Liked this!

Saw this on Sean O'Dowd's site, liked it, maybe he's spot on about the massive benefits of globalisation.

Being Irish is all about driving to the pub in a foreign car, watching English football, then travelling home, grabbing an Indian or Chinese on the way, to sit on Swedish furniture and watch American TV shows on a Japanese TV.

And I thought it was all about the internet!

Have a wonderful day!

Too much in one day!

Can't seem to get the audio into this blog forum, it's only temporary as it may not be the best idea to put on my business blog, but if you click the business blog link on the left hand side you should get it.

Paul

oh God I'm so happy!

Tomorrow will see the culmination of something I've controversially lived for over most of the last 40 years, I don't think €10,000,000 could possibly make me any happier, it would not even touch this... and to see 4 Irish guys involved is not only brilliant, but if you want to see something really special, forward the video to 3mins 35 secs and watch the next 30 secs.

Well done Bono, for almost the first time in my life I can genuinely say, " you are a brave and bloody wonderful man"

Thank you.

oh wow, here comes a ceasefire!

Oh would you believe it, the Israeli's are now going to be happy with a ceasefire, largely on their terms and of course they will communicate to their cohorts in the media that Hamas are holding it up, and of course Hamas will be the first to break it in time too, let's make an enemy out of them cos guess what, Obama will be President next Tuesday, Jan 20th, and by that time the media will be waiting to nail him for trying to bring any human rights into the scene (cos of course Muslims are apparently not human, more sandniggers to the American establishment). They have already tried to nail him for having a smoke, so if you look at the last entry you will understand that the real purpose of the last 4 weeks of savagery was to tie Obama's hands, and now that this is achieved, at the cost of more than 1100 human lives, we'll suddenly transform into the good guys and the Arabs will be demonised further in the eyes of the World's public.

Yeah, the Zionist media moguls, the Wall St thieves and the right wing political establishment will have won.

Congratulations, but lets hope Article 242 of the United Nations which was adopted unanimously by the UN Security Council on November 22, 1967 will finally be centre stage with Obama, but somehow I doubt he will be able to handle it, I mean what can you handle when the death of 400 children has tied your hands, so the 42 years of ignoring it will most likely stretch to another 8, which will make the 50th anniversary, not bad for a state which was brought into being in 1947, to ignore the United Nations for 50 out of the 70 years is not a bad record, but not a world record.

Sure the Afrikaners, the KKK and the Ulster Loyalists managed it for longer than that.

Don't know what to do?

I am really stuck, by allowing the savagery and lies to go unchallenged we are basically condoning it, People really have to do something, we do understand the Israeli and Zionist dominance of the financial, media and political areas in the USA, the problem is people are actually believing the claptrap which in my opinion can only really have 3 or 4 motivating factors.

1. To moderate and embolden the group who do not want to see the new American President make changes in middle eastern policy, and turn his slogan into "No we can't actually"

2. To deflect interest from the disgraceful behaviour of those who own and control Wall St.

3. To escalate Arab reaction which will be used to influence people's reaction to Anti-Arab sentiment making it easier to enforce anti human rights legislation as they succeeded in doing post 9/11.

4. To demonstrate Israeli (American backed) superiority over their neighbours and especially the United Nations which will continue and copperfasten the 42 year ignoring of article 242.

At this point all I feel I can do is refuse to purchase any product that has any trace of Israel on the packaging, it's like those brave girls from Dunne's Store who refused to handle oranges from South Africa many years ago, and which has helped to produce a nation of equality and some respect for basic human rights, to do so in an area like the middle east is a longer road while the respect for human rights and equality extends to strafing UN humanatrian depots and the slaughter of children in a UN school.

If you have any ideas on how we can affect Irish opinion and help our nation to influence the situation please let me know, we should be breaking trade links, expelling their Ambassador and refusing diplomatic relations which are currently extending our peoples approval of this travesty.

Thought I'd share some feelings!

not sure if I should put this up, because I know people may read too much into it, but it's simply a reply I made to a man called Alun Rees whom I've never met but does interest me because of his blog (linked above) and his emails last year. He commented on the Christmas message on my business website where I used this quote to wish my friends and occasional readers a happy (or Hoopy being a Celtic fan) Christmas, The quote i used is one of my favourites which I think may have been used first by William Arthur Ward in the 50's the quote is

“Failure should be our teacher, not our undertaker. Failure is delay, not defeat. It is a temporary detour, not a dead end. Failure is something we can avoid only by saying nothing, doing nothing, and being nothing.”

The reply was

Hi Alun, the reason this quote is not attributed is because I'm not sure who wrote it originally either, it tends to be attributed to Denis Waitley or even Zig Ziglar, but understanding this business you will know that many "guru's" approach marketing and recognition like Tony Robbins did with Bandler's NLP by stealing someone else's work, changing a word or two and pretending that it's their own invention (a bit like the music business where they change one note and pretend the same).

My best understanding is that the concept was first quoted by William Arthur Ward in the 50's but where his inspiration came from I have no idea.

And thanks for reading, have a happy new year, oh and on the injury issue, all is back to normal now which is good, I'm trying to draw a line under it and move on... from a media perspective I have turned down many offers to do a story for a variety of reasons, one is that I really don't want the publicity or to make more money or kudos from one persons mistake (I'm pleased he was never caught, he did not intend to do any of the temporary damage that accrued), but more importantly being the media they would have to find a coat hanger for the lucky escape, they would be either the exceptional health service, the prayers that were said, or worst of all I would be eulogised as some kind of positive "hero" who had such a fighting and positive spirit that I overcame the adversity, In the past 2 years I have lost 3 good friends to illness, all of them got the finest medical care, all of them were strongly prayed for, and all of them were brilliant positive fighters who were convinced that they could "beat" their adversity, and all of them are now dead and gone, so it does bother me when people have to find and credit specific reasons for everything, so that someone can take the credit or the blame.

It's was more an interesting year than a challenging year, I survived because I was "lucky" it's like when you were young and building a house of cards in a room when someone opened the door, sometimes the whoosh would collapse everything and sometimes the top layer would fall but the structure would stay up, if it fell when we were eight we would blame either the person who opened the door, the cards we used or the way we sloppily built the house, if it stayed up we would credit the amazing aptitude we had for card building, the quality of the cards we used, or credit God for keeping our house safe. I'm still around and back to normal which I do appreciate, but my friends are dead and gone despite the fact that they were all great fighters, got brilliant care and had heaven stormed, the factor to credit is both subtle and largely uncontrollable, I was lucky and my card house stayed up, they were not lucky, their cardhouse fell, there is nothing to credit or blame except the uncontrollable factor called luck, and I know their families are all doing brilliant and I know they are all missed terribly, but the people who try to put their bad luck down to something they did wrong or the people who put my recovery down to something I or others did right do fluster me somewhat, luck, accidents, or lottery wins are not something we can simply change, it's a bit like the weather or even your height, it's there, it's real, you have two choices, do your best with it or whinge, complain and try to change it until you are blue in the face, trying to change your luck, influence the weather, get taller or smaller or trying to transform your personality is a bit like trying to teach a pig to sing, your wasting your time.

As for the benefits that people expect from a near death experience, there are none really, but I did get an underlining of some concepts that I largely believed anyway, the main two being the factors of appreciation and involvement, appreciating the people around you and their lives is very important to me, and I continue in that vein but I was surprised at the scale of it and the wave of reaction from those I spend time with in all aspects of life, I knew I always appreciated and cared very much about them, but was very pleased and encouraged to know that they also appreciated and cared about me!

I do feel that involvement is vital for me and will continue to do that in my life, society had become too individualistic and self centered, and I do hope that the sense of community involvement, volunteering and awareness that others are just as important will return over the next few years as a platform for individuals in Irish and world society.

I also hope that the individualistic guru's who believe that the credit for every advancement and improvement is totally for them will fade into the background and that we recover a society where the best for us all is more important than what's best for an individual or an individuals family.

Finally if I had to pick out a person who's values and strength I admire it would be Fr. Peter McVerry who for 35 years has been putting his own accomplishments in the background and focusing on the homeless and hopeless and working to bring them hope in the future by providing the basics of life and restoring some confidence in themselves.

Sorry for going on so long but felt it was good to tell you my thoughts on the topic, thanks for reading again, and enjoy every hour and day where you still have the chance to make a contribution to other people's lives.

Paul.

If you feel I should take this down please let me know!

1986 ~ Different but still the same,

I've heard so much on the news the last few weeks about recession etc and how the 80's was such a desperate time, that it put me thinking about what life was like back in 1986.

I must have thought things were a little gloomy back then but I'd have been as wrong as hell, just like now the eighties were great times, sure a lot of my friends had emigrated and were living abroad but in 1986 I was living in Sligo, had a full time job in the post office, got called into the Irish Basketball team, won a championship with Shannon Gaels, had my 21st with friends in Carrick, met the beautiful Maggie on March 1st that year and went to Ibrox for the first time when Celtic drew 4-4 with Rangers.

So if they were bad times then I'd be delighted to be heading back to them.

There is so much gloom on the telly these days that they really should kop themselves on.

The madness of King George

It's really strange if you spend some time a bit mad, or under the influence of very strange medicines, you understand that you may be a bit mad but feel there is a very strong difference between being totally insane and being fairly straightforward.

When the madness passes you realise that the space between sense and madness is really a very very thing line indeed, in the last few years we've all been exposed to the likes of Barry Egan and Brendan O'Connor on one hand, George Lee and David McWilliams on the other and Simon Cowell and Kerry Katona on a weird one and they have all been lauded as icons of sanity in a mad mad world.

It's a thin line alright, the thing about all mad people including King George is that they will never feel mad, Brendan O'Connor feels he's a rock of sense, maybe them weird medicines had something going for them after all.

and that's it!

It was interesting to watch Kilkenny obliterate Waterford yesterday, not interesting in a hurling sort of way but how it rewarded the Waterford players who shafted their manager Justin McCarthy back in June after refusing to try hard in their previous game against Clare.

It's also a credit to the Waterford county board who accepted this form of player power back in June and appointed the players nomination of Davy Fitzgerald and then took all the credit as they reached an All Ireland final, we now have an interesting situation, Cork will go on strike if they don't havbe a say in who the manager is, Waterford won't break a sweat unless they are happy with theirs, and this morning the Donegal footballers issued a statement about the county boards treatment of Brian McIvor and insisting that they should be involved in the selection of the new manager.

So the teams who are not screaming for their choice of a new manager would be the Kilkenny crew with Brian Cody and the Kerry lads with Pat O'Shea...... Interesting.

Full circle.

Ah well, to pick up where I left off I'm now heading for another Connacht game, it's interesting cos they are playing Ospreys so we'll get to see Jones, Williams and captain Hook.

Looking forward to it, I enjoyed the Ulster game too even though it took me a long time to get home.

That last post!

Holy God, the future is a strange thing!

I had little idea when writing the last post about leaving a philisophy to your kids, that little over a week later I'd be in a coma and having priests giving me the last rites.

Thankfully (I really mean that) I'm well on the road to normality and I don't appear to have anything ultrapermanent wrong, so my girls can feel the slight relief of having to put up with me for some years to come.

The philisophy is not as platitudinous as I would have feared, my current thoughts are

Appreciate things as much as possible, be careful what you take for granted.
Life is a combination of choices and chance, and we only have control over the choices.
The middle ground works a bit, overdoing something is not a good idea, but neither is neglecting it completely.

oh and pass no heed on those who are lifes "experts"

Moving it on.

Imagine if you were forced to write a philisophy for your children!

If the deal was, write the philisophy and your chances of living will be proportional to your level of honesty, a kind of lie and die scenario. (this may have been brought on by a dream I had last night)

What sort of things would you put in, would you lose the platitudes like, the world is a lovely place darling, and keep smiling no matter what, or would you attempt to tell your children what you feel the world is really like.

Perhaps it would have to do with what day it was, how you were feeling or what side of the bed you got out of that day. Would there be any basic truths, are there any basic truths? The forcing od a deadline and the requirement to actually commit to a philisophy would be a most interesting exercise.

I wonder what i'd write, i'm not sure yet but I can feel a new blog coming on.

Regarding my last post, this grand bunch of lads did get the reward of their efforts as the last two games swung for them.

Coaching.

sometimes it's not all about winning, the under 18 team I manage played earlier this week, and though they were brilliant, they still lost by a point, the strange thing was I did not feel at all bad about it, in fact i was very pleased with the performance, the skills they showed and the effort they put in.

Yes we made mistakes, and we'll make them the next time too, but we are looking for a reduction, not perfection.

And it was nice to know for once that winning is not everything.

In denial!

Powerful and disturbing documentary last night http://www.fairytaleofkathmandu.com/

I think the hysterical reaction has a lot to do with people's idealistic view of human nature, or even of nature itself, the abuse of power and money is as old as the world, and although many people will embrace power (social, political or financial) without allowing it to corrupt them. it's always highly likely that a significant nimber will see their powerful position as a justification for what they do. It's usually shrouded in a veil of benevolence, just as O"Searcaigh uses the guise of helping, Bush uses the term liberating, and the Christian brothers used to call it disciplining, as Haughey would have said, now lads it's for your own good.

O'Searcaigh has unwittingly, even willingly become evil personified, because we need someone to vent at, meanwhile there are many planes leaving Ireland today for Thailand, Vietnam and many other places where middle age men will use their economic supremacy to engage young women in catering to their sexual needs, in fact there's no need to go that far, the cancellation of the days racing in Cheltenham has already been described on the radio as a bonanza for the sex trade in the area.

So maybe we should think before climbing on our high horses and stoning O'Searcaigh to death. I think what he did / does is/ was despicable, but he used his power to exploit people so he could get what he wanted, you'll see that happening with individuals, countries and corporations everywhere. It's hardly a new discovery, put a hungry lion in a cage with a deer and then come back in the morning and see what's happened. Oh nasty nasty lion... get a grip.

What is unusual nay amazing about this docummentary is that O'Searchaigh allowed it to happen, allowed his ego to lead him into disaster, it did not begin as a trap but it slowely became one... and he walked right in believing his benelovence and intellect could somehow save him from the ire of a nation.

It's not shocking, it's sad. It's cetainly not surprising.

This docummentary will win many awards, not so much for the exposure of a moral issue, but more for the fact that one mans hubris enabled it to be made at all.

Love this

Here, you gotta love this, a man who says what i usually think far brilliantly than i could dream of expressing it.

Bloody brilliant.

The images of my childhood.

It's hard to get away from the images of your childhood, the six O'Clock news always had this man shouting over everyone else, in my head he was the bogeyman, the personification of evil, I used to think he would eat children alive, only catholic children of course, but he still would.

He was indirectly (and boy did he know it) responsible for the prolonging of inequality in the north for the last forty years, he was a fundie who earnestly believed in the superiority of the protestant people, he fought to preserve but ultimately only succeeded in prolonging the ethos of apartheid and supremacy that had existed for the previous centuries.

In his period of obstruction and "never never never", 3000 people died, sometimes we should trust our childhood intuitions.

Evil is Evil, but is most dangerous in the mask of righteousness.

Shame on those who now fawn over him and his legacy.

When you're just not good enough

Well done to Celtic on at least being competitive in Barcalona last night, we were so outclassed by a team with better players and more money that it's very easy today to know what it feels like to be a Kilmarnock or Caley Thistle supporter.

Sometimes the best thing abouyt being a fan is just the relentless ploughing on, be it with Celtic or Roscommon, the keeping going in the faintest hope that someday there will be that special moment and thet we enjoy it all the more because of the famine before.

I've been lucky enough to experience those moments in Seville and Ennis, and to not plough on now would mean the next one - even though it may be 15 years away, would lose it's sweetness

Give your players the teambuilding experience they deserve.

Prionnsias O Murchu
RUNAI
Cork County Board.
Pairc Ui Caoimhe
Cork.

Dear Frank,

My name is Paul Newton and I run a training company specialising in teamwork programmes,

I have developed a new programme that I’m sure your county board executive would be interested in running with both the Football and Hurling Squads.

This programme is designed to encourage teamwork, sharpness and co-operation and will ensure your teams get the sort of preparation that you and your colleagues know they deserve

Please take a quick look at the attached promotional video and reply to me if interested in discussing further

Kindest Regards

(Up the Rossies)

Paul.


Paul Newton

Paying Setanta to watch Sean Og.

People have to decide now on what sort of GAA they wish to have in the future, those of us old enough to remember the set up of the premiership or the Kerry Packer rebel cricket will have no problems figuring out where it's currently heading, the real debate is about what our national games should look like in 10 years time, and we should all be smart enough to see the importance of the current Cork dispute in that context.

When I was a young player there was no money in the GAA, players were treated like crap, and the administrators were legendary, nothing unusual to see them dining out while the players ate sandwiches, there was no balance and the situation needed to be redressed.

Later on as a club chairman I witnessed the latter part of an era where players began to be appreciated, where Liam Mulvihill and others like Peter Quinn introduced a much more commercialised GAA, where sponsors were involved but did not necessarily call the shots, the establishment of the GPA which led us to small elite player payments, and a recognition that the players were as important as the administrators. The majority of income is still ploughed back into clubs, but the players are well looked after, you might call it balance.

You ask country players privately if they'd like a semi pro game, or even a professional one and they would take your hand off for it, the idea of playing and getting well paid for it is music to the ears of all these very dedicated lads, as it would be to any of us of we were 19 again and good enough, but is this really the way people think the GAA should go? We've seen the effect of professionalism in soccer and rugby over the last 15 years, thinking we are immune to this is ostrich strategy, the TV companies and sponsors call the shots now, the administrative bodies will do what they are told, and the players will benefit hugely, what's wrong with that you ask.

What's wrong is that the club scene will slowly die, as the funds are sluiced away to elite players who are no longer available to their clubs, the senior club scene will give way to underage and school competitions, which will be important as the breeding grounds for the next superstar, like the United States in baseball, you will have an elite professional scene, and a strong schools and college scene (as everyone wants to make the pro's)

Cork players expressed surprise that their respective Club delegates appear to be supporting the executive of the Cork county board in this dispute, but the truth is that there is now a considerable distance between the elite player and the average club delegate, in times past the selection of players on county squads was seen as a major benefit by clubs, they continued to represent their club in league games and often trained and socialised within the club structure.

Modern day country set ups demand that players rarely play with their clubs, are typical unavailable for almost all league games and don't socialise at all except with other elite players on "bonding" weekends in Malaga. The gap between the modern elite player and his club has widened considerably, it's little wonder that the Cork players are having trouble getting their views represented via their clubs.

Is this the future we want? A semi pro premiership of 10 - 12 elite county squads, with a fluid transfer market ensuring the weaker counties lose their finest players and never have a chance to break through, a club scene which will thrive at Bord na n'og level but will die at senior and intermediate level into Sunday league pub competitions. I don't propose to tell people what they should want, simply to point out the I believe this is the direction we are inevitably heading unless someone shouts stop.

It’s time for an extensive debate into the future structure of the GAA, this is an issue that is far bigger than either Donal Og Cusack or Frank Murphy, as GAA people we are arrogant beyond belief if we think that our organisation would be immune to what's happened in soccer and rugby, and if we decide this is the direction we want the organisation to go in, then fine, but to wake up one morning and see wealthy elite players, no volunteers bar selfish parents who want their kid to make it, TV companies and sponsors calling the shots and clubs reduced to soulless shells with liquor licences. With "free to air" a thing of the past we'll end up paying Setanta to watch Sean Og. That's hardly what the founding fathers envisaged, I wonder is it what Irish people want now.

The GAA has been a major force for good in modern Ireland, a major part of the social fabric, yes in the past it was unbalanced, these days we have a reasonable balance between the interests of clubs, sponsors, players, communities and county boards, if we are going to unbalance it lets be careful about where the end game is at, in ten years time we want a GAA that retains it's ideals.

Those marching on the streets of Cork in the last week would do well to remember that.