"It would almost make you a socialist", and old woman railed at me at the
the bus-stop this morning.

She was talking about the consistent underperformance by Irish athletes
at the Olympics - by which she meant middle class athletes in poncey sports
like the hammer and hurdles - compared with the relative success of our
boxers - who are of course working class youngsters from Dublin and Belfast. 
As the Irish Times described it "the uprising against Irish Olympic mediocrity".

And this before the announcement that another Irish show-jumper has been
caught cheating.  Denis Lynch, riding Lantinus, was thrown out of Thursday's
individual show jumping final in Beijin along with three others from Norway,
Brazil and Germany.

In its statement, the International Equestrian Federation (FEI) said the four
horses had been "provisionally suspended by the FEI further to doping/
medication control tests that indicated the present of capsaicin in each
horse".   "Capsaicin is classified as a 'doping' prohibited substance given
its hypersensitising properties, and as a 'medication class A' prohibited
substance for its pain relieving properties."

BBC equestrian commentator Michael Tucker told BBC Radio 5 Live:
"Capsaicin is basically rubbed onto the front of the legs and it makes
the horses pick up their legs.

Cian O'Connor was stripped of his individual gold medal won in Athens on
Waterford Crystal.

TOMORROW: Middleweight semi-final 8.0am: Darren Sutherland v James
De Gale (Brit). Light fly semi-final 12.0 noon: Paddy Barnes v Zou Shiming
(China). Light heavy 2.0pm: Kenny Egan v Tony Jeffries (Brit)

A Reuters report has suggested the ten French soldiers killed in Afghanistan
this week, were crushed in a stampede to surrender. 

“Nous avons essayé de soulever le drapeau blanc. Quelqu'un déclenché
au-dessus de lui. Ensuite que c'était chaos total. Quand nous avons été dits
nous collaborerions avec les forces de l'OTAN que nous avons pensées qu'il a
signifié quelque chose différente”, said Lieutenant Petain.

Have you tried searching for "french military victories" in google?  Try it using
the "I'm feeling lucky" button.

Busy day yesterday getting ready for the big novena.   I sent my wife, Bellatrix to the chemist
to get some syringes.  They looked at her rather askancedly - perhaps it was the roll of tin foil
and the lemons she'd bought in the Centra next door - people in Roscrea can be very suspicious. 
She explained that they weren't for injecting herself but for injecting into little bottles.  This
didn't seem to help.  But then she mentioned the Archconsodality and everything was fine.  In fact
they gave her four large syringes for free!

So Fr Dan Handler arrived at the house with boxes of bottles and crates of olive oil and we began
the laborious task of injecting the oil into the bottles.

Tip for future - you know the way in ER and Grey's Anatomy they always hold the syringe up and
squirt a little to remove the air - not a good idea to do this in your kitchen with olive oil.

Then we had to cut out all the labels - "Blessed oil of Saint Euphrosynos the Cook" and stick them
on little bags for the bottle in case the bottles leak.

I predict it will be a great success.

Note to editors:  The Archconsodality of St Euphrosynos was founded in Coolderry, Co Offaly, in
1857.  It is committed to praying for celebrity chefs. 

For more information contact Fr Dan Handler, St Ita's, Coolderry, Co Offaly
or telephone (0505) 21370.