Portrush man Graeme McDowell wins the US Open golf championship – a first for a European in 40 years. "I've so many great friends here this week, and so many Irish people in the crowd cheering me on... I don't know what it is about the Irish, they just seem to get everywhere."
Chaos in the France camp with the expulsion of striker Nicolas Anelka, players refusing to train, and even President Sarkozy sending his Minister of Sport to try to sort it out. Gervais Martel, vice president of the French Football Association, describes their behaviour as: "Catastrophique – on est dans la merde." And 'allez yours' too, Fifa. If you'll pardon our French (we know you're so good at that) ….
No need for one of Domenech's horoscopes to have predicted John Terry putting his big foot in it pre-Slovenia. The Les Rosbifs defender who still thinks he's captain is on the receiving end of coach Fabio Capello's ire for attempting to launch a coup. As one report had it: "England (are) playing football so boring that snores drowned out vuvuzelas." As for John Terry, he "risked the horse-head-in-the-bed treatment, by publicly calling out Don Fabio".
So who do you think you are, as Fabio likely asked Tel? And it's what the government plans to ask 70 million people of Irish descent worldwide in its plan to introduce a certificate of Irish heritage for those who do not qualify for citizenship. Good diplomatically, good economically and might even unearth more players for our national squad. That's if, of course, our civil servants will be able to cope with the demand…
Mortgages and loans will be as scarce as French sportsmanship after the Financial Regulator signals a major clampdown on bank lending. Bad news too as a self-assessed property tax is being considered for the next budget, based on the value of the property. That should be fun – trying to evaluate a home's worth in the current market. Maybe they'll revert to ye olden days of the Glass Tax, evaluated by the number and size of windows, as introduced by William of Orange in one of his less crabby edicts.
But it's not just falling prices – it's falling houses – literally. A court ban is issued to prevent identifying the location of over 25 new housing estates where residents have reported their homes damaged due to the use of pyrite in their construction. The ban is to prevent panic among new homeowners as the government fears an 'epidemic' of pyrite reports will have a dramatic effect on house valuations. A property crash then, literally.
Huh, Britons think they're victims of an austerity budget, its announcement craftily timed the day before the crucial England/Slovenia game. That's nothing compared to what we're suffering under our emergency budget privations, to paraphrase that old Monty Python sketch: "You think that's bad? We're living in shoebox in t'middle of motorway." "Cardboard?" "Aye."
Disrespectful, undisciplined, trading insults about the boss – no, not Les Bleus this time but General Stanley A McChrystal, the American hard man at the helm of the Afghanistan war. He criticised nearly all of President Obama's war cabinet in an interview in music magazine Rolling Stone, resulting in the summoning of the 'Runaway' general to face music of a different kind in the White House.
It felt like a match that would never end – not the so-so 90 minutes of football between England and Slovenia, but the (eventual) 11-hour Wimbledon endurance test between France's Nicolas Mahut and American John Isner. On Wednesday, with no break of serve during a record 118 games, and a level score of 59 all by that stage, it was fading light, not fading players that stopped their marathon. Ah, the nights are drawing in already…
Queen Elizabeth ll visits Wimbledon for the first time in 33 years; her invitation to visit Ireland will be the first by a reigning British monarch since partition. Taoiseach Brian Cowen stressed it was time to "move on" and observe "normal courtesies between neighbouring friendly states". Yes, we can't keep on blaming the 'Brits' for all our woes. Maybe we could make a start by not cheering on Germany – too loudly – today?
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