motivation for Fatcats and possibly for chumlies of Fatcats!

O to the motherfucking W! My legs are destroyed, my inner thigh muscles have suddenly remembered they exist and they're making sure I don't bloody forget them again by stabbing me brutally every time I take a step or sit or rise. Yeouch.
But enough complaining, as I sit here bobbling my head to 'Would I Lie to you' by the Eurythmics and gaze o'er the top of my 'putor at a glorious blue sky and sun drenched garden I am at peace with the world, and also not moving so no pain. Huzzah for good weather. The paramour has toddled off to play golf with his bro and I am going to open every window in the place and let the warm air circulate through the home as I play one bipitty-bobitty tune after another at quite a decibel. I hope you are having and equally stellar Satdee.

Good luck to miss Grims today in her 10k race, I hope she flies around.

Anyhoo. Monday, Push press ( finally upped the weight) 25k x 10 x3
Bicep curls, 10k x 10 x3
Back hyperextensions- 12 x 3, nice and slow and steady.
Pullups, 20k counter weight on grav, 40 in all broken into 10s as I alternated with the Back Hyperextensions.

Tuesday, gym, running in splits. I ran ten K but split into five minutes at a time running easy for three minutes, and hard for two and repeat. I'm working on stamina here, Stamina, some people haz it, I wants it. This will help ( I keep telling myself)

Wednesday, core yoga work out, nice, can I do a handstand? No I can't, damn it. Went out and did a long slow jog of about 12 kilometres. Easy peasy.

Thursday, kickboxing, 40 weighted squats, Sit ups using 5 kilo medicine ball. finished up with a quick run of 2k.

Friday.- yes. it was. I was also in considerable pain, so taking Conan's advice I went to the pool to 'swim'. This resulted in me floundering up and down it about twenty times at the speed of no kittens, taking on more water than a stricken tanker.
It occurred to me as I hauled my shaking ass out of the pool I really ought to maybe take a class or two and see if I can learn how to swim properly. Not pleasant.

Satdee. My plans are to play music and bob about the place. Maybe potter around the garden if I can convince my legs not to snap. And eat carbs, yes, carbs. Yeah! By monday I ought to be a locked and loaded. I wish I was faster. Seriously, if Finn and Aisling are the Ferraris and Porsche of running I am a Volvo, and not the new sleek ones neither, the old boxy ones that always have a labrador or two panting in the back.

happy ginger day chumlies!

ah hoy-hoy! As the bank holiday is upon us, I inexplicably found myself thinking of you chumlies and how everyday Ginger day spent with you is a sort of holiday, a holiday for the minds. Gingerday is special is it not? A feverish count down to beer o'clock, a time when we can cast off our weekly shackles and embrace our inner ginger vixen and ginger love god. Don't fear it, never fear it.
You can be!
I can be!
He/she can also be!
Take today's ginger. You can be sure this fine lady probably spent all bloomin' week long labouring under the tepid yoke of polyester and mixed cotton, possibly with some lycra thrown in for good measure. Perhaps she is puppy-less? Perhaps she has no robin? Perhaps like the evil and preppy meercat Fisk she is a teacher of sorts. Yes, that's it, I suspect her of pedagogy. Poor lady. A fate worse than Dancing on Ice surely.
I envisualise her standing at the chalkboard, bored, filled with child-loathing, and headmaster- despising, waiting for three bells, when she can say ' Good day to you,' to the last mini-person and flee the grey prefabricated halls of her prison. She is chaffing, straining at the bit, repressed and restrained, her glorious flamed tresses bunned and hidden, her creamy alabaster skin bound by mortal garb, her tarts of hearts lying unnoticed on a dusty shelf.
It would break most spirits.
But not hers! For on Gingerday all such tethers are loosened, shackles of proprietary are cast off. Yea, though she be of a certain age, yea, though no swimwear model, yea though her boobies be heading south faster than Dublin folk who own mobile homes and her mascara curiously applied, what of it? For this proud matriarch is no mere Highfield Hattie. Not for she the bended knee to the weary idle mistress of time, no cuppa cha nor a flick through the RTE Guide will do. Avast scurvy brunnettes, man your frigates blondies, she is rising from the deep sea of tedium, ablaze, alight aglow, betassled, bedeviled, begingered.
Oh ginger madam, though to the naked eye your expression be one of irked crankiness, I know it is but a ruse. I see your hearts, and while you don't exactly wear them on your sleeve, you do proudly display them. What do they signify I wonder? You're love for us all? Your love for mankind? Your love for lifting me higher? Who can say. All I know is that you, and your hearts, have deeply emboldened this Gingerday for this Fatcat and for my Ginger Journey Jockies, and for that madam, I salute you.

IVF Twins Abandoned because of Gender.

Wow, some people just shouldn't be allowed have children. Surely if you put yourself through the pain and difficulty of IVF to conceive you would be over joyed to have two healthy babies, regardless of whether they are male of female. But apparently not.
Observe, from today's Sun.

"A BRITISH couple abandoned their newborn IVF girl twins at a hospital – because they wanted boys.

The mum aged 59 and dad, 72, conceived in India with fertility treatment and returned to England for the birth.

They told horrified medics they did not want the “wrong sex” babies immediately after the Caesarean section in Wolverhampton.

The husband then asked how soon it would be before his wife was fit enough to fly out again for further IVF in the hope of getting a boy to continue the family name.

An NHS insider told The Sun: “Everyone is utterly appalled. How could any parent do this?

“This is Britain in the 21st century.

“But they just weren’t prepared to raise these two beautiful girls.”

Female babies are often abandoned in India for being the wrong sex – but it is the first time here. It will send shockwaves of revulsion through multi-cultural Britain.

The parents were born in India but are British citizens living in Birmingham.

They had fertility treatment in India as it is illegal here at at such an advanced age.
Advice

The twins were delivered at the New Cross Hospital in Wolverhampton.

They were then transferred to a central NHS hospital in Birmingham. The parents are still believed to be in the city.

The babies have had NO visitors since being born less than a fortnight ago.

The mother – one of Britain’s oldest – discharged herself against the advice of doctors who told her she should stay for more than a week after her operation.

Birmingham Social Services department said it was investigating."

That's just utterly depressing. Poor little babies. They've done nothing wrong except exist and not have a winkle.

UPDATE: There may be less to this story that the Sun would have us believe.

'A hospital today denied claims that a couple who had received IVF in India had then dumped their twin babies after finding out they were both girls.

It had been claimed that the mother aged 59 and the father 72, had abandoned the babies after telling medics they were the 'wrong sex' because they wanted boys.

However Wolverhampton hospital today said that the parents were being 'attentive' to the babies' needs .

A spokesman said: "The parents are visiting their daughters whilst they are being cared for in hospital and are attentive to their needs."

Of course this is from the Daily Mail, the Telegraph has also pulled the story.

Karma.

Occasionally I will read something that makes my brow furrow. And this week it has been furrowing massively at the gauche way actress Sharon Stone- a supposedly intelligent women- sums up the earthquake in China.
When asked if if she knew about the disaster she replied,

""Of course. You know, it was very interesting because at first I am not happy about the way the Chinese are treating the Tibetans, because I don't think anyone should be unkind to anyone else, and so I have been very concerned about how to think and what to do about that because I don't like that."
"Then I have been concerned about, oh, how shall we deal with the Olympics? Because they are not being nice to the Dalai Lama, who is a good friend of mine.

"And then this earthquake and all this stuff happened and I thought, 'Is that karma, when you're not nice that the bad things happen to you?'"

Stone, 50, said her attitude softened after she received a letter from a Tibetan charity which planned to launch a relief programme for victims of the earthquake.

"They wanted to go and be helpful, and that made me cry," she said. "It was a big lesson to me that sometimes you have to learn to put your head down and be of service even to people who aren't nice to you."

Outraged Chinese citizens have already begun posting their responses on YouTube and calling for Stone to apologise.

So by her reckoning perhaps more than 60,000 people died because the Chinese government aren't nice? Who were the people of the South being not 'nice' to when Hurricane Katriona hit? Who were the people who died in that devastating Asian Tsunami being mean to? Did somebody in Burma call Richard Gear a bold name? What about 9/11? was it okay to slaughter innocent men women and children because maybe the American government might not have been so 'nice' to some people? When Sharon Stone almost died from a brain hemorrhage was it because she had been out stepping on bugs in her garden earlier that day? Perhaps Basic Instinct 2 made karma look her way?
How nice that her attitude to countless deaths, impossible suffering and the overwhelming destruction caused by a natural disaster 'softened' when she heard a group of Tibetans were charitable. Nice that it took somebody else's charitable spirit to be apparent before she could locate hers.
You know what else would be nice? If now and then celebrities thought about what they were going to say before they opened their big yaps. It would be super nice not to hold the people of a country responsible for the actions of their government. It would be super duper nice to understand that shit happens, and we as people deal with it as best we can, and that fucking karma has nothing to do with it.
And it would be hella super duper nice if Sharon Stone stopped for a second and count her lucky stars that she's fortunate enough to not be in the middle of a disaster and that compassion costs bugger all.

For Sheepworrier!

Here you go darling. Enjoy!

One of those mornings.

Jesus Christ on a pogo stick. Ever have one of those mornings? It's been raining all night and it's raining now and the bloody garage roof has sprung a fresh leak, so I had to go in and move everything out of harm's way, which basically meant I had to stack everything between three different leaks. Then I had to gallop out and get money for the furniture repair man who was delivering the dining room table-which underwent a near miraculous transformation due to his french polishing skills- and a chair that the Marklar all but destroyed with his stupid sneaky talons. Don't even ask me how much that cost but believe me when I tell you the garage roof is going to stay leaky for another while and I won't be having a haircut this month either.
Next off to Tescos where damp dour folk with no motor skills OR manners careen around the aisles. Finally get home and unpack the bloody car only to find I've forgotten to buy cat litter so I'll have to go back bloody out in a while. I had an entirely different post almost done about that seven year old girl who died from neglect only I deleted it by mistake and I can't find the folder with my tax receipts.
And it's day two of a month long hooch free spell. Oh and no sleeping tablets neither. Off them too. I'll probably snap clean in two my the end of the week.
Grotty mornings, I'm against them.

On the other hand I now firmly believe things could have been a whole lot worse...

Pot, allow me to introduce Kettle.

My unbridled hatred of Reiki and mystical woo of any sort is based on my personal belief that woo is a load of codswallop and that people can no more speak to the dead or heal people by pretending to locate mystical powers than I can speak Greek. That people then charge other folk for this quasi healing and death talk further revs up my ire and makes little puffs of steam exit my ears. I hate mumbo jumbo, I DON"T think it is harmless, I don't have any tolerance for it in any way shape or form. Lately I've been bloody well banned from a forum because I dared suggest that people who claim they are psychics or mediums are actually charlatans and hucksters and easily found out. I said on that forum that I would be perfectly happy to go to ANY medium or psychic and see what they can tell me- if they were genuine I would happily eat shit and say so. But of course no one took me up on that and lo, next thing I knew I was persona non grata.
Well I wasn't surprised, folk don't like to be challenged or have their beliefs ridiculed. And I was probably being very bloody sarcastic or something. I can't help it. Something about lying thieving bastards fleecing stupid people out of their own money annoys the living shit out of me. I want to run around issuing slaps. I want to yell, 'Are you for FUCKING REAL!!!?' Quite why I get so incensed is beyond me, but incensed I get. But I try to limit my simmering hatred of woo to my own blog, that way I don't have to suffer gobshites asking me 'what are you afraid of?' on a regular basis. Oh yes, if you think mediums are shitehawks and reiki a load of hooey, the believers automatically accuse you of 'fearing' their particular brand of woo.
But what does make me laugh is when one woo worshiper attacks other variations of woo. This kind of thing makes me actually guffaw out loud.
Observe, from the mystical pages of the Daily Wail.

"Father Jeremy Davies, exorcist for Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor, the leader of Catholics in England and Wales, says that activities such as yoga, massage therapy,
reiki or even reading horoscopes could put people at risk from evil spirits.

In a new book, he also argues that people with promiscuous lifestyles could find themselves afflicted by demons.

And he says that the occult is closely linked to the scourges of ‘drugs, demonic music and pornography’ which are ‘destroying millions of young people in our time’.

The 73-year-old Catholic priest, who was appointed exorcist of the Archdiocese of Westminster in 1986, was a medical doctor before being ordained in 1974.

He has carried out thousands of exorcisms in London and in 1993 he set up the International Association of Exorcists with Fr Gabriel Amorth, the Pope’s top exorcist.

In Exorcism: Understanding Exorcism In Scripture And Practice, which is published by the Catholic Truth Society, Fr Davies compares militant atheists to rational Satanists, and blames them for a rise in demonic activity.


Yoga enthusiasts 'are in danger of being possessed by the devil'

He adds that ‘perversions’ such as homosexuality, pornography and promiscuity are contributing to a growing sense of moral unease.

He writes: ‘Even heterosexual promiscuity is a perversion; and intercourse, which belongs in the sanctuary of married love, can become a pathway not only for disease but also for evil spirits...young people especially are vulnerable and we must do what we can to protect them.

‘The thin end of the wedge (soft drugs, yoga for relaxation, horoscopes just for fun and so on) is more dangerous than the thick end because it is more deceptive – an evil spirit tries to make his entry as unobtrusively as possible.

‘Beware of any claim to mediate beneficial energies (eg reiki), any courses that promise the peace that Christ promises (eg enneagrams), any alternative therapy with its roots in eastern religion (eg acupuncture).’

Fr Davies argues that occult practices such as magic, fortune-telling and holding seances to contact the spirits of the dead are ‘direct invitations to the Devil which he readily accepts."

Yep, a priest who performs exorcisms is railing against people who stretch and meditate and believe in healing woo. Aha, I'm going to go now and make more coffee. I might take a painkiller or two since I am hungover like a goat and about to embark on a month long detox. Then I had planned to do half an hour of yoga. Golly I hope the devil's off busy doing devil stuff, like making more smegma. Feeling crook-like I am- the last thing I need is to be issuing invitations to the horned one unbeknownst to myself. That John Mc Better watch his back too.
Fucking woo.
I AM AGAINST IT!

Russia won the Eurovision!

The little goth kid will be thrilled. They had an ice skater you know. However the interval entertainment left a WHOLE lot to be desired. So, because I'm as Irish as Dairygold, I think I will congratulate Russia on their win-the Ukraine were also robbed- but also show the BEST interval act that ever existed in the history of the Eurovision Song Contest. Just listen to the the little pause in the crowd.

motivation for Fatcats and possibly for chumlies of Fatcats!

Arp. My inbox informs me that the mini marathon is NEXT weekend. I will see that arp and raise it to an eep! Hmmm, This means I've got to take my finger out, put down the delicious hooch glass I've been carrying about and do some serious training if I want to aim for the 55 minute mark, ahahaha yeah, 55, that's the goal ahaha. Oh dear.
Other than that it has been an okish week.

Monday- nowt, I was poorly and busy.
Tuesday- still coughing and acking but I went to the gym anyway.
Push press 22k x 10x 3.
Pull ups on the Grav 40, broken into sets of 10. counter weight of 20k which I'm definitely well able for and will lower to 15 next week.
Squats with a 4k bar. 40, broken into sets of 10. Oh how I hate them. Oh how shitty my form. Oh how achy-breaky they are. Oh how bloody good they are for core strength and legs and just about everything else. We hates them, oh yes, but they's worth it.

Wednesday- still partially bunged up I set off on a two hour trundle. It was slow and comfortable. Hilly and sunny. No exact idea of distance but probably around 14/16 k, or thereabouts. I didn't push it at all, just content to be breathing properly.

Thursday, took a class of kickboxing. Haven't been near a bag or gloves in months. Felt terrific after and during. And my instructor was not a seething pupil hating lunatic with a god complex. When my instructor said, 'good job!' I was momentarily confused and anxious. Then I did something I rarely did in Memnoch's class. I think I might have smiled.

Friday. nowt actually. I had to work and mow the lawns AND hoover. I may have mentioned my feelings about Hoovering before. Then I had to go to Smurfs. It was IMPERATIVE I went to Smurfs,

Satdee! In an hour I"m off to the gym to run on the treadmill, I'll be running in 800 meter bursts. If I have ANY chance of running the Flora in 55 minutes I'd better put some work in. I'm feeling a bit sore from Thursday actually, so a run will be good no matter what.

Then tonight is Eurovision! Huzzah for cheesy music.

Happy Ginger day!

Ow. I was out last night. I have the pain to prove it. Thank God for the all round gingerosity that is Carrot Top, the ginger love muffin. Gazing upon him is like taking a long cool drink of water with two or maybe three painkillers. Of course I will still take the real painkillers.

Imaginary Cancer.

'You should ring our mother.' Etheline said as she rubbed the top of the Marklar's head much to his annoyance. He was already out of sorts seeing as Etheline's Chihuahua, Poppy's Big Surprise/ Angel/ Toffee was busy hurtling through the house after any cat that was silly enough to stay floor level, i.e Puddy, who is content to play kiss chase with any small or large dog.
'Why?'
'She has cancer.'
I put my cup down very slowly.
'Actual cancer? Any specific type of cancer?'
'Nope, just the usual cancer.'
'Has she gone to a doctor?'
Etheline sorted a laugh. The Marklar flinched. In the hall Puddy allowed herself to be cornered and then proceeded to fling herself on Toffee, using her superior body weight to roll the startled Mexican über rat to the floor.
'For fuck's sake.'
'She made our brother drive her to a funeral last week and then refused to get out of the car. She sat there with the window rolled down telling anyone who would listen her foot was sore.'
I shook my head. 'Probably a symptom of the cancer. it's most likely a tumor pressing against her seek attention glands.
'Certainly a symptom of something.' Etheline withdrew her hand as the Marklar unsheathed his pretty impressive claws. 'You know she says if you just apologise you can put this row behind you.'
'Etheline, it will be a cold day in hell before I apologise to that woman.'
Etheline sighed. In the hall Toffee was discovering just how raspy a Puddy tongue can be.
'She's not actually going around telling people she has cancer is she?'
'She's voiced her suspicions to one or two people.'
I am impressed despite myself. The Lilac Couch has had imaginary cancer so many times now her brave imaginary survival from this terrible disease must surely be the stuff of imaginary science.
I finish my coffee and in the hallway Toffee submits to Puddy as all of us must eventually. Her love is boundless, unlike mine.

Mah Money's goin' on this one!!

AWESOME! This is what the eurovision should all about. The screaming, the wings, the camp ridiculousness of it all! Huzzah! Huzzah I say! Screw that Turkey. Bring me Cher, bring me Meatloaf, bring me the head of Bonnie Tyler, bring me more cough medicine and a phantom of the opera sammich.
Number one on Satdee, it has to be.

The Eurovision.

Oh god it was even more horrific than I imagined. Dustin, the green white and gold feathered dancers, the gold lame dressed backing singers-who to their credit looked suitably mortified, the boos from the audience.
But fear not, there was one redeeming feature. We were bad, but at least we were not Estonia.

Humiliation.

'Is going to be terrible.'
'It might not be that bad.'
'No, you can be sure it weel be bad.'
'Look darling, nobody takes these thing seriously anymore.'
'No?'
'No.'

We stop to look at the paper once more.

'OH Dios mio LOOK DE BROTHER.'
'Okay, the wig and guitar are a bit much. Hey! It says here the backing singers actually lift him up in the end.'
'But why he has to bring hees mother in a wig? And the other stupid one in the jumper. Why?'
'It's all part of the act.'
'Is too much.'
'At least you're not sending pirates.'
' Tut. Baila el ChikiChiki, estupid bastard, we are 'umiliate.'
'Darling, for fuck's sake shut up, we're sending a turkey puppet to represent us.'
'Hmm, dat is true.'

Motivation for fatcats and possibly fatcat chumlies.

Barf. Top of the morning to you and may whatever is causing me to feel like warmed up death never afflict you. I am feeling the effects of yesterday EVEN though by and large I though I kept both feet on the ground for as long as I could. I may have a cold. Yes that's it, it's a cold.
Anyway, here is the week that was, I have a long run planned for tomorrow-assuming I don't break between then and now. Is apricot jam mixed with butter on toast really that vile? The paramour seems to think so. Strange man.

Sunday, hangover free I decided to set myself a little challenge, so I ran 10 miles, all along the coast road from Fairview to Sutton cross and back, I wasn't trying to break any speed limits, indeed I was only trying for distance and I stopped in Sutton to have an ice pop before the return leg. It was sunny, people were smiling and even though I was throughly banjaxed by the time I got back to the car-really I almost wept with relief when I saw it- it was totally worth it. Although my sun factor sweated off and I had a ridiculously pink nose by the end of it.

Monday, not a whole lot, although I mowed the cursed lawns AND Hoovered. I hate Hoovering.

Tuesday, I had a forty minute run. It was awful and my clothing was annoying me.


Wednesday -because I've been out of the gym somewhat I decided to get my arse back there and I did some circuit training.
1000m dashes on rower,
15 pullups between each set.
By 4.
First 1000 came in at 4:44
second at 9: 28
Third at 14:12
4th at 18: 32.
My arms were slightly shaky after.
Finished off with a 20k cycle on those wretched bikes. I've decided I completely hate them, so I'm going to get my own bike repaired and use that for rides instead.

Thursday 12k run.

Friday- Spaniard.
Satdee- I intend to have breakfast. Really that's about it, really.
Mañana- run, I will run the run of the gump.
Ow.

Happy Gingerday!

Urgh, I was enjoying my morning-sunny again! A minor miracle- when I saw this. I mean look at it-doesn't this just foster the very essence of jealously in you? OI! Wench! Get your overly tan paws off my Carrotlove muffin!!
He's only smiling like that to be polite, I can tell. I can read his expression like a book. In FACT I don't need to read his expression I can hear him, oh yes, he communicates with me, through electrical appliances and carpet. That static and electric shock I keep getting off things is ACTUALLY his way of reminding me to keep the ginger faith, and keep it I will, right up until I find some way to get closer to him. Then I can show him my montage of photos which I've digitally altered to make it seem like I'm in every one. Ha ha! He'll be so impressed he'll PROBABLY ask me to marry him then and there.

Failing a marriage proposal from the he-man of gingericus, today ought to be a doozy anyway. My spanish friend has graced the earth with one more year of her glorious self which means we are to celebrate. A girl after my own heart, this means we're starting at 12. That's right mid day. Not for her the woossy timid sensible 'let's meet in the evening' nonsense. Nope, it's meet at mid-day, have an aperitif and straight on to seafood and wine. Huzzah I say, seafood! Wine! Aperitifs!
( I say huzzah in a midly wildy terrified sort of way, I don't know if any of you have ever read any of the James Herriot Books, but if you have then I can only say I approach this lunch FILLED with good intentions of staying RELATIVELY sober, but The Spaniard, like Granville Bennett, has a way of turning me into a weaving bumbling idiot, whose only ambition is to stay upright and pronounce the name of my street loudly and correctly to the taxi driver before getting home and going straight to bed. Indeed the last time I was out with her I was so acutely aware of staying upright I WAS sober coming home, having fled her company in a panic as soon as I saw her fix her hair two-handed- (( a sign that she's getting tipsy)) I actually ran away)
Anyway If I don't fall unconscious or suddenly decide there's not enough rum in my seafood, I'll be doing well. If you don't hear anything from me later in the day I've either married a ginger or I'm drunk as the proverbial skunk, one of those.
Conan! If this place is as good as people tell me I'll email you the address-er, tomorrow.
Happy Gingerday everyone, beer-o'clock falls earlier for some. Want my advise? Leave work early.

Husband tries to sell wife.

I read the following article this morning and immediately my thoughts turned to Medbh, which is not as strange as it sounds. Seriously, had I not a phone phobia I would have run her up to share this with her.
Dear Paul Osborn, if you suspect your wife is cheating on you, either deal with it or leave her. Offering her up for 'sale' is complete and utter bollocks. Not saying a cheating wife is classy either, but she's not property to be bought and sold. Hard as it might be to get your head around, there it is. repeat, not property.

From classy paper, The Sun.

"A JEALOUS husband who suspected his wife of an affair took revenge – by putting her for sale on eBay.

Paul Osborn, 44, kicked out wife Sharon and advertised her on the internet auction site – with bids hitting £500,100.

It offered his “cheating, lying, adulterous slag of a wife” to the highest bidder – and became an internet phenomenon, with users forwarding the link worldwide. But Sharon, 43, denies an affair and cops are now investigating Paul for harassment.

MoT inspector Paul heard rumours in March that Network Rail manager Sharon, his wife of 24 years, was having an affair with a man at work.

Paul said: “In a fit of rage I put the advert on eBay. I later took it off because I realised it wasn’t the right thing to do. I was just so angry.”


Sharon and her colleague made a police complaint against Paul. Neither was available for comment last night. But the unnamed man’s wife said at home in Hemel Hempstead, Herts: “There’s nothing going on. They work in the same office, that’s all.”

Thames Valley Police confirmed it was investigating, saying: “Statements have been taken from two people. ”


See? Even revenge can be sexist.

Murder in Austria.

Austrians still reeling from the terrible discoveries of the Fritzl family abuse are now trying to come to terms with another shocking tale of brutality.
From Breaking news.
An Austrian father slaughtered his wife, daughter, parents and father-in-law with an axe then surrendered to police.

Officers said they first found the bodies of the man’s wife and seven-year-old daughter in their home in a wealthy district of Vienna.

They then discovered the other bodies in Upper Austria province, in the cities of Linz and Ansfelden.

Police said the man turned himself in today and told police what had happened.

The man, identified only as a 39-year-old public relations consultant, said he wanted to spare his family the shame of financial ruin he caused through speculative financial dealings.

His wife worked in the Finance Ministry.

Police said the man told them he began by killing his 42-year-old wife and daughter yesterday morning, before driving to Ansfelden where he beat his parents, aged 72 and 69, to death.

He said he then drove to Linz, where he murdered his 80-year-old father-in-law in the early evening.

The man is currently undergoing further questioning in Vienna.

“He is completely matter of fact ... without emotion,” a police spokesman said.'

My god, he wanted to protect them from shame? From Shame? WTF is wrong with people?

Missing people in Ireland.

When Fiona Pender went missing back in august 1996 I remember watching the story break on the evening news and seeing the beautiful blonde girl's image flashing across the screen. She was a part time model and she worked as a hairdresser in Tullamore, she was also seven months pregnant and expecting her first baby.
She wasn't the first or the last person to disappear, but I suppose because she was pregnant it stayed with me.
On Sunday in the Slieve Bloom mountains a wooden cross was discovered by walkers bearing Fiona's name. Other words were hewn into the cross but we don't know what they might be yet as the Gardai are staying tight lipped while they comb the area for Fiona's remains. This morning Gardai will begin their third day of searching and excavating of a site,
If this is a hoax it's a cruel and spiteful one. But I'm holding on to the conviction no one would be that cruel. I hope they find her, I hope for her family's sake they find her and let them have some kind of closure. Just as I hope one day they find Philip Cairns, Jo Jo Dullard, Ciara Breen and all the other people who have vanished without a trace in our fair island. The pain of loss and sense of longing for their families must be immeasurable.

There is a website set up to help, you can find it here. When you look at all those name and think of all those left behind it sends a shiver down your back. All those families with no answers and no idea what might have happened to their loved one. I don't know how they cope.

Metamorphosis.

The paramour is a gentleman, there are no if ands or buts about it. He's charming, affable, rather kind, holds steadfast values, and is generally a delight to be around.
Right up until the moment he gets behind the steering wheel of a car.
Then he becomes his Pappy.
His Pappy is also a gentleman, old school, a softly spoken sort of a man, would do anything for you, cooks a mean Sunday dinner, charming, affable, and an absolute delight to be around
Right up until the moment he gets behind the wheel of a car.
Then he becomes, well, anti-pappy.
My best friend, who is heavily pregnant right now, is a small fierce lady, loyal, funny, eccentric, easily amused, highly flammable.
Right up until she gets behind the steering wheel of a car.
Then she becomes the Incredible Hulk, flaring up and down as she races across the country side at speeds-and in heels- forumla one drivers can only dream of.
My own mother, the Lilac Couch, is psychotic, tearful, lilac wearing, funny, batshit insane, amusing in a non related way.
Right until she gets behind the wheel of her car.
Then she turns into an owl. Or at the very least her neck does. One of my abiding memories of childhood is fighting with one of my siblings and being terrified as my mother managed to swivel her head 360% so that she could yell at us while the car hurtled along at breakneck speed.
Just what the hell is it that happens to folk when they get behind the wheel of a car?
How come my paramour suddenly becomes colour blind?
'That light was red.' I might say.
'Not it wasn't.'
'Er, it was.'
'Which shade of red though?' He might reply, somewhat cryptically.

How come the Pappy becomes Joe Pesci?

'What's this gobshite doing!!??' Pappy might yell, clutching the steering wheel so hard his knuckles turn white as a person -approaching a roundabout ahead- slows down. 'There's nothing coming!!'
'Apart from that car there.'
Pappy won't see the car because like the paramour he is rendered partially blind once securely ensconced in the driving seat. Instead he will roar past the slowing down car and fly through the roundabout, tyres making that 'screeeee' sound as they cling to the road, fighting gravity, the laws of physics and traction.

How come my friend becomes Ayrton Senna?

'Darling I"m just leaving home now, I'll meet you in Dundrum!' She might say
''Okay.' I will say, glancing at the clock in the kitchen. 'I'll see you outside Pennys in what? An hour?'
'Ahahahahhaha.' She will say. 'I'll see you there in half an hour.'
'Erm, but you live-'
'Bye, don't be late.'

And she will be there, she might come through a portal for all I know, or she has a button that say 'Warp speed' on the dash of her Golf, but she can cover distance like a mini Gandolf in a Volkswagen Shadowfax

Just what is it that happens when these exemplary folk climb behind the wheel? What neurons fire up? What dark cloud descends? What small demon wakes and begins to whisper in their ears?

Cars, who knew they had such power?

Amy Winehouse looks pretty bad.

Seriously, this woman is 24 years old. And she looks like she needs to be admitted to hospital.

Breakfast of Champions!

I was surprised to read what Ireland's contribution to grand cuisine has finally been recognised, ladies and gentlemen, a round of applause if you please for that greasy artery clogging delight the Jumbo Breakfast Roll, beloved of drivers and construction worker all across the country.

from to day's Indo.

"Sociologist Dr Perry Share, of Sligo Institute of Technology, has carried out a detailed study of the Jumbo Breakfast Roll and its place in Irish society. His findings are contained in 'Belongings: Shaping Identity in Modern Ireland', just published by the Institute of Public Administration.

Dr Share, who is head of the Department of Humanities at the Sligo Institute, also delivered a paper on his research into the JBR at the annual conference of the Sociological Association of Ireland in Galway.

He concludes that the jumbo breakfast roll is "perhaps the ultimate symbol of our contemporary Celtic Tigerland".

And just for the record, the modern JBR with a cup of tea with milk and sugar provides 1,200 kilocalories -- almost half a male adult's daily energy requirement."

Anyone see see a link between our rapidly expanding waistlines and our culinary choices? Another survey over the weekend suggest one fifth of Irish teenagers are overweight and bordering on obese. One fifth! That's a remarkably high number. I don't doubt exercise or lack of it has something to do with it, but our diets are what really causes the weight gain. And if we're regularly consuming 1200 calories just for breakfast and thinking it the norm I don't see our waist bands decreasing.

motivation for fatcats and possibly fatcat chumlies.

Urgh.If there's anything worse than being woken up on a rainy Saturday to the less than dulcet warbling of Dvid bloody Bowie I'd like to know what it could possibly be. Honestly 'in the heat of the morning' sounds like the bigger of the cats trying to get out a locked back door to me. Vile. Curse the paramour and his musical affections. But at least he made coffee and he swears he's about to make breakfast so I suppose I'll try to over look that wonky-eyed crooner for another while, at least until it becomes nails on a blackboard.
Ahoy! I have a confession to make, I have had a lazy arsed week and now I feel shame. Shame I tell you. I haven't been to the gym, I ran only once, a poodly noodly 12k that my dead Gamma could have done in her heels and mink. Naturally this will be the week everyone else has been amazing and energised and fantabulous and my shame will grow.
Next week will be better, next week I will go back to work and back to the gym and back to being good about food and hooch and what not. Next week. I pinky swear it.
Oh fuck this, now he's listening to Lloyd Cole, not even breakfast is worth that.

Questionable clothing.

Having time off makes a body hyper critical and irritatingly fidgety. So far to day I have rearranged my files, refolded everything in the hot press and soon I"m going to tackle the wardrobes.
Do you have wardrobes filled with clothes you absolutely never wear? I do. Plus it seems to me I only wear one tenth of my clothes on a regular basis. I can often be found lurking about the dryer waiting for my favourite shirt to dry, completely ignoring the fact that there is a wardrobe upstairs positively groaning with shirts. I wear jeans and t-shirts and boots pretty much 365 days a year, adding a layer of fleece in winter, unless I am in sports wear or completely dolled up to the nines. So what's the point in having wardrobes fully of crap I never wear? No wonder I can never find anything.
To combat this I am going to pare it all back down. Shortly-armed with nothing more than an inquisitive Puddy and some black sacks- I am going to de-clutter my existence some what. I am going to recycle 70% of it. Out vile polos, begone strange high waisted trousers, do I really need eighteen black v-neck jumpers? No I do not. When was the last time I ever wore polyester? Oh that's right, the twelfth of bloody never, that's when. OUT!
I will be ruthless, no, 'mmm I might wear it..' No 'maybe ' piles. NO! NO! And thrice NO! Unless it's 'good wear' if I haven't worn it in six months chances are I'll never wear it. Out. OUT!
I will be free and my wardrobes empty. Then I can start all over again. First thing I won't be buying is a satin leotard. Or anything in polyester, I've got to pinky swear that one to myself.
And also a bright spotty shift dress with a red sash? What the hell was I thinking?

Dublin City Marathon '08.

Eep, well I'm in. My registration is complete, no more faffing about.
Anyone else running this year? Anyone doing it for the first time? Anyone considering it? Docky james? What say you?
Training in earnest starts next week, let the running commence.

Art and the perils of time off for good behaviour.

I find I have three whole days at my disposal. Three days of not fretting and twitching and glaring at the computer screen. Three days of waking up when I like and not needing to be right here, poised and ready, swearing and drinking coffee like it's rum.
Plus it's sunny!
Shouldn't I be happy about this?
I probably should, indeed I am pleased, but because I am a masochist if always find myself deeply perturbed and out of sorts when I have nothing pressing to do. So to this end I need to organise myself, lest I go stark raving nuts or start watching day time TV.
I have today sorted, as soon as my bland breakfast of wheataflakes- the bastard foodchild of wheatbix and cornflakes- digests, I am taking myself and 10 litres of Honeydew weather shield emulsion off to the paramour's pappy's house to paint the garden walls and what not (honeydew looks suspiciously like primrose to me, but apparently they don't call colours old fashioned names like primrose any longer, this according to the cheery and incredibly stoned chap in Atlantic Homecare)
This burst of manual labour will take up most of today. So terrific. That still leaves Thursday and Gingerday to fill. So any suggestions?
If YOU had two days at your disposal, two WHOLE days filled with nowt, what would you do?



Also I have bought art! If you haven't already trundle on over to here and take a gander. Yellow Face is mine, mine I tell you and what a fabulous face it is. Many thank to Sam Bride for mentioning it on her blog, or I'd never have known, so I'm sharing the love. No harm in supporting each other now is there.
Right more coffee and then onwards, to paint in the sun. Huzzah!

A child's perspective can be tricksy.

'Guess what your nephew did yesterday.' My eldest sister said on the phone earlier.
A thousand thoughts raced through my mind as I thought of my rambunctious nephew, all of them ending in mischief.
Had he burned something down? Blown something up? Drowned something? Flushed his daddy's wallet down the loo again? Had he 'coloured in the walls'? Used my sister's expensive face cream as window cleaner? Had he dug up the back garden? Had he pretended to be a dog and run around barking and biting ankles? Glued his fingers together. Booby trapped his elder sister? Used the cushions as a toboggan on the stairs? Were the doors on his wardrobe still on? Had the Barbies still got their heads? Was her husband's computer still working? Had he coloured in her wedding album again? Had he finally managed to get to the top tier of the hotpress, her silky dressing gown tied around his neck so that he could fly/throttle himself
What could it possible be?
'I don't know.'
'He gave himself and the baby a haircut.'
'Oh god. How bad is it?'
'Well, the baby has none of her baby curls left and he is minus his fringe-and most of the hair over his left ear. I had to take him to the barber this morning to try fix it.'
'And could they?'
'Only in that he now looks like a skin head.'
'Oh.
'He likes it.'
That actually made a kind of sense.
'And the baby?'
'She's rocking the pixie look earlier than I had anticipated.'
'Oh darling.'
'I suppose it could be worse.'
'How?'
'He could have decided to give me a hair cut while I slept.'
'Have you considered fencing him in?'
'I'm considering boarding school right now.'
And so it goes.

Drunk and Stupid.

You probably wouldn't drive a car drunk, you probably wouldn't fly a plane drunk, you probably wouldn't turn up to work drunk, you probably wouldn't even go your child's school drunk.
So why is it that the parents of three tiny toddlers, aged one, two and six thought it was a-okay to become so drunk on holiday in Portugal that they passed out, leaving the chidlren initially in the hands of complete strangers and then in the temporary care of the Portugal's Child Services?

"On Friday night the parents( from Northern Ireland) had been drinking at a nearby bar with a happy hour until 8pm where a pint of lager costs just €1.'

The husband collapsed in the hotel reception while his wife staggered into the bar with her children and fell into a chair, the barman said. A second barman said: "I don't think they meant to drink that much but when they tried to stop I think they just couldn't.''

Dr Villas-Boas said his children's home was called at just after midnight and asked to provide emergency shelter for three children whose parents were drunk.

The youngsters were given a quick hospital check-up in Faro then arrived at the home at about 5am on Saturday morning. At just before 11am the home received a fax from the on-duty public attorney for Faro saying that the children should be returned to their parents."

Said the doctor,

""They returned from somewhere and the father fell immediately asleep on the sofa. The mother was then by the elevator, holding the two-year-old girl. She was about to fall but she was held up by a Spanish lady tourist. Then the mother passed out and vomited."

The parents then very sheepishly turned up the NEXT morning to collect their offspring. Their major concerns? Did the media know about it.
Seriously what a pair of gobshites. Firstly if you can't NOT drink yourself into oblivion when you're on holiday leave your children with someone responsible at home. Secondly, this couple were staying at an apartahotel, which is a hotel made up of small self contained apartments, it is HIGHLY possible that they might have made it back to their apartment before they passed out, leaving their children to fend for themselves. I mean for fuck's sake. Can you imagine? what might have happened if that was the scenario? A six year old charge of two babies?
What the hell is wrong with these people? Most of us like a drink, and most of us will get blotto at some point in our lives, especially if we're on holiday, but only a fucking idiot would act so irresponsibly when minding three children. There is really no excuse for it. And the meedja should be the very least of their concerns.

Amen.

xx michael.


This is how I feel, but this week is almost over. Good luck to John Mc today on his triathlon.