This effect was produced by building the whole room inside a steel-reinforced cylinder, which turned as Astaire danced. The camera was held down so that it rotated with the set, giving the view that the room was stationary and that Fred was freed from gravity.

The Gallant Irish yeoman
Home from the war has come
Each victory gained o’er foeman
Why should our bards be dumb.

How shall we sing their praises
Our glory in their deeds
Renowned their worth amazes
Empire their prowess needs.

So to Old Ireland’s hearts and homes
We welcome now our own brave boys
In cot and Hall; neath lordly domes
Love’s heroes share once more our joys.

Love is the Lord of all just now
Be he the husband, lover, son,
Each dauntless soul recalls the vow
By which not fame, but love was won.

United now in fond embrace
Salute with joy each well-loved face
Yeoman: in women’s hearts you hold the place.

Tho’ much is taken, much abides; and tho’

We are not now that strengh which in old days
Moved Earth and heaven; that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

–Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s Ulysses

I’ve been thinking about that poem lately a lot lately, and I think what it says is that –  while it’s tempting to play it safe, the more we’re willing to risk, the more alive we are.

In the end, what we regret most are the chances we never took and I hope that explains a little, this journey that I am about to embark.

I have loved every minute with my ICHEC family, all of you, and for that I am eternally grateful.

Goodbye, ICHEC

I’m just saying
, you might get sick of the waiting ’round.
 The waiting for buses and girls but one’s late
 and one’s not coming at all and I don’t know which is which anymore.

I’m just saying it’s plans not TVs out the window now and you might get sick of waiting for the lights to change, 
but in the meantime it’s all still Night Life, Track Four,
 Red Arse, old runners, Casual Certs, X-Box heroics, double yellows,
 Luas tickets for roaches, black pudding, shit gigs,
 change pints, hand balls, bookies pens and I can’t afford the banter anymore.

I’m trying to keep the faith and I still believe in Bewley’s and Elvis but
 you might get sick of waiting for days when you’re not always looking over your shoulder. But the streets ruined on me now and I can’t walk down them without thinking about it.

I’m just saying you might get sick of the wet weeks, 
the wet socks, the wet jeans,wet funerals, the wet streets
 and it’s all getting a little harder to justify, and it’s too late to be screaming We Are Your Friends at heads you don’t know in a gaff you’ve never been before
 and you’ll never will be again, as London and Sydney swallow your mates;
  Any craic? No, youse all fucked off.

But there’s always reasons for optimism.
 MacGowan and McGrath still walk this earth but we can’t be far off now,
 and I’m still waiting for that perfect summer’s forever day of long shadows and lens flares but you get one weekend in May and you go apeshit
 and get lobster burnt to fuck and that’s all you get but they don’t know it ’til August, but come next May you’ll still be first in line on Portmarnock Strand in your togs and goosebumps, grinning like a fucking lunatic.

I keep thinking can we have 
a bit of restraint, but I’m one to talk. 
Someone once told me the third secret of Fatima but I was pissed and I
 forgot it – fuck it. I’ll probably never see the Winter Solstice at Newgrange,  but as long as you can Like This we’re all grand and we’re all connected.

I’m just saying you can fill every night talking about the one before.
 Magnificent bastards and the lost city of Dutch Gold. Empty taxi, danger taxi, racist taxi. 
Crouching tiger, hidden naggin. Smoking sections, 90s babies,
 Zaytoon or M.T. Pockets, the fear, 
the St. Christopher texts, the flood of tea and excuses
 and I’m just drowning in all the charm and bollix. 
Youse missed out. We’ve the same photos as everyone else to prove it.

I’m just saying sometimes we’re too tough on ourselves and most of the time we’re never tough enough. And the girls that are left here aren’t that bad. They just need to not be so easily convinced.
 You’ll never fool anyone that you’re from the Beach Cities and you don’t need to.

But we’re at our holiest when it’s the last song 
and we’re soaked in pub juice and desperate. When the boy’s choir tells us to look each day and night in the eye,
 before the gorgeous giddy promise of a Friday’s turned to scabbed smokes and kebab wrappers.

I’m just saying, The Specials were bang on about everything but the clubs closing down. And 
the answers aren’t on Camdem Street and they never were, or in the middle of the crowd, out of your snack box, and I’m still trying to find the glow.

And the craic is dead but the wheel’s keeps turning, and the days take months but the year flies,
 and then it’s lads on boats home with Christmas crawls and shoggy resolutions.

I’m just saying, you might get sick of it all. But you might miss it too and there’s ten good reasons to go but a thousand tiny ones not to
 and I don’t know which is which anymore.

2012 in a nutshell

2012 has been an interesting year for me, both personally and professionally. It has been a year of heartache and pain, long hours, hard work, illness and death, fighting for an inch and loosing a mile.

But, it has also been a year of great joy. A year for new love to blossom, for old love to be affirmed, for friendships to grow stronger than before, for really really odd photos, for dodgy road signs, and thought provoking topics. Most of all, it’s been a year for new friendships.

It has been a year of great professional growth for myself. I would not have thought, at the start of the year, that I would end up where I am now. That further education is on the horizon, or that I now have real power to make changes – not only in work but in all aspects of mine and others lives. Good news at the end of 2012 has solidified this position.

Personally, I’ve left behind a rather bad (some might say abusive) relationship. Good riddance.

This was offset by falling deeply in love with someone I can tolerate for more than five minutes. Someone that can make me sing randomly, and seeing her smile can cheer up the dullest of days. For this, I am grateful.

What will 2013 bring? Who knows. I think we’ll see some interesting things, though. More pushing for internet censorship, more budgetary woes and recession mongering, more blaming of others for the crisis, and more pissing away what little we have. We’ll continue to see emigration and the tightening of belts – this fact is inevitable.

But 2013 won’t be all bad. Technology has given us more ways to keep in touch with each other and more ways not to feel insignificant and small in the world. One thing we lost during the Celtic Tiger era was the simple connection you can have with someone. The boom times (especially among my generation, in Dublin) got rid of that and replaced it with “What can I get out of this person?”. This sill exists here. Now is our time to finally cast out this pettiness and go back to simpler times. No longer will we worry about what social standing our friends have, but that they are our friends – each to be loved and cherished dearly, because you don’t know if they’ll be gone next year.

I’m walking along a beach. My feet sink into the sand, which is coarse and unpleasant. Looking ahead, I can see a figure seated beneath a tree in the distance. I call out a greeting, but the person does not respond. I start to move towards the tree…but I seem to stay fixed in place as my body walks away. I watch myself grow fuzzy and indistinct…and then I wake up.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sPr7933-0YE

Melody Sheep has remixed Charlie Chaplin’s “Let Us All Unite” speech from one of my favourite films The Great Dictator.