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Colin Parry and his wife, Wendy Parry, set up the Tim Parry Johnathan Ball Foundation for Peace after their twelve year old son, Tim, was killed following the Warrington bombings by the IRA in March 1993. They set up the foundation to promote “the understanding, management and non violent resolution of conflict“.

Colin was at Chain Reaction to talk about his centre and the ongoing campaigning for peace, and Darragh Doyle had the opportunity to interview him. He claims to have been ill-prepared to conduct the interview, but he draws some interesting and inspiring answers from Colin. Colin Parry is an inspiration in the truest sense. How he can exhibit such peace and forgiveness after the loss of his son is the sign of a truly good man? If more people in the world had his strength, we’d be in a very different place today.

Pop over to Darragh’s site or check out the interview below:

“Sooner or later, we all encounter an error, Neo. You will have to make a choice – to send en error report or not to send one, but is there a difference?”

A wonderfully nerdy video from CollegeHumor.com

Like a lot of people, whenever there’s a raffle or a draw of any type, I am oft heard bemoaning the fact that “I never win anything at these things“. And Tuesday night was no different.

As the final scores of the Father Ted Table Quiz were tabulated, we were just hoping to come in the top half of the 27 teams (we came 13th). The raffle began and we were all anxiously gripping our blue raffle tickets. Anto was convinced his two strips (11 to 15 and 16 to 20) would net him something great. It did not. I had no such confidence in my two (21 to 25 and 26 to 30).

In reverse order they drew out six tickets:

First one – yellow ticket…

Second – yellow ticket…

Third – yellow ticket…

Forth – yellow ticket…

Fifth – yellow ticket (at this point one table had won three prizes)…

The sixth ticket was drawn – at last, a blue ticket. There were cheers from all the blue tables. I yelped so loud with joy for the blue ticket that I didn’t even notice that ticket number 23 was called out. What? I won? Woohoo!

€75 voucher for Fitzers Restaurant – all mine. 😀

I may have mentioned Hugh Laurie‘s House M.D. before. It’s a US TV show where Laurie plays the head of the diagnostic department in a training hospital. Each week, he and his team must find out what ails this week’s patient before they die. It’s very formulaic, but the characters are so strong and funny that it doesn’t matter. It really is one of the best shows on TV at the moment and has developed a considerable fan base. One of dem did this:

Thank you to Maybury for introducing me to the Dome at the top of Stephen’s Green Shopping Centre. It is now an Asian restaurant with great Sushi, Curry and Chicken Balls. Joyfully, the Green has now got Free WiFi which allows me eat lunch, look out across the park, find inner peace and play chess on Facebook, all at the same time.

Today has improved exponentially since I fell out of the wrong side of the bed this morning. I’m on top of things at work and am looking forward to the Father Ted Table Quiz this evening.

Tomorrow night, we’re going to see The Panel (thank you, M) and on Saturday we’re going to a house-warming party. On Friday/Saturday, I hope to see the other family, who are coming up to Dublin for a visit.

Loads going on. All is good.

Last night’s dream: I awoke at 2 o’clock in the afternoon at my desk in work. I was groggy and confused and wearing my duvet (at least I wasn’t naked). My boss gave out to me for being late.

Today, I am angry at my boss for giving out to me in my dream. Rational? I think not.

I was in two minds about going to the gig. I was still feeling unwell and my couch looked very inviting. But it was Dirty Pretty Things second last gig in Ireland ever (as they are disbanding at the end of their current tour), so I wanted to make an effort to see them.

Once again, proving to be a great drawing power, on Thursday November 6^th, Greystones Theatre played host to Dirty Pretty Things and three support acts.

Local boys, More Tiny Giants kicked things off with an excellent heavy rock set, but it was Apollo Sunshine who really got the night started. Their last couple of tracks, where they practiced group percussion, were particularly exciting to watch and the crowd returned the energy tenfold.

A short while later, Dirty Pretty Things took to the stage and a crowd of mostly younger people (younger than me, at least) went berserk. The band attracts a strong fan base and there was definitely a few fanatics in the crowd.

The first four tracks had me gripped. Frenetic, fun and bigger than the stage itself, these tracks showed the band at their best, better than The Libertines, better than Babyshambles. Following up with a couple of tracks that sounded like they could have been covers of songs by the Sex Pistols and The Clash respectively (I say this as a compliment), the band seemed to have great flow.

Then it seemed to die off somewhat. With the exception of the scary drummer, the energy dissipated and it started to feel like they were just going through the motions. When the lead singer of a supposedly bad-ass punk band asks, “Can you please move back a few steps”, you know they’ve lost their mojo.

For the last few songs I retired to the bar and for all the good the band were doing, I may as well be have been listening to the album on my iPod. The music was decent, but there was no energy or charisma in the live performance at this stage. Catching the last couple of tracks as I sipped a Lemsip in the bar, I wondered if the now tired band would have liked to join me.

Their music is good and they play well together. When their energy is high, they sound fantastic live, but if they can’t sustain that energy for one full set, then maybe it’s best they go their separate ways.

There is a lot of great gigs and events coming up in Greystones over the next couple of months including Cathy Davey, Director, Jack L, Brian Kennedy, The Dublin Comedy Improv and a lot more. I’ll follow this up with a full listing and give you some idea of the shows I plan on seeing. If anyone wants to join me, let me know.

Do Not Watch This

Do Not Watch This

Do Not Watch This

Do Not Watch This

Do Not Watch This

I warned you!

It seems to be a creative hotbed. There’s so much fun stuff going on there all the damn time. And here is the latest episode in the Ventures series, The Mystery Of The Night Time Refuse.

Vultures is the story of three private detectives who run a small scale private investigation agency in small town Ireland. The moderately successful business is called Vulture Private Investigations and specialises in dealing with divorce cases, fraud, missing persons, animals and plants and occasionally, just occasionally, they’ll be served up something that approximates a mystery.

Following on from my previous post:

True to form, rather than simply moaning about it, a friend of mine, G, contacted PaddyPower.com to make his feelings known on their exploitation of the possible assassination of Barack Obama, and to seek an explanation as to how they could offer such bets.

Here is G’s email:

From: G** [mailto:**@hotmail.com]
Sent: 08 November 2008 02:19
To: Support; Whelan, Susan; Robertson, Ken; Power, Paddy
Subject: For the attention of Patrick Kennedy Re: Obama Bet

 

Mr Kennedy,

I would like to bring to your attention, and express my utter disdain and disgust over your advertised bet Will Barack Obama survive his first term as president? To take bets on whether a man will live for the next 4 years is truly deplorable and is reminiscent of Roman gladiatorial times. Would you like Barack Obama to make sport out of it for you? Maybe something like The Running Man would be in order?

I understand that you have taken the bet off your website, but it is still available at one of your many betting shops, and I believe the current odds are 12-1 A good show of support for the leader of the biggest economic power in the world.

For Paddy Power to be taking bets over whether or not a man will be assassinated shows a complete lack of ethics, decency and common sense. I can assure you that I will be cancelling my account and will not be using Paddy Power again. I would also suggest you instruct your shops to remove this bet, refund any current wagers and make an apology on your website.

I look forward to receiving your thoughts on this matter.

G**

Paddy Power replied with a very well considered and, in my view, acceptable explanation of their stance:

Subject: RE: For the attention of Patrick Kennedy Re: Obama Bet
Date: Sat, 8 Nov 2008 14:50:29 +0000
From: Paddy2@paddypower.com
To: **@hotmail.com

 

Hi G**,

Thank you very much for your email, I appreciate the opportunity to clear this matter up.

Contrary to recent reports Paddy Power never have and never will offer odds on Barack Obama to be assassinated.  The market which has been misinterpreted was on Obama not to finish his term which covers political reasons for cutting the term short such as impeachment and resignation – Richard Nixon resigned and Bill Clinton came close.

Because of this misinterpretation we have now clarified our betting and simply offer individual odds of 28/1 on Obama to resign and 33/1 on him to be impeached among the scores of other Obama special bets which have been requested by our customers.

I hope this has helped clarify the matter.

Kind regards,

Paddy Power

They are an intelligent bunch in PaddyPower.com and I have no doubt that they were using the ambiguity of the bet to incorporate assassination as one of the possible ways he could fail to serve a full term. That said, they were not explicitly accepting bets on his murder and they did make efforts to rectify their mistake, if you view it as a mistake.

I think they acted reasonably on this. Anyone else? Did Paddy Power act irresponsibly or is this just another case of the media creating a story where there is none?

I was due to run the Live Blog this week, but I won’t be home in time, so Lottie is going to do the honour instead. If you’re watching The Apprentice tonight and you are near a computer, pop over the TheNationalLottie.com at 9pm to join in the fun.

In today’s darkened world, where trust is a myth and loyalty a commodity, deep in the belly of modern Ireland a change is happening. Two opposing forces are stacking the board in anticipation of war. There is no good, there is no evil, there is simply two antipodal units seeking to make their truth known.

The time has come, my friends, to choose a side, to know where we stand, to know what we believe, and know why we believe it. The time has come to prepare our hearts for the inevitable fallout, and persecution against the true children of Blog, to put purpose in our hearts, that we will remain faithful, and continue to proclaim the truth no matter the consequence. Maxi Cane is a man of truth, of honour, of valour and great talent. I call on you to take arms and side with this noble hero against the tyranny of K8, against her misguided ways and erroneous beliefs. K8 is not evil, K8 is no monster. She has merely taken her cue from a man of no conscience, a man of great persuasion, a man who’s name will go down in history alongside some of the world’s most notorious dictators. This man is her father, The Grandad.

There can only be one victor/victoria, there can only be one outcome. Choose your side in this war. Choose the side of Maxi Cane.

President-Elect Barack Obama’s relentless and tiring electioneering has ended in success, and now the hard part begins. Obama must now turn his head to running a country in the midst of one of the worst economic crises in its history, where unemployment levels are rapidly rising, the educational system is failing, foreign policy is driving wedges across the planet and to top it all off, he must contend with potential attempts on his life.

Already, two white supremacist skinheads were arrested in Tennessee over plans to go on a killing spree and eventually shoot the President-Elect. And it would be naive to think this was an isolated event. There will be more attempts: authorities know this; Obama knows this; in fact, the media virtually counts on it.

Of course, true to form, Paddy Power has even offered odds on it occurring. This morning they offer odds of 12-1, down from 16-1 yesterday, that Obama will not finish his first term in office due to assassination. This is disgraceful and should be discouraged. Now, where can I get a piece of this action?

Go on, people seem to be terrified to talk about it, for fear of being crass, but I remember a lot of talk around the time of Bush’s last ‘victory’ that suggested he was a bigger target than ever before. I would not be surprised if there is a successful attempt on his life. I sincerely hope it doesn’t happen, but odds are there will be numerous attacks. What do you think? Will he make it through the full term?

The wonderful, stupendous, delightful, phenomenal, sensational Grannymar: