NiallOK’s Blog

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I’m impressed with a few people actually…

I was impressed with the people that turned up at football tonight in our local sports centre - enough, finally, that we didn’t have to call it a day and not play any more. I was impressed with how well they played - and somewhat impressed with myself that I made it through the night, could still hack it with the youngsters and that I actually managed to score a few goals! Good work football playing fellahs!

I was impressed with RTÉ’s new 4-part documentary, Bertie, (or what little I saw of it, at least) which documents the life and times of our last Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern. It was made by the same (also impressive) team (Miriam O’Callaghan’s company) who made “Haughey” - about our most infamous Taoiseach. Part two goes out next Monday night. Good work, telly production fellahs!

I was even impressed to learn that there’s an Irish version of Wikipedia… although I guess I should have realised that ages ago… Good work, language loving online encyclopedia localisation fellahs!

I’m somewhat impressed by Barack Obama (as, it seems, are both Damien and Fergal) and would like - and expect - to see him become President Elect of the United States within the next 36 hours. Good work, America’s first black President fellah!

Incidentally, I’m also impressed with Damien himself, in all honesty - with the incredible work he did as Ireland Offline chairman - as well as his creation of both the Irish Blog Awards and the Irish Web Awards. Good work, hard-working comms consultant fellah!

Speaking of awards - well done to Michele Neylon, who won two of the gongs at the NetVisionary awards recently - those being the awards for business blogging and Internet marketing. Good work, ISP running net visionary fellah!

I’m impressed by a few radio DJ’s too… particularly with Today FM’s Ray Foley and his sensible stance on the Brand/Ross controversy. Honestly - it’s a ridiculous situation that’s been blown out of proportion by bandwagon jumping complainers who, for the most part, probably never even listened to Russell Brand - or possibly even to the excellent BBC Radio 2. Seriously - read Ray’s blog post on the issue - it’s clever and well written, and while the story is still unfolding and we have yet to see the results of the BBC’s investigation into the incident, I find myself agreeing strongly with him… so good work, just-a-bit-of-fun-for-your-lunchtime fellah!

At the same time, while he doesn’t want to comment on the controversy itself, Rick O’Shea brings up another point that’s well worth considering… where do we draw the line? How far is too far in comedy? What rules should there be? How should the BBC react? … and so on… Good work, hairy-whiskey-drinking-good-point-making-DJ-slash-blogger fellah!

Finally, more DJ’s I’m impressed with are these two lads from CKY Radio, Montreal - who prank called Sarah Palin in a way that helped showed off her… erm… “qualities” even further. (Good work, prank-calling Canuck fellahs!) As if everything that Saturday Night Live has done to her (not to mention her own performances) hasn’t walloped her credibility hard enough, here she displays her incredible (and I mean “in-credible” in the literal sense) intellect when she believes she’s talking to President Sarkozy of France.

Canada seems cool…

(Yeah, this has just been a post of links… sorry.)

The golf is on… 

In fact, the big golf event of the year, The 2008 Ryder Cup is taking place this weekend and is basically taking over the telly at home (my dad’s a big golf fan) and in work (pub). Right now the score is USA 5½ - Europe 2½ (but apparently, Europe have had a great start to their day). What amuses me though is the great sense of pomposity and grandeur that accompanies the tournament - particularly in the TV presentation of the event.

If you’re watching it on Sky Sports you may know what I mean when I specifically pick out their break-bumpers (the short RBS sponsorship clips that feature between the programme and the actual ad break) - which mention ‘classic’ moments or statistics from golfing history to the accompaniment of some incredibly over-dramatic and grandiose music - the same kind of music that accompanies the slo-mo replays of the more ‘iconic’ moments of the day.

It’s the kind of grand and majestic music that would almost make you think these guys must be superheros or something - and yeah, while we all know Tiger Woods can walk on water (see video), I now like to imagine that Padraig Harrington can fly, Nick Faldo has X-Ray vision and Miguel Angel Jimenez can shoot lightning bolts from his arse…

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Won this from The Ray D’Arcy Show last week… it arrived in the post today.

It’s the (famous!) O’Neill’s Odd-1-Out Hoodie! My street-cred will totally shoot up now!

I took part in the quiz on the day when they were looking for people who named after someone famous. (My confirmation name is “Phillip” after, erm… this guy…)

“Tonight beats the shit out of last week”, I said to our goalie during our football match tonight. And I was right… because last week I generally played shite, … giving the ball away a lot and even going as far as to score an own-goal.

God, I was terrible.

Tonight though, I netted myself 4 great goals. That’s four. Yes, FOUR. It’s a hat-trick PLUS ONE. And it made me feel DAMN good

In fact, I was looking for the right word for it,- if there is one. I know two is a brace and obviously three is a hat-trick… but is there a word for four? A double brace? A topped-hat-trick? I’m putting it all down to one thing - EVERY week so far I’ve worn an Ireland shirt (the one with the silver lining that I won in a Carlsberg competition), but this week, due to a laundry mishap (or, I guess you could call it a “wardrobe malfunction”) - i.e.: my Ireland shirt wasn’t washed… I had to wear this: (see picture).

The sweat-soaked 1978 Argentina football shirt sitting on the floor next to a mic stand and a litre bottle of Bulmers. (Click photo to enlarge)

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