[QUOTE=âElvis Brandenberg Kremmen, post: 1101760, member: 1624â]Well done @Sidney. Usually these Picklington tomes you write are load of old trout but I enjoyed that one, particularly the bit about Biddy getting killed.
Thatâs also probably the bit that King Roaster @Mac bust out laughing at.[/QUOTE]
It was either the Mullinavat Vegas line or the butter and milk one.
thatâs very well done, also exploring the PK interview style was a nice twist, PK does tend to give a commentary on his interviews in between questioning and Sid got this.
Digressing, there was one of these from a while back that i laughed at also, cant find it here but it went along the lines of,
youâd have to read the full piece to appreciate what a showstopper it was for the reader expecting a detailed few lines as to why he was in shock, but this was all the renowned Canice was giving away
Good work there Sid, the bit about Vegas is very neat.
Thatâs excellent, @Sidney. Very clever, witty and nuanced. Thick cunts wonât appreciate the humour.
id agree
there is something very ungentlemanly and almost primative about a man who cannot appreciate subtlety in humour
i suppose to appreciate one first needs to understand
"No, probably not " was my favourite line. 
That was good now in fairness
The bit about what was the root of his catholic guilt ?
"Brian Cody Iâd say ⊠"
Literally did laugh out loud.
You should do something with that one sid. Setup a blog or some such
As has been pointed out Iâd like to think itâs quite nuanced but that means itâll fly over the heads of most people. That Kilkenny players are boring is accepted currency around here but people in the wider world tend to be simpletons. I think youâd nearly have to have been following it from the start to get it.
âshopping for groceries inside in the city.â
You can post them all up sure
Worth a try anyway. Youâd have a WordPress site up and running in a few hours your own URL to less than a tenner a month.
Very good. Hadnât read any of them until now. The KK lads are seething.
[FONT=Georgia]Caught At Long Gone - A Trip Down Cricketâs Memory Lane[/FONT]
[FONT=Georgia]From Cricket Ireland Magazine[/FONT]
The 1869 All-Ireland County Cricket Championship final - Kilkenny v Wexford
by Seoirse Ăg Balbirnie
Irelandâs unfancied cricketers may be doing the country proud at the World Cup in Australia and New Zealand at the moment but the Boys in Green might well have been one of the favourites to win the tournament had the cricket strongholds of the south-east of the country maintained their former strength.
The All-Ireland County Championship attracted large crowds throughout the 1850s, 1860s and 1870s and was the countryâs premier sporting competition of the time.
Cork, Tipperary, Dublin, Antrim, Tyrone and Kildare all had excellent teams.
However the dominant sides came from the south-east. Waterford and Wexford were widely admired for their swashbuckling batsmen and aggressive bowling. But the team they all had to beat was Kilkenny.
It was said in the 1860s that cricketers grew on the impressive willow trees that lined the banks of the Nore, such was Kilkennyâs prowess with ball and bat. Itâs no exaggeration to say the game was a religion in the Marble City and its surrounding hinterland.
In 1869, Kilkenny, going for four All-Ireland county championships in a row, met Wexford in the final.
There was huge public interest, and special trains were laid on to bring supporters from both counties to Dublin. The famous âbankâ overlooking the College Park pitch at Dublin University was full with spectators.
Many of the names we now associate with Kilkenny hurling, such as Larkin, Tennyson, Welsh and Walsh were present on the Kilkenny line-out of that day.
Ten times All-Ireland hurling medallist Canice Picklingtonâs great great great grandfather James E. Picklington (the common hurling nickname âJamesieâ was originally derived from his name) was also a player on the Kilkenny team that day.
âItâs a proud piece of family history, I suppose, and itâs nice to know given the success of the Irish cricket team at the moment. Iâm not a huge cricket fan, but itâs great to see them do well, as itâs good for the countryâ, said Canice, when I contacted him as part of my research for this article.
But the final turned out to be an ill-tempered affair and Picklington takes up the story.
âIâve heard the story of what happened, alright. It was 50/50 (as it always is in Kilkenny-Wexford matches) on the fifth day of the final, and it looked like a draw might be on the cards. The All-Ireland title was shared in the event of a draw in those days. But the captain, Richie âChaâ de Clare, decided that even though Kilkenny had six wickets left in their second innings, that instead of settling for a draw theyâd stop batting and go for the win. This was very controversial as it was apparently against the etiquette of the game. In fact it was so controversial that it became known as a âde Clareâ, in a similar way to how the word Boycott became commonplace after the peasants in Mayo boycotted that lad Boycott - not the cricket lad, now, the other fella.â
"Wexford were chasing a target of 198 to win, and they were doing very well. They were on something like 130 for 3 at tea. So Jamesie felt that something had to be done.
âWhile everybody was in drinking tea in the pavilion, he secretly went out and did a bit of a piss on the wicket! That apparently proved to be the crucial moment - it enabled the teamâs star fast bowler Harold Shefflington to get the vital reverse swing which bamboozled the Wexford batsmen. The Wexford lads collapsed to 179/8 and then started complaining. Jamesie said it was just a bit of vinegar that heâd sprinkled on the wicket for good luck. The umpire Kirwan said that was fair enough, waved play on and Wexford were bowled out one run short of their target.â
âAfter the end of the match the Wexford lads were apparently fierce angry and there was a bit of a fight in the pavilion. That was the end of Wexford as a cricket force and they never reached another final. The Wexford players made for the train still in their gear. The legend goes that there was more steam coming out their ears than from the engine that was pulling the train.â
It was the end of a golden era for Irish cricket as the next year, a young man who had stood on âthe Bankâ to watch that dramatic final day, Edward Carson (then known to his friends as âEamonâ), was involved in the meeting at Dublin University that codified a new game, âhurleyâ. And the story of Irish sport would change forever.
The teams in that final lined out as follows:
Kilkenny
G.K. Skehan
L.Y. Meagher
M.J. Aylward
P.J. De Lainey
T.J. Welsh
R.W. de Clare ©
J.J. Tennyson
W.G. Larkin
J.E. Picklington
L.K. Walsh
H.P. Shefflington
Wexford
P.J. Codd ©
A.R. Doran
E.T. Wheeler
D.P. Dempsey
L.I. Chinne
M.P. Jacob
M.T. Forde
M.A. Dockrell
D.O.C. Connors
F.R. Fortune
F.U. Kilkenny
Umpire: D.E. Kirwan (Cork)
De Clare
[B]Fitzgerald and Clarkson âtrading placesâ for TV3 documentary
Niamh Horan, Sunday Independent
March 15th, 2015[/B]
Clare hurling manager Davy Fitzgerald and controversial âTop Gearâ presenter Jeremy Clarkson are to swap places for a new episode of the TV3 documentary series, âThe Toughest Tradeâ.
Fitzgerald will slot into Clarksonâs role as co-presenter of the BBC motoring series alongside Richard Hammond and James May and also write self-styled, gratuitously offensive, non-PC columns for the Sunday Times, while Clarkson will manage Clare for the rest of the National Hurling League and this yearâs championship.
The TV3 show has received positive reviews so far - the first episode, which aired on Thursday night, featured former Tottenham and England soccer star David Bentley playing with the Crossmaglen Rangers Gaelic football team, while Crossmaglenâs Aaron Kernan went to train with Sunderland FC and Kilkenny hurler Jackie Tyrrell tried his hand at baseball.
The âswapâ deal has been described as âbeneficial to both partiesâ, given their respective current difficulties. Fitzgerald is having a tough time with Clare amid allegations from angry former panel members that he is a bully , while Clarkson is currently suspended by the BBC after punching a producer.
âYeah, Iâm really looking to working with Richard (Hammond) and James (May)â, said Fitzgerald. "Iâm already well used to working as part of a group of three with Seoirse (Bulfin) and Paul (Kinnerk), so Iâd see myself slotting in perfectly.
âIâm looking forward to shouting âdrive itâ for a change, given that Iâm always shouting at the Clare lads to go for a short pass.â
âI suppose the gratuitous racism, xenopobia and misogynistic rhetoric is something Iâll have to learn on the job but Iâm always eager to learn, and Iâm sure itâll come quickly working in that environment.â
âDavy was the perfect choice, really, given that Jeremy wonât be available to us for the foreseeable futureâ, said Top Gear executive producer Andy Wilman. âWe needed an arrogant bully who buys into his own hype and portrays himself as an outsider, and he certainly fits that bill. Richard Hammond is also very happy that heâll no longer be seen as the midget in the studio. We are a bit concerned however that Davy wonât be tall enough to see through the windscreen of some of the larger cars we feature on the show, so thatâs something weâll have to work around. Weâll probably use him to condescendingly review some small cars like the new Fiat Cinquecento or some Korean or Malaysian piece of shit.â
Assistant producer Oisin Tymon, the victim of Clarksonâs alleged assault, is also said to be happy that heâll be working with a presenter who wonât make fun of his Irishness.
Managing Clare will certainly be a new experience for Clarkson. âI havenât a fucking clue what hurling is, I always thought it was when you got sick in the toilet after a completely mad night out with the lads, but Iâm told itâs actually some stupid Irish sportâ, said the suspended Top Gear presenter.
âDavy has told me that the players are lazy and thereâs a serious drink and drug problem in the team, although I could have guessed that already with them being Irish. Itâs lucky Iâve already earned so much money at the BBC given that Iâm not going to be getting paid to manage the team.â
âIâll be putting the players on a strict diet of potatoes, because as far as I know thatâs all they eat in Ireland. Are they still bombing the shit out of each other there?â
Clarkson has already had a crash course in Clare hurling history.
âIâm told when they won some tournament years ago, the captain shouted âthe famine is overâ, but I never knew the famine in Ireland had ended, although apparently it has. How many people died in it, again?â
Despite yesterdayâs win over Dublin, Clarkson still faces a tough battle to keep Clare in Division 1 of the National Hurling League and thereâs also a Munster Championship showdown against Limerick on the horizon.
âLimerick? Isnât that a type of poem? Whatâs with the names of these teams, anyway? Cork? Thatâs something you pop out of a bottle of wine. Tipp? Thatâs something you get for the bookies. Wexford? Are they named after Inspector Wexford or something? Anyway, isnât Clare a girlâs name? What the hellâs going on there? I hope itâs not a team of girls Iâm going to be managing, although, come to think of it, maybe I doâŠ(guffaws). Can you get âThe Sunâ in Clare, by the way?â
Asked what he knew about the Clare team, Clarkson responded: "Nothing, but I hear Paddy and Mick are good players so theyâll be the first name on the team sheet. When they asked me to train they the team my first reaction was âFine, fine, but Iâm going to manage them, not train them, I donât want my name being associated with anything even vaguely related with public transport. I was delighted to hear they have a motorway there. I didnât even know they had roads, so it came as a big relief. Anyway, Iâm sure before long Iâll have them in Top Gear (guffaws again).â
Decluttering the room, decluttering the mind
Life coach, Feng Shui advisor to the All-Ireland-winning Dublin football team and face of the BBC TV show âChanging Roomsâ, Dr. Diarmuid Couch, and renowned sports psychologist and Thinkfulness expert Enda McNulty speak to me about CUSHION, the revolutionary new seven step programme for individual environmental wellness which they have developed
A love of Gaelic football unites Dr. Diarmuid Couch and Enda McNulty. The Dublin football feng shui guru and the former Armagh corner back, Thinkfulness expert and sports psychologist have both tasted All-Ireland success in their respective roles. Now they have teamed up to throw a CUSHION at us.
In the the two months since the CUSHION concept was launched, it has taken Ireland by storm. Celebrity advocates include Cork camogie captain Ashling Thompson, fitness guru Pat Divilly and former Blizzards frontman and mental health advocate âBressieâ.
The initial idea came from McNulty as a complementary philosophy to his existing âFlying Highâ concept.
"I spoke to Jim Gavin a couple of years ago when we were watching the same Sigerson Cup match in UCD. At half-time I asked Jim about his job as an Air Corps pilot. It was at that point that the concept of âFlying Highâ entered my head, a concept Iâve since utilised to much success with clients.
âBut, however much weâd like to, we canât fly high all the time. I needed a complementary philosophy for those more down to earth moments, for the everyday.â
âWhen we fly high, we need to land safely. If we fall, we need something to cushion our fall. Failure is merely an opportunity to start again more intelligently. Thus the concept of CUSHION was born. Jim never stopped talking about Diarmuid and what a difference the introduction of feng shui principles had made to the Dublin team. Diarmuid was the obvious man to bounce my ideas off. Heâs an innovator. Weâve been exchanging ideas now for over a year and the programme came out of that.â
Couch is currently basking in the afterglow of helping Dublin to another All-Ireland, His now famous pre-match speech was credited by several players for the victory.
"The best dreams happen when youâre awake. I stood on the team bus and spoke from the heart. I told the lads âItâs going to be wet out there today, very wet. What you must do is believe that the water that will pour from the sky today is with you. Water gives life. But in the wrong circumstances, water can also take away life. We must use it to our advantage and Kerryâs disadvantage. As soon as we reach the dressing room, I want every member of this team to go straight to the showers, stand under one of them in the clothes you are wearing now, turn it on to full power, and wait until you are thoroughly soaked.â
âI told them, âThat shower you will stand under, think of it as a âshower of powerâ, transmitting positive, life giving, life affirming positive energy to you.ââ
âThey thought I was mad. I got some strange looks, alright, even from Jim Gavinâ, says Couch, grinning. âBut each and every player did it. In fact, when all the players had returned to the main dressing room area and dried themselves off, several players said to me what a beneficial experience it had been for them in terms of clearing their heads for the task at hand. It was at that moment that I knew we were going to win the All-Ireland.â
âIâve learned that people will forget what you said, what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.â
The CUSHION philosophy
CUSHION is based on seven key principles. These are
âI see CUSHION as not just something that can benefit elite sportspeople, itâs something that everybody can live by and benefit fromâ, says Couch.
Principle 1: Competing:
Couch is clear that âWe all compete, be it in the sporting arena or in the arena of everyday life. We compete for jobs, we compete in love, we compete in who can have the most expensive car, the nicest house or the most money. Competition is what drives us as humans. This is natural and as it should be. Principle 1 of CUSHION recognises this fact.â
Principle 2: Understanding:
McNulty: âUnderstanding is key, as we recognise in Principle 2. Understanding ourselves, understanding our limits, understanding that the only limits are those we set ourselves, understanding that by understanding ourselves better there need be no limits to what we can all achieve.â
Principle 3: Soldiering:
âThrough all of this process we need to work, graft and fight. We call this âSoldieringââ, says McNulty.
âNothing worth having comes easy. By âsoldieringâ, you commit to fight for the cause, whatever that cause may be. By committing to fight for whatever it is you want, you have already won. In the knowledge that you are already a winner, victory is inevitable.â
Principle 4: Helping:
âWe are a social speciesâ, says Couch. âWe all need help. No man is an island. He must reach out. He must engage. Pooling our collective talents harmoniously to make a greater whole is what both football and life are about. We all have weaknesses. The night before Dublinâs All-Ireland semi-final replay against Mayo, I got the whole team to gather around and listen to that great old classic by The Hollies, âHe Ainât Heavy, Heâs My Brotherâ. Although Alan and Bernard Brogan initially thought I was playing a joke on them, I assured them I wasnât, that this was for the whole team (although unfortunately Diarmuid Connolly, who was at that time at a DRA hearing, didnât hear it.). By the end of the song, they understood. They knew. They knew they were all brothers and that they were there to help each other on the pitch. And thatâs what they did.â
Principle 5: Innovating
Always moving forward is very important for any person, says McNulty. "Innovation never sleeps. Weâre constantly moving forward. Steve Jobs knew the value of innovation, so did Alexander Graham Bell, so did Johan Sebastian Bach, so did the man who invented the concept of having a rubber on top of a pencil.
What worked today may not work tomorrow. I tell my clients to think of themselves as a shark. If you donât keep moving forward, youâll die. When youâre finished changing, youâre finished. Innovation never sleeps."
Principle 6: Optimising
âOptimising is may favourite wordâ, says Couch. âIt doesnât mean anything, and thatâs the beauty of it. It can mean whatever you want it to mean. Youâre the boss. Youâre in control. With control comes power, with power comes self-confidence. With self-confidence comes the flowering of the human ability to its fullest.â
Principle 7: Nourishing
âNouishing doesnât just refer to food, although obviously thatâs part of it tooâ, says McNulty. "Nourishing your mind and your soul with positivity is even more important, though. They complement each other. Nourishing promotes growth. Growth in mind, spirit, body. I like to nourish my clients with positive motivational thoughts and memes at every oppurtunity, and as a public service I have made these powerful tools of the mind available to the general public on my Twitter page, @Enda_McNulty.
Dr. Diarmuid Couch and Enda McNulty will join Bressie for a nationwide tour of Thinkfulness workshops in February 2016, where they will speak about the CUSHION concept in practice.
Bookings available at www.cushionIRL.ie
Brilliant.
Love this bit particularly.
âOptimising is may favourite wordâ, says Couch. "It doesnât mean anything, and thatâs the beauty of it.
Its sad, and something i have struggled with in my repatriation(as in dealing with what assholes everyone has become), that a country that was known for its mindfulness now has to be told by some lad who has read a few books how to be mindful.
The reason this kind of stuff exists, like most new therapies its just common sense, is that there is a need for it and people have stopped to be taught mindfulness etc by overworked parents and teachers.
Its all a bit ridiculous in a way, but it is modern life. And if this shot takes the asshole out of a few of the Modern Irish Neo-Asshole then i suppose thats a good thing.
McNulty would give you an awful pain in the hole. But Pat Divilly, he needs shooting.
I see Joe approves of this story but no credit given to TFK 