Raiméis

The Finnish men’s ice hockey team did the stuff once again last night by knocking four past Russia to advance to the final. It was expected to be a tough match but Russia were somewhat disappointing and couldn’t find a way past the Finnish defence especially goalkeeper Antero Niittymäki who has been playing a stormer throughout the tournament.
Sweden won their game against the Czechs with a resounding 7-3 victory. This is probably the last team the Finns wanted for the final, there’s nothing the Finns hate more than losing to the Swedes, it’s a rivalry much like Ireland and England, so here’s hoping they continue their winning streak. The gold medal game is tomorrow, Sunday 26th @ 14:05 CET! Fingers, toes ₇ other bits crossed!

Just got my first (that i’m aware of) mention in a podcast … Conn’s (An t-Imeall) post/cast about the nominees in the Irish language category (Best Use of the Irish Language in a Blog) of the Irish blog awards. Such publicity is always appreciated … as is cash and tea bags … just for future reference.
Go raibh maith agat a Chonn, and while i’m at it good luck in the awards and indeed well done to all those who have made the short list! If any of ye are heading to the Alexander Hotel on the 11th please pass on my regards to all.

I’ve just discovered a competition I didn’t know existed … short track relay speed skating. What a totally hilarious sport. Picture it, speed skaters flying around the outside of a rink closely tracked by a whole bunch of skaters flying around the inside of the rink in a semi-organised mess. After a couple of laps skaters on the inside organise themselves and take the place of those on the outside. It’s quite funny to watch although there’s a bit too much bum touching for my liking. It would be even more interesting if those on the inside had pillows and could try to knock over those on the outside … an idea I hope the Olympic Committee take into consideration for the next olympics.

Note: pictures not actually from olympics but from a Scottish bum touchers website

Great news for all you Finnish ice-hockey fans in the Irish blogoshpere … erm, just me I guess … Finland have booked their place in the semi-finals after beating USA 4-3 in this evening’s match. The Finns are unbeaten in the competition so far having won all five preliminary round ties including a shut out against reigning champs Canada, and now a win against silver-medalists USA.
Finally the Finns are hungry for victory again after disappointing for years. Quite often the big-name NHL players are the first to be picked yet seem the least committed (a problem Canada seem to suffer from). Confidence has often been a huge problem too, yet this year the entire team are playing with both commitment and confidence and certainly have a great chance of bringing home the gold. Bring on the semis … just hope it’s not against arch-enemies Sweden.

In other sports, Finland are currently (at time of writing) drawing 1-1 with GBR in the men’s mind fuck warfare semi-final.

This will probably be covered by a few blogs today.

“An EU study has reportedly found that Irish people have poorer linguistic skills than the citizens of any other member state.”

It doesn’t come as any real surprise does it?

“two-thirds of Irish people questioned as part of the research admitted they could only speak English”

Let’s face it, language teaching in Ireland has always been poor. How many of us achieve levels of fluency in any language other than English which would be on par with levels achieved in other European countries? Not nearly enough of us.
Ok, us learning a foreign language cannot be accurately compared to Europeans learning English. English is everywhere, it’s hard to avoid it. It’s the language of business, of movies, of computer games and of the mighty US. It’s a bridge language used by all non-English speaking nations to communicate with each other. It’s the foreign language to learn. The situation is therefore different in Ireland where we already speak the language. But that’s no reason to suck at languages. In this day and age I don’t believe we need any language other than English, we can manage with just that, but we should want to learn other languages.

”…few believed they should bother learning any other.”

I’m a firm believer in bi-/multilingualism. I believe it’s beneficial to speak many languages, what those languages are is not so important IMO, it’s just important to speak more than one. Learning more languages broadens your mind, it can introduce you to new cultures and new experiences and if you are lucky enough to learn a second or third language at a young age there’s the cognitive benefits, the improved creativity and problem-solving skills, self-confidence and improved ability in learning other languages.

“The reports said Ireland was currently the only EU country with no provision for teaching modern languages in primary schools.”

This is not important IMO. What IS important is that kids start learning a language at a young age and we are lucky in Ireland because we have a language that kids can learn which already has a ton of resources available … Irish. The Irish language is an untapped resource. Sure we teach it, but we teach it badly, without passion and without teaching our kids why the language is important. I firmly believe that if we use Irish correctly it can be of great benefit to us. If we can raise our kids bilingually (even sequentially, kids learn Irish in school after already picking up their first language) our kids will find it easier to learn other languages in secondary school and later on in life. The advantages of bilingualism are well documented (benefits of bilingualism) on the web and numerous studies have been done worldwide which highlight the benefits.
We have been let down by our education system and we are currently failing our kids by not using the language & resources which we already have available. Unfortunately I don’t see that changing any time soon.

Edit: As pointed out below Winds adds to the debate tackling some of the issues raised by the Irish Independent. I tend to avoid the Independent when it comes to such issues as their attitude to the Irish language vexes me.

As you may have read British historian David Irving has been sentenced to three years in jail in Austria for denying the holocaust happened. The charges against Irving were based on a speech and interview he gave in Austria in 1989. What happened to the “free speech” the Austrians were croaking about when they re-published the infamous Mohammed cartoons last month? They have short memories. Either they support free speech or they don’t. If they claim the right to publish cartoons which cause offence to Muslims how can they deny such freedoms to others? It’s not right I tells ya.

As reported this week the UK are considering bringing in legislation to ban glorifying terrorists which could mean paramilitary songs and murals being outlawed. However the laws are supposed to be so vague that they will need to be tested in court before its full powers are delineated.
The question I have relates to the GAA and the practice of some clubs north of the border of naming clubs and/or tournaments after Republican terrorists such as Kevin Lynch’s (INLA, 1981 hunger striker) GAA Club or the Mairead Farrell (IRA, killed by SAS in Gibraltar 1988) Camogie Tournament. These of course are disgusting practices which the GAA has totally failed to address so will the new legislation force the GAA to finally confront this issue? Or does the legislation cover such practices at all? It’s my opinion that this is something the GAA should have tackled head on long ago, I hope it doesn’t take a court case to do it.

Curling is not a sport, is it? It can’t be. I turned on tv yesterday and curling was on and before I knew it time passed and I was still watching it. It’s only when I looked at the clock I realised I had been watching it for 10 minutes without feeling the need to change channel. It’s then I concluded that curling isn’t a sport but mind fuck warfare created by the CIA. And after some investigation I discovered reports which allege that curling has been used to torture inmates in Guantanamo. And here’s the proof … after being subjected to 45 minutes of curling this poor cunt was reduced to a gibberish-muttering shell of a human being. This poor reformed terrorist had his mind well & truly fucked by this “sport”.
The cat is out of the bag now but I wonder how far up the chain this conspiracy goes. Perhaps the Olympic Committee is involved … soon there could be ‘navy sports jacket with Torino 2006 patch’ wearing guys knocking at my door to silence me. Quick … before it’s too late … spread the word … curling is mind fuck warfare!

*knock* *knock* Oh shit!

Two quick tech stories …
Via Slashdot, Michael Thomas, owner of Colossal Storage, says he’s the first person to solve non-contact optical spintronics (huh?) which should ultimately result in the creation of super capacity hard drives of approx. 1.2 petabytes, which is … I dunno … like a brazilian times bigger than anything available now. On the market in 5 years? Slashdot readers aren’t so convinced.

The big news at 3GSM in Barcelona this week seems to be the huge investment companies are putting into bringing TV to mobile phones! This is something I don’t understand, are people really going to pay a nice monthly fee to squint at a 2″ screen? Not me. The ideal mobile for me can make calls (funnily enough), has a good calendar, a camera, can play MP3′s (3-5Gb storage would be nice) and can read/send emails and surf the web. For anything else I have a laptop.

A message for Rory Morrish who represented Ireland today in the Men’s 15 km Classical Cross Country Skiing…
• The best skiers start last … so when you start among the first of 100 skiers take it as a bad sign.
• When almost every Tom, Dick and Henrik from Argentina to Ethiopia (Ethiopia for fuck sake!) can beat you perhaps you need to ask yourself is this sport really for you. You really don’t want to be the fat lad coming in last who gets the pity applause.

Fair dues for giving it a lash anyway.