Of the Full Irish

I attended a breakfast seminar yesterday about promoting public health in Northern Ireland. We were served a full Irish breakfast (sometimes referred to as a heart attack on a plate) which may indicate just how far we have to go in terms of eating better at least.
It always amuses me how the Northern Irish tourist industry champions "The full Irish" as though it's the big thing that will get the tourists flocking here. Award winning B&Bs swing signs out front proudly reassuring all that a stay includes the famous "full Irish". All the tourists I've ever met, at least from France and the Med, couldn't understand how a people could start their day which such awful and unhealthy food. But then again I suppose "Fine Porridge with Blackcurrants & other anti-oxidants" I guess doesn't have much of a ring to it either. One for the marketing team I suppose.

Of London & Coaches

I had always wondered whereabouts Millwall in London was to be found. Over the weekend I discovered exactly where because I stayed there. However, I also discovered that it has pretty been renamed South Canary Wharf. And why not? How many times do you hear of shops shutting up shop because of unruly South Canary Wharf fans on the loose?

I spent the weekend in London on intensive coaching course. It was full of highly energised, positive people high fiving each other and using words like "group sharing", "paradigm shift" and "goal focused".
And then there was me...

Of Pens and Saunas

It's really foul weather weather at the moment even our fowl (aka "The Girls") are staying indoors. When I let them out this morning they took one look around and duly hopped back in their pen. They're clearly fair weather girls.
It's 08.10 and still dark and I've no doubt it'll be getting dark again by 2.30p.m. today.  There's a strange about light that you only really appreciate it when it's not there.
I spent Christmas in Finland many years ago and the sun barely nudged it's way over the horizon before dipping below again and plunging the place back into darkness. How they copped I don't know. It may explain their high levels of alcoholism or why perhaps, like the Girls, they spend so much time in their own pens which they call Saunas.

Of A Tale of Four Simple Tyres

Last week I drove to Derry/Londonderry in the pouring rain and skidded there and skidded all the way back in the middle of the night. Probably something to do with the tyres I thought. I checked. It was. All four were below the legal limit. Yesterday I went into the local tyre fitters for to buy some replacements. I gave the guy the tyre sizes and reference codes and he got out his catalogue to look them up and tell me the bad news. £248 he told me. I thought that was a lot for four new tyres but if it has to be paid then so be it. He then took out his calculator and banged in the following figures 248 x 4 and proudly announced the total bill as being near as damn it £1,000. Damn it wasn't quite the expression that first came to mind but now some 24 hours later I'm working towards it.

Of Our Company Day in the Community

It's company volunteer day today and we're all off painting a house somewhere. We've been told to wear old clothes and that I certainly am. I'm sporting an old pair of gardening boots, brown chords and a bright green T-shirt so you might say the sooner I'm covered in paint the better.
Paint it on! Bring it on!

Of Barry Phillips's of the World Unite

A while ago I attended a seminar in London with a speaker who was a marketing and branding expert. He showed us how he kept an eye on his own online brand by setting up a Google alert system to scoop up his name whenever it appeared on the web along with relevant content. The alert would arrive to his email address with a summary of the information published on him and a link to the full article.
This looked like a load of fun so I decided to do the same. Since setting up an alert for "Barry Phillips" I have yet to receive one that relates to me. I have however learnt a lot about what the other Barry Phillips's have been getting up to in this world.
There's a Dr. Barry Phillips who is an anaesthetist in Hastings who recently warned about the dangers of using "laughing gas" after a good deal of it was stolen from a local hospital. There's a Barry Phillips who has been mending a fence with his chums in Boxhill, Australia. Nice one Barry. One Barry Phillips, also in his 40s, sadly has just passed away in Parbold and a local group of people have got together to buy a defibrillator in his name. Another Barry Phillips was due to speak on the nature and wisdom of Native American culture values on 17 November of this year according to the Battle Creek Inquirer at Indianapolis.
What's interesting is that none of the Barry Phillips's mentioned above appear when you Google the same name.Here it's a very different story. There's a Barry Phillips who has made it into Wikipaedia for his contribution to American folk music, another who is a well known actor and a third who is a well regarded cellist.What's interesting is that when you do a Google search under "images" for Barry Phillips it's immediately clear that the world is awash with Barry Phillips's.
I feel a convention coming on.....

Of Crossing Bridges

So here endeth the week and quite an exhausting one it was too.
On Tuesday I chaired the last of our Annual Reviews and the scores on the doors from the delegates are great. Hooray but no surprises there I guess. Our Annual Reviews are always top class.
On Wednesday I stayed in Dublin for meetings and for an evening lecture by Professor Bernard. Golly that women is brainy.  On Thursday I'm back in the North chairing a mediation meeting before firing over to Derry/Londonderry for a dinner at the Waterfoot Hotel. This is an unusual place - possibly odd is a better word. It took me about 5 minutes to find the door to get in but once inside the food was great and the service first class.
The new millennium bridge across the Foyle there is impressive. In fact it's really beautiful. I just wish they'd change the name of the city to something completely different to Derry or Londonderry or Doire. Having to type or say the first two  for political neutrality every time is such a nuisance and is only marginally better than using one and then dealing with the guilt you may feel that your company has felt offended or excluded by your single use of one and not both.
Peace? Yes. Inclusivity? Not yet. That's another bridge to cross.