Ma'am

I remember one Summer way back in the day my old Granny giving me a spoon of honey. Upon entrance into the mouth, my legs took off and made for the back door. I immediately lobbed it from my mouth in a very ungentlemanly way, causing chickens to scatter in all directions.
Today at a Communion gathering I ate sausages that were baked in an oven with a honey glaze, and asked my significant other to put it on the menu at home. How times change, hey? I guess the years can change the palate.

The blog has always challenged the issues of the day as it saw fit. It has always tried not to dodge the big issues of the day. So I guess it would be wrong to dodge the rather sensitive issue of the visits of The Queen and Barack Obama next week. Whether we like it or not, there are people on this island who would not be very complimentary towards either at the best of times.
All those views have formed in different ways over the history of the past, recent or otherwise. Everyone is entitled to their views, without them nothing would ever change, but how we handle those views will be the key if we ever get around to challenging our direction as a civilisation.

I guess that what it comes down to on the island this week. People have the right to voice their protest. That protest should never be silenced, but it has to be voiced in the right way. Others will choose to cheers the celebrity factor, another thing the world should move away from, but that's popular culture in its present form. Hard to see people getting away from that anytime soon. That's a human factor.
It's an expensive gathering for the important people to lavish upon themselves. Apart from the sheer madness of the expense of the weeks 'festivities,' especially when it comes at this recessionary time, I don't have a problem with either of them being here, but I certainly won't be up sending my wrist arthritic flag waving at them.

It's an important week for Ireland. I do see it as an opportunity to sell what we are as a people to the world. I do believe there are those watching in from abroad capable of knowing the heart of Ireland is still intact and can see past the total inept way we are governed here on the island.
I do believe those people want to invest in Ireland and her people. Capitalism and present day democracy will unravel itself with time. When people finally cop on that they play an untenable game they will look for a different way. Freed from those shackles one wonders what people might achieve in the decades ahead.
The people of Ireland have a chance this week to show the world, that we still have some dignity and self respect left and that the deeds of many that will hang with the important duo this week are not the way the ordinary people of Ireland behave. There is still some ethical value left.

We achieved hugely as an island putting differences to one-side so peace could reign on the land again. Despite the efforts of a few, all of Ireland's people are united on the front that there will be no return to the past. That's not what we are about anymore. Our focus is getting Ireland back, our sovereign nation standing on it's own two feet taking an active and constructive place on the World stage.
Too long has Ireland been sold short by our very own. It's almost like being taken for a fool. But the one thing this recession has given us is an education on how things work in Ireland that they don't teach in the education sector. No longer are Ireland's children prepared to be taken for fools. And when we get there, the island will be the better for it.

I'm sure everyone has swallowed that honey or cough bottle or that bitter pill at some stage. Never an easy thing to do, but I think once you do, the future always seems a little brighter and the load a little lighter. Well at least that's how Booker sees it. Let the week pass peacefully and we will reap the reward eventually. Who knows, Obama might open the gates to a few hundred thousand of us and lighten the finachial woe on Enda?

So Liz and Barack, you're both welcome to drop by for a cuppa tae. I make a mean cup these days. After a little chat about foreign policy and breeding corgi's, perhaps you both could pose with copies of the book in your arms, smiling wildly. I'd shift a million copies then, make Thunder Alley and retire to Finland... or at least that's how it should go.

Chin-Chin.