On our Saturday night in Slovakia we decided to take a spin into the next town and see whatever films we could find in English.
We ended up plumping for 21: a film that would be difficult to classify into a single particular genre. Starring Jim Sturgess and Kevin Spacey, it’s about geeky student Ben Campbell (Sturgess) who makes it to MIT and catches the eye of one of his lecturers, Professor Mickey Rose (Spacey), as being someone with a superhuman knack for probability and number-crunching. Rosa invites him onto his team of protegé blackjack players who perfect a system for counting cards and making a mint, which Sturgess initially pledges to put entirely towards his education in Harvard Medical School but obviously derails while off.
I must say that I enjoyed the film, although probably for all of the wrong reasons. In a previous incarnation, this blogger was an international mathlete, and so has a penchant for statistics and probability, similar to
Campbell’s in the movie - indeed, the scene of Campbell’s first lecture under Prof Rose included a reference to a particularly favourite problem of mine, the Monty Hall problem, and his first with the Blackjack team mentions an opening due to Jimmy having “got a job at Google” (where I got an internship two summers ago).
Some of the imagery is stunning - the idea of the gang at a rooftop rave is a sweet one - but ultimately, once the team falls apart and Campbell’s double life collapses, it’s unsatisfying to think that Campbell can tell his mother of his earlier lies and be able to claim “but she forgave me, because she loves me” - and still to get away with the group’s resident totty (Kate Bosworth) on his arm too. Kevin Spacey thankfully steals the show - in every scene he effortlessly attracts the attention and deflects it from the more inane stumblings of his co-stars.
So all in all, a film to tickle the geek and materialist in you, but not one to keep you all that gripped.
Well, it’s old news by now, but for those of you who weren’t aware of my footballing persuasions, I’m a Manchester United fan through and through, and naturally enough I’m pretty thrilled that the Red Devils hung on to claim their tenth Premiership title in sixteen years and Sir Alex Ferguson’s 21st trophy with the club.
While the league didn’t have to go down to goal difference in the end - a margin of victory unseen since Arsenal’s epic final-minute victory against Liverpool in 1989 - and a surplus of two points only gives the due creedance to United’s indisputably stronger season, even a victory on goal difference could not have offered Chelsea fans a fair argument as to who truly deserved the title. United, for their blips, have beaten five teams at home scoring four goals along the way - as well as a 6-0 demolition of Newcastle - and twice scored four on the road, as well as an equally emphatic 5-1 drubbing of the Magpies at St James’. When truly on song, and with their solid starting eleven, United haven’t just beaten teams this season: they’ve demolished them.
Arguably United’s triumph is a vindication of the ambitious, exciting football as envisaged by Ruud Gullit and first practiced so marvellously by Arsène Wenger’s Arsenal in recent years. Chelsea’s habit of having the world’s best bankrolled squad churn out functional, phlegmatic 1-0 victories, while undoubtedly effective, has backfired, and teams showing more flair and bloodlust in preying for another goal have been rewarded for their hunger. [Read more →]
If truth be told, we really do miss news from home when we’re away, and tend to feed off an assortment of news sites at various intervals when on foreign soils (which has been all too frequently lately…). We caught the 9 bells Nuacht on RTE on Friday, and we were captivated with the story of Sophie Merry, a young Dublin woman, who has recently become the face of the Etam global jeans campaign.
The news feature showed how Sophie (aka Bandytoaster on Youtube) became an overnight Cinderella sensation after posting a video of her rocking it out in her mate’s garden, on the popular video blogging site.
A communications agency in Paris, home to the Etam label, spotted the video online and was immediately captivated by the image of Sophie dancing to Daft Punk’s ‘Harder Better Faster Stronger’. Sophie didn’t know it at the time, but she was to become the fulcrum around which a massive viral marketing campaign for Etam jeans was to be launched. Immediately after seeing the video, the firm sought her out to pilot the promotion of the label, and she jumped on board.
The project became a performance in real time; she became both the subject of the adverts in her dancing, and also the face of all the photography. Thus although Sophie designed the fairy tale through the video, she was also designed by it, in becoming a model in true overnight sensation - all from posting a 3’42” video on YouTube…
An extraordinary story about a very ordinary girl. She has a plethora of offers following her work with Etam, no doubt they will involved both dancing and modelling. Turns out our friend Carla knows her… small world much? Swings and roundabouts folks…
With a blog title like that you’d think that I might be a defeatist Birmingham City or Reading fan, but I don’t mean that Championship at all. I should explain.
This morning in the hotel (we’re still in Slovakia, slowly getting to grips with the needless pedantry of our fellow students’ unions) we noticed a group of youngish men wearing matching red Nike tracksuits. Having had a quick glance at the crest adorning them we learned that the lads were from FK Dukla Banska Bystrica, a club based not too far from here. They have a home game today at 5pm and were here for a team-bonding breakfast before the match. We also learned that the team are currently 8th in the Slovakian Corgon Liga (the local version of the Premier League).
What I found most unusual - almost unnerving - about seeing the team was the fact that they were literally sitting amongst us, without any airs or graces and simply just being. They weren’t being surrounded with dozens of nutritionists, or assistants, or logistics officers; they were standing in the breakfast queue amongst us, queueing up for the same muesli and scrambled eggs as I.
During some of the more tedious seminar sessions earlier in the week I’d been doodling on a pad and paper trying to formulate the starting eleven I’d pick for Manchester United’s UEFA Champions League final against Chelsea in a couple of weeks (I’m still wondering about the merit of Wes Brown at right back). A more obvious juxtaposition you couldn’t get - the United lads will likely be spending the days before the trip to Moscow holed up in the Lowry in Manchester, getting on the most luxury of coaches back and forth to Carrington for training, and having their five-star breakfasts sent to a private refectory. And there won’t be muesli or scrambled egg for them either - the whole breakfast menu will undoubtedly have been carefully cheoreographed by an army of fitness nutritionists days beforehand.
For a minute I really struggled to get my head around the idea of a team in the premier competition of a country’s national sport, aimlessly wandering around a hotel lobby and sipping espressos at a hotel bar. I doubted even the Drogheda United or Cork City squads would be sitting around liable to a torrent of verbal abuse (or worse) if they had to stay somewhere for a few hours pre-match.
Then I had a slight epiphany - of course they would. I had been somewhat hypocritical - before I’d realised that I was going to miss any TV coverage of United (hopefully) winning the league this time tomorrow, I had realised I was going to miss Longford play Westmeath in the first game of the 2008 All-Ireland Senior Football Championship.
Perhaps that’s a special touch that the English league is lacking - although the self-styled Greatest Show On Earth™ reaches out to billions worldwide and unifies people across all kinds of devides in ways that only sport can, the amateur locality and everyday integration of gaelic games helps so much to make Ireland so special - and when the weather gets better we get two gripping, emotional championships that shape the Irish summer like no other.
I think that if Longford or Westmeath weren’t sitting out in full open public view in their hotel the morning of the match, we’d all regret it. Maybe that’s something worth bearing in mind while I sit, clad in red and white with worry, watching United climb off their team coach in Russia on Wednesday week.
She was a wonderful woman, an exceptional writer and an award winning producer. I read her recent reports from the Primaries in the Tribune with absolute trust in her reporting. She was before her time, a real stoical and strong woman, who pushed societal boundaries by her very existence, in both expressing her sexuality, and in her eloquent, yet heart rendering experience of dying only last month with Marian Finucane.
She didn’t have to talk about it, but she chose to, to teach us all something from the other side of the fence. As she did in life, she did in death.
Some good friends of mine from home in Kilkenny are gigging in Whelans tonight, and I’m gutted I can’t be there (we’re still in Bratislava…), so treat the following as a plug to add my support to their cause! Saving J have been on the road for a while now and are well worth a look! The band formed in late 2005 and comprises Sean Redmond (Lead Vocals. rhythm guitar), Paul Hindle (Drums, backing vocals), Liam Redmond (Lead Guitar) and new addition Graham Hynes (Bass guitar).
How time has moved on… Paul was my date for my Debs all those moons ago… No, there are no photos… I hope…
We booked our tickets for the Kilkenny Cat Laughs festival earlier today. Regrettably due to work/study/Croker concerts/Mini Marathon commitments we’re not going to be able to volunteer/work at the festival like previous years, but it’ll be fun to enjoy some laughs from the crowd! Consecutive years have been spent doing artist liaison, tinkering with lights, cataloguing ticketing and such, but this year we’re looking forward to heckling and enjoying the jollity with the best of them.
On our list to see are:
Lee Mack: (watch out for the mispronounciation of ‘chicken’ at the start!)
Arj Barker: (with a bit of Google antics for Reilly)
David O’Doherty:
We had the nice fortune of sharing a pizza with DOD and his missus earlier this year, nicer folks you couldn’t get. Hilarious to boot.
I haven’t slept very well since last Sunday… though not because of anything wrong, or anxiety, or illness (well, mostly, anyway), or having eaten some dodgy, undercooked Slovak cuisine. What’s had me up late since last Sunday is the fact that I cannot get this song out of my head:
It’s called Fascination and it’s by Alphabeat, and it’s terrifically amazing. It’s got that semi-syncopated chromatic backbeat going on (listen to the hook from Rooney’s Where Did Your Heart Go Missing to figure out what I mean) - the sticky, creeping kind that sticks in the back of your mind to the point where stirring a coffee-cup reminds you of it. It’s a great track and one that will definitely rise higher than the #23 it currently occupies on the Irish singles chart.
Further listening includes their single Boyfriend - they’re basically the new Ting Tings…
Posted by Both Of Us on May 8th, 2008 · No Comments
Ciara met Gav two years ago and realised she was onto a good thing - so today they live in a house with a lawnmower, a coffee maker and many, many newspapers and books. Gav also met Ciara, co-incidentally, two years ago - and now he mows the lawn, makes great coffee, and buys many, many newspapers and books.
Ciara studies for Law exams for a living after a brief stint of being a professonal student (viz-a-vis Students’ Union life) and Gav? Well, everything Gav touches turns to the property of UCD Students’ Union.
Ciara is to Kilkenny as Gav is to Meath,
Ciara is to RTÉ Radio 1 as Gav is to Phantom FM,
Ciara is to Gav’s credit card as Gav is to… er… Gav’s credit card bill. Ciara is to Obama as Gav is to Hillary,
Ciara is to It’s A Wonderful Life as Gav is to The Matrix.
Ciara is to editing as Gav is to writing.
Ciara is to The Hills as Gav is to stuff that’s actually real,
Ciara is to Karl Pilkington as Gav is to Steve Merchant.
Ciara is to Americanos as Gav is to mochas.
Ciara is to hurling as Gav is to football,
Ciara is to Sudoku as Gav is to… other sudokus.
Ciara is to regulations as Gav is to constitutions and standing orders.
Ciara is to Elephant & Castle Chicken Wings as Gav is to all of his (and some of her spare) Elephant & Castle Chicken Wings.
Ciara is to running in elections as Gav is to running elections.
Ciara is to Time Magazine as Gav is to Q, most copies of Hot Press and the occasional FourFourTwo.
Ciara is to Lindt as Gav is to chocolate raisins.
Ciara is to sundried tomatoes from the Gourmet Store in Kilkenny as Gav is to grapes from a punnet from pretty much any corner shop in the First World.
Ciara is to The Irish Times as Gav is to The Sunday Tribune.
Ciara is to U2 as Gav is to Radiohead.
Ciara is to early mornings as Gav is to late nights…
…in short, Ciara is to Gav as Gav is to Ciara.
Basically, we’re the macaroni to the other’s cheese. Don’t worry, we won’t get too gushy here - if we are, give us a cyber-kick, danke schön.
Interesting. I noticed it emerged this morning that Billary has made three loans to her operation in the past 30 days, of considerable amounts, more than $6.4 million, which combined with her subsequent individual loans, add up to at least $11.4 million she’s donated to her campaign since February.
Over on Yes-We-Can hill, BO is still now emerging as the clear nominee, with a total of 100 delegates won in the past week since the victory in North Carolina and the narrow loss in Indiana, leaving him just 169 votes away from victory.
It irritates me that the Clintonites seem happy to overlook that this is a campaign that has been funded on the whole from personal donations, with the change-we-can-believe-in sermon gaining payments from 1.5 odd million people.
Clinton’s campaign seems narrow and stretched. Why? Because it is. She may claim to be the only candidate capable of beating McCain, but she’s becoming more Vice-Presidential by the day. Barack has already won more votes, more delegates, and more than twice as many states as Senator Clinton, whose path to the nomination has grown extremely thin. But these loans show that her crusade will continue to contest the remaining primaries robustly.
There are only six contests remaining on the Democratic primary calendar and only 217 pledged delegates left to be awarded. There are 253 remaining undeclared superdelegates. The Clinton campaign expects to trail by more than 100 pledged delegates and will then ask the superdelegates to upend the resolve of the party supports on the ground.
Hillary will likely stay in the race and go to the convention where she still has a chance with this crooked DNC Superdelegate system. Superdelegates are all well and good, but what of the millions of people on the ground who have been provoked and motivated by Obama’s campaign? This whole system is unfair and unjust. It gives even more power to people to be king makers. There should only be delegates and they should be awarded proportionate to the vote counts in each state.
It just isn’t fair. If the super delegates give the nomination to Hillary when Obama has the popular vote, are they truly representative of the democratic process? If she is clearly lacking in groundswell support, she does not deserve the nomination. If this should happen, this will not sit well with the newly enlightened Obama-ites. Many of his supporters will not vote come November, which would be a seismic electoral disaster, especially given that Obama has managed to mobilise young voters and previously disenfranchised societal groups like no candidate before. Obama has emerged as a new voice, a viable leader for the Democrats, succeeding where rhetoric from Nancy Pelosi and the like have failed. Clinton has demonstrated an extraordinary will to win, and a refusal to quit when she was losing primary after caucus after primary. Her campaign is now arguably at the stage where it is dependent on miracles like the surfacing of a new, and worse, Jeremiah Wright controversy. Ultimately her continued presence in the campaign will only damage the party further.
She’s moving full stream ahead alright. Away from the nomination.
I’ll leave you with this, a quote from Bill Clinton in 2004:
“If one candidate’s trying to scare you and the other one’s trying to get you to think, if one candidate’s appealing to your fears and the other one’s appealing to your hopes, you better vote for the person who wants you to think and hope.”
PS - Watch this: McCain threatens to walk off the show whenJon Stewart presses him on whether Bush is more of a liability for him than Rev. Wright is for Obama. Classic.
We ended up plumping for 21: a film that would be difficult to classify into a single particular genre. Starring Jim Sturgess and Kevin Spacey, it’s about geeky student Ben Campbell (Sturgess) who makes it to MIT and catches the eye of one of his lecturers, Professor Mickey Rose (Spacey), as being someone with a superhuman knack for probability and number-crunching. Rosa invites him onto his team of protegé blackjack players who perfect a system for counting cards and making a mint, which Sturgess initially pledges to put entirely towards his education in Harvard Medical School but obviously derails while off.
What I found most unusual - almost unnerving - about seeing the team was the fact that they were literally sitting amongst us, without any airs or graces and simply just being. They weren’t being surrounded with dozens of nutritionists, or assistants, or logistics officers; they were standing in the breakfast queue amongst us, queueing up for the same muesli and scrambled eggs as I.
Then I had a slight epiphany - of course they would. I had been somewhat hypocritical - before I’d realised that I was going to miss any TV coverage of United (hopefully) winning the league this time tomorrow, I had realised I was going to miss Longford play Westmeath in the first game of the 2008 All-Ireland Senior Football Championship.
