My Day!

Its now been a whole week since I last wrote and I haven't even mentioned the day that shares the same name as me why? Well this is down to a few reasons firstly I had to unfortunately work on the day. I think I am cursed, as the last 4 Paddy's Days I have spent in work. I think that they sit sown and go hmmm... St Paddy's Day who can we pick hmmm... Paddy's Day who on earth could it be. This day in work is a really boring event.

The day in work also collided with me having a bug and spending most of the day running to and from the toilet. It was not a pretty sight and I think I could have broken the land speed record.

The last thing that also stopped me from enjoying this day was that I spent a long time in the police station, giving a statement, on my stolen passport. The night before I was at a concert which was absolutely brilliant but it ended really badly with me being mugged at knifepoint. What makes it worse is that I'm going to Budapest on Monday.

I think trouble just has a habit of finding me and clinging to me for dear life.

Paedophiles!

This weekend paedophiles have been on my mind because of two reasons:
Firstly at the end of last week in an area very close to where I live, a 14 yr old boy was raped by a group of men. This boy is the brother of my sisters friend and it was quite startling to have such a savage act happen so close to home.

The second reason is because this weekend I went to see The Woodsman . This film tells the story of a convicted paedophile who is released from prison after 12 yrs. The film humanises his story and it has caused quite a stir. People are outraged that a film could sympathise with a paedophile. I really enjoyed this film and thought it hit upon a topic nobody likes to speak about.

This film caused a tremendous amount of debate between me and a friend of mine. My friend thinks that a paedophile is born a paedophile while I disagree with this. I think that people are inherently good but some event, or a series of events cause them to do bad things. I'm not condoning what they do but I think that there needs to be more study of these people, instead they are just locked away and are just pawned off as bad people. Would it not be beneficial to understand why people do this and try to help solve the problem.

This has being a big problem in Ireland for a long time now and only in the ten years have people even started to be convicted of it. We're condemning something before even understanding it. Its down to peoples attachment to children and how they feel for them. Its a big taboo subject and one we need to learn more about.

Gotta Learn This Language

In school, from about the age of 6, is when any Irish kids journey begins on the road to learning their native language. This continues for about another 12 years, at least, in every kids life and how much do I know? Well I can say my name in Irish.

It has been a widely disputed subject, that of mandatory education of Irish in our schools and one that is hard to comment on. On one side it's our heritage, our native language, its part of our culture and who we are but then when we finish school their is the sudden realisation that its meaningless, as no job, apart from a handful, requires it and no area, apart from a handful, speaks it.

I'm actually not writing on the debate of this but to show my past history when starting this weekend to learn Russian. I had been warned about how hard it was and had native speakers rolling around in fits of laughter at me rolling my R's. To my surprise I have started to pick up the language quite quickly and proficiently so I have been told. I have three months in which to get up to a good level of the language and I hope I can learn it or I will be sent back on the first plane to Dublin. Well life is about those little challenges and this is one that I am going to give my best efforts to achieve.

Putin Hold The Reins!

So as I promised I will talk about Mr Putin because he seems to get forgotten about quite a bit. It has been another busy week for the Russian president meeting with Mr Bush and both talked about their commoon grounds. Now this is where I'm confused they agreed on Iran not having nuclear weapons, then the very next day an agreement with Iran was signed by Russia to give them nuclear power. I'm not saying that this is to provide nuclear weapons but its like giving a child a bar of chocolate to mind and not eat and hand back.

People seem to have mixed feelings about Putin on the one hand he's the guy who has supposedly done nothing to stop the disappearances and tortures in Chechnya, he's the guy who attempts to impede democratic reform in Georgia and Ukraine and has yet to deliver any real wealth to the Russian people.

Then there is the other side the guy who has been gaining more control of Russian energy. Through this deal now with Iran he is expanding furthe and further. He has also set up an alliance with Russia, China, India and Brazil. This is very strong team and one that I don't think that can be matched. With the EU and US starting to wake up to Putin, do they have the power to tell a stubborn man what to do?