This is goin’ to be great, lads! A new Add-on for Firefox users: A spell checker which runs while you are filling in forms. A must for all bloggers and blog-commenters. See the image below. It underlines incorrect spellings and with a right-click you get suggestions for corrections.

Eh, it doesn’t recognise Firefox, blog, and some others, but you can add them to the dictionary. And it’s in our English, not American, which is a plus.

I was sitting in the kitchen day dreaming of my up coming trip to Spud World when the phone rang. Ferdie. A neighbour not unlike the Pádraigh lad from a few weeks ago. At least Pádraigh has broadband. Ferdie reckons it’s too dear so the last time a crucial update was needed for his computer I downloaded it and popped it on a CD for him.

- Mornin’ Primal. That CD with the virus [sic.] on it.

- The anti-virus CD? Yeah. How did you get on with that?

- Grand. I got in the machine now. Where do I go from here?

- Ferdie I gave you that CD 4 months ago. Don’t tell me you’re only installing it now.

- I was busy. Shur what’s the rush anyway? So where do I go from here?

- The fekin thing is 4 months out of date now, Ferdie! If you install from that CD it’ll have to update itself with all the new virus definitions. That’ll take hours on your connection. Here, I’ll make you a new one.

- Ah no. This one’ll be grand. A lad in the club told me that you don’t really need a virus [sic.] unless you’re looking at dirty pictures and I wouldn’t be doing that. ** Right, so where do I go from here?

- Ok. Ok. It’s your call, Ferdie. Ok, put the CD in the drive. Go Start>Run>Browse. Select the D: drive. Double-click the file you see there and just follow the instructions on the screen.

- Where’s Start?

- Bottom left hand corner.

- Right. I can see All Programs, My Documents, My Pictures, My Music …

- Run, Ferdie. I said select Run! R-U-fekin-N.

- Right. I have that now. Where do I go from here?

- Browse. Select the D: drive. Double click the file you see there and away you go.

- Ok. I see Browse. Where do I go now?

- Ferdie, do you still have the box the computer came in by any chance?

- I do. Shur herself never throws anything out.

- Good. Here’s where you go from here: Put the computer into it and bring it back to the shop. Tell them the purchaser is unfit for the equipment intended. You might get your money back.

MacKozer over at Ireland from a Polish Perspective is hosting a discussion forum where Irish people and Polish people living in Ireland can express their views, good, bad or indifferent, of each other.  A multicultural exchange.  He will be translating English comments and posting them on the Polish language version of his site, and visa versa.

Pop over there and have your say. Or just drop by and check out his photos.

My neighbour wasn’t at home yesterday morning when DHL arrived with a very large parcel. Being the civic minded gent that I am, I volunteered to take it.

Seeing her drive in later, I went out and shouted across the fence:

- You got a big box.
- And you’ve got a small dick. Now fuck off!

I really must chose my words more carefully. Especially when someone’s had a bad day.

Day 1: Four bets. My Way de Solzen got me off to a great start winning The Arkle at 7/2. Hardy Eustace let me down for the Champion Hurdle but at least we had an Irish winner with the John Carr trained Sublimity. In the 4:00, Juveigneur got a nose past his opponent on the line but unfortunately Joe’s Edge pulled the same trick on my horse and I lost out to a 50/1 shot. After her brother had won on Sublimity, Nina Carberry gave Heads On The Ground a fantastic ride in the Cross Country to win at 5/2.€20 wagered. €40 collected.

Day 2: Not so good. Four bets, five if you count the free bet with Ladbrooks. Just one second. Dempsey at 20/1. Luckily I had him each way so I’ll get something back. He looked like winning. The funny thing was all the experts had him written off saying the track wouldn’t suit him.

€20 wagered. €12.50 collected. Actually, that’s not bad.

Day 3. I learned an important lesson on day 2: Never shout at the TV. The dog interprets it as me being savagely attacked and comes barreling through the door, growling and teeth bared knocking over everything in his path. I didn’t make that mistake today and whispered my horses home instead. It’s not the same craic, but it did work for one of of my four selections: Taranis at 9/2.

€20 wagered. €27.50 back.

I didn’t get to use the free Ladbrooks bet today. Both the Irish Independent and the Mirror printed the voucher on the back of the racing page. The wankers!

Day 4: The bookies got hammered! But not by me. I decided to go for long-shots each way instead of favourites. Still, it was a great day’s racing. Especially when local hero Ruby Walsh rode Kauto Star to victory in the Gold Cup. I cheered him on even though my few bob was on Cane Brake. Eh, another local hero. Yes, my heart was ruling my head.

€20 wagered. €0 back.

Overall - Wagered:€80. Collected:€80. Profit:€0. Excitement: Priceless.

So why bore you with all of this? Just to reiterate the point I was trying to make below: For me the love of horses and racing is greater than betting. Whether you make nothing, make a fortune or lose (as long as it is what you can afford to lose), the thrill of the race is the same. There is a big distinction between those for whom the horses come first and the betting second, and those for whom there is only the betting.  Please don’t confuse us when you talk of gambling.

From the Irish Independent (and fek their copyright - this is too important ).

Other Bloggers, please link to this, or to any other Irish blogger’s post on this subject. e.g. The Swearing Lady; Twenty Major.

If you are Irish, berate your local T.D.s and Senators to change the law now! If your are not Irish, berate your own government to, in turn, berate the Irish government to change our law now! This may be the first time Bloggers actually change something. If you can’t phone, or meet them in person, eMail addresses are usually formatted as firstname.surname@oireachtas.ie or go to the Oireachtas website for the correct one.
A WOMAN who was raped in her home has waived her right to anonymity in seeking an appeal against a suspended sentence for her attacker.

Mary Shannon (33) said she felt the entire justice system had let her down after the man convicted of raping her escaped being sent to jail.

Ms Shannon’s call both for the sentence to be appealed and for the introduction of assessed sentences for rape was backed by anti-rape campaigners and by Fine Gael’s Olwyn Enright.

Ms Shannon described how, when travelling to Dublin for last Monday’s sentence hearing, her attacker had been on the same train and how, after he was set free by the court, she again had to walk past him on the train on the return journey to Ennis.

She spoke of the “devastation” she felt when, at the Central Criminal Court on Monday, Mr Justice Paul Carney imposed a three-year suspended sentence in place of a jail term. “I was a victim yet I was made to feel like a criminal. Justice was not done.”

Ms Shannon said she could not understand how the judge could justify his decision, particularly as earlier in the same court on Monday he had imposed a 15-year sentence on a man convicted of raping a 74-year-old woman.

Ellen O’Malley-Dunlop of the Dublin Rape Crisis Centre said last night that the suspended sentence sent out a “a really bad message” to both the perpetrators of such crimes and their victims.

“This sends out a very dangerous message to rape victims - that even if the rapist is found guilty there is no guarantee they will be locked up,” said Olwyn Enright.

Mr Justice Carney said on Monday that his decision to impose a suspended sentence was based on a previous ruling by the Court of Criminal Appeal in relation to a sentence imposed by him in a previous similar case by the Director of Public Prosecutions. Mr Carney said that appeal had been lost and the sentencing set aside.

It was in May 2005 that Adam Keane, now 20, of Barnageeha, Daragh, Co Clare, broke into Ms Shannon’s house and raped her while her children slept in the next room. Keane claimed he did not remember anything and had been high on drink and drugs.

“I really thought justice was going to be done and it was only a matter of how many years in jail he was going to get,” Ms Shannon said yesterday. “Who would want to report this type of crime now?” she told RTE television news.

Earlier, on Radio One’s ‘Liveline’ programme, she told presenter Joe Duffy that she was unable to return to her home and was back living with her children in her parents’ house.

Fiona Neary, director of the Rape Crisis Centre network, said she was concerned about the message that a suspended sentence sent out to other sexual predators.

Eugene Moloney