Category Archives: life in general

being me, life in general, things of beauty

waterbaby

I started back at the swimming again  today. That again is quite telling. It tells you I have been swimming on several well spaced apart occasions in the last indistinct period. I’m back at my old haunt, DCU Sports Club mainly because a) it’s the closest pool to me (just about, Ballymun isn’t too far off either) and more importantly, they have a very decent deal for alumni which has seen me chop more than 60% off the cost of gym membership. Against that, I don’t have regular access to climbing walls any more but I figured that was a suitable sacrifice to make in the face of starting back at the swimming.

I’ve been a member of a number of gyms with swimming pools (swimming pools are deal breakers for me; if you don’t have one, and preferably, one that’s at least 25m long, we’re not going anywhere), and of all of the, DCU’s is probably the most windsandbreezes friendly. Provided I don’t get lost looking for the carpark. Yes, UCD’s new 50m pool is beautiful, but it’s not a great place for me to start back at the swimming. And yes, I’ve had NAC membership (somehow never quite got into the habit of going to Blanchardstown), and yes, I’ve had ALSAA and Westwood membership. Westwood had a climbing wall and a fairly decent swimming pool.

But for some reason, I prefer DCU. The last time I was regularly swimming in DCU, I used to go three to four times a week after work. It seemed easy (although it pretty much predated Twitter, Facebook and 1.4 million other online distractions) to fit into my life and by the time I stopped going, I was doing 1600m each time. It’s probably the fittest I ever was. I miss that. Why I never got it working at any of the other pools, well Blanch’s outofthewayness aside, I don’t know.

Today, it was lovely, if evidence of the mountain I must climb. 225m is a long way short of 1600m. I don’t think it will be as hard this time though because the main reason I didn’t do more was the sudden arrival of Children. Lots of Children.

At this point, I would like to apologise to Sunday morning regulars at Tipperary Swimming Pool whom I probably terrorised in the same way at the age of 10. The pool isn’t the same when it’s not almost completely empty.

Anyway. While I’d probably have gotten more than 225 done, the truth is I wouldn’t have gotten anywhere near 1600 so I’m not going to crib too much. I did find the conversation between the other two in the jacuzzi somewhat surreal given that it covered the economic and political differences between Russia and the West, with special mention of political leanings in the UK, all in German.

Still, this is why we go there; to improve mind and body.

life in general

Nous sommes tous Charlie

I lived in France, for a bit, and Belgium also. I speak fluent French. I never read Charlie Hebdo because I like my comic strips to be pure humour (think Asterix, Calvin & Hobbes, Sturmtruppen) rather than laced with acerbic satire.

The thing with satire is if you’re missing some of the cultural references, and as I moved around a bit, I tended to be missing them, it’s hard to read. I mean, if you look at Waterford Whispers, and Sminky’s Shorts, you can see how much you need to understand Irish cultural references, and unspoken references at that, to understand what’s going on. So while I’d pick up magazines about knitting, crochet, surfing photography, science, current affairs, economics and food, I tended to let the satiricals alone; Canard and Charlie. Being frank about it, for me, Charlie Hebdo was a splash of colour in Relay that I didn’t actually bother picking up.

I’m not going to say I’m sorry for that. For missing out on what they’ve done for the last amount of time. I’m only going to say that for the most part, you know, no matter where you live, if you get up, go to work, you should be pretty sure that you’ll come home in the evening without the downpoint of having been shot dead just because you were a journalist or cartoonist who wrote stuff someone didn’t like. Regardless of their reasons for not liking it.

I guess I’m saying I really didn’t care too much what Charlie Hebdo published. I care a lot that they had the right to do so because that right, that’s a good right.

It’s an important right.

Of the cartoons which have sprouted up in the past few days, it is probably predictable that the one which impacted on me most was one of Uderzo’s. If you’ve not seen it, it was posted to the Asterix Twitter Feed. I really would love a print of it. I’ve no idea whether it will turn up in the comic and graphic novel shops – I suppose I could be lucky.

In the meantime, I suppose, France is a very different country today to what it was on Monday, and while you can look at that in a sombre manner, it’s also fair to say that France is a very different country every day. Each place changes just a little every day anyway, sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse. Our lives never flatline.