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... on Mangerton mountain.

You've Been Creamed

My email address is @iol.ie. Yesterday, I found I couldn't receive emails, though I could send them. Incoming mail server down, presumably.

I called my ISP, Eircom. "We can't help you," they said. "Vodafone supports the iol.ie server. We did hear there was somethning wrong with iol.ie today."

So I decided they're probably on it - I'll wait and see if it comes back.

This morning, it's back, but no emails from yesterday are on the server. I'm just receiving new emails today. So I called Vodafone support, 1907. But I can't get through their service wall, as I'm not a customer any more and my phone number isn't recognised.

So I'm a customer of Vodafone for email whether I like it or not. But not as far as they're concerned. And there's a bunch of emails people sent me yesterday that I didn't and probably won't ever see.

Any ideas?

Is it over?

How did we do?

... more than once?

This story is getting huge now with Micheál Martin's revelation of (some of) the content of Sergeant Maurice McCabe's dossier. Penalty points are the least of it. The mishandling of investigations into the crimes of Jerry McGrath, who went on to murder Sylvia Roche-Kelly while on bail is the main issue (but not the only serious one, it seems) McCabe tried to highlight. He was thwarted at every turn
- by his superiors,
- by the Commissioner (who described his attempt to bring this to light as "disgusting"),
- by the Confidential Receiver, who instead of doing his job of taking and handling the information tried to influence him not to make it public,
- by Shatter, who read the dossier months ago, doesn't seem to have done anything about such serious revelations and instead accused McCabe, under Dáil privilege, of failing to co-operate with an investigation into the penalty points allegations, when he wasn't even approached to give evidence.

It's not surprising that there are skeletons in the Garda cupboard. Every police force has them. Indeed, I'll be amazed if there aren't hundreds more, given that the guards, unlike most police forces, have been operating without effective public supervision for most of their existence and given personal and anecdotal evidence of the types of both malevolence and incompetence of which some of their members are capable.

Martin has been quite clever (or to give the benefit of the doubt, even public-spirited) in giving this directly to the Taoiseach, as Cosgrave did to Jack Lynch  at the time of the arms smuggling case. Kenny  would seem to have no choice but to do the statesmanlike thing or lose all credibility.

As so often happens, it seems to be the attempt at a cover-up that leads to the undoing of the culpable. It's hard to see how Shatter and Callinan can survive in their jobs.  Their downfall will be a good outcome if it leads to a proper system of overseeing the activities of the guards.

Or have I got a virus preventing access to Google, YouTube, Gmail, etc?

If you think the Poppy Watch thread opens earlier and earlier every year, you're wrong. Last year it opened on the twenty-first of September! And went on until the twentieth of March.

Possibly the best individual performance I've ever seen in Croke Park. Probably the best by a midfielder. I think it's worth a thread of its own, if only as a token of resistance to the apostles of negativity who want to focus on individual misdemeanours and the ridiculous hype over what people said about what happened in a match, rather than on the match itself.

Just for the crack, let's have a competition to predict the pairings for Football Qualifier Round 3. You can espouse a conspiracy theory approach which involves hot balls or cold hamsters. You can pretend it's a game of skill, like they do on that Deal Or No Deal rubbish on TV. Or you can just treat it as a less expensive waste of time than doing the lotto.

In the event of a tie, correct prediction of the home team in each tie is taken into account. (I think they're home team first out of the bowl in this round again.)

The prize for the most pairings correctly predicted is guest attendance at a night of Donegal training. Second prize, two nights, of course. Make your own arrangements with Jim.

Entry is free, unless you're Tony Fearon. There's just so much freeloading that is acceptable from a grown man. TF must compose a post in praise of Tyrone's three All-Irelands.

My prediction (hamster based):
Armagh-Galway
Derry-Tyrone
Laois-Kildare
Cavan-Wexford

Fire away. Fifty six pages in no time, I'd say.

?

Do not get expanding foam on your hands. (Or anywhere it's not meant to be).

Is it natural? Is it the right sort of environment for raising kids to be normal?