And so it seems the residents of Clacton-on-Sea in Essex were right to be mortally afraid of a house cat. New reports have shown one thousand people a day in the UK, 350,000 a year, contract a parasitic disease carried by your average moggy. Although in healthy humans the parasite shouldn’t cause too many problems it can bring on the flu and in pregnant women or immunosuppressive patient’s it can be more serious, even being attributed to triggering schizophrenia and obsessive compulsive disorder. However, you only get it from ingesting cat feces so unless you have an interesting taste in after dinner treats I wouldn’t kick the cat out just yet.
Enda has praised Minister for Health James Reilly for reversing health cuts despite the Dáil preparing to put through a vote of no confidence. On admitting his mistake Kenny said of Reilly, “The Minister had the courage to do that and do it quickly”. This makes me wonder what we couldn’t all reverse and get away with as long as we’re quick about it.
Perhaps we could also reverse the Jelly Bean Factory’s decision to create chocolate covered beans. It just seems wrong. It has though created twenty-five new jobs at the factory in Blanchardstown. The company has been an Irish success story and expects 50% growth over the next two years with the Belgian chocolate covered beans ready for Christmas. Enda Kenny, cropped up there too, to launch the factory’s extension and no doubt fill his pockets with free beans. What a Willy Wonka.
The Irish Fishermen’s Organisation have a bone to pick with the Department of Justice after having to ask to ensure skeletal remains found in the sea off the south coast of the country are sent for DNA identification. If found in a politician’s closet, some may understand the desire to keep things hushed up but the ‘budgetary constraints’ that have so far prevented the testing of the remains make for a pretty poor excuse. The skull and two femur bones were found along the Waterford and Wexford coast lines and could be any one of the nine fishermen that have been lost at sea in recent years.
Ronan Keating may wish he were at sea this week or on a desert island with just the one disc, his own. That would bring the total sales of his new album to 182.
Brian McFadden on the other hand is catapulting himself back into the public eye. The former Westlife singer, more famously formerly married to Kerry Katona is to release a new song he hopes to a be a hit. The track will feature as part of new RTE show The Hit in which he will compete with Royseven frontman Paul Walsh for the biggest charting song.
If the mundanity of modern celebrity culture disturbs you don’t fear. The old ways aren’t dead yet. A seventeen year old boy who used a can of pepper spray in the mugging of a Brazilian man has been asked to write a letter of apology to his victim. Hurrah for pen and paper! Who said snail mail was dead? The humble tradition of written letters lives on.
The man, in his twenties, was attacked with the spray before having his wallet taken. He has since moved from the area of the assault in Dublin as he no longer feels safe. Ah. Anyone got a forwarding address? Maybe they’re friends on Facebook? Or he could just tweet him instead.
