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  • Red card

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    France needed all 15 players to beat a well organised Ireland rugby team. Unfortunately Willemse hadn’t read the memo and was sent off after he received two yellow cards. Ireland without Sexton played well. France without Dupont not so much. An exciting game, but Ireland held onto their early lead…

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  • Stirring it

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    My obsession with coffee is well known by my peers. A double espresso with a class of water is my usual order at our local Italian bistro café (or Il solito – my usual in Italian). I am always provided with a dainty little spoon even though I don’t take…

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  • Six Nations

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    Ireland will have tough competition in their opening game tomorrow night against France. I would secretly like Italy to beat England on Saturday but it seems unlikely. Scotland should be favourites to beat Wales. Of course I have placed some long odds bets on the games. Yellow card betting has…

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  • Doing the knowledge

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    How do we know what we know? Descartes started the whole debate questioning the certainty of what we accept without challenging its veracity. He was attempting to strip back our understanding  of what we know and discard everything else. That old adage ‘cogito ergo sum’ was Descartes’ catchphrase. He doubted…

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  • Duck confit

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    Best duck in the world was a bold claim for the Silver Hill confit duck I bought yesterday. But twenty minutes in the oven later I was looking at two duck legs with crispy skin and succulent flesh. Including duck fat was a nice touch. Smearing the fat over the…

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  • Playoffs

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    American Football is an acquired taste. I acquired it when Channel 4 first started broadcasting it. It was in the days of Joe Montana, the 49ers quarterback and the Fridge who played for the Chicago Bears. I was a 49ers fan but my allegiance has been fickle. So we’re down…

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  • Just one thing

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    Dr Michael Mosley is our health guru. I didn’t manage the blood sugar diet, but giving up alcohol helped me lose weight at the time. If I was serious about weight loss I should try his Fast 800 programme. In the meantime I will give his Just One Thing a…

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  • Violinist thought experiment

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    Imagine you woke up in a hospital bed and one of your kidneys was hooked up to a world class violinist with a kidney problem in the bed next to you. If you disconnect the link, the violinist would die instantly. Do you have the right to do that? It’s…

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  • New year, new coffee

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    I love good Italian style coffee. My De Longhi bean to cup machine makes a reasonably good espresso, but it’s not as good as coffee from a professional machine. For that I go to La Bottega on the Lisburn Road. I hadn’t visited since before Christmas and received a warm…

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    Panpsychism

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    Fundamentally who are you? An animal, organism, human being. Yes, but what about your mind, your mental capacities? Can you fully explain matter without including psyche or consciousness? Descartes believed in the existence of ‘substance’ in his investigation of the mind/body problem. Do we need a philosophical understanding of matter?…

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