Women

Every now and again I write little stories and I find myself writing very strong female characters and flawed weaker men, I don’t understand it really, like I can understand that with me being not overly macho it’s difficult for me to write strong male characters but I’m not a strong woman so why do [...]

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Baile Baile Baile

A group of guys from Northern Scotland get together to make some music, and at first the music they make suits them perfectly, there are fiddles, bodhrans, pipes, tin whistles, good old fashioned jig music but then you hear something alien in the music, is that a trumpet? And are they saxophones that you hear? [...]

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Cool

I was teaching English to Austrian teens last week and we got into a discussion about music and I was asked what bands I liked, so I told them. I don’t know which of us was more shocked, them or me. You see, apparently some of the bands I like are “cool”, and I’m sure [...]

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After Before

We meet again, my friends and I, in Paris, it’s been nine years, we’ve gone our own ways, we’ve gotten older, but that connection that we had all that time ago is still there, can you imagine, nine years? How could we have left it so long?
And yet, here we are again, with just a [...]

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Before

You’re on the train home to Paris from Budapest. The guy sitting opposite you starts talking to you and he seems nice enough so you chat away for a while. The train pulls into Vienna, it’s the guy’s station, he has to get off, you say your goodbyes and that’s that.
Or so you think.
[...]

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The Race – part 2

The day of the race came and the whole town turned out to watch, excitement was bubbling in the air, bets were buzzing about, alighting here and there, pollinating the odds.
At the starting line stood the horse and a fine beast it was too, its coat gleaming, its muscles rippling and its nostrils flaring. Beside [...]

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A Year of Adventures – 300

Some of the suggestions sound perversely attractive, there is the chance to join the 300 club. You can only join this peculiar club in one place. A place that people have died trying to get to. Stories of the people who have attempted to get there have become legend with even the failures as exciting [...]

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Cúpla focal

What does it say about a country or a person when songs sung in the national language sound so foreign? We claim our language as part of our national heritage, it’s a part of us, we spend 11 or 12 years learning it in school and then it’s discarded, never to be used again. Well, [...]

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That House

It’s that sound that does it, I can’t help but hear that sound and I get the chills, no visuals required at all.I went to see the film with no particular expectations, I left the cinema not wanting to even to take the short walk home on my own, I was that spooked.
Arriving at home [...]

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Brighton didn’t Rock

Three years to learn to mould young minds as a primary teacherOne year to find out how to pummel them into submission as a secondary teacherTwo weeks to be able to lull them into speaking your own language….
Doesn’t quite add up does it?
A few years ago I took one of these little courses and two [...]

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