Rónán Mistéil's blog

This morning I was quoted in Trinity’s University Times. The tweet published was emotionally driven and written on Wednesday afternoon in the aftermath of bloody clashes with the Gardaí at the student fees protest in Dublin. However, I stand by what I wrote, but I can understand that being limited to 140 characters, it can easily be interpreted differently to how I meant it.

Fortunately, blogs don’t have a character limit, so here’s my full response to anyone who misunderstood the meaning behind it:

Regarding my tweet featured in the University Times this morning (http://goo.gl/CLGXy), at the time I wrote it, reports were still coming in as to what exactly had happened at the march in relation to the clashes with Gardaí. From photos and videos that were appearing fast and frequent on twitter, it seemed clear that there were certain elements at the protest that decided it was their right to drink cans and give abuse to the Gardaí. I can only assume that anyone willing to become involved in a stand-off with the might of Gardaí on horseback and in riot-gear has either had an excess of drink in them or a lack of braincells.

Pricing the poor out of education is certainly not what I meant by the tweet, and I accept that income level probably has nothing to do with the behaviour of those elements on the day, but needless to say, a rise in fees will weed out many of those not willing to take their education seriously, and as far as I’m concerned anyone willing to disrespect our elected officials by throwing eggs, or our Gardaí by clashing with them hasn’t taken their education very seriously up to this point.
From whatever background you come from, everyone should accept that a few thousand euro is more than pocket change, and no one will part with that kind of cash unless they actually wish to pursue third level education seriously. Anyone taking a student protest as an opportunity to drink cans and cause trouble, in my eyes, is someone that would sooner spend their money on anything but further education.

By raising fees (which I do believe should happen), it will weed out people from every social background that aren’t willing to take education seriously. It will also raise some much needed capital for the Government’s coffers, and capital, unlike violent protesters, is something the country is in dire need of.

Is léir go mbeidh an coláiste ag tosú arís i Mí Meán Fómhair ar an t-ochtú lá. Shíl mé go mbeadh cúpla seachtain eile saor againn sula bhfilleadh muid, ach sin mar atá.
Beidh orm críochnú san oifig ar an Déardaoin roimhré, tosaíonn an Electric Picnic an lá ina dhiaidh sin agus seans go mbeidh orm dul díreach ó sin go dtí an Cheathrú Rua.

Seachas deacrachtaí taistil agus gnóthacht an tréimhse sin, tá mórán eile a bhí sé i gceist agam déanamh fad is a bhíomar saor. Tá ríomhaire nua le ceannach agam (nó cadhnra nua don netbook ar a laghad). Theastaigh uaim mo chuid sean-cluichí ríomhaire a eagrú, ach faraor tá cuid mhaith des na cáblaí ar strae (maraon le mo chuid Lego, ach sin scéal eile).

Ach ar a laghad tá fón nua ceannaithe agam (Samsung Galaxy S), agus tá mé anois ar O2 seachas Meteor, rud a chiallaíonn go mbeidh mé in ann é a úsáid laistigh den teach don chéad uair.

Oh, agus tá an fón nua go h-álainn amach is amach, nach bhfuil?

This is basically a fantastic musical driving game a few of us invented at the weekend.
(Well, we thought it was fantastic, you might think otherwise).

What you’ll need:

• iPod (or other portable music player) – the bigger the better, anyone with a Classic can consider it money well spent since the invention of Leap-pod.
• Car
• Method of connecting iPod to car (bluetooth, fm dongle, cable etc)

Preparation:

Set your iPod to shuffle, sit someone with good arithmetic skills and eyesight in the passenger seat and hand them the iPod.

Rules:

When you overtake a car, take the last digit from their registration plate and skip forward that many songs (Do this even during a current song).

When a car overtakes you, skip back the number of tracks equal to the last digit of their registration plate (you’ll need to add one to this number because your first press back will leave you on the current song).

That’s pretty much it.

You might not hear all of many songs depending on traffic, or you might hear all of every song if you meet no cars. We played on the M6 to and from Galway and it worked quite well. Sometimes we’d pass two or more cars and have to combine all their reg numbers.

Of course, additional rules can be added as necessary. Foreign regs with letters can be translated to corresponding number (A=1, B=2 etc). And you may want to give each passenger one pass/lock on long journeys if they particularly like/dislike a certain song.

Having to skip away from a good song isn’t always fun, and other times you’ll be stuck with Westlife (which no one but me appreciated) or that stupid Fireflies song (which I hated), but that’s how the game goes, as the proverb says: “Leap-pod is a cruel mistress.”

…since my last blogpost. Ok, ok, I get it. A new blogpost is forthcoming.

Stay tuned…