Christian Flatshare

It can be really difficult to search for flatshare if you are christian, there are so many people out there who are mad party animals. I would suggest trying Christian Flatshare

lil old me on UTV

My night stranded on Alps

Its true, it was me!! I was lost in the Alps for over 24 hours on Christmas day and nearly died. Oh well, at least i made the headlines.


Newsletter - My Night Stranded in Alps

UTV - Newtownards man in Skiing Ordeal

High Street Giant Crumbles

I'm sure you are all aware of the collapse of the UK high street store Woolworths. This means the loss of jobs for many people in the retail and logistic sectors, and really couldn't have come at a worse time for employees.

"Woolies" main core business over the last few years is CD and DVD sales, they now find that they just can't compete with online retailers and music download websites.

While I feel sympathy for the employees I have absolutely no sympathy for the store. Woolworths only went after the sale of populous chart music, compilations, and blockbuster movies and DVDs. They had such huge buying power that they were able to sell these at a vastly reduced price. This systematically put high street small independent record stores out of business.

The small stores that carried a large range of back catalogue material, had knowledgeable, intelligent staff who had a real interest in music and could order material they didn't stock have now vanished.

Woolworths changed the retail experience of music buyers forever, no longer are teenagers able to do what I did when I "were" a lad, stand in a tiny shop for hours on end trawling through weird and exciting records.

I'll not be sheding a tear over the loss of the big W.

What the Dickens

Well the time changed this weekend so of course its time for BBC to start a Dickens adaption on BBC 1, sunday evenings. This years offering was Little Dorrit.

It's begs the question, could the "credit crisis" be eased with use of debtors prison???????

Those who can't...

What the hell is going on in Movilla High School in Newtownards this past few weeks. Now two weeks, thats 10 days of education have been missed because of an alleged assault on a teacher from a pupil.

You'll probably expect me to be on the teachers side, but on this one, sorry guys, NO WAY. What the hell, if you get a job as a nightclub doorman you know you're gonna get the odd smack in the face, if you work in a bank or a shop you'll receive intimidation from customers and the chance of a robbery.

When people take on a job like teaching they HAVE to accept that occasionally when dealing with young people, some trouble will occur, they have to accept this as part of the job and work out their own ways of dealing with it in a constructive manner instead of running out the school gates and risking the future of the entire school.

Sack them, thats what i say!

New Blog Launched

Ok, its been an absolute age since i made a blog entry but Len, my co-host on the podcast has started a little blog of his very own. Its just about all things weird, conspiracies, news items, loads of gubbins like that. Check It Major Tom

Tate "post"-Modern?

Christmas Television has finally hit an all-time low with the "wonderful" Catherine Tate christmas special. Not only did Ms Tate manage to role out a host of top guest like George Michael (remember him) and Wynette Slob AKA Kathy Burke.

Tate went on to present her terrible range of characters with added Christmas CHEESE including the Belfast family coming to terms with their son's sexuality. Tate assumes it humerous to show Northern Irish people giving each other gifts including knuckle dusters and balaclavas.

This was one of the most insulting things i've ever seen. Will we, for example be seeing an Islamic family exchanging suicide belts or a west Indian family all smoking pot? This racist attitude towards Northern Irish people has to stop, has Tate ever visited our vibrant, cities or toured some of the worlds most beautiful scenery or met the wonderful people of this country.

Tate, we aren't "bothered"!

Translink in festive mood

Northern Ireland's bus company celebrate Christmas in early november!

Indian Summer

So its almost closer to winter than summer now. Mid autumn. Last night I was driving around Belfast and the temperature for most of the time was 19c, on a dark October night!

So big question, is this an example of global warming ?

Belfast Floats in the Clouds

This amazing photograph was taken this morning (Wednesday) by local digital artist Ken Lucas. The photo shows a blanket of fog engulf the city of Belfast with only the cranes of the shipyard appearing above the clouds.



http://www.artirelandkenlucas.com

Grumpy old man

Ok, right, i've taken stock of my life, been a little bit too much fun over the summer, too much drinking, too much good food and the worst thing, i've started smoking again after working so hard at giving up.

Well i've decided to get things back on track, got a Nicotine patch on and haven't smoked for 48 hours, on a great healthy diet, taking more exercise and watching the Alcohol.

I also started taking stock of my life a little, i'm 28 years old but over the last while i'm really turning into a terrible cynical grumpy old man. So with the new lifestyle change i've decided to have a much more rose tinted view of the world, unfortunately this is the most difficult thing!

Yesterday someone told me about a "great" bar where the girls and guys danced in Bikini's and shorts on tables, usually even the thought of such an establishment would fill me with horror but I decided to put on a really silly grin and say, "Wow, that sounds FFFFFaaaantastic, must give it a try".

Smoking, Pah, Dieting, a Doddle, watching my Alcohol consumption, EASY-PEASY, Cutting out the Cynicism - AAAAAAAAHHHHH! Anyone thought of starting Cynics Anomomous?

I just LOVE X Factor

This clip requires no introduction !

Fighting nation

Today I read again another story of a "row" over planning, this time of a memorial to the 1998 Omagh bombing on BBC News online - Omagh Memorial in inscription row.

Has 30 years of bloody conflict and the following resolutions and peace movement not taught the people of Northern Ireland anything about solving arguements. Why the hell are we so terrible at planning ANYTHING in this country. We can't agree on the things like the Maze site, decommissioned police stations, and Giants Causeway visitors centre, which is a glorified gift shop and toilet block!

If this country wants to move on people MUST find a way to quickly and easily get over these agruements without it decending into a long drawn out legal or political debate.

Omagh Bomb Memorial Proposal - Constant Light

My personal option is not a very popular one. If we are going to move on to the future, we should drop plans for memorials to the past.

Idiot Idol

I was watching Pop Idol at the weekend, definitely not something I make a habit of doing, but some of the auditions were Belfast. Simon Cowell announced during the recording that this was the worst batch of auditions that he’d ever seen, I can agree with him, the standard was TERRIBLE.

So many people with a HUGE opinion of their non-existent telents.

It got me thinking about people in Belfast and how high an opinion they actually have on themselves. People in this Northern Ireland ready do play to the local audience, they have no idea of how they are going to come across to people outside the country and most of them couldn’t care less. This sounds perhaps like an endearing quality but trust me it isn’t.

Belfast is full of pretentiousness these days, pretentious coffee shops, cafes, bars, hotels, shops, fashion fads, advertising houses, design agency’s and even the new modern architecture. Unfortunately our city has a terrible mixture of arrogance and stupidity, the arrogance to support pretentious, new fangled fads and the stupidity to hold them up like the emperors new clothes.

Get it sorted Belfast, we think we are wonderful but continue failing to deliver.

Remembering an Angel

Ten years ago a beautiful woman was taken from us. A woman who travelled the world, helping the poor, sick, orphaned and dying. A woman who never ever played on her "celebrity" status, a woman who was always honourable, kind, fair and just.

Many have said how she personally touched their lives, how she created miracles worldwide and to this day she is remembered as one of the greatest women of all time.

I refer of course to the wonderful Mother Teresa of Calcutta.

Underground Party

Since 7 / 7 people using the London Underground have felt that they have to be friendlier to each other, i guess in a little way it helps reassure everyone around you. What better way than by staging a dinner party on the Tube?

Ireland rugby fans in bizarre sun worship ceremony

A beautiful august evening at Ravenhill. Belfast people, unused to sunlight revere this celestial body as a God when it makes a rare appearance.

Thanks to Keith for the ticket, apparently they were gold dust!

Bridging the gap

Possibly the worst thing about a holiday these days is the Irish sea ferries, especially from Belfast to Scotland. I just can't believe the type of people who travel on these vessels, where the hell do they come from, I never see these people at any other time but on ferry you can be sure to see them plunging their Giro cheques straight into the "fruits".

For a few extra quid you can "upgrade" to a club class traveling lounge, a necessity these days.

Imagine however piling into the car and driving ANYWHERE in the British isles, imagine maybe even driving down to Dover and popping your car on the Eurostar, direct to France and the potential of driving anywhere in Europe without having to set your wheels in the metal deck of a ferry boat.

Sounds a bit pie in the sky, doesn’t it, well maybe not. The Centre for Cross Border Studies has held a consultation about a plan to build a bridge or tunnel link across the North Channel from Antrim to Galloway, 21 miles away. The Centre believe that this ambitious plan could be put in place by 2030.

A similar bridge is to open in China linking Shanghai and Ningbo, the 22.5 mile bridge will carry six lanes of traffic at a speed of around 60 MPH.

No more sharing ferry cabins with shell-suit clad day trippers.

Technological Dead End

Isn't technology wonderful, we were recording the latest edition of Hit the North - The Northern Irish Podcast last night and had a great stream of chat going, one of the best ever in my opinion. Then I lifted my eyes to our of our computer systems and found that the bugger had shut itself down so all that stuff we talked about was lost forever.

Oh well, listen to the rest of the recording now by clicking here (or right click and do that save target as... thingy)