Saturday, July 31, 2010 Previous editions
ANOTHER piece of childhood vanished for a lot of people over the weekend with the death of former world snooker champion Alex Higgins.
THE WEEKEND of the British Open, which is detailed elsewhere in these pages, is a perfect cue for talk of tradition and the past, though the (doubtless) heroics of various slacks-wearing, v-neck sporting super-athletes need not detain us here.
EVENTUALLY you surprise yourself by saying 30 years ago about your own life.
A COUPLE of weeks ago we noticed that there was a very unfortunate metaphor being trotted around by political pundits as Fine Gael was convulsed by a leadership challenge.
THE old cricket verse, At Lord’s, puts it better than we ever could: O my Hornby and my Barlow long ago.
THREE cheers for the man who suggested, long before Cork and Kerry even took the field in the Munster football championship this year, that a ‘Justice for Paul’ campaign be started to save time.
THERE is a seismic shift occurring in the realms of the GAA.
AND SO to Waterford on a sunny weekend. We spent most of Saturday afternoon at a GAA club function in the Crystal City, which was conducted half al fresco and half al taverna, if you’ll forgive the pidgin Italian. The al fresco part was the most enjoyable, given the variety of delights on offer.
NOEL Connors can go back. Maybe not way back, but far enough. He can recall watching the Waterford hurlers in 1998, though that’s a pretty prosaic description to use. Idols would be closer.
THE INK in the obituarists’ pens dried up at about the time Séan Óg O hAilpín encountered Declan Fanning underneath the covered stand in Páirc Uí Chaoimh yesterday.
HARD TO imagine, but we met someone during the week who actually spoke some sense about the free-to-air debate.
YOU MAY have noticed last week that Minister for Communications, Eamon Ryan, is thinking of designating Heineken Cup games as ‘free-to-air’ events, which means that Irish viewers would be able to watch same without going through Sky and having to pay.
PROBABLY not the week to invoke the atmosphere, even in jest, but here we like to mix it up a little.
CONTROVERSY continues to bubble, if not quite rage, following Tiger Woods’ comeback at the Augusta Masters last week.
EVERYBODY we meet this past couple of days is interested in either a) getting to San Sebastian for Munster v Biarritz in one of the Heineken Cup semi-finals or b) getting to Toulouse for Leinster v Toulouse in the other semi-final.
I’M AFRAID there’s a bit of a problem with Munster’s Heineken Cup semi-final against Biarritz, which is now slated for Sunday, May 2, in San Sebastian, in northern Spain.
WHEN you’re in a hole the best thing to do is ... stop digging.
ERICH SEGAL died recently, classics professor and author of ‘Love Story’.
IRISH rugby supporters’ long wait for the Grand Slam goes on, following the late defeat by Scotland last weekend in Cardiff.
GIVEN that it was Brian O’Driscoll’s 100th cap last Saturday, and all of a sudden everybody has a Brian O’Driscoll story, we thought we’d share ours.
THERE are a lot of dressing-room doors looming large in our mind this weather.
GOD, you’d have thought we were past all that at this stage.
IF YOU’RE looking for a single word to sum up something that requires lengthy description in English, chances are you’ll find it in another tongue.
TUESDAY, and the Killiney Castle Hotel for the announcement of the Irish rugby team to play Italy in Croke Park tomorrow.
FIRST things first. The next time Munster play Northampton, in the Heineken Cup quarter-finals, there better not be fog.
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