Every Day is Election Day

After an Olympic weekend of every sport known to man, some of the most thrilling football displays in treacherous conditions in Croke Park on Saturday, a spectacular hurling showcase yesterday, and after a day that started with an early rise for John Joe Joyce in the boxing, we’re still up, and still consumed by sport. It never ends.

It’s now 12:47am and we’re just after watching Padraig Harrington come from six shots behind halfway through, to win the PGA Championship. It’s a privilege to be able to share moments like this - we’ve been watching the final shots on a dodgy Asian channel called SBS Golf in a not-entirely-legal fashion - but we’re desperate to have a visual to add to the fuzzy BBC Five Live radio commentary.

Yet another wonderful moment for Padraig and for Irish sport. And with the Kilkenny victory, it makes for a great day all round. If they’re not the greatest team ever, they’re certainly not far off.

What a day, what a day.

Oh, please, oh please, let us just fall over the line…

Let us not lose to them.

Can’t sleep. Time to pray.

I’ll be Twittering tomorrow mid-rosary.

Up the Cats.

(This is the follow-on to my first blog earlier this week, which you can find here.)

So I’ve outlined the two crucial flaws with the All-Ireland Hurling Championship as it currently is:

1 - The devaluation of provincial championships
2 - The tiering system that bars most competitors from winning the main prize - the All-Ireland itself.

The unfortunate thing about what I’m about to propose is that it’ll have to concurrently take effect in the football series, but this should probably also be welcomed.

Now, I know I promised to propose something radical, and I know that the instant reaction of most readers will be to exclaim that the main part of what I’m about to propose will be to say it’s nuts, and that it would never happen. But it already has.

My proposal is thus:

To seperate the Provincial Championships from the All-Ireland series.

(more…)

Falling asleep at work. There is a weird smell of patchouli (and bittterness actually, don’t ask) around here and I swear, it’s the only thing keeping me awake. ‘Tis vile. Study fatigue is such that last night I dreamt I was sitting on the bench of the New York District Court, discussing the the Leonard v. Pepsi Co case, and reasoning with Justices Leonard and Wood about the harrier jet.

If you haven’t a clue about the background of the above case, I congratulate you on avoiding the legal profession, her evil rubble of cases, and the destruction it wreaks on your sleeping habits.

Meanwhile I’m beasting Constitutional Law (DeV- dheanfainn cinnte), even if it meant that Gav and I argue over judgments (this happened with Evidence in my finals: Mackey v. AG was nearly the end of us). Anyways, I’m doing alright thus far, but I really need to stop the 9-5-ing now, I need to case it up and do not much else. Expect a “Being an FE-1 widower… it ain’t fun” post soon from Reilly. Yesterday it got so bad I painted my nails black (to represent the fissures of my pain, man) but instead of looking like LC, aka ‘the less stupid one from The Hills’, I was dangerously emo. Get thee to thine Central Bank, boi.

So Mayo are still the bridesmaids, and Clare the whipping boys of Munster once again. How proud was I of Offaly on Saturday? Maybe I was just emotional after a day of express and implied terms in a contract but when Joe Dooley spoke at the end of the game I nearly burst into tears. If one person tells me that Leinster hurling is dead I’ll lock you in a room with nothing but the Lisbon Treaty for company and I’ll play Ann Lee’s “Two Times” over and over and over. Lesson much?

Oxegen revellers (such Metro/Hedd-eld lingo out of me) were present en masse on O’Connell St this morning, wellies on the lot of them. Ploughing Match chic, I was jealous, I won’t lie. I’m planning on living vicariously through Rick and Una’s blogs and Lili’s photees over the next few days.

Well done to Bertie on the new gig.

Eldest and middle sister are off to Paris today to storm the Bastille. Hags. I would have lovesies it. Fiends. An Taoiseach is over there today too, with Angela and all the lads. Want to be there.

I should have done the teaching. Should have done the teaching.

PS - I tried on my debs dress at the weekend and whaty-ya-know, I still fit into it! On the look out for a wedding now to give the old rig-out an airing. You can even have me at the table with the weird Laois cousins. Oh come on, we all have them…

It’s slightly ironic that if you do a Google for the phrase “hurling is in crisis”, the seventh result is a Kildare Nationalist piece from May 2006. The chances are that, in any other semi-prominent topic in the world of hurling, Kildare won’t be ranking seventh, or anywhere near it.

The piece talks about championship reform in the context of a new GAA Presidency. ‘Twas Brennan’s Auld Lad who was a month into his three-year term in HQ – the same man who had also stood up at Congress in Cavan in 1994, and bluntly stated that “hurling was in crisis”. For those of us not old enough to remember the specifities of each hurling season, perhaps the only indicator that the previous years were particularly poor is the fact that Wikipedia doesn’t seem to remember anything about either of the ‘92 or ‘93 seasons. The world, in hindsight, doesn’t seemed to have stopped turning soon afterwards, but I’ll trust Nickey’s reading. Hurling, we should take it, was in crisis at that time.

Fast forward fourteen years and if things have changed, it can only have been for the worse.

Most counties seem to lose now - but, then again, most of them often did. But a misplaced criticism amongst most is that, despite a tiered system, we still get a series of total mismatches. Hurling, though, has always had this see-saw attribute: a team winning a game well can just pull away with relative ease; a quality we forget about all too often in a country where football is much more a dominance in our way of thinking. The notion that someone can catch a kick-out and score from the spot is foreign to football, but a staple skill in hurling. Scores come from everywhere. Hurling exploits it.

Nevertheless though, thinking back over the decades, the real romance of the GAA Championships lay in the notion that winner took all. Counties played their neighbours, in tense local cauldrons, and prove local superiority before departing for the Big Smoke of Croker to test your metal/mettle (delete as appropriate) with the champions of the other regions. The champion of All-Ireland was just that - the best the country had to offer, after gladitorial and deathly competition.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m not an opponent of a back-door system. Good teams have bad days, and should be allowed to. Bad teams deserve more than one chance to shine. But there are two inherent things wrong with it:

1 - They devalue the Provincial championships. Being the best in your area means shag all now when regardless of the outcome when everyone taking part becomes part of the All-Ireland series anyway.

2 - Tiering. I’m sorry. I know the advantages of the tiered system; I know it lets teams of similar standards play each other on a more regular basis and helps foster development, but let’s face it, there are an unacceptable amount of mismatches in all three tiers. What’s more, hurling finds it difficult to attract fringe teams and seem competitive enough already, without actually having a system where only a third of the counties can actually win the All-Ireland in the first place.

While there’s a certain merit to the way the current backdoor system has turned out in hurling – the eight teams left are certainly teams of real quality, and would almost unanimously be the average pundit’s choices, the way in which this octet has been derived is what seems to be capable of improvement.

That’s my tuppence anyway – and my proposal for fixing it will come later this week. If you’re interested, be sure to subscribe to the RSS.

“Radical options are what Brennan has asked for”, said Tuesday’s Indo. Nickey, brace yourself.

Edit: Part 2 now online; you’ll find it here.

…will be the topic of a post that I will post once it’s done.

Three nights, a few thousand words, and haven’t even gotten to my proposed alternative system yet.

Expect a series.

How are we coping with the recession? With a wii-cession! (IS THIS THING ON?!)

Every part of me is aching today, turns out I’m a bowler extraordinaire (as light on my twinkle toes as Fred Flintstone), who’d a thunk it? Here are some snaps of Gav and Scally boxing it out mid Wii-party.

Lighting was poor but I actually think the ‘dreaded shadows’ add a tension.

So the UEN are under pressure, eh? The efforts to curb euroscepticism know no bounds!
I’m no Jim Corr, but it’s clear where the intention lies here. I worked with the UEN in Brussels two years ago, and it’s obvious that the motivation with these new rules doesn’t so much lie with

the difficulty in dealing with small political groupings

…as it does with INDEM, whose gagging is certainly intended here. It’ll be interesting to see if Kathy Sinnott (a member of this group) will be in the media today, speaking on the procedural changes.

But where will the FF-ers go now? EPP/ED? Will the blueshirts let the homeless in? This whole debacle is bound to damage the Irish Presidential bid of Brian Crowley (which I’ve predicted consistently for the past 4 years…), who is currently co-President of the UEN. Hope this gets good coverage today!

Anyway, in matters more personal, we’re Kilkenny-bound on Friday after work, and Navan/Trim bound for Saturday, in true family diplomacy! I’ll be studying while we travel, as I seem to be consistently t the minute, all day, everyday. Boo-urns. At least I’ll get to see home, see the GAAfia and the madra, and go here, here and here for supplies/eats/funs. Mamma Mia is on the cards for Mama Reilly and I for Saturday night… should be twenty-pink-tents-at-Oxegen camp.

Sunday is Munster Final day… need I say anymore? I will hold my Leinster head in shame and think about what should be… while secretly hoping Tipp will shade it. (Shade it mind, not by much, don’t get too bloody excited.)

Today is payday for Reilly. We will celebrate by paying credit-card debit.

Work drinkies tonight, museum/finance get-together. Don’t sure how that will roll but you know, banter is to be recommended. The accountants need the funs. And alcohol.

Reilly has one absolutely heroic blog due on the reformatting of the hurling championship. It’s his new love, and something he’s been spending unhealthy amounts of time on recently, so comment him up when it does arrive. Ned Quinn beware!

See the MediaNow article in the Sindo at the weekend? Sent away for the promotional material for it… just to have a gooch at it. ‘Xpensive. But tempting. Throwing it under Reilly’s nose anyways; if any of you have an interest in this area, it could be worth checking out. The proposal is rather impressive…

Had a nice brekkie meeting with the Old Man this morning. Was brisk but nice to have some sense of familial normality, especially as I won’t see him at the weekend.

So what have I been reading all morning?…

A bitta nostalgia about Ray Cokes and the MTV glory days…

Just when you thought the Big Brother shenanigans couldn’t get worse…

Why designer sunglasses are bucking the downturn of other luxury goods…

Graham’s link from the Salon on Bush the Felon… unbelievable stuff.

And before you digest all that, have a look at this - she’s just brilliant, and lovely. Don’t you agree?

Reilly rewrote the Meath GAA wiki… dying to know who did all the Kilkenny GAA entries! They’re superbly put together. On that, my sister’s friend was correcting Junior Cert history papers last week and it turns out Nickey was a rebel in 1916? Young people these days.

Sunday was no good for anyone. Trying to feel confident about the game going forward, but failing miserably. This might remind the Wexford players why they should go to training tonight…

Willing time to go by for the next series of Ricky Gervais Show audiobooks. In the meanwhile this is my serving of Pilkingtonomania methadone:

This is bound to create a few rows, don’t make the same mistake I did and suggest a collective Office run-down…

Want.

Some of this would be nice too.

Don’t ask, don’t tell?

Foho taking is going well, here are two of my favourites:

I‘m well on my way to the apex of the work project, so to celebrate I’m spending more than a few shneaky minutes online these days. As you can probably tell. Don’t tell the boss; sure he’s probably off at some 1916 commemoration, he won’t give a hoot.

PS - Having a showdown on the ucdsu.ie boards. Will share all later.

C’mon the Cats!

Viva la Vida on repeat in work, at home, the iPod… tad ridiculous. And even more ridiculous that I just heard an ad on the radio announcing that it’s out on Friday… aaaaaaaaaaand I still squealed. Breaking the law can be good for the ears.

Juno is [finally!] out on DVD… Hurrah! Pizza night ahoy friendies. WATCH THIS MOVIE. The dialogue is phemonenal and Ellen Page is tremendous in it.

If you haven’t been before, visit www.rarebooks.ie. Fabulous. Just as a real musty bookshop should be, and if you buy online, they send you your book wrapped in old newspapers! Spiffy.

Softening to Damien Dempsey through his recent album ‘The Rocky Road’. Luke Kelly is alive and well folks…

We’re going to Neil Diamond on Saturday with respective parentals. Both sets are equally excited, and it should be yet another fabulous family occasion in Croker. President McAleese shall be in attendance so it’s a night for the glad rags…

Kilkenny kick off the championship season this weekend… WIN!

Davy Fitz in Waterford… I feel I must restrain myself here. I won’t say what I really want to for fear it will come back and bite me in the ass.

Home to vote tomorrow, how quaint. Driving home with Nickey and using the occasion to hang with Darmo on Thursday. I won’t lecture you, but I’ll be voting yes.

Oh, and Prince is cancelled. That’s the secret I couldn’t tell you the other night buds.

Meanwhile here are two photos of Reilly and I at Radiohead, and one of the boys themselves to boot:

Ps. I don’t really follow BB (I swear *cough*) but I will miss Dermot O’Leary from BBLB. Here is one of his best (Irish) moments. G’wan ya yellabelly!