Ireland’s Saviour

World Cup semi-final.

Ireland against Italy.

The dying minutes of the game and it’s 1-1.

The Irish have fought and grafted. The Italians, far superior on the ball and in terms of fitness, have dominated the game. Ireland are characteristically brave, spurred on by the legions of fans who travelled over, engulfing the stadium in a sea of green and noise.

The prospect of extra time fills Irish minds with that feeling of dread they’ve come to expect from their soccer team over the years.

Please.

Just this once.

Give us a final.

Please.

For the past week, the windows of all houses and cars in Ireland have had that tri-coloured flag fluttering out of them. Football fans have been euphoric. Non-football fans have been swept up in the delirium and become proud fans of the beautiful game.

The Italians have fitness, and squad depth, not to mention they can make one more substitution. They have that intimidating air of nonchalance. They’ve class and experience in big matches that we just don’t have.

The Irish will never give up, but it doesn’t look like they’ll hold out much longer. No substitutes left to make. Their captain taken off after going down with cramp for the second time in the match. He ran his heart out - you knew he would - but he’d nothing left to give.

A corner to Italy. The big centre-backs are up. All but one of the Irish players are back defending. Backs against the wall time now.

Irish hearts in mouths.

Lofted in.

Cleared!

Booted up to the big centre forward - the quintessential Irish striker.

He holds it up, waiting for support. Tries to make a run at goal when he realises the support won’t be coming any time soon.

Pulled to the ground.

A lazy tackle gives Ireland a free-kick, about 30 yards out.

Thank fuck. Some relief from the bombardment of Italian attack.

All eyes focus on the kick-taker.

It’s 22 year-old midfield maestro, Mark Walsh.

A nine year-old Mark Walsh strolls into his living room.

Fresh on the scene and in his first world cup, he takes the ball in his shaking hands and places it delicately on the grass.

Young Mark spots his beloved sponge football he kicks around the house. Places it on the centre of the carpet. There’s a stain there right in the middle that he uses for a placing spot. He actually made the stain himself while trying to carry a glass that was too full of blackcurrant squash. Just a little spilled but it made a proper stain. But nobody saw it happen so it was okay.

The camera focuses on the young playmaker’s football boots. The latest Nikes - not even in stores yet. Nike were delighted to secure a lucrative sponsorship deal with Walsh after he became a footballing phenomenon and global sex symbol.

Mark fixes the sock on his right foot so that his toe is no longer sticking out of the hole in the top.

Walsh takes a few steps back and takes a deep breath. He nods at his team-mates to let them know he’s gonna have a go. Get ready for a rebound or something lads. Not easy to beat this keeper from here.

The fourth classer who recently got 100% in his spelling test takes two steps back from the sponge ball. He’d like to take more but the couch is in the way.

Walsh looks at the wall of players blocking him. He looks into the eyes of Alessandro Del Piero - his boyhood hero. Just thirteen years ago his bedroom wall was covered in photos of the man who now stood ten yards from him.

Up and over the wall, and curl it into the left top corner. Worth a try.

Mark, who has just moved on to wear boxer shorts rather than briefs, eyes up the living room. Pesky armchair. Up and over the armchair, don’t hit the vase, and into the curtains. Just don’t hit the vase. He’d hit it before and it fell but thankfully it landed on a pile of clothes waiting to be ironed. He vowed then never to play in the house again, but boys will be boys.

Walsh starts his run up. A nation, nay, the entire footballing world, holds its breath.

If he scores, he’ll put Ireland in their first ever World Cup final. A hero, a legend. A name never to be forgotten. Should he miss, extra time beckons, during which the Italians will surely break down the weakening Irish defence.

Mark takes his two step run up to the sponge ball.

Strikes it cleanly.

It’s over the wall.

The keeper’s scrambling.

It’s in!

The vase was safely avoided and the ball sailed into the crease of the curtain.

He’s done it! Oh Mark Walsh, Ireland’s saviour! Never before have we seen such -

Shit. Dad’s coming down the stairs. Better hide the ball before he sees what I’m at.

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

The High-Points of Life

There I am.

It’s 5pm on a Friday.

No work, no college, I can do whatever I want.

And there I am.

Unshowered. Unshaven.

Haven’t eaten or drank a single thing that day yet.

Not even dressed.

On the toilet.

Laptop at my feet.

Playing ‘Connect 4′ online against someone who’s probably a lot younger than me.

Listing to old school wrestling music.

It’s times like these I think to myself…

I’m totally fulfilling my potential.

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

New Afghan Wife-Starving Law

This is true, see this article on BBC News to verify.

“An Afghan bill allowing a husband to starve his wife if she refuses to have sex has been published in the official gazette and become law.”

Well now. Ain’t the world a funny old place?

I think we all like to think we all live in a nice, happy, modern world. We look back on past atrocities like the wars and wonder how it was all allowed to happen. But sure that sort of thing continues even today.

Even in Ireland, stupidity reigns. Let’s just take the example of drinking laws - something that affects most of us (I’m aware I’ve talked about this before, I won’t go on too much about this bit). Off licences stop serving drink at 10pm - what a great fucking decision that was. Now we all have to buy our drink earlier and more often that not,  start drinking earlier. Pubs and clubs turf everyone out at the same time, which is why we have fights and trouble outside clubs. Go to Europe and see places that stay open late, everyone leaves when they want and there’s less trouble. Ireland is so fucking backwards sometimes.

Many developing countries aren’t really developing at all, are they? But we like to ignore that.

It’s sad to think that decades from now people will look at some of the decisions that were made, and events that occurred at this very time, and say “What were they thinking?”. Just like we do when we read history books now.

Sometimes I really do despair.

But then something like this wife-starving law comes along and I realise everything’s gonna be alright.

See ya later lads, I’m off to Afghanistan!

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

These Are The Reasons My New Phone Is A Bastard

Right. Remember this little ol’ post? About my beautiful, beloved old phone that sadly drew its last breath shortly before I went interrailing? Remember how I grieved and mourned, yet appreciated the grace and elegance my phone left with?

Course you do.

You printed it out and stuck it in your walsho scrapbook.

Well, obviously, I bought a new phone.

I went down to the local Xtra-Vision and asked for the cheapest Meteor phone. I figured in this day and age, all phones have to be good. Surely it’s difficult to get a shit phone nowadays?

Nope.

Not difficult at all apparently.

In fact, to get a shit phone, it seems all you must do is go down to the local Xtra-Vision, and ask for the cheapest Meteor phone.

It’s a Nokia something or other. It disgusts me so much that I don’t even want to know the full name of the thing. It’s like if I knew its full name I’d be giving it some sort of validation or dignity.

So why is it so shit?

1. When I threw in my old sim card and looked through the contacts, they were all fucked up. They all had like an “A/” in front. Also, anyone who I’d given a surname to, that surname came first. This doesn’t sound too bad at first, but I tend to add descriptions of people after their name.

For example, people I met in college, often go in as “XXXX (College)”. Some of these descriptions are actually really long, as I don’t trust myself to remember things, particularly when drunk - the most common time when new contacts are added to your phone.

So that took fucking ages to sort out.

2. This thing is so damn slow. I don’t understand how it can be so slow. It’s like a depressed pensioner of a phone. They must have made it slow intentionally, so people would get pissed off and buy a better phone.

When I hit “Reply” to a message, it takes ages to respond. So naturally I press the button again. Then, it goes and reacts to the two hits - immediately sending a blank message. Cue me going red with rage. This was especially annoying as it happened a lot when I was away in Europe, when texts cost a fucking bomb to send.

3. It doesn’t light up at the jabbing of any button. When it’s locked, you have to press the centre button to get it to light up. This wrecks my head. My old phone would light up when you hit any button. Some of you may ask why this is such a problem. Mainly, because when I’m just getting up and want to check my phone for messages, I used to just give it a little poke with a toe. I didn’t have to aim. All I had to do was ensure some part of my foot mashed the keypad, and it’d light up, telling me if I had new messages. Now I have to use some military precision to check.

And I’m fucked if I’m picking up my phone and using my hands. No way, no how.

You can fuck right off mate.

I’m not bending down unless I really have to.

4. The vibration is a load of wank. My old phone had a polite little vibration alert - three little buzzes.

This new phone comes barging in, swinging his arms and shouting around like a lout with SIX FUCKING BUZZES.

This means that when the phone’s in my pocket it takes longer to determine whether or not I’m just being texted, or I have to prepare my phone voice, because I’m being called.

Just plain arrogance. My old phone was all lovely, getting my attention with a quiet clearing of his throat and an “excuse me sir, but one believes a text has arrived on thine phone”.

This cunt waltzes up, rings the doorbell three times, pushes me out of the way while clutching a half empty can of Dutch Gold, scratches his balls while failing to notice his zip is undone, and declares ” ‘ERE MATE, YOU GORRA TEXT OR SUMMAT” before puking on himself and passing out on my couch.

4. This is a recent issue. Now, when I get a text, it’s showing up as arriving an hour before it actually arrived. The time on my phone is correct, but for some reason, when I get a text at 6.30, it says it arrived at 5.30. Often I go large periods without looking at my phone, so I apologised to someone today for taking so long to respond to a text, when really I’d been about five minutes.

So now it’s making a fool of me.

I trusted my old phone. If for some reason it didn’t send a text, I’d be grateful, and think there was probably a reason my phone refused to text. Just looking out for me. But this new guy, he’s out to get me.

There’s plenty of other little things. The last one I’ll mention is such a minor thing, but I just don’t understand why it’s there.

When texting, you press the # button to change to capitals. I often do this for comedic effect, with hilarious results. But for some reason, if you press the “delete” button if you make a mistake, it takes the caps off again. So I’m in the middle of doing a shouty text, I make a minor mistake (without doubt caused by the phone’s shitness), delete the mistake, continue with the shouty text, only hang on! It’s back to lowercase.

Why the fuck did they do this? What genius decided this would be a good idea?

I can only believe this abortion of a phone was designed by a complete idiot - but a lovable idiot. Nobody in Nokia had the heart to tell him it’s not a patch on the old 3210 model, let alone the stuff out these days. So they went and made it.

Piss off phone (you’ll notice I haven’t even named this one), you’re a bastard.

When I look at it I don’t think “that’s my phone” like I used to with the old one.

We just don’t have the chemistry.

More efficient technology has come out of my dog’s ass.

And I don’t even have a dog.

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

My New Website - Do Me A Favour

It’s been a while since this site has seen me talk about my websites and all that. I’m going to go back to it, just for this one post.

I’ve recently set up a new site - Today I Lol’d. It uses the same script as the very popular FMyLife. I think it’s pretty obvious what the site’s all about, once you take a look.

Users submit stories, other users vote or comment on the stories. Everyone has some lolz.

So why blog about it?

I want you to help me promote it. I spent whatever money I had on my recent interrailing trip, so have zero cash to spend on promoting the site.

So think of everything I’ve done for you walsho.net readers. All the entertainment, all the laughs, the tears, the orgasms - everything.

Do whatever you can. Join the site, submit a story, tell a few friends, blog about it, link to it, stumble it, or even follow the twitter page or join the facebook group. Then you could always recommend the facebook page to friends. Digg users can see the submission here.  I’d be grateful for anything. Every little helps. And anyway, the site’s good, you’ll enjoy it.

Or just give me lots of money to go promoting*

(*Note : Money will almost certainly be spent on alcohol).

G’wan.

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!