I have been MIA for longer than I realised.

I lay the blame squarely at the door of the creators of Farmville.

That is all.

The front pages of today’s papers would really make you want to emigrate.

Not because of the recession (which is apparently over?), not because of the weather…

Because there is something deeply wrong with a country where people openly sympathise with people convicted of sexual assault, rape, child abuse etc.

I think it’s the ‘open’ bit that gets to me. This isn’t off-the-cuff, half-hearted sympathy. This is forming an orderly queue. Waiting your turn to get a word in. A word of sympathy which can only compound the victim’s horrific ordeal.

The papers are full of stories about the very same thing. Women and children being sexually assaulted by priests or ‘good respectable members of society’ and nobody batting an eyelid.

What is wrong with us?

As mentioned by Mark at IrishElection, the Kerry Rape & Sexual Abuse Centre could no doubt do with any donations they can get.

Sorry, have to update to highlight this…  Speechless.

I had intended on a long detailed post about this but I don’t have the time and don’t want to skip it altogether.

In brief, taithníonn sé go mór liom. Tá an béim athraithe ón sean-Fhoinse go nuachtáin níos oiriúnaí dóibh siúd atá ag foghlaim an teanga – nó ag déanamh iarracht í a fhoghlaim.

It seems much brighter – maybe fresher is the word for it. Also like the little foclóir on most of the news stories.

Unrelated, really, but I didn’t realise Mary McAleese had put that effort into learning the language. I know I’ve previously complained here about Bertie Ahern never bothering in his gazillion years as Taoiseach so it’s nice to see someone do it and do it right.

Now, the question becomes, will the Indo let you subscribe to ‘just the Wednesday issue, thanks’?

So now the €500,000 reduced payment will be his “base salary”????

Think we know what that means.

Stunningly effective way of making the Irish people feel just a little bit more like we’re being shafted by a select group of increasingly rich suit-wearers. Someone give that man a(nother) bonus…

It’s incredibly difficult to take the positives out of last night’s match or to imagine how the Irish team can be consoled.

Having said that, there are positives there to see. For starters, they did us proud – they did us more than proud. They outplayed Goliath on their home turf and ran themselves ragged for two hours. More than that, they didn’t let us down with how they reacted to “the incident”. They talked about feeling sickened, they were honest about how gutted they were, but there was nothing for their mammies to be embarrassed about. Heads held high, as was deserved.

Johnny Giles and Ronnie Whelan both made comments to the effect that handballs happen all the time and that if one of our lads had done the same we wouldn’t be complaining. I’m not sure, but I like to hope we at least wouldn’t be proud of ourselves. As Liam Brady said, it’s a bad day for the sport of soccer, when not one French player has the honour or honesty to admit what has happened.

It’s not an inconsequential match, and maybe the stakes being high is how they will justify this to themselves. How do you justify that to the seven year old fans watching their hero cheat their way to the World Cup? And how do you stand straight-faced at your opening match of that tournament and pretend you deserve to be there?

May they never live it down.

The lads didn’t just behave well, they played brilliantly – they lived up to expectations we had long since stopped holding for them. It is soul destroying that they have to come home to this rainy day with such heavy hearts.

I hope they get the welcome they deserve.

David Plouffe was on the Daily Show last night – or more accurately, the day before, but it was shown this side of the pond last night.

It has to have been one of the best Daily Show episodes in the last two years of my constant watching. The first half’s skit on the reporting of “Election Day 2009″ had me crying laughing, and then they matched it with an interview with Mr Plouffe.

I don’t care that his name sounds silly. I want to subscribe to this guy’s newsletter. In fact I want to volunteer to distribute it to a wide and varied audience. He didn’t just plug his book, or his candidate, or his president. He completely outflanked Jon Stewart. It was, as the man said, awesome.

The book was being bought anyway, but I may also need to find some way of be coming an official disciple.

And my plans to link to clips of the show just got killed. Stupid Irelandness. Go google it.

There’s a lovely letter about Sharon Commins in today’s Irish Times.

There’s also an article in the Independent about how much Sharon has been looking forward to Eggs Benedict but hasn’t had the chance to eat them yet.

Putting these two together has led me to wonder, how has some brunchery/chef not hand delivered a plate of Eggs Benedict and a bottle of champagne to the woman?

I don’t even mean for PR – it would be better to do it as a gesture and nothing else – but after 106 days in captivity she wanted rest, Eggs Benedict, and champagne.

If I was a better chef I’d bring them to her myself.

A letter in today’s Irish Times reminded me of the need to blog about my lack of blogging.

I’ve been feeling a lot of guilt about the lack of updates, and in particular the lack of Crosaire-solvage(?) in recent days and weeks.

The sad fact is that the daily Crosaire puzzle is no longer available free from the Irish Times website. I would happily join the Crossword Club (if only for the lovely leaderboard!) for the tiny sum of €35 per annum but the fact is that in my current state of being constantly busy I don’t have the time for either crossword.

So for the moment I must postpone my crusade to conquer Crosaire. Which is quite sad, since I was just about getting somewhere.

Now that it’s all blissfully over, I’m really hoping that Monday’s Irish Times has a lovely big explanation piece.

As in, “We said yes, what does this actually mean/change/cause”.

That would make me happy.

I’m a bit stunned that the Indo have an open appeal for a yes vote on the front page. But that’s besides the point.

From the time I first started playing tennis, aged about 3, my dad would always tell me that the only thing more important than losing gracefully was winning gracefully. So if you get wiped off a court, you thank your opponent, shake hands, thank the umpire, and walk off the court with your head held high. If you’re the one doing the wiping? You thank your opponent, shake hands, thank the umpire, and walk off the court with your head held the same height – no higher.

So tomorrow, or whenever, we get the result of today’s vote, I would love to believe that our elected representatives will conduct themselves accordingly.

Ganley has lost his credibility, in my eyes at least, because the last time he lost a vote he said he wouldn’t come back. Anything he says after the result, either way, is meaningless.

SF and Cóir and whoever else would be doing themselves a favour if they didn’t get too noisy at a win, or a loss.

But the rest of the spectrum of parties and groupings who are pushing for a Yes?

If they don’t get their way, they would want to step away, accept the result, and show a bit of respect for the fact that we would rather not be asked again in 2010. Most importantly, I would love to see a response to a No vote that didn’t turn into an assumption that the electorate didn’t understand, or a tirade against those campaigning for a No.

If, however, they get their Yes vote – at last – they would be doing themselves a service to take it with a bit of grace.

Celebrate, by all means. But don’t make it about how illegitimate organisations have been proven wrong. Don’t make it about the idiot electorate copping on to themselves. Don’t – for the love of Spaghetti Monsters everywhere – do not kid yourselves that you ran a great campaign.

Accept it, enjoy it, say all of the above in private if you absolutely must.

But please,  either way, let’s not have a week of “told you so” headlines.