Youth Vote

Craig voted for the first time today...
So did Jane...
...and she called me a geek for being so excited
... and needless to say there are no photos of this momentous occasion!

Keyboard Test

So Jane (my daughter) is checking out my laptop to see if the keyboard is good enough and so she starts typing the following:

The end o...

I say, "Stop!"

She says, "What?"

I ask, "Are you going to write The end of the world as we know it?"

She looks at me and says, "Yes, how did you know?"

"Because that's what I write when I am testing a keyboard..."


So we both use the exact same sentence to test out keyboards. How? Not because either of us has seen the other do it. Not because we can mind read or have the same depressing thoughts. No Jane reckons its because I sing it too much -

Its the end of the world as we know it - but I feel fine.

I always liked that lyric. It always seemed the truth about so many situations. However bad they were I was ok.

And however much I thought I could do maybe I wasn't doing enough if so much was going wrong with the world and I could still be feeling fine.

So to me the lyric is both a comfort and a wake up call.

What do you write to test a keyboard?

Things Could Be Worse

Today as I sat by Jane's bedside in hospital as she lay twisting in pain, with a drip in one arm and holding a bowl to throw up in, in the other - I thought, 'Things could be worse.'

In the next room we could hear, 'Carl, Carl, Carl!'
'Open your eyes Carl!'
'Carl!'

February 1st

February 1st, the day my daughter Jane was born. Rightly so I thought - the first day of Spring. Or so I thought until I said so to anyone in the UK and they looked at me as if I had two heads. And this is how I discovered that Ireland and England have very differnent calendars. The Irish calendar has February 1st as the first day of spring - the day my daughter Jane was born. Rightly so, I say!

Irish Calendar