Off Topic Thread 3.0

sydthebeat

Scythica wrote: »

Didnt make it that far north but jealous you're heading there!

nothing concrete planned yet... but with return internal flights working out about €250 i was exploring the driving route... but with it being november and all i probably wont do it (this time )

we'll probably just stay around the reykjavik area, maybe do one car hire day

Scythica

sydthebeat wrote: »

nothing concrete planned yet... but with return internal flights working out about €250 i was exploring the driving route... but with it being november and all i probably wont do it (this time )

we'll probably just stay around the reykjavik area, maybe do one car hire day

You can stretch a day out of reykjavik i think doing walkint tours and museum's and the like. Its not a huge place but plenty of coffee shops and the like.

Blue lagoon is nearby too. Golden circle is worth the hire car alone i think for 4 of us it was cheaper having it than to pay for a tour bus for all. (Geysir and gulfoss waterfall etc)

Zzippy

sydthebeat wrote: »

nothing concrete planned yet... but with return internal flights working out about €250 i was exploring the driving route... but with it being november and all i probably wont do it (this time )

we'll probably just stay around the reykjavik area, maybe do one car hire day

Husavik would be a very long drive. When I was there a lot of the roads were gravel (15 years ago) and I wouldn't fancy driving that far. We flew to Akureyri and it was worth the money, though I think internal flights were a bit cheaper back then...

TICKLE_ME_ELMO

According to Google Maps, Reykjavik to Húsavík is a 5hr 36 minute drive, 472 km.

Dave_The_Sheep

Ouch.

thomond2006

Comish Podge, when's the Draft?

sydthebeat

TICKLE_ME_ELMO wrote: »

According to Google Maps, Reykjavik to Húsavík is a 5hr 36 minute drive, 472 km.

mid november, gravel track... nah.. not this time

Teferi

thomond2006 wrote: »

Comish Podge, when's the Draft?

+1 on this.

CatFromHue

Just watched the last episode of Bridget and Eamon and who said Leinster was Dublin only, sure they're not even from Naas!

Podge_irl

Teferi wrote: »

+1 on this.

Apologies lads. Will send out something tomorrow and well do it some evening next week.

Us three, Buer and ibf (cause they don't have a choice). Anyone else in for the NFL fantasy football?

I'll send out messages to all of last year anyway as well.

Buer

Podge_irl wrote:

Us three, Buer and ibf (cause they don't have a choice). Anyone else in for the NFL fantasy football?

Not to be a dick but I'll bow out unless there's a big uptake. Not much a sense in having a league where half of players never participate.

thomond2006

If there's not enough people then every team will be ludicrously strong.

TICKLE_ME_ELMO

Hurling final is great. Tipperary dominating Kilkenny here. Will still probably lose in the end.

wp_rathead

CatFromHue wrote: »

Just watched the last episode of Bridget and Eamon and who said Leinster was Dublin only, sure they're not even from Naas!

why would you do that to yourself

pickarooney

Missed the final. Only remembered it was on when I got talking to an Italian guy who had founded a GAA club in Provence. Feck Tipp anyway.

Zzippy

Twas a fantastic game of hurling. First half was a cracker, teams were level so many times. Thought it was over when KK got the goal, but Tipp held their nerve and went on an amazing run of scores - the accuracy was phenomenal. The intensity Tipp brought to the game was incredible. KK have been great champions but it's great to see another team beating them soundly - no talk of what could have been, best team by a mile won today.

thomond2006

It was a great game alright!

Nothing beats this final though:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1RpPtgzPY_o

CatFromHue

wp_rathead wrote: »

why would you do that to yourself

I dunno!

I liked the Republic of Telly sketches so gave the show a go. The show is very clunky in that a lot of the stuff is only ok/not great and then they'll say a joke which will get me laughing out loud.

TICKLE_ME_ELMO

CatFromHue wrote: »

I dunno!

I liked the Republic of Telly sketches so gave the show a go. The show is very clunky in that a lot of the stuff is only ok/not great and then they'll say a joke which will get me laughing out loud.

It was pretty decent in the short sketch form but the hit/miss ratio of gags on the extended show kind of says it should have stayed a short sketch.

wp_rathead

kuang1

Anyone know when graham norton is due back on our screens?
His show is the only remaining non-sport one that I make an effort to follow.

molloyjh

kuang1 wrote: »

Anyone know when graham norton is due back on our screens?
His show is the only remaining non-sport one that I make an effort to follow.

I'm far too busy counting down the days to season 7 of The Walking Dead I'm afraid.

irishbucsfan

So this EU Army thing... How many times have we been told it wouldn't happen and that the rumours that the EU wanted an army were lies? I read that countless times in English papers in recent years. Now we're being told by our Foreign Affairs department they do want it to happen after all but we're safe because of the provisions we had added to the Lisbon Treaty which require unanimous agreement. Let's see how quickly that requirement for unanimous agreement, and our neutrality, is thrown out the window...

Another crystal clear reason why we need absolute clarity on EU politics: “Without transparency you have no democracy, because if citizens don’t know what their government is doing on their behalf, they cannot pass critical judgement on it.”

molloyjh

irishbucsfan wrote: »

Let's see how quickly that requirement for unanimous agreement, and our neutrality, is thrown out the window...

Given that it would require a Treaty change I can't imagine it would happen that quickly. This is like the CCCTB thing. There are countries in the EU that want it, but for as long as there are countries that don't then it won't happen, regardless of how much the likes of the Germans and French want it to.

irishbucsfan

molloyjh wrote: »

Given that it would require a Treaty change I can't imagine it would happen that quickly. This is like the CCCTB thing. There are countries in the EU that want it, but for as long as there are countries that don't then it won't happen, regardless of how much the likes of the Germans and French want it to.

Actually, turns out they already had written their workaround into the Lisbon Treaty (not sure people were aware at the time). So there you go, no unanimity required, just a qualified majority.

molloyjh

irishbucsfan wrote: »

Actually, turns out they already had written their workaround into the Lisbon Treaty (not sure people were aware at the time). So there you go, no unanimity required, just a qualified majority.

That's for countries wishing to work in cooperation with each other. It does not constitute the creation of an EU Army and only applies to those countries who wish to participate in whatever action they are looking at. It isn't even driven by the EU, it's just a mechanism within the EU that allows for EU countries to work together off their own bat.

irishbucsfan

molloyjh wrote: »

That's for countries wishing to work in cooperation with each other. It does not constitute the creation of an EU Army and only applies to those countries who wish to participate in whatever action they are looking at. It isn't even driven by the EU, it's just a mechanism within the EU that allows for EU countries to work together off their own bat.

Well now it sounds very much like every other EU nation is about to use that clause of the treaty in order to create their army, with a timetable being presented by Juncker's representative for Foreign Affairs on the 16th September, and also suggestions from the Italians that they're going to try to include tax breaks for arms manufacturing and also subsidising defense research from the EU budget...

Not sure how far Enda Kenny will get if he's the only one objecting to this at their meeting of 27 EU leaders (British excluded) in Bratislava next week, where it's being presented. Not sure that anyone else in the EU is even opposed to it.

thomond2006

Why would any of the major players in Europe want an EU army?

kuang1

molloyjh wrote: »

I'm far too busy counting down the days to season 7 of The Walking Dead I'm afraid.

Ah yeah...the walking dead. I watched the first 2 seasons I think. But lost interest when it became obvious that Andrew Lincoln's character wasn't gonna be killed off.
I just can't be sold on him with that southern american accent. Having watched him in "This Life" as Egg, and in "Teachers" as Simon Casey (which both of I enjoyed) it's a reach too far for me to buy in to him being a sheriff from..where was it again? Somewhere in the bible belt anyway...
No ta.

But the plotline was pretty catchy if I remember rightly.

irishbucsfan

thomond2006 wrote: »

Why would any of the major players in Europe want an EU army?

According to the main man a while ago it's because 'noone takes European values seriously'.

Mr Juncker said pooling military capability would demonstrate EU member states’s determination never to go to war against each other. But the true value of such an institution, he said, lay in the situation further east.

“A common army of Europeans would give Russia the clear impression that we are serious with the defence of European values,” he told Germany’s Welt am Sonntag newspaper. “Before I thought that one no longer had to justify Europe but I have understood that there is a necessity for this. Europe has lost enormously in reputation, in foreign policy one doesn’t take us too seriously.”