Well I’m five weeks now in the sunny Pacific NorthWest (well it’s Sunny today!).
There was an interesting opinion piece on the New York Times blog about the changes taking place in Ireland now that the Celtic Tiger has found somewhere to rest her weary bones. If you’d like to know about Ireland’s economic woes, just mention it in passing to an Irish person and they’ll happily talk until you can take no more.
Someone pointed out to me recently that the general topic of Irish conversation moved from the weather, to house prices (during the boom years) and now have moved onto the “current economic climate”. Of course the turnaround has been pretty staggering moving from “full” employment to 11% unemployment in not more than a couple of years. And the Central Bank is forecasting the economy will shrink 7% this year. Still I feel that as a nation, Irish people are more comfortable dealing with angst and despair (hence conversations focused on the Irish weather).
That was an extremely long pre-amble onto the point of this post which was once again the lack of imagination shown by my parents continues to haunt me. There might a few among you who remember my travails every time I travelled through Heathow airport. [Note: my namesake his since been incarcerated and the issue has ceased].
Well apparently (and subsequent investigation has found it to be true) a “Tom Murphy” commented on the aforementioned post on the NY Times blog this morning, and I’ve had a flurry on enquiries on whether it’s me or not.
It’s not.
I do wish my parents thought of something like Ziggy or Apple Blossom (though I’m not sure I’m an Apple Blossom type of guy – though maybe I’d grow into it… sigh).
If I do ever comment on the NYT Blog I’ll sign it: “Tom Murphy – yes it IS me”
Murphy's Law 