we're not Brazil, we're Norn Iron

Congratulations to Northern Ireland - I'm typing this with 4 minutes left of a game against Spain - We're leading 3-2 but even if [Oh! great save Taylor!!!] they lose 4-3 it'll be the result of the year.

England only managed 1-0 against Macedonia? Scotland 2-1 against Lithuania - If this stays the same for a few more minutes I think we can claim to be champions of Britain - for a few days anyway. Crouch could only manage one, Healy has scored a hat trick - three goals against one of the best teams in the world - I think that makes him Britains best striker - for a few days anyway...

...until he returns, with the rest of his countrymen to the lower leagues and Crouch and Terry etc resume collecting wages in the premiership.

This is what makes this game so great. I'm so proud I could burst. Spain are in the top 7 in the world. If I was a betting man I could have got 11-1 on a Northern Irish victory [Another great save!!!]

30 seconds - and I know I'm not being very lucid. The 90 minutes are up. Into injury time.

three minutes of injury time - this is torture!

Spain are throwing everything at us.

1 minute left! It has to be... please let it be. I haven't felt like this since we beat England...

thirty seconds... it's a corner! no, a goal kick,

surely that's the end...

We won! WE WON!!! We won!

We're not Brazil we're Northern Ireland

We're not Brazil we're Northern Ireland

We're not Brazil we're Northern Ireland

But It's all the same to me!

I'll make more sense tomorrow - I promise.

the future's bright

I've literally just heard the woman from UTV say that Terrorism is Northern Ireland's fastest growing industry. Doesn't she know how comments like that could inflame situations? We're trying to move forward to a glorious future of comradeship and mutual love - not back to the bad old days of the 'troubles.' How can programme makers gamble with our nation's... oh, 'tourism' - sorry.

welcome to the english language

Well done to whoever it was who first coined the termed ‘Blog.’ At long last it has finally been added to the latest edition of the Chambers Dictionary. It’s been included along with other new entries such as Happy-slapping, Asbo and Sex-up. You must be so proud.

castles in the sky

Another song from Ivana Hill - This one called Castles in the Sky (not the Ian Van Dahl version though - I'm not a big Ian Van Dahl fan in all honesty) This time the said castles are seen in a slightly more positive light.

I asked Ivana if she wrote the music and lyrics for all her songs - She said that she didn't write them, she received them. Wouldn't that be a great way to be, rather than being closed off by all the things we surround ourselves with, being open to receive. Maybe take a moment out of whatever it is you're doing (I'm guessing surfing the internet) and listen, and receive. It's better to receive...

In my Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you.
John 14:2

Castles in the Sky

by Ivana Hill

Standin' round the corner singin' whatever comes into my head

and wondering just where it is you might be from kid.

Have you seen the world far and near or did you grow up just round the corner here?

Did you ever dream of castles in the sky?

Wander picking daisies by and by?

Did you dream of anywhere - but here?

Well I've never been in this town before and I'm not quite sure

if it's me your smile is for; or if I came to your window later tell me

would you open up your door so we could talk of castles in the sky.

Writing lyrics beneath the moonlight. We could talk of anywhere - but here.

Cause you've got a look in your eye like you know what it's like to be free;

and you've got a light in your smile; how I love when you're smiling at me.

I know that somewhere in your heart is the truth that sets my spirit free.

We could build our castle in the sky.

Chillin' with the angels way up high.

We could travel anywhere - and here.

Come and build your castle in the sky.

Chillin' with my Jesus way up high.

We could travel anywhere - and here.

© Ivana Hill, music & lyrics

crikey - this one's a beaut!

He was a cliché, a stereotype that some of his fellow australians found a touch embarrassing. And yet I woke up in shock when I heard that he had died this morning.He was as passionate as he was popular around the world. He loved nature and made sure you knew it. His enthusiasm for conservation and wildlife was reminiscent of a child seeing something amazing for the first time.

Steve Irwin was an inspiration - We laughed at him but we were jealous of him - he had found a job that he found as amazing and interesting as the day he started. His web site sums it up better than I can:

At 11am today, the 4th September 2006, Steve Irwin was fatally wounded by a stingray barb to his heart whilst filming a sequence on Batt Reef off Port Douglas for his daughter’s new TV series... medical staff pronounced Steve dead at approx. 12 noon.

His producer and closest friend, John Stainton said on Croc One today,“The world has lost a great wildlife icon, a passionate conservationist and one of the proudest Dads on the planet. He died doing what he loves best and left this world in a happy and peaceful state of mind. Crocs Rule!”- http://www.crocodilehunter.com/

park rangers are go

No, not Power Rangers. An even less likely sight in the centre of Belfast – a New York Park Ranger. I didn’t even know New York had Park Rangers. I know, I’m ignorant. I just always imagined a Park Ranger as seen in Yogi Bear cartoons. The idea of Yogi and Bobo strolling through Central Park doesn’t fit somehow. Park Rangers go along with geysers, forest fires, and man-eating ant movies. Somehow I can't picture Park Rangers in the city, Urban Rangers who don't play Ice hockey - I wouldn't have believed they exist. And yet obviously they do – because they’re over here. I saw them. New York Park Rangers in Belfast.

I can only imagine that they are over advising our parks people on how to dress well. I have to say that I like the uniform – as did the group of middle aged women who were practically stalking them through Botanic Gardens. Although, at the end of the day, it won’t compare to mine when I finally become a mountie.

funeral porn

A friend once asked me to witness a list of requests for her funeral. This included lots of bright colours, a rendition of ‘Tainted Love’, and a selection of Tennessee Williams scenes to be performed by me and my, then, love interest. There were other outlandish inclusions and I still have a copy of them somewhere. At twenty-seven I imagine she may have time to change her mind and opt for something more traditional. However times are changing. Funeral ceremonies are bound to follow in the way of the wedding ceremony which is evolving at an ever more rapid pace. However I don’t think even my extrovert of a friend would consider some of the activities found at funerals in certain areas of China.

A new funeral tradition of employing exotic dancers to perform a strip tease for the mourners started in Taiwan and the province of Fujian in the late 70s, becoming quite popular by the mid 80s. Understandably the conservative mainland authorities are none too amused and have started clamping down on this unorthodox practice. They can’t ban the custom, as technically it is already illegal. But who’s going to arrest a recently bereaved relative for vice crimes? Well the Chinese are.

Recently CCTV (the state broadcaster) ran a report about strippers at a funeral. Within hours police had arrested organisers and some of the dancers for “obscene performances." Guidelines are now in place requiring organisers to submit plans for funerals within hours of the deceased passing.

Funerals in China have always been a jolly affair compared to western standards. Mourners wear white and there is much music and fireworks. But to have strippers perform in front of families of mourners? Why?

Academics seem as confused as the rest of us according to the quick search of bulletin boards and publications I carried out. I have read at least eight conflicting views from professors of Asian Studies in Harvard, Magill, Virginia, Cornell, Otago, Stockholm and Edinburgh. They concur that this is a relatively recent phenomenon but that is as far as they agree. Some of the reasons suggested:

Performing arts have always been a part of East Asian funerals – as strip tease becomes a more popular part of the performing arts it has moved in on the funeral scene. – Seems unlikely to me. Exotic dancing is illegal in the Chinese arts scene.

The erotic dance represents the virility of the male deceased. – Doesn’t work as some of these strippers perform at the funerals of women.

The dances are performed to scare away demons. – Unlikely on two levels, Demons are traditionally attracted to eroticism and it seems too recent to be used for superstitious reasons.

The deceased was into porn in his life so requested it. The children of the deceased book the strippers to honour their father. Filial piety – There is one example I could find for this but it doesn’t explain the ones who don’t request it, or the women. Surely they can’t all have been hooked on porn?

It is simply one way that the population of Taiwan can thumb their noses at the Mainland authorities. – I quite like this one but it doesn’t explain the custom happening in Fujian. Also Taiwanese authorities seem no less opposed than the mainland ones.

Personally I am inclined to believe there is a less controversial reason. Now I am no academic, and this is based on a very short study of Buddhism and East Asian Customs so it may be completely left field. But. I’m led to believe that many of the customs involved in a traditional Chinese funeral ceremony are there to ease the passage of the deceased into their rebirth – their journey into the next life. One thing that the gods are impressed by is popularity and power. What better way of displaying your popularity than having hundreds of people at your funeral. Families often put on feasts and entertainment for this very reason – The shock value of having girls dancing about in the nude is bound to draw in the crowds.

Somebody may provide reasons to rubbish this theory but in the meantime it’s the best I can do. Asian cultures are fascinating in so many ways. Neighbouring cultures contradict each other totally. I don’t think I could understand them fully if I studied them for decades so instead I’m off to Spearmint Rhino to book it for my wake.