An Irish Fencer's Blog

When Irish Eyes Are Crying - Business: vanityfair.com

2011-02-16T11:50:00.000+01:00

Michael Lewis the writer of Liar's Poker and the Big Short gives his summary of the Irish financial situation. Up there with the most depressing I've read so far...

When Irish Eyes Are Crying - Business: vanityfair.com

Rugby Season Started Without Telling Me...

2010-09-05T13:35:00.000+02:00

The Tri Nations is winding down, the Top 14 is back a few weeks, the Magners starts this weekend but I'm more concerned with the distant distant future and the World Cup in NZ in 2011. Australia, who share a group with Ireland, are rapidly looking like the 2nd best team in the World. Players like the 12 year old James O'Connor is finally starting to bulk up a bit (Ed - Christ, he was actually born in 1990 - he definitely doesn't remember communism) and they've really got a team that looks like it's going to be maturing nicely around September 2011.

It remains to be seen whether Ireland are getting over the hill or whether there will be just the right amount of youth and experience in the team by then. Certainly would be nice not to repeat the awful experience of the 2007 World Cup.

Anyhoo, here is the clip, that inspired me to write this little note, of Austrailia looking impressive.

Why will Sepp Blatter not consider video refereeing?

2010-07-02T22:47:00.000+02:00

Let us consider the type of man we are dealing with...

Transparency in Sport

Surviving Venezuela...

2010-06-16T21:29:00.000+02:00

The Irish Ministry of Foreign Affairs travel advisory for Venezuela had me paranoid even before I arrived. Particularly since eight lines into this document they mention my destination by name...

"There are also growing concerns about the incidence of violent crime on the island of Margarita. Travellers are advised to exercise particular caution there."

Aside from that I'd heard of an official attending the tournament last year being robbed of everything he had and left on the side of the road in his underpants. Venezuela is ranked in the top five countries in the world... for homocide and kidnapping increased year on year by between 40 - 60 % from 2008 to 2009 (US govt. travel advisory). Generally not necessarily a place you would choose to go to.

To my alarm I was off the plane all of 20 minutes, just after collecting my cumbersome fencing back when one of the warnings I had read began flashing in 30-foot neon letters in my brain.

"The airport itself can be a dangerous place. If approached by an officer purporting to be an airport official,"

I was immediately approached by about seven of them.

"even if they are in uniform and/or present credentials, "

All with official ID and wanting to help me out. One of them eventually negotiated his way to be the one who would take care of me and the others dispersed. Offering to help carry my bags, he said he would accompany me to the domestic terminal and would not take "NO GRACIAS!" for an answer.

"you should try to ensure that you remain in a busy area of the airport and, if possible, check with other airport or airline staff that the officials are genuine."

When I reluctantly found him walking with me in the direction I knew well was the domestic airport I tried to check with a tourist information desk or do something that would get him to give up. He gestured that we needed to take a lift to the domestic airport but there was no way I was getting into a lift with this stranger, particularly a lift I didn't know to where it lead.

Eventually when absolutely refused to go anywhere with him he got a friend of his to translate. I took this oppurtunity to tell him that some Venezuela Esgrima friends of mine were waiting for me in the domestic airport and I didn't need to change any dollars. He immediately lost interest. Chances are he was only looking for a tip and not going to kill me and steal my fencing gear on the black market to illegal Venezeulan bee-keepers but I thought best not to risk it and was glad when he finally got the message.

Aside from that incident which instantly increased my paranoia, I suppose quite luckily, the main challenge (outside of the competition) I faced was boredom. When I reached the domestic terminal an expected 4 hour lay over turned into an 8 hour unexplained delay. Absolutely no explanation was given, even in Spanish but we finally arrived in Margarita around 22.30.

I'd left France at 04.00 Venezuelan time, so I although I had intended on trying to negotiate to paying the hotel in Bolivars (where I could get an black market exchange of 8 to 1) I was far to tired when I reached the hotel and handed over my dollars without discussion.

In a similar vein to my previous travel to the Algeria we were advised not to leave the hotel at all. Paying at all for a hotel of such low standards still wrankles. Photos will follow shortly but aside from the general poor repair of the place you had the issue of thumping Spanish Karaoke until 11pm and then thumping club music until 4am. Luckily I was able to change rooms to a quiet family room at the back of the hotel, sacrificing my sea view for a construction site but only having to tolerate the bad Karaoke and not the techno.

On my first full day on the island, my one excursion to the nearby beach to read a book for about hour lead to serious sunburn on my chest despite having 25+ sun block on and that was the end of hopes of returning to France a slightly darker shade of pale. Perhaps it added extra motivation to avoid through-cuts across my chest during the competition but I don't intend to leave a hot iron on my chest before future competitions to achieve the same effect.

...

The morning of competition I still had faith that the tournament would have to be conducted in a air conditioned hall. I found myself very much wrong as we pulled up outside a covered dome that was to be the venue. A concrete down covered the basketball arena inside but while the roof did at least protect from the sun that would have made any sort of activity impossible, it did nothing to counteract the overwhelming humidity underneath the dome. Feeble air conditioning added a whirring soundtrack to the competition but with no doors on the venue and indeed a large gap in between the stands and the domed roof it was never going to do anything much.

Even after a light warm-up I was dripping with sweat. My fencing gear didn't feel particuarly comfortable over first degree burns either. But despite the environmental conditions I managed to win four matches in my poule of 7 fencers (including myself). 4 wins from 6 put me through to the last 64 the next day.

15 point matches were even more tiring in the stiffling humidity. I won my L64 match 15 - 13 after leading the match most of the way through against a member of the Japanese squad whose name will forever escape me. In my last 32 match I faced the much trickier proposition of Diego Occhiuzzo of Italy, the fourth member of the Italian squad. Despite what I felt were some decidedly "Maybe it will be just easier to give that to the Italian" calls, the final score was 10 - 15 in the Italians favour.

All in all, I was happy with the result. I feel I performed as well as I could have been expected to in advance and while there is still room to bring through what I've been doing in training to this level of competition, the result is a big confidence booster travelling to New York for the final WC of the season.

...

After the competition the last couple of days passed without major event... aside from the effects of drinking tap water during the second day of competition as no other water was available... and rubbing after sun on my burns 6 times a day... and being attacked by mosquitos while sitting by the pool in the evening.

So I survived. I still even have 100-odd Bolivars with which to buy a T-shirt to prove the same, if only anyone would take the worthless currency off my hands...

Only one more hour to waste in Trinidad and I'll be on my way to the Big Apple...

Caracas Domestic Airport... ?Gateway to Madness¿

2010-06-10T22:17:00.000+02:00

Arrived in South America about an hour ago and I´m still alive - That has to count as a result. All the stories I´ve heard in advance about this place have left me pretty much terrified to make eye-contact with anyone.

Already had a police officer offering to accompany me to the domestic terminal and had to tell him I had Venezuelan mates waiting for me before he'd leave me alone. Chances were he had no intentional of robbing or killing me but there was no chance I was going to go alone with him anywhere.

So my options at this point are to chill out or to lock myself in my hotel room. I´m sure I´m being a bit over precautious.

In other Venezuelan related news... it´s fricking hot here. 1000% humidity - it´s like walking through a Turkish bath for the brief 5 minute walk between the terminals.

The weather was cloudy and somewhat misty as we landed. As the plane banked we could not see past the first range of mountains that line the coast and seperate the Simon Bolivar Airport from Caracas. You have the impression that just beyond this mountain range and the curtain of clouds there is a huge continent to explore. This exploration however will have to wait for another trip as I am bound for the Isla de Margarita and this first encounter with mainland South-America will soon be over...

...Blogpost written - two more hours to kill.

No. 1 Reason Not To Watch The FIFA World Cup

2010-05-30T16:19:00.001+02:00

...Or at least not to listen to it.

No, it's not Bono's annoying ad for the tournament on ESPN.

No, it's not that Sepp Blatter is a corrupt bureaucrat and that one can never be sure of any result in football over the past twenty years.

It's not even about the prospect of watching France Vs. England and being truly confused as to who you want to lose more. It's about the vuvuzela -

Here's an alarming taste of things to come. Try if you can to avoid listening to the annoying buzzing in the background of this all SA Super 14 final played out in Soweto this weekend.

Now imagine that noise for a 90 minute football match (you might survive an 80 minute rugby match) and you have the most convincing argument to travelling to South and North America (Venezuala and New York to be specific) and completely ignoring that the World Cup is actually taking place.

Enjoy! Be sure to let me know when you lose the will to live.

Idiots Gather In London To Shovel Tripe Into Their Slackened Mouths

2010-05-28T15:12:00.003+02:00

...Or Apple's Ipad launched in London.

Maybe that I recently got round to reading 1984 has lead me to see life with slightly more turd-green than rose-tinted glasses or maybe that I was immediately reminded of an oft-sited critical turning point in advertising (see above), which pays homage to said novel but there is something which makes me feel ill-at-ease around the launch of Apple's Ipad in London. .

How can we as a species whip ourselves (or be whipped) into such a frenzy about a thing? Not an ideological question - most of us can't be bothered to vote. Not a question of debt or workers-rights or human-rights or poverty - you have to have dreads and not shower to be part of street protests these days. Just a thing, a possession, a piece of consumer technology; a thing that does nothing new or different in fact does the exact same things as a smaller thing that many of us have relented into buying. A well crafted and technological impressive thing, as much in that its maker not only controls so closely the design, sale and delivery of the product but also all the intellectual property which it allows to pass through its filter onto said product but still just a thing.

I'm by no means a Luddite and maybe my own relativey modest living which I'm ekeing out for myself has me far more concerned with the lower end of Maslow's pyramid rather than the self-actualisation that possession of an iPad would ultimately bring but all this seems a bit over the top.

Perhaps the transient loosely-bound community based around a shared consumption experience is just as valid and perhaps in some instances has advantages over the traditional communities created by teams or neighbourhoods or more traditional groups. Such as in the case of apple-ophiles who feel the need to preech to their friends about the benefits of all things white with an "i" prefix and feel an instant kindrid spirit who they stand around smuggly with and purport how "everything just works". I, fear, however this might be an example of doublethink on my part. In the end we will all love ~~Big Brother~~Steve Jobs but personally I'm not quite ready to dig into his iTripe quite yet.

...

More on adventures in Madrid, the rise of Korea and the coming armageddon shortly.

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Champions League Final in Madrid...

2010-05-21T23:02:00.000+02:00

...But the world's media are all focused on the Villa de Madrid Fencing World Cup.

The only reason I've had any interest in the Champion's League final this year is that it's made it impossible to find accommodation in Madrid for the last three weeks. I eventually set off for Madrid this morning with only a rough plan of crashing on the floor of anybodies hotel room that would accept me. Planning ahead I brought a sleeping bag and ground mat. By chance the French team were on my flight and I attached myself like a tick and refused to go away until I'd found a bit of floor I could call my own for the evening.

So, there it is, the glamour of fencing for the Irish fencing team - a hard floor and a sleeping bag.

Looking like there is a strong field for tomorrows competition but that's hardly a surprise. At least I'm not sleeping on a park-bench - that's already a small victory.

Buenos Noches!

Down and Out... and soon to be blogging again... In Paris

2010-05-10T15:02:00.002+02:00

This blog has suffered from severe neglect of late but ~~perhaps~~ no more. The French Domestic season is all but over but the international season for picks up again next weekend in Varsovie (Warsaw). I should hopefully have plenty to write about and in the mean time, I can complain about French banks...

...

Goddammit HSBC! Every time I try to leave they pull me back in. After having enough of their policy of arbitrarily dipping into my current account whenever they felt like it to take 'convention d'avenir' that I never signed up for, or "FRAIS TENUE DE COMPTE" , I went an opened an account with an online bank and basically stopped using the account except to make deposits and then immediately transfer them to the online account.

I cancelled my credit card with them, I cancelled my any direct debits I had with them, I carry out no actions in their branches and I thought I'd removed any opportunity for them to charge me anything... But no! Now they want to charge €2.00 a month for a security service to send a code to my mobile in order to access my account online. Looks like a just can't escape them trying to rip me off!

...

I imagine a time where the internet will be full of blogs written by fencers expressing how poor they are (ála Tim Morehouse's - Flat Broke and a US Olympian, but Worth It or my own various rants against french institutions stealing my money). I'm thinking of writing my own "Trying to live, work and train in Paris on €5 a week" but I'm afraid the post would involve to much boredom and swearing as I got ever more hungry as the week went on.

...

Oh and by the by, if you happen to read this and enjoy occasional rants about fencing, sport, politics, France, food or whatever I feel like writing about why not click the little button that says follow up the top-right.

Know Your Limits... Or Not!

2010-04-08T16:30:00.001+02:00

After what seemed like months of so much monkey-droppings worth of stories about chimps with feelings and dogs who "woved deyr ownuhs" and other such tripe Radiolab, a WNYC public radio show and one of my favourite podcasts, is back on form with a show on the Limits of humankind - physical and mental.

The physical limits section of the show is of particular interest to any long-distance runners but also to anyone whose ever pushed themselves physically as far as they thought they could go. The show is always exceptionally well produced and the conversational, story-telling style and rapport between the shows two presenters makes it top-quality radio.

Anyway, you should listen to the show and if you don't podcast it already - what are you doing with you life?

They know how to make a good music video...

2010-04-07T12:17:00.002+02:00

YouTube - OK Go - This Too Shall Pass - Rube Goldberg Machine version - Official: "Rube Goldberg Machine"

My Name Is...

2009-12-11T00:37:00.001+01:00

Dear France,

I would like to inform the citizens of your fair land that I know how to spell my own name and, despite what they may believe to be their better judgement, my passport and driver's licence are correct.

My name is not Mc Namee, my name is not MacNamee, my name is not Mac Namee... My name is spelt McNamee.

Yours Sincerely...

Now to translate this message and send it to the Securitie Sociale, my mutuelle, my landlord, my fencing club, the Revenue Service and the many other flailing arms of the great bureaucracy who have ignored how my name is actually spelt.

FIFA's reaction to last Wednesday Night...

2009-11-24T18:51:00.002+01:00

...Ignore it.

Well the dust is starting to settle and the shelf-life of Irish heart-break as an international headline is looking seriously limited at this point.

I saw one rumour that Henry might not play in the world cup according to the back-page of the Paris rag Le Parisien but I think I might have misread it. Roy Keane has instructed us to get over it, Eric Cantona has reminded us that he would have killed Henry, Domenech has patronised us in his arrogant slimy way, Tony Cascarino, a man who quite recently confessed that he was never actually qualified to play for Ireland has chastised Henry as a cheat, the man himself has tried to manage his falling brand image by so very nearly but, very importantly, not really apologising.

But where have FIFA been in all this? Bold statements about finally cleaning up the game? Expansive gestures towards polishing the dripping turd that is the reputation of soccer worldwide? Not a peep aside from their reading of the rule-book on Friday.

This has been the week that I gave up on Football. I have no interest in watching a sport whose governing body has for years now ignored the wishes of its supporters, has allowed cheating to run rampant in the beautiful game and has erased any shred of sportsmanship that existed in the sport through it's inaction.

This report from FIFA's own website typifies its reaction... not one single mention of the moment of cheating that turned the match. FIFA is burying its head well not in sand but in the large lake of money that it maintains in Geneva.

Soccer RIP

Thierry Henry - Class to Cheat in 0.5 second

2009-11-19T00:14:00.002+01:00

To get some rambling and unordered thought out of my head before going to sleep...

The difference between Ireland and France this evening was the blatant cheating of the one of the erstwhile greatest players of this generation and a man who was formerly a great ambassador for the game. Thierry Henry handling the ball (twice) intentionally to keep the ball in play has lead Ireland to crash out of the World Cup qualifiers.

After exiting undefeated from a group with the world champions, after being told a week before the draw for the play-offs would be made that the play-offs would be seeded, explicitly to allow greater revenue generating nations a better chance to get into the world cup, a group of footballers dismissed as journeymen and second-rate go toe to toe with one of the greatest nations in world football... and then lose to a blatant act of cheating from the very leader of the "generation Henry"! There is no justice in sport, it is inherently unfair.

Here's my Jerry Springer summing up moment before I cry myself to sleep. If Robbie Keane had stuck the ball up his jersey and ran into the French goal and somehow the referee had allowed the goal (I know, completely hypothetical since the referee was never going to give Ireland the benefit of the doubt), would we Irish still be celebrating...

No wait, I can't do it. That situation didn't happen, that is fantasy. Henry did cheat (blatantly and intentionally) Ireland fought honestly and were given no reward. I feel nothing but disappointment and shame for Thierry Henry - he knows he cheated.

Lizarazu had the class to come out and be frank about what had happen. To paraphrase 'we cannot be proud of what happened this evening it was shameful. We can be relieved but we should be ashamed'. No one chimed in to agree (his co-host was Arsene Wenger who's hardly one to concede wrong-doing) but he was right and I think most reasonable people would agree.

Anyhow, I suppose that is the advantage of sport - "It's not a matter of life or death... it's much more important than that!".

Beatbox Euphonium

2009-11-17T22:31:00.005+01:00

Following on my post several months ago pondering which wind instrument would get the beatbox treatment next, my money would have never been on the euphonium...

While I'm at it on my wanders about the interweb I also came across Eric Lewis a massively talented pianist doing some great arrangements of pop-rock songs - his site Eric Lewis Grooves. He has a few albums and I'm investigating which one to invest in...

Kitten Rage Haiku

2009-10-15T23:45:00.006+02:00

I am the zen master, my chi is focused... A series of haiku based around my experiences with my room-mates cat.

Kitten Rage

Bare foot in something warm
stumble back leaves foot of puke
'Aw poow kittey sick'

Arrive home late night
kitchen roll torn across floor
'Aw kitty been busy'

The faint smell lingers
crunch of pebbles under foot
kitty litter in bathroom

Eating dinner starts
scratching and biting hand
scrapes with shit full claws

Day planned at races
Cat flees apartment, returns
once races are done.

The King Is Dead, Long Live Hypocrisy

2009-07-07T23:44:00.002+02:00

Is anyone else as sick about the levels of hypocrisy surrounding MJ's death as me?

Suddenly every idiot on the planet who wasn't even born the last time he released anything more insightful than a particularly musical fart is jumping on their facebook status to claim this man very recently decried as a weirdo was "a god" and "will be sadly missed" etc.

I will acknowledge the man was amazingly commercially successful musician but it does not explain how a man can be so maligned and treated in such a voyeuristic fashion for the last 10 years only for the minute he dies to be hailed as amazing. The same public opinion which seems to have driven the man to apparently starve himself to death is now elevating him to the status of deity.

More to follow...

Brazilian Parkour

2009-07-03T20:38:00.000+02:00

Well I can't quite get to sleep while there is a tempest complete with fork-lightning outside my window. What else is there to do except stumble across wonderfully shot Parkour from Sao Paolo. Enjoy!

SAMPARKOUR

The Future Is Here

2009-04-04T14:49:00.002+02:00

I can't imagine why this didn't catch on... Ladies and Gentlemen, I present to you the hover-bike.

I can think of one reason that perhaps lead to the project being abandoned. I could imagine that sitting with a turbine engine between your legs could potentially leave a man infertile after 3 minutes use.

What's Going On?

2009-04-03T16:37:00.002+02:00

Well, it's been a while again and even though I have consistently promised to update this blog on a regular basis I have systematically failed in this venture.

My main excuse for this absence, if anyone cared to listen at this stage, is that I've been fairly busy. The international fencing season combined with French domestic circuit and the few Irish competitions that I partake in have kept me out of Paris for all but two or three weekends since the start of January leaving very little time on weekends for rumination on the nature of my adventures and I've been having a few lately. Coupled with this I've found my self once more myred in the life-sucking pit that is full-time employment so my time away from fencing has been preoccupied with earning money to pay for my fencing.

But so much has happened and I've let it pass me by for the most part. I've tried to some extent to make notes myself when I've found interesting things around me but never managed to spew it onto the interweb for no-one to see as was my original intention.

Ireland are Grand-Slam (le Grand Chelem) champions after 61 years, a fact that I celebrated while I was in Budapest, I unfortunately missed the Scotland match because I was at a tournament in Tunisia but back before all that I was racing across the frozen planes of Sweden in a Volvo V70 Convertible on my way to medalling at a very surprising competition. In between all this I've spent mornings sunbathing on rooftops in glorious sunshine after an evening of sampling desserts, only for it to be snowing later, I've seen amazing films and I've seen amazingly bad films. Most recently I was on a flying visit home to Dublin where I won the Irish Nationals for a second time. Through all this, I've written more or less nothing, which is a crying shame.

It seems I've been too busy living life to smell my own navel or at least the time I've had for deep introspection, smelling roses and belly-button gazing has been sufficiently curtailed by my enjoyment of life so that I'm going to have to get more disciplined about making posts on this blog, if I am to make any impact on recording my life at the moment. God knows I have copious notes on my life when times were perhaps at their worst (notes that for the most part will never see the light of day), so I feel I should definitely make an effort to record these times on the up-bounce. With this in mind I'm going to try and make at least one blog entry a week and set some time aside to do this.

So you can hopefully expect more of these posts and more often and of a higher quality or you can expect to hear nothing for months on end but in case anyone reads this and chooses to expect the former, I thank you for your faith.

A+

O*N

Mr. President?

2009-02-10T11:33:00.002+01:00

For anyone who wants some choice sound-bites from our favourite bringer of hope and change

Could This Be Our Year?

2009-02-08T13:37:00.009+01:00

I can barely bring myself to write this. It's taken me two days to bring myself to perhaps utter in a public domain the thought that must be running through so many Irish men and women's minds... And still I'm not sure if I can bring myself to say it directly. Could this finally be the year where Ireland win the Six Nations?

Oh no, I've said it out-loud! For the last two days I've been afraid to even fully articulate the thought in my head - now, I've definitely jinxed it.

For the last two years that I've been living in Paris I've been waiting for last Saturday's result. At least three times I've had to endure Irish defeats to the XV of France and then face my clubmate's jeering. This was on top of the massacring I would get for my own poor results and served only to compound my embarrassment.

In 2007, Ireland were favourites going into the tournament were playing their historic first match at Croke Park and lost with the last kick of the game as the restart was fumbled and France ran in for a try in the dying seconds. Crushing our Grand Slam ambitions in their infancy. Extra insult to injury was added when we missed out on winning the tournament by a points difference of 4 to France.

In the World Cup in Spetember 2007, we were in the group of death and died. The less said about that tournament the better. This helped to compound a particularly miserable time for me in the Autumn of that year.

And in the Six Nations 2008 we forgot to tackle Vincent Clerc which put shut to that tournament for us before it had begun. Here's a clip of Jonah Lomu showing how it's done -

At least that tournament saw the end of Eddie Hobbs... sorry, I mean Eddie O'Sullivan... as manager and perhaps saw the death of the cult of the personality that had pervaded the team.

So in some ways the ups and downs of my own performance were being mirrored by the shortcomings of the Irish team (albeit in a different sport, at a different level of performance and being far closer to achieving their ultimate goals before exploding in an angry ball of rage and self-doubt brought on by that unidentifiable Irish-Factor which I will return to later).

A Sea-Change?

For for the last 2 years, and for another five before that, I've been watching Irish teams of various forms and at various stages in their attempts to win the Six Nations hitting a brick wall when it came to France. So much so that we invented a trophy for ourselves seemingly in the "Triple Crown" for the team that beat the three other teams between England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales.* It was as if we were saying "Sure we'll never beat France anyway" to me.

One can never be comfortable watching Ireland. The match on Saturday was 80+ minutes of anxiety right up to the final whistle, even through the dying seconds with a 9 point lead. France's repeated line breaks particularly at the beginning of the second half when they began to pay dividends were truly gut-wrenching occasions but again and Ireland's defence tracked back and the vast majority of France's opportunities came to nothing.

Quite simply it was an excellent match, both teams were playing at their absolute utmost level and created an amazing spectacle even from a neutral perspective. All over the park there were outstanding performances and for once this actually paid off. So very often as an Irish fan (and this extends beyond rugby) you see excellent performances that end in narrow defeats. That an Irish athlete will be riding high and in excellent form only for them to be chopped down just as the whole country is paying attention and they crack under the pressure of that collective expectancy.

The Irish Factor

That is perhaps the Irish-Factor. That millisecond of doubt that creeps in... Those few crumbs of the remants of Irish catholic guilt that make us instinctually demand just for perhaps a fleeting moment "Do I deserve this?"... The fossil in the tar-pit of our national psychey that prompts us that perhaps not winning is the natural order of things... That all pervasive sense of subconscious inferiority born coming from a backward little, disorganised island on the edge of civilisation.

Our hope is that maybe an individual, or a group, can someday escape this and that maybe this will pull some of us along with it. It won't be our politicians, and it won't be our business leaders... you know, the ones who perhaps should be giving leadership to our nation... and asking a group of athletes to help the country grow up might be a above there station but it might just get the ball rolling. Nothing breeds success like success afterall.

Perspective

Now as the dust begins to settle, all the talk is of calming down and that this is just the first match - BOD tells us to chill. Kidney as is his want as a great manager and truly classy individual while heaping praise on his players and deflecting it from himself is being sure to instill the virtues of taking each game as it comes (More reaction here).

So while everyone is saying this is just another game, the paradox is that that at once is true and untrue and that only a reflection on the tournament as a whole will prove this. For the players that are playing these games (as any athlete will know) there is only one game to focus on - the next one. For those following this team and has seen them take shape over the best part of a decade and is willing them to succeed on our behalf with every fibre of their body this is just another game... but if we are to look back at this in a few months and this was the start of the road to glory, then I'll never forget this springtime in Paris.

*While the term had existed since 1883 a trophy was only presented for it by Bank of Scotland in 2006. Ireland had won the Triple Crown and Bank of Scotland had just entered the Irish market - mmm, I smell synergy.

All Things Passive, Yet Aggressive

2009-01-29T12:28:00.003+01:00

Found this site randomly - http://www.passiveaggressivenotes.com/. It is a growing tribute to passive-aggressive notes... delightful.

Proper blog post to follow soon, I promise.

Owen's Adventures in Etymology, part I

2009-01-13T11:05:00.006+01:00

Following on from the underwhelming success of the Owen's cookbook series and the Which do I Hate More series, I've decided to launch yet another series of posts which won't last over two entries. This one, in fact I doubt will last more than one, prompted as it was by a random conversation I had over Christmas and a subsequent question I was asked by email when I returned to Paris.

Anyway, I felt a media with no standards and for that matter no audience would be perfect for airing this brief foray into etymology...

I received a question via Facebook from a French friend of mine -

"I heard a rumour that the word "c*nt" is used quite liberally in Irish culture and is indeed, less offensive than in other English speaking cultures. Care to validate this rumour, my friend?"

Feeling in a philosophical mood probably induced by a low in my blood-sugar levels at the time I replied -

"I can partially validate this rumour at least. It is certainly now used with greater frequency amongst the youth of Ireland, a trend which had been growing exponentially in recent years. It is, I would venture however, no less offensive - the point is more that Irish people seek to be offensive on a more regular basis than other English-speaking countries. Now, by virtue of it's over-use and the imminent destruction of this final taboo in the Hiberno-English vernacular it perhaps somewhat less offensive than it used to be but never than it was intended.

I think this trend might well have plateaued at this stage in that the word "cu*t" could not be used any more frequently in conversation in Ireland without losing any of its offensive nature. Furthermore, I think this moment of Cun*-saturation, if one might express it in such terms, may well have been reached this very festive season.

This was evidenced in a conversation I had only last week with an Irish friend on this subject. We pondered whether the term *unt had lost its offensive nature. He suggested that it certainly had and that he and a group of friends had already been feverishly working on a term that would replace it in terms vulgarity and offense to women. The product of this enterprise - gash.

It's early days for this new term and who knows if it will ever scale to the offensive heights of *unt in its hay-day. Personally I'm not really sure if it has the same versatility as c*nt but I'll certainly throw it out there now and again when I'm sure people around me won't know what I'm saying.

I hope this goes some way to addressing your question, please don't hesitate to contact me or if you need any help constructing a long string of profanities in English.

See you soon,

Owen"

Note: You may have noticed that I've been doing great work with our friend the asterisk during this entry. This is firstly to protect those whose sensitive eyes cannot look upon a word they consider a profanity directly and secondly to appease the subset of the same group of people who would perhaps flag this blog for inappropriate content unless an asterisk were to replace at least one of the letters of said profanity each time it was mentioned.

Ché

2009-01-02T14:21:00.005+01:00

Yesterday, I sat through Steven Soderbergh's Ché - the epic re-telling of two episodes from the life of Ernesto "Ché" Guevara. I'm somewhat sorry to say, as a self-professed Fidelista and an avid-follower of all things Cuban, that this film will almost certainly be doomed to obscurity and will likely be panned by the mainstream media... and somewhat understandably so.

For it's general release the film will be divided into two parts. The first part, "The Argentine" follows Guevara's part in the guerrilla war in Cuba. The second part, "Guerrilla", follows his leadership of the ill-fated revolution in Bolivia which eventually lead to his capture and execution. Enthusiastic to see this take on one of the most iconic individuals of the 20th century, I braved the four-hour version comprising of both films on the anniversary on the 50th anniversary of the liberation of Cuba.

Benicio Del Torres is brilliant in the lead roll and the likeness to Guevara is impress but we learn little of the man from this movie save for that he was a man of unquestionable and unwavering ethics and values. He is stoic and noble at all times no matter what is going on and even in the midst of his asthma attacks commands the unquestioning respect of his men. Dealing with his asthma is perhaps the one interesting insight we get to the man and even then he battles to show no weakness - at no point do we see a particularly human side.

We are also treated to his dealings with his friends in the first movie which makes it a lot more bearable than the second. His dealings with Fidel, Camilo Cienfuego and others at least give him someone to play off but in the second half no other characters emerge that are of any real interest. This really makes the second part a lot more tedious than the first and knowing how it is going to end, the only question you ask yourself is how much worse can things get before he is captured and shot. Even when this does happen, it isn't particularly dramatic or treated very interestingly and it's more with a sense of relief that you leave the cinema.

The film is shot in HD in a documentary style and the few times there is any action the camera goes all shakey and you have no real sense of what's going on (truly groundbreaking stuff there). I've seen this type of style used to great effect particularly in dealing with the depiction of historical events but all it just doesn't work this time. Whereas in other films I've seen this style makes you feel as you are just peering over someones shoulder as this unfolds before you, as if you were really there. It just becomes frustrating watching these guerillas trek through the jungle followed by some idiot with a camera only for when some piece of action to happen the cretin with the camera falls over. We have no sense of really being there and are left wondering "why is this half-wit filming this from such a poor angle?"

By the by, if the last few paragraphs contained any spoilers for you, then this movie really isn't for you. This leads us to one of it's major flaws - that at once it requires a significant amount of prior knowledge of the life of Ché Guevara but at the same time if you do possess that knowledge it gives you nothing new. While many bio-pics are criticised for historical inaccuracies or the director taking licence with the facts or supposing too much about the historical fugures he is depicting - I'm imagining making Michael Collins being an action hero, for example - this is the very opposite end of the scale. The movie style is hyper-realist it seems as if nothing was put in the movie without it having been described in Guevara's own journal or some other document, the is no interpretation of the facts or for that matter any real emotional content, we are just shown what happens.

Considering all the fascinating and thought provoking aspects of the Cuban revolution and of all the astounding events through which the life of Ernesto Guevara took him, Soderbergh has chosen to make a film about the mundane and difficult life of a guerilla rather than trying to say anything about his life. Guevera literally wrote the book on guerilla warfare and there is probably more insight to be gained from that publication than this film. If this is an examination of those principles expressed in that book there is nothing to really to imply that at all during the movie and that would only be an effort to hang something on what is a failed piece of film making. Anyway, we see those principles as a glorious success in part one and an abject failure in part two.

If you are to see one of these films see the first one. This is a more interesting chapter of the man's life and with more interesting characters surrounding him and there is some degree of film-making deployed in inter-lacing this trying time with Guevera's address to the UN. The second film, is a mirror-image of the events of the film going completely wrong and seems to barely look away for a second from the downward slog towards his umtimely death.

So for those who have read histories of Guevara's life we are given an accurate but somewhat cold version of something we have already read and for those who have only a passing interest in the man, they might as well be getting one of the t-shirts with that print on it for all the insight we get into his persona.

Ooh shiny!

2008-12-10T16:51:00.001+01:00

I finally got round to formatting the blog a bit and making it slightly more presentable. Still a ways to go yet but I'm all geared up for a return to sharing my thoughts with the soul-less void that is the internet in the new year, as well as hopefully going back and filling in some of the blanks from the last twelve months.

Stay tuned! I say as if anyone is still reading this...

The Palin Interview I Want To See...

2008-10-06T13:02:00.009+02:00

Palin managed to look pretty pathetic against some light-weight American interviewers - little girls who blink too much and old men who didn't want to offend her. Even when Fox had to put words in her mouth she hardly set the world on fire.

There is one man I really want to see interview this Creationist-Believing Anti-Choice Polar-Bear-Hunting Witch-Doctor-Attending moron... This man...

PAXMAN!

How would Palin fair against that type of onslaught? Luckily enough there's a video around that answers that question too... A lotta praayin' for Serra needed doinah...

So Jebus is obviously on Palin's side. So what we'd end up with is a Paxman Vs. Jebus debate...

"Are you the son of God?"
"It is you who say it"
"Excuse me, Mr. Christ you aren't answering the question. Are you the son of God?"
"The Angel of the Lord declared on to Mary and I simply..."
"Well we have a whole book here brimming with fanciful stories, many of them suggesting you are the son of an omnipotent being who created the universe. Are you the son of God and if so, what number am I thinking of?"
"7?"
"I think we'll leave it there, shall we."

Top News - Nasty Storm Hits US, while Nothing Happens At Republican Convention...

2008-09-02T17:32:00.003+02:00

...Meanwhile in some non-English speaking countries - everything is F***ed!

Looking through the 24-hour news stations in the past few days they are dominated by the Republican Convention which isn't happening and Hurricane Gustav which isn't really happening. Little fuss was made of course when Gustav was killing a hundred people crossing Cuba and the Caribbean - even then the focus was hyping the hurricane up to be "The storm of the century" that was going to destroy New Orleans again.

So basically nothing is happening, (another tropical storm/hurricane hitting Haiti in the course of one week doesn't apparently count) queue a video of journalists standing outside in New Orleans and surprisingly being blown around a bit - compelling stuff!

Meanwhile, the Indian Monsoon gets a bit of a mention gets an occasional brief mention but the medias main contribution to this seems to be to take up room on the tiny boats being used to evacuate people - it seems like pure idiocy! View for yourself here and I'm sure I saw worse on TV, where the clip actually showed them making a pic- up and the boat nearly getting swamped.

Anyway, the emphasise put on tragedy or even potential tragedy in the developed world over the developing world seems ridiculous to me... that's all. I know I'm hardly breaking new ground here but this week's examples have just been too blatant for me to that I couldn't ignore them.

The Joys of Air Travel

2008-08-06T16:43:00.002+02:00

Earlier this week I was drawn into a debate over whether Michael O'Leary is a genius. Anyone who knows me, and/or my history with his airline should be in no doubt as to my stance on this man.

So as I sit in terminal 2F of Charles de Gaulle waiting for my Air France flight to Dublin, I feel once again reassured in my choice to consistently fly with a proper airline.

When I arrived at the terminal I walked past a hour long queue for check-in and went to the business check-in and checked in immediately. I was given a plastic bag to protect my back-pack that I'd checked in and I walked through security with a minimal delay.

I was hungry so I had a few sandwiches while I checked my emails in the business lounge. Now I'm just about to board and I'm reading through the selection of free newspapers that I've picked up.

And what massive premium did I have to pay for flying Air France? €10 at most - screw you Michael O'leary! I'm looking forward to my mediocre sandwich and Perrier on board too!

Update: ...And then i got bumped up to business class - foie gras and champagne all the way. Screw you all, peasants!

Adrienne?

2008-07-28T14:59:00.002+02:00

I saw Rocky the other day... no, not the sixth instalment of the films following the life and times of Rocky Balboa, but actually Rocky in person - Sly Stallone. He was as close as you are now to your computer screen reading this... well depending on how far you sit from your screen.

Anyway, there it was the highlight of the Summer so far... oh dear, I need a holiday. I can now declare this season a success though, I feel and move on with renewed hope to the new one.

I won't be fencing at all in August, my first break of over two weeks from fencing since a wrist injury in Autumn 2005. So I feel it is somewhat justified. As I approached the end of the season and the Europeans I was feeling quite burnt-out and was struggling to find form - and eventually this was reflected in my results over the last month or so of the season.

Now the mission is to draw a line under that and start afresh in September, after a serious burst of fitness work over the course of August.

Next season I promise to return to updating this blog regularly aswell - bold words I know - considering there is a huge gap in this blog from around August last year. That was due to extenuating circumstances though, as anyone reading this probably already knows.

Anyway... season over... time to reset... as of the end of this sentence here.

My Mind Working Against Me...

2008-06-26T10:14:00.002+02:00

I set my alarm for an unspeakably early time this morning to go for a swim... two alarms in fact and placed them out of reach of my bed.

When the two alarms went off, ten minutes apart, I managed to get up on both occasions and then went immediately back to bed and dreamt that I'd gotten up and gone to the pool. I suppose it's probably a sign I was still too tired. Ah well, off to the gym instead.

How Many More Times?

2008-05-12T15:01:00.002+02:00

Yes, it's come to that point again... I'm left pondering once more. Left floundering in the cold bisque of my conscience and wondering how many more times? Yes, how many more times will I ever need to visit Iceland?

I've been trying to organise my travel arrangements for upcoming competitions. I have a particularly busy month in May - Warsaw, Madrid and then Padoa. I bought the flights back in January when they were a bit cheaper but this has caused some anomalies. For example, for some reason I'd booked to fly back to Paris from Warsaw ( a thoroughly boring place) on Monday morning. Luckily enough that flight was changeable so problem the first solved.

In Madrid, I had thought that a friend was to be joining me that weekend. The competition starts on Friday since it is a Grand Prix, so I'd booked from Thursday till Sunday evening. Now it seems I shall be spending a second year wandering around Madrid on Sunday on my own as my "friend" has chosen a holiday with his wife ahead of a weekend with me. What's that all about?

Padoa should be interesting. I fly into Venice as that is the nearest international airport, on Thursday. Get the train to Padoa. Compete Thursday and hopefully Friday. Then get a train back to Venice, wander around the most romantic city on the planet alone (used to this from Paris though). On Monday morning I'll be getting up at around 4.30am to catch my bus to the airport. So spare a thought for this poor international fencer.

...

So that is the rest of my May wrapped up in a little package but what to do with myself in June?

I was considering a return to Iceland for the satellite competition there and there's also a refereeing course on the week after the competition. Back to my old stomping ground where it all began all those years ago - see Geysur and Gulfloss and see how they are getting on and then swing by the Newcastle satellite on the way home. Newcastle though I'm not quite sure about yet.

Anyway, back to searching flights and jobs to pay for them while I'm at it.

Zombie Movie Paris

2008-05-02T05:26:00.003+02:00

5am - Mo Nation

They hadn't even opened all the gates to the station when I arrived. Eventually, I found one that was open. As it happened that gate didn't give direct access to the RER; in fact it couldn't have been any further away. Got to walk through all the completely metro platforms though, since the metro isn't even open yet - kind of eerie for a space that is always teeming with people.

Anyway, what am I doing up this early? I'm going home. Why this early? I have no idea. I'm writing this to fill in time while I wait for the RER.

If anyone ever reads this and if they happen to be in Ireland this weekend maybe our paths will cross.

Saionara

Which do I hate more? [Part II]

2008-04-11T16:14:00.003+02:00

... this week - Leaners or the EDF?

In the second instalment of the Which do I hate more? I look at two Parisian phenomena which have recently pissed me off.

I'll start with the EDF since that is the easiest to explain. The EDF is the electricity supply board of France. Like every organisation which the French government has any control over directly it is a heaving sweating bile-spewing lump of bureaucracy. Anyway, now and again an embodiment of this organ in the form of a technician has to inspect your meter. Fair enough, standard procedure in any country. I routinely manage to miss these visits though for whatever reason and I thought it was acceptable to fill in the form they leave with the level of the metre and get on with it... but apparently not.

Since I've not had my metre read in a year a technician must call at this hour (which is completely inconvenient to me) and check your metre. If you want to rearrange the appoinment - you'll have to pay! This is three weeks in advance of the appointment and I have to pay €30 when if they could come 30 minutes later than the stated time I'd be fine! Anyway I'll be spending the hours of 14:00 to 18:00 waiting around for the technician on that date. Exciting stuff.

I think the winner of who I hate more is fairly clear though as even as I realised I was coming to the end of my previous point I began to feel a tension across my shoulders thinking about the Leaners.

Imagine if you will a crowded metro carriage in the morning rush-hour. Not completely packed to the point where you are pressed against other but crowded enough so that everyone is standing and fairly close to each other. If there is a sudden jolt of the carriage you'll surely give a should to the sternum of one of your fellow commuters, so most people are holding on to the poles in the middle of the floor for support as this is what they're there for.

Now imagine five people are holding on to this pole when some twat decides that they want to lean on it. Where they are going to crush your hand, press it into their sweaty back or have your fingers moulded into the abundant fatty tissue of their ass. They don't care, they're going to lean on the only source of support in the fricking carriage!

Vainqueur - Leaners!

Special mention has to do to DHL who are really pissing me off right now!

What's been going on in France lately?

2008-04-11T15:43:00.004+02:00

April is a relatively quiet month for me in terms of travel anyway, with all my competitions in Paris or it's environs, so I'm taking the opportunity to enjoy Paris a bit and take in the atmosphere of what is still my favourite city in the world.

A war is raging in Paris at the moment, or more accurately in the miles above Paris, as the biting winds, snow flurries, hail and downpours compete with burst of exquisite sunshine and crystal blue skies. It seems though that the Spring and late the Summer will likely win out though and finally I'll be free to walk around in my shorts and sandals like the hippy bum I was born to be. Hoozah!

...

I've been taking intensive French classes in the Alliance Francaise for the last few weeks, an investment I hope will stand to me when I eventually get a proper job in this place. The classes are good and I can feel the jumble of awful grammar that I have in my head starting to unravel and make sense. I've picked up some bad habits in French over the last year of speaking the language but never really studying it, so hopefully this will get me back on the right track.

It's nice to meet new people as well and with the weather starting to improve and relatively light month for competitions this month, I'm sure I'll find time to have some more fun with my classmates.

...

In terms of my training, I've been training intensively in the club but also trying to seriously hit my fitness this month as I've perhaps let it slide slightly over March. I've headed back to the gym and the pool in a big way. Need to buff up a bit before surfing holiday in the Summer anyway.

Last weekend saw the quarter final of the French team championship. I was selected for my clubs second team, a step up from the fourth team last year. In the end, my team ran out fairly easy victors against Chatou - 45 - 25. We have a return leg to fence next weekend on the 19th in their club and then hopefully it will be on to the semi-finals.

Our women's team that fenced that day also claimed a convincing victory against Chatou's women's team but unfortunately our men's first team dropped their match against Orleans in Division 1 and will have to get a victory in Orleans next weekend in order to force the fixture to a decider.

...

Anyway, I hope the sunshine will keep up for the weekend (even if the forecast which is never accurate) is for showers and thunderstorms. At the minute I'm waiting impatiently for a delivery from DHL which I was promised would come between 14:00 and 18:00 [Thanks, DHL!]. One of these days I'm definitely going to update all that I've missed over February and March and then after that I'm going to go back and update everything from August to December (well, maybe not everything).

Dtus!

Angry Morning

2008-03-04T08:05:00.004+01:00

I woke up angry this morning.

Not a particularly pleasant state, perhaps induced by not having a big enough dinner last night perhaps by wasting time over the last 24 hours or perhaps by some sort of dream, which I now can't remember. Anyway, here I am awake at 8am and pissed off... what am I going to do with this?

It's tempting to roll over and go back to sleep till 2pm and forgetting about the world for a little while longer but that's probably not the most productive solution. Getting up, getting some breakfast and doing something with my day would probably be the most sensible solution...

Right off I go...

The year in Fencing so far...

2008-02-29T12:41:00.001+01:00

A new year... a golden year (I get to use the lounges with Air France now)... going to finally update what has been happening at comps so far this year.

There Will Be Blood... Oh Dear

2008-02-28T01:19:00.002+01:00

I've just come back from watching "There Will Be Blood" in the UGC in Les Halles. It's a truly bizarre movie in a lot of respects but thoroughly, well if not enjoyable, then definitely worth the price of admission. It's quite a long movie and follows one man over the course of his life - that's Daniel Day Lewis' character Daniel Plainview.

Like I said though thoroughly enjoyable and I thought it was a great movie but what is left me slightly worried is how much at one time to another I identified with the character Plainview. Anyway, go see it and then you'll probably think twice about talking to me again.

Good Morning World

2008-02-22T15:07:00.002+01:00

The birds are singing, the sun is shining, all is as it should be...

SSSSSSSCCCCCCCCCHHHHHMMMMMMAAAAAACCCCKKKKK!

And this is life.

I'm A Fidelista - Where Do I Get My Tracksuit?

2008-02-20T16:56:00.003+01:00

I really really want one of Fidel Castro's Adidas tracksuits! Does anyone know where I can buy one?

Since July 2006, the last time the leader of the Granma invasion, was seen in public he seems to have only sported the most astounding array of Adidas Cuban tracksuits the world has ever seen. My suspicion also is that every time he has been seen on camera since then his tracksuits have been getting more modern. This suggests to me that Adidas have been sending him new ones all this time.

Anyway, I want one... people haven't seen me in public (outside of fencing competitions) in a similar length of time... and my rhetoric on the bourgeois Yankee devils is just as relevant!

Who doesn't love the Onion?

2008-02-19T13:26:00.000+01:00

Nation Of Andorra Not In Africa, Shocked U.S. State Dept. Reports

A stop-gap solution to a lack of posting

2008-02-09T16:10:00.000+01:00

Amusing perhaps, if you play guitar...

Enjoy!

Copenhagen and Getting Out of the Rut

2008-01-07T12:43:00.006+01:00

The Universiades, despite being a fantastic and unforgettable experience, had been a disappointment in terms of fencing. This had been mainly because of a lack of training in advance of the competition. It wasn't from lack of searching that I didn't have training but with my own club closed and the international teams which I approached not particularly bothered with allowing me into their squad training. Anyway, that's something I'll go into in more detail when I eventually get round to updating that whole chapter of last year.

This was the culmination of a tough season with a lot of world cups where, while I felt that my fencing was improving massively, I had failed to transfer that into results in competition. So between that and whatever was going on in my private life from August and the months following, I hadn't been in the best of form and was finding it very difficult to turn things on at competition time. Moreover I was beginning to be frustrated by this situation and really pushing things to much while on the piste, which was only making things worse.

As I'd mentioned in previous entries I was feeling pretty down after a great christmas to be heading back to Paris but I was determined to make it a good year. I arrived back on the Wednesday 2nd and had a training session on the 3rd before leaving for Copenhagen on the 4th.

The trip to Copenhagen was to be uneventful. Copenhagen is quite a strange airport - it's more like a giant shopping mall that plains happen to take off from. I got into Copenhagen central station reasonably late. Stephen made up the other 50% of the Irish team for this competition and I was sharing a hotel room with him very near the venue.

We got a reasonably early night before the individual comp the next day after failing to be able to hook up my Ipod to the TV.

...

The next morning, we met the Finnish team at breakfast, and made the short but nonetheless freezing journey across to the venue, which was a nice modern sport centre maybe 100 metres from the hotel.

The first round of poules went all right for me (practice round anyway) but I dropped one fight against an Austrian. Woke up in the second round and won all my matches and was seeded second going into the tournament proper.

This gave me a buy through the first round. As it happened I was to fence the winner between Stephen and the ex-Scottish international Stewart Watson, who now lives in Copenhagen. Stewart was at 14-7 or something like it before Stephen mounted a miraculous comeback... but only to 14-all. Stewart took the last point and I was to face him in the last 16.

I suppose it's only fair to mention he was a bit ill but I was able to beat him in the 16 without too much fuss and book my place in the last 8. In the last 8 I was against a young Turk and while the match started well, I went to pieces after the break - the problems of the last couple of months crept back in and I was snatching at attacks from way out of range and wasting my preparations.

So I finished 5th overall (got my 1 FIE point - woop) but I got some good advice from Stewart during my quarter final match which I've really taken to heart since. He seems to be becoming an excellent coach. We agreed to fence the team competition the next day together - not that I was to be much use to the team as it turned out...

...

Going with hair-gel rather than a hat that night turned out to be a mistake. I don't know where that wind was coming from but it was cold.

We all met up in... ugh... an Irish pub near the city centre (I vaguely remember spending a very drunken night there two years previously). There was a good crowd out with the Dutch, Islandic, Finnish and erm... the one Scot and two Irish that there were in attendance.

After a couple of drinks there we went next door to a nice indian place. More beers... and curry! Fantastic!

When we finally left the Indian it had been snowing but for some reason I was feeling the cold as much...

First half-hearted snowball fight of the night and on to a small rocker bar nearby. I remember declaring "sausage factory" upon it and we didn't stay there that long. Maybe only one or two drinks. Ugh...

Another walk to another Irish bar... a real Oirish Irish bar aswell... another snowball fight on the way, I think. Straw on the floor, long benches and tables... the worst cover band of all time at whom I became more and more incensed as the night went on. Lost track of drinks, of what I was talking about. Met some Irish people I think. More drink. Talking pure crap.

Talking to some Danish girls. I think. Inability to walk at this stage also ruled out dancing but Stephen was well on for it. God knows what he was dancing to with that terrible band.

Left at closing time and embarked on one of the longest and coldest journeys home of all time. There were snowball fights, but not sure of much past that.

...

Woke up the next morning at around 11ish with my alarm. For several minutes was very puzzled as to the location of Stephen... until I remembered he'd left for the airport several hours earlier. With the serious business of the individual competition out of the way, the friendly competition was today.

I managed to drag my carcass over to the venue. My reactions were unfortunately slightly dulled that day. We were generously donated a absolute muppet by the German team, who couldn't fence. Between these to factors and Stewarts sickness the righting was pretty much on the wall.

Less said about the team comp the better although the final result probably flattered us that day - I can't remember what it was.

...

So, in summary, a competition with perhaps a slightly lower standard than French domestics and certainly proper world cups gave me the chance to see that I was capable of beating people and also gave me an opportunity to let my hair down a bit.

Sitting eating a steak in Copenhagen International Airport/Mall I felt a thoroughly content with the weekend.

Copenhagen

2008-01-06T22:48:00.000+01:00

Just back from the satellite competition in Copenhagen.

I finished 6th (seeded third after the poules) in the tournament and was reasonably pleased with my performance. It certainly was a boost to my confidence which I'll admit has been flagging somewhat lately.

Now though I'm absolutely shattered and need to go bed before I collapse on the computer.

A full report to follow shortly and don't think I haven't forgot about those missing months either...

Post Christmas Blues

2008-01-02T02:13:00.000+01:00

I don't think I've been as sad to leave Ireland in a good while.

I'm determined to make this year a good one, in my fencing, person life and profession but I feel like I'm starting from square one again leaving the majority of my friends here. This feeling is not unfamiliar to me. Normally when I go back to Paris after a few days in Ireland it takes a few days to readjust.

Everything is up in the air all over again. Will I be able to find a marketing job? How will my season progress? How long will I stay in France? Do I want to stay in France?

I was told that there's an ancient Chinese curse - "May you live in interesting times". What I did to be so cursed I'm not certain but I'm determined to enjoy the results as much as I can anyway.

A New Beginning?

2008-01-01T06:49:00.001+01:00

The first sunrise of 2008. A friend's sofa overlooking Sandymount strand. Uncertainty is scary and the past brings no real comfort right now. At this point I'm not reveling in the thought of the return of this introspection in only 366 short days.

Happy new year! Time to make the most of it.

I was nearly that guy...

2007-12-14T18:25:00.001+01:00

I arrived on the RER platform at Nation this morning to find a packed train waiting there already unloading passengers. I scurried down the platform a bit in order to try and find a carriage that wasn't so packed. I saw a space and casually squeezed in, my bag trailing behind. What i couldn't hear was that buzzer for the closing door was already sounding as my iPod was up too loud.

The precise moment i stepped on the train i felt the doors closing; my backpack still trailing behind me. I pulled it inside as the doors scraped it's sides.

Phew! I relaxed and let my bag drop down to the side... Only to realise that a rubber tab hanging off my bag was stuck in the door. Even more alarming was that I knew that the doors on that side of the train wouldn't be opening again before i got off. <Queue dramatic music>

...

So, I suppose what I've illustrated with this story is that things have been relatively quiet. Training is back to full speed and work is keeping me busy. It's still on my mind to fully update this blog for all the time I missed from May to August. It was a busy time with the Europeans, Cuba, the universiades and holidays in Thailand.

I certainly might have a different perspective on some of the events of the last 12 months now but I'd like to have a record of them somewhere. So, interesting times ahead, I promise, even if it means dredging up the past.

A+

I Hate Ikea...

2007-11-27T00:17:00.001+01:00

...My first experience of the Swedish mega-store leaves a taste of MDF in my mouth.

'I need a set of drawers' I thought to myself. 'Furniture' I thought, 'Where does one buy furniture?'. Four years of being bombarded with case studies about the behemoth of fürni left only one name in my mind. Added to this I happened to be teaching (did I mention I started teaching?) in a centre not far from a modest sized Ikea store (only a couple of square kilometers) - the stars were surely all aligned and pointing me in the direction

Once I finished work at 4 o'clock I got a bus to the Ikea store about ten minutes away. To enter the place is like entering another world - a yellow and blue one. I'm apparently too negative a person but the trouble started nearly straight away. Having headed the warnings about people being lost for days in the place and nearly starving to death before reaching the café, I had the piece of furniture selected well in advance of my visit. Aneboda, or some such, was the name of this modestly priced chest of drawers but where the hell was it?

The showroom section snake on for ever before I came to the sprawling storage space area. All of a sudden there it was - the chest of drawers of my dreams. So this piece of furniture could be collected in the warehouse section of the building; row 25 dock 48.

Another twenty minutes of walking through beds, wardrobes, TV units, wardrobes, kitchen storage, shoe racks, kids bedrooms, kitchen wear, crockery, plastic tress and baskets and I finally found the warehouse section and with a small jaunt through the warehouse I located my chest of drawers.

They were heavier than I though. At 30kgs it was going to be a long hour long metro ride back to my apartment at rush hour but I assumed that a magical solution would present itself; perhaps I could buy this small yellow trolley.

Firstly though I had to deal with the check-out. I'm sure I've posted previously about the speed of service at any french check-outs. This ranges from a man buying a loaf of bread taking 10 minutes to a jar of pickles taking 5 hours. Imagine then French people having to check through hundreds of kilos of furniture. A long wait was in store as my flimsy yellow trolley (with a max load of 30kg) began to buckle. When I eventually paid for the drawers, I was told I could not bring my branded trolley any further. So I had to drag the box to through to the delivery area - stopping to get an ultra cheap bulk produced hot-dog on the way.

It was becoming apparent to me that Ikea did not want people without cars shopping with them as they didn't want people placing small orders and clogging up there delivery system. I was looking that my small set of drawers was going to cost €50 to deliver and that having already paid for it, I had no other option, save for giving myself a coronary trying to carry it on the metro. €100 for a chest of drawers that will probably barely last the rest of my time hear, no matter how short of long that is.

Bah, so there you go... that's how exciting my life is these days apparently. Without being directly exposed to the incompetence of Irish fencing I'm left to get angry at harmless multinational corporations (albeit ones with bizarre tax dodging religious status). I'm sorry Ikea, it's not you... it's me being negative...

No more whiskey after training...

I Miss My Extra Kilos...

2007-11-15T18:49:00.000+01:00

It's freezing in Paris at the minute and I'm only writing this entry to put off walking to training (see previous entry on strike).

Losing a stone over the course of the last year, I've obviously lost considerable insulation as well. I've never been much of a hat and scarf wearer but this is definitely hat, scarf and gloves weather. Anyway at least my figure tips have been warmed slightly from typing.

Discovering Paris By Foot

2007-11-15T16:44:00.000+01:00

... In freezing temperatures.

For the second time in as many months Paris is in the grip of an RATP strike. I know, hard to believe that the French would go on strike (some info here) but it's happened. I'm certainly not going to debate whether the reforms are needed or whether the concerns of the €68,000+ a year train drivers are valid. Far be it from me to propose theories as to the moral imperatives in question but Goddammit this is a pain in the ass!

I walked an hour to work yesterday, after getting up at 6am only to find that my class was cancelled because my student couldn't get there. I was half-way to work this morning when my student cancelled leaving me with an additional two hours wait after my two hours walk before my next class. All the while we are experiencing the coldest days of the year so far - it's fantastic.

The strike seems set to continue I've heard talk of it lasting till Sunday at least. It's going to make my trip to the airport this weekend a nightmare not to mention trying to get back home on Sunday evening. After all that I have classes in Roissy (the town in which CdeG Airport is located) on Monday and Tuesday - I might as well stay in the airport if I want to have any chance of getting to those classes!

Ugh... I'm not digging this at all!

One year on... (Warning: Introspection Ahead)

2007-11-07T22:57:00.000+01:00

It's exactly one year and a day since I've been living in France. Perhaps it's time for a stock-take. I'm tired of writing more or less about subjects about as tangible or relevant as the weather so perhaps it's time for a more personal confessional entry about my life so far in France and where it has lead me.

Tonight I celebrated with my friends and team-mates at my club my birthday (which happened two weeks ago) as well as, more importantly, my being in France for exactly one year. I arrived in France on the 6th of November last year - with the basic idea that I would spend a year in France to improve my fencing.

On paper I perhaps haven't really faired that well. I've lost a girlfriend. My world ranking has slipped where my focus on World-Cups and Grand-Pris has lead to a lesser involvement in easier competitions. I am pretty much completely broke but have finally found a job, to which I am quite indifferent to, which will do little except maintain my position as broke. My level of French while massively improved is still nowhere a level where I would feel comfortable working completely in French.

So... where have I performed memorably?... Hmm...

Why carry on? Why not end it all?

I suppose, I feel I am finally living. I have autonomy, freedom and no restraints emotional or physical. While my world ranking has slumped I feel like a far superior fencer and I feel that with even more work I could finally make myself satisfied in terms of results and achievements. I live in what I believe to be one of the most beautiful cities on Earth. I'm in the best shape I have possibly ever been. I am determined to become fluent in French if it is the last thing I do.

I'm generally enjoying life and continuing the path I have actually chosen to do and I suppose that is worth more than anything. While the call of a serious career is certainly beckoning I am enjoying this time and growing as a person. It's possible that both could continue in tandem and certainly that would be my ideal state - we'll see.

...

Well there it is. Confessional, heart-rendering, as ridiculously pious and self-inflated as any piece you will ever see for public consumption on the inter-web. Enjoy it or not... I'm glad to get it off my chest.

Á plus...

Best Worst Dive Ever

2007-10-04T10:29:00.000+02:00

Brazil now have a contender to topple this hilarious and infamous dive by Rivaldo in the World Cup. Seen at around 00:45 in this dive compilation -

Dida the Brazilian goalkeeper deserves a lap of honour all to himself for this one. The mantle has been passed...

His initial reaction is to chase after the fan to give him a kick... then he remembers his training and goes down like a ton of bricks. It would be tragic if Celtic get punished for this in terms of their result, hopefully it will just be a monetary fine.

Which do I hate more?

2007-10-03T11:52:00.000+02:00

... this week: dog-owners or smokers?

In what may turn-out to be a regular feature, I contemplate to of the most ignorant groups of people on the planet. Don't get me wrong I know plenty of smokers who are good friends of mine and likewise plenty of friends of mine own dogs but as groups they have certain ignorant and infuriating traits.

I'm working from a sort libertarian / utilitarian outlook whereby people should be free to do what they want as long as it doesn't do harm to others. I've spent the last twenty minutes cleaning dog-shit off my shoe because someone saw fit to use the footpath as a toilet for their dog. All my clothes stink like shit and my chance of cancer has increased because smokers still enjoy the right to smoke indoors in Paris.

Hmm... the jury is still out on this one...

It's Official... Apple Are Now Bigger Wankers Than Microsoft

2007-09-25T13:18:00.000+02:00

A thinly veiled threat by Apple that if iPhone users use the mods now available to unlock their phones from AT&T that future updates they release will disable their phones. Article from Wall Street Journal

Getting Up Early / Sleeping In Late

2007-09-23T23:33:00.000+02:00

Hmm, it's been an odd couple of weeks. Training is painstakingly slowly getting back to ordinary levels but the majority of the last two weeks of training has been taken up with football. Which is fair enough if you're coming back from a long break from training and you want to ease yourself back in. I on the other hand am coming back from a position where I've been dying to train all Summer in preparation for the Europeans and the Universiades but haven't had the oppurtunity. My form dipped correspondingly to this lack of training, culminating in an uninspired and disappointing tournament in Bangkok (which I'm sure I'll get round to writing about in some time).

Added to this, frustrations in my personal life, the majority of my friends from the Irish College having returned home and the tedium of trying to find a job, I'm left swinging like a pendulum between restlessness and a pensive aggression. As if I needed it, on top of it all the under performing Irish rugby team are bringing me down even further.

...

I'll fill in some of the blanks from the last 3 weeks...

Since my return to Paris on the 31st of August, were it not for the sparse entries to this blog I'd barely be able to remember a single thing I did. For two weeks though I got back into some serious training in the gym. Managed to get 5 sessions in for both those weeks, which I was pleased with and I was feeling good for. Aside from that, I watched the start of the Rugby World Cup and the early warning signs of things to come as Ireland struggled past Namibia.

I began a serious of interviews with 5 or 6 different English teaching organisations. Since I'm still involved in the interview process with some of them I won't say much more about that. It was good practice at my interview technique at the very least.

Last weekend, the 14th September, I returned to Ireland. I was briefly cheered up on the Friday night by watching England being massacred by South Africa with friends in town, only to be brought back down again by Ireland's performance against Georgia. Sunday's All-Ireland final was a predictably dull affair but I went to see Knocked Up in the evening - which probably made the day a draw but a moral victory. Monday, I'd had to return some things left in my apartment by a friend, so at least my bag was lighter returning to Paris.

As if by magic, Tuesday I was back in Paris. None-the-wiser for my short stay, I longed for a longer stay at home even before I boarded the plane. The rest of the week I slept. And slept. And slept.

I woke up Friday, since there was some sort of match on. Got absolutely buckled for a good 12 hour period. Stumbled home at 7am Saturday and have spent the rest of the weekend recovering until now. Just what the next week will bring... It's already 8 minutes old at the time of writing and I don't know if I care.

...

I face into the unknown. I should be well familiar with that by now; having not known what I wanted to do in College, not knowing what I wanted to after college and my not knowing eventually leading me to my current location. Still my familiarity with this feeling brings me no comfort right now.

Suggestions welcome...

France Just Keeps Getting Stranger...

2007-09-19T17:40:00.001+02:00

I went to a stationary supply shop and they had no refill pads with horizontal lines, only ones with hundreds of squares... It's like some sort of alternative universe.

Anyway, off to training.

Excellent Rugby Site

2007-09-11T23:22:00.000+02:00

Found this excellent Rugby Blog randomly today - www.rugbydump.com

Playing Loaded... A Lesson Here For Everyone!

2007-09-11T15:54:00.000+02:00

I love the way Slash says - "Dope and booze were maybe more of a after the show thing, maybe in between shows and during time-off". Doesn't seem like there'd be much time left...

Which Wind Instrument Will Receive the Beatbox Treatment Next?

2007-09-10T18:21:00.000+02:00

As far as I can see the source of the beatbox/wind-instrument phenomenom - an obviously very talented and original thinking man in New York...

The beatbox-harmonica doesn't really bring much to this ridiculous genre...

The whole genre comes together and takes on a life of its own with this video though and my favourite beatbox/wind-instrument combination...

Where will this genre go next?

I Need To Build My Own Swimming Pool

2007-09-09T09:07:00.000+02:00

Up at 8am on a Sunday! I'm at the pool at 8.30am, thinking no one will be up this early on a Sunday. No. This is France. Looking down into the pool from reception I'd say it would be easier just to walk across all the bodies crammed into the pool rather than swim. I didn't even bother going in, going to hit the gym at 10 when it opens instead. This is the final straw with my local pool!

The Good Ship Modern Pentathlon Has Sailed

2007-09-08T20:51:00.000+02:00

It seems I may have missed the boat somewhat on my pentathlon dreams (well unfocused aspirations at least) as a friend of mine pointed out that the Irish National Championships were held early than last year on the 1st and 2nd September, last weekend.

Am I despondent? Well no it doesn't really bother me much. In fact it barely registers these days considering the raw tripe that fate has flung at me recently and the results from this years competition certainly give me hope for next year. The full results (available here) reveal that if I had even entered the competition I would have been guaranteed 3rd place in the Men's Senior category. So with my resolve refastened and a whole year now to prepare for the event, I'm determined to actually compete next year.

...

In other news, the shock defeat of Les Blue last night at the hands of Los Pumas has left the French nation reeling (I presume). I witnessed first hand the quickest clearing of a pub ever as the final whistle blow at le Stade e France signalled the exodus of maybe 200 French patrons from The Frog At Bercy where I'd gone to watch the match.

A great match though, all the same enthralling to watch. It's a great pity that the poor geographical spread of rugby means that the majority of the interesting matches from the poule stage will be coming from Ireland's poule, while the others are mere formalities for the Southern Hemisphere teams.

I'm off to get a pizza in my local halal pizzeria,

Auf Wiedersehen

Me? Working? Never...

2007-09-06T15:52:00.001+02:00

... Or at least I hoped never.

That sad day has arrived though. I've mail-bombed the city of Paris with my CV today and now await my fate.

A Scary Thought At Bedtime...

2007-09-02T20:48:00.000+02:00

...For anybody who was in on either of these in-jokes and particularly for the small subset which intersect both.

While catching up on my blogging a strange thought entered my head. What if The Pirate and 70's Porn Man were somehow linked? What if one was a sidekick of the other? It's not beyond the realms of possibility, I think you'll agree and it begs the question what diabolical plan will they hatch next.

I'm obviously delirious from jet-lag so I'm off to bed...

The More Things Change...

2007-09-02T19:18:00.000+02:00

I touched down at Charles de Gaulle at about 6.30am on Friday. I must have slept more than I realised on the return flight from Thailand, as it certainly didn't feel like twelve hours. All the same I was fairly exhausted and not really in the mood for any of the annoyances that the morning would provide. A long queue through passport control was just the start. Between my fencing equipment and luggage for a two week holiday my baggage had been ridiculously overweight - close enough to 40Kg.

It became apparent to me as I made my way to the RER to head back into Paris that I would be getting into Paris just around peak morning rush hour. As the train trundled its way into Paris it began to slowly fill up. By the time it had reached Gare du Nord it was thoroughly packed. My stuffed fencing bag, I'd perched on the seat opposite me, while my rucksack was on the luggage rack above, its many straps dangling down and nearly hitting passers by. I struggled to get the backpack onto my back as we approached Chatelet - Les Halles (the mouth of hell, as I like to call it). I ended up having to reverse my way out the carriage - hitting anyone in the face with my backpack at the slightest turn left or right.

At Chatelet I have to change RER lines and it was another 10 minute RER journey across to Nation, several minutes of dragging my bags to the metro, a short metro journey and then the walk to my apartment before I collapsed onto my bed, leaving my bags where I had dropped them.

I decided to try and stay up and re-tune myself to the time-zone again as quickly as possible rather than sleeping for the day. Nonetheless, it was about 8pm when I couldn't stay awake any longer and fell asleep.

...

The next day I decided to head to training with the Paris Gaels GAA, hoping that the fresh air and exercise would clear my head. I've never played Gaelic at any level and I'm not really sure do I have any desire to either. It did certainly, however, provide a kick-start back into training; one I'm sure I'll be paying for over the next couple of days.

...

Today I've tried to tidy my apartment a bit and finally unpack. I'm still quite tired and feel a bit drained. Fencing training starts back on Tues. Annoyingly enough I think I'll need to get another medical cert to say I'm fit to train. This is an expense I could do without, in fact I could do without any expenses at this stage. The obvious outcome of my jet-set lifestyle has arrived at my doorstep and I am finally broke. I'm hoping this will at least provide me with some real motivation to get up off my ass and find a job.

As for the abissmal state of my blog over the Summer months I really and truly intend to remedy that situation over the next while. I'm going to complete my account of last seasons competition and fill in the blanks of my holidays etc asap. A return to Owen's cookbook may be in order as well at some stage. Anyway, I must get back to whatever it was I wasn't doing...

A+

I'm Not Saying Americans Are Stupid...

2007-08-02T00:09:00.000+02:00

... but I may well have met who's bringing down their average.

I was in the Bombardier last night to meet a friend from the Irish college, David, who'd briefly returned to visit Paris for a few days. It's a quiet bar nothing particularly special about it and is generally regarded as the local of the Irish College.

We were sitting minding our own business, about eight of us, three guys and five girls, when a guy passed by on his way to the bar with no shirt on. Slightly bemused to see someone wandering around with no shirt on but even more scared and confused to see this guy seemed to have waxed every hair from his body, he drew some confused glances. Apparently noticing he muttered something in what may have been some sort of poor attempt at an Irish accent. Immediately noticing that he was American we took this as explanation enough. Someone probably said "twat", we all nodded and went back to our drinks and conversations.

A while passed before he passed once again, this time with his shirt and his girlfriend. He stopped at the shoulder of David who was sitting on the outside of the group of tables we were occupying. Right at Dave's shoulder, he grabbed his girlfriend and started sucking face (there's no other way to describe it). Once again we were left confused as to what this twat was playing at but when we were obviously ignoring him he went away.

It wasn't till he finally returned that things became truly odd in the most comical of ways. He passed on his way to the bar and on his return stopped at our table.

"I know y'all don't like me", he began.
"...", confusion reigned on the part of the assembled Irish and Danish masses.
"But I'm a good person y'all and I know you don't like me", he drawled. "My name is Madison", with this he took one of the girls hands went down on one knee and kissed his own wrist.
Isn't Madison a girl's name?
"Ok", replied David eventually the first one to break through the veil of confusion. "We don't really care, now go away."

He didn't take well to David's attempts to tell him to leave and began explaining quite indignantly that he was from "Adlanta, Georguh".

"We're from Ireland," replied Dave, "Europe."

He pointed to his cap which boar the initials GS - "See this, MoFo?"

"Oh yeah the Georgia Seagulls", I had to groan in my head at that reply. Only 10 minutes earlier David had been explaining it was a year since he'd last gotten into a fight.

This idiot was setting himself up for a smart-ass reply with every word he uttered. He was speaking like the illegitimate child of 50-cent and Ashton Cutcher; raised, after he had been abandoned, by the cast of Deliverance in the deep-south. He was the alpha-jock - the stereotypical Southern US hick, Fox-watching flag-waving moron. I was of the opinion that these were the Americans that never got passports but sadly he'd somehow slipped through the net...

Things were getting quite heated as David would say something calmly but perhaps with the merest hint of sarcasm, which Madison, God bless him, would not understand and which he would ask David to repeat to his face while staring into his face from two inches away. Dave would and he still wouldn't understand.

Eventually he departed, seemingly frustrated with the lack of respect he was being shown.

His parting shot at David was, and I hope I'm spelling this right, "You ain't nothing but a punk as bitch. Holla [back] at you, dawg!" This outburst of nonsense was punctuated by a scissors gesture into David's face.

We were not left wondering what form of mental disability Madi was suffering from for long however, as he soon was back with some of his friends - a fellow American and a Australian.

Apparently he had bemoaned to his friends that we were showing him a lack of respect. When he returned however he assured that it was just David that he had a problem with, most likely because of his believe that David was a punk-ass bitch.

A battle of wits soon commenced between David and Madi. Just to give you a flavour of their exchanges...

"Can't you take a joke?"
"Yeah, just not from an Irishman" oooh!

"I didn't think people went to bars any more just to start fights"
"Say that again to my face!"
"I didn't think people went to bars any more just to start fights"
"Yeah?"

Lookily enough the Australian was a much more agreeable sort, as most Aussies are. We explained to him the situation and he was immediately on our side.

"You should tell your friend to calm down"
"Say that again to my face!"
[Repeats what he just said to his face]

His friend managed to talk to muppet off the ledge. There was a handshake and finally we were left alone to finish our drinks.

Later still, on his way out Madison shook David's hand and hugged him. Never have I seen a group of people so confused by the actions of one moron. Gave the night a talking point though, as well as reinforcing stereotypes...

I'm Not a Swimmer...

2007-07-24T15:23:00.001+02:00

Today I managed 50 lengths, no problem. Unfortunately that was Breast-stroke and I'm still struggling with front-crawl although I can feel myself slowly improve.

I'm going to head out to the gym shortly and do some power-work on my legs and then maybe head for a bit of jog around one of the lakes at Bois de Vincennes this evening.

I've been trying to contact the French National team coach this week as well. The French team are having a stage (training camp) next week in the South of France and it would be fantastic for me to get in on that. The French are a notoriously closed camp though and I don't really hold out that much hope of being allowed in.

Major update on its way... I promise!

2007-07-20T11:31:00.000+02:00

I'm going to go to the gym and when I come back spend the afternoon finishing all the drafts I've made over the last couple of months but not finished. Well not all of them but most of them. Starting with the Euro-Champs, then the fencing season before that and then Cuba.

It will be done!

...

Updated the Europeans

Next-up - the rest of the season

Owen the Modern Pentathlete: Week X

2007-07-20T10:55:00.000+02:00

My struggles to achieve 200m freestyle in or around olympic record of 2:14ish has hit a series of walls and as such so has my modern pentathlete ambitions. I'll work through this section by section...

Pistol Shooting

I still have never shot a pistol. The closest I've come is half an hour of air rifle shooting easily ten years or more ago.

Show Jumping

While my experience of horse riding has increased exponentially over the last few weeks - we went on a horse treck while in Cuba. The closest I've come to actually show-jumping is asking a few people who've previously done it to explain it to me verbally in under 10 minutes... and for them to burst out into laughter. When they eventually calmed down they explained I would likely kill myself...

Fencing

Haven't fenced any Epee since about 30 minutes in February.

Running

I'm no middle distance runner. Built for short burst of energy and then long-bouts of sleeping, my 3000m times aren't really times as in something worth recording.

Swimming

The 200m freestyle probably has been the most frustrating element not only because of own shoddy freestyle abilities but because of my local pool.

Yesterday, for instance the fast lane contained 4 or 5 fat old women. One would alternately lie on her front or back clutching several floats while instead of doing a proper swimming kick she seemed to be cycling underwater. Needless to say she wasn't moving and several other women clutching boards would slowly queue up behind her. Another woman was doing back-crawl without using her legs and was dragging along in the water at a 45o angle. Yet another, was clutching several boards and doing breast stroke while completely vertical in the water - any forward motion she was getting was purely coincidental and may well have been the air-conditioning blowing her along.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHH!

All this is firstly caused by the constant and ridiculous layout of the pool. A third of it is un-laned and a leisure area. The rest is divided into three lanes - Breast-Stroke, Front-Crawl and Back-Crawl and yet another Front-Crawl and Back-Crawl lane. What sense does it make to have two lanes which combine two strokes with possibly the biggest difference in speed? There is no indication of which is supposed to be the faster of the two and normally this seems to be decided just by how many terrible swimmers are in one over the other. The Lifeguards, who are numerous, since this is France and the state bears the responsibility of providing as many wasters as possible with pointless jobs, do nothing!

To top all this my own swimming is possibly the biggest source of frustration. Breast-stroke was always my preferred stroke. I can swim a large number of lengths no problem with breast-stroke but the technique of my front-crawl is terrible. Each time I swim a length or two I think of something else I should be focusing on. Of course the minute I do that I forget to do something else. I did enough breast-stroke when I was younger that it is automatic now and I can force myself into good technique when I get tired. On the other hand, front-crawl is still just a huge number of variables which I must try to focus on at once.

Anyway, I shall persist and push on through to the other side...

...

The final nail in the coffin for my local pool came today. I returned to a cubicle to dry-off from the shower. As I was drying myself, I felt an eerie feeling creep over me. Then I realised what was wrong... Michael Jackson was playing over the intercom. I shuddered, packed up my stuff and left as soon as I could.

Euro Champs, Day Three: Men's Epee and Women's Sabre

2007-07-04T15:25:00.000+02:00

My guilt at not getting up at 7am to go watch Benedict will stay with me for the rest of my life. I had intended to get up and run out quick at around 7.45am and head down to catch most of it. I half woke up. Thought I needed an extra 20 minutes sleep, reset my alarm and the next time my eyes were open it was closer to 10.

I'd missed the men's Epee poules when I arrived and Benedict explained how the whole championships had been cruelly torn from his hands by the luck of the gods. In all seriousness though he was unlucky that a beatable Latvian scratched from his poule at the start. He won another match and was agonisingly close to taking another but lost 5-4 and became the third of the Irish team to depart the competition at the poule stage (the entire male contingent).

...

The afternoon it was Siobhán's turn.

In a poule with a Romanian, Hungarian, Polish and Russian fencers and a Belarussian president, one might have seen the writing on the wall. Particularly as the president laughed with his former soviet comrades on the sidelines. The dagger was truly twisted when after fenceing excellently against the powerful Russian fencer Velekya Siobhán was up 4-3 and with the momentum firmly in her favour she seemed set to take the match and guarantee her place in the next round (having already beaten the Hungarian - Peto). Siobhán went for the attack... Velekya went for a parry Quinte... which had barely cleared her navel when Siobhán's attack landed square in her chest. The most blatant mal-parry I have ever seen but the point went to Velekya. In the lottery of a 4-4 match and with momentum suddenly shifted given this heinous error the match went to the Russian.

There was only one match left after that, against her club-mate Louise Bond-Williams, who she had drawn in international competition for something like the 9th time. Matches against an opponent you know so well and who knows you so well are never easily and in a short poule match anyting could have happened. Siobhán has an excellent record over Louise in their last few meetings but it was to be the Brit who came out on top in a very tense match this time. Bond-Williams took the last qualify place in the rankings and Siobhán was left wondering what could have been... sadly.

She fenced well in a very tough poule and as she said herself, that made it so much harder to take the bitter disappointment of going out so soon.

...

At three o'clock I had to make my exit from the tournament. I had a flight to catch back to Dublin that evening from Charles De Gaulle, as I was going to be going to Rachel's graduation the following morning.

For the first time in the week the transport desk proved useful and they organised an entire minibus to take me alone, to the train station. I got a train back to Brussels nearly immediately but I was unable to change my ticket to an earlier TGV because of some pricing condition. After an hours wait on the platform I was shuttled quickly and quietly back to Paris.

I dumped my stuff in the apartment, packed my hand-luggae, changed into my suit, as it was the easiest way to the carry it and headed back to the train out to CDG.

A couple of uneventful hours later I was back in Dublin

Euro Champs, Day Two - Women's Epee and Men's Foil

2007-07-03T14:58:00.000+02:00

Benedict was dropping his weapons in to weapons control on the Tuesday morning, as was Siobhán, so I went with them to the hall.

A tremendous amount of hanging around then followed as the weapons were waited on and we waited to support Philip in the afternoon. I filled in the time inspecting the women's epee, in which the Swedish team were surely the highlight.

Although I was not familiar with his opposition, the general vibe I got was that the men's foil was not an easy competition either - shocking.

A week before his 50th birthday philip was really putting it up himself fight with fencers the majority of whom must have been half his age. I don't know how he felt about his performance but he did seem to be quite tense on the piste. In the end the speed of the other fencers was to be his undoing and he failed to register a victory.

...

Tired from a relatively early start on the day and the ridiculously early start the day before I decided to skip the finals and take a nap in my room. As it turns out I missed probably the most eventful finals but for reasons other than fencing. The weather had been terrible all week and the roof chose to spring a leek just as the finals were being shown on Eurosport delaying the whole thing by about 3/4 of an hour.

Somewhat relieved to have missed a long wait before some finals that I had little interest in, I felt vindicated in my choice of a nap.

Euro Champs, Day One - Men's Sabre

2007-07-02T18:06:00.000+02:00

I had my alarm set for 5.15am the next morning, so as to make sure to be up and awake several hours before the tournament. I showered and changed into my tracksuit. I had my equipment packed in my bag from the night before and did one final check I had everything before taking the bag down for breakfast.

I poured myself a bowl of muesli and some fruit for breakfast. the bus was scheduled to leave from the Sofitel for 6.15am for the bus to the venue (the bus schedule had to be re-arranged for this as originally the first bus was leaving at 7am, which would have left little or no time for warming-up). It began to rain as the bus made it's way through the empty streets of the town. In yet another, organisational master-stroke when we reached the venue at around 6.30am the doors weren't even opened yet.

I began my warm-up at around 7am. Unfortunately, I was left with no one to warm up with in advance of my poule. With small complete teams of four from most countries there was no need or will to have me warm-up with them. One of the few other single member teams, an Israeli, ws in my poule so that limited my options even further. I did my best to be fully warmed up before my poule and felt quite comfortable and confident nonetheless going into my poule.

As is the normal for the European Championships a very tough poule lay ahead of me. PRYIEMKA Valery (BLR) #51, SHTURBABIN Oleg (UKR) #62, BAUER Dennis (GER) #22, PODZNYAKOV Stanislav (RUS) #2, MAIMON Yaniv (ISR) #999, MARTI Jaime (ESP) #18. Full results from the poule are available here.

Pryiemka was my first match. I was unfamiliar him going into the match but expected a high tempo. His attacks repeated went into my guard, much to his consternation. Unexpectedly enough my attacks were working in the centre so I pressed my attack at 4-4. He managed to parry about parry my attack and get the reposte.

Shturbabin is a particularly fast Ukranian. My parries were just milliseconds to slow.

I knew what to expect from Bauer - giant attacks finished with epic lunges. That is all well and good in theory but you only really appreciate the speed until you're facing it on the piste. My distance just wasn't quite there for this match, needing to retreat an extra six foot and I was somewhat dissapointed at the fight I put up in this match.

Podz was never going to be an easy prospect, being the greatest living sabreur and current world champion. I'd fenced him last year at the Europeans and I was infinitely more satisfied with my performance this year. I fenced at my best, not at all in awe of the man. I got one great point where he fell short and then flunged at him with a feint head and then wrist. There was a brief look of disbelief through his visor mask - that was enough for me for the mean time. It's unfortunate that my best isn't the best in the world then and his is.

The match against the unseeded Israeli was undoubtedly my worst match. A match I knew I could have and indeed should have won. Nerves prevailed in the end and really I should have done better to close out the match against an inferior opponent.

With absolutely no hope of qualification I was determined still to give Jaime a good match. He's a really nice guy and always has time to say hello at any opportunity. I tried my hardest and certainly worked him up and down the piste but in the end he truly is world-class and that turned out to be a vital difference on the day.

...

On paper than it was a dissapointing result but throughout I was happy with how I fenced. The important thing for me was the difference in my performance from last year and I was satisfied that throughout it was much better. The only downside was not beating the fencer that I should have and that is something I'm actively working on sorting out mentally myself. All round though I felt a lot more confident and that truly being competitive and beating these fencers is a lot closer a goal than when I set off for Paris in November.

To put the result in context, only one of the British Sabreurs managed to get through to a direct elimination match and the three others were eliminated along with myself. It was not a result that would ever set the world on fire but I felt good about my fencing and how I had performed

...

The most annoying thing about the whole thing was how early it had been and now just over an hour later on the very first day of the championships I was finished by about 9am. Philip Lee, our foilist competitor, had arrived with his daughter in the mean time and enquired how I got on.

I spent the rest of the day watching matches in the Men's Sabre. It was a very exciting tournament as it happened. The standard was ridiculous and the big names were dropping from the very first DE. Pillet had to fence Tretiyak in the incomplete 64.

In the end Jorgé Pina took gold, beating Yakimenko in the final. Jorgé is a real nice guy, who Marcos knew from his time fencing in Madrid, and who has always been friendly since we were introduced in Istanbul last year. He ended up winning the tournament in Istanbul that weekend being in incredible form and once more at this championships, as he put it himself "I just had a good day, that's all".

...

I watched the finals with Nuala and Philip. To my shock horror and amazement, the opening ceremony was actually quite good. There was obviously going to be some ponsey dance group interpreting fencing, which was pants but they were followed by an acrobatic troupe of maybe 50 acrobats who put on an amazing display.

Special mention must go to the absolute dire straights that women's foil is in. Far more excruciatingly boring than watching paint dry; these ridiculously skilled and fit athletes put on a display that hardly anyone could bare to watch. Idiotically as well the organisors had put the two women's foil semis on before the men's sabre semis. Both matches went to time - I'm not even sure if any fencers scored over ten in either match. Much of the throng of locals who had crowded in to see the first finals of these championships, left after the first women's foil match and even more followed after the second. The crowd was much depleted by the time the sabre began.

Even more frustratingly I had to bare the women's foil final as well before the sabre final. The men's final made up for it though in a thrilling encounter that saw an on-fire Pina take Yakimenko to pieces. Then it was back to the hotel for some food and a post-competition beer. Benedict arrived that evening and was sharing my hotel room. Men's Epee, his weapon, was to be on Wednesday, starting at the same ungodly hour that my competition had begun. Philip's Foil was on Tuesday midday and Siobhán's sabre would follow men's epee on Wednesday.

Senior European Championships, Day Minus One

2007-07-01T17:03:00.000+02:00

On Sunday morning I needed to be registered and accredited for the competition by 10am to confirm my entry into the competition. I met Nuala, the IAFF secretary, and Tom, the IAFF Chairman, in their hotel, Sofitel, which was just round corner from the Novotel, at 9am. Nuala is on the committee of the European Fencing Confederation and both herself and Tom were paid for by the EFC to be there.

We got a Taxi to the venue, the Topsporthal, to make sure we would be there before the registration closed. I dropped my gear into weapons check as soon as possible and started the long wait for it's return. It was a very impressive venue, the likes of which is sorely needed in Ireland. With a versatile indoor athletics venue as well as excellent warm-up and training facilities. A running track ran underneath the entire perimeter of the stands and a sceond large hall (larger than most in Ireland) provdided additional versatile space, in this case used to hold the over-spill of pistes from the main hall.

The weapons would not be ready till after two so we return to the town centre for lunch. We had lunch in a café near the hotel where we were joined by Tom's wife Anne. I'd decided to return to the venue at 3pm on the athlete's bus to collect my gear and do some light warm-ups and footwork before the competition the next day.

My equipment all passed and I went about doing some footwork, blade-work and stretches, needless to say all by myself.

My intention was to return on the 4.30pm bus back to the hotel. Around that time I returned to the reception of the venue but it appeared that there was only a bus coming to the venue at 4.30pm. In fact there was only two buses returning to the hotels all day - one set at 3pm and one set at 8.30pm. This ridiculous and wholly impractical bus timetable was to persist for the rest of the week.

A large group of other competitors had made the same mistake with the timetables and now a large amount of taxis was trying to be organised by one of the volunteers at reception. To annoy people further, the four buses were sitting in the car-park doing nothing. The group waiting for taxis grew irate as the Russians did their usual trick of arriving after everyone else and skipping in the queue. Pretty soon the Eastern Europeans were angry at the taxi drivers, the receptionist was angry at the Eastern Europeans and everyone was pissed-off with the Russians. The receptionist called the organisor of the buses and refused to do anymore.

Eventually the transport organisor arrived and arranged for one of the buses to leave for the town centre. They refused however to drop us at the Novotel however and dropped us instead at the Hotel Ibis 15 minutes walk away.

That evening Siobhán Byrne, our women's sabreur, arrived that before Dinner on a train from Frankfurt. Her coach, Naslimov, was also at the tournament, he declined an invitation to dinner but suggested we mind bring Marina, a American student of his, who was sharing a room with Siobhán. This seemed to be news to Siobhán, although she didn't mind at all as she was a friend of hers, and I have to say that my first impressions of this highly respected coach was that he was somewhat odd to say the least.

We went for Dinner in a restaurant by the canal that was very pleasant. I needed to get up very early for the competition the next morning but the meal dragged on somewhat mainly because of the excruciatingly slow service. We eventually returned to the hotel at around 10.30pm and I went straight to sleep since my weapon was due to start at 7.45am the next morning.

Euro Champs - Back to Paris, Off to Ghent...

2007-06-30T16:26:00.000+02:00

My flight arrived into Paris from Havana at around 11.30am on Saturday. I'd slept for the majority of the flight and felt reasonably confident that I wouldn't suffer too much from any effects of jet-lag.

I'd just about enough time to wash some of my clothes from the holiday and grab a bite to eat before I'd have to travel on to Ghent. I met up with Siobhán, who'd been house-sitting my apartment while I was away, and got my keys back from her.

I arrived at Gare De Nord in plently of time for my flight for my train, almost an hour in advance and dozed on the platform while I waited. The trip to Ghent was somewhat uneventful also, I slept most of the way on the short trip to Brussels and managed to get an earlier direct train to Gint St. Pitiers than I had originally planned.

It was around 9pm when I arrived in Ghent. I noticed David Sach, the British referee, was on the same train and shared a taxi with him as we were both staying in the Novotel, just off the central square of Ghent. This also saved me €10 since he had an expense account (thriftiness was to be a theme of my visit).

I was settled in the hotel and ready for sleep by 10pm, quite pleased when the time I'd made and ready for a good nights sleep...

The shoddy amount of blogging of late

2007-06-12T19:20:00.000+02:00

I've been travelling quite a bit of late - in the last couple of weeks of been to Poland, Madrid and Ireland and it's left me with little time to sit around updating my blog unfortunately.

My project to bring the blog up to date has meant that March is now up fully up to date but April and may lag far behing and June has only one post so far; this one.

I'm going to try and bring it up to date asap but with a holiday in Cuba looming (drat) and after that the Europeans in Ghent (and double drat), a trip back home for Rachel's Graduation taking me into mid July. I'm not sure when I'm going to get a chance.

I've got at least 14 entries drafted that will update the last couple of months. I've had two weekends off in the last 2 months. Since the beginning of April I've been out of Paris for 36 days and had visitors on an additional 6 days. Between fencing training, going to the gym, swimming and trying to become an modern pentathlete, it's no wonder I haven't had much time to write to this.

This page has been a victim of my own hectic lifestyle over the last while but I'm going to try and get it back on track for the sake of my own records as much as anything. Anyhoo, I'll keep you posted...

A+

France Vs. Owen The Modern Pentathlete

2007-05-15T13:42:00.000+02:00

...Aaaaaaaggggghhhh! An entire swimming pool worth of bureaucracy!

I'm just back from a swim at the local pool. Despite the cool waters, I feel my blood boil as I reel from yet another attack of a petty French jobsworth.

Determined to get my reduced pass for the pool this time (see my last Pentathlon post) I brought my drivers licence for my age (you have to be less than 26), my Parisian rent allowance card and a bank statement with my address (you have to live in Paris). On this, my third attempt, they finally conceded and gave me the 10 entries pass for €12.50, compared to the normal price of €21.50, so I was in reasonable form as I made my way downstairs to the changing rooms.

Despite my good intentions I hadn't made it to the morning session (7.00 - 8.30 - bizarre timetable here) and I landed smack in the middle of the busy lunch session. Nonetheless I readied myself quickly for the pool, threw my stuff in a locker and got ready to do what I could in the limited space available.

As I was moving down the pool in my resplendant new Jammers (long swimming shorts - here's a shot of me in them to the right) the two life-guards on watch stopped me and started babbling at me in French.

"You can't wear those in here, they're banned."
I looked at them utterly confused, I knew you had to wear tight swimming trunks but I had no idea why these would be a problem.
"You'll have to wear shorter ones. It's alright this but next time you'll have to have proper tiny little man-thong speedos (I may be paraphrasing there). You can't wear cycling shorts in here."
"But these are Speedos and don't use them for cycling because they are swimming trunks. That and I never cycle!"
"Well guys were coming in straight from the gym in there cycling shorts into the pool and we can't be checking the label on everyones shorts."
"So you mean I have to buy new shorts?" What I wanted to say I didn't know all the profanities for and I never could have repeated here.
"Well you can use them for cycling", chimed in David Hasselhoff's assistant.

So that put me in great form for my swim. On a positive note I already felt a massive improvement from last week. Unfortunately 50m at a time was about all I could manage not because I was too tired but because the pool was so ridiculously crowded. Rather than have the pool organised into lanes according to speed, the pool has one third left as a sort of paddling pool for grown-ups then rest divided into three lanes according to stroke. The central and one would presume slow lane for Front-crawl and back-crawl, a lane for breast-stroke and an outside "fast" lane for crawl and back-crawl. This system doesn't work at all.

I stayed for the most part in the outside fast lane which had about 10 swimmers of completely different speeds on a small 25m pool. It was an absolute disaster. The main cause of the problems was this fricking whale who was swimming at a rate of less than a length to every two of mine and somehow managed to sprawl herself across the entire fricking lane with the most hideous stroke I've ever seen. Then there was other old dears swimming slow breast stroke in the lane and yet others doing hideous back-crawl. Then the was one muppet doing only his arms on front-crawl - in the bloody fast lane!

It's so irritating but I think I need to find a new pool or a new time. I have no intention of buying new trunks because of those dickheads and I have no intention of having to go that slowly again. The problem is this pool is just so convienient for me and all the others would involve a metro journey.

I'm going to try and get to the pool for the early session once this week and see how that goes...

Owen the Modern Pentathlete - Week 1

2007-05-02T15:49:00.000+02:00

And so I set out on my first dithering steps towards competing in a Modern Pentathlon. I decided to hit the swimming pool hard and took to the challenge like a Salmon to the 3000m... this pentathlon business was confusing.

Thursday afternoon, once some initial research had been performed and the idea had crystalised in the part of my brain reserved for ludacris ideas I made my way to the local swimming pool to see what my level was like.

As I've previously stated, I've never swam competitively and the last time I've swam on any regular basis would have been 6th class of primary school. I wasn't going to let that beat me though and I set off like a man fighting a battle against a reasonably large body of water. Two lengths (i.e. 50 metres) later, I stopped in the shallow end once again thoroughly exhausted. Crap - I'd need to slow down... significantly.

So my first hour in the pool carried on like this swimming for as long as I could and working on different variables of my front crawl - breathing, arms, pace of my legs. I found myself barely able to do 50 metres and struggling to do 75. I spent some time practicing my turns as well and was quite pleased that I could at least do them at all.

Friday I returned to the pool and to change things tried some breast stroke to warm-up. Breast Stroke had always been my preferred stroke and I found myself quite able to do 200m. Pacing myself in Front-Crawl was still causing me problems however and while I would start with a decent stroke and at a reasonable pace as I began to tire I found myself floundering and losing all semblance of a decent stroke.

...

A Brief Aside - Bureaucracy on the Water, Fire in the Skies...

The pool has very irregular opening hours and only two days in the week share the same opening hours, Thursday and Friday. The pool doesn't open Monday and then opens for a morning session, a lunch session and maybe a afternoon session on the other days but at slightly different times. While checking these opening times I read the tariffs for entry and noticed there was a reduction for under 26s. So I made up my mind to ask for this reduction.

When I asked at the desk before entering the pool the woman rattled something to me in French about certain piece of identity needed. Not recognising what she was talking about I payed the full fare and decided to bring a few different IDs the next day. On Friday I rechecked the website which had the conditions of entry on it and brought my drivers licence to show I was under 26.

This time when I asked for the reduced ticket she said "<I don't speak English>" even though I was speaking French so I repeated myself and showed her the licence. She wouldn't accept it - apparently you also have to have an ID which shows you are a resident of Paris. Hopefully it will be third time lucky when I try next week.

...

Modern Pentathlon?

2007-05-02T14:10:00.000+02:00

The most beautiful athletes of them all are the pentathletes - Aristotle

From a brief survey of Mordern Pentathlon websites this is the most commonly used quote to advertise their sport. That Aristotle was talking about an entirely different type of pentathlon (which no doubt involved naked Greek men rubbing oil in each other before running after 5 young boys) seems of no consequence to them. This quote then is the equivalent of fencing's "physical chess" analogy which does nothing for the sport only conjuring images of uncoordinated nerds jabbing at each other on a black and white checkered floor (It may be true but it's not the image we want to portray).

The true origins of the sport lie with Napoleon and his imagining of the perfect modern soldier who could shoot, fence, swim, ride, and run. Origins, which I would focus on ahead of the being called beautiful by some fruity greek philosopher if I was in charge of their marketing but that is a rant for another post.

All this aside, it's been on my mind for some time, since I heard about the Irish Modern Pentathlon Championships last October to be precise, to enter a Modern Pentathlon. For those who don't know what I'm talking about here's the Olympic Committee's quick overview of the sport:

"Shooting comes first. The pentathletes have 40 seconds to fire 20 shots from an air pistol at a 17cm-square target from 10 metres. Fencing follows, with a round-robin competition between each participant. Swimming is third, a freestyle race over 200 metres, with athletes seeded in heats according to their personal best times. Once they have dried off, the pentathletes head to the show jumping ring, where they have 20 minutes to get to know the horse before riding. The final event is the 3000m run, with the pentathletes set off at intervals corresponding to their points so the first person across the line wins the gold medal."

Shooting - 20 bullets, 40 seconds, 10 metre
Fencing - Epee, One-hit matches against everyone
Swimming - 200m freestyle
Show-Jumping - 350m course with 12 obstacles.
Running - 3000m, released at intervals according to performance in other events, first across the line wins.

This isn't some stark revelation that I've realised that Men's Sabre isn't for me. What this is really is a solid target which I hope will help me a achieve a higher level of fitness. Between now and October I'd hope to bring my fitness up to a level where I could be very competive in the Irish Modern Pentathlon Championships.

I've been trying to figure out the level required to win the event (what's the point in aiming for anything less?)

Shooting - 180+ points would gain first place at the highest level international Pentathlon. I've never done any pistol shooting but how hard can it be? Shooting between heart beats my arse! Standing in flat-shoes, with one hand in your pocket and your arm out straight, it doesn't sound that taxing.

Fencing - An elementary knowledge of Epee should give me an edge over most Irish Pentathletes. That being said epee is not my weapon and a one hit match is basically a lottery. Might train a bit of epee the week before in that case.

Swimming - 1:46 is the Irish record for 200m freestyle. I've never swam competitively, unless you count primary school galas (I sure my Granny still has those medals around somewhere). Breast-stroke was always my favoured stroke then and in the swimming I've done since for leisure would have remained so. I probably have never swam 200m consecutively in my life.

Show-Jumping - Absolutely no idea what is required but who has any respect for Irish show-jumping these days anyway. I'm sure the horse will know what to do anyway and just in case I'll stuff the poor thing full of anti-depressants.

3000m - The Irish record set by a dedicated athlete over that distance is 7:30. At our best when myself and Julian were running that just over that distance around the fields of UCD we were managing 11:30 and that was killing us. I've never been a runner, never seen the need to run and have never one a foot race in my life. I'm about a stone lighter than last summer at this stage but I still don't really have the build of a middle distance runner. Getting down past the 10 minute mark will be a big challenge.

Kremlin Bisset... And the Monsoon Season

2007-04-28T19:34:00.000+02:00

I'm writing this so many months on, in November/December, but I wanted to go back and make sure I had a complete account of things.

Kremlin Bisset perhaps marked a peak in my form last year. I was settling in well in the club and my fencing was improving. The competition took place in Kremlin Bisset just South of Paris centre. I had a decent run in the poules, which I was pleased with and secured a relatively easy first round opponent who I dispatched without too much hassle in the 128. I had a difficult last 64 against a decent fencer, the brother of one of my team-mates.

After staying within touch during the first half of the match I failed to change my game in the second half when he did and lost out as a result. While my final ranking of #40 wasn't great, I was quite pleased with my performance on the day and considered the tournament somewhat of a turning point in becoming more familiar with the French set up.

...

After the tournament, I went for a bite to eat with Mo, one of the Scimitar fencers over from London. We'd dropped bags bag in my place before going for a bite to eat. On the way back to get the bags so he could leave for his flight in Charles de Gaulle the sky opened. I haven't seen rain like it since, even during the flood in Thailand. We pegged it back to my place for some shelter.

Reluctant to go out in the downpour, I was confident that if he left with around two hours before his flight he'd still make it without too much hassle. The rain didn't ease up but eventually it was time to go anyway. So, he set off to the RER station at Nation.

It wasn't till half an hour later that I got a call from him from the RER. The rain was so heavy that it had actually delayed the train and they were stuck at St. Denis. There was nothing much I could do except check various timetables or alternative travel arrangements. He seemed destined to miss the flight... and did.

So no miraculous escape this time, which would have made a better blog-entry perhaps. Ah well...

Change France but keep the lunches

2007-04-28T14:11:00.000+02:00

Nice article written in a very personalable way about the dilemma facing france in the upcoming election.

The Colours... Finally

2007-04-24T19:34:00.000+02:00

I was up at a thoroughly ungodly hour to get back for the colours. I left my apartment at 6am in the morning to get my flight from CdeG.

In the end I suppose it was a bit of an anti-climax. The standard drubbing was handed down by the UCD squad to Trinity. The final scores were

MS - 5 : 0 - UCD
WS - 5 : 4 - UCD
ME - 5 : 3 - UCD
WE - 5 : 2 - UCD
MF - 4 : 5 - TCD
WF - 5 : 0 - UCD

UCD ran out 5-1 winners on weapons - fairly convincing, I think you'd agree. UCD could have probably managed to dispatch their men's sabre team which included two foilists without me but I was glad to be there for the club for my last colours and one which marked the 10th victory in a row for UCD. It gave me another chance to travel home and visit as well albeit very briefly.

I took charge of the reffing of the women's sabre match again, this time passed off without any outside interference. The Decade of Dominance was complete but what pleased me more than anything was the thought that 70's Porn Man was watching it all on his monitors in his underground layer and when that final hit landed he swivelled in his high-backed chair and clenching his fist, released a gutteral roar "Curse you UCD!"

Apologies for the lack of updates...

2007-04-23T23:18:00.000+02:00

Sorry about the lack of updates of late. Between my trip to Algeria, my trip home for the five nations, the rescheduling of the Colours, my graduation etc. etc. it's not like there hasn't been anything to write on but somehow I haven't got round to sitting down and writing about it.

I intend to get updates for the last 3 or 4 weeks up over the next couple of days.

A Weekend In Cardiff - Ugh!

2007-04-22T19:32:00.000+02:00

I returned to Paris on Wednesday the 18th of April as planned and passed the week as normal until it was time to travel again. This weekend it was to be... ugh... the Student Five Nations... ugh... in Cardiff... ugh. This had originally been pencilled in as a rest weekend for me but I was somehow convinced by someone to head over to Cardiff... ugh.

Direct flights to Cardiff were ridiculously were ridiculously expensive. I eventually settled on taking a cheap flight to London Heathrow and then a National Express bus to Cardiff (it was to be approximately 5/6 hours). All this trekking to get to the chavton that is Cardiff but whatever.

The hostel we were staying in was just across the river from the Millenium Stadium. It was somewhat of a dive and after such a long and trying journey to get there I have to admit I was in no form to stay there. The pillow cases were attached to the bed sheet and the mattresses were wrapped in thick plastic. Positioned at the cross-roads of a busy chav estate the soundtrack of the evening was provide by scumbags in their modified Honda Civics parked seemingly right under the window. I barely slept at all.

The fencing the next day was fairly brief but enjoyable. Northern Ireland had failed to get a team together so there were only three matches. I fenced reasonably well in all of them I felt and was fairly happy with how they went. We didn't win any matches but my personal performance was good, so screw the team!

...

That night we started off in a fancy (the fancy) Cardiff bar - Tiger Tiger. A bit of self-service buffet grub went some way towards making up for the ridiculous price of beer... but not quite. I was absolutely exhausted from not getting any sleep the night before and was fading fast after the few beers and some food. I headed back to the hostel fairly early to try and get some sleep.

...

Mercifully my bus the next day wasn't until the afternoon and my flight the evening. So I was able to hang around a bit and relax in the morning before the journey back. I'd plenty of time to get something to eat and hang about with the team.

I'd be back to Dublin soon enough anyway, the Tuesday of that week for the colours.

Changing the colours...

2007-04-10T19:31:00.000+02:00

It was sometime during that week that it was announced by the Trinity captain that he was not accepting that the colours were going to be held on the 17th April as had to everyone else's knowledge been discussed and agreed. Now because some of his key fencers were missing he claimed that there was not enough warning even though the date had been discussed back as far as the beginning of March. Rather than just approaching this in a straightforward manner which may well have more easily garnered a more reasonable response, said captain went all subterfuge cc-ing sports department officials etc. in a way that could only lead to aggravation between the two sides.

Anyway, all this was particular pain in the ass to me as it would involve the expense of another flight back to Dublin. The final date agreed upon was the 24th of April, the weekend after the colours. No matter what the expense was going to be now, I knew that I'd have to be there to ensure they got a serious thumping.

Extending My Break in Dublin

2007-04-03T19:30:00.000+02:00

I was due to fly back early on Monday morning after the Five Nations. As it happens I was to be back the following Tuesday for the Colours match against Trinity. I decided then since March had been a very busy month for competitions and I hadn't seen Rachel or my family much, that I'd run the two flights together and stay the week in between and return to Paris using the return flight on Wednesday.

More Five Nations - Evening Meal

2007-04-01T12:53:00.000+02:00

I have to say that the evening meal for the 5 Nations was a great success. It was held in the 1838 club in DCU.

I'd left the competition just before the end (missing the team photo, unfortunately) so that I could get home and get a change of clothes. My plan was to drive to the meal anyway so that I could drive back home for my brothers 21st which was happening in my house that evening.

When myself and Rachel arrived back out to DCU the drinks reception was already under way. After a spot of mingling we were lead upstairs to the tables. The setting was excellent, as was the food. I ended up having a vegetarian course bizarrely enough it looked so good.

It was a shame when it came to the presentation that the PA system wasn't quite up to dealing with the British teams who were already quite well oiled for their night in "Tempul Baa".

At around 11ish buses had been arranged to take the teams into town. I took this opportunity to leave and head back to my brother's party. I gave Siobhán a lift back to her hotel nearby as she was absolutely knackered and jet-lagged and then headed with Rachel back to my brother's.

We got there with plenty of cocktail sausages and cake still available. I managed to squeeze in a few cocktail sausages despite not being at all hungry.

It was a fairly packed night and a weekend in general but a very enjoyable one.

The Five Nations - Men's Sabre Team & Other Happenings

2007-04-01T11:17:00.000+02:00

I got a lift from my dad out to DCU early on a Saturday morning. This is the biggest day of the Irish Fencing calendar and for some it would be the highest level they would compete. As an event it's something I've questioned it's roll in the progression of Irish fencing but it was never something I was going to give less than 100% for.

It was great for me to see my sabre team - Stephen, Hugh and Dan. We'd all started around the same time and all good friends at this stage, so there was a fantastic atmosphere on the team. Everyone knew they had a part to play and was determined to give their all. I had a suspicion it wasn't going to be easy and at best we would scrape a win on the back of an excellent performance with everything going right but we'd see...

When I walked into the sports hall it seemed to be trapped in twilight with none of the main lights on. This would delay the start of precedings and on top of that our first match wasn't till the second or third round so I probably could have afforded to stay out later with my class or sleep in the next morning.

...

Here's the bit on the actual performance of the Men's Sabre team...

Our first match was against England. Stephen tore out of the blocks against Chris Farren and picked up a good result against the whiley Jaffa who'd been around the top of the rankings longer than any of his team-mates. I was up next against Alex O'Connell but I was off to a much slower start. If my attacks fell short I needed to be immediately in his face so he couldn't build up his momentum. His bread and butter is a long marching attack. Unfortunately I didn't do this and he was able to claw the score back in England favour. From that point onwards England pulled away. While we all put in good performances against without-a-doubt the strongest team in the tournament the final result was never really in question.

The second match was against Northern Ireland. They'd managed to bring a team of 5 or 6, I think just for the sake of going on the piss but they were all decent fencers. I managed a win in my first match against Nicholls. Hugh Tobin, according to the RTE report however, "Couldn't keep up the pace" and lost us the match. Which provided us with the greatest joke ever but it was only that Hugh and Dan both fenced excellently for the match. Their group of fencers were just slightly stronger than our own and they ran out winners. I had the last laugh however with my shout of "Three cheers for Norn Iron" - taped for posterity on RTE cameras.

In our third match we faced Scottland. Aside from Harry Moncrieff they lacked outstanding international quality but were all solid and/or awkward fencers. Stephen again put in a strong performance on his 5 Nations Debut. He was really psyched-up on the day, screaming at every point from the very beginning, even just getting warmed up, even just travelling there on the bus. We kept it reasonably close in the match but Scotland were always just a tiny bit ahead. In the final match I had to catch up 15 points to the 5 Harry need to end the match. I was pretty please with my fencing in the match but couldn't managed more than 5-5 in the bout. Three cheers for Scotland and all that crap.

In our final match we were to face Wales. We'd been fencing strongly all day and I knew this was our best chance of a win. Unfortunately, in the end, the key factor was to be the terrible refereeing. We kept the match very tight and the lead pendulumed back and forward between the teams by a matter of 2 or 3 points throughout. As the match went on however, the calls of the referee got more and more eratic. His seperation of points in the centre of the piste made no sense and were completely inconsistant. Sometimes they seemed to be based on who cheered louder. Other times I could not see where the calls were coming from. At one point when one of the other fencers was fencing, on a point I was certain wasn't ours I cheered for it as loudly as possible - and the point went our way; ridiculous! The Welsh team were far more familiar with his absurd calls and played him better than ourselves. Bemused I would glance across at Juppy on the Welsh side after a terrible decision and we would both shrugg our shoulders and laugh.

Myself and Dan in particular both were frustrated repeated by his downright shoddy presiding. I left the piste shouting "Quelle Cont" except in English at one stage. Philip the team captain suggested that I should apologise to the ref for my language but when I did he didn't know what I was talking about (deaf in one ear). He'd actually been annoyed by something Dan said under his breath on the piste. So now he thought two of us were swearing at him rather than one. Last time I follow someone elses advice during a match like that.

As the final bout approach Wales had managed to build a three point lead. Against Alistar Juppy, their strongest fencer, I knew I'd have to be well psyched up. I knew I needed myself in a slightly aggitated state to get the adrenaline flowing. Unfortunately though, aided by some poor refereeing decisions I couldn't claw back the difference and Wales won out.

As I left the piste thoroughly pissed off with the ref. Another team captain came to me and said "That was your fault, you lost your cool!" I was stunned, if I hadn't been so stunned my first reaction would have been to take a swing at them! I managed to answer reasonably calmly "No, I needed to have myself worked up to get back the difference... I was in control and I was intentionally putting myself there." That was definitely the low-light of the day, wanted to knock-out another captain!
...

I was really proud of the team and really happy with how they fenced. Stephen, as Dan had done the year before, on his five-nations debut, free from expectations, had fenced brilliantly. Dan himself also put in a very solid performance after a season that had been wracked with injury. Hugh when called upon put in some really top performances and was a massive adition to the team.

Myself, on reflextion, was reasonably pleased with how I fenced. Last year, I wasn't happy with how I handled the stress of having to anchor the team on what was my own debut in the competition. This year, I felt I put in some good performances and was pleased that I never let my team down. I also tried to take on a definite leader roll in the team as captain and tried my best to coach my fencers between and during matches.

I think, more than anything we realised on the team that there was definite potential the team as a unit to improve and work together over the next year. In the weeks that followed we were fairly boyant about the potential for the team to improve its results and hope to work together over the next year in going to competitions and training to improve our results for the next year.

...

There was a lot of other things going on around the tournament as well. Kerry Hardie the author who I met in the Centre Culturel Irlandais came down to say hello and to watch the fencing. Her book is well underway at this stage.

As well as this OB Sports were filming an extract for their programme. They focused on the Women's Sabre with Siobhán and the Men's Sabre team, I suppose because I'm training full-time abroad. They filmed quite a lot of the Men's Sabre matches, getting right into my face as I was preparing to go on the piste. I tried to ignore it as best I could. They also did an interview with me, during which I went on a 20 minute tirade about what a bastard Hugh was (that is a joke), but they didn't show that.

The piece can be viewed on the RTE website here

I Graduated... Again

2007-03-30T16:33:00.000+02:00

For second time in a little under two years I had an oppurtunity for a day out where I dressed up like a ponse and parade about with a bit of paper. It was great to see all the gang from the masters class again. We hadn't been all together in the one place since the last nights of college and much of the day was taken up with polite questioning of "what are you up to now?" and then a series of recipricating and appreciative noises as one would explain ones current situation. I think my own explanation of being an international fencing bumb had to rank on the higher end of the scale of things.

Aside from those forced niceties it was great to share some time again with these people I had wasted a year with. Old private jokes soon resurfaced and soon it was as if we had never left those uncomfortable chairs in Smurfit.

The ceremony itself was the usual drab, formality. Nothing of note came to pass save for all my row and the next not receiving blank pieces of paper when they went to receive their masters degree.

When we had finished the ceremony in the O'Reily hall in UCD we went down to the Smurfit School for a reception. With Dinner still a few hours away, I tucked into the garlic bread to tide me over while I talked with lecturers and friends from the class.

...

I was going for a meal with my family and Rachel in Dali's (Here's a link) in Blackrock at around 7pm. We had an hour or two to relax at home and then I set off to pick up Rachel, who'd been on placement during the day, while the rest of the family headed on to Blackrock.

The food was absolutely fantastic and I'd heartedly recommend it. The ambiance , decor and service were all top-notch and it was a lovely meal.

...

When the meal was over myself and Rachel headed into town. With the Five Nations the next morning and captaining the sabre team, I knew I shouldn't really drink that evening or get home too late. I took the car into town so that I'd have a perfect excuse not to drink and a way of getting home easily.

Not being plastered didn't really have any effect of my enjoyment of the evening and it was great to catch up with my friends. Sadly though, tired already from the long day I had to leave relatively early and took off around midnight as I knew I'd have to get up early to be out in DCU by 9 the next morning.

Back Training On Home Soil... Ugh

2007-03-29T16:22:00.000+02:00

Wednesday and Thursday evening I went to train in Salle Dublin and UCD respectively. If I am to be brutally honest, I was somewhat reminded of why I have to leave. The sole sabreur in Salle Dublin on Wednesday was Stephen. I don't know how he doesn't go mental. Not only is he surrounded by Trinity folk in the club (that may be a joke) but it seems he's nearly always the only sabreur there.

I gave him a few matches on both days and he was absolutely shattered (by his own admission) after a few bouts because no one around was really pushing him that hard.

I'm not belittling anyones efforts or anybodies club but something really needs to be done if we are ever to bring the level of fencing up to a decent standard in Ireland. While it was a great ego boost to temporarily be top-dog again it was not one which I particularly sought or appreciated.

...

Nonetheless though it was great to see everybody again in UCD. Although my time in the club may be dwindling if not already past, I've made some great friends there. The great positive atmosphere within UCD Fencing is one of the keys to the college staying on top for so long now.

A Busy Couple of Days Back Home...

2007-03-28T16:17:00.000+02:00

I arrived back in Dublin on Wednesday the 28th of March for what was to be a busy couple of days. Wednesday itself was my brothers 21st birthday, Thursday I was going to go training and had a fair few jobs to do, Friday was my masters graduation, Saturday was the Five Nations in DCU and my brothers birthday party, Sunday I was going to need to sleep a bit and Monday I was supposed to be leaving on a ridiculously early flight.

Leaving Behind Algers... As Quickly As Possible...

2007-03-25T21:26:00.000+02:00

... And under Police Escort of course.

Leaving Algeria proved just a difficult as gaining entry. On Monday morning, I piled onto the bus with the French team and after the summary wait for the police escort we left for the airport.

As we approached the airport there was a checkpoint. A soldier or police officer, they seem to be much of a muchness there, checked under the cars in front of us with a tool that looked very much like a giant version of the mirror that dentists use for checking out-of-reach spots of the mouth. I can only presume he was looking underneath the cars for explosive devices.

When we got out of the bus and approached the door we had to go through our second check-point, which was a metal detector and x-raying of our bags. With 20-odd fencing bags in one group to go through this slowed us down significantly.

Upon arrival at the queue (yes, just the queue) for Air France our tickets were checked and we were handed departure cards. On these cards we had to fill in all the same information as the arrival cards and in the forms for our visas. We entered the queue for one of the few flights out of dodge that day. Once we had our tickets, which were hand-written (in this freshly Japanese built and designed hundred million dollar airport) and had our bags checked in, we had to go another desk in order to get those tickets stamped and validated.

Once that was done we made our way upstairs to the departure gates. Firstly we had to wait in-line for half-an-hour as, our visas were, exit cards and validated tickets were checked. Some of the French team had not realised they needed there tickets validated and so had to go back to the end of the line. The usual rigmarole of a lot of staring at the documents, then at the person, then back at the documents was followed for several moments before the endless series of stamping began for each person.

Eventually when that was done we went through the usual secutiry check which included a madatory frisking. I was able to bypass the next security desk which was just customs and made my way to the departure lounge for the short wait before we would be board.

When called to the departure gate we were loaded onto a bus for transportation to the plane. While it had been pleasently warm the whole time we had been there, this day was by far the hottest day. With the bus completely full and not many chairs on board... we sat there... and waited and waited. Half an hour to three quarters of an hour after getting on the bus we set off for the plane. After about a ten minute drive to what must have been the furthest runway away (were we still in the same airport) we arrived at the plane.

At this point our progress was once again halted... and we waited... and waited... Another half-hour must have passed. A Police 4X4 arrived, with a sniffer dog. At this stage the large luggage drums were all lined up in front of the bus. All of the drums were emptied and the luggage placed out on the tarmac. The dog was brought along all the rows of baggage. Eventually when that check was completed, the doors of the bus were finally opened. Our tickets and passport were checked and we were asked to put our luggage back into the drums.

As we finally approached the plane another of the same type of large buses was lined up in front of the stairs. Our tickets and passports were checked as we entered the bus again. The our carry on luggage was searched by police inside the bus as we moved through it before one final frisk and ticket and passport check before boarding the plane. I presented my boarding pass to the steward and finally took my seat.

Just as one final reminder of the mental nature of the country it is a apparently Algerian law that a Bug bomb be set off in the plane before take off. The steward set off the aerosol and then paraded up and down the cabin covering us all in lovely bug killing carcenogenic goodness... Bizarre!

That really some up the whole trip really...

All Kitted Up But No Where to Go in Algeria

2007-03-24T21:25:00.001+01:00

With no fencing for me on the second day (again), I return to the venue to watch what turned out to be an eventful days fencing. Algeria marked the return to fencing, after a three month absence through injury, of Olympic champion Aldo Montano (he's standing six foot away from me as I write this in the bleachers at Warsaw). His return was certainly dramatic, if not necessarily for the right reasons...

He was going strong after the poules, I had picked him out to win the tournament in a pool with the Brits. In the last 16 he faced Nicolas Limbach in a match some thought could produce the eventual winner. He seemed pretty relaxed going into the match, having a smoke before he warmed-up. In fact he seemed pretty relaxed all day, walking on his hands, posing for photos with his adoring Algerian public.

When it was time to fence though, he was all business. Limbach had the edge for most of the match, which was fenced at a ferocious speed and intensity. With Limbach in the lead entering the final stages Montano launched a comeback. With the score at 14-all Montano caught a parry and launched himself at his opponent - one light. He had just about enough energy to salute his opponent before collapsing on the piste, coughing up his lungs. My money really didn't seem very secure.

His next match was to be against the Pole, Gorski, who had been in top form all day, in the quarter-final. The match again was fenced at a tremendous intensity but the real drama was yet to unfold. Gorski was leading throughout the match by three or four points but Montana once again launched a dramatic comeback and the momentum had definitely swung in his favour.

With the score at 14-13 to Gorski, Aldo made him fall short and launched a counter-attack. The French referee somehow saw a preparation in the attack and awarded the point to Gorski. To say that Montano "lost it" at that point doesn't do justice to the lunacy that followed. He had already returned te his line in anticipation of the final point. When the ref had awarded the point, he flung his mask down in front of him and charged up to the ref, screaming in his face "No, No, No!" The ref was obviously reaching for his black card at this stage but was restrained by another French ref. Montano stormed back to the piste throwing his weapon into the surrounds of the piste.

He'd just about returned to the piste when suddenly he turned and bolted for the president. Several members of the Italian team immediately restrained him and he wrestled against them to try and get to the referee. The ref, taken aback and obviously slightly shaken had not option at this stage but to give him a black card.

Eventually the Italian team seemed to have calmed him down somewhat. They lead him away over to the other side of the venue. He threw his jacket and lamé to the side and walked away.

Out of nowhere, he turned and once again charged for the referee from the other side side of the arena, maybe 30 metres away. I've never scene someone moves so fast. As quickly as his sprint began, however, it was brought to an abrupt end when the stocky Italian team physio intercepted his march and rugby tackled him to the ground. Immediately, he was joined by the rest of the Italian team who piled on top of him to restrain him while he reeled on the floor.

Finally, the excitement was over. A couple of minutes later I passed the French referee outside, his hands visibly shaking as he drew his cigarette to his mouth. No one could believe what they had just witnessed. Events were to take an even more strange twist however...

Shortly afterwards as I sat near the French team, they were approached by the head of the Italian delegation. He said that Aldo wanted to apologise. I joked with the French guys around me, that it was a trap and that he shouldn't go. Nonetheless though he met with Montano, who duly apologised. The most miraculous thing of all though was that the black card was taken back... it really helps to be Olympic champion sometimes, I suppose.

...

After that, the rest of the tournament paled into insignificance. Of most note, was the performance of Tim Morehouse, of the US team, who went all the way to the final against Pillet. He ended up losing by the narrowest of margins 14-15 after Pillet produced a one-light counter-attack on the final point. The result meant that the US team had a member in the finals for the previous 6 tournaments. They're truly now a force to be reckoned with on the international tour.

Oh yeah, that and Réné Roche, the president of the FIE, turned up for a bit to watch the finals. I think I passed him in the restaurant later as well. Pretty unimpressive really.

...

That evening back at the hotel I ate with the French team and packed my gear in preparation for an early departure on Monday.

Algerian Poules

2007-03-23T21:24:00.000+01:00

After a reasonable nights sleep, even with the coffee table beds, I got up refreshed after eight hours and made my way to breakfast. I had a reasonably light breakfast of cereals and fruit and still had an hour or two before we left for the venue. I headed back to my room to relax and prepare my equipment.

When the time came to leave I got on the bus with the French team. We waited on the bus for the best part of half an hour for whatever reason I don't know. I guessed that we were perhaps waiting for a police escort which never arrived as this was the one trip we took without and armed escort. Ingeniously enough this was also the one trip we took with a driver that had no idea where he was going. This gave us ample oppurtunity to see the Algerian countryside from the motorway. Every junction we passed without fail had several policemen with Kalashnikovs doing absolutely nothing apparently.

We drove and drove. None of us had any idea where the venue was but we were begining to get quite frustrated given the entry forms claims that it was 5 minutes from the hotel. After 45 minutes we reached the back gate of what was we hoped the venue. The driver drove through a make-shift shickane and up to the security gate. A heated exchange followed where the driver, I presume was telling him that this was a team for the competition and the security guard was telling him he'd have to use another gate and beckoning in a large oval indicating where the gate was to this large complex.

In the end the security guard would not give in and the bus began to slowly reverse out through the shickanes to rapturous applause from the French team. It was now only 5 minutes before the scratch. Just as we had negotiated our way backwards through the shickane another car drove up, presumably someone from the organising comittee. He berratted the security guard and beckoned to the driver to come through the gate. A series of varying salutes were given to the security guard as we eventually passed.

...

There we were the entire French and Irish teams should have been disqualified from the competition because of the incompatence of our hosts, for arriving after the scratch. Standing at the entrance of the venue it was possible to see our hotel.

The venue itself was a bizarre circular arena, shaped somewhat like a giant short white mushroom on the outside. Inside seating sourounded a large circular floor. Where eight pistes were set up (four of which were to be used for the competition). Despite there being plenty of room on the competition floor that was only open to competitors it was insisted that we leave our bags in the bleechers that were completely open to the public. Many school kids had been brought in for the day for the event and it was hard not to feel that this was not the best place for our bags.

As it happened I was to be in the second batch of poules and so our late arrival didn't make that much difference. I headed to weapons check straight away nonetheless, where the great inefficiencies of Algerian society were further displayed to me. I waited in line with Alex Rouseau and Nourdin Marouf from the French team. We had arrived at the weapons check behind the large Italian contingent. Aldo Montano, the Olympic champion, was before us in the queue. His hair gelled back, his armani jeans almost around his knees barely held up by his sparkly D&G belt. This was his comeback tournament after 3 months of injury. Right at the minute he was changing the visor in his mask.

The Algerian, the one singular Algerian, who was running weapons check was in no hurry with dealing with the Italians. He laughed and joked with Aldo, saying something about knowing his father. After each, piece of equipment was given a cursory glance, his cigarette hanging precariously from the side of his mouth as he squinted at Lamés or masks. Several of the Italians body-wires actually failed but after a series of "EH!" and some convicing shrugging of shoulders they were given there weapons mark.

Eventually my gear was inspected and past, one of my body wires checked and tagged twice and I went about warming up for the competition.

...

I should have seen the warning signs. My poule was completely mixed up. While the other poules all had a smattering of African fencers two or three in all of them, mine had only one Senegalese and no Algerian. Instead we had a Algerian referee (i.e. a crap one!)

ROSE Julien (GBR), MAROUF Nourdin (FRA), AIBOUCHEV Dmitri (RUS), ANNIBALDI Daniele (ITA) and OUEDRAOGO Julien (BUR) made up my poule. By no means an easy one particularly when compared to some of the others in the tournament.

Rose was my first match. He's a very decent fencer and highly ranked in Britain. The match went to 4-4 all. At this point rather than attacking I drop back and made him fall short. My final attack was just milliseconds to slow though and he was able to get me with a counter attack. That was a match I could have one and I knew I'd be hard pressed among the other fencers to find one that I could beat.

The ref was refusing to call the next match up and expected everyone to constantly look at the poule sheet for the next match. After getting a wrap on the knuckle I'd taken my glove off to have a look. I was surprised then to hear my name being called to the piste. When I arrived on the piste without my glove the ref summarily gave me a yellow, despite the protests that this wasn't necessary from my opponent Nourdin. While this is in the rules it is very rarely enforced and I was somewhat taken aback by the pettiness of this ref who then went on to make a balls of every second call in the whole pool.

My match against Marouf was very different to my first. Marouf is quite a short but lightning fast fencer, who's very entertaining to watch. On the other end of the piste however, I hesitated to much in my attacks and let his speed dictate the match from the start. It was a somewhat dissappointing bout and over too quickly.

Aibouchev the Russian had been frustrated by some absolutely awful refereeing decisions from the terrible referee which had handed the Burkino Fassoan an unlikely victory. By the time he reached me though he was in full flight and against my stumbling form tore me to pieces.

Annibaldi the lanky Italian was always going to be a difficult prospect and with my chances of going through beocoming slimmer by the second my spirit was whaning. Faulty electrics which I was almost certain was the cause of dodgy Italian body-wires that were allowed to pass by the dodgy Algerian doing the weapons check were the cause of us eventually moving piste. Where the faults continued but the result was never really in question.

Ouedrago - a consolation match against the bunny in the poule is not a very pleasing place to find yourself but nonetheless I tore into him and proved that I could fence to anyone watching and salvaged some dignity. My single victory of the tournament.

...

One victory is rarely going to be enough to secure passage to day two of a world cup and this was to be no exception. For the second week in a row I was to miss out on indicators with some one win fencers going through. I think I was the first or second elimination again.

I was thuroughly depressed after the poules and for the rest of the day really. Lunch didn't particularly help, when I found that the 3 day old greasy chicken was raw in the inside and the potatoe was all but entirely butter. I drank the juice and ate the bannana, the rest wasn't fit for much except the bin.

The novelty of the women's sabre WC poules did not entice me to stay at the venue for the afternoon and I soon left for the hotel after the lunch.

...

Drowning myself in the swimming pool crossed my mind but when I arrived in the pool in my hotel I was informed this was only for women and that the mens pool was over in the other hotel building. Somewhat adgitated by the news I left for the other hotel to see if I was bothered having a swim. When eventually I found the other pool in the other hotel building (which was incedentally, far nicer and much more populated than our own) the pool was so crowded mustachioed men and boys that I really couldn't have brought myself to go for a swim.

I went back to my room for the evening, only to emerge for dinner from the buffet alone. I wrote about the tournament in my fencing journal, watched some French TV and then went to bed on the rock hard bed, wiching I was back in Ireland at the Nationals that I might have won.

Off to Algeria...

2007-03-22T21:23:00.000+01:00

Not surprisingly there aren't too many airlines fly to the somewhat turbulent state of Algeria. Alitalia and Air France in fact are the only two European carriers who fly there.

Sitting in the Air France departure lounge, I stocked up on my newspapers once again (The FT, The Herald Tribune, Le Monde / Le Figarro, L'Equipe, USA Today and the Wall Street Journal). I generally don't buy the paper while I'm hear, so I use my frequent flights with Air France to stock up on a supply that will last me the whole of each trip. The one story that I've been following keenly through the FT is the Chinese Vs. European Global Positioning Systems (I don't know why there just seems to always be updates on the situation when I've been flying - maybe a topic for a post on its own).

As I've mentioned, this was one of very few flights to Algeria from Europe and the lounge soon began to fill with familiar faces. The German, Polish, French, Spanish and Russian team were all on my flight. I was also joined by Chris Buxton from the British team, who'd flown in from Hungary that morning. We talked for a bit, while through the window we could see the baggage handlers struggling to fit at least 40 fencing bags onto one plane. Sure enough the flight was delayed as a result and I prayed that my bag would not be one of those left on the tarmac.

...

During the flight, the man middle-aged man next to me, turned to me and asked me something. What he had said was unclear and I stared blankly back at him. He repeated what he had said in what I now realised and understood was a Geordie accent. It turned out he was a oil worker for Statoil going out on a six week rotation in Algeria. I could tell he wasn't particularly fond of the place, least of all because it kept him from his wife and children for a month and a half at a time.

We exchanged pleasantries and I spoke about why I was going to Algeria. The general theme of our discussion was 'why would you want to go to Algeria, if you didn't have to?'. Aside from the on-going terrorist threat and recent travel advisories given by many European states and the US, Brian also suggested that the recent earthquake in the last year which killed 30,000 people was another good reason not to go to Algeria. I paused and then asked -

"What do you do in the case of an earthquake?". I remembered from American shows talk of standing in doorways.
"No, you just get the hell out of the building"
"Oh, right", mentally patting myself on the back for choosing to go to Algeria.
"If you're stuck get under a table but mainly you want to get the hell out of there".
"Right, cheers..."

...

Talking to this friendly Geordie certainly passed the time quickly during the flight, if not also thoroughly terrifying me and we touched down, after what seemed like no time at all, in Algers International Airport. The Airport was very modern in fact and had apparently just been completed by Japanese contractors in the past year or two.

Before, we reached the carousels there was a huge queue to get through passport control. This was to be the first occasion where the farcical nature of Algerian society was to be revealed to me.

The process of clearing the passport and visa was of course a lengthy one and each person had to spend the best part of a minute standing in front of their little boxes as the passport police scrutinised them, their passport, their visa, their landing card (which contained all the same information as the passport and visa) and then them again. When this process was complete the was a lengthy series of stamping and more stamping and some more stamping for good measure before the person was allowed pass. The guard would then obviously take a few seconds to collect himself to collect before calling the next person.

As one could imagine then, the 5 queues that had formed went all the way to the back of the hall space available for them and were all maybe 50 people deep. All of sudden however, a random man with a suit, walkie-talkie and of course a powerful mustache came forward and started beckoning all the fencers to come forward to one line. He positioned us all in front of one of the boxes, at which point the guard at that box left his post, never to return while I was there. The Polish at this point tried to skip to the front of the queue to the left of us, to the muffled cry of "mfuff offff!" in countless languages.

I seized my chance while I could and while the Polish were being berated and turned to face their critics I nipped in ahead of them. I went through a quick (pointless) x-raying, metal detector and frisking (I couldn't understand having this at this point) and went on to the baggage reclaim. My bag was already waiting for me there and I wandered on through the exit expecting to see members of the Algerian fed to greet me... but no...

Walking out along the railings there was no sign of anyone official, least not someone fencing offical like. There were a group of inbred-looking football hooligans waiting to welcome back their team after some foreign triumph but that wasn't very comforting. I must have been the first fencer out the gates by easily half an hour. I went to the information desk and asked them in French to call members of the Algerian federation to the desk. I'd texted back to Dublin to check that there was to be a pick-up arranged for the airport but was soon texted back to be told that the Algerian federation weren't answering their phone.

Eventually, the various teams began to arrive out of the gate and I felt somewhat safer amongst there number. In hindsight I'm not particularly sure of the wisdom of standing in the middle of the French team given France's roll in Algerian history but wait I did. All the teams were already out and waiting before anyone came from the Algerian federation.

Finally, buses arrived and I was put in with the French with whom I was to share my hotel - "le Centre National de l'Armeé" [The National Headquarters]. We waited for our police escort and then set off through the suburbs of Algeria.

One of the most bizarre things about travelling around the roads of Algers is that at every possible junction between two and six policemen armed with Kalashnikov's will be standing around by all accounts doing nothing. I was told that Algers has something like 130,000 active policemen in active duty. We must have seen a fair portion of these just on our trip to the hotel.

...

Huge, dilapidated apartment blocks seem to be the stable of Algerian architecture. The towering blocks would be placed haphazardly over uneven ground, some would have bizarre extensions to them hanging precariously into mid-air or over other buildings. The vegetation which interspersed the blocks however was quite lush and green and not the arid waste land one might have seen in the likes of Greece. The vegetation and even grass had a very lush tropical sense to it. One got the impression that there was a country of great natural beauty out there even if it was covered in the excrement of hundreds of year of human hostility and unrest.

...

The five star hotel was quite nice. While it definitely wouldn't have been a five star hotel anywhere else in the world it was obviously the best that Algeria had to offer. Bizarrely enough it was divided into two entirely separate buildings. Myself the French and the Italians were staying in the slightly smaller of the two, which still possessed a lavish marble reception, swimming pool and saunas.

My room was very spacious with a remote control for the lights as well as the TV. I brought my bags in and then flopped down on the bed, tired from travelling. Crack! The bed was rock-solid. It was as if the bed-sheet were a table-cloth on a mahogany dining room table. This would probably prove a challenge, I thought to myself.

...

Jean-Philipe Daurelle (my coach from USMT and French National coach [name dropped]) had suggested that I eat with the French team that evening and with the alternative being eating alone, I gladly accepted. There was a buffet laid on for us and I carefully skirted the salads and anything else that may have been touched by local water and had some lasagne in the end. It was a good chance to get to know a few more of the guys from the French team and I made whatever small talk I could before calling it a night at a reasonable hour.

...

The problem of the rock-hard mattress was eventually solved by taking the two pillows off the second double bed in my room and draping myself across them. Miraculously, I got to sleep quite quickly and had a reasonable nights sleep. Still I have no plans on sleeping on my kitchen table when I get back home...

Snatched from the Jaws Of Bureaucracy

2007-03-21T20:56:00.000+01:00

The resolution to my tales of Visa's and Rent Allowance...

Monday, of course the Algerian consulate was closed. So I arrived at the consulate at 9.30 on Tuesday just as it was opening to hand in my passport so that my visa could be rushed through. Surprisingly enough this wasn't actually that much hassle, save for having to queue for a bit outside in a queue I'm sure I didn't belong in. I gave in my passport and I was away to the CAF centre to give in my forms for my rent allowance. That was even easier and only took 2 minutes.

...

On wednesday, I went to the Algerian Consulate in the afternoon at the time I was told to collect my visa, fearing the worst... but everything was fine. That was, until I checked the Visa and they had spelt my name Mac Namee. Despite having it spelt correctly on 5 different forms, sometimes several times and despite sticking it in to a passport with my name spelt correctly. They smudged a bit of tip-ex over the offending "a" doing nothing about the addition of a space and gave it a stamp of correction of some kind. I left praying that this would not cause me any grief on the way into this bananna republic.

Tunisia Day 3: St. Patrick's Day and the Curse of the Irish!

2007-03-17T19:30:00.000+01:00

The bus to the venue was early the next morning and having nothing better to do I went down to the venue to watch.

Keeth Smart's gear had never arrived in Tunis from the states so I lent him mine. It was all very amusing to see the Bronx-born former world number one warm-up in the Irish Track-suit and breeches on St. Patrick's day. We all had had a good laugh, that is, up until the Irish colours proved as unlucky for him as they had been for me as he lost out to a Russian in the Last 64.

Just as I had done, he promised he'd pretend he'd never been to Tunisia and particularly not to a fencing competition there.

The competition however went a lot better for some of his team-mates as Morhouse reached the Last-8 and Williams and Hagamen reaching the Last 16.

...

Before the finals there was a break of a few hours so I headed back to the hotel with the American team. There was no buses provided at this stage and we needed to get a taxi back. This proved to be trickier than at first it seemed given the large number of fencers who had the exact same idea and the enormous amoung of luggage in the form of fencing backs this also entailed transporting.

Eventually however I got a taxi with Tim and Jason and we were quite quickly back to the hotel. This was in no small part thanks to our driver, who drove like an absolute lunatic. We ended up arriving before some other members of their team who had left 10-15 minutes before us.

When we reached the hotel we headed for the pool. It was around this time that we got to witness the full fervour of Tunisian customer service. The US team wanted to take a sauna. So, they went through the seperate doors from the pool, downstairs to the sauna. They had already gone down to the sauna when I arrived to find that had got into a bit of trouble. Aparently the sauna was run by a seperate company and they were charging a ridiculous €15 for half an hour use. The US team had walked by the desk since there was no one there but the receptionist had soon arrived and started berrating them for going into the sauna.

One would think it reasonable enough in a supposed five-star hotel to have the sauna included in the price, but no and no she was laying in to them over there apparently "crazy" actions. She was even giving out to myself and Jason the last ones to arrive who were the only ones who spoke French. Even though they had only spent 5 minutes in the sauna and none had decided to stay when they heard the ridiculous price, they were insisting that they all payed. The general consensus however was that they could go make sweet-love to the nearest camel... and eventually nothing came of it. We enjoyed the free swimming pool and soon it was time for me to get back to the venue from where I was to get a lift to the airport.

I took the name of the venue from the poster in the foyer of the hotel and asked the hotel to call me a taxi. I assumed that the hotel would explain to the taxi where I was going, or even the doorman but no and it was a drawn out process which took several phones calls to explain to the driver where the venue but eventually I got there ok.

...

The French and the Russians however, had the strongest teams and they were bound to dominate the tournament. The semi-finals saw Yakimenko Vs. Pillet and Reshetnikov Vs. Anstett. Yakimenko eventually ran out the winner against Pillet and Anstett beat the other, previously unheard of, Russian. In the final, Yakimenko proved too strong for Anstett despite a very close fight and won 15-13.

I have the most part of those matches recorded and I'll post them up when I get a chance.

...

I my back to Paris was uneventful and why I returned from the most miserable St. Patrick's day ever the last thing I needed to hear was that Ireland had missed out on the 6 Nations because of the decision of one stupid Irish video ref and one stupid decision not to go for a penalty...

Ah well there is always next year for Tunisia, the Six Nations and St. Patrick's day...

Tunisia Day 2: Competition

2007-03-16T19:30:00.000+01:00

Up early after a good nights sleep, I went to breakfast early enough that it would be well settled before the competition.

I had drawn my team-mate at Metro Alex Woog (FRA), Koniusz (POL), Tim Hagamen (USA), Thiam (SEN), Dekkiche (ALG) and Sarris (GRE).

First up was my match against Sarris. After some initial problems with the pistes we moved to another one with score 0-1 agsainst me. I found myself quickly 4-1 down, sleeping at the start of the competition. I clawed my way back to 4-4 and on the final point he rushed and missed and I counter-attacked and won the bout. Quite pleased with that how I fenced, I was content moving on to the next fight.

The next match was against Thiam from Senegal, a very athletic but straight forward fencer I had him tagged as one of my must win fights before the poule began. This was a foolish thing to do in hindsight and I put too much pressure on myself to beat him. A sloppy parry/clash of blades at 4-4 that he he some how got a one light from and I'd lost the bout.

The next match was against Hagamen of the US. A very tall fencer I was able to make him fall short easily enough and then patient began building my attacks. Two of my attacks however were cancelled by the ref for a white light before they landed (despite this white light making no difference to the attack). Instead of facing a match going to 4-4 I was 4-2 down and flustered from having to change my weapon twice and my body wire - I lost the last point.

Next against the Algerian Dekkiche (who was really pretty shit), I was really pushing myself to win (not holding out much hope of being able to be Woog or the Pole). I gave away stupid points to the midget and became frustrated. Despite trying to clear my head I somehow managed to lose the last point - I can't even remember how.

While I tried my best against Woog and Konsiuz they were by far the best fencers in my poule and I couldn't match them on the day - particularly with the wieght of inevitability weighing on my shoulder. Konsiuz I took to 5-3 but he proved to be too fast. Likewise against Woog I went tit-for-tat with him for a few points but he came out on top 5-3 and I ripped back the nail of my thumb for good measure after a clash of guards.

Thoroughly dejected I waited for confirmation of my elimination. Although from talking to the Americans it seemed as though there might have been enough 1 victory opponents to secure a place on day 2. Having my hopes raised slightly only made it sting more when I was the first to be eliminated (of 53 to qualify I was 54th).

So that was a pretty depressing day all round.

Tunisia Day 1: Travel

2007-03-15T19:29:00.000+01:00

My journey to Tunisia was very straight forward. I travelled out to Roissy with my packed lunch and waited around Charles de Gaulle until it was time to depart. I'm really getting a accustomed to travelling Air France. I take the oppurtunity to take a copy of all the free papers, in French and English. I start with the FT, work my way through the Herald Tribune, breeze through the Wallstreet Journal and USA Today, then read through L'Equipe and Le Monde (or Figarro). It's the only time during the week I really get an oppurtunity to read the paper and I use the oppurtunity to catch up on world events as best I can.

A full strength Russian team (except for Pozdnyakov) were on my flight. My bag was already waiting for me when I reached the reclaim area and I strolled out to meat the waiting organisers. It was sometime again before all the Russians got there bags and came out, along with the Greeks and the Polish. I was in the same hotel as the Russian team and while the Greek and Polish team left for there hotel we waited for a delayed flight with more fencers for our hotel.

After about an hours delay at the airport and repeated apologies from the assembled Tunisian federation officials we left the airport for the hotel - the Irish team (me) and the 15 strong Russian team. We came to a fairly battered mini-bus and loaded all the fencing bags on through a window. With all of us slightly cramped but aboard, we set off... with Jennifer Lopez blaring... on tape. I chuckled to myself as we set off and laughed even harder when after the first song was over, "Get Right" I believe, there was some fumbling with the tape deck and then half a minute later it started playing it again. It was all too amusing to think that he might only have the single of this terrible song. The joke lost it's shine however as I soon realised that it was an entire album of J-Lo I was to be subjected to for the trip. 45 minutes of trundling along Tunis' motorways later we arrived at the hotel.

This was a 5-star Summer resort hotel, the Al Mouradi - Gammarth, albeit a North African five star hotel. The place was as if the shining was filmed in sunny north Africa rather than the Rockies - miles upon miles of empty corridors; the place was almost completely empty.

That evening I was pleasently surprised to see the US team arrive at the hotel. I was somewhat releaved that I wouldn't have to try and speak Russian for some company in the hotel. The Spanish team were also staying in the same hotel, so there was plenty of English speaking fencers around eventually.

That night I ate with the Americans and then went to bed reasonably early before the competition the next day.

Caught in bureaucracy... Again

2007-03-13T19:27:00.000+01:00

After booking my flight for both Algeria and Tunisia, it wasn't till a couple of days later when both federations were contacted - that I realised I'd made a small mistake. To paraphrase the email from the Tunisian federation - "While we one happy to unrange pick-up for your fencer and accomodation, we should inform you that his current flights well leave him late for competition which starts on Friday".

I went to recheck the dates and see if I could change my flight. The dates on the calendar of the FIE site still said Saturday and Sunday but when l checked the entry form the competition it was indeed changed to Friday and Saturday. Just to be sure l checked Algeria too and exactly the same was true. I had to change all my flights. Tunisia l could change over the phone but Algeria had to have paper ticket (which incidently had to be sent to my address in Ireland, a sure sign of awkwardness to come in terms of travel to Algeria).

Neither of the changes were going to cost me money, so I was happy enough about that at least. Luckily enough, my tickets to Algeria had just been posted to me and arrived that very day. I set off to the nearest Air France office which was wittier walking distance, just off Bastille. I explained the situation to the teller there, who was very helpful, and went about printing new tickets for me. As she gave me the tickets she asked me whether I had my visa for going to Algeria. My what? This was the first I'd heard about this. My only experience previously of having to get a visa was at the airport in Turkey and was a two minute transaction. For this though I'd need to go through the Algerian consulate.

...

Information on how to get a visa was hard to come by. The number for the Parisian Consulate gave nothing but an answering machine, so I decided to give the consulate in London. Which also covered Ireland a call. They told me I had unrung the wrong pant of the consulate and that the visa section was closed for the day.

The next day when I rang back, they ware as helpful as an American flag in Iran. They told me nothing much except that I was going to have to go ltruough the consulate in Paris and giving me there address and telephone number, both of which I already had. Between the many different consular websites, it seemed that I would need a confirmation from my hotel, some sort of proof of occupation in Paris or some form of invitation from an official Algerian body. I decided on option number three and asked Nuala if she could get an invitation for me from the Algerian Federation. It didn't arrive till last Monday - and the consulate was closed.

Tuesday, I decided to tie up a few bits of annoying paperwork and had all the documents needed for my CAF as well as the bits and pieces for the visa (the application form in duplicate, a photo-copy of my passport, the invitation arid two passport photos). The consulate was in the North-West of Paris, on Rue Bercy incase you are ever looking for it, a half hour or so away by metro. Wary that it had weird opening hours I arrived in good time in the morning.

The downstairs lobby of the Consolate was packed. I was sent by the receptionist to the second floor for a business visa. When I arrived there was two men ahead of me. One was French, he wore an leather bikers jacket and scarf, an artist I would later learn, the other an Algerian, a young smartly casually dressed business man who regularly travelled to and from Algeria. The Frenchman approached the window, the woman took his documents and then told him he need some other form of documents and sent hi to photocopy them. Then without further word she dissappeared.

When she eventually returned, the Algerian, who was familar with her and who chatted with her as he gave her the documents, approached the window. He two was told he needed some other documents and was sent off to get them. It was about this time that the Frenchman returned, but she was already gone again, without a word. When she was back in place, he gave her the documents she had commanded and she called me. I gave her the documents I had which all seemed to be in order. I needed to make a photocopy of something, so I too needed to go down to the lobby and find the photocopier.

When I returned both the Frenchman and the Alegerian had run into the brick wall of Algerian democracy, which I was soon to encounter. The letter from the French artist from his patron in Algers was not good enough. He explained that he had the full sanction of the Algerian cultural authority as well but she was having none of it and he became more and more irrate. The Algerian had been told he needed some other form as well that would be awkward to him find. When eventually I was called she began to pick at my application. I had entered student as my occupation (rather than bum) and she wanted some kind of proof that I was a student. Knowing well that my student cards were all out of date, I said that I didn't have them with me in France. Then she wanted me contact the college to get them to fax me some sort of proof. I told her that this wasn't possible either.

As luck would have it, I also had with me forms for the Aide de Logement with me and she took my lease as some sort of proof that I wasn't going to stay in Algers (my growing annoyance with this backwards state wasn't enough). I was sent was again to photocopy this document. Eventually when I came back and gave her all the forms, photos, and photocopies she began scurrying in and out of the office for no reason and dealing with other customers. Myself, the French Artist and the Algerian joked about the ridiculousness of the situation. Eventually after maybe 45 minutes had past she called me once again (a very large and disorganised queue had developed at this stage). She told me that everything was finally in order and that I should go round to another office to pay for the visa. She had my passport still but I assumed that it would be returned to me once I had paid for the visa.

I had assumed wrong. I paid for the visa and was handed my receipt. When I asked for my passport back the teller laughed. "We need to keep the passport while the visa is being processed". This was ridiculous, they had two photocopies of my passport, countless documents and now they wanted to keep my passport as well. I wasn't particularly happy with leaving my passport in the hands of these nutters anyway but I explained that I would be leaving Thursday for Tunisia and needed the passport. "Then why did you apply for the Visa now?" Ugh!

In the end I have to return to Algerian consulate early on Tuesday morning with my passport so that it can be rushed through by the afternoon, so I have it before I have to leave for Algeria on Thursday.

...

My brief follow up to this bureaucratic mess was a return to pure French bureaucracy. When I went to find an office to give in my application for Aide du Lodgement, the first office I chose to go to was a good 20 minutes from the nearest metro right at the edge of the city. By the time I got there it was closing and I was told that they don't deal with the applications there and to go to an office on Rue Nationale.

When I eventually reached that office, queued for twenty minutes and then handed in my forms, I had forgotten my proof that I have a French bank account (RIB) and would have to come back when I got back from Tunis.

Captaining Ireland

2007-03-12T22:54:00.000+01:00

I've learned I'll be captain of the Irish Men's Sabre team for the 5 Nations in Dublin. It's a great honour for me and a responsibility I intend to take very seriously.

The Other Charleville...

2007-03-11T22:53:00.001+01:00

...The one where Cheddar is laughed at!

We left for the Circuit National in Charleville on Saturday afternoon as the competition was to start early on Sunday morning.

The trip to Charleville passed without incident much like the actual town of Charleville. We walked around Charleville on a Saturday night for almost 2 hours looking for somewhere to eat. Despite being somewhat picturesque, the place was an absolute ghost town. Those restaurants which were even open were full and laughed at us, at the suggestion that we might get a table without a reservation (there was 8 of us, so this was somewhat understandable).

Eventually, much to my discust we found an Welsh bar (apparently they do exist) and we ate there. Reasonably cheap pizzas were greatly appreciated after the long walk. Less appreciated was when I managed to pour my entire beer into my lap - absolutely soaking my trousers. Between that and stuffing my Calzone pizza with chips I amused my French team-mates at least.

...

The next morning we travelled to the venue which was over half-an-hour outside of Charleville. The setting was incredible - it was a lake-side sports/conference centre in the middle of an evergreen forest. All this on the warmest day of the year, with blaring sunshine twinkling off the lake.

The setting seemed to suit me and produced my best performance at a French competition so far. While the referee in my poule was absolutely blind (afterwards he went back to his actual job at the refreshments stand), I managed to rescue my poule with two victories (but that really should have been at least 4 were it not for the ref). I was ranked 41st and in the Last 64 managed to overturn my opponent who was seeded 24th after the poules.

In the last 32 I faced Lombolay (the junior world #1) who I had faced in Budapest a couple of weeks earlier. The first couple of points went against me but then I started to get on a roll. I was really in the zone and started picking him off with counter-attack after counter-attack and when I launched my own attacks they were landing perfectly. Eventually, I found myself 14-9 up. Needing only one more point to secure a very impressive victory.

I suppose I started thinking of the victory too much, I suppose that when he started getting points back I panicked somewhat. Anyway, somehow I let the match slip away from me and what could have been an awesome victory turned into a crushing defeat. Damn.

...

Anyway, like I was saying, this was still my best performance at a French Circuit competition so far and I know myself now that I can perform at that level and improve my future results.

The journey home to Paris was not too long. We listened to the England - France rugby match, which was completley incomprehensible for me because of the speed at which the commentators spoke. I ended up thinking that France one and it was till the next day that I realised otherwise.

As we approached Paris, Jacque Chirac was making his final official address to the nation. I wish all french people would speak as clearly as he did - I could understand him perfectly.