Recently, inspired by Irish Culture Night, I bought a copy of the O’Doyne manuscript, published by the Irish Manuscripts Commission in the early 1980s. The manuscript itself is in Marsh’s Library, Ireland’s oldest public library, and is dominated by documents relating to the lengthy legal battle between Charles O’Doyne (Cathaoir Ó Duinn) and his older [...]
The Ballad of Barack Obama & Sarah Palin (or Manilow's Nightmare)
Following the success (my targets were small) of Brother, Can You Bail-out My Bank?, and given that I’ve spent an inordinate amount of my blog-time blogging about the election, I thought it only right to sign off on the election with a tribute to the election that was. So, to the unmistakeable tune of – [...]
From hope to promise to a new America tonight – Obama's speeches since 2004
There seems to be a bit of traffic to and through this blog, looking for word clouds of and/or commentary on President-elect Obama’s acceptance speech in Chicago. Given that until now there was nothing on that topic, I have a feeling they left relatively empty-handed. Let me fix that now, with a quick zip through [...]
The genealogy-grammar paradox & Obama's endorsement of T&E Plumbing (or maybe it's the other way around)
The Huffington Post has an excellent collection of pictures from around the world, in response to the outcome of the US election – for more check out Election Day Around The World (PHOTOS). I had to laugh at one in particular, the one from an hour down the road, Moneygall, County Offaly. The first thing [...]
Last-minute prediction: Obama by a landslide! No, wait… a 269-269 electoral college dead heat
After all my poll-watching, I’ve decided to throw my hat in the rang one last time, and engage in that most dangerous of sports: the last-minute prediction. Last minute predictions give the predictor the least time to live in comfort in the time between prediction and outcome, and most danger of subsequent accusations of being [...]
Breadcrumb history gets underway: So, who was "Bully" Egan?
A couple of weeks ago, I wrote a post about Dublin in the 1780s. While the whole idea of a suburb called ‘Hell’ was what got me writing, references to characters long since gone, such as “Bully” Egan and Yelverton, got me thinking: ‘What do we know about these guys? Can we bring them guys [...]
Eight weeks work yields seven states for Obama, just Montana (maybe) for McCain
Between mid and late September, the big story in terms of the state-by-state polls was McCain’s loss of his ‘medium’ states – i.e. those where he had some lead, but not a large one – such as Florida and North Carolina into ‘toss-up’ territory. Obama had managed to garner a few extra ‘strong’ electoral college [...]
"WARNING: Your investment may go up as well as down!" and other signs that you're in a financial crisis
Warren Buffet – no relation to the Pina Colada-swilling Jimmy – has been widely quoted in recent days giving his latest advice for the market. In short, what with everyone being fearful, he’s recommending that people be greedy. Take the long term view, he says, and the US stock market (and, based on his logic, [...]
Brother, Can You Bail-out my Bank? (1931 revisited!)
Every crisis creates its own artistic genius – take for example Picasso, or the Credit Crunch Blues. Mere mortals mightn’t move in quite the same league, but we can try. So, with sincere apologies for the butchering of Jay Gorney’s lovely music and the usurpation of Yip Harburg’s original lyrics, Weird Al, this one’s for [...]
Will even one state vote for McCain? Unlikely, it seems…
Will even one state vote for McCain? Unlikely, it seems… … if you take a look at the (nation) states included in the Economist’s ongoing survey, “Global Electoral College: What if the whole world could vote?“. That’s the quite frankly amazing conclusion of the early voting. In not one country on earth would the McCain-Palin [...]
