Basketball glee

We won a game last night. We were playing at home against a team called Ravens. The final score was close - closer than it should have been. We were ahead and in control, but Ravens narrowed the gap in the last quarter. It got quite scrappy at the end. A few of our players were missing, and so I played for most of the game. I got a couple of baskets and defended well in the first half. I was absolutely exhausted at the finish... It's a good feeling to be winning again though.

We have now won 6 and lost 6. Apart from the top two teams, every team has lost at least 6 games. This gives us an excellent chance of getting into the play offs - the top four teams in the league qualify - for the first time in my four-year basketball career. We've another game on Friday, against a team with only two wins - Trinity. I was in Russia when we beat them before Christmas, so I haven't played against them yet. That's the latest...

The Division 4 league table (I play for St. Declan's)

Previous basketball update

Ireland v England rugby

I'm pretty much a one-sport guy, and that's basketball. I don't often watch other sports on television. Although I watch Irish soccer internationals, I am not a fan of soccer or rugby, and I seldom watch Gaelic football or hurling. But I've just watched Ireland play rugby against England in Croke Park. In England's first game in Croke Park, they lost to Ireland by their biggest margin ever. The final score was 43-13. Ireland played some very skilful rugby, including a GAA-like kick and catch for Ireland's third (I think) try. Ronan O'Gara didn't miss a kick at goal.

Stringer against France a few years ago

Before the game, there was a lot of focus on political issues surrounding Ireland's colonial history. In 1920, the British army killed 14 civilians in the very stadium where the game would be played (as al-Jazeera also reported). For decades, the Irish GAA (Gaelic Athletic Association) have forbidden English sports (known as 'garrison games') from being played at Croke Park. This afternoon, as my friend Kealan noted on his blog, England's team and supporters sang God Save the Queen in Croker before the game, before going on to suffer a decisive defeat.

Croke Park

An interesting mix of sports, culture, and politics this afternoon at Croke Park, which I can actually see from the window of my house...

Randy Newman

One all-time classic piece of music is the 1972 Randy Newman album, Sail Away. Newman is a songwriter who’s had big success with soundtracks to films such as Toy Story, but he started off as a guy with a piano, singing songs he had written. The music was beautiful, and the lyrics were acerbic.

The title track of Sail Away is about a slave trader recruiting in the African jungle, trying to convince the potential slaves how wonderful life would be in America:

Ain’t no lion or tiger, ain’t no mamba snake,
Just a sweet watermelon and a buckwheat cake
Everybody is as happy as a man can be
Climb aboard little wog, sail away with me

He similarly satirises a racist point of view on the song ‘Rednecks’, from his concept album Good Old Boys, by singing a song from the point of view of a white supremacist from the deep South:

We talk real funny down here,
We drink too much, we laugh too loud,
We’re too dumb to make it in no northern town –
We’re keeping the niggers down

Going back to Sail Away, there’s some great songs on there. The music is very melodic – sometimes it’s Randy and his piano, sometimes there’s a band, and sometimes there’s an orchestra in the background. Newman has been covered a lot, and included here is ‘You Can Leave Your Hat On’ (covered by Tom Jones) and ‘Simon Smith and his Amazing Dancing Bear’ (covered by the Muppets). As an atheist, one song I particularly like is the slow, mournful ‘God’s Song (That’s Why I Love Mankind)’, in which some of His distraught subjects appeal to God for answers. God replies:

I recoil in horror at the foulness of thee –
From the squalor and the filth and the misery,
How we laugh up here in heaven at the prayers you offer me,
That’s why I love mankind
…
I burn down your cities – how blind you must be,
I take from you your children and you say ‘how blessed are we’,
You all must be crazy to put your faith in me,
That’s why I love mankind

Basketball woes

Three posts this year! I'm on a roll. Lightning blogging here...

We lost another basketball game tonight. That's four in a row since Christmas. Before Christmas we were having a great season - we won five and lost two. Similarly to the past few years, most of the teams in the league are around the same standard. Most teams are capable of beating any of the others. The strongest team is probably Rathmines, who have an extremely tall player who is high-scoring. At the end of the year, there are play-offs between the top four teams in the league. We still have a chance to make it that far in the season. Here's the league table.


I play Division 4 basketball with St. Declan's in Cabra. Tonight we were beaten by Ranelagh Fire. The game was quite close in the last quarter. Unfortunately, at that stage I was sitting on the bench. I scored one free throw in the first half. We were down a lot of points at half-time, but we made a comeback, and halfway through the last quarter, we were only losing by eight. By the end of the quarter, we had cut the lead to four points. But in the end, we just weren't able to catch them, as we ran out of time.

Alan's photos

My brother Alan is in Australia at the moment - he'll be there until December. He's been travelling since last summer with his girlfriend Sheena, her sister, and her fella. They spent six months travelling around Asia up until the end of 2006, visiting Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia, Singapore, India, Thailand... you can read all about this on his own blog. Now they're going to be in different parts of Australia for the rest of 2007.

Alan likes his photography, and he was armed with some suitably impressive camera gear as he trekked around Asia. Below are some of the photos he took last year.

Angor, Cambodia

The view from Thavisouk guesthouse, Laos

Nahargarh Fort, Jaipur, India

Tonle Sap Lake, Cambodia

Miles Davis

I've just been listening to the first great Miles Davis Quintet. In the 1950s they recorded some classic jazz albums including the quartet Workin', Steamin', Relaxin', and Cookin'. On saxaphone was none other than John Coltrane, and the rhythm section was Miles' close friend 'Philly' Joe Jones on drums, Paul Chambers on bass, and on piano, the great touch of Red Garland.















Here is an excellent online biography of Miles Davis.