Back in 1998 in those glory days when simply watching Northern Ireland playing football or getting pished down the Wins (Bangor) or the Monico (Belfast) I happenned to help with an election campaign. It wasn’t by chance and it wasn’t because I wanted to. It was just because I had just turned 18 and life Read more about “Everybody Has To Lose Sometime” – The Jack Beattie Campaign June 1998[…]
Selling our self-produced ‘Here We Go…Again‘ fanzine (for the Northern Ireland national team) next to Marty Lowry for years had meant we chatted about all sorts of random things, including Marty telling me about Shaun with an H. This man was Shaun Schofield, who had been attending every single Northern Ireland home and away match Read more about Book Review: There’s Always One by Shaun Schofield[…]
“Hey you, up in the sky, learning to fly. Tell me how high will you go before you start falling” – Noel Gallagher. It was never an ambition to do a Sky Dive. It was too scary for me. Imagine jumping out of a plane from thousands of feet up in the air and relying Read more about “That’s me, Up In The Sky”: Sky Diving🪂Over Lake Taupo, New Zealand🇳🇿[…]
I had the pleasure of working in a busy Bournemouth Hotel for six months in 2004. It was a strange destiny that ended me up in there but anyway, I’ll give this blog entry my thoughts on it. Just another one of those jobs in a long line of ones I’ve tried and enjoyed for Read more about Six months in a hotel[…]
Back in 1991, while in P7, final year at Kilmaine Primary School we often had football matches at lunch and break time. To this day, only one match from that period sticks in memory and what a cracker it was. The primary school used to let us eat lunch in the classroom and in warmer Read more about Kilmaine Lunchtime Premier League 1991 – P7R 3-3 P7T[…]
The question which really needs to be asked at this point is: how the fuck do you do a ‘countries of the world pub tour’ in just one day? The answer is easy go to London. You’ll notice that place names in London are named after countries quite a lot, obvious examples are China Town, Read more about Thirsty Thursdays: Countries of the World Pub Tour in London (10 nations in one day)[…]
While working in Public Relations for Bite Communications, I would often get invites to exclusive parties, nights out, events and awards dinners. On 21st February 2007 I was proud to be invited to the Shiny Shiny Awards 2007 having made close contact with some journalists there through working on Apple and Sonos. Shiny Shiny is Read more about Working Wednesdays: Attending the Shiny Shiny Awards in London, England[…]
It’s that usual old thing that we never think about – we all just assume our identities and who we are. Life is really too much of a surreal event to question it. We all have names! Some of us have nicknames, given by mates, family or while at school. Its funny how those all Read more about What’s in a name??[…]
While in Los Angeles, USA on my round the world trip in 2007, I met a young Irish lady from Donegal, Emma McDaid. We enjoyed a very short evening of drinks and chat in the Venice Beach Cotel Hostel the night before my 14 hour flight to New Zealand. As it happened, Emma had just Read more about Zorbing in Rotorua, North Island, New Zealand[…]
The second meeting of the South of England Northern Ireland Supporters Club was held in Torquay on the first Saturday on 2006. The reason for the meeting was that myself, Tim Beattie and Owen Millar wanted to get the club up and running fairly quickly and plan the year ahead. Owen suggested Torquay, because he Read more about Come on You Yellows!! Torquay United 0-0 Birmingham City[…]