Northern Ireland 3 - Spain 2

David Healy is a living legend. First Northern Ireland hat-trick at Windsor Park in 35 years. George Best got the last one, apparently.

Much to happy and drunk to post any more. Just enjoy the highlights.

I've emailed this to the BBC and requested a reply, and would urge others to do the same. If/When I receive a reply I will post details here.

After today’s abysmal performance against Iceland I was regretting making my brother wait in the freezing cold from the wee small hours for tickets due to go on sale at IFA HQ this morning for the Spain match on Wednesday night. As it stands, I forked over 35 of my hard earned pounds for tickets and spent 90 minutes today in agony. If that shambles of a match was a preview for Wednesday night, I think I should offload the tickets ASAP.

Going forward Northern Ireland looked decent enough, but the defence deserve to be shot for what can only be described as an embarassment of a performance, particularly in the first half. I got the feeling myself and the 3 lads I was watching the match with could have gone out and put in a better effort in defence.

How a team can beat England and then get such a spanking by Iceland is beyond me. It seems that as always, whenever you expect anything from Northern Ireland they disappoint. Perhaps this situation is the best one to be in: going into the Spain match expecting nothing but another tanking! I guess we’ll see.

It seems a fitting title in light of the recent hunger striker memorials; tonight I watched a documentary presented by overweight comedian Ricky Grover on BBC Three (part of their Body Image Season) entitled F*** off, I'm fat. Subtle, eh? The documentary team followed Mr Grover as he and some incredibly obese people complained about how hard it was being fat. The thing that tickled me most though, was the mention that in America (where, unsurprisingly, most of these studies are carried out) it's been estimated that on average a "seriously obese" person breaks 3 toilets a year.

Is this the future facade of public conveniences?

With the enterprising culture of the US, some genius has come up with industrial strength, economy size toilets that are tested for support of up to a tonne in weight, instead of the 20 stone of a standard toilet.

The main problem with the thrust of the programme was that, entertaining as it was, it was essentially an hour-long MOPE. Grover and his fat friends spent the hour complaining and moaning about all the things they have to struggle with daily, such as the arms of seats on the tube digging in, problems finding clothes (or motor vehicles) they can fit into and even travelling by plane. Yes, at a time when estimates are emerging that one-third of adults will be obese by 2010, and experts are saying IVF for obese women is both dangerous and wasteful, this documentary is trying to shift the responsibility for obesity away from obese people!

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I've upgraded the blogging software (a couple of hours on Wednesday night and some more time on Thursday) resulting in a few changes.

1. Captcha's gone
   
   The anti-spam security code isn't required anymore. The upgrade is supposedly much better at fighting spam, so we'll see how it goes.
2. Hot Topics
   
   Recent Posts has been replaced by "Hot Topics" which will show the most recently commented on stories, rather than the most recently posted. Probably not that useful given the Last Comments menu option, but the plugin for Recent Posts seems a little messed up so until I've time to hack it myself this will have to do.
3. Layout Fix
   
   I've also fixed my skin so it should now work in all versions of IE6 and not just the one installed with Windows XP Service Pack 2. The middle column should now also reach it's full width, no matter how wide you make the window.
4. Date Issues
   
   Unfortunately my nice long dates (1st September 2006) don't work anymore, being replaced with simple dd/mm/yy ones. Something else to work on... some day... maybe.
5. Email Users
   
   Wherever you come across you can email the author of that post or comment through a mail form (you can disable this when commenting if you wish).

As ever, any and all feedback on the changes and/or site design is welcome.

An MLA has claimed that "hunger strike commemorations are only being used as another weapon in what republicans would describe as 'the struggle'". Commenting on the use of a parish centre near Dunloy, Co. Antrim, for a hunger strikers commemoration DUP assemblyman Mervyn Storey said he was "extremely disappointed" that the centre was being used to stage what he called "an insult to the victims in north Antrim".

Of course he's right, all the various Sinn Fein's have been trying to use the commemoration of the hunger strikes to bolster their own standing. In Dungiven, Co. Londonderry, there are crudely erected 'memorials' looking like cheap billboards, at least one of which was emblazoned with the faces of the 10 dead criminals and simply the words "Republican Sinn Fein" and another sponsored by the IRSP, showing that it's not just the Provos who are vying to associate themselves with the men who died for their dogma.

Sometimes I wonder how nationalists can so conveniently overlook the fact that these were gunrunners and murderers when they so readily venerate them, praising their "bravery" and how they "stood up for what they believed in". No matter how hard I try, and I sometimes do, I can't see myself ever understanding the mindset that can honour 10 bloodthirsty killers as heroes. Others, I wonder if they really are oblivious to the attempts by Sinn Fein (in all its flavours) to use the hunger strikers for their own political and financial advantage, even more in death than they did when they were alive.

Despite being proclaimed as a truly democratic and open medium, this week sees another instance of web censorship hit much closer to home. Yesterday the New York Times had a leading article entitled Details Emerge In British Terror Case which was unavailable to users from the UK, who were presented with an brief explanation when they tried to view the report.

This Article Is Unavailable
On advice of legal counsel, this article is unavailable to readers of nytimes.com in Britain. This arises from the requirement in British law that prohibits publication of prejudicial information about the defendants prior to trial.

This is nothing compared to the actions of Google and other search companies in regards to censoring, particularly of the chinese market, but is possibly one of the first cases to really bring the issue home to the UK.

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It was brought to my attention today that non-members have recently been unable to comment here at EU due to a problem displaying the anti-spam authorisation code. At the moment I'm blaming my webhost, however in the mean time I've removed the need to enter any code so non-members can comment again and I'll just have to be on the lookout for spam until I get round to upgrading to the new version of b2evo. Sorry about the problems folks; please bare with us until normal service is resumed.

Conviction: Theft and possession of firearms
Sentence: 12 years
Joined Hunger Strike: 22nd June
Suicided: 20th August

Michael (or Micky) Devine was born in Springtown, a former US army camp In Londonderry, in 1954 where the family lived until they moved into a brand new council house in 1960. His father Patrick, a coalman by trade, had served in the British merchant navy during the Second World War. It's reported that Micky had an "unremarkable, but reasonably happy" childhood until the age of 11, when his father died of a serious illness.

After seeing the civil rights marches on TV in 1968, Devine's attitude towards the police changed. As a child he'd been taught not to talk to them and generally to have nothing to do with them, but following riots at the march he developed overnight what he himself described as "an intense hatred" of the police. That night he went out in the city smashing shop windows and stoning the police. In later riots in 1969 Micky would end up in hospital following confrontations with the police.

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Thanks to Belfast Gonzo for pointing out the bigoted decision of the IRFU not to play the national anthem or fly the Union Flag when they face Italy in Belfast next year. Instead, Ireland will be represented by the IRFU flag and the 'neutral' song Ireland's Call, usually accompanied by the southern tricolour and Soldier's Song at games in Dublin. In my opinion this is a disgraceful way to treat the players and fans from Northern Ireland who have respected the flag and anthem of the Irish Republic at games in Dublin for so long now.

From some point after partition up until the 1950s, the Ireland rugby team would alternate matches between Dublin and Belfast, using the flag of whichever jurisdiction the match was to be held in. However this agreement was broken after Ireland's last full international match at Ravenhill in 1954. From that time, all Ireland matches were played in the Republic.

In 1995 the IRFU adopted the "neutral" anthem Ireland's Call at both home and away matches, and that could (and should) have been the end of it. If at that point they had ceased using the flag and anthem of the southern state, no issue would have arisen today.

However, the IRFU have continued to play the Republic's national anthem (and fly the Republic's flag) at home games at Lansdowne Road using the logic excuse that this was done on the basis that the Republic of Ireland was the home jurisdiction. On this logic, any future matches in Belfast would theoretically be played under the Union Flag/Northern Ireland flag with both Ireland's Call and God Save the Queen played. The IRFU managed to maintain that pretence for 11 years, in the belief that their explanation would never be challenged by the staging of an international match in Belfast.

However, last month the IRFU confirmed that the Italy match next year would take place at Ravenhill. A month later, they have confirmed that they will not show the same respect to Northern Ireland that they have always shown the Republic, and that they will only fly the IRFU flag and only play Ireland's Call. This gross hypocrisy means an Ireland match at Ravenhill will be played like an away match, and confirms once and for all that the team is not an Ireland rugby team but a Republic of Ireland rugby team.

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