First Communion!

Why do we go through with this charade? Irish parents will collectively spend more than €33 million on their children’s First Communion while a further €20m will be given to the newly-pious in the form of cash gifts from friends and family in the moments after they walk down the aisles of Catholic churches all over the country.

 I'm a lapsed Catholic, but I must confess I let my two children go through with this charade also! Sometimes I really do annoy myself!

"The Scream"...How much is worth?

I will make a bid of $10 max as soon as sale begins in Sotheby's NYC on May 2nd.

Is this too much?

Edvard Munch's "The Scream" will go under the hammer at the infamous auction house where it promises to be an eventful evening.

The painting was stolen from the Munch museum on a couple of occasions has fortunately remained in good condition, not bad considering this piece of work done dates back to 1893!

Making History in Frankfurt this April...

Truly fabulous art by Connecticut artist and photographer David Lachapelle.

David's music video work ain't have bad either, his work on Moby's 2000 hit "Natural Blues" must get a mention from me.

BKRW magazine's collection of Lachapelle's classics are worth a viewing!

Making History - 20th April to 8th July 2012

Dreamers...

We all have a belief that deep down we have a special gift, a belief that we can make a difference, that we can touch/connect with others in a special way.

We start out as children full of hope and dreams, yet for many of us those dreams can get way laid as life gets in the way.

Now in my 40's I have spent some years trying to restore these dreams, and to try and make them real.

Where did it all go wrong?

Ever wonder where did it all go wrong for you? 

In my case there are far too many reasons to write about.

I will keep those reasons to myself, and sit back and relax in the knowledge that no matter what, I have survived life thus far anyway!

Devoured by School of Seven Bells...

My song of the week this week is from New York City band School of Seven Bells. Benjamin Curtis and Aljandra Deheza released their latest album "Ghostory" back in February and a tune that is consistently played on my itunes this week is the track from this album "The Night"

Link to School of Bells performing this tune on the Fallon Show on You Tube

A library is not just a luxury, but rather one of the necessities of life.

I'm loving the photography of Alice Werner! The lady in the library here might upset a few cats posing in such a naughty suggestive way, but I cannot find any part of me that I can raise in argument against this!

What's abnormal behaviour anyway?

After many years of feeling somewhat removed from the 'norm', one day I decided that it was high time I asked myself the question, What is Abnormal?

But before we can write about specific behavioral disorders, we must define 'abnormal'. And what is normal behavior?

The Infamous Spanking Scene from Beth Schacter on Vimeo.

The following criteria are used to determine wheter a persons behavior is abnormal or not:
Deviation from statistical norms;

• The word abnormal means 'away from the norm'. Many population facts are measured such as height, weight and intelligence.
•  Most of the people fall within the middle range of intelligence, but a few are abnormally stupid. 
• But according to this definition, a person who is extremely intelligent would be classified as abnormal. Thus in defining abnormal behaviour we must consider more.

Deviation from social norms; every vulture has certain standards for acceptable behavior; behavior that deviates from that standard is considered to be abnormal behavior. But those standards can change with time and vary from one society to another.

Maladaptiveness of behavior; this third criterium is how the behavior affects the well-being of the individual and/or social group.

•  Examples are a man who attempts suicide, an alcoholic who drinks so heavily that he or she cannot keep a job or a paranoid individual who tries to assassinate national leaders.
• Personal distress; the fourth criterion considers abnormality in terms of the individual's subjective feelings, personal distress, rather than his behaviour.
•  Most people diagnosed as 'mentally ill' feel miserable, anxious, depressed and may suffer from insomnia.
• In the type of abnormality called neurosis, personal distress may be the only symptom, because the individual's behaviour seems normal.

None of these definitions provides a complete description of abnormal behavior. The legal definition of abnormality declares a person insane when he is not able to judge between right and wrong, but this criterium is not used by psychologists.

You Don't Say...

The right honorable Mitchie Mc said the Provisionals should also have come clean with information on the whereabouts of the so-called Disappeared long ago...you don't say! What a novel idea!

The IRA’s practice of secretly burying some of its victims during the Troubles was wrong and unjust, and besides that, what is a funeral director for anyway?

A funeral director, also known as a mortician or undertaker, is a professional involved in the business of funeral rites. These tasks often entail the embalming and burial or cremation of the dead, as well as the planning and arrangement of the actual funeral ceremony.

FDs may at times be asked to perform tasks such as dressing (in garments usually suitable for daily wear), casketing (placing the human body in the container), and cosmetizing (applying any sort of cosmetic or substance to the viewable areas of the person for the purpose of enhancing appearances).

In the case of Mitchies mates, they just dug a hole (after putting a hole in the bodies head), and throwing same body into a hole! ...having said that they where sometimes in their daily wear!

100 Years Later, Titanic, still Famous, still 2 and a half miles under water!

Fair play to the good folk of Belfast for finally getting their city on the map for all the right reasons. By their re-floating of the dream ship RMS Titanic 100 years after it left the Belfast shipping yard they have caught the attention of the rest of the world!

Last weekend I did a fair bit of reading up on all things Titanic and one of my burning questions to find answers for was, where the bloody hell is it today?

It was Dr Robert Ballard who discovered the wreck in 1985. Because of the planing actions both sections of the wreck underwent during their descent, they now lie 600ft apart. 450 miles out from her final destination of New York.

While I enjoyed my research of the Titanic disaster, I got a belly laugh from this photo that popped up with my Google search!

I almost hurt myself laughing at this....

I do find the TV series'Family Guy' a bit of a laugh! But after watching this trailer for the movie ('Ted") which was created by the same people I almost hurt myself laughing!



Ted is an upcoming American comedy film, directed, written and produced by Seth MacFarlane (who created Family Guy and co-created American Dad! and The Cleveland Show) and stars himself, Mark Wahlberg, and Mila Kunis. Filming began in May 2011 in Boston and Swampscott.

 The movie, which is the feature-length directorial debut for MacFarlane, is set for a July 13, 2012 release.In March 2012, the MPAA gave the film an R rating for crude sexual content, pervasive language, and some drug use.

Water Fight!

Her Majesty Queen Edna wants us all to pay for water metres so she can establish how much she is going to charge us for the stuff.

Now charging us for water is a bit of a hard sell in Ireland considering it is almost always raining in this country, but having said that, they thought the Ballygowan people were off their head's too when they had the audacity to think that Irish people would pay for bottled water!

Brigade're Josie Higgins is having none of it though, and is now using terms such as 'Mass Revolt'! Good luck with that Josie, I would love the day out to revolt, but it will depend on the weather is like that day!

Can she be trusted...

Be courteous to all, but intimate with few, and let those few be well tried before you give them your confidence.

We all know someone who is at "That Dangerous Age"

I have grown up listening to the work of Paul Weller, so no surprises that I have picked one of his tunes from his latest album "Sonik Kicks".

The tune is called "That Dangerous Age" and can be listened to on the link below.

Link to its promotional video on You Tube

A Naked burglar was arrested while taking a shower after he had sipped champagne and ate a meal in the home of a Californian family.

Why drink the champagne?

Well apparently drinking champagne in moderation (two glasses a day) has a positive effect on the way blood vessels function reducing the risks of cardiovascular diseases, such as heart disease and stroke.

All makes sense now...yeah?

We lost faith, in the arms of love...

My Tune of the week is Ben Howard's "The Wolves" taken from last Septembers album release "Every Kingdom".

Ben plays the Olympia Theatre in Dublin on Wednesday 7th November.

Link to this tune on You Tube

What did you do today then?

Not quite my story today!...but a rather amusing picture none the less.

Why was I not joining in with the rest of Irelands obsession with porn (you did not know this?)

The story from a finance department goes that a female accountant tried to access online pornography from her office laptop nearly 1,800 times in two weeks. She also had 600 sexually explicit images saved on her hard drive.







The lessons to be learned?

Don’t download porn at work.

Why would a female accountant sitting in an office of Harcourt Street (You know who you are!) watch Porn?

1.  1. Curiosity. (freak show factor) 
2. To Get Off. Women and men may be from different planets, but they are both prone to the occasional masturbation session, and it is for that express purpose porn was designed
3. Learn New Moves. Well I do seriously hope that there is a something to be learned from it!).
4. Comparison Shopping. When do the ladies stop comparing then?  Never I would say!
5. Ogle Guys. Well I don't blame them, us Irish boys were not kissed by mother nature now where we, we were more like left lying around the place a bit like land mines!
6. Kill Time. Attention span always a problem with some!
7. Get in the Mood. A bit like foreplay perhaps?
8. It’s His. yes because it is our porn they feel the need to 'find out' what it is we do in our spare time!
9. Explore Secret Fantasies. If a woman isn't comfortable sharing her sexual fantasies, she may turn to porn to experience them vicariously. It could be something as simple as spanking, yet she may feel awkward telling her square-as-a-peg husband that she wants to play naughty. Porn never judges.Nor do I, unless you have been a very 'naughty girl' when in that case you had better bend over my knee!
10. Penises. Newsflash: Penises are weird. I’ve said this before, and I’ll say it again. We don’t have them. We will never totally understand them. Porn is a penis show.