Category: Uncategorized
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The Great Music School of Ely Place
In Spring of 2015 My Good Self attended a two day conference in London entitled ‘Vision Impaired Musicians Lives’. Joining me was The Counsellor, who had recently received an email inviting him to the conference. There was a definite hint of serendipity and happy coincidence about that email. Three years earlier I had decided to…
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Leadership, victory and defeat
A lady by the name of Helen Clark became the first female Prime Minister of New Zealand on 27 November 1999. The world in which we live is full of division. There are individuals who are wealthy and others who struggle to make ends meet. There are people who give and those who take. And…
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Casablanca
26 November 1942 saw the premiere of the movie ‘Casablanca’. Play it Sam. Set in World War II in the Moroccan city of the same name, ‘Casablanca’ starred Humphrey Bogart (Bogie) and Ingrid Bergman. Bogie plays Rick, the cynical nightclub owner. Bergman plays Ilsa, his former lover who reappears unexpectedly one evening in his club.…
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Bob Geldof
On this day, 25 November, in 1984, a Dublin native by the name of Bob Geldof rounded up 44 friends and fellow musicians to record a pop song entitled ‘Do they know it’s Christmas?’. Band Aid was born. Geldof grew up in the middle class Dublin area of Dun Laoghaire. He first came to prominence…
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Sunday mornings in the city
Ever since I had the temerity to pop out of the womb of The Kilkenny Lady many moons ago, My Good Self has resided in The Fabulous Fair City of Dublin. I’m a Dub. A northside Dub. Having said that, on occasion I have been known to venture forth to the more affluent southside of…
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The perils of journalism
The world needs many things in order for it to keep ticking along. Marks & Spencer’s Food Hall is one of them. Brave journalists is another This week saw the detention of a man by the name of Yorgen Fenech in Malta. He was arrested in connection with the murder of anti-corruption journalist Daphne Caruana…
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JFK
Many people remember where they were on 22 November 1963, the day President John F. Kennedy was assassinated. My Good Self has no recollection whatsoever of that particular day. I had yet to emerge onto the world stage. John Fitzgerald Kennedy (JFK) was born on May 29, 1917. His family was not short of money…
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Bloody Sunday, 1920
There have been two Bloody Sundays in Irish history. The more recent one took place in Derry in 1972. The original of the species occurred on 21 November, 1920, a violent day in the history of Dublin. It was a time when Ireland was fighting for its independence from Britain. A man by the name…
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Diana
On this day in 1995, the BBC current affairs programme ‘Panorama’ aired an interview between its reporter Martin Bashir and Diana, Princess of Wales. It was riveting television. Diana Spencer, born 1 July 1961, grew up near the royal estate of Sandringham, in Norfolk, England. She moved to London in 1978 and three years later…
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Oscar Wilde
This week saw the recovery of a stolen golden ring given as a present by the renowned Irish writer Oscar Wilde to a fellow student in 1876. Taken almost 20 years ago from Magdalen College, Oxford, where Wilde studied, at the time the ring was valued at over 40,000 euro. Oscar Wilde emerged onto our…
Blind light 