Archive for January, 2010

Head Space

Head Shop

The issue of head shops seems to be pervading the media this week. From Prime Time to the front of the Enniscorthy Echo, the issue of unregulated shops selling synthetic products which mimic the effects of illegal drugs.

The message that legal does not mean safe is one the HSE are striving to get across and Susan Barnes, a County Wexford Drugs Education officer, has been flat-out spreading the word about the products available and the effects of such ‘legal highs’.

Susan has been invited to address a number of parent’s groups in and around Enniscorthy in recent weeks as parents realise what is exactly on their doorstep.

Enniscorthy is to get it’s third Head Shop in coming weeks. Along with Up in Smoke and House of Tinkicker, the new shop will offer a range of products to the public whose effects are like, and in some cases worse, than illegal drugs.

While the owner of Up in Smoke has said he has a strict over-18 policy, this has been proven to be not fully upheld. However this over-18 policy is a self-imposed regulation as the area is completely unregulated by the Irish government.

Whatever the legal aspects of this issue, another major issue raised by the recent proliferation of these shops in Enniscorthy and Wexford in general, is that there is a huge market out there for these products.

As Anto, the owner of Up in Smoke said if there wasn’t a market there we wouldn’t be in business. Think about it. How many people would use cocaine if they didn’t have to find a dealer to buy it? If they didn’t have to worry about being caught by the gardai?

Obviously a lot of people. While teenagers are obviously intrigued by these head shops, they are not the people who will be sustaining their businesses. It is adults with disposable income who will be the life-blood of these shops.

Adults looking for a bit of an escape without the worry of getting caught are taking advantage of this loop-hole in the law and using these unregulated, untested, unknown products without, it seems, worrying about the consequences.

While the government obviously needs to get their act together and pass some laws in this area, as a society we need to ask ourselves why these shops are flourishing and take responsibility for using these products and giving the younger members of society a bad example.

2010
01/28
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Wexford
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Dead Eye Kehoe

Ah you can’t beat Wexford Fine Gael TD, Paul Kehoe for a bit of shooting-from-the-hip and telling-it-like-it-is. The man doesn’t dress things up and doesn’t feel the need to sugar coat his views even on the airwaves of South East Radio.

This morning [Wednesday, January 28] speaking on Alan Corcoran’s Morning Mix, the Fine Gael chief whip said that if he met an intruder coming up the stairs against him at 2 in the morning, he would have no hesitation in shooting the inturder…..though not in the head, only in the leg, knee or hip – which is nice of him.

Kehoe was speaking about the right to defend oneself and using ‘reasonable force’ in your own home. Kehoe went on to say that ‘people’ are genuinely afraid in Co. Wexford and there are many Padraig Nally’s in his own county.

Dead Eye Kehoe obviously sees himself as a shoot-from-the-hip type of guy who obviously sleeps with a .44 Magnum underneath his pillow at night. He isn’t going to let some burglar intimidate him or his family. His is going to meet force with force but won’t aim for the head of the guy preferring to impede his middle to upper leg area.

Paul Kehoe is an advocate of being able to protect yourself within your own four walls and this is an admirable view, however his idea of a gun-totting society raises some difficult issues.

Are we going to go down the America route and have guns in every home in the country? Will we see the staggering rise in gun related crime lead to the deaths of not just the gangsters and organised crime figures spread countrywide as more and more people invest in a gun as way of protection?

Then again if we are all as accurate as Dead Eye Kehoe, it will be only an increase in hip replacements and shattered knees we will have to deal with!

2010
01/27
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Memorial to IRA ineptitude?

George Keegan - one of the Edentubber Martyrs

Last week it was reported in the Enniscorthy Echo that councillors in the town council passed  an application to have a memorial erected in honour of five republicans who blew themselves up in Edentubber in Louth in 1957 while on the way to plant a bomb as part of the IRA’s border campaign.

You can read more about the doomed expedition here.

Now whether the people behind this memorial (a shadowy group calling themselves Coiste Cáirde na Laochra) want to commemorate the ineptitude of their fallen brethren or highlight the fact they were on their way to kill people when the bomb they were carrying exploded accidently is unclear.

Among the inept bombers were George Keegan (Enniscorthy) and Pádraig Parle (Wexford) who will be remembered along with their colleagues from Down, Armagh and Louth on the monument’s inscription.

What is clear however is the inability of the eight town councillors in attendance at the meeting last Monday, January 18 to speak up and oppose the erection of a memorial to the bombers.

This week a number of these councillors, both Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil have come out and said it was a mistake to pass the motion without further investigation. Such as asking the people on Irish Street in the town what they thought?

The real reason no one said anything came from someone who should know. Seán Og Doyle is an independent member of the town council and former independent county councillor who lost his county seat in last June’s elections.

He is the chairman of the town council. However he is also a former member of the Vinegar Hill Column of the IRA which is the same group that George Keegan – he of Edentubber infamy – was a member of.

Speaking this week the amiable councillor said he was surprised at the lack of objection to the proposal.

“A lot of people will be afraid to touch it and I was surprised there wasn’t more opposition to the application at the meeting. I raised the point that this application mentioned Oglaigh na h-Éireann who didn’t recognise any institutes of the state, but no one took up the point.”

It is clear to see that republicanism is rife in Wexford and that is not necessarily a bad thing. It is however disturbing that the public were not consulted on the erecting of  the memorial to such a sensitive issue.

Sinn Féin councillor, Johnny Mythen, who brought the request before the council, said the country was now more mature in relation to these types of matters – not mature enough to have a public discussion on it though eh?

Sinn Fein councillor, Johnny Mythen

2010
01/27
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Antichrist (2009)

Director: Lars von Trier
Starring: Willem Dafoe, Charlotte Gainsbourg

As the opening strains of Lascia ch’io pianga’ from ‘Rinaldo‘ are heard over the beautifully shot black and white slow motion shots of Willem Dafoe and Charlotte Gainsbourg, my trepidation began to wane.
However it isn’t long until a graphic shot from Lars von Trier jolts the viewer from this blissful reverie and makes them realise that the Danish director’s latest offering will be far from an easy ride.

The story, broken into four chapters plus a prologue and an epilogue, tells the story of a man and woman who lose their only child in a freak accident. The man (Dafoe) is a psychiatrist and attempts to ‘treat’ his wife (Gainsbourg) who is becoming more and more unhinged as the story unfolds.
In an attempt at saving their marriage and possibly her life, the man brings his wife to a secluded cabin in the woods where she had previously gone with her son to work. Yes I know, cabin in the woods, secluded, unhinged wife….it’s hardly going to be a happy ending now is it. Well no, but the way the story unfolds is as visceral and visually disturbing as any film I have seen.

Dafoe and Gainsbourg are convincing in their respective roles but there is no doubt who the star is. von Trier uses slow motion, flashback, colour and sound to give the viewer a jarring, nerve-wrecking experience.
The violence, so talked about in Cannes last year, is shocking. There is no escaping it but it does serve a purpose – to show exactly how unhinged the woman has become.
What viewers are meant to take from the film is unclear. Is it that all women are deranged lunatics? Is it that there is a terrible violence within us all? Or are we just to soak up the visual experience without actually being any the wiser?
I guess you’ll have to see to decide for yourself.

2010
01/26
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Barca setting the standards

Barcelona’s 3-0 victory over Valladolid on Saturday evening completed an unbeaten first half of a season for the first time in their history and highlights the growing disparity between La Liga and the Premiership.
Looking at the top of the English game none of the teams in the top four can say they have had a great first half of a season. Chelski have stumbled, United have failed to fire, Arsenal took an age to get going and the other four teams scrambling for top four status are unable to get a proper grasp on the position.
The situation could have been made perfectly clear if the Scousers win and Spurs trip up, Rafa’s team will sit in the final Champion’s League position despite one of the worst runs in the team’s history.
It is hard to say whether the quality of teams in the Premiership is of an overall higher standard than La Liga, thereby making it more competitive or if the top teams in English football are at the start of a slippery slope which will see them topple from the top tier of European football.
Barca decimated United in last year’s Champions League final. They outclassed England’s three-in-a-row champions with a display of skill unseen in the English game.
The closest we get to see such displays is from Arsenal though they lack the grit and determination that make Barca an all-round team.
There is no doubt that some of the teams in La Liga do not pose much of a threat to Barca. Almeria, Xerez and Tenerife would not strike fear into the hearts of any English club but Burnley, Portsmouth or Hull would unlikely keep Messi and Co awake at night either.
The argument that the Premiership is the strongest league in Europe is a contentious one. It is without doubt the most exciting, offering more twist and turns than Harry Redknapp answering questions from the tax man. There are goals aplenty but to go with it, enough terrible defending to make Paulo Maldini cry.
The question really comes down to a matter of quality – and there is a serious lack of this in the Premiership. It is clear for anyone to see that Barca and their rivals Real Madrid hold the power in Europe at the moment and all the top players in the world will look for a move to Spain before any other option.
With Real looking to pry Rooney from United’s grasp in a similar way they took Ronaldo to the Bernabéu, the possibility of the Premiership becoming a second or third rate league looks increasingly possible.

2010
01/26
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Parallels between Rafa and Fergie

This week saw a strange parallel occur in Manchester and Liverpool. Sections of the fans of both United and the Scousers called for the heads of their respective managers.
This, however, is where the comparison ends.
In Scouseland, Rafa is under pressure from an increasing majority of fans, former players and managers to go quietly into the night and step down at Anfield. Fergie on the other hand is subject of a ridiculous rant of a small minority of United fans, whose aim is to get the Glazers out of Manchester.
What Johnny Flack and his pals at the Manchester United Supporters’ Trust believe they will achieve by asking the most successful manager in the history of club football to resign in protest is beyond me.
On the other hand it is quite clear what the Scousers want to achieve by calling for the head of their portly manager. Another week in the life of Rafa sees another series of blunders and cock-ups.
From Babel tweeting his head off about being dropped from the squad to his side’s capitulation at Reading and Stoke, it is surely only a matter of time before the Spaniard bows to the pressure and leaves Liverpool.
Although it may not be that simple. Rafa knows that he is on a good thing at Anfield and for his employers to sack him would cost a fortune, as he signed a five-year deal only last March.
Up the M6 in Manchester, Flack & Co. seem to believe ousting Fergie will make the Glazers suddenly decide they will pay back the £700million debt and leave the club in trust to the supporters – with Flack as the new CEO.
This is a ludicrous idea and even if Fergie lost the run of himself and agreed to step down in a show of support to the fans, the Glazers wouldn’t bat an eyelid before installing another manager as if nothing happened.
The Glazers are not in it for the love of United. They are in football for money and the sooner United fans come to accept this – however painful – the better.
It is a new world and we have to face facts. Football is run by the money men and whether it is tycoons from America, oil-billionaires from Russia or a property consortium from the Middle East it is a fact and has been for some time.
The only thing that United fans can console themselves with is that at least they don’t have Rafa in charge and a squad of incompetent fools playing for them every week.

2010
01/21
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All aboard the band wagon

With almost a complete lack of Premier League football being played in the past week, the media seem to have changed their focus to off the field activities.
United’s impending implosion is making for many column inches in the national press and the blogosphere but for me, an ordinary United supporter, talks of bond issues and spiralling debt is not what is worrying me.
I realise that the Glazer’s came in and bought the club with a 100percent mortgage and are using club profits to pay off the interest on that loan. I realise the £48million profits announced on Monday include Ronaldo’s transfer fee – why wouldn’t it? Surely there would be more questions asked if the accountant doing the accounts left such an amount out of the figures.
In an ideal world the club would belong to the supporters in the same way Barcelona belongs to the Catalan fans of the club. This however is not an ideal world and the Glazers are the best of a bad lot in my opinion.
Consider having the Hick-Gillett alliance running you club. Not only do the pair hate each other, they have consistently failed to provide Rafa with funds in the transfer market – although this could be more to do with the Spaniard’s lack of success in said market.
Fergie has consistently maintained that anytime he has gone looking for money to buy a player he has seen his palm crossed with silver by the American family.
Only this week have we seen Tom Hicks Jr. step down from the board of Liverpool FC for calling fan Stephen Horner an ‘idiot’ and ‘f**kface’. While I may have some empathy with the views expressed by Hicks Jr., sending these messages to a fan of the club you run is not exactly clever.
Across the city at the Council House the Abu Dhabi United Group signalled their intentions early on when they made up to eight ridiculous bids to lure the world’s best players to the club on the last day of last January’s transfer window.
The fact that Robinho signed says as much about his loyalty as it does about the interfering nature of the City owners. Mark Hughes was not in charge of transfers then and he is certainly not in charge now.
So while United’s model is far from ideal, it is United’s on-field performances that should be worrying United supporters – but the less said about that the better.

2010
01/12
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Welcome

Good morning, afternoon or night….depending where and when you are in the world.

This blog is going to have a variety of sections to it from Film Reviews, a weekly soccer column and news from Wexford in Ireland where I work as a journalist.

I will be reporting on what is happening in the county as well as else in Ireland and further afield giving my opinion and (hopefully) encouraging debate.

2010
01/12
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