutes and I only ate a handful of delicious jellies as I wandered along, gawking at houses, listening to Leftfield. I may have clicked my fingers together a couple of times.

Any minute now I might strike out and vacuum or wander down to the shop to buy a bin-tag... Surely that counts for something. I have a goo on me for chips.
I can't believe Britney Spears is still flashing her coochie all over the place.


I am having that sort of day.

Ear, 'ave you seen this?

And a rollicking good bleeeee to you all this fine morning...
from the telegraph...

"Many cultures talk with their hands, but the Australian performer Stelios Arcadiou claims he could soon be listening with his arm.

Arcadiou, a philosopher and performance artist known as Stelarc, said a surgeon had implanted a cell-cultivated ear in his arm.

The 61-year-old, who was born in Cyprus, claimed the ear was grown in a laboratory from cells. He said it took him 10 years to find a surgeon willing to graft the ear on to his left forearm.

Once the ear has developed he says he hopes to get a microphone implanted.

"It is more of a relief at present than an ear but it is still recognisable as an ear," he said. "The last operation was in September 2006 and it's only now that I'm about ready for the next step."
When the surgery is complete and his body has produced the necessary tissue, Arcadiou hopes to have a microphone implanted that will connect with a bluetooth transmitter. "That way you can listen to what my ear is hearing," he said.

An audience in Newcastle Centre For Life was introduced to his latest project, a "walking head" robot. The six-legged creation is one of the highlights of the Dott 07 design festival. It is programmed to perform a dance when someone enters the room."


And bleeee once more, but seriously, if you could grow something on your body what would it be? I would grow eyes in the back of my head. French Gay-who is here- said he would grow a clit and play with it all day just to see what he was missing out on. He didn't even hesitate for a second, so I am assuming he has given this some thought before.
Quite.

Interfering Mammies.

What's the difference between a pitbull and an Irish Mammy?
Eventually a Pitbull will let go.
Oh Lordy, I REALLY have to stop listening to Brenda Power in the morning. One minute I"m buttering toast, next I yelling at the radio. It's not good for my blood pressure I tell you.
This morning's shout-fest occurred when some absolute tool called Gerry came on the comment line and started telling-with some considerable pride- how his Mammy looked after him. He was in his thirties and living at home, not because he couldn't afford his own place, but because his mammy did such a god job of 'minding' him.
She did his washing and ironing, cooked all his meals, made him sandwiches for work, bought his clothes for him and brought him a fry in bed on the weekends. Sure why would he move out?
Could you imagine? No woman will ever be good enough for this 'boy'. Seriously, my skin was crawling when he was talking. He was so...pathetic.
Years ago a friend of mine dated just such a yoke. He couldn't fart without checking with mammy first. It all came to a head when they were supposed to be going away a romantic weekend and he started dropping not so casual hints that his mammy 'could do with a break as well.'
Well, as you can imagine that was the end of that.
My brother moved to Australia to get out from under the thumb of our mother.
There was a man who came on and told Brenda about his daughter who came home to her new house one day and found her partner's mother had bought all the furniture for their bedroom, without even discussing it. And it was pine, which his daughter hated.
I don't even blame the men-although I do think they should grow up- but what the hell are these women thinking? What sort of useless gombs are they raising? What sort of man would sit up in his bed and LET his mother bring him up breakfast in bed?
Mammies, let go. Your precious babies won't drop dead of neglect.

Motivation for fatcats.

A further 15k behind me. New runners are a breeze. New socks are still awesome, can't big them up them highly enough. Running through Rathgar some old boy roared, 'Don't worry love, you'll get there eventually!' which caused maximum snarfs. Good run, felt good after the usual 2k meh, I flew the last 500m home, flew I tell you (mostly coz I need to pee, but still).
Must eat now, spicy chicken and spinach with noodles, velly yum.

Insomnia came a calling.

I have looked through the papers but nothing sparks any real interest in me, there might be more DNA queries about the McCanns, Britney's still loca, Jennifer Lopez has either swallowed a hippo whole-like the video I"m thinking of posting later- or is pregnant. According to some knob in the Guardian, fat is a feminist issue, according to the Mail women's waists are one and a half inches bigger that they used to be, according to the indo there was carnage on the roads and FF are still a shower of bloody crooks, according to the sun, the Yorkshire Ripper was a 'nice' man when he wasn't slaughtering women.
And yet, nowt.
Sigh, ennui how are ye?
Tis a sorry state of affairs not sleeping, Miss Sam can affirm it. I was awake until the stupid bird that sits on the ledge started twittering at dawn and my copy of A Brief History of Time was nowhere to hand. I had sleeping tablets but I can't take them see, because I have to run today see, and they make my legs feel sluggish, see.
I -Fatmammycat- endured a sleepless night rather than pop a pill, and all because of a marathon.

The marathon, Yes, that thing.
I tell you I am becoming obsessed.

The sad truth is that while lying awake I thought of nothing else but running, the routes I was going to take this week in training -hills and flats-, the route of the marathon, where I can gather speed, where I can fall back, I have memorised it you see. I thought about what I was going to eat, planning my meals for the week before and replanning my meal for the morning of the race itself, I need the right carbs and add some fat, but not too much fat, that might make me feel sick...How was I going to get there. Would I drive myself, get the paramour to drive? If he drove how would he know exactly when I finished? But what if I wasn't in a fit state to drive myself home?
I pondered which gel was going to suit me most, and would it really be necessary to take more than three? What about chaffing, would there be chaffing? Is vaseline as good as glide? I worried about hitting the wall. I worried about getting caught up in the atmosphere and starting too fast. I worried about my left calf muscle, I worried about my 'medically lumpy' ankle, after all I never did get a full answer as to what was wrong with it. I worried about not having run the 30k long run yet. OH I've done 27, but that's not 30 is it? I worried, oh chumlies I worried like a turkey on Christmas eve might worry if it wasn't such a stupid bird.
I was only this short of getting up and scribbling down my strategy. Plot, plot, scheme, plot.
But that would have seemed nuts. Wouldn't it?
It's the 9th of October, I have twenty days left until D-day.
Yikes.
No really.
Hella yikes.

Motivation for fatcats.

Suffering from pints, I dragged my guilty arse to the gym to perform a beery exorcism.

Pull-ups on the grav- 10x 8 grips split. Dropped the weight a further 5k, now bouncing at 30k.

Push jerks- 22k 10x4 easy-definitely going to increase it to 25 k next week.

Lats- 35k 8x4

Shoulders on that stupid machine I can never remember the name of. You stand there like a plonker, dead centre in the shape of a cross and bring your hand to the front of your chest, while keeping your arms straight. I hate this thing, but it works my shoulders great, anyway 3 sets of 10x 5k each arm. Plonker factor high or not.

Biceps- curls, 10k x 8x3. Bit wobbly on last three reps. Still not quite fully used to the heavier weight, especially the left arm. Plus all the sodding pull ups wears me out. But I'm obsessed with that thing.

60 filthy carpet sweepers with 4k bar. Did I mention we hates them?

6000m row, time 30:41.

I was almost creamed by a wench driving the wrong way in the gym carpark. It is a measure of how small my world has become that my first and only thought was how mad I'd be if I'd had to miss the marathon due to injury or death.

Tits, pints and would be pimps.

Urgh,
From today's indo.

"The downturn in the pub trade, the smoking ban, the crackdown on drink-driving and a slowing economy are the reasons cited by a rural pub owner who said he has been forced to employ a scantily clad barmaid to help him to keep his struggling business afloat.

Every Thursday since the start of September, the topless barmaid is attracting customers from across the region to Browne's Bar, located on the Shannon river along the Limerick/Clare border.

"Basically, the pub business is down all over the country. Everyone is suffering and this is the case here in a big way.

"The smoking ban, the garda crackdown, high prices and less money in people's pockets have led to this," said John Joe Fitzpatrick who runs the bar in Montpelier, Co Limerick.

He has rejected criticism from local detractors that he is using "vulgar and incorrigible tactics" to draw customers.

"There are plenty of women down here on Thursdays though, and all have said they admired Jasmin for her work.

"Even some of the older women encourage and bring their husbands here as they are more full of beans and romantic towards their wives when they return home.

"I see it as a therapy for the older men.

"As the song goes, there's life in the old man yet," chuckled Mr Fitzpatrick."

Life maybe, but not an ounce of dignity in the stupid old bollocks. What fucking 'therapy' do old men need anyway? How is ogling a pair of breasts therapy?
This makes me sick to my stomach. He bleats on about prices and tax and gardai, but sees nothing wrong with making money exploiting and objectifying a woman. Shame on him and shame on the stupid women who go in there and 'admire' Jasmine's work. Maybe when he tries to convince Jasmine to start doling out hand jobs as extra therapy for rainy Wednesdays they'll wake the fuck up.
Exploitation, I"m really against it.

Dios Mio, a cheating politician?

Oh I laughed when I read this. I can almost understand it, but what a daft thing to do. I can't believe he even thought he'd get away with it, but folk are tricksy and that is for sure.
Observe from today's UK Independent.

"During his long political career, Roberto Madrazo has never quite known what it is like to taste the ultimate victory. The Mexican stood for election as president last year as a candidate of the once-dominant Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), only to finish a distant third with 22 per cent of the vote.

So when the 55-year-old career politician crossed the finish line of the Berlin Marathon last week in a remarkable two hours, 40 minutes and 57 seconds, it looked at first sight like something of a personal vindication. His time – just 36 minutes slower than the world record – was good enough to place him 146th out of the 40,000-plus entrants, and first among those aged 55 or over. A video recording at the end of the 26-mile course showed him looking ecstatic and remarkably relaxed, dressed in a red tracksuit top and black sweatpants.

But back home Mr Madrazo's critics smelled something fishy, largely because his time over the distance was 57 minutes faster than his previous best, recorded at the London Marathon in April. Fishier still was the fact that he appeared to go missing for a large portion of the middle of the race.

Every entrant had been fitted with a microchip to record their arrival at five-kilometre intervals along the course. Mr Madrazo ran the first 20km – almost half the course – in one hour, 42 minutes and 42 seconds, which would have put him on track to match or marginally better his London performance. However, he then vanished off the tracking screens, only to re-appear at the 35km marker just a short distance from the finish. It may be coincidental, but the course map shows that the two points at either end of Mr Madrazo's lost run are just a short trot from each other down Potsdamer Strasse, between the Turkish doner kebab stalls of Kreuzberg and one of the more striking remnants of the Berlin Wall near Potsdamer Platz. This week, the Mexican newspaper Reforma, which has been writing compromising articles about Mr Madrazo and his party for years, began digging deep into the marathon mystery and came out openly to accuse him of cheating. On Thursday, the paper's front-page made a barbed reference to a notorious episode in Mexican politics 19 years ago – in which a PRI politician similarly claimed victory in the face of "a computer glitch".

During the 1988 presidential election, the PRI's candidate Carlos Salinas de Gortari was trailing opponent Cuauhtemoc Cardenas when the PRI-led government suddenly announced that the computerised voting system had malfunctioned. Mr Salinas de Gortari was declared the winner a week later. Thursday's Reforma headline echoed a famous opposition rallying cry from 1988: "The system goes down, Madrazo wins."

Reforma has always suspected that Mr Madrazo is no better than the generations of corrupt PRI politicians who preceded him. On the eve of last year's election, it presented evidence that he owned a luxury penthouse in Miami, three luxury flats in Mexico City and a fleet of fancy cars worth a total of $1.5m – far more than a career politician in Mexico could reasonably expect to buy with his salary.

Mr Madrazo denied any wrongdoing but his campaign collapsed and the PRI recorded its worst-ever showing in the polls."

The big eegit.

Motivation for fatcats.

15k in the bag. A steady neddy run on another beautiful and unnatrually warm october morning.
You know what else is unnatural? Running on Sunday morning, having been in bed from midnight the night before, and after a breakfast of banana, a yoghurt, grapes and a cup of tea.
Unfreakingnatural.
I swear to his noodly greatness, as soon as this marathon is over I'm dusting off my highest heels and slithering into my slinkiest dress, having my hair done, and then I'm going out to drink rum until I hallucinate and dance until my feet refuse to take another step. I am going to revert back to spending Sundays gobbling painkillers and shaking over the papers, perhaps indulging in alcoholic cures.
Country Gay is quite right, this is cardigan behaviour.
Un-natural.

Hoffy Friday Chumlies!

When the small hand hits 5 it's beer o'clock!

Motivation for Fatcats.

The venue- Phoenix Park

Distance- a remarkable 27 kilometres.

Wind- what wind?

Temp- A mind numbing 22 degrees. A Fat cat was seen to shake her fist at the cloudless sky yelling,'Are you havin' a fucking laugh? It's October you beardy muppet!'

Music- a mix of Mark Ronson, on the go 1 and 2 and 'don't fucking die here' Massive Attack.

Outfit-fetchingly new.

Expensive Ultra-lite socks- non slip, dry as a bone when removed, no blisters.

Runners- fetchingly new and remarkably bouncy.

Time, - a mindnumbing 3hours and 10 minutes. Although last K was walked due to my left calf trying its very best to cramp.

Observations- It doesn't matter from what angle you hit the Glen Road, there are always hills, but having said that coming at it from the Castleknock side seems easier.
Beer drunk the night before a long run is clearly beneficial. Although no scientist I suspect it is a key factor in my endurance -due surely to it being converted to useful sugar in my blood stream. Ready Brek IS in fact the breakfast of Champions, and so is toast(white pudding is optional)
Jack Russells are the devil's smegma but King Charles spaniels are delightful little balls of fur and everyone over the age of 55 should be issued one by the government.
Passing one's car for the second time should be avoided as leaking tears can blind.

Think of the Children!

Head spinning nonsense from today's daily mail...

"Children's books that don't have happy endings should be banned, it was claimed yesterday.

Youngsters are already exposed to enough misery in their lives and should be protected from such stories, says a parents' group.

The Happy Ending Foundation is planning a series of Bad Book Bonfires for later this month, when parents will be encouraged to burn novels with negative endings.

The foundation has also written to school librarians across the country to coincide with Children's Book Week, which began on Monday, urging them to take ' controversial' books off shelves.

Last night critics of the group said children needed a healthy balance in their reading.

Others said the book burnings were a sinister reminder of similar events in Nazi Germany.

Among the stories on the foundation's blacklist are best-sellers such as A Series of Unfortunate Events by Lemony Snicket and Marcus Pfister's Milo and the Magical Stones.

Works that make the approved list include Raymond

Brigg's The Snowman and Enid Blyton's Famous Five series.

The Snowman appears to have a sad ending because he melts, leaving the boy he has befriended alone. But the foundation claims it ends positively because the boy is contented, having the snowman's scarf to remember him by.

Adrienne Small founded the organisation when her ten-year-old daughter became depressed and withdrawn after reading the first book in the Lemony Snicket series.

She said: "I talked to other mothers and friends and we decided to do something positive with books that were more upbeat.

"I'm not trying to say the world should be viewed with rose-tinted glasses but you have got to do your best to protect your children."

Mrs Small, 47, who is married with two teenage children, founded the organisation in 2000 and there are now 11 groups across the country, including London, Bristol, Manchester and Glasgow.
Clare Hughes, head of the foundation's East of England Cheering Committee, said: "I've seen the way my children respond to real life, whether that be the disappearance of a child, like Madeleine McCann, or bombings, and that gives them enough nightmares.

"Books should let them be assured that the goodies-will come out on top."

But children's charity Kidscape condemned a campaign which would lead to young people 'missing out on the magic of literature'.

Director Michele Elliott said: "There is a distance between you and a book which allows you to experience emotions and think about what's happening - but it's not happening to you. That's incredibly healthy.

"There has to be a balance. I would not feed children a complete diet of morbid books."

Award-winning children's author Kevin Brooks, whose books have a reputation for emotional rollercoasters and disturbing cliffhangers, said the proposed burnings were reminiscent of the Nazi regime.

"Controversy and bad stuff is everywhere," he said. "It is far better to find out about it in books where it is written with some feeling and poetry and power."



Oh my, what a load of old tosh. Are these people for real?
I remeber crying my eyes out over Charlotte in Charlotte's Web and loving the book all the more because it made me think. Mufasa dying while trying to save Simba had my niece in floods of tears, but she loves that film passionately-me too. My teenage years were fraught with Stephen King and James Herbert books where death, periods in showers and giant rats worried the pants off me. But oh how I devoured each new book that came out.
What the bloody hell is wrong with these people? They want to molly coddle kids into believing in a false world where bullies don't exist, sweets grow on trees and dead pets aren't dead at all but sleeping? Oh yeah folks, that will prepare them for the rigours of life. I know let's burn everything, that way we can all go la-la la when the shit hits the fan and these kids discover that the world is not made of candy floss and rainbows.
Burning books, I VERY against that!

I hate noise.

An alarm has been going off on our road for most of the morning and it is driving me nuts. As much as I hate phones I surely hate alarms with the same venom.There is also a puppy yowling in terror at being put out in a garden on a sunny day. 'Yirk yirp ye-irp' it has been going most of the morning.
I can hear all of this because my back door is open. And why is it open? Because the cats would surely drive me batshit crazy if I closed it so I am inclined to leave it open all day long. This suits me fine, they come and go, I sit snugly in my office minding my own cat free business ( I don't include Puddy in this carry on, Puddy is smart and stays in here with me, asleep) The only flaw in my plan is blue bottles-which really should be bloody dead at this time of year. They come in and buzz stupidly at my office windows, batting off them and buzzing blearily about.
I don't like killing the stupid things either so I normally get up and let them out the window, but that annoys me too. And I did actually swat one today, not on purpose either. I flung my notebook at it and smooshed it against the glass. Blee.
So when another flew in about an hour ago and droned about I resorted to ignoring it. I plugged my ipod earphones into the back of my Mac and popped on itunes. See that shitforfood? If I can't hear you I can most surely ignore you.
Fine.
So I was happily working away here, ignoring cats and flies and dogs and phones and alarms. I was in good spirits. I am always in good spirits when not disturbed by stuff. Honestly, I have NEVER been in bad form undisturbed.
So there I was, working away, when up pops a U2 album I haven't heard in Christ knows how long. It's Under A Blood Red Sky.
I listen, sort of. Then I will Follow came on. Now I like that song, it reminds me of school discos and dancing and punching the air and snogging.
Well I don't know what happened. but I do know I was singing at the top of my voice and bopping my head up and down like Garv did to Queen. I know this because the Paramour, who really should let me know if he's on his way home lest I'm having a steamy affair or something- tapped me on the shoulder sending me into spasms of terror.
Eventually he stopped laughing and I stopped gibbering and we saw the funny side to it. Oh yes we really did. Frankly I'm relieved he missed the air guitar I was heavily involved during Welcome to The Jungle not half an hour earlier, but still oh yes, it's really funny when you scare/mortify the living shit out of your partner and then fall about the place laughing... oh hahahhaha...indeed.
Vengeance will be swift and painful.

Playboy of The Western World in the Abbey.

First of all, let me just say, if anyone likes this play for Synge's language then they will be sorely disappointed. This production is set in a modern Ireland of gangs and money lending and angry bored women and vicious manly men. Roddy Doyle has zapped the play's language into his usual sweary Dublin Northsider/Commitments/The Family/ask me bollocks-ese. Bisi Adigun has balanced that out by opening Playboy to a broader more lyrical stage.
Right, did we get that out of the way?
Good.
The second thing I want to say is that if you like going to plays and you thought you might give this one a go, then for God's sake don't miss it. It is an absolute scream. Hilarious with a capital H. I know everyone uses the phrase 'roller coaster' but dammit it what else can you call something that has you laughing like a loon one minute and fearful the next?
The place was stuffed to the gills last night, there was not one but two Late Late Show Presenters on hands, actors and directors (hello Neil Jordan, Conan went to see your film you know), theatre folk, television folk and then us, the Joe publics. And I can tell you honestly everyone of us must have had aching sides leaving the theatre, the play is THAT funny.
Eileen Walsh who plays Pegeen has the comic timing of a professional comedienne. Even her little smug squeaks- like when Christy shakes off the prowling lusty Widow Quin- had the audience in stitches. But her Pegeen was more than that, she was woman trapped. Her bawdy humour, her front, was the only way she could deal with her life. Bored out of her mind, faced with marrying a sap, stuck in a never never world of violence, boredom, fealty, fear and loneliness, her vicious humour is both shield and weapon.
Giles Terera plays Christy, a Nigerian on the run with a terrible secret. One that once revealed gives him a fame and notoriety that sees Christy blossom from terrified fugitive to self proclaimed warrior and defender of the bar. His machismo is ridiculous, his story growing every more dramatic on each retelling. What woman could resist this madman? what man could turn him in? He's on their side, the lawless, the villains. Better to recruit than to fight.
Giles plays Christy with an an athletic, poetic abandon, weaving across the stage, leaping singing, strutting like a newly feathered peacock. Some of the scenes where he proposes love to Pegeen are a riot, where pumped full of bravado he offers to take her hand and walk her down the banks of the Liffey and 'through Blanchardstown shopping centre'. His stage presence is magnetic and his asides are so finely timed that the chap sitting next to me almost had a stroke from laughing.
I could go on. Angeline Ball as the lusty busty tart with a hart, the Widow Quin whose tabloid fame is a badge of honour, is a scream, the three young 'wans', with their Uggs and ever present mobile phones ready to catch any whiff of excitement and scandal, are her perfect underlings. Liam Carney is excellently as Pegeen's father, the right balance of menace and love and under-the surface-bubbling violence and again so very funny, as were this two Hench men, who had some of the best lines.
Olu Jacobs- Christy's father added the notes of grace and strength. His African dress and regal bearing shone like a beacon through the weasel world as his search for his son ruffled many feathers. The fight between father and son at the end, as each struggle for their right to be top dog was shockingly physical for the stage.
Pegeen's weepy realisation at the end was almost too much for me. How close she had come to breaking free, but like a caged bird she could not flee when the door was opened. Her final shaken 'fuck off' as the lights went down was heartbreaking.
And fuck off I did, home to have a glass of wine and try make sense of all I had seen. What a wonderful night at the theatre.
If you get a chance, don't pass it up. This is what the stage should be.
Now I must go ring CG and say thanks again for the great seats. Yay.

Motivation for Fatcats.

Gym, new runners, ni-ce.
Pull ups, on grav, 10 over grip 10 under grip x 8
stomach curls, 50-we hates them so we got fed up, Oh yesssss.
6000M row-time 29:28, some faces were pulled, some sweat went painfully into eyes.
2 k jog to test out bounce-osity of new runners. Most bouncy indeed, so much so I wobbbled all over the place.
Hit showers, home, gonna have burger back out to theatre.


Wreaked.

PETA are total hypocrites.

Busy day chumlies, I've got to go to the gym, then to Bray to the Amphibian King where I will doubtless get over awed by their range of running goodies. Then back into town, do some work and then on to The Payboy of the Western World with CG! Huzzah for doing interesting stuff.
But never mind all that, this made me laugh, it really did. Those cretins at Peta hired Dita Von Tesse to front their campaign for animal neutering, the fur wearing Miss Teese.
Observe from FF,

"Dita Von Teese has refused to stop wearing fur - despite promoting an animal-rights charity.

The 34-year-old burlesque star - real name Heather Renée Sweet - has been hired by PETA to promote the importance of spaying and neutering.

But she claims she hasn't been ordered to cut back on her fur affections.

She says, "PETA's totally aware of me. "I'm not working with PETA to tell people to be vegetarians or to stop wearing fur. I am there to strictly speak about spaying and neutering your pets."

The animal-rights organization admits it was aware of Von Teese's love of fur before approaching her to star in its campaign.


A spokesman says, "She said she has some vintage furs she wears occasionally.

"PETA often works with a celebrity on an issue they feel comfortable supporting, whether it's supporting spaying and neutering, or speaking out against products that are tested on animals. So they may not be an animal rights activist, but their contribution to any of our campaigns is appreciated."

Oh my, with every skip hop and gesture this sham of a group becomes more and more laughable. Buying a pedigree dog is cruel but using a fur loving stripper to promote spaying is hunky dory?
Oh I see.
PETA, I may have said it before, but I"M AGAINST THEM!

Motivation for fatcats.

I went out-grumbling- and inexplicably ran 10k in under an hour. I don't know how this happened. I knew I was running free-er and more upright (I'm inclined to hunch over and look at the ground a lot), and I definitely put a spurt on when I looped back around to the last 3k section before the house, but this is unreal for me. I am really not a very fast runner at all. I think I ran it in 58 minutes or thereabouts, I can only guess the closest time as I was wearing a normal hand watch. But still, under an hour for me is..well it's not the norm.
I would have been on to crow about it earlier but I had to go and get cat litter. Such is life.

How tan is too tan? Is walnut a colour?

And speaking of tanning, the Mr Olympia Competition was on in Las Vegas over the weekend. Check out its site to marvel at the natural beauty that is man. http://www.mrolympia.com/
Seriously, where do these men get their clothes from? What size shirt do they need? You think they ever just wear jeans and a t-shirt? You know I'm into weights and I like a buff body, but this is...well I don't know what it is really. They're mutants.

hat tip, tmz

Britney Spears loses custody of children.

Hands up who didn't see this coming. Britney has lost custody of both her children.
From today's daily mail...

"The order from LA County Superior Court judge Scott Gordon comes after Britney, 25, ignored the Commissioner's list of requirements of things she needed to do in order to maintain 50/50 custody.

Which included meeting with a drug counsellor, submitting to twice-weekly drug-testing, and enrolling in parenting classes.

The judge also banned either parent from taking drugs or drinking up to 12 hours before caring for the boys.

According to celebrity website TMZ, Britney failed to meet any of the judges requirements.

Last Friday, Commissioner Gordon banned both Spears and Federline from driving the children unless they had a valid California driver's licence. But on the weekend, Britney was allegedly seen driving her two children around LA without a valid licence.


She was already being investigated for the alleged hit-and-run and for driving without a licence in August, offences for which she was warned she faced up to a year in prison.

The driving offences likely compelled the judge to issue Monday's orders, said New York divorce lawyer Raoul Felder.

"She was driving without a license with a child in the car," he said.


"You can put aside the in and out of rehab, the shaving her head. But this? When a judge went out on a limb for her? There's no going back."

Britney has faced a barrage of criticism over her high-profile lifestyle, including court allegations that she was a "habitual and continuous" user of drink and drugs.

The judge said Federline, an aspiring rapper, was to "retain physical custody of the minor children until further order of the court".


I'm not sure what went wrong in this girl's head but this has been coming for more than three years. While I think it is a total tragedy for any parent to lose their children, I think it is probably better in this case for the moment that the two children Britney has are made safe and she gets enough time to do whatever the hell it is she needs to do to get her bead together.
The fact that she handed the children over early and then went tanning and shopping shows a woman so disconnected from reality it's frightening.