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What's the catchment for SW Select? Ahoghill, Rasharkin etc?

I think it'll be us (Ahoghill/Gaeil Chluana), Randalstown, Ballymena and Rasharkin.

As I've said before though, we weren't in favour of it, though now that the team has been entered, I'm not sure what'll happen.

I thought Glenariff were going to enter the Intermediate Championship?

I think the current noise is that St Gall's and Glenariff will both drop to Intermediate this year.  And if those 2 are dropping I'd say there's a fair chance that Gort Na Mona won't go up!

That would leave Dunloy, Cushendall, Loughgiel, Ballycastle, St John's, and Rossa in the senior championship with realistically, only the first 3 of those with any real chance of winning it. 

As maxpower said, with Rossa competing in Divsion 2 this year also, you wouldn't really blame them for dropping down.  It's probably only their proud recent history that's stopping them from doing that.

Good luck to all players who feel they can progress in the senior championships, but I can see problems for some of the clubs

Yep - as I've previously mentioned, anybody that we would be sending to that from our club would already be representing at least 2 teams in the club.

It's very possible that you'd have the situation where players were lining up alongside other players one weekend to play for a regional team in the senior championship, and also preparing to play against those same players the following weekend in the junior/intermediate championship.

Surely someone has to stand out at Senior level for their clubs to get a call up for the county? Is that not how it should work?

Ideally yeah.  Was Joey Scullion not playing regularly for Antrim a couple of years back when he's wasn't a regular in the Loughgiel team?

Did anyone hear anything about the new proposal on the way to enter regional teams in the Senior Championship? 

I think the current idea is to have a team from the south west, and one from North Antrim anyway.  As I understand it, this would be in addition to a club's own club championship, so for example, our players (Clooney Gaels) could play in the intermediate championship for us and in the senior championship for the south west.

We talked about it at a meeting last night and I don't think my club is going to be supporting it.  The players we would be sending to that would be dual players and would have enough on come August.

I think most of the other clubs in our area would be in a similar position.

There might be more of a chance in North Antrim as they would have a number of hurling-only clubs (Carey, Armoy, Cushendun and Cloughmills) and they wouldn't have the same demands on their players.

It's hard to imagine an amalgamation team going to the same level of preparation for a senior championship as the main clubs that would be entered in it, and therefore I think it would be a bit of a waste of time.  To be honest I wouldn't really want to play in a championship for anybody other than my club.

I think the main motivation for this is the withdrawal of a couple of the clubs from the senior championship. 

At the minute my favourite lyric is probably from REM's At My Most Beautiful:

"You always say your name like I wouldn't know it's you"

So true - people you're fond of don't have to begin phone conversations with anything like "Hi, this is ***whoever***", you already know from the fist instant you hear their voice.

There are sh1t-loads of cr@p lyrics - anything that doesn't really make sense, but rhymes or has enough syllables to fit into the line.  Take a bow Bono:

"A mole, diggin' in a hole, diggin' on my soul now going down excavation ..." and continue to the point where you feel like throwing the radio off the wall.

The Lottery is a tax on people that are bad at maths.

(Can't remember who said that)

I'm sort of ashamed to say that I'm sort of watching this this year:

Lucy - Nice to look at but doesn't do or say much.
Michelle - As above
Mimi from Shameless - seems dead-on, probably my favourite so far
Ulrika - dull as dishwater
Mutya - same as Ulrika
La Toya - same again, though she seems to have had a pretty tough time recently - abusive ex-husband etc.

Coolio - a d1ck, hate the way he goes on.  The commentator said at one stage last night that "<current time> Coolio has been talking for 37 minutes" or something like that.

Mini-me - no opinion on him really ...
Boyband lad - ditto

Tommy - seems grand
Terry - as above

How is the eviction going to work then?  I expected to see options to phone in when the show was over, but there was none (this was on C4 + 1 I was watching it)

Louth - Not having to go through Dundalk or Drogheda any more.
Meath - Hard hitting defenders (Mick Lyons and Martin O'Connell)
Dublin - The England of the GAA
Wexford - Rory McCarthy's goal, and them beating Kilkenny the day after the Chili Peppers concert.  I only went to that because my mate had never been to Croke Park before - I thought it would be a hammering session.
Longford - nothing to be honest
Wicklow - as above
Westmeath - Maroon
Laois - That photo of Beano McDonalds leg break where his leg's twisted completely the wrong shape.  Jesus I shudder just thinking about it.
Carlow - The jerseys
Offaly - The sit-down protest.  To be fair immediately prior to that they put on one of the best come backs it has been my pleasure to witness and I'm in little doubt that if that game had been played to its completion Offaly would have won.
Kilkenny - total hurling
Kildare - The white jerseys

Tyrone - Everybody you met in Renshaws seemed to be from there ...
Cavan - nothing really
Down - not knowing why they're not a serious contender nearly every year (football that is)
Monaghan - running Kerry close
Armagh - Their arms fill tight-fitting jerseys better than almost anyone else
Fermanagh - cr@p accent
Antrim - home
Derry - every club hates every other club and that ruins the county team.
Donegal - pretty barren land, sure they've nothing else to do but play football.

Galway - one of the very few genuine dual counties
Mayo - don't know anyone who would begrudge seeing them win
Roscommon - bright yellow
Sligo - Wear the same colours as priests (from the Michael quote)
Leitrim - A smaller population than Andersonstown in Belfast (I think I read that somewhere)

Kerry - Footballers in a Hurling area (Munster)
Cork - Player power
Tipp - Home for the GAA
Limerick - Ciaran Carey's point
Waterford - Brilliant to watch - heart on the sleeve hurling
Clare - Came out of nowhere really to win the All-Ireland

[caution against any expectations in the championship against Dublin.]

How in the name of God would we be in a position to take Dublin for granted ?

He doen't actually say that, or anything like that:

From the Chairman's Address:

In hurling, a consistent performance in what is now a better structured league is required, but I want to caution against any expectations in the championship against Dublin. Dublin hurling is far more advanced in their development than Antrim. The expectation and sense of anticipation must rest with them in a Croke Park that will be packed with the hungry "Jacks". The Glensmen will be the underdogs against an Anthony Daly led Dubs, let there be no doubt about it.

Am I right in saying that this thread has gotten to 36 pages without anything from the fab 4?

I could pick a good number - some of the nicest words ever commited to music, but I'll go for In My Life:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rZ5N4-X_HWU

Not familiar with Creaney,Maxwell or the two Ahoghill boys but I think McAlearnon is a good addition.

I'll only comment on the 2 Ahoghill lads:

Donal Graham - certainly won't be out of his depth at this level.  The only thing that will go against him is the fact that he's a left-footed corner forward and you could argue that even with the county the state it is, that this is one area in which we're not lacking.  Still, it's another option.

Neil O'Connell - plays midfield for Ahoghill (was still under 21 in 2008) and he's a big, strong lad.  Great fielder of the ball - it'll be a big step up from Antim Division 3 to Inter-County though!

Also, I stand to be corrected on this, but I think Michael Magill has played his last game round these parts for a good while.  He's working in London now and Randalstown were flying him back for their last few games this year.  Ditto Aidan Savage.

Warning:  This is fairly specific to software engineering and I reckon you should only read this if you are very bored.

Folks, I was just hoping for some advice on what the law requires of employers with regard to training their staff, if there is any at all.

In July 2007 I got a job with a software company after an interview which consisted of the usual technical and personal questions.  At this stage I was completely honest about the amount of exposure I'd had to Java programming, and made it clear that were I to be offered the job that I wouldn't be at guru level straight away.

Since I've started I've had formal training at all and there's been some negative feedback on my performance.  It's coming up to end of year review time again and to be honest I hate the thought of it.  Previous comments in the more informal midyear review have said that I've been incapable of completing tasks that shouldn't have been beyond what was expected from a level 1 engineer, even though I have my doubts about this.  To any of you that work in this area, one of the main things I had problems with was classpath issues when trying to deploy and run stuff.  At University, which was my only previous experience of Java, I had never heard the word classpath.

Another point that was raised was that it was "disappointing" how many times I needed things explained to me.  Surely explaining things to people is almost fully a one-way process.  I don't misunderstand things on purpose and with the nature of this work there's always things that come up after tasks have been started.

I did enquire some months back about the possibility of getting some training but was told there was no money in the budget for this.

I tried to call down today to speak to Citizen's Advice about this but they operate on an appointment only basis on Mondays and Tuesdays.  I intend to call back on Wednesday.

I'm hopefully going to hand in my notice from this job early in the new year anyway so I suppose in a sense this isn't do or die but I would still like to challenge it if there's anything that's not done properly.

Thanks in advance for any help - I know that's a pretty long read.

Gees - is that fella not very young? Round the 30 mark?

If it's the CC I know of, he's not old at all!  But I don't know the people down there that well at all so I'll wait for someone else to clarify!

Terrible news if it's true - RIP.

Toasters that don't have slots that are big enough to fit the bread in longways! 

I think I'm right in saying that these days most bread isn't square-shaped, and that bread with the arch-shaped crust is more common (see Pat The Baker, Brennan's, etc.).

As far as I can see you've 2 choices when you try to use one of these toasters:

1.  Have yourself a slice of 3/4 toast and 1/4 warm bread - yuck!

2.  Try to time it so that you flip the bread half way through the toasting cycle - this isn't easy as the more you use the toaster in one run, the quicker it seems to get.  Can anyone confirm if toasters do this or if I'm imagining this?

How hard would it be for someone to make a toaster that actually fits most bread.

.. and relax ...