Lá féile Pádraig

Ireland beat England comprehensively on St. Patrick’s day to win the rugby union grand slam. Another one in the eye of Mr E. Jones from his Irish friends, good karma.

The nerve agent poisoning saga rumbles on. Mr Bo Johnson calls Russia smug and sarcastic, this is the man who has honed smugness and sarcasm to Olympian levels, so he should know. Whoever is responsible it seems there is a coalescing of dangerous Russian nationalism embodied in a leader who will feed the siege mentality, while spending mind boggling sums on nuclear weapons. It doesn’t seem beyond the bounds of imagination to think it was state sponsored, which begs the question of the humanity of a person ordering the death of another, can’t be human in a reasonable definition. Re-elected though, Mr Putin, I expect his buddies Farage and Trump will be pleased though. I saw some good tips for them on Election Day, stuff the ballot boxes, ban your rivals, control the media, do that and even Farage could get elected.
A final note on the nerve agent poisoning, Portland Down the British government chemical weapons facility seems to have come out of this OK, 50,000,000 pounds more OK, hmm…..

A snowy St Patrick’s day, but a fun one I was on accordion, Mickey on guitar, Ed on guitar and Nathan on violin, however I don’t think the mighty Chieftains need worry.

Finally, the deaths of two men of genius; Stephen Hawking, Liam og O’Flynn. Incomparable and sadly missed, but it was far easier for me to listen to Liam’s piping than to read “A brief history of time” again, I have read it, I promise.

Sin é, slán go fóill.

It's a bit late

My last week, started with Bradley Wiggins' problems, he's not coming out of this very well, the obsfucation of the team, packages and their contents was always going to be grist to the mill of an MP's committee. I love cycling and just hope this doesn't give succour to the motorists who have at various times tried to kill me, a concussion is the worst I've suffered, via a smashed cycle helmet, without which I would have been dead or someone else. Anyway way Bradders sort it out.

Later on the assault on the Russian gentleman and his daughter in Salisbury with what turns out to be a nerve agent, was, is the stuff of nightmares, if its state sponsored what can be done? They will say is was nothing to do with us, and what are you going to do about it? The ingenuity of the human species designing horror means of destroying fellow beings is beyond disgust, because whether it's state sponsored or not someone has made this, probably has at least a PhD. Before it was even identified as a specific attack on an individual the rather ugly Briebart news was peddling its Islam hate, they are reprehensible too.

At the end of the week Mr Vince Cable in a speech to his Lib Dem colleagues describes the old leave voters in the EU referendum as hankering for the good old days of white faces, blue passports and a world map covered in the pink of imperial Britain, he was right, I know he was right because I've met these people. The ones who would ask me when I was working on a hospital ward what colour the doctor was. The problem was I still had to treat these people with respect, but I couldn't ignore their racism and my usual response was I think she has black hair. Just getting old doesn't make someone a good person, I know this too I'm old now, or would be if I let myself.

Ireland rugby team, next week on St Patrick's day will need to beat the conquerors. Abu.

Spring over

Well this week Mrs May here in the UK has made a deep and meaningful speech on the future of the exit from the EU. The problem is she speaks in platitudes to her right wing nutters, she speaks in sound bite nonsense to everyone else so that next week when she is challenged she can face the other way and say ‘that is not what I meant, this is what I meant’. In the meantime this country slips into a bog, on the edge of a cliff in the dark, all the while pointy faced racists shouting we’re taking back control handing out blindfolds and buying up gold for the crash.

A nurse I used to work with, has this week shared or reposted on Facebook a vile, deeply unpleasant and misogynistic post from someone called Jayden F*** I can’t bring myself to type her name, this calls for banning the burka in Britain, now whatever the rights or wrongs of women’s clothing it is not for me to comment. But what I can do is identify the source. If the source of a statement is from a proven racist, who recently commented on the newest prospective member of the royal family and the idea that this person of non-white background will sully the pure Britishness of the Saxe-Cohburgs (the irony of that will be lost on the racists). So here’s a tip free speech is fine, but take care in repeating what others might say, you’ll be tarred with the same brush, quite rightly I think.

A young man has this week been sentenced for driving a car into women wearing clothing identifying them as Muslims. There is a cancer in some parts of this society.

Small signs of hope in USA  a small reaction against guns, I expect it’ll wear out though, I hope not.

There’s been a bit of winter at the start of spring and it’s all gone pear-shaped here.

The winter Olympics ended, and in a blurry waking moment I listened to a report on the Bob Sleighing, in my other world it became the Bog Slaying, with wild Vikings smashing up some soft squelchy ground in their Berserker frenzy, getting more frustrated as they sank up to their navels in sphagnum moss.

On a final note a relation has a big birthday soon, it seems they will be going on a Virgin Experience, I really do not know what to make of that…, except oxymoron.