.........the Aortic valve comes back to haunt and Celtic are haunted in the modern CL!

..........40 yrs of Lurgy/Kilmac Celtic & Same Sex marriage and a gay Taoiseach!

........the Republic on the verge of qualifying for WC Russia 2018 and my bloody Aortic valve plays up again! I’m in A&E & Denmark thump us 5-1 at the Aviva, not a good night!

.......every year in November we have the same issue with the Poppy? Sky & BBC insist that all guests on TV wear it? James McClean refuses, British Paras murdered 14 innocent civilians in his home town of Derry, how could he wear it, it’s a principled stand not understood in England?

.......on a mid winter break to Gran Canaria I realise that the locals are not impressed by Catalunya seeking independence from Spain, not a surprise I suppose, Franco was the military commander here when he launched the overthrow of the Spanish Republic!

......Malta, a beautiful little island wedged between Sicily & Libya, a second home for me the past decade, it’s a wonderful place but in 2017 the local mafia killed a journalist with a bomb under her car, her crime, exposing the corruption within the elite, businessmen & politicians, Daphne Caruana Galizias R.I.P.!

...........Ophelia the big storm of 2018 blew over the country like nothing else, even Theresa Mannion would have been stuck for words! Storms & Shakespeare, tragedy & pathos, ‘don’t make unnecessary journeys, don’t take risks on treacherous roads’!

.........for almost 20 yrs I survived a German car components factory in Letterkenny, it was mind boggling stuff, 5000 axle covers a day but it paid the mortgage and got the kids through school, we also had a great golf Society which kept us sane!!

.......in May 2005 along with 30 others I went on a week’s trip to visit the WW1 graves and the Peace Tower. The group contained an eclectic mixture, former British Army, UDR, UVF, UDA, IRA, Sinn Fein, musicians, poets, writers, relatives of WW1 victims, it was an amazing week at Ypres & Picardy!

..........a review of the film ‘Maze’ and the Great Escape of 1983 when 38 Republicans left the gaol by the front gate in a hijacked food lorry! The story of life in a prison camp of notoriety, now thankfully a part of history!