Speis

I don't know where to start.

This is my lunch. There's too much in it, but I'm not complaining about that. There should always be too much in a sandwich. Nothing worse than lifting a pallid slice of bread to see a few lone strips of ham and a glob of mustard.

The problem with the roll is that you have to overfill it. You're cutting down the middle of a cylinder, right, and you're opening it out to fill with delicious ingredients. Now, I'm no scientician, but there's no way to seal that cylinder up again without spilling the filling all over your desk. Call it the 'end of holiday suitcase effect'. So you clamp it shut and lunge it at your open mouth.

But that doesn't work because the best way to approach it would be with the open side on top, to prevent the whole thing sliding out the side as you crunch onwards. But few people have a mouth that wide. So you nibble at the side like a mouse tackling a piece of corn.

And you can't stop. Because the filling is always on the verge of flying in all directions. Every time you increase or reduce the pressure on the roll, bits dribble out. Hold it up to grab a mouthful of coke and everything drops onto your lap.

It's a very silly way of eating lunch.

I could go on.

I think I will.

There are the days when you decide you want sauce or dressing and you end up wearing sweet chilli sauce on your hands and mouth for the rest of the day. Or it's late in the afternoon and the roll isn't soft and springy but hard and jagged and you can feel your gums bleed every time your teeth clamped into this toughened yeast treat.

Don't get me started on the difficulties of eating a breakfast roll, with sausage, bacon, fried egg and ketchup all quivering precariously on a mound of hardened lard, as the people around you try to remember what CPR stands for.

I suppose you could ask the deli lady to cut your roll in half but frankly that makes you a bit of a sissy in my book.

Saw King Kong last night. I enjoyed it a lot but the story seemed very familiar. Let me see: headstrong woman goes to exotic locale to meet mythic Lord of the Jungle, finds him and befriends him after some humourous misunderstandings, before she takes him back to New York City where he flounders in his new, strange environment.

Come on, Peter Jackson, I think we've all seen Crocodile Dundee.

Regardless of influences, I was impressed by the way Jackson has stuck to his b-movie roots - Kong might have cost 300 squillion dollars but it's still just a big sack of cheesy thrills, high-concepts and broad acting. More power to it. It's hard to make a 3hour+ period film that doesn't drag but Kong has enough happening on screen to keep its audience engaged.

Schoolgirl, mother killed in two road accidents

Supt John Roche from Gorey Garda station said Ms McGlynn appeared to have fallen under the rear of a 40-foot articulated lorry.

Ms McGlynn, who is believed to have come originally from Bray, Co Wicklow, managed to push a pram containing her three-month-old son out of the way before she was killed.

She did that and in a couple of days she'll just be another Irish road-death statistic.

Philip Roth grants a rare interview to a Dutch journalist, Martin Krasnik, about his new book The Plot Against America. I won't waste your time picking out snappy soundbites but I think you should all read it.

Attention MAJers:

Some of you have been wondering if it's possible to track visitors to your blogs. You'll be delighted to hear that it's wonderfully simple. Scroll down the side menu on this site, past the cute little bear, don't dawdle on the link to your own blog, there, right at the bottom, is a little black globe. That is a tracker. And so, because I love you all (as well as being on a serious work-dodging streak) here is my simple Guide to Taking Revenge on People Who Think They Can Just Visit Your Site and not be Used to Fuel Your Titanic Ego:

Step 1: go to the Extreme Tracking site.
Step 2: click on Get Your Free Tracker.
Step 3: Fill in the name of your site (anything you like), URL (exactly as it appears), your timezone (whatever feels right) and then think of a login and password (you'll need this to make any changes in the future).
Step 4: Click on Get Your Tracker Code. You should see a couple of html code lines. Copy it.
Step 5: Go to Blogger and open the settings for your blog. Go to your site template. Scroll down to the bottom and paste the code in. I put mine right at the end before the line, but it might depend on your the template you're using.
Step 6: Save the changes, Republish your blog and have a look.

Happy stalking.

Indoor Air Castles
Originally uploaded by aciddave.

Went to my weekly Capoeira class but there'd been a double booking and the room was full of bouncy castles.

I didn't mind.

This kid is my God.

Or maybe this old woman.

Damn, I sense a schism coming on.

People with broadband, do you like lip-synching? Do you have 3 and half minutes to spare? I have just the thing for you.

Fellow Journalism students, are you worried that the media has no real power over events? Then take heart at the actions of James Hipwell, a former Daily Mirror journalist, who used his City Slickers column to manipulate the stock market. After buying shares in a company, he would reccomend it to his readers, wait for them to trudge out and buy up the stock, then simply sell his shares for a tidy profit and go streaking through hospital wards.

Overall, he made £41,000 from this practice, tax-free and on top of his salary. Not bad for a little dishonesty on the side, eh?

bla bla bla found guilty doo doo dee faces a maximum sentence of seven years in prison tum tee tum £41,000?!

Bear Necessities
Originally uploaded by aciddave.

What would you like for Christmas, Bob?

I think I'd go for seperation.

Oh? I was thinking socks.

Uh, no, I'm not daydreaming about The Trilogy this time.

It seems that a lot of people in the class are thinking hard about what a career in journalism really means. It's hard to avoid it when all of the facts are floating around this classroom.

Anyway, I was talking to a college friend yesterday. He casually told me that he's sending a programme proposal into a local radio station.

I had to do a double take.
I had to do a double take.

Had we just switched bodies? Surely I'm the one who's pursuing a media career? He's never expressed any interest in radio before (besides his near psychotic devotion to Terry Wogan. I like the guy too, but getting down on my hands and knees to painstakingly tune in BBC Radio 2 every morning is a little excessive.), so why does he need an hour of weekly airtime?

Obviously I wish him the best (is he reading this? Dunno, better play it safe.), but it makes me wonder why I'm spending this extra year in college.

It's the last week before my class has a rake of deadlines to meet and assessments to hand up. We were all deeply entrenched in desperate time-wasting. We had finished today's crossword and put up our Christmas lights, it was brave stuff but it wasn't enough. Most of us were resigned to the fact that we might actually have to do something constructive. Then a lone voice sang out across the room:

Lads, do you remember when you were a kid, ye know, paint?

A moment of silence, heads are cocked thoughtfully on one side.

Then a flurry of activity. Procarastination lives for another day. Thanks to Ms Paint and one wise man.

News reaches me of a Blog conference in Paris called Les Blogs, which is splendid. Though I have this feeling that they've slightly missed the point of blogging.

Anyway, those of you with super-eyeballs will be able to read this pie chart and see which degree of deliciousness belongs to the brave Irish bloggers.

I woke up this morning feeling great. Setting your alarm for 9am on a weekday pretty much guarantees that. I sang along with the radio while I buttered my toast, I performed complicated acrobatics putting on my t-shirt, I put a big double knot in my laces. Birds flying high, you know how I feel, sun in the sky you know how I feel, and I'm feeling goo-

Oh wait, it's lashing rain. Arse.

I hopped on the bus and had all sorts of uncomfortable bodily collisions with wet and grumpy strangers. I pushed the bell, leapt out of the double doors and inhaled a great gust of fresh air. It was still raining, with that slow, deliberate determination that Irish raindrops have.
"Complain all ye loike, bud, we can keep this up all bleedin day." Irish rain has the same work ethic as those council workers you see leaning on their spades, harassing pigeons.

I spent the morning in the National Library, cricking my neck and taking notes on a newspaper from a million years ago. (Declan was there. I urged him to keep the faith while jumping out the exit.)

I needed food. No simple sandwich or cheerful chips would satisfy this gasping hunger, I needed pancakes. No, more, I needed a crepe. I headed for Lemon on Dawson, wondering just how much bacon one stomach could digest before dissolving. I bumped into the queue while I was still on the opposite side of the street.

New plan, genius.

I crossed Grafton Street and plunged into the dark maze of streets that cling to Dublin's main shopping thoroughfare like feeder fish on great whites. It was here, nestled in the foul bosom, that I found the original Lemon Crepe shop.

Q?

There was none. I muttered a prayer, hit send and watched it soar skyward. I ordered the Tuna Fest, thinking that the fish would get my brain working. The cashier took my order. I wasn't paying attention, I was looking at a guy standing by the till in a bandana. Someone had written in biro upside down on his forehead. It was peaking out from his headwear shyly.

He caught my eye? 'Anything else?'
No thanks. (and by the way, who scribbled on your face?)

He walked right up to me and looked me in the eye. (he was tall).

'You don't recognise me, do you David?'

It's my oldest friend in the world. I haven't seen him in 6 years. His massive grin reflects mine.

I love this wet city.

Today in class, we play Devil's Advocate.

A celebrity has died. Your editor wants you to go to the parents' house and cover the story. The family has been repeatedly quoted in the news asking the media to leave them alone while they deal with their loss. What do you do?

At first people were adamant that they wouldn't go, they would have too much respect for the relatives to go bothering them. Particularly when they said they wanted to be left alone.

Good answer. You're fired.

Realisation dawned for me. I had just gotten a taste of what reporting news might actually be like. Sitting outside someone's house on a grey morning for six hours when no one wants you there. You don't even want to be there yourself. I definitely wouldn't. I've grieved for people. I know that I wouldn't feel capable of talking to the press.

But.

When I've experienced a death I've always wanted to talk about it. I want to remember that person that mattered to me. I want to push their every last word, gesture and facet deep down inside so that I never lose it. I want to see that this person mattered to others. I want them to be remembered.

So if someone came to my door and said: