Gremlin’s Fireside Chat

Working away at home yesterday when my wife called me down to show me something. I came down and “The Red Head” picked up our daughter and pointed her at the stairs in a crawling position. You can imagine my fright when Meave speeded over to the stairs and started to crawl up the steps!!!! The red head rushed over and picked her up after Maeve had climbed up 3 steps.

So no guesses what I will be doing this weekend – stair guards.

I have to admit that I am not a fan of the Irish language. I think it has little or no relivance to Irish life or me as an Irishman. Irish should be left to liguist historians and “fans” of the language. The only reason Irish survives is because is because it is propped up by successive governments pandering to a small vociverous vocal minority that fundamentally believe Irish Gaelic is the core of what it means to be Irish. Poppycock I say. The function of language is to communicate meanings and idea’s and if a language is not good enough to stand on its own two feet without the crutch of massive funding from central Government, then it does not deserve to survive. After all most of the Irish Government business is conducted in English (listen to any Irish news program as proof), and most Irish people hate the way the Irish language was thrust down their throats at school. You rarely hear Irish spoken in the streets of Ireland these days unless you go to one of the expensive government funded enclaves on the west coast of Ireland. So why is Irish compulsary?

Anyway I heard two new words about an gaeilge (Irish language) today: Gaeilgerist/Gaeligerista – A militant or vociferous advocate of the Irish Language who fervently believe that English should never be spoken in this hallowed land, and preferably should be the only language spoken in the world.

Maeve uncharacteristically has been grumpy these last three or four days. Her Aunt Trish thought it was probably due to teething – and she was right. Maeves third tooth,  an upper incisor made its appearance today.

Another birthday surprise by my lovely Wife “The Red Head” she got a couple of tickets to see the new James Bond Movie “The Quantum of Solace” – both of us being James Bond fans. The movie has not had on the whole good reviews from the press, and I can understand why. The gadgets and Q branch are missing, on the story line alone the leading lady is not needed at all – there is usually some important function the leading lady does that allows James to hammer the bad-guys. That said there are loads of fight scenes, car chases and all the things you normally associate with James Bond.

Overall the film is not as good as the last film “Casino Royale” for a number of reason – dialog and plot are two; the main thing I can find with the Quantum of Solace is that its a meld between “James Bond” and “Jason Bourne” which is probably down to the fact that the 2nd Unit Director Dan Bradley worked on that movie too.  Jason Bourne, like James Bond is a fantastic character and film series but they have two totally different styles. In the Quantum of Solace James Bond fights like Jason Bourne, Drives like Jason Bourne, Does roof-top chases like Jason Bourne etc. In short I see more Jason Bourne than James Bond in this movie, and that is what’s wrong with it.

It was a nice couple of hours spent, and we enjoyed the movie – lets hope that the next James Bond movie is better.