General

I was in Oxford at the weekend to see an exhibition of treasures recently found in the royal burial tombs and the palace of Aegae, the ancient city of Macedon.

Artefacts in the exhibition included objects from the burial tomb of King Phillip II, father of Alexander the Great.

The exhibition was hosted in the very impressive Ashmolean Museum, the world’s first university museum.

Oxford itself is also a very impressive city with history seeping out of every stone.

Those students changing the date of birth on their passports must be studying for a Masters in gross stupidity.

While reading a book on Roman history I came across the following interesting item concerning the status of women and their attempts to repeal (successfully) a piece of legislation known as the Oppian Law.

The Oppian Law was passed following the disastrous defeat of the Romans by Hannibal at the battle of Cannae (216 B.C.).

Because of the wars with Carthage, many men had died. Their wives and daughters had inherited their lands and monies, allowing many women to become quite rich.

The state, in order to help pay for the cost of the wars, decided to tap into women’s wealth by passing the Oppian Law. It limited the amount of gold women could possess and required that all the funds of wards, single women, and widows be deposited with the state.

Women also were forbidden to wear dresses with purple trim (the colour of mourning and a grim reminder of Rome’s losses).

Nor could they ride in carriages within Rome or in towns near Rome.

That all sounds perfectly reasonable and fair to me.

Cato the Censor spoke out strongly against all this women’s lib stuff.

Citizens of Rome, if each one of us has set himself to retain the rights and the dignity of a husband over his own wife, we should have less trouble with women as a whole sex.

As things are, our liberty, overthrown in the home by female indiscipline, is now being crushed and trodden underfoot here too in the Forum.

Our ancestors refused to allow any woman to transact even private business without a guardian to represent her; women have to remain under the control of fathers, brothers or husbands.

But we (heaven preserve us!) are now allowing them to even take part in politics, and actually to appear in the Forum…What they are looking for is complete liberty, or rather, if we want to speak the truth, complete licence.

Oh for the days when men were men and women knew their place – *sigh*.

George Bush Snr.

Read my lips; no new taxes.

Bill Clinton

I did not have sexual relations with that woman.

Brian Cowen

We are not in negotiation with the IMF.

FIFA President Sepp Blatter

Crisis? What is the crisis?

Taoiseach, Enda Kenny

Let me say with absolute clarity there would be no need for a second bailout.

During my adventure to Australia I took off and landed in the following airports – Abu Dhabi (twice), Sydney (three times), Uluru (Ayers Rock), Melbourne and Singapore. From the smallest to the largest all these airports were modern, well designed and efficiently run.

At Dublin, traffic congestion resulted in a wait of nearly half hour on a taxiing runway before disembarking. We were then processed in a dirty, pokey immigration area accompanied by a background noise from a tinny PA system apologising for the chaos caused by the accidental triggering of an alarm system.

I was home.

A remark made by a fireman to Lord Henry Mountcharles during the fire that nearly destroyed Slane castle (Marian Fincuane Show).

Jasus Henry, this is quality smoke.

Hubris.

Ryanair has revealed that 50 people have now contacted them claiming they ate the €10,000 scratch card onboard a Ryanair flight from Poland to the UK last week (Irish Independent).

It was claimed that a passenger on a Ryanair flight had eaten the winning scratch card in protest at being told he couldn’t claim his money straight away.

Ryanair spokesperson Stephen McNamara said: “Ryanair loves a trier but not a chancer and 50 chancers so far have contacted Ryanair.”

McNamara said that 40 out of the 50 claimants were not even on the flight from Krakow to the East Midlands when the alleged incident occurred.

The budget airline confirmed that the consumption of the winning ticket made it null and void and that the prize money will now be donated to charity.

Ryanair passengers will have the final say on which charity receives the cash by voting on the company’s web site.

Just back from a holiday in Sweden. When we arrived in Stockholm it was 14 below which, in our ignorance, we took as normal.

After speaking to some locals it became apparent that such severe weather was in fact unusual and had caused all sorts of problems particularly with transport.

Our plan was to travel by overnight train to the very North of Sweden to the small resort of Abisko where we hoped to see the Aurora Borealis or Northern Lights.

The journey which should have been a non stop 19 hour trip actually took 25 hours. Because of weather conditions we were told that we would have to change trains at the town of Boden but during the night we were informed that at 38 below this was too dangerous and we would have to go on to the town of Lulea on the Baltic coast.

After finally arriving at Abisko we quickly found ourselves partaking in a three hour shoe shoe nighttime trek in the wilderness in the hope of experiencing the magical lights.

Unfortunately, they didn’t make an appearance but our guide advised us that if we got up again at 3 a.m. we might be lucky.

Although wrecked after 28 hours of near sleepless traveling we did set our alarms and lo and behold we saw the lights. Not the most spectacular appearance but beautiful nonetheless.

Our decision was fortunate because for the rest of the holiday cloud cover prevented all sightings.

Seeing the lights, having a drink in the ice hotel and many other experiences made it a very memorable holiday.

I went a bit mad last week and invested in a €4 lotto quick pick and won the stately sum of €5.

When I went to cash in my fortune, however, the shop assistant, with a sheepish grin, said that the lotto till didn’t have enough cash to cover my winnings.

Feck, says I, this must be the first time that the lotto bank has been broken.

The same shop assistant was on duty last night when I called in on the way home from a walk.

Sorry, she said, with a big smile, the lotto closes at 10pm, I hope you haven’t booked a holiday in the Seychelles?

We laughed but I was thinking to myself – How did she know?