Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon II: The Green Destiny

Just found out that they're making a prequel to one of the best martial arts movies of all time: Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.

Apparently it will hit the cinemas next year.

My wife would be very excited but for the fact that there is no mention of Chow Yun-Fat!

The good news is that the following are involved (in order of my importance):

• Michelle Yeoh
• Donnie Yen
• Yuen Woo-ping

The bad news is that there is no mention of any of the following (again in my order of importance):

• Chow Yun-Fat
• Ang Lee
• Jet Li
• Zhang Ziyi
• James Schamus
• Yo-Yo Ma
• Tan Dun

I guess we will just have to wait and see.

What Page of Google Am I On?

Here's a handy tool:
http://whatpageofsearchamion.com


It will tell you where you feature on Google results.

Here is an example showing where my blog entry appears for a search with "Trevanian movie":

So I'm on page 5.

Very nice tool. Very nicely done.

No news on Trevanian

I posted two stories on Trevanian a while back and I have been checking to see if there is any update on either.

The sad news is that there is not.

There is no further update on the making of the movie based on Satori. By the time it gets made, Leonardo DiCaprio will be far too old to play Hel!

And there is no update from Alexandra Whitaker on progress with completing "Street of the Four Winds". In fact, I cannot see any sign of any recent updates on her website.

Ah well: we must be patient I suppose.

If I had one wish, though, it would be this:  I wish that Alexandra, or one of her family, would share more information about the great man. We learned a lot from "The Crazy Ladies of Pearl Street" but that only told the first part of his life story. There is so much more that we, his fans, want to know!

Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues

I watched the first hour of "Anchorman 2" this evening.

Now if you've already seem the movie, I know what you're wondering: why did I watch a whole hour?

To be honest I don't really know. I guess I kept on thinking: "it has to get funny soon".

But it didn't.

Needless to say, I won't be watching the second hour.

IMDB gives it a score of 6.6. I wonder why?

Normally I would put a photo here in the post. In this case I'm afraid that won't be possible.

Anglo Irish Bank: Sean FitzPatrick

I mentioned in my last post that Sean FitzPatrick was found not guilty in his first criminal trial.

I wonder if this means that he is innocent of any wrongdoing?

Let's examine some of the evidence.

Fitzpatrick was the CEO of the bank from 1986 until 2005, when he became its chairman. He was chairman until he resigned in December 2008 as details emerged of secret loans (more than €100 million!) he had taken out with the bank.

So he presided over this bank during a period of unprecedented growth. The following chart shows the growth in share price over some of this period:

 It is clear in hindsight (and was pretty clear at the time if I'm being honest) that much of this growth was due to imprudent lending practices.

Professor Patrick Honohan (an economist who was appointed Governor of the Central Bank of Ireland in September 2009) had the following to say in 2009:

"A very simple warning sign used by most regulators to identify a bank exposed to increased risk is rapid balance sheet growth. An annual real growth rate of 20% is often taken as the trigger. Each of the locally-controlled banks had at least one year in which this threshold was triggered. One of them, Anglo Irish Bank, crossed it in eight of nine years, and indeed its average annual rate of growth 1998-2007 was 36 per cent. Another, Irish Nationwide, crossed the line six out of the nine years, for an average rate of growth over the nine years of just above 20%. So this was a very obvious and public danger sign not only for these two banks, but because of the potentially destabilising effect of reckless competition on the entire sector. The rapid growth in the market share of Anglo Irish (from 3 to 18% of the total assets of the six locally-controlled institutions that subsequently received the Government guarantee) was certainly an important influence inducing the other banks to relax lending terms to avoid losing even more market share."

Professor Honohan's last sentence here is very mildly phrased: I prefer to think of Anglo as a cancer which which was affecting the Irish banking sector and the wider economy.

He was the chairman of the bank at the time (2008) when the following took place:

• The crimes of which Whelan and McAteer have just been convicted (July)
• The 6-7 billion Euro "B&B transfers" between Irish Life & Permanent and Anglo (September) which have not yet come to trial

So did he know about these things? It is interesting to note that Judge Nolan noted during the case that FitzPatrick was “the chairman of the board and not in the office every day”

It has been my experience that companies have an ethos and a culture, and that these come from the leadership. We have learned quite a bit about the culture of Anglo, especially from the infamous tapes.

If FitzPatrick did not know about any of these illegal activities, then he created the environment in which they could take place. He set the tone and the agenda. He hired the people.

It seems incredible to me that when (if?!) FitzPatrick examines his own conscience, he is unable to find anything which causes him remorse and disquiet for his future.

Anglo Irish Bank Criminal Convictions

I'm not a legal export. I'm not a banker. I never set foot in Anglo Irish Bank. I don't know any of the people who worked there. I never bought any shares, thank God (I've always been a believer in the theory that if something looks too good to be true, it probably is to good to be true).

I'm just a normal Irish citizen who follows the news and who has seen the disastrous impact that the activities (some of which have now been confirmed as being illegal) have had on the Irish State.

So the current trial of 3 gentlemen from Anglo was of interest to me. Thus far nobody from Anglo has gone to jail.

On Thursday last, Sean FitzPatrick was found not guilty of the charges which were brought against him. Afterwards he thanked his family, his legal team (for obvious reasons!) and the jury.

He had the temerity to mention "the past six years of great personal difficultly"! I find that unbelievable! The bank that he ran for so long, and of which he was the Chairman at the time of these particular illegal activities, brought this country to his knees through its own actions, and the impact its actions had on other elements of the banking sector. He played an important role in wrecking the lives of so many people who lost jobs or found themselves to be living in negative equity. And he complained of his "great personal difficultly"!

How some people can be so self-centred, and have so little remorse, will always be a complete mystery to me.

I am hopeful, of course, that other criminal proceedings will have a different outcome for Mr FitzPatrick.

The other 2 gentlemen who were facing charges were not so fortunate: Pat Whelan and William McAteer were found guilty of giving illegal loans to the "Maple 10" to buy shares in the bank. They will be sentenced on April 28th.The charges, under section 60 of the Companies Act, carry a penalty of up to five years in prison and/or a fine of up to €30,000 per offence.

I look forward to that date with interest to see if we will finally see someone behind bars for the criminal activities of this rogue bank.

The three gentlemen are pictured here:

The Raid 2

If you're an action movie fan, and you're not excited about "The Raid 2", then check this out:

The Raid

I was surprised to discover that I never blogged about "The Raid" (aka "Serbuan maut" and "The Raid: Redemption").

This was an excellent action/martial arts movie made in Indonesia and featuring Pencak Silat.

The movie stars Iko Uwais who puts in an excellent performance from both the dramatic and martial arts perspectives.

The majority of the cast and crew seem to be Indonesian with the important distinction of the director, Gareth Evans who is Welsh.

The movie was the second collaboration between the two men, the first being "Merantau". The Raid is a huge step up from Merantau - the guys talk in videos available on YouTube about the amount they learned by making the first movie.

In other videos available on YouTube they admit how strongly influenced in making the first movie they were by the success of Ong Bak (the influence is very obvious when watching the movie) and how they wanted to do for silat what the other movie had done for muay thai.

The IMDB ratings reflect the great job they did in going from the first movie to the second: the ratings increased from 6.7 to 7.6.

The Raid is available to watch on Netflix.

The reason I am prompted to mention these movies is that the cleverly named "The Raid 2" is in cinemas now.

I remember blogging some time ago about how much I was looking forward to seeing "Taken 2". Then I had to blog about how awful that sequel was.

Well I haven't been to see The Raid 2 yet, but the IMDB rating is currently an astonishing 8.9! If it stays like that it will be in the IMDB top 10!

So I'm really excitied about going to see it.

Here's a picture of Iko in action from The Raid:

Siam Thai, Malahide

We had lunch in Siam Thai in Malahide a few weeks ago. As always, it was very good.

The things that impressed me most (because I was expecting the food, service, etc. to be good) was the quality of the desserts.

All top notch.

Here's a picture of what one of the kids had (and it tastes as good as it looks!):

Ray 'Arcy

I mentioned Ian Dempsey in a recent post and his long and remarkable contribution to breakfast radio in Ireland. But I also need to pay tribute to his colleagues Ray D'arcy.

Ian broadcasts on Today FM on weekdays from 7 to 9 AM, and he is then followed by Ray who takes over from 9 to midday.

Between them they make an unbeatable pairing.

When I am working from home, it is fair to say that Today FM will be playing in our home up until midday thanks to these two guys.

Ray and his team organised the "Half Million Half Marathon" for LauraLynn, which is Ireland's Children's Hospice, which was run this morning. Ray, Jenny (his wife) and Mairead all ran in the event.

Well done to them all!

Star Trek Continues!

The most exciting thing to happen in the world of Star Trek in the last while (and much more exciting than the movie "reboot") is the appearance of "Star Trek Continues".

The team have made 2 episodes and 3 "vignettes" so far.

They're not bad at all. Very true to the original.

And Vic Mignogna not only puts in an excellent performance as Kirk (he even has his walk!) but he also has credits for writing, directing, producing, and composing additional music! That's some contribution!

Other examples of the team's love for the original series are:

• James Dohan's son Chris takes on the role of Mr. Scott
• Michael Forest reprises his original role as Apollo

My hat is off to all involved.

You can watch the episodes and find out more information here.

Scratch Competition Finals

I mentioned in my last post how proud I am of my son who got his junior black belt in karate.

Well this time I need to mention my daughter Ellen who got through to the finals of the 2014 Scratch competition!

This seems to be the fourth year that this competition has been run.

Apparently there were almost 1000 entries from all over Ireland and 5 are going through to the finals in each of 5 categories.

In CoderDojo Malahide we encouraged the kids to enter the competition and I'm delighted to say that we have a second finalist: Joshua Murray who is in the 4th year to 6th year category.

Ellen's entry can be seen here and Joshua's here.

Well done Ellen, Joshua, and CoderDojo Malahide!

More details of the competition and the finalists are available here. The finals will be held on the 2nd of May.

Junior Black Belt

I have been a fan of the martial arts since I was a kid. But, to be honest, I have spent MUCH more time watching martial arts movies than learning the martial arts.

Can you imagine how proud I was therefore the day my son Andrew got his junior black belt! (kids under 12 can only get junior belts with the Irish Kenpo Karate Union)

Here's a picture of him striking a pose shortly after he got the new belt:

Rugby Fever

In my last posting I mentioned Brian O'Driscoll's last 2 games for Ireland.

I took this photo from an upstairs window after the second last of those games.

It's hard to see but the kids on the green have abandoned their usual soccer and are playing rugby!

Amazing.

The fantastic Brian O'Driscoll

The outstanding person I want to mention in this second posting is Brian O'Driscoll aka BOD aka "Captain Fantastic"!

Brian has been a fantastic servant of Irish rugby for many, many years and has and continues to be a fantastic servant of Leinster rugby.

IMHO he is the greatest Irish rugby player of all time.

IMHO he is the greatest Irish sports person of all time.

It was fantastic to see him bow out of Irish international rugby with:

• A win over Italy in his second last match where he scored 3 tries and was awarded man of the match (followed by a very nice tribute to the man)
• A win over France in France (for only the second time in 42 years) where he was again made man of the match
• The winning of the Six Nations Championship!

Fairytale stuff indeed!

Here's a picture of the great man taken after the game:

The Fantastic Ian Dempsey

In this blog posting and the next I want to salute two great servants of Ireland.

The first is the fantastic radio DJ Ian Dempsey (known as "Iano" to all and sundry).

I was switched on to Ian's fabulous breakfast show by my wife. She's a huge fan.

What impresses me most is how "up" he is every morning.

And then (back in October of last year) Today FM had a "This is your life"-type celebration to mark 25 years of Ian presenting the breakfast show (more).

How anyone can present a breakfast show for 25 years, and still be so cheerful, is a mystery to me.

So hats off to Iano.

You can listed to the tribute program here.

One thing which he wife said which really stuck me was that she remarked that it was nice to see Ian being honoured when he spends so much of his time making the people around him look good. Very valid point I think.

And here's a picture of Ian and his family on the day:

Hiatus

A hiatus (great word!) is defined as follows:

a pause or break in continuity in a sequence or activity.

I can't believe that I haven't written a blog posting since January!

In my own defence, I have been very busy with work and university. I have to complete a dissertation by the end of this month and it's a tremendous amount of work!

What makes it all the more unbelievable is that a number of things have happened over that period which are crying out for a blog posting. So I think I'll do a couple (even though I shouldn't!)