Peter Falk dies aged 83

Very saddened to hear this, I grew up watching Columbo and still enjoy the repeats now.

R.I.P. Lieutenant

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5iQiLmmUygScHLz6HYEgqeqIETKig?docId=3f13380979794ec0965319902ab8891f

Bono's hen is shitting all over the neighbours garden...

...and she (the neighbour) isn't happy.

http://www.rte.ie/ten/2011/0623/bono.html

Judy Garland

It's her anniversary today.
She was great.

That's all.

Is this one of the greatest long tracking scenes from a film ever ?

One of the best I have seen.


One Camera, One Take...large area covered...lots of different mini-scenes captured....amazing piece of film methinks...


From the 2007 film Atonement

Well done Rory McIlroy and shame on you Journal.ie...

Human nature never ceases to amaze me...Rory McIlroy won the US Open last night and today on thejournal.ie and their facebook page they are having a debate over 'is he really irish, or is he a brit ?'....folks leaving comments about how someone put an irish tri-colour over him last night and he 'discarded' it...and how is dad is a 'true brit'.....although there are some 'leave it out' comments too, it is bad form for an irish website to be starting up shite like this the day after such a great win..

hukd.ie - Irish bargains site

Thanks to my friend MagnumLady for the heads up on this one.
Some great deals listed here..worth the browse..
...and there's a very slick mobile version too.

http://www.hukd.ie

Jobless Paddy is jobless no more...

It worked !!


In a follow up to this post - 

http://broadcastingfromashed.blogspot.com/2011/05/if-you-were-on-merrion-road-in-dublin.html

Feilim Mac an Iomaire, aka 'Jobless Paddy', now has himself a job.


Fair play.


http://www.rte.ie/news/2011/0617/joblesspaddy.html

Ladies Day at Ascot in 2011...

The Royal Ascot prestigious Ladies Day, one of the highlights of the horse racing calender, yesterday had a day in its history like no other...
To summarize, there was a huge fight, arrests, drug incidents and call girls


It even made the legendary racing commentator Sir Peter O’Sullivan say: ‘It’s disrespectful – not just to the Queen, but to the horses.’ 

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2004421/Royal-Ascot-2011-Brawl-breaks-Ladies-Day-chair-legs-flying.html

Queen David

All hail her majesty Queen David...

Happy Birthday Roberto Duran

Known among boxing fans as the "Hands of Stone" Roberto Duran turns 60 years old today.
A world champion from 1972 to 1989 in four different weight divisions...He was the first boxer to defeat the great 'Sugar' Ray Leonard, and was quite unbelievably, a top professional boxer in the 1960's, 1970's, 1980's, 1990's and 2000's.
Following serious injuries sustained in a 2001 automobile accident, he retired from the ring with a 103-16 (70 KOs) record.


A true pound-for-pound great...

Rocky Marciano and Three Knockouts

This is a YouTube video from an online friend of mine who is a boxing fan. There are not many people around who talk about having been to classic boxing matches in the 1940's/1950's and have a perfect recollection of it.
My friend here has quite a few videos of his memories and this is typical of them, wonderful stuff...

The Pipe - Corrib Gas Pipeline Disputes Documentary (More4 - 10pm Tues 14th)

'The Pipe', which will be shown on TV channel More4 tonight at 10pm, is a documentary that tells the story of a community in the west of Ireland dealing with an oil pipe that could bring disruption to their way of life and how they tried to oppose it and fight the powerful oil company Shell and also the government over their rights. 


more on the story here...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corrib_gas_controversy

Lets get some breakfast..

"I love it...I love every bit of it" she said as she playfully leaned over, taking in the panoramic view surrounding his extravagant new apartment.....he looked on...he wondered if what they had was coming to an end, she looked happy but he knew deep down she would always want more, she was just that kind of gal...she was going places and nothing, or no-one, was stopping her...."you love it enough to stay then?" he asked with a hint of defeat in his voice..."enough to maybe..well..you know.." he continued....she knew. She flicked her hair back in the same way she had the first moment he seen her on that Hollywood strip, it still made him take a sudden breath every time she did it...she didnt answer...he had to look away..the realization came to him again, she was there, she was with him, but she never really would be there...her hand brushed his bare chest, he could smell her fragrance...like a flower that would be gone in winter...she kissed his cheek softly and whispered "lets get some breakfast.."

Alex Honnold - a very extreme rock climber..

This man is fearless.
Alex Honnold is a mountain climber but with the added dimension of doing it with no ropes or no safety equipment at all !!

A very dizzying and scary video of Alex in action...watch on full screen..

 

“Iron” Mike Tyson to be inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame

Former 2-time heavyweight world boxing champion Mike Tyson (50-6, 44 KOs), who remains at 20 the youngest man to ever win the WBC, WBA and IBF world heavyweight titles, and was for a short while one of the greatest heavyweight champions of all time, will be inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame in New York. 
It's his achievements in the sport which should rightly give Tyson his place on boxing's hall of fame....if Barry McGuigan and Ingemar Johansson are there then so should Mike Tyson.
He has his critics who may say, leaving his rape conviction to one side, that some of what he did in and around a boxing ring should mean he shouldn't be celebrated within the sport like this....instances like biting Evander Holyfield's ear, not once but twice, in their 1997 rematch and the sickening outburst while speaking about the Lennox Lewis fight in 2002 where he shouted loudly in front of a ring full of boxing reporters that he would 'eat his (lewis's) children'...and boxing Andrew Golota in 2000 while high on Marijuana.


But, it is what it is, Tyson's skill and achievements can only be admired by followers of boxing and to make the Hall of Fame as legitimate as possible in the eyes of boxing fans then there is really no way you could exclude one of the all-time great heavyweight champions like Mike Tyson.


This video beow shows some of what made Tyson such an amazing champion, the video has been put together by Reznick Productions who I think have some of the best boxing 'edits' videos on YouTube.

The Sligo Tweets Daily

"The Sligo Tweets Daily" is a collection of tweets by Twitter users from around the Sligo area and presented in a neat site based on the paper.li format, a site which allows you to make a website in a newspaper format based on Facebook and Twitter posts. RodF@APubWithNoBeer is the man behind this Sligo based one and it works well and is always an interesting read.

Big Country back on the big stage

Big Country are back...and back with a bang. One of my favourite singer/songwriters Mike Peters from The Alarm is their lead singer these days (original lead singer Stuart Adamson died in 2001) and it's given me a real interest in what the band are doing due to his involvement.
I've had the pleasure of seeing them live twice this year so far, and it is the energetic and passionate performances that they have made since they reformed last year that has got them to big festival stages at the moment.
Tonight Sky Arts showed them playing on the main stage at the Isle of Wight festival and it was an amazing feeling watching it...for me to see Mike Peters sing on such a big stage again is very satisfying, I have seen him play so many times live with The Alarm and this is a definite high point in his legendary career.

This video isn't good quality because it was me just pointing a phone at the TV...
Big Country on the main stage at the Isle of Wight festival 2011..

Sligo Rovers and The Alarm

Wasn't sure how to title this post.
This is a video myself and my son threw together one day, combining two of our loves in life - Sligo Rovers (his) and the band The Alarm (mine)...it's nothing special but here it is anyway...

Sligo Photographer Val Robus wins award from RTE

I'm very proud and happy about this.
Val is a friend of mine and she is a fantastic photographer, I have been a fan for a very long time....she thoroughly deserves this.

View some of Val's work here....and follow her blog here

From SligoToday.ie -
"Sligo photographer Val Robus was a guest of RTE this week and received an award from the national broadcaster.
Val, from Coolaney, had entered a photo into the RTE weather photo competition last year that she took on a misty March morning in Ballisodare, Co Sligo"

Val's work will also be on display at the upcoming Temple House Festival

Fantasy Boxing Posters

I follow boxing, one of the few sports that I follow with enthusiasm, and one of my favourite places to hang out online is Eastside Boxing forums.
In the classic section of their forums there is a thread dedicated to fantasy fight posters...and I'd like to repost some of whats on that thread here...

Click below to see more...

A WW1 Soldiers Letter To His Sweetheart - On Display At Galway Museum..

This was a post I made on a forum I frequent - back a few months ago...I think it deserves a reposting here..


While roaming around Galway museum we (Mrs Doug and myself) found this..

What looked like a service manual for radiators or something was sitting on a shelf, it had a black cover, and no writing to say it was anything important, and it wasnt inside a cabinet or anything...just randomly left on a shelf....I didnt pay it much attention as I went by it.....but I looked back a couple of minutes later and 'Mrs Doug' was reading through it...she called me over to show me what was inside...a soldiers* letter to his sweetheart in 1918....they were both from Galway, but he had found himself injured from battle in a hospital in Egypt, and she had found herself in America, the reason why she was in America wasnt clear, but it appears it is temporary..


*he was a member of The Connaught Rangers ("the Devil's Own") - an Irish Regiment of the British Army during WW1.


...anyhoo....this is hardly readable...due to batteries having died on my good camera and this was snapped with our crappy little point and shoot thing...this isn't readable so i have re-typed what it says...and i think it is very much worth reading.

This was donated to the museum by the grandson of the couple...they eventually married and settled back home in Galway after the war ended.

(to read what it says and the rest of the post click on the 'read more' link below..)


.

The 'Mechanical Cop' Of The Future...

This was the vision for a futuristic police force in 1924 according to 'Science And Invention' magazine.

Would you argue the toss with this ??

..click here for a larger version.

Welcome To The Jungle

This is a version of Guns N' Roses 'Welcome To The Jungle' but not like you may have heard it before...

If you like this then have a gander at - http://www.2cellos.com/

A Look Into Life In The Future...

The middle-class lifestyle of the future...and the future is glass.
Everything in this futuristic utopia is probably made by Apple..probably...looks like it anyway.
The iPhone 17 looks really nice.
...and they still have popcorn - to make things even more perfect.

June 8th - The Day That Mallory And Irvine Tried To Conquer Everest

It was on this day, June 8th in 1924 that George Mallory and Andrew Irvine lost their lives on an attempt to climb the then-unclimbed Mount Everest.


When a team of Everest climbers found Mallory's body in 1999 it was aparent that Mallory had fallen from a much higher ridge...but he had his 'goggles' in his pocket which would suggest that he wasnt facing the sun, which would in turn suggest he was coming back from the summit, or as near as they got to it..
..or...would it ??


On his attempt a few days earlier, Edward Norton (a soldier and head of his expedition) had suffered serious snow-blindness because he did not wear his goggles, so Mallory would be unlikely to have dispensed with them in daylight, and given their known departure time and movements, had they not attempted the summit pyramid it is unlikely that they would have still been out by nightfall. An alternative scenario is that Mallory may have carried an extra pair and the pair he was wearing was torn off in his fall.


It would be another 29 years before Edmund Hillary & Tenzing Norgay climbed the mountain.


Did they make it ??...Were they the first ??


..more on the 1924 Everest expedition here