DjMagra’s stuff ‘n’ stuff

So, today I get to fly home (yay!) for the weekend. Great and all as that is, there is one part of it that’s a complete pain, the fact that I have to make my way over to Heathrow to get my plane. Flying to Ireland out of Heathrow doesn’t bother me, Terminal 1 is always nice and quiet, and it’s a 5 minute walk from the underground to the departure gate (gotta love online checkin!). But, getting to Heathrow itself is a pain. I live in East London, and I can see London City Airport out my window. It’s about 10 minutes there on the DLR, and it’s nice and quiet and easy to get to.

BUT…flights out of there are ridiclously expensive, especially if you want to fly at a resonable hour on a Friday / Sunday. Usually, every time that I go looking, my flights come in around £300, and whilst my time is precious, I just can’t make that a regular thing, especially when I can get a flight from Heathrow for around £60.

There is talk about expanding capacity at LCY, and in my mind it can’t come quick enough. It would also be nice to see another carrier taking on Cityjet (Air France) domination of the Dublin > London City route, Aer Arann where are you?!

There’s an interesting opinion piece in today’s Guardian penned by Simon Jenkins, discussing the ever increasing (and planned) number of high rise buildings in London. Since moving over, I’ve been in awe of the number of high rise buildings going up. I currently live in the highest residential property in the UK (though, that’s soon to change and I absolutely love high rise. Seeing some of the towers that are going up around the city, as well as some of those planned is really exiting. I personally think that high-rise is the way forward, having lived in Ireland, seeing the urban sprawl, as Dublin moves further and further out to the suburbs due to the lack of space to build housing / offices, due to planning restrictions on high rise buildings, I can certainly see the benefit.

Simon Jenkins is complaining about these, saying that they are betraying London’s heritage, and spoling the view. He is blaming Mayor Ken Livingston for circumventing planning laws in order to have these erected as a means of boosting his ego (with a slight suggestion at the fact that Ken’s pockets may be lined by the businesses involved in building these). I’m not for circumventing the correct planning process, but I do think that planning laws should certainly be favourable to high rise buildings.

Now, if only Ireland, and especially Dublin City Council could learn a little from this, perhaps we may eventually see something revolutionary and spectacular happen.

Con and Claire have for a long time been going on about just how cool the Kings of Leon are, and every time I’ve been in the car with Con, I’ve tended to agree with him, but, up to now, I haven’t actually got my ass in gear and got around to downloading them. Well, I just have, I grabbed myself a copy of Because of the Times and oh man, I am so regretting being so far behind the times. This album really, really rocks. They remind me somewhat of Barenaked Ladies and if you like some decent rocky driving music, I suggest you give them a listen!

Well, it took a while (a lot longer than I had expected to be honest!) but at long last, it’s sad to say, I no longer own a MINI! She’s gone and found a new home since Friday night, and although I’ve been away and not driving her for almost two months now, it’s still really sad that she’s gone. What’s worse is, that I’m actually heading home this coming weekend, so, she went about a week too early in the end, and now I have to make do with a Punto for the weekend (thanks mom!)

On the plus side, I am now completely debt free (and even in credit), in Ireland at least, no more credit card bills or monthly repayments to dissappear out of my account, which is a nice pleasant place to be!

I will miss her though, I might just have to start looking to buy one here……

Originally uploaded by Mulldale

Ok, I’ve bitched and moaned about the state of the Irish team over the past few days, but, it’s time to live in hope, put that behind me and get excited about the prospect of tomorrow nights game. I’m one of the lucky one’s who has a ticket, for what is one of the most important games in Irish rugby history, and the tantalising part about the poor Irish performance up to now is that potentially, I could be at one of the most dramatic, exciting and amazing moments in Irish sporting history tomorrow evening. If we do manage to pull this one off, and beat France, and if we do the dream of scoring four try’s and beating them by more than 7 points, then our world cup dream is well and truly back on track.

I remember sitting in Stade de France a few years back, during that disastrous first half where France ran all over us. In fact, things were that bad at half time, that Ciaran and I contemplated leaving and getting the train back into the city to beat the crowds. But, wow, did the 2nd half of that game more than make up for the first half. We may have ultimately lost the game, but, I’ll never forget the feeling, sitting there thinking that we may actually pull this one off.

So, right now, I’m like a kid on Christmas eve, I can’t wait to hop on the train tomorrow morning, hook up with Ciaran and Noel, and what I’m sure will be a lot more Irish fans as well, judging by the availability on the Eurostar tomorrow. I was in Paris three weeks ago, and the buzz about the city in anticipation of the World Cup was already really noticable then, Liam (who took this shot) is just back from there last weekend, and he says the atmosphere is amazing. Given that this is a crunch game for both Ireland and les Blues, I reckon this is going to be a mind blowing experience.

Now, let us just hope that I don’t re-read this post on Sunday and shake my head in disbelief that I actually thought that we could pull this one off!!

One thing that really annoys me about subscribing to RSS feeds is that quite often people choose to just supply a summary of their site / blog via RSS, rather than the full article. This quite often results in me getting 5 or 10 lines into something really interesting, and then finding that I have to jump out of my RSS reader and go visit the respective blog / website. Now, if there was a commercial reason, ie. a site wanting me to pay to read the rest of the article, then I can understand it, but, if you’re not trying to sell me your article, can you please tell your syndication application to not crop your article at 5 / 10 lines etc to keep me happy!!

Here is what Brian O’ Driscoll has to say about this week and Friday’s match:

More here

…Whilst I’m in Paris, and if I get near him, there’s going to be a slap issued. Not for Ireland’s performance thus far in the world cup, but, for this comment:

‘It’s a big week that’s for sure, although I’m not sure it’s my biggest week,’ said O’Sullivan.

You can read the rest of the interview here

HOW can this not be O’ Sullivan’s biggest week in his career?! The best prepared Irish team ever to enter a world cup are on the verge of being knocked out of that competition in the pool stages. I know if I were in that position, I’d be sweating it, thinking that my entire career is going to hinge on this moment. Obviously though, bringing this team to a quarter / semi final like they should be is not all too high in Eddie’s priorities however, he’s got bigger fish to fry by the sounds of it!

Ok, there’s only so much you can take without saying anything. I’ve had my fill. I’d like to ask what the fuck Eddie O’ Sullivan is playing at now. Ireland’s rugby world cup campaign up to now has been a complete disaster. Right from the pre-tournament warm up matches, to our performance against the ‘minnows’ of World rugby in the form of Namibia and Georgia. We have been an absolute disgrace, the laughing stock of the so called established countries.

By the end of the Georgia match on Saturday night, I was actually shouting for Georgia. To see them put Ireland away would have put us out of our misery, instead of living in hope that we are going to beat France and Argentina over the next few weeks. What’s going on inside the squad, and more importantly, Eddie O’ Sullivan’s head is hard to fathom. Where every other team and manager competing in the WRC is prepared to use their entire 30 man squad, rotating players, and using impact players off the bench through games, EOS is sticking to the same game plan that he has done for the past few years, sticking to a tried and trusted 15 and leaving some of the best players out there sitting on the bench. The name Geordan Murphy springs to mind! Here is probably one of the most gifted attacking full backs in Northern Hemisphere rugby, left sitting on the bench for the first two games when we were really in need of some attacking dynamism, and, quite astonishingly, now dropped entirely from the bench in favour of a man being drafted into the squad with no major match experience behind him.

Serious questions need to be asked of EOS, the IRFU and the millions being spent on prepping the most experienced Irish squad to ever compete in a world cup. Supporters (myself included) have spent a small fortune following and supporting this team, through the years as well as through this world cup campaign. To have spent so much hard earned cash to see a ‘performance’ such as this is galling. People need to be held account for this, questioned, pressured and made explain all that went wrong, and if need be, removed from their position for massive under-performance. The IRFU need to learn that people will not stand up and tolerate seeing their beloved sport ruined by incompotence. The sport of rugby, flourishing around the world and in Ireland is being made a laughing stock and the sport will be seriously damaged by this. Thankfully, at least in Ireland, we aren’t going to loose any support to rugby’s main rival, soccer!

This has just got to be the coolest little wabbit in the world ever!!