Terrible Teachers

I've been blogging now for just over two weeks and I must say, I've been really enjoying it. 'Why didn't I listen to all those people who told me to start blogging years ago?'

Books were always part of our household, my Mummys husband is an avid reader. I've seen him read four / five books in one week. He told me he could speed read, I just thought, 'showoff'! My granny always had a book in her hand, usually something by Catherine Cookson or the St Martin magazine! I was always buying books from the school book club or getting them out from the library, wherever you turned in our house there was a book.

I was never a straight A student, more middle of the road until about the age of 14. I'd put this down to many things but that's a whole other blog. Anyway, during my secondary school days I had an English teacher by the name of Mr Brannigan, I'm sure he's dead now but maybe not. He had aged before his time, the wrinkles on his face told a story of one too many students, and his hair was well, non existent, apart from the few strands he grew so he could have a brush over. His most defining characteristic however was his attitude or perhaps lack of personality, it had kind of flat lined at some point and none of his good friends (assuming he had some) had decided to tell him.

The flat lining of Mr Brannigan has had repercussions that I'm sure have stretched far and wide beyond his classroom. Mr Brannigan didn't give us the basics of English, but what he did give us was lots and lots of book reviews. That was our weekly task, read a book, review it, read a book, review it, read a book, review it, for the guts of three years. I did read some fantastic books during that period, Brendan Beehans Borstel Boy, The Lion, Witch and The Wardrobe, and many others that I can't quiet think off at the minute. If you were lazy and didn't want to read a book he was more than satisfied if you handed him in the synopsis printed on the back of a book rewritten. What he didn't do was teach us the basics of English, comas, nouns, pro-nouns, adjectives, etc. I distinctly recall learning paragraphs however.

I was fast approaching 14 and entering 4th year, getting reading to study for my GCSE's in 2 years time, when it was announced to us that we'd be getting a new English teacher, Mr O'Doherty. I was delighted, over the moon, excited, as O'Doc, was the coolest teacher in the entire school. He dressed with a flair of style, was always tanned, had highlights in his hair and best of all, you could smell him coming before you seen him for he used Jazz aftershave like water.

It only took O'Doc a week to discover that our entire class had very little basic skills with the written word and I mean basic. We even seen the shock in his face when we didn't know the difference between there and their. I bet he initially thought it was just the odd one or two students but he was soon to realise that it was the entire class. The whole class seemed to let out a sigh of relief when this dawned on him, thank god it wasn't us, we knew Brannigan wasn't interested all along. He went straight back to basics and for the next two years gave us a crash course in English along with sticking to the curriculum to ensure we passed our exams.

The lack of enthusiasm Mr Brannigan showed in his class has lived with me to this very day. He didn't inspire me, didn't encourage me to ask questions, and simply didn't appear to care. I lack confidence in writing but I do enjoy story telling kind off a catch 22 situation there or is that their. (Only kidding) I just wish that Mr Brannigan realised he was in a rut and done something about it. What he has taught me though is that no matter what, you can do whatever you want by just putting your mind to it, accepting your mistakes, learning from them and moving on.

So three cheers to the written word, the hard work of O'Doc and one in the memory of Mr Brannigan, for I'm sure he did inspire many students before he became worn out.

It's a hard nut life....during a recession, even for Annie

A week has past since I went to the Olympia Theatre in Dublin to see Annie. The tickets cost the guts of 35Euro each and I expected a top notch production for that sort of cash. It's still getting on my nerves, who do I complain too?

You can just imagine my horror when Annie came on stage with a bob, a Victoria Beckam Bob from the 90's! "Are they being fucking real" Annie has curls, a spiral perm would do if Au Natural was not available from the cohort of young stage school kids around Dublin. It ruined my whole experience of Annie. I just couldn't get over the fact that a casting director would allow this to happen. What was it? The kids mother wouldn't allow the spiral perm or wig and that GHD's were the must have accessory for the all new Annie. No way - there was more to this?

The production was cheap, even the Christmas Tree wasn't in tip shop shape, it was a complete mess. Then the mystery of the bob transpired into a cunning plot. Daddy Warbucks told his PA to do something with her hair (my two friends shouted out get a perm, much to the disgust of the Dublin mothers sitting around us) and out came Annie with a cheap 2 euro wig. It didn't even have the tight curls Annie is known for..

Recession has hit the long time classic Annie, cheap wigs, cheap set, expensive seats. Ba Humbug, it's a hard nut life.

Oh and Daddy Warbucks didn't have a six pack! Ragin I was, Ragin!

Exorcisims, Entrepreneurs and my local Chinese

I just thought I'd share this with you. It was a sign in my local Chinese takeaway. I'm all for free speech and spreading the word of God, if that's your calling in life. I then got thinking perhaps the person wanted to make an extra few quid on the side during these recessionary times, but something about this seemed a bit odd so I took it down. Did I do the right thing? Who am I to take the sign down? It just didn't sit well with me so I went with my gut.

You Know Who You Are.....Sneer By Franc

Full of empty promises, dripping of ego.

Led us on a merry dance, for how long

we do not know,

Was it recent or more long term?

You've caused us all a degree of harm.

Warning signs, along they came

I should've realised, it was just a game,

You compared yourself, to Tony Blair

but you were just, propping up your lair

Mirrored yourself with Bertie Ahern

your public image, your only concern

Bertie and Tony they moved on

You missed the boat

no chance to gloat.

Manipulation, your greatest skill.

You killed an organisation,

not to mention good will.

Belief in you was once so great

and for a short time after

you filled me with hate.

Your motivation appears misplaced

you were only concerned with all the grace

You didn't keep up, the pace of change

Soon you will find egg on your face.

If your mother was dead

She'd be spinning in her grave

Her hard work destroyed

by one misplaced

Oh, but she is living

and soon they will stop giving

She will not believe all your waste.

An OPEN book, you were not

Ducking and diving was your plot

Pathetic ethics is your script

Your values stink and were full of shit

A reputation in tatters

is all that you'll reep

from the harvest you sowed

which was oh so cheap

Your fate is yet all unknown

The only thing you gave me,

is the fact I have grown.

One day you'll read this and feel the shame

That you were caught playing a foolish game.

Your actions, implications they will have

not just for you, but the sector we serve

Tested my virtues, in which I trust

Threw us to the dole queues with such a thrust

Temperance and Prudence, you did not show

I only hope you learn to grow

Fortitude and Justice, I do believe

will one day stop the grief I feel

You know who you are

I cannot forgive

Time is a healer and

forgive I will.

How many marbles have you got left?

I was asked to do this task at a Leadership / Management course,

Write down what age you think you'll live too?

Write down you're favorite day of the week?

Calculate how many favorite days of the week you'll have until you think you'll die? (take the age you think you'll live to minus current age x 52)

3462 Sundays left in my life if I live to 101

Now what you're meant to do is go out and buy the exact amount of marbles relating to the number of your favorite days you think you'll have left, put them in a jar and each week take one of the marbles out and throw it away.

After being told to do this task I was told a true story about a guy who two years after doing the task, buying the marbles and then throwing them away, started to panic, realised his life was drifting away before his very eyes. He left his well paid executive job in Dublin, married his long-term Japanese girlfriend, moved to Japan, got a new job and thinks life couldn't be better.

Life is valuable, don't lose your marbles before you have too!

A sign of the Times....well, the Sunday Times.....

As regular readers will know my recent blog post, We Need A Harvey Milk, Not A Panti Bar caused a gay political storm, albeit a minuscule one. I was surprised that my views appeared controversial however I was even more surprised when I received a call from the Sunday Times last Thursday asking if they could publish my blog!

"Who? What? publish? ah yeah sure" I said to the guy on the other end of my phone. "What do I need to do?"

He advised me that my blog would be edited and I told him that I would like to see the edited version before agreeing to publish it. The last thing I wanted was for my point to be lost or skewed after an editor got his or her hands on it. He told me I would receive an email the next day giving me all the details. He told me his name, I even asked for it again, but in my excitement I totally forget it by the time we hung up.

I excitedly ran into my partner and told him all the details. "The Times, The Sunday Times want to publish my blog, oh my god, I can't believe it, I've only been blogging a week" I then told a few close friends and my mother. The last thing I wanted was egg on my face if it wasn't published. I eagerly awaited the verifying email following the telephone discussion. The email didn't arrive Friday nor Saturday and I started to feel deflated about the whole saga. Come Sunday morning, I got up earlier than usual, turned on the Internet, I couldn't find anything relating to my blog on their website. Feck it I thought, it sounded too good to be true, however the curiosity was eating out of me so like a proper pyjama mama I went to the shop to buy the paper.

I scurried through the paper and to by astonishment I did find "some" of my blog in the opinions section of the paper, under the letters heading. All two paragraphs of it! I'd look over it if I actually sent it into the letters section, but they contacted me! I sat there having my Sunday morning cup of tea, with the paper in hand totally perplexed at the whole scenario, thinking that one day, just one day I might be known as Carrie Bradshaw* Conlon, columnist!

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*Carrie Bradshaw is not referring to any previous or future drag name, it's referring to the fictional, famous New York Columnist from Sex in the City!

Paying Forward!

I received an email the other day from a guy named Scott offering to send me a copy of a book written by a fellow blogger, Max Atkinson, entitled Lend Me Your Ears. I was pleasantly surprised by this email as I had never read Scott's blog before and had only commented on Matt's blog once, at almost the exact same time Scott was also leaving a comment.

In his email Scott noted that he was a strong believer in the principle of paying forward. I was unsure what this meant until he explained the principle to me. Basically, the principle of paying it forward is where you do something nice for somebody else without any expectation of anything in return. Additionally, the act should encourage you to do something nice for another. Hence, pay it forward, rather than pay it back.

It dawned on me that I was aware of this principle but I didn't know that it had an actual term. It reminded me of a story a guy told me once about each time he's on a toll road he pays for the car behind him also. He says it makes him feel great knowing that the car behind will be pleasantly surprised at this random act of kindness.

I'll keep you, and Scott updated on how I pay this random act of kindness forward.

Sure a bit of roughness doesn't do anyone any harm.....

"Sure a bit of roughness doesn't do anyone any harm" you would hear my granny say from time to time.

Now before all your minds go into overload, she wasn't insinuating anything sexual, abusive or a three day stubble. What she meant was that sometimes when you were struggling with your finances that it did you good. I've heard her use this expression many times over the years and always thought, "how horrible." Though I'm starting to realise what she meant.

It wasn't that long ago when I would've seen a new gadget and if i thought I needed it, then I'd buy it. No questions asked, whether I needed it or convinced myself enough that I needed it, then I got it. Now I know that this sounds as if I'm spoilt or privileged, believe me I'm not, I earn my own money and buy my own things, it's been like that since I was about 12.

The first three weeks after having been made redundant I didn't really let it sink in that that also meant that my salary wasn't going to keep coming into my bank account, so I spent as if nothing had changed until one day the ATM gave me that heart sinking message "Insufficient Funds" Oooops, redundancy was well and truly here, staring me in the face through my own reflection in the ATM machine.

Since then the value of money now has a new net worth to me. A few weeks back I'd have thought nothing of spending a €100 on a pair of new jeans, a set of headphones or even a meal for two. In fact a hangover on a Sunday morning was cheap if it cost less than €100 the night before. €100 is now just under 50% of my weekly income and seems worth a whole lot more than it did a few weeks ago. I now think before I buy and it's no bad thing. I'm starting to realise how much money I wasted on things that I didn't actually need. I have a new appreciation for the value of money, €100, €50, €20 even €2, is worth a whole lot more than it was just a few weeks back.

I've been getting my bit of "roughness" for almost 9 weeks now and she was right, it isn't doing me any harm in fact it's doing me some good.

Divisive or Constructive?

I didn't expect my recent blog, "We need a Harvey Milk not a Panti Bar", to cause such a stir, though after re-reading the last line of my previous blog, "Stiring a man's blood and my 20 year plan", maybe my sub-conscious took over and caused the stir I was talking about.

Some of the comments that have been thrown at me, or blog, depending on your viewpoint, have been, that perhaps I'm a "self loathing homosexual" or even that I have a" 'thing' about Drag which stems from personal issues regarding sexuality",others felt that I didn't appreciate drag as an art form. Let me reassure you that

• I am not a self loathing homosexual.
• That I don't have a thing about drag which stems from personal issues regarding sexuality.
• And I do appreciate drag as an art form.

Other readers felt that my piece was divisive, while some felt that it was constructive. To clear up this matter, I can tell you that I was giving my opinion in what I feel was in a constructive manner. I stand by everything that I wrote and after all it’s only my opinion. We need to remove our personal bias or allegiances and be strategic in delivering our message to those who we need to hear it.

Now with that set to the side, I'm urging you all, under whichever banner you feel you belong,GLEN, Marriage Equality, LGBT Noise or just plain old you, to attend this event on 9th August, meeting City Hall , 1.30pm, More info is on this short you tube video.

See you there!

Time better spent writing to your T.D.

The photos appearing below have been sent to me via my blog email address as the Brenda Power / Panti debate rages on. I'm also led to believe that they appear in a photo album on facebook, belonging to an individual who shall remain unnamed. I am unable to verify this as they are not a direct friend of mine on the social networking site. Surely writing to their TD about marriage equality would have been time better spent. What are they trying to do? Show that we are not educated enough to construct an argument refuting her column or play into the hands of Brenda Power by giving her the ammunition to attack us for being small minded, bitter and resorting to playground tactics. Remind you of anyone?

This kind of behaviour my fellow gays may make you feel better about her comments but it won't do our cause one bit of good if in turn it's used against us.

Photo 1

The caption below this photo read as follows: Breedin' Power at the recent gay pride parade in Dublin. In this picture she can be seen raffling off her 5 children. She explains: "As you know, my brain has been fried since I became a total crack-whore. I needed to score some crack, so I offloaded the kids for some cash to some gays who will no doubt provide them with the stable and loving family environment which I myself am entirely unable to do since I'm a hate-filled bigot. It's a lucky thing I didn't abort them!".

*Note this is Brenda Power photoshopped onto Panti at gay pride 2009.

Photo 2

The caption below this photo read as follows: In a major departure from former Catholic doctrine, his Holiness Pope Breedin' Power X called for pregnant teenagers to seriously consider the option of abortion in order to prevent any chance of the child being adopted by gays. The pope took the unorthodox approach of espousing the new doctrine during Wednesday's Last Word on Today FM.

This photo was also sent, so inthe name of transparency I've included it also.

Photo 3

The caption below this photo read as follows: Using her super powers through the medium of radio, SuperPanti saves the gays yet again from Arch-bigot Breedin' Power.

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To those outside this debate there are links to the articles written by Brenda Power in my previous post . This post has links to Marriage Equality, and Wikipedia profiles of both Brenda Power and Panti.

We need a Harvey Milk - Not a Panti Bar!

Gee bag, slut, whore! Just some of the words used by the "A gays" and the "regular" gays to respond to both of the Brenda Power articles in the Sunday Times. Well guys and gals I think we shot ourselves in the foot with those long thought out articulate responses!

Now let me set the record straight. I think Panti is a great drag artist and entertainer and I think that Brenda Power makes some valid points in her column.

I do disagree with Brenda's opinions regarding marriage, children, and the role of gay pride; I do recognise she has made a few sideways swipes at the LGBT community, however not once did she call us gee bags, sluts or whores, or some of the more regular insults we're used to, faggots, perverts, fudge-packers, dyke's, chicks with dicks; you get the picture.

The gay community need to get an important message across to the rest of society, especially to those that are complacent and / or conservative regarding their views on gay equality and marriage. Do we really want a man dressed as a woman being the public figure for this extremely important argument? I for one don't! I want a representative that is palatable to those who may question my relationship, who may have doubts that gay people can be in love, make a commitment and have a contributing role to play in society. What I certainly don't want people to be thinking is, "Is that a fella or a woman?", "Look at the state of yer man wearing a dress" or "oh I wonder where she got that little number from?".

I want a spokesperson who can relate to the mainstream. I want a spokesperson who can get the message across without the fact that they are wearing a dress or, if they they should be addressed as "he" or "she", distracting from the important and crucial points that need to be made. We need to build relationships with our neighbours, our detesters and our elected representatives not focus their minds on something else or alienate them further.

So the challenge here is for the LGBT community to get together and choose one or two figures who will represent our views, concerns and aspirations to the public, someone who will get the message across without any distractions? Who will unite us in our struggle for equality and who has the capability to identify with those who disagree with us.

Both Brenda and the LGBT community might learn some lessons from Harvey Milk "It takes no compromising to give people their rights. It takes no money to respect the individual."

We are not asking our fellow citizens to compromise but to give us absolute equality with them and when asking for this equality we need to respect the opinions of each individual within our democracy who may disagree with us. Responding to a newspaper column by calling someone a gee bag, slut or a whore promotes a lack of respect and understanding, something the gay community has been struggling for, for years.

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Definition

"A Gay" members of the gay community who see themselves at the top of the pecking order within their community and of which mere regular gays should aspire to become a member off. (Definition given to me by an "A gay")

Stirring a man's blood and my 20 year plan....

"Make no small plans....for they have not the power to stir a man's blood" Niccolo Machiavelli 1514

What have you done lately to plan for the future? Do we shape our future or is it destiny, or both? Having recently been made redundant I'm kinda thinking - what's next? I already thought i was sorted when I took my new job last year and chatted to the CEO about staying for 3-5 years. Destiny and the CEO's 'bury your head in the sand syndrome' has interrupted that plan. So what's next for me? Do I make a plan or leave it to destiny?

I've always thought that you've got to have some sort of plan. Looking back on my childhood and teenage years I seemed to have my next goal I wanted to achieve in mind, get to go on that trip to Belgium, prove my maths teacher wrong, get a full time job, etc etc but could they have come my way even if I hadn't have focused on them? Now, don't get me wrong, I was never the one to sit down and write a mission statement or have a dedicated life plan, but I always had a sketchy outline of what should be next in my head.

After attending a lecture last week on Management it made me think about life and how it's shaped. Should me make plans and focus on our future, our relationships, career, our motivation and our legacy? What impression to we want to leave behind when we're gone? I currently have a 20 year plan in my head and know exactly where I'd like to be in all those areas of life that are important to me. So it brought me some solace when I heard the quote attributed to Machiavelli in 1514, my plans are big, ambitious and they do 'stir my blood'.

So fuck redundancy, bring it on and lets hope I stir a few other peoples blood along the way. Here's to 2029!

What Michael Jackson taught me!

As a kid growing up I loved Michael Jackson and still do and while lots of his music reminds me of a time and place there is one life lesson that was taught to me by the King of Pop and my grandmother!

As far back as I can remember my granny always used to take me into Belfast shopping, she didn't have much money so it was to buy books at the second hand book shop or purchase new tights "simple shopping" but more importantly to take some time off from her duties as a housewife.

On one of those Saturdays I truly discovered what it was like to become a consumer and the power of money. As she was browsing in the bookstore come music shop I wondered off to have a look around. I discovered a Michael Jackson mirror, I fell in love with it immediately and asked her could I buy it and I'd pay her back the money weekly. She couldn't afford to do this so she asked the shop keeper could we leave it over and I would pay it off with my pocket money. My pocket money was 50p per week and it must have taken me 16 weeks to pay it off (I reckon it may have been a little less as i could have gotten some extra help from my mummy and granny) but it felt more like a year before I could take the mirror home.

I still have that mirror some 22 years later and the lessons that it taught me.

• you can't always get what you want immediately
• saving does pay off.

Just wish I could be more strict with the saving!

Choose Michael

This is a rip off from Train Spotting - wrote it a few years back.

Choose Michael James Patrick
Choose growing up in Belfast....
Choose starting work at the age of ten being the bingo ball roller and getting all the 2p’s and 1p’s for your wages. Choose feeling like a big lad buying your mum her favourite bar of choclate after work.
Choose getting knocked down by a black taxi and not even getting a claim, only a few days of school and no sympathy at all for not using the crossing
Choose your ma owning a sweet shop and you having the best lunch ever with super cans of coke, tayto cheese and onion Belfast bap, and as many packets of cola flavoured frosties you can stick in your pocket.
Choose being the oldest cousin so you tried everything first and always got caught
Choose going to La Salle school and your form teacher telling your ma that you really got up his nose and annoyed the fuck out of him for no real reason…choose me thinking I was great getting a letter of apology from my form teacher and the head brother.
Choose losing your mate at 16 and being afraid to try anything ever again. Choose discovering lots more mates and then trying lots more new things.
Choose falling in love with the girl next door Pauline Ferris who turned out to be a goth, choose falling out of love fairly quickly…..
Choose always being up for a bit of craic and always getting in trouble for it, I’m still choosing the craic and dealing with the trouble
Choose a ¼ bottle of vodka as your first carryout and not spotting the signs of gaydom
Choose thinking you wanted to look like your mates only to discover in later years that you probably really fancied them.
Choose your mum selling the shop and you losing about 3 stone…..no longer being able to do the huckle buckle shuffle from the goonies
Choose spending the next number of years trying to discover a new party piece only to discover you already had it. i.e. I never shut up at parties and can talk for ever
Choose being at parties and discovering people who can talk as much as you, choose being scared
Choose being your grannys blue eye and always being able to tap £20 of her for a night out. Choose realising £20 wouldn’t get you a night out in the cinema any more.
Choose having the same hairstyle for all your teenage years, choose finding a friend whos a hairdresser and puts you on the straight and narrow.

Choose playing oscar in Bugsy Malone and thinking it was amazing, choose learning every line from dirty dancing and still not realising your lived in gayville.

Choose working in a bookies and having to learn how to fight and clean up other peoples piss after a days drinking and losing their weeks wages, choose throwing them out all for £99 a week and thinking you were loaded.
Choose earning your own money and not having to wear white and navy Kappa tracksuits anymore. Aint that right Gemma!!
Choose drinking and partying all weekend then having no hangovers
Choose learning that hangovers come with age and not being able to do it anymore. Choose living in an area where everyone knew you as the guy who drives the luminous green car – choose not being able to do a thing without everyone knowing
Choose losing your license for mooning at a driving instructor, choose deciding never to lose it again.
Choose kissing a man you work with, Choose shock… then choosing to take a week of work and not speak to anyone. Choose your first gay love, choose thinking Jerry Springer was a fake only to discover you could be a guest……………….
choose being heartbroken and thinking your life was over.
Choose having fantastic friends who are always there no matter what. Choose them all. Choose evaluating your life in a far away land… choose coming home and loving it.
Choose travelling to TORONTO...and it being ur second home...along with Sydney and Boston
Choose ur dad sending for the nuns when he discovered you were gay and the nuns telling him its like having a disabled child, choose you not being happy with your dad or the nuns!!!
Choose making up with him and thanking the almighty god, as he died not long after. Choose life is too short for arguments and that to sort them before bed time.
Choose having an amazing nephews and god children...
Choose deciding to go to uni part time only to realise its all over too quickly
Choose to have the best mother ever who accept ya for u...even if ya are a wee bit wing dinged... blocked and phoning her from parties and making her chat to everyone...lol
CHOOSE TO BE LOVED BY A FEW RATHER THAN LIKED BY MANY....
Choose to LEARN from ur MISTAKES......
CHOOSE LIFE....CHOOSE LOVE....CHOOSE HAPPINESS....

CHOOSE MICHAEL xx

What happens when you don't make a list!

I didn't make a list and I got sucked into the vortex of the 42" Celtic Tiger Plasma. After my customary cup of tea, and two rounds of toast I turned on the TV to be greeted with "I'm raising a child I don't know if I'm the father" run of the mill Jeremy Kyle! I ignored the detail of this segment, logging onto the net to catch up with the mornings papers when my ears picked up.

"after the break we have my mums a 62 year old pensioner who can't stop sleeping around."

Well just the title of the segment had me in stitches, Maxie my golden lab pup was looking at me as if I wasn't wise! I can't believe the emotions that flowed through me as I watched it. " I thought 'how disgusting, then I felt sorry for her, then I thought 'fair fucks to her' then I got the shock of my life when her daughter shouted "but she's not even using condoms." The lady in question went on to explain that she'd been married for over 25 years and that she never got any bedroom action. Now that the husband is dead, she is she's loving sex, so much so that the snooker table of her local was the latest place she let someone park his cue! (corny but I couldn't resist) What a spark for life she had - lets just hope people don't keep judging her and that she's invested in some protection.

Then i made another cup of tea and flicked over to This Morning they had a segment "Dunk the Hunks" they were testing men's swimwear by dunking chippendale strippers into a bath of water to see if their speedos stayed on! Just a little eye candy for the mid-morning cup of tea.

and before I knew it there were the Loose Women chatting about everything from Michael Jackson to dressing up in sexy underwear, by the time it was over it was 2.30pm and I was still in my boxers!

p.s. make a list!

Redundancy came & I made a list!

Redundancy came knocking 7 weeks ago and it's not as bad as you might think. Don't get me wrong, I'd rather be working and earning a living than spending my days chasing my dole payment and traipsing all over Dublin like a tourist on a 48 hour visit trying to squeeze in all the sights from O' Connell Street to Dun Laoghire to Dundrum, just to get rent allowance. ( I think I'll save those rantings for another day ). However when I'm not chasing my social welfare payments I'm doing all those things that I never had time to do in the past. What I do most nights is create a list of things to do - it reduces the temptation of turning on the telly and getting sucked into Jeremy Kyle and the twosome over on ITV's This Morning Phil and Fern.

Items that have appeared on the list to date

• Contact the bank (let them know that my credit card payments are being reduced)
• Cancel gym membership - can't believe there are no public gyms in this city.
• Train the dog to sit, lie down, roll over, chase her tail, get up, get down and only eat treats when i tell her too
• Bake Cakes - and by god have I baked. Upside down pineapple cake, Guiness Choclate cake, Blueberry muffins, and pavlova. I'm thinking I'll bake a carrot cake next.
• Cook the majority of the meals - my partner works from home so for the past year or so I had dinner cooked for me most nights, now it was time to pay back the favour
• Have dinner partys - sitting in is the new going out! I'm having great fun trying new recepies on our friends and it's cheap.
• Shop at LIDL - it's so much cheaper.
• Re-upholster kitchen dining chairs - I couldn't believe how easy it was
• Go to the beach - been going every other day - it's great I'd recommend it
• Get back to writing hence the blog (i'm not in the right frame of mind to continue with my book)
• Laugh (at my revenge), everytime I get the feeling of having been made a fool of by my previous, unethical boss. *note to self* send her some cake and maybe even a link to this blog!

So redundancy hasn't been too bad apart from losing some financial freedoms. I'm really happy. I no longer work in a stressed environment where you didn't know if the boss was lying to you or being manipulative and all those things that were at the bottom of the list are now at the top.

Why Me? Why Blog?

OK OK I succumbed and I've decided to start blogging. What am I going to blog about? who knows - at this stage I reckon it will take on a bit of life of it's own! However my first few blogs are going to be about redundancy, my new dog, and daily goings on. I do have a lot of time on my hands since being made redundant.