A proper emotional roller-coaster

I do love BBC4 on Fridays. They always have some interesting music programs on and last night was no different.

Last night gave us the excellent George Harrison: Living in the Material World, Martin Scorseses portrait off George Harrison. Three hours of great tele. It brought us right through from Beatles to death. Much of the music on the program had me thinking. Has there been another band - or indeed even as single artists - ever whose music could bring you right the entire emotional roller-coaster of emotions?

Sure there are songs that when you hear them trigger emotions. As a Liverpool fan, You'll Never Walk Alone always gets me going, but that's due to the association with my club as much as the song. Nessun Dorma is another but again due to the 1990 World Cup more-so than the song itself. But watching that program last night got me thinking.

They played While my guitar gently weeps and it just takes you over. Something, Yesterday and A Day in the life are other songs that seep into you. Then the early Beatles music can just make you feel happy and want to dance, Sgt. Pepper and Yellow Submarine make the mind wander and chill you out. Some are just plain fun tracks. Again, I have no moments to associate with many of the tracks but what they do to you just shows both the power of music and also the power of their music.

To me, its truly astounding. Feck the begrudgers, I love 'em. No one nowadays comes close to that power.

Stop and think, then click the link

Imagine your 15 year old son or daughter, niece or nephew got up on a glorious Saturday morning. They were excited because they were heading to a football match. A massive game between two of the biggest teams in the country at the time. Nothing appeared untoward of sinister initially, but they never came home. Read that again. They never came home. From a football match.

On 15^th April 1989 Kevin Williams was one of the 96 to tragically die directly from injuries sustained at the Hillsborough disaster. However his death is different from the rest. At the time, the coroner amazingly put a 3.15pm cut-off point for ALL the people who died in the disaster. He stated everyone who died was clinically dead by that time. The difference with Kevin Williams is that there are statements from different people stating they spoke with Kevin up until at least 3.45pm. The coroner refused to change the time & a massive injustice is ongoing.

On Monday night, 17th Oct, a debate of huge significance took place in England. Over 130,000 people signed a petition to have Hillsborough debated, the case to be reopened, and the files from the time opened to the public for the first time. These files are so important as they contain the actual minutes of meetings between Maggie Thatcher, her government, the Sheffield Police and other ‘interested’ parties at the time. The whole investigation has been one cover up after another (Police chief at the time lied to the FA about the cause, FA lied to government who told lies to the s*n newspaper who lied to the country).in Williams is that there are statements from different people stating they spoke with Kevin up until at least 3.45pm. The coroner refused to change the time & a massive injustice is ongoing.

Following on from the debate on Monday, Kevin’s mother Anne Williams has started a petition to have the 3.15pm cut-off reversed and Kevin’s case reviewed. At 3.15pm Kevin was alive and needed medical attention from an ambulance. Ambulances were not allowed onto the pitch. If they had been, he’d have survived.

This is such an important case for us that we need to get everyone to sign this. Please sign this. It only takes 2mins to sign (fill in the four fields online & then click the link emailed to you – if you don’t click the emailed link your signature wont count). You can fill this in for your partner/kids as well. You will need to note you are a UK resident or citizen.

The case deserves to be reviewed.

Petition Link

You can watch some of the MP’s speeches on the debates here

Information on the disaster here

Please sign & then post on yer Facebook, Twitter or whatever you use.

Run Update

Following on from my post the other day about the amazing run my friend is doing (http://bigsc.blogspot.com/2010/09/from-past-to-future.html), there is an update.

Here is the route we will be taking for the run tomorrow. Please come out and support this great cause:

"Brendan finishes his challenge in Galway on October 1st when he will run the last leg.

Starting from Blackrock at 3pm, he will run along the prom via Nile Lodge and St. Mary’s road to UCHG.

Brendan is asking anyone who might like to walk, jog or run to join him at Blackrock and support him to the finish line at the front door of UCHG, around 4pm where together with family and friends he will be greeted by Prof . Michael Kerins (Medical director of NBCRI) and the NBCRI research team who are based at Clinical Science Institute, UCHG."

The route: http://maps.google.com/maps?f=d&source=s_d&saddr=Upper+Salthill+Rd&daddr=53.26956,-9.06565+to:53.276339,-9.067926&hl=en&geocode=Ff2mLAMdaTh1_w%3BFTjULAMdTqt1_ykjjZuQ-JZbSDEBXsv7pscAEw%3BFbPuLAMdaqJ1_w&mra=dpe&mrcr=0&mrsp=1&sz=15&via=1&dirflg=w&sll=53.270064,-9.069986&sspn=0.007571,0.038152&ie=UTF8&ll=53.267318,-9.07093&spn=0.007572,0.038152&z=15

Please come along...

From the past to the future

This coming Friday, October 1st 2010, my best friend Brendan McCarthy will complete an amazing challege to run 1,000 miles in 50 days. That's 20 miles per day, every day, for just over 7 weeks.

Why is he doing this I hear you ask? Well, its best that he answers in his own words:

"On the 8th of February, 2010, my sister Tricia died of breast cancer. It was too late for Tricia, but I felt that I had to do something to prevent this happening to other families. So from the 13th of August to the 1st of October (fifty days), I'm running (walking and crawling) twenty miles a day for charity.

The money raised will be donated to the National Breast Cancer Research Institute where it will be used in the fight against breast cancer".

You can become a fan of this on Facebook also: http://www.facebook.com/?sk=ff&ap=1#!/group.php?gid=145659082124810

The last leg of the run will take place in Galway where Tricia lived. The run will start in Blackpool at 3pm and we will run past Tricias home and finish at the University College Hospital Galway. He will be met by Prof Michael Kerins and the NBCRI research team for whom the money is being raised.

If you would like to donate please do so here: http://www.mycharity.ie/event/tricia_mccarthy/. If you'd like to join in the run and fun on Friday please do come along. Just leave a message on Facebook!!

Benji In the Snow

Took this picture down in Newbridge during the snow. This is my brother in law's dog Benji. Took him out for a walk.

Nice.

Any day..

Any day today, we'll see this little 'un in daylight.

Can't wait.

Hollibob Pics

In November, the wife and myself decided to take some time off and do some exploring. We went to that London for three nights and then headed in Norn Iron, spending 2 nights in Belfast and 2 nights outside Ballymena - Haigh !

It was a fantastic trip, really great. The scenery in Ireland is spectacular and if you have never been north - go! We drove as far as Dundalk, hung a right and took the coast road to Carlingford into Newry and down the other side of Carlingford Lough. Magic.

First though, we went to London spending a few days in Kensington. Accommodation wasn't great but we didn't spend much time indoors. On the first day, we got the underground to Buckingham Palace then walked to the Thames via Westminster Cathedral, then Westminster Abbey and the Houses of Parliament.

The Cathedral is a spectacular building, all full of nooks and crannies. There are loads of little praying areas, all for different priests and most used by the looks of it. Some hold maybe 10 people, others are bigger. I didn't get any pictures inside as they prefer you not to.

After this, and Starbucks, we went to the Abbey and again a magnificent building. All around this building there is great architecture on view. The Abbey itself had restricted access on the day but still to walk around outside is cool. It reminded me very much of Notre Dame but with a more regal feeling about it. It's just like you would imagine when Kings and Queens were having mass years ago whereas Notre Dame has a more imposing feeling - to me anyway.

That day there were memorial services for Poppy Day and so there was something on at the side of the Abbey. As you can see in the picture, there were thousands of little crosses, with lots of them having peoples names on it. I watched for a while as men from all regiments looked around for their friends names. Many took pictures of them and many wife's took pictures of their husbands at the crosses. It was a very sombre moment to be honest. The picture I took represented only maybe a tenth of all the flags.

From there, it was onto the Houses Of Parliament, a building I really like. Maybe its because every time I see it all I can think of is Guy Fawkes and what the place, and indeed the world, would look like if he succeeded!

Along the back of the building, there is a really imposing statue of Richard I of England. It's just there, on its own with no other statue around. How cool would it be to be immortalised in a statue. Cool.

There is also a status of Oliver Cromwell but for fairly obvious reasons I didn't take a picture of it - me dad would kill me.

There is a lovely walk through a park, along the Thames. In this park is a tribute to Emmeline Pankhurst. On a fresh Winters day this wee park is lovely, bringing you up to Lambeth Bridge a a view back to the Houses Of Parliament


Tomorrow, we'll walk up the Thames from Lambeth Bridge to Tower Bridge, drink London Pride beer, eat a Sunday roast in a good London pub, watch the last 10 minutes of Chelsea v ManU on mobile text alerts and then have a kebab.

Clongriffin Christmas Market

Righty-o. There is a Christmas Market this coming Saturday in Clongriffin, Dublin 13. Everyone should come along as it will be magic. Below is the flyer for it though loads more stalls have been added since this was made.

Loads to do for the kids..and also for the adults!
Get into the Christmassy mood by donning your Santy gear and get your arse to Clongriffin. Click here for the directions.