For a while I’ve been meaning to take up golf. I reckon I would enjoy golf if I was able to play it. I like the tranquillity of it; just you, the ball, the flag and that bloody bunker directly in your eyeline. Alas, to date my attempts to play the grand old game have quickly morphed into a Dick Cheney like hunt, as having released my ball into the wild, I spend the next 10 minutes searching for it. This process repeats itself over the course of 5 hours.
To fix this problem I joined the Golf Society here at work after seeing they were offering the chance to get some professional lessons at cut prices. I thought "I'll get the fundamentals and then it'll be a breeze". My lessons began a fortnight ago and after 2 lessons of having my swing completely reconstructed I’m worse than I’ve ever been. Hitting the ball is now a real challenge.
However as bad as my golf game is, it could be worse. On the bus journey out to Leopardstown last Thursday I was subjected to the stupidest conversation I’ve ever heard. Three teenage girls decided to sit behind me for the duration of the trip and whilst I wasn’t trying to eaves drop I, along with the rest of the bus, couldn’t help but. Listening to them try to construct a coherent sentence was like watching a child trying to build a house of cards beside a fan. After one or two shaky components were in place the whole thing fell in on itself.
Over the weekend I watched a TV show Top 50 list of the greatest comedic character of all time. Vicky Pollard featured highly and no surprise. Its an astonishing performance from Matt Lucas.
The Third Fifth Wheel
Do you know whats worse than being the 3rd wheel? That’s right, being the fifth one.
I agreed to head to the Hurling League Semi-Finals in Thurles with a friend of mine from Kilkenny. My beloved Tipperary were’nt playing but I thought what the hell, it’ll be good to see the competition in action before the summer.
I was horrified to find out Saturday evening that my friends new girlfriend would be coming too.
However, worse was to follow as my friend’s girlfriend decided to invite her housemate and her boyfriend to make a nice party of 5.
The two happy couples and me.
It was exactly as bad as you’d imagine…and thanks to Kilkenny’s performance the hurling wasn’t up to much either.
Same old…
As night follows day, so another school shooting tragedy in America is followed by a debate on the merits of tigher gun control.
On BBC Newsnight last night, President of the Virginia Citizens defence League and anti-gun control guy, Philip Van Cleave (cool name) was making the case for arming the public as a solution to the problem. Phil said that crime happened when you least expected and attempted to make the argument that if every student had carried a gun to Virginia tech yesterday the tragedy would not have occurred.
Cough.
Likewise, over breakfast this morning the chap who reviews the newspapers for Sky News (apologies his name escapes me) was making a strong argument in favour of guns for us good guys. He pointed out that although Britain had one of the strictest set gun controls in the world, gun crime was on the way up.
An interesting point to be sure.
However then I thought, wait a second. Would I rather live in a society where gun crime was on the increase, but increasing from 631 crimes resulting in serious injury or fatality a year (2005, 78 of which were homocides)? Or, would I like to live in a society where there was over 80 gun related deaths recorded every single day?
Tough choice
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