Metro Herald, Thursday, March 13, 2014 by Metro Herald

Thursday, March 13, 2014

The bod of all ThingS

O’Driscoll’s career as told by Wholly Thursday

Style

Designers on your doorstep »p15

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Stricken by grief

Addict will serve no extra time for hit-and-run death

A CHRONIC addict on his way to by declan brennan buy drugs when he ran down and Witnesses said the pedestrian light killed a 14-year-old boy has been was green for Conor and that the given a 20-month jail sentence. When gardaí arrested Ruadhan speeding car ‘came out of nowhere’ Tracey, 33, two months after the hit and hit him. Tracey said he panicked, drove off, and run, he told them he knew it was because he had knocked the boy collected his drugs in the city and ‘got down, saying: ‘Conor Hickey, I will f***ed up’ but was not under the influence of drugs or alcohol when he never forget that name.’ Tracey told gardaí after his arrest he hit the boy. John Hickey, the vicfelt numb since he learned tim’s father, said: ‘Before oF the news the boy died. December 2011, life for He claimed the lights were my family was very difgreen and said: ‘I took my ferent and as close to pereye off the road for one fect as you could get. second and then bang. I ‘It’s impossible to desaw a shadow. I didn’t think scribe the effects a trageit was a person.’ dy like this has on a famHe told them he looked ily. It’s like a tsunami that back and saw the commohits a family. tion on the road but didn’t Killed: Conor Hickey stop because he had no tax or insurance. TURN TO PAGE 4

GIVE US A SMILE: A horse is cooled down after racing at the Cheltenham racing festival yesterday ReuteRs

Keep Dublin tidy – Please recycle this Metro Herald when you are finished with it

METRO HERALD Thursday, March 13, 2014

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Today is... World Kidney Day A global event to raise awareness and educate about the importance to life of our kidneys, how we can look after them better and the risk factors for kidney disease. Four days ahead of Paddy’s Day...

From the archives (2012):

CLOCKWORD

Tragic Olympic-winning Boxer Darren Sutherland was afraid his manager would ‘destroy him and his family’ if he gave up the sport, an inquest into the Dubliner’s death heard. Mr Sutherland, 27, took his own life in his London flat in 2009.

The solutions from 1 to 12 are all six-letter words ending with the letter E in the centre. Moving clockwise from 1, the letters in the outer circle will spell out the name of a film icon.

Sutherland was afraid to quit

Today’s birthdays

Neil Sedaka, US singer, 75; Candi Staton, disco queen, 74; William H Macy, US actor, 64; Adam Clayton (right), U2 bassist, 54; Peaches Geldof, Bob’s daughter, 25.

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8.

9. Sewing tool 10. Set on fire 11. Aimless outdoor trek 12. Flowery, decorative

Shelter Power cut Insect Empower Prize draw Royal seat Vandalise Come out

Yesterday’s solution: Romilly Weeks

Weather Weather Today

Max: 13°c

Apart from a little light rain on northern coasts, it will continue dry. Frost will clear quickly but fog will lift more slowly, many places will have sunshine by afternoon. Temperatures between 10°C and 13°C in light breezes.

10�C

Derry

Donegal

10�C

11�C

Cavan

Galway

13�C

Athlone

Dublin

12�C

Tipperary

12�C

Waterford

Tralee

Cork

Tonight

Belfast

13�C

12�C Sunrise: 6.45am Sunset: 6.25pm

Min: -1°c

Mostly dry tonight but rather cloudy in the west and north, perhaps a little drizle near the coast. Some clear periods in southern areas with patchy fog and frost. Temperatures between -1°C and 2°C.

EUROPE today

Tomorrow After frost and fog clears, it will be a dry, bright day with sunny spells. Temperatures between 10°C and 12°C in moderate or fresh westerly winds.

Barcelona

17 °c 16 °c

11�C

Berlin

16 °c

Brussels

12�C

London

17 °c 15 °c

Athens

10�C 10�C 12�C 10�C

12�C

12�C Max: 12°c

Paris

14 °c 16 °c 18 °c

Rome

17 °c

Geneva Madrid

Thursday, March 13, 2014 METRO HERALD

Look past the smile to see the sadness... WHITE whale Petrovich may look happy – but his smiling face disguises a shocking truth. The beluga is one of hundreds caught in northern Russia each year and trained to perform tricks at aquariums. And as many as half of his fellow prisoners will refuse to eat the food given to them and die. ‘They do not interact well at first,’ admitted Maria, who works at the centre where the animals are taken to acclimatise to living with humans. ‘Despite the fact that, in nature, they have no enemies, you have to earn their trust before you have contact with them.’ Petrovich, who is thought to be about 12 years old, has adjusted comparatively well to life at the centre in Nilmoguba, on the coast of the White Sea. Having spent four months there, he is destined to be sent to a Moscow dolphinarium, where he will be able to interact with others of his species. But even belugas that cope with losing their freedom are likely to die younger than those in the wild – where they have few predators and can live to be 40 or 50. ‘Beluga whales are made of flesh, blood and bone and, of course, they can feel terror and pain, just as we do,’ said Ben Williamson, of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. ‘Aquaparks sentence intelligent marine mammals to a life of deprivation

by SHAROn MARRiS and isolation in tiny concrete tanks – and this constant stress takes its toll. ‘In captivity, beluga whales usually die decades earlier than their species’ natural life expectancy.’ The beluga – which means ‘white one’ in Russian – is often referred to as the ‘sea canary’ because of its songs and chatter, which can even be heard above the water. Their capture is difficult to justify on conservation grounds because the worldwide population is estimated to be between 40,000 and 80,000.

Fish supper: Petrovich tucks in. Other belugas refuse to eat food given to them by keepers while in some cases the intelligent animals never come to terms with losing their freedom, succumb to starvation and die

Pictures: exclusivePix

Music top for Irish online video fans MOVE over cats – music videos are officially the most watched YouTube content in Ireland. A Google survey has found that comedy content came second, with Howto and DIY videos the third most watched. The research, the first of its kind for Ireland, also found that Irish YouTube users are outgoing and sociable. Some 44 per cent of YouTube users in the Republic are above the age of 35 and the site is equally popular with men and women. Forty per cent of those polled said they visit the site daily, with 77 per cent

admitting that they visit it weekly. Presenting the Ipsos research yesterday, Google Ireland’s YouTube industry manager Ruth McEntee said: ‘Irish YouTube users are more digitally active consumers than non-users of the site. ‘They are nearly three times more likely to buy/download digital music, movies or books; three times more likely to buy electronics, gadgets or other devices and are nearly twice more likely to buy apps for their smartphone or tablet,’ Ms McEntee said. The survey also found that Irish YouTube users are opinion leaders, being twice more likely to be the first to

Tú Tube: Irish users are ‘opinion leaders’ try new products, almost twice as likely to rate products services or restaurants online, and 1.2 times more likely to tell others about brands they love.

Broker-types most likely to share info in the office BROKERS, Traders, Hoarders and Squanderers – no, not a stock exchange lunch table but quite possibly your office. Microsoft teamed up with Amárach Research to investigate personality types in Irish workplaces. Brokers, it found, are best for sharing information and are most likely to hold a mid

to senior level position in a small professional services or engineering company. They are mostly men, aged between 35 to 44 years earning in excess of €60,000 per year. The other personality types gamble away information because of fear (hoarder), ignorance (trader) or indifference (squanderer).

METRO HERALD Thursday, March 13, 2014

Breaking of Garda rules on penalty points rife A GARDA watchdog investigation into the quashing of penalty points by officers has found consistent and widespread wrongdoing within the force. The inquiry by the Garda Inspectorate also attacked management after finding ‘no meaningful evidence’ of good supervision of the system. The Inspectorate examined cancellations of fixed-charge notices for motoring offences in nine Garda districts. In more than half of the cases there was no evidence to support why the offences were wiped out. Some 55 Garda inspectors out of 113 investigated had breached internal Garda rules in cancelling fixed-charge notices. The Inspectorate also found no evidence of off-duty officers being refused a request to wipe penalty points. In one case, a garda had five offences wiped, four of which were ‘not justified’, the Inspectorate found.

€5,000 for man falsely accused of nappy theft A MAN who was ‘recklessly’ accused of stealing baby nappies from a shop has won €5,000 damages for defamation of character. Judge Jacqueline Linnane said store owner Charlie Tracey should have checked his CCTV footage before accusing Francis Dunne, 55, of stealing Pampers nappies in 2012. The court heard Mr Dunne had walked past C&T Stores at Philipsburgh Avenue in Drumcondra when Mr Tracey approached and told him staff thought he took the nappies from C&T without paying. Mr Dunne had nappies he bought elsewhere but said he felt intimidated by Mr Tracey’s ‘arrogant’ behaviour.

By METRO HERALD STAff

Justice Minister Alan Shatter came under Opposition fire yesterday for having criticised the garda whistleblowers who first raised the issue. Among the 37 recommendations in the report are that penalty points can only be cancelled by the Fixed Charge Processing Office in Thurles and points will only be cancelled ‘where the petition is accompanied by third party evidence’. However, speaking on RTÉ yesterday, former member of the Garda Ombudsman Commission, Conor Brady, said it had conducted an investigation into the work of the Thurles office in 2007/2008 and found it was ‘utterly ineffective’. The inspectorate was set up to scrutinise overall practices within the force and does not have the power to investigate alleged wrongdoing by officers.

Sentencing due for drug-fuelled club break-in

55 out of 113 inspectors broke rules

Licensed and Bonded No: TO 101

Revisit The Jewel of the Mediterranean

Holiday Sale

Ends Thursday 20th March

HORRORSHOW: Members of the DIT Drama Society warm up with a hungry plant for their production of the musical Little Shop Of Horrors in the O’Reilly Theatre on March 18 and 19 Picture: Mark StedMan

‘No day goes by when I don’t ask why did this happen?’ From Page 1 Conor’s mother Margaret said she feels a pain in her chest which no pills can cure. In the family’s victim impact statement, she said: ‘No day goes by when I don’t ask myself the question why, why did this happen?’ Tracey, of Lagore Green, Dunshaughlin, Co Meath, has 36 previous convictions. Last July Judge Mary Ellen Ring imposed a ten-year jail term, with two years suspended for a spate of armed robberies he carried out after

the hit-and-run on Fassaugh Road, Cabra, on December 2, 2011, to which he pleaded guilty. One of the robberies left a worker in need of 24-hour care after Tracey stabbed him with a syringe. The 20-month term will run alongside the ten-year sentence, so he will serve no extra time. The maximum penalty for careless driving causing death is two years, and for leaving the scene is six months.

Yesterday Judge Ring said she was bound by the legislation and must also give credit to Tracey for pleading guilty at the earliest opportunity and his genuine remorse. She said: ‘He has to live with the consequences of being a man who drove a vehicle which killed a boy. ‘He wasn’t even man enough to stay or present himself.’ As Tracey was led away by prison officers a member of the public shouted: ‘Shame on you, scumbag.’

A MAN stole a car, crashed it and broke into a Dublin golf club where he was later found asleep in a druginduced stupor. The stolen car, an Audi A4, was found impaled on bollards outside the club with the engine still running. Wayne Keogh, 33, of Russell View, Tallaght, admitted burglary and the unlawful use of a car at the Slade Valley Golf Club in Saggart in 2012. He was on bail at the time for a series of burglaries and attempted house break-ins carried out in Dundrum a few months earlier. Judge Carmel Stewart remanded him in custody for sentencing on March 31.

Gardaí warn of rise in ‘fishing’ style burglaries HOUSEHOLDERS have been warned about a crime craze of ‘fishing’ burglars who use rods to steal keys through letterboxes. Garda analysts reveal around four burglaries every week now involve using adapted fishing rods or long bamboo canes to snag keys from hallway tables. Hooks or powerful magnets are attached to the end of the rods to catch the unsecured keys, often left within a few feet of the front door. Gangs are then able to steal cars without triggering alarms or break into homes without smashing windows or doors.

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A MAN who was suicidal when he drove the wrong way down a motorway before crashing into another car has avoided jail. The 23-year-old, who wrote a suicide note before causing the crash, was crying when gardaí arrived at the scene, and told them: ‘I just wanted to end it all, I just wanted to do it.’ The man, from North County Dublin, pleaded guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to reckless endangerment on the M1 motorway, Balbriggan on May 10, 2013. Judge Mary Ellen Ring imposed a sentence of two and a half years but suspended it after noting his mental health issues and his efforts to deal with them.

GARDAÍ were called to NUI Galway yesterday as tempers frayed between 200 students on opposing sides of a referendum on same-sex marriage. No arrests were made however. The Galway students are due to vote today in the referendum which will decide if the NUI Galway Students’ Union will support a national referendum on same-sex marriage. Up to 50 students who want a ‘no’ vote staged a sit-in at the concourse in the main campus. But dozens more also made their views known and gardaí were called amid concerns that the situation could spill over into a more serious confrontation.

Thursday, March 13, 2014 METRO HERALD

No airport strike action after High Court steps in

Peta’s national hunt for ‘sexiest vegans’ ANIMAL rights group Peta wants to honour the sexiest vegans in Ireland and the UK. It has launched its annual competition to find those who’ve said farewell to meat, eggs and dairy. The male and female winners will each receive a night away for two plus lunch at vegetarian hostelries in Cumbria. Entrants must be over 18 years old and need to register by 3pm on March 27. Peta counts the likes of Pamela Anderson among its celeb supporters but has come under fire for targeting opponents and putting down unwanted animals in the US.

BY JOANNE AHERN

Man freed after 26 years on death row

picture: pa

TOMORROW’S planned airport strike has been averted after the High Court granted an injunction to the Dublin Airport Authority and Ryanair stopping the action. Siptu workers had planned a four-hour work stoppage from 5am at Dublin, Shannon and Cork airports and at Aer Lingus on Friday in a pensions dispute. However, both the DAA and Ryanair went to the High Court claiming the strike, on the Friday of the St Patrick’s bank holiday weekend, would cost millions of euro and would cause maximum disruption to thousands of travellers. They said the action was not valid and asked the court to intervene. Welcoming the court’s decision yesterday, the DAA called on Siptu to ‘fully focus on engaging with the Governmentsponsored Expert Panel to seek a fair and sustainable resolution to pension issues’. Ryanair said revised Friday flight schedules will remain in place and Aer Lingus said the damage had ‘already been done’ by the strike threat. Siptu said it would comply with the orders but that it did not resolve the pensions dispute.

HOME FRONT: Gerard Tier and his daughter Kyria, 2, who have been living in hotels for six months, were among homeless families at an Anti-Austerity Alliance protest calling for rent controls and house building outside Leinster House yesterday. The protest was to coincide with Dáil statements on homelessness

A MAN who spent nearly 26 years on death row in Louisiana has walked free, hours after a judge approved the state’s motion to strike out the man’s murder conviction for a 1983 killing. Glenn Ford, 64, had been on death row since 1988 in connection with the death of 56-year-old jeweller Isadore Rozeman. Ford always denied killing Mr Rozeman. A judge voided Mr Ford’s conviction based on new information that proved he was not present or involved in Mr Rozeman’s death.

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METRO HERALD Thursday, March 13, 2014

Spraying ‘cuddle chemical’ up nose can treat anorexia

MinicOSM SCIENCE AND DISCOVERY IN BRIEF

FAcEbOOK FEELINGS: We talk about online posts going viral – and it seems moods can spread in the same way. When web users put positive updates on social networks, their friends do, too. It means sites could be used to create an ‘epidemic of well-being’, say US scientists in Plos One.

by SHARON MARRIS

A HORMONE released during sex could provide a treatment for anorexia. Oxytocin – known as the ‘cuddle chemical’ – can stop sufferers obsessing over staying thin if given to them as a nasal spray, a new study suggests. Anorexics shown a series of pictures by researchers tended to become fixated by images of food and fat bodies. But, after ingesting the hormone, they were less likely to obsess over the pictures. ‘There is currently a lack of effective pharmacological treatments for anorexia,’ said Prof Youl-Ri Kim, from Inje University in Seoul, South Korea. ‘Our research adds important evidence to the increasing literature on oxytocin treatments for mental illnesses, and hints at the advent of a ground-breaking treatment for patients with anorexia.’ Oxytocin was given to 31 participants in the study, co-authored by Prof Janet Treasure, of King’s College London, and published in journal Plos One. In a second experiment, they looked at faces displaying a variety of emotions. After ingesting the spray, they were less likely to fixate on faces showing disgust, which is linked to anorexia.

DIAMOND wATER: A diamond can mean many things... including evidence of oceans deep beneath the Earth. One water-rich gem found in Brazil confirms there are vast volumes of water trapped 600km (380 miles) below us, Canadian scientists report in Nature journal. DIDDY DINO: A ‘pygmy tyrannosaur’ less than half the size of a T. rex has been identified. Nanuqsaurus hoglundi – whose fossilised remains were found in Alaska – may have evolved to stay small because food was scarce in winter, say US experts in Plos One. cAN’T bEAR TO wAKE up: A polar bear cub snoozes in its enclosure within the seaside Zoo am Meer in Bremerhaven, Germany, yesterday. The female polar bear was born on December 16 last year and has only recently left its birthing cave for the very first time picTure: epA

if you have a story for Minicosm, email us at news@metroherald.ie

wholly thursday

KEN ROGAN pays a tearful tribute to Brian O’Driscoll, the man who rewrote so many scripts of Irish sporting soap operas

was there. Paris, 2000. Lunch before the game in a brasserie full of excited middle-aged Irish men carrying on the way men do when they’re allowed to start drinking at lunchtime. A French couple tries to get a table. Interception! ‘Ah non!’ the waiter says, muttering impossibilities. Moments later he gives a thousand welcomes to an incoming Irish couple. Hilarious. This isn’t how it normally goes in France, but it set the tone for the day. We won. He won. Saw him about a week later in UCD, still beaming. Bought him a pint once too, him and his mate. Figured there ought to be some perks to the captaincy. You know. Beyond the model girlfriends and ad contracts. The Six Nations had just ended, and France had hockeyed us. So what. I was just chuffed to pay my personal respects. That was the last time I saw him off the field. We’re fast running out of opportunities to see him on it. Soon we’ll only have highlight reels with thumping soundtracks and no-look self-passes and dodge-tastic tries where he carves out a

tight arc to leave several defenders for dead as we remember, ‘oh yeah, he can do that’. He could also pick the ball up while running full tilt, which I’m pretty sure is one of those skills you have to have to be in Na Fianna. Such is the deified O’Driscoll: try-god and High King of Leinster. His best one was against England in 2009. We were camped on their line, forwards knocking on the door. Heaslip, O’Connell, Wallace. Repeat. He drifts in, then left of the ruck. O’Leary lines him up. So do the English, this lone gunman – this short, outside centre attacking off the fringe of a ruck from a standing start. He moves a fraction of a second before the ball does and beats gravity in a race to the ground. The defenders haven’t got below their own knees and he’s under them. Try. A forward’s try. Scored by a back. You may or may not know that on the rugby pitch, forwards look at backs the way members of Na Fianna look at mere mortals. And that’s putting it mildly. Backs are regarded as passengers in a game for hard men, with steel in their muscles, fire in their bellies and

him – might even turn the page on rocks in their head. Before the idea that we’re afraid to win – O’Driscoll, centres were rangy, that we can’t handle being swervy, pace merchants who favourites. wouldn’t be seen dead at the Look at us. No Sean O’Brien, no bottom of a ruck – who would Stephen Ferris, and we’re playing more likely be found dead at the for the tournament. We have depth. bottom of a ruck. Well. Not in the centre. There’s no Backs aren’t usually captains replacing that. Next guy in his job either. Normally it’s someone from will be pen pals with David Moyes. the trenches because leaders lead Before that happens though, by example, and never ask our tale gives an of others what they are irresistible nod to not prepared to do history as we themselves. Before O’Driscoll, return to the O’Driscoll has again and again centres wouldn’t be seen scene of a 14year-old master smashed dead at the bottom of crime. himself and his Somebody dense, cuboid a ruck – who would once said that frame so hard more likely be found sports are like into people that soap operas both he and they dead at the bottom without scripts. We were concussed. of a ruck know the format, the For his team. For the characters, the backjersey. For us. This is story, and we even mostly inspiring to the point of tears. Watching heroes like him perform know the ending. What we don’t know is ‘how’, in this great, is the antidote to our daily diet of unfolding pantomime of life. But fear and worry. Instead of being suddenly it’s behind you, and you frightened, their bravery fills us realise it was the story you loved, with hope. That’s what makes us believe in them. They even have the not the ending. It was the journey you shared, not the destination. power to change the way we think Bod was in the detail. about ourselves. These players, with this circumstance – and with @kenrogan

“

Thursday, March 13, 2014 METRO HERALD

METRO HERALD Thursday, March 13, 2014

★

★★ ★ ★

What will it take for the Spice Girls to reform again? T

he Spice Girls would reform for a Las Vegas residency – but only if they got paid more than Britney Spears. emma Bunton, 38, insisted that she, Mel B, Mel C, and Geri halliwell would need to better Britney’s reported €235,000 a show for them to bring girl power to Sin City. ‘I’d go to Vegas – if we get paid more than Britney,’ emma joked. ‘See, after the Olympics, it was really hard to think “what can we do next?” We represented our country you know, it was huge!’ she added, ‘We like to say “never say never”, so we’ll have to see.’ With former bandmate Mel B previously admitting it would be ‘cool to do a Vegas spot’, Bunton knows it

Itsy bitsy: Miley Cyrus celebrates a break from cavorting on stage wearing next to nothing on her Bangerz tour by wearing next to nothing by the pool. The 21-year-old kicks back in just a bikini in Texas and shares a snap of herself on Instagram – with the caption ‘Dallas hoes’.

by jEnni McknigHT

needs a lot of thought now that she is a mother of two sons. ‘I mean, we’ve all got children, so travelling with them… but, who knows, at the moment we’re happy doing our own things,’ she told me at the Tric Awards at London’s Grosvenor house this week. ctoria But there’ll be no chance of Victoria Beckham, 39, joining them as she has sworn never to again perform with The Spice Girls. Meanwhile, radio presenter emma says watching her boyfriend Jade Jones, 35, reunite with his former band Damage for this year’s Big Reunion hasn’t left her feeling nostalgic about her early Spice Girls days.

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Lost and found: Lily’s wedding gown howler We’ve all suffered that momentary horror when a precious belonging isn’t where we last left it. Yet singer Lily Allen suffered a scare bigger than most when she was forced to admit she had lost her €240,000 Chanel wedding frock. But the panic is now over. As details of the Air Balloon singer’s expensive loss hit the headlines yesterday, the 28-year-old took to Twitter to tell her 4.6million followers: ‘OK, everyone relax. I found it.’ Allen earlier ‘fessed up’ that she had lost the custom-made Karl Lagerfield gown, which she wore for her wedding reception in 2011, in a chat with pal Miquita Oliver for a 4Music TV show. Ashamed Lily said: ‘It’s missing. I don’t know where it is!’

Thursday, March 13, 2014 METRO HERALD

★

It doesn’t sound as though Jennifer Lopez is over her showmance break-ups after saying she’d feed two of her exes to the sharks. When asked by a US radio host who she would save out of Ben Affleck or Diddy if stranded at sea, the 44-year-old blurted: ‘I’d let both those motherf***ers drown.’ Realising the severity of her outburst, she added: ‘That’s terrible. This is the worst interview ever. You are crazy. You got me in trouble.’

Sam: Cowell needs to be less shallow about looks X

Factor champion Sam Bailey and impresario Simon cowell have entered a slanging match after she accused the dream maker of being ‘shallow’ for questioning her chances of long-term success. things kicked off when cowell told Guilty Pleasures the former prison officer had failed to live up to past winners and he wasn’t celebrating her success just yet. ‘Sam, we will wait and see,’ said the 54-year-old tV mogul. ‘She will have a very successful debut album. (Is she) going to be as good as the final year we did? No. that was a very special year. I would love to find another olly Murs or something similar to olly.’ However, the pregnant singer pounced on cowell for hanging success on looks. Bailey said: ‘to be honest, X Factor has had so many joke acts and not people that had potential. People that have had potential who have maybe been a bit fatter or older

by SEAMUS DUFF and jEnni McknigHT or not looked right, they need to start looking at those people because then you get someone like me.’ She continued: ‘there’s so many singers I’ve watched previously on the show that have had the most amazing voices but they’ve been classed as too cruise ship or too clubby. I worked on cruise ships for nine months in 1999, that was it – and I’m cruise ship?’ Daring to bite the hand that feeds her, Bailey warned cowell: ‘I think they need to look a little bit further and it needs to be less shallow and they might be all right.’ Meanwhile, cowell has little time for 2012 champion James arthur, saying: ‘I think James, unfortunately, has had so many issues with what he has done publicly – which is a real issue with me. Somebody should have told him to shut up and just put the records out.’ out.

Rocking it: Jennifer Aniston, 45, and fiancé Justin Theroux, 42, killed off split rumours in New York, where the actress’s engagement ring was firmly on show. The pair had lunch at Barneys before stepping out in Tribeca picturE: spLasH

Girls together: The passing of the baton from supreme supermodel Kate Moss to rising star Cara Delevingne seems complete as the pair have finally posed for a fashion campaign together. The 40-year-old catwalk queen and the 21-year-old ‘new kid on the block’ have been united by Burberry to promote a new fragrance. Photographer Mario Testino was behind the lens for the shoot picturE: instagram

Exposed: LiLo’s black book of 36 conquests Everyone has a little black book of conquests, and Lohan’ has been Lindsay Lohan’s bar for all to see. laid bare The 27-year-old Mean appar Girls star has apparently bedded 36 men during her wild partying days – and ar loving the gossip fans are details as they include 17 famous names. Notorious lotharios Ju Justin Timberlake, Adam Le Levine, Colin Farrell and Max George are all named and shamed on a hand-written list obtained InT by InTouch magazine. The late Heath Ledger, tween favourite Zac Efron Coldplay’ Guy Berryman are also on the list and Coldplay’s actr that was allegedly written by the bisexual actress J on January 30. ‘It was her personal conquest list. She was trying impr her friends with the list and then tossed to impress aside, a source told InTouch. it aside,’ ‘The list has some pretty big names on it, and they’ not all single guys. This getting out now they’re r could rock several Hollywood relationships to the cor the source added. core,’ Jamie Burke, Jamie Dornan, James Franco, Garr Hedlund, Evan Peters, Joaquin Phoenix, Garrett Ryan Rottman and Wilmer Valderrama also featur – although it doesn’t state when the alleged feature encounters took place.

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10 METRO HERALD Thursday, March 13, 2014

two apartment blocks crumble to dust in seconds as giant gas blast claims lives

Fireball flashback to 9/11 by wiLL sTOnE

AT LEAST two people were killed and 22 were injured after a gas explosion caused two five-storey apartment blocks to collapse in New York. It was feared many more could be trapped in the wreckage as more than 250 firefighters arrived to put out flames and search for survivors. Smoke billowed across the city’s iconic skyline in a chilling echo of 9/11 – leaving mayor Bill de Blasio to wonder how a ‘tragedy of the worst kind’ could strike with ‘no warning’. Eusebio Perez, 48, a piano technician who lives in one of the buildings, rushed home after the accident. ‘There’s nothing left,’ he said. ‘Just a bunch of bricks and wood. I only have what I’m wearing.’ Utility company Con Edison had been alerted to a potential gas leak at one of the buildings in East Harlem at 9.13am yesterday. At 9.30am, the two blocks were blown apart in an explosion that also damaged surrounding buildings and knocked groceries off the shelves inside shops. Police handed out masks to protect people from smoke. A helpline was being set up for concerned relatives.

Just a bunch of bricks: The scene that greeted Eusebio Perez when he came home. Right, children being carried away and an ash-covered car Pictures: ePa/aP/iNF

Building fears Flight might have been spotted on fire at Stonehenge THOUSANDS of new British army homes could block the summer solstice sunrise at Stonehenge. The UK Ministry of Defence wants the development to go ahead on an airfield in Wiltshire, England. But experts argue it’s the precise place on the horizon overlooking the ancient stones where the sun rises on the longest day of the year. Like Newgrange, it has had special significance since ancient times.

AN OIL worker believes he may have seen the missing Malaysian Airlines plane in flames off the coast of Vietnam. Michael McKay emailed investigators to report seeing a burning object in the sky. The New Zealander was working on an oil rig 300km away from Vung Tau. He reportedly said: ‘I believe I saw the plane come down. The timing is right.’ Last night, three satellite images which could show floating objects in the sea close to the plane’s flight path

were also released by Chinese officials. The potential sightings came as the last words heard from pilots on flight MH370 were confirmed as ‘all right, goodnight’. There has been no communication from the Boeing 777 since Saturday. If all 239 people on-board were killed, it would be the deadliest air accident for ten years. China’s foreign ministry has said uncertainty remains over what happened to the plane. Spokesman Qin Gang said: ‘There’s too much

information and confusion right now. It is very hard for us to decide whether a given piece of information is accurate. We will not give up as long there is still a shred of hope.’ Meanwhile, Malaysian authorities said that a review of their military radar records showed plots of what might have been the plane turning back, crossing over the country and flying to the Strait of Malacca towards the west. The air force’s Gen Rodzali Daud said the radar showed an unidentified object about 320km north-west of Penang.

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Turning to faith: A Malaysian shaman, Ibraham Mat Zin, performs a ritual he believes can locate the missing flight, which has 239 people on-board Picture: ePa

Glastonbury to get ten more years THE world famous Glastonbury Festival has been granted a new ten-year licence. Mendip District Council said the decision was made without the need for a public hearing – only the second time this has happened. Previously, licences for the iconic UK festival have been subject to public scrutiny because of objections from the public about noise management and from police, fire or ambulance services concerned about safety. There was, however, no opposition to the new application submitted by Glastonbury’s director, Robert Richards, which will see the festival run until 2024. The application outlined a need for more staff, security guards, litter pickers, stewards and volunteers to help keep people safe at the event. Dolly Parton, Blondie and Lily Allen are among acts who have confirmed they will be playing at this year’s festival, which starts on June 25. The festival at Worthy Farm, Somerset attracts some of the biggest names in music and past performers include Beyoncé, U2 and the Rolling Stones. Glastonbury organiser Emily Eavis, the daughter of founder Michael Eavis, said: ‘It’s so good to have a plan that will help everything at Worthy Farm move forward.’

Thursday, March 13, 2014 METRO HERALD

World

digest

Vigilante chief held Ultra-orthodox Jews over rivals’ murder get military call-up

MEXICO: The leader of a vigilante group has been arrested on suspicion of murdering two members of a rival gang. Hipolito Mora, who founded a ‘self-defence’ group to end the Knights Templar cartel’s hold on Michoacán state, has been linked to the killing of Rafael Sánchez Moreno and José Luis Torres Castañeda. Their charred remains were found in a burnt truck at the weekend.

IsRAEL: Ultra-orthodox Jews are facing military conscription after reforms were passed in the Knesset yesterday. They were previously exempt from the draft to further their religious studies but it could become mandatory by 2017. Yaakov Peri, of the Yesh Atid party which supported the move, said it would ‘transform the face of Israeli society’. Most secular Jewish men serve three years in the military.

INDIA: Tibetan women are detained as they try to reach the Chinese Embassy to protest on Women’s Uprising Day. The students protested to show solidarity with Tibetans who immolated themselves and to demand the return of spiritual leader Dalai Lama to China picture: Ap

‘Triad’ duo arrested 116 jailed poachers over editor stabbing sent home to India

HONg KONg: Two suspected triad members have been arrested following a meat cleaver attack on journalist Kevin Lau. The 37-yearold men were detained after fleeing to China following the assault last month. Mr Lau was recently fired from the liberal Ming Pao newspaper to be replaced by a pro-Beijing editor. He is recovering in hospital. Seven others were held in connection with the case.

sRI LANKA: A court has ordered the release of 116 Indians locked up for illegal fishing. Judges freed the poachers and returned 27 boats impounded in Sri Lankan waters over the past two weeks. The detentions were sparked by disputes over fishing rights in the Palk Strait and raised tensions between the two countries. Sri Lankan fishermen held on the same charge in India were also freed.

and finally... INDIA: Rita Bhatnagar walked out of her wedding in Bangalore after her fiancé’s family ignored her wishes and served chicken to their guests. ‘If that’s how they treat me now, imagine what it will be like afterwards,’ she said.

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AVE you ever wanted to live inside a game? If the answer is no… tough. You’re in one. ‘Our lives are very similar to a game,’ said Oliver Emberton, an entrepreneur, programmer and blogger. ‘We have skills we can level up, we have stats that affect our abilities. There are rules and strategies, and if we play well, we tend to do better. Many of us keep score, though we all tend to keep score in different ways.’ Last month, in an online post titled, ‘Life is a game. This is your strategy guide’, Mr Emberton detailed the ways in which we are all like computer game characters, complete with health, energy and even willpower bars. While the post is slightly tonguein-cheek (‘There is no cheat code to extend your life’, for example), it also illustrates a trend that isn’t going away – we enjoy turning the everyday into some kind of game. This approach, known as gamification, may have been around for a long time but it is only relatively recently that it has been applied to the world of business. But now companies and employers are using things like achievement badges, league tables and reward systems in an attempt to engage their customers and get the best out of their staff. The theory goes that if you ‘gamify’ something – particularly something dull – then it makes it more fun and makes people more motivated. You only have to click on a list of a million fitness apps on your smartphone to see its influence, while social networks such as Foursquare have built themselves around things like ‘checking in’. Social gamification is one thing but could the concept change the way we work?

In an age where millions of people play video games daily, more and more businesses are introducing similar systems of play, achieve and reward to keep their staff motivated and productive. But can gamification take the workplace to the next level? ROSS McGUINNESS reports... A survey commissioned by technology giant IBM for Metro reveals that seven out of ten adults use game-like processes in their everyday lives, yet only one in four get a taste of it in the workplace. However, IBM believes the growth in personal technology such as smartphones and tablets – along with a more experimental attitude from employers and a generation of staff who have grown up on video games – means gamification could dominate offices for decades to come. Doug Clark is cloud leader at IBM UK and Ireland, where league tables and reward systems are in place. He said: ‘It becomes internally competitive but overall we’re learning from each other on the fly.

The term gamification, meaning the introduction of game-like processes to everyday situations, was coined in 2002 by Briton Nick Pelling

80%

r Pelling said the more recent strides in the arena were forms of ‘social gamification’ but that his initial concept dealt with fast and intuitive user interfaces, a kind of gamification perfected by Apple with the iPhone and the iPad a few years later.

71%

of people use game-like processes and approaches to tasks in their everyday lives. The best example is supermarket points-based schemes

79% of 35- to

44-year-olds play video games regularly

79% of workers say

they want their employer to try out new approaches

1people in 4 7% are familiar are confident

with gamification, they know what although only it means

69% of people play some form of digital game more than once a month

Whether that’s deliberate gamification or cause and effect, it’s certainly part of the experience. ‘Employees expect something to be dressed up a little bit to make it a more attractive process. There’s a positive appetite for it, people don’t see it as gimmicky. It’s reasonably subtle – it doesn’t need to be Mario Brothers.’ Mr Clark said the world of work has changed dramatically in recent years – employees are much more self-sufficient, rather than being spoon-fed information by a corporation. Staff, just like customers, want to be challenged but they don’t want to be bogged down in unnecessary detail. ‘People are expecting things to be usable straight out of the box or

straight after the download – they’re not expecting to read a heavy manual, they expect it to work,’ he said. ‘And if it doesn’t work, they’ll delete it.’ The term gamification was coined more than ten years ago by programmer Nick Pelling, who described it as ‘making hard things easy’. He says: ‘I needed a term to describe the process whereby nongames device-makers could profit from the lessons learned by games device-makers. It’s an ugly word, sure, but it got the gist across reasonably directly.’

88% of 18- to 24-year-olds play a digital

of existing gamified applications in businesses will fail to meet their objectives because of bad design

game more than once a month

The gamification market is expected to be worth£3.3bn €4bn by worth by 2018

34% of 18- to Gamification in the workplace is experienced by

23% of people in Britain

24-year-olds use gamified processes at school or work

More than

70% of the world’s

largest 2,000 companies are expected to have used gamification by the end of this year

39% of adults would welcome more gamification at work

Sources: IBM, Gartner, M2 Research

55% of 18- to

24-year-olds would welcome it

Amid the clamour to gamify everything from your performance at work to your calorie count, there have been voices of dissent, there are those who argue that gamification merely rewards you for something you don’t want to do, when you should enjoy what you’re doing. Mr Pelling admitted that when done badly, gamification fails. ‘Unlike Muttley, you can’t expect employees or customers to go the extra mile just because you’ve given them a medal,’ he said. ‘But that’s more or less exactly as far as a good proportion of gamification initiatives go, sadly.’ However, he added: ‘I’m not sure social gamification really makes anybody do anything they don’t want to. When done well, it can help you clearly see how contributing in some way can help other people and that can be a really positive thing for everyone.’ Mr Emberton said gamification wasn’t a ‘silver bullet’ to improve workplace performance. ‘Effective games are usually games that you choose to play. If you don’t enjoy football, say, then playing it won’t be much of a motivator. The same applies to your job – a boring game won’t win many hearts or minds,’ he said. ‘The workplace is very much like a game already. Players are often in competition with one another. And this already drives a lot of business, whether we like it or not.’ Gamification may have infiltrated our technology but as Mr Emberton points out, its history runs deeper than that. ‘Kids have been doing this forever – a ten-year-old can take something mundane like walking to a bus stop and turn it into a race between friends. ‘TV sports captivate us with games that we’re not even playing. There’s something universal about playing for points and prestige that seems to capture our attention,’ he added.

31% of people say

their employer has become more likely to experiment in the past year

Thursday, March 13, 2014 METRO HERALD

Pistorius ‘on stumps’ when he smashed door with bat by AiDAn RADnEDgE OSCAR PISTORIUS was standing on his stumps when he smashed down a toilet door to reach his girlfriend, a police expert told his murder trial. The athlete hit the locked door with a cricket bat after he shot Reeva Steenkamp dead in the bathroom. Pistorius has claimed he had his prosthetic legs on at the time – but a forensic analyst rejected his account. Swinging Pistorius’s cricket bat in the Pretoria courtroom, Col Johannes Vermeulen demonstrated on a replica of the toilet cubicle how he thought the bat was used. The police officer pointed out a mark made by the bat was ‘quite low down on the door’, adding that it was ‘not the normal position that I would expect from a mark from a cricket bat’. Bullet marks on the door were consistent with Pistorius ‘being in a natural position without his prostheses’, Col Vermeulen argued. He also said a steel plate in the main bathroom had been damaged by being hit with a ‘hard’ object. A photo of the damaged plate was shown to the court. Defence lawyer Barry Roux argued

Swinging the bat: Johannes Vermeulen shows the court how he thought Pistorius (inset) broke the door Picture: AP that Pistorius hit the door with a ‘bent back’ and that the low marks were consistent with such a body position. The Paralympian shot at Ms

Steenkamp four times through the door, hitting her in the hip, arm and head. One shot missed, the court has heard. Pistorius, 27, denies intention-

ally killing 29-year-old Ms Steenkamp on February 14 last year, saying he fired after mistaking her for a burglar. The trial continues.

Fears of fuel price rises over turmoil in Ukraine MOTORISTS could be stung at the pumps because of the crisis in Ukraine. They face paying more as fears that Russian oil exports will be hit help to drive up prices, Opec, a cartel of 12 oil-exporting nations not including Russia, said it would increase production to meet expected demand of 91.1million barrels a day this year. But it warned the move would not stop jittery markets reacting to events in Kiev and the Crimea. Fears Russia will declare war on its neighbour were raised yesterday. It has 270 tanks, 80,000 troops and 140 planes near the border, Ukraine’s government said.

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14 METRO HERALD Thursday, March 13, 2014

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A sarcastic riposte to the ban on e-cigarettes on trains...

s A proud veteran smokerhunter, I’m disgusted these creatures are escaping the hunt by hiding behind the E-cigarette, pleading that they give off no noxious vapours and that they do no harm. These filthy animals are now pervading the exclusive domains of the non-smoker bars, theatres etc while the smoker claims the right to be an endangered species. Thank God for my fellow hunters and the Government. By claiming not to know what these E-cigarettes contain, the TDs can ban them and force smokers back to tobacco, freeing them for our sport and the payment of sky-high taxes. Plus, we can force the Esmoker to give them up in public, adding withdrawal distress to our enjoyment of watching them suffer. Even better, we can discourage smokers from giving up and gloating over their diseases... DC ■ so E-cigs are to be banned from all trains. Good. I’ll go one better and say that they should be banned from all public places. A woman sat down beside me on a night out recently and smoked them all night. It was annoying in the extreme. Was she so desperate to be puffing on something she couldn’t wait till she got home to ‘light up.’

Ban the lot, I say. And for any smokers who complain, I say: ‘Hard cheese.’ Non-Smoker, D2 ■ Whoever found my Aztec printed dress and over-knee socks from H&M, I hope you enjoy them. I lost them on Monday afternoon in the coffee shop in Ilac and it was a long-awaited treat for losing weight. I have lost my faith in karma... Big Girl ■ Ah in fairness, if Bono’d just shut up about reducing debt, we’d ignore him reducing his tax bill! A-Man ■ Cycling Dad, while you’re to be commended for your ‘no kids trailing behind’ policy, sadly not all parents take the same view. I’ve seen parents cycling ahead of children wobbling on their tiny bicycles while lorries and cars come up behind them. It makes my stomach lurch every time I see it and nothing you can say will persuade me to think differently. Susan, D2 ■ My dear Marissa, ‘lying down and making the child’ is the easy part, as I presume you know. I’m sure simon Cowell would be happy enough to do that bit three or four more times but, again, ‘his’ vagina will remain completely unscathed by the experience. I rest my case. SH, D2

Quick pic

FELINE JUST FINE: Alice Coyle’s cat Kevin looks delighted with himself to be sunbathing after the long winter. Thanks for the snap, Alice Send your photos to pictures@ metroherald.ie with ‘Quick pic’ as the subject and we will print the best each day in the paper

gOOD On yA

yEH big RiDE

● Thanks a million to the staff at Connolly Station for taking the time to help when my Leap card decided to quit on me. Much appreciated. Elise, Meath

● To the guy wearing the woolly hat at Skerries who gets the 8.30am train – you can board my platform any time...

● Well done to the Artane Band who gave a magnificent performance in the National Concert Hall on Tuesday night. It takes a lot of commitment and hard work from all the young people in the area so well done again. I’m proud of ye! Imelda, Artane

● Moonface, I’m so excited about your arrival in Ireland from Poland for St Patrick’s Day. Let’s enjoy the day to the maximum, hand-in-hand. Yippee! Noski noski eskimoski (Eskimo kisses).

Lady In The Navy

Joelito

RAnDOM AcTs Of kinDnEss

TREnDing

yOuR RusH-HOuR cRusH

#Beyoncé #Dublin

● Beyoncé has so far headed to Fade Street Social and Coppinger Row for food in Dublin – she really should give Eddie Rockets a shot, though... @JenBizarre ● There’s at least 30 people outside a top Dublin hotel waiting on @Beyoncé to walk out – have these people not got lives/jobs? @CROSSYFM104

@metrohnews #metromailbox

● Dublin weather must be trying to impress Beyoncé... @m_maiara ● Beyoncé is at Dublin Zoo. I was at Dublin Zoo before. This obviously means we’re best friends now. @ciaramclaughlin ● Can’t describe how emotional it was watching Beyoncé sing at the show. Actually brought a tear to my eye. @shaelouisejones

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Thursday, March 13, 2014 METRO HERALD

The best new designers on our doorstep Ahead of St Patrick’s Day, Lorna Weightman takes a look at what some up-and-coming Irish designers have to offer

Emma Manley

Dare To Be Dazzled At Caratz Massive Cost Price Sale

ne thing that attracted me to work in fashion in Ireland was the chance to learn more about our indigenous talent and to discover new names in design; to observe them while they develop their collections and grow into successful designers alongside our well-known names such as Louise Kennedy, Úna Burke and Orla Kiely. In the week leading up to St Patrick’s Day, there is no more appropriate time to celebrate homegrown design. From clothing to accessories to millinery, Ireland is evolving into a hub of extraordinary talent, and we only need to see the recognition our fashion has achieved in the global media to

know that we can more than compete in this vast fashion landscape. In some cases, it’s not just about fashion. CoraLlei, known for its exceptionally-crafted handbags, is also pioneering ethical fashion. Owned by designer Lorna Burton, all pieces in her collection are made using sustainable fabrics and textiles. The collection fulfils the requirements of our daily handbag to be robust yet stylish, with a nice mix of cross body, clutch and tote bags. I’ve also observed a surge in the popularity of millinery across Ireland, and have found some remarkable newcomers including Aoife Harrison, whose hats are as colourful as they are creative (see next page).

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Aoife is one of only two milliners stocked at the Design Centre in Powerscourt, the other being the world’s most famous hat maker, Philip Treacy. Thanks to the success of her last collection, Aoife has now entered the bridal market to cater for brides who want an alternative headpiece.

“Stores like Kilkenny have been longstanding supporters of homegrown labels” ‘I am overwhelmed by the support I have received to date from everyone from fashion media to fashion icons. In recent months, I have had the privilege to custom-make hats and headpieces for remarkable women such as First Lady Sabina Higgins,’ says Harrison. ‘I am really proud of my latest collection and am so excited to be expanding into the bridal market.’ Also expanding is Emma Manley, who will showcase her next collection in Singapore in May. I have always respected Manley’s use of fabrics, and in her current collection, there is variety; from the softness of jersey, silk and

editorial@metroherald.ie ial@metroherald.ie to advertise, ertise, call 01 7055010

chiffon fon to more structured textures like leather. Stores likee the Kilkenny Shop have been longstanding supporters of our homegrown grown labels, stocking an array of collections including Fee G and Aideen Bodkin. Marian O’Gorman, CEO of the Kilkenny Group says the company is delighted to be supportive of the Irish fashion ashion industry. ‘We pride ourselves es on supporting Irish talent and giving ving up-andcoming Irish designers the platform they need to build uild successful, sustained careers in the industry. We are passionate about supporting the indigenous craft and design industry, and we are always ys encouraging others to follow w suit. The Irish design scene is bursting ursting with talent, now more so than ever, ver, and we are delighted to be a part of this and supporting these talented designers.’ Dress designer Niamh O’Neill is the newest addition to Kilkennyy shop floor whose pieces are undoubtedly set to be a hit come wedding and race season thanks to their understated elegance nce and form fitting silhouette. Moving ving around the corner to Dawson Street, a welcome addition to the city centre

is The Design House which spans fiv five floors filled with the best of Irish fashion, jewellery and art and is the perfect place to peruse on the bank holiday weekend. f Uncover a new favourite designer, or for brides-to-be,

On OuR RADAR Wishbone

Head into Arnotts to check out newly arrived label Wishbone. Styling itself as a ‘label for modern women who are feminine, free spirited, effortless and cool’ the collection comprises tops and bottoms, knitwear and dresses. Prices range from €45 to €200. We like this Mila Tee €50 and Lola Skirt €106 (pictured).

Decoded

The Decoded Fashion event is coming to Dublin for the first time. A global event series and networking community, it encourages entrepreneurship and advances technology innovation in fashion and retail. Its first Irish ‘meetup’ will be held in the Wayra Academy, 2729 Sir John Rogerson’s Quay, Dublin 2 on March 19, with a Globalisation versus Localisation theme. Speakers will include Rory Caren of IBM, Gilt Groupe and Renate

McIntyre, Etsy. It will ll be chaired by Sonya Lennon. The event starts at 7pm. Tickets cost €10 and can be purchased from www. meetup.com/ DecodedFashion/ events/161959222/

Style Saturday

The Kilkenny Shop’s Style Saturdays event continues this weekend with Irish designer Niamh O’Neill in its Nassau Street store offering expert style advice on the latest trends as well as showcasing looks from her own spring/summer collections (see opposite page for a taste of what’s on offer). Stylists-turneddesign duo Sonya Lennon and Brendan Courtney will close the line up on March 22. Both events are free and no booking is required. Visit www.kilkennyshop.com or ask in store for details.

Clockwise from top: Aoife Harrison; Aideen Bodkin; Lennon Courtney; 6 CoraLlei Luly Bag; Chupi Gold Leaves for Lydia earrings

the stunning collection of new and vintage gowns is a must-visit. It’s in this design hub, that I have found accessory designers such as Juno James, Yvonne Ross and Inna. Whether you’re au fait with fashion, or want get in touch with our nation’s fashion talent, there are plenty of designers right on your doorstep to discover.

KiLKEnny iRisH DEsignERs spRing/suMMER Right: Fee G Flower dress, €234.95 Below: Niamh O’Neill Turquoise dress, €355

Thursday, March 13, 2014 METRO HERALD

BEAuTy... with Emma Henderson Flying the flag: irish Beauty Brands to watch luxury candle brand, La Bougie, has ❶ Irish knocked my Diptyque habit on its head. These

lovely perfumery candles use the same ingredients and techniques as a top fragrance house – but they’re priced from just €19.95. Ginger & Black Pepper is my favourite – find it in Arnotts. www.labougie. com tried more than my share ❷ ofI’vebeauty subscription boxes,

and the Irish-owned Chic Treat Club is my favourite of all. Beautifully packaged, these monthly boxes hold generous samples of useful and interesting products (no single-use sachets here). Brands include Wet n Wild, Max Factor, Buff Makeup and more. Prices start at €44.95 for a threemonth subscription, including delivery. chictreatclub.com There are several Irish brush ❸ brands that I rate – like Blank

Canvas, AYU and Gigi Professional – but the tools I use most are by NIMA (from €30 for the 5-piece Elite eye set). Dubliner Niamh Martin created the range to the highest standards, and they help to create a more polished look. www.nimabrush.com Finally, you can’t ❹ talk about Irish

Left: Aideen Bodkin Aztec Beaded jacket, €305, matching crop trousers €199

beauty without mentioning Cocoa Brown. The one-hour development time (three for a deeper glow) made this self-tan (€7.99) a game-changer. Freshly returned from bronzing the stars at the Oscars, owner Marissa Carter is launching several new products for spring. Lovely Legs (€7.99), Gentle Bronze Gradual Tan (€5.99) and 1 Hour Tan Dark (€7.99) are launching in Penneys, Dunnes and more. www.cocoabrown.ie Find Emma @fluffyblog / www.fluffandfripperies.com / www.youtube.com/fluffyblog

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18 METRO HERALD Thursday, March 13, 2014

Life television

Monday

Tuesday

The hairy bikers’ asian advenTure BBC2, 8pm

Wednesday

Thursday

The spirit of adventure seduces the Hairy Bikers as they set off on the penultimate leg of their quest to trace the roots of our favourite takeaway foods. Tasty tofu dumplings bring about something of a spiritual awakening in Dave Myers and Si king as they tuck into breakfast the morning after kipping down with some Buddhist monks the night before. Then it’s off to enjoy the hospitality of geishas in stunning kyoto.

The walshes RTÉ1, 10.15pm

Friday

Saturday

Sunday

films of The day My WEEk WiTH MARilyn BBC2, 9pm

Father Ted writer and director Graham linehan (third from left) has set the bar high with some TV comedy gems. This three-part sitcom about a Dublin family seems to have got off the ground in a respectable fashion and is worth keeping an eye on. Carmel is having difficulty adapting to Ciara’s boyfriend Graham moving into the house, not to mention the couple sleeping in her bed.

five fables: The Two mice BBC2, 7pm

how To be a billionaire C4, 10pm

Before the late, great Ulster poet Seamus Heaney passed away last year, he had translated a small collection of five Scottish poems as well as providing short and typically profound introductions to each of the pieces. Brought to life through animations – and narrated by another Celtic institution, Billy Connolly – tonight’s Five Fables tells of two mice debating the merits of city life.

While not an instruction manual, this documentary reveals what billionaires do all day by shadowing a handful of the estimated 1,400 people who qualify for the title thanks to their bank balances. And matching ego? Judge for yourself: Russian Dmitry Itskov is on a mission to end human mortality, while US entrepreneur Naveen Jain wants to establish his next business enterprise on the Moon.

Tasked with a mission impossible of bottling the essence of Marilyn Monroe, Michelle Williams does her best here and even won a Golden Globe for her efforts. She certainly captures some of Monroe’s luminescence and fragility in an untaxingly charming biopic that sees the Hollywood star head to England to shoot The Prince And The Showgirl. The film focuses on her fleeting relationship with Oxford graduate Colin Clark (Eddie Redmayne), who has just landed his big break as a lowly production assistant. LI-Z

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Blue with the chill nlIKe your Adrian McKintys or Stuart nevilles, the crime writing of eoin Mcnamee’s Blue ‘trilogy’ does not have sectarianism as a wrenching backdrop. Mcnamee has made a name for himself with true-crime renderings of subjects such as the Shankill Butchers and the ghastly demise of Captain Robert nairac. However, the Blue books – not so much a trilogy in the traditional sense as a Gothic reimagining of real-life, loosely-linked incidents – are situated in corrupt pre-Troubles Belfast, and zero in on Attorney General and High Court Judge lancelot Curran, whose daughter Patricia was found murdered near his Whiteabbey pile in 1952. That vicious crime – she’d been stabbed 37 times – was recounted and reviewed in The Blue Tango (which earned Mcnamee a Booker longlisting in 2001), and she haunts this third instalment, along with many ghosts, in what is an eerie and supremely evocative novel. With one foot in 1949 and one in 1961, the earlier years see Curran’s adviser and strong-arm Harry Ferguson meddling as his boss seeks to hang protestant Robert Taylor for

Thursday, March 13, 2014 METRO HERALD

THE Big READ blUE IS THE NIgHT by EoIN MCNAMEE HHHHH Faber & Faber

the horrific murder of Catholic Mary McGowan. Ferguson is out to prevent this to improve Curran’s chances of elevation to the political sphere. But a rot permeates Curran and his family, between his mentally troubled wife Doris and promiscuous 19-year-old daughter Patricia. Chills waft off the page as Ferguson visits Doris years later in a psychiatric home in the hope of bypass-

ing dark voices in her head and solving Patricia’s mysterious murder. Few writers can build such a sense of menace and foreboding as Mcnamee and his tidy, mesmeric syntax drips with atmosphere and deftly illuminates malevolent psychologies, both human and spectral. An early contender for crime novel of the year.

I wrote this novel in winter, dreaming of summer. I did sit on a beach while writing the first draft but it was in llandudno, north Wales. We hadn’t been able to afford a holiday abroad that year. I have an ongoing love affair with Mallorca. I always wanted to write a novel set there, to immortalise the coastal paths between Deià and Sóller. After writing my first draft, I revisited Deià, looking at the landscape through the eyes of the main character, Jenn. I understand why Jenn does what she does but I don’t sympathise or empathise with her. That is why I abandoned trying to write the book in the first person. I also really liked the sense of voyeurism that writing Sexy novel: Helen Walsh’s tense story is set on from a ‘third limited’ perspective the island of Mallorca

Viking HHHHI

In April 1986, explosions occurred at one of the reactors at the nuclear power plant at Chernobyl in Ukraine, triggering the world’s worst nuclear accident. In an outstanding debut novel, Offaly-born Darragh McKeon conveys the fallout, portraying inconceivable horrors and acts of incredible beauty in luminously understated prose. There are four main characters: Grigory, a doctor seconded by the state to oversee the medical aftercare for people in the radiation zone; his estranged wife, Maria; her piano-playing prodigy of a nephew, Yevgeni; and Artyom, a boy whose father farmed land adjacent to the power plant. McKeon makes us care for them, skilfully drawing the reader into their worlds before and after the explosion. McKeon is a theatre director with an acute understanding of timing and of how to create a picture and let the reader come to their own devastating conclusions. Tina Jackson

At Night We Walk In Circles by Daniel Alarcón Fourth Estate HHHHI

It’s the beginning of the 21st century, somewhere in a South American state with a turbulent past. Former radical actor and playwright Henry has left his days of protest far behind him, ever since he was jailed for his satire The Idiot President and saw the male lover he took in prison, Rogelio, killed in a riot. Now Henry has a daughter and is haunted by his old existence but he is drawn to restage the play with his former theatre company, joined by young devotee Nelson, who takes the part of the president’s son. As the tour goes deeper into the provinces and eventually arrives at the town of Rogelio’s family, the characters must confront the past – political and personal. Alarcón’s follow-up to his acclaimed debut, Lost City Radio, blurs lines in a style that shimmers between realism and something more mythic. Ben felsenburg

Adam White

oPEN BooK: In Helen Walsh’s sexual thriller the lemon Grove, a woman becomes dangerously attracted to her teenage stepdaughter’s boyfriend

mother it would be difficult to sympathise with her at all. Casting her as a stepmother makes the tension between them more believable.

gives: you can see the Villa Ana and them in it, almost as their intrusive landlord, Benni, does.

It does feel to me to be quite a sexy novel. The sex feels very honest. There is still within society – and literary fiction – an idea of male desire as animalistic, irrational and driven, and female sexuality as passive and emotional.

I didn’t want to give Nathan a voice at all. He could be supplanted with any other fairly good-looking teenage boy. nathan is just an illusion. We see him through Jenn’s eyes and her transposing her fantasies on to him. I find the pressure on women to preserve their sense of youth quite alarming. Jenn, who is 45, feels anger and futility that her ageing body has never borne a child.

On My E-READER susIE stEINEr You Should Have Known by Jean Hanff Korelitz this gripping psychological thriller, published this month, had me in its thrall from page one. It centres on the affluent but chilly life of New york therapist Grace sachs, whose hard-fought equilibrium is blown apart when there is a murder at the elite private school attended by her son. a brilliant addition to the oops-I-married-a-

All That Is Solid Melts Into Air by Darragh McKeon

sociopath genre, started by Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl. The Examined Life by Stephen Grosz my parents are psychoanalysts, so I grew up around the subject matter of this book – which, chapter by chapter, journeys into the psychic life of Grosz’s patients. sensitively told, with great compassion for the ordinary emotional turbulence of living, Grosz’s book is thoughtful and surprisingly addictive.

I didn’t set out to redress any kind of gender imbalance but I’ve always been fascinated by depictions of intergenerational relationships in fiction. There are many classic novels where older men being attracted to younger girls is accepted but when you have an older woman desiring a younger boy, the women tend to be construed as deviant. The holiday setting allows for a relaxing of social and moral boundaries. Deià is a remote, beautiful location but it’s also an illusory space, where reality is suspended. If I had cast Jenn as Emma’s

Usually I have an idea of how I want my readers to feel at the end of a novel before I start. I wanted this to feel a bit like a bruise. The Lemon Grove by Helen Walsh (Tinder Press) is out now.

American Wife by Curtis Sittenfeld I’ve lost count of the number of people I’ve raved about american Wife to. read it and you will become curiously obsessed with laura Bush, who is loosely its subject. sittenfeld, in this her second novel, asks the question: how did a rather bookish, left-leaning girl come to marry a sporty, hard-drinking jock like George Bush? the fictionalised answer is a pure, immersive pleasure to read. Homecoming by Susie Steiner, is published in paperback this week by Faber & Faber.

20 METRO HERALD Thursday, March 13, 2014

puzzles

METROSCOPE

by Patrick Arundell

NEMI by Lise

Aries Mar 21 – Apr 20

A practical yet productive day may be on the astral cards. Yet, along with this, the Sun/Saturn connection hints that emotional energies could be channelled to fulfil desires. This influence has glue that can cement a friendship or bind a promise. For your forecast, call 15609 114 70

Taurus Apr 21 – May 21

A small but positive change on the domestic front might pave the way for other bigger transformations in the future. For now though, a nononsense link suggests more downto-earth issues may well be on your mind.

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For your forecast, call 15609 114 71

Gemini May 22 – Jun 21

Mars’s link with Mercury may set you wondering about a missed opportunity. If a lapsed idea comes to mind, you might have reason to pick up on it again. What seemed irrelevant back then, might now offer exiting potential – perhaps because its time has come. For your forecast, call 15609 114 72

Cancer Jun 22 – Jul 23

Channelling your energies in your chosen direction could be easier, due to the Sun’s dalliance with Saturn. Satisfaction can be derived from getting on with tasks and finishing them, particularly if procrastination has been an issue. For your forecast, call 15609 114 73

Leo Jul 24 – Aug 23

PEARLs BEFORE swINE

Try to step away from situations that involve emotional tension, especially those based on home and family affairs. Today’s focus can highlight an issue that’s been beset with difficulties. Friendly input could help you make better sense of all this. For your forecast, call 15609 114 74

Virgo Aug 24 – Sep 23

A sense of responsibility might help you tackle serious matters today, particularly if this involves collaborating with others or another, on a mutual project. An ability to work well as a team could mean you achieve far more than planned. For your forecast, call 15609 114 75

Libra Sep 24 – Oct 23

Happy memories may be the reason you choose to visit a place or get involved in activities with a sentimental bias. A desire to revisit the past might act as a tonic. Also, you might be financially rewarded in a small way. For your forecast, call 15609 114 76

scorpio Oct 24 – Nov 22

The current blend of energies could channel hidden desires and dreams, and allow them to come to the surface. If you have a busy schedule, perhaps the chance to relax and reflect at the day’s end, might be useful. For your forecast, call 15609 114 77

sagittarius Nov 23 – Dec 21

A social event could have romantic potential, or bring the opportunity to make a new friend. As the Moon aspects nicely with Venus, you may find you warm to someone naturally, perhaps sensing that, together, you could make a great team. For your forecast, call 15609 114 78

Capricorn Dec 22 – Jan 20

Today’s strengthening link between the Sun and Saturn is excellent for cementing a friendship or collaborating on a plan. In this instance, two heads may be better than one, bringing additional experience and perhaps resources, into the mix. For your forecast, call 15609 114 79

Aquarius Jan 21 – Feb 19

Optimism and lively interest may arise in response to someone’s charisma. An exchange of ideas might leave you eager for more. Along with this, a chance to make financial gains is suggested. For your forecast, call 15609 114 80

Pisces Feb 20 – Mar 20

Current influences encourage a new financial beginning that might include a budget, a key purchase or savings. Be careful though, as a bright idea may not be so clever if executed in haste. For your forecast, call 15609 114 81

DOWN 2 Regret (3) 3 Evade (5) 4 Deaden sound (6) 5 Unceasing (3,4) 6 Dignity (9) 7 Unfeeling (4,7) 8 Tenant (11) 12 Robot (9) 15 Bearer (7) 17 Leave (6) 19 Bring to bear (5) 21 Concealed (3)

Yesterday’s Solutions Across: 1 Sewn; 3 Acquired; 9 Propose; 10 Defer; 11 Highland reel; 13 Refund; 15 Blithe; 17 Combinations; 20 Limbo; 21 Elector; 22 Sunshade; 23 Onus. Down: 1 Sapphire; 2 Wrong; 4 Cleans; 5 Underclothes; 6 Reflect; 7 Dare; 8 Polling booth; 12 Censures; 14 Footman; 16 Indeed; 18 Often; 19 Plus.

ACROSS

DOWN

Astrology calls cost 1.27 euros per min from a BT landline. Live Services cost 2.40 euros per minute. Calls from mobiles/other networks may cost more. Callers must be 18 or over to use this service and have the bill payers permission. For entertainment purposes only. All calls are recorded. PhonePayPlus regulated(ComReg in ROI) UK SP: StreamLive Ltd, NR7 0HR, 08700 234 567. ROI SP:Moveda, 1 Courtyard Business Park, Orchard Lane, Blackrock, Co Dublin, 0818 241 398

Quiz

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ACROSS 1 Ruling (11) 9 Single (3) 10 Specific (9) 11 Male duck (5) 13 Correspondence (7) 14 Lure (6) 16 Oration (6) 18 Compunction (7) 19 Blackboard support (5) 20 Disentangle (9) 21 Colour (3) 22 Unthankfulness (11)

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ENiGMA Semi-precious stone whose name, Is like its shade of green, the same. Kind of horse too old to trot. Fortune is a fickle – what? WHO AM i? A singer-songwriter, I was born in Kennett, Missouri in 1962. I spent 18 months as a backing singer on Michael Jackson’s Bad world tour. My hits include All I Wanna Do and Soak Up The Sun.

WHO, WHAT, WHERE & WHEN? WHO… was Ireland’s Minister for Labour from 1987-1991? WHAT... is the more familiar name for the spider latrodectus mactans? WHERE... in Yorkshire are the remains of the castle in which Richard II died? WHEN... did TS Eliot win the Nobel prize for literature?

QUIZ ANSWERS: ENIGMA: Jade. WHO AM I? Sheryl Crow. WHO, WHAT, WHERE & WHEN? Bertie Ahern; Black Widow; Pontefract; 1948.

Crossword No. 933 See next edition for solutions

L.IE.CC.01.2014.0204

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rugby six nations

Chouly makes himself scapegoat for lineout woes

Blame: Chouly

DAMIEN Chouly has stepped up to take the blame for France’s lineout implosion against Scotland. Les Bleus emerged from Murrayfield in the fourth round of games in this year’s Six Nations with a narrow victory, thanks in large part to an interception try. But the lineout was a disaster, with France losing a total of eight of their own throws.

The absence of Dimitri Szarzewski and Benjamin Kayser left Brice Mach to start, but Clermont No.8 Chouly was quick to take the blame and vowed he and his teammates will bounce back in Paris. ‘The lineout captain was me, I was in charge of the calls,’ he said. ‘The problem lies with us, we have to concentrate on our throws and our jumps.

‘We all watched the video of the lineouts on Sunday on the computers. We needed to get out of our two blocks, to play quicker. ‘But this just makes us even more motivated for this Saturday. We can get to the level we want to be at, we have to be more demanding of ourselves and each other.’ Chouly is expected to be replaced by Louis Picamoles this weekend.

No pain, no gain: Mike Ross says the Irish pack have worked hard on adapting to the new scrum laws but feels the efforts have paid off piCture: inpho

Thursday, March 13, 2014 METRO HERALD

spORT DigEsT Thomas takes lead after Nice stage cycLing Geraint Thomas has taken the yellow jersey after the fourth stage of the Paris-Nice following his second-place finish on the 201.5km stage yesterday. The Team Sky rider and double Olympic gold medallist pulled away from the pack with eventual winner Tom-Jelte Slagter of Holland – riding for Garmin Sharp – for an exciting finish to the Nevers to Belleville leg. Thomas (pictured), placed fifth overall ahead of the race, took the lead in the standings by three seconds from stage three winner John Degenkolb of Team GiantShimano with Slagter placed third, while Movistar’s Jose Joaquin Rojas held onto fourth place after finishing eighth.

Limerick hosting 8 Nation tournament wATERpOLO Ireland will host

the 2014 EU 8 Nations Men’s Water Polo Tournament at the University of Limerick this weekend. Teams from Switzerland, Austria, Scotland, Denmark, Czech Republic, Wales and Malta will join Ireland from tomorrow until Sunday to play 20 games over the three days of competition. Ireland are grouped with Switzerland, Austria and Scotland in Group A while Denmark, Czech Republic, Wales and Malta will battle it out in Group B. The tournament will kick-off at 9am tomorrow morning with Ireland first up against Switzerland.

Ross ready to joust as pack adapts to scrum

The only ‘full-blown jousting’ at the Stade de France on Saturday will take place in the pivotal frontrow tussle, according to Ireland prop Mike Ross. Ireland’s tighthead recalls horseback knights producing a medievalthemed pitch-side display when harlequins battled with Stade Francais at France’s national stadium, but the 34-year-old knows France’s under-fire forwards are in no mood for sideshows in the RBS 6 nations title decider. Ross’s Gallic counterpart nicolas Mas stormed out of a press conference on Tuesday, bemoaning questions on France’s inability to adapt to the revised scrummaging laws. The Montpellier man labelled the scrum like ‘a child that has lost its bearings’. Ireland have capitalised on the new scrum engagement sequence, the shorter hit benefiting their compact but powerful front-row.

by DAnny HOgAn

leinster front-rower Ross said Ireland have swapped the ‘sledgehammer’ for the ‘vice’ in a bid to dominate the revamped set-piece. ‘I don’t mind their ground: it’s a big amphitheatre-style place,’ said Ross. ‘I remember one year I was over there with harlequins for a european Cup match against Stade Francais, and they had full-blown jousting on the sidelines. ‘I doubt that’s going to happen this weekend, we’d be more concerned with their short, squat frontrow. I know Thomas Domingo quite well having played against him so many times over the years. ‘he’s a good lad and I’ll probably have a beer with him afterwards, but when he’s on the pitch he’ll try to get into you. ‘he’s short, squat, he’ll try to get under you and take you up, and on

the far side then you’ve got nicolas Mas who’s a fairly well-capped veteran at this stage and I think he’s been playing quite well. ‘Their scrum has been mixed: sometimes they’ll murder teams, others they get disrupted. ‘So we’ll be working hard on that ourselves, trying to make sure any ball they do get is as unpleasant as possible for their scrum-half.’ Ross hopes a series of punishing scrum sessions pay dividends one more time in this tournament as Ireland chase their first Six nations title since 2009. ‘I think there’s a bit of acclimatising to the new laws, but I think our scrum’s been going quite well so far,’ said Ross. ‘And we’ve got to make sure it continues on that upward curve. ‘Some of the scrummaging sessions we’ve been doing, it feels like another fitness session. ‘There’s a lot of pressure: the laws

have changed it from being hit with a sledge to being squeezed in a vice. ‘So out goes the sledge and in comes the vice, so it’s a different type of pressure. ‘With the squad we have, we’ve got Marty Moore and Jack McGrath pushing myself and Cian healy hard. So you know if you’re even a fraction off, they’ll have you. ‘I think that’s good for the squad as a whole and it’s been working quite well for us. ‘If you look at the impact the bench has been making in the last few weeks, it’s really been making quite a difference. Ireland hunt just their third win in Paris in 43 years on Saturday, on the occasion of Brian o’Driscoll’s 141st and final Test appearance. The two sides’ last two meetings have been draws, 17-17 in France in 2012 and 13-13 in Dublin last term.

Schumacher shows ‘signs’ of recovery AuTO Michael

Schumacher is showing ‘small, encouraging signs’ following his skiing accident and his family remains confident he will ‘pull through and will wake up’. A new statement has been issued regarding the 45-year-old on behalf of his family, saying: ‘We are, and remain confident, Michael will pull through and will wake up. There sometimes are small, encouraging signs, but we also know this is the time to be very patient. It was clear from the start this will be a long and hard fight for Michael, and we are taking this fight on together with the team of doctors, whom we fully trust.’

Hamilton fired up f1 Lewis Hamilton is itching to prove this is the season he can land his second Formula One world title. Six years have passed since he won his only world championship to date in dramatic circumstances in Brazil. Following the introduction of a raft of new regulations, Hamilton heads into the latest campaign that starts in Australia on Sunday as favourite to reclaim the crown, saying: ‘We’re as ready as we can be and I’m more fired up than ever.’

22 METRO HERALD Thursday, March 13, 2014

football premier league

Bayern loss won’t derail season, says Vermaelen

racing cheltenham festival

by jAck fOx That’s my joy: Jockey Jamie Moore lets the reigns loose on Sire De Grugy following victory picture: reuters

jAMiE guiDEs siRE DE gRugy TO pOpuLAR win

SIRE DE GRUGY brilliantly silenced the dissenting voices by claiming a famous victory in the Queen Mother Champion Chase yesterday at a Cheltenham. The 11-4

favourite won easily by six lengths from Somersby and Module to make a mockery of critics, who pined for the absent Sprinter Sacre and said the horse lacked the

THE TipsTER RUBY WALSH has won both opening races on the first two days at the Cheltenham Festival but he won’t achieve the treble. Instead it is Willie Mullins’ second-string Djakadam and jockey Paul Townsend who will foil Walsh and first-choice Felix Younger in the JLT Novices’ Chase at 10/1 with Ladbrokes, Coral and many others. Big Buck’s won the Ladbrokes World

qualities to handle Prestbury Park after two previous race defeats. It was a glorious family double for trainer Gary Moore, and his son, the jockey Jamie. Fellow

jockeys on the course gave the popular Jamie a guard of honour as he made his way into the winners’ enclosure. Elsewhere, Faugheen easily won the Neptune Novices’ Hurdle.

Djak’s the lad to halt Ruby’s run Hurdle four years on the bounce before missing last year’s race through injury and has a lot to do at 11-yearsold but trainer Paul Nicholls is bullish he can outstay the dangerous Annie Power at 4/1 with Boylesports. Jonjo O’Neill’s Josies Orders is treated well in the weights and is each-way value at 14/1 in the Pertemps with firms Double the fun: But can Walsh clinch a hat-trick? offering five places.

Thomas Vermaelen has urged arsenal not to let the bitter disappointment of this week’s Champions league exit to Bayern munich derail their domestic campaign. The Gunners drew 1-1 at the allianz arena on Tuesday but bowed out 3-1 on aggregate. however, unlike the scenario when beaten by Bayern at the same stage 12 months ago, arsenal’s season is still very much alive. arsene Wenger will take his squad – without hamstring injury victim mesut ozil – to Tottenham on sunday looking to reignite a Premier league title challenge which has seen them slip seven points behind leaders Chelsea with a game in hand. Then, in april, the Gunners tackle Wigan at Wembley in the Fa Cup semi-finals with hull or sheffield United awaiting the winners. Vermaelen said: ‘The result wasn’t great for us to go through but you always need to take the positives out of it. We worked hard and that is what you need, the spirit is very good. ‘We are still up there in the Premier league, we are in the semi-finals of the Fa Cup, you can feel the desire in the team that there is still something to play for.’ Vermaelen understands arsenal will be expected to progress through to the Fa Cup final despite Wigan, the

THEy sAiD iT

‘I always say if you are a big manager then take your loss. Don’t complain about silly things. From a big manager you expect a little bit more.’ Bayern Munich winger Arjen Robben hits back at Arsene Wenger’s claims the Dutchman is a ‘very good diver’

holders, having stunned manchester City in the last eight. ‘We can’t deny we are the favourites any more because we are the highest Premier league team, but this is the Fa Cup – there is something special about it,’ he said. It has been a difficult season for Vermaelen, who has seen his firstteam opportunities limited and was deployed at left-back in munich. The 28-year-old, though, refused to be drawn on talk of a summer exit. ‘There has been a lot of speculation but I can’t talk about it because I don’t know what is going on,’ he said. ‘There is still a lot to play for. I can’t do anything about rumours.’

football champions league

Thursday, March 13, 2014 METRO HERALD 23

fOOTbALL DigEsT

City full of Hart but luck runs out at last

LIONEL MESSI and Dani Alves finished off Manchester City as Barcelona eased into the quarter-finals. ‘Little Maestro’ Messi’s 67th-minute strike – his 67th Champions League goal – effectively killed the tie off. City, frustrated at seeing a spirited display amount to zilch, lost their discipline towards the end, with Pablo Zabaleta sent off before Alves earned victory for the hosts at the death. The tie should have been over early in the first half but a strong Messi penalty appeal was waved away before a Neymar goal was incorrectly ruled out for offside. Neymar and Xavi forced Joe Hart into action but City – with banned boss Manuel Pellegrini watching from the stands – were disrupting Barca’s rhythm and carved out an opening when Samir Nasri fired straight at Victor Valdes. A Joleon Lescott error was almost punished by Messi after the restart but the Argentine’s shot came off a post. Valdes brilliantly saved an Edin Dzeko header, while Zabaleta sliced horribly wide. And when Lescott got his feet

Tim lets rip on lacklustre Tots TIM Sherwood has likened his Tottenham underachievers to a bunch of kids, telling them: ‘I’m a manager not a babysitter.’ The Spurs boss (pictured) questioned the character of his side following Saturday’s defeat at Chelsea, and continued his scathing assessment ahead of tonight’s Europa League last-16 tie at home to Benfica. ‘Players are playing for their future. They have the chance between now and the end of the season to prove they want to play for a giant club like Tottenham.’

Hockey guru in at St Mary’s rALPh Krueger has been appointed Southampton chairman weeks after helping Canada to ice hockey gold at the winter olympics. The 54year-old was adviser to Canada in Sochi, following his role as coach of Switzerland. he has a background in sport leadership but no experience in football and has been appointed chairman of the holding company, St Mary’s Football Group Limited, by owner Katharina Liebherr.

LAsT 16, sECOnD LEg BArCELonA ........................ 2 MAnChESTEr CITy .............1 (BArCA wIn 4-1 on AGGrEGATE)

by jAMEs bOyLAn

legend: dietmar hamann took part in a fan challenge in dublin

in a tangle to deflect a Cesc Fabregas pass into Messi’s path, the 26-year-old dinked home to break the deadlock. Dzeko should have been awarded a penalty, with Zabaleta shown a second

Reds greats come to town

6 touches for sergio aguero, who suffered a hamstring problem and was replaced at half-time by edin dzeko

yellow for dissent as he protested. Vincent Kompany was rewarded for an immense display when he poked in at a corner but Alves denied City a draw by rifling in an Andres Iniesta cutback.

star sign: messi gives a thumbs up after opening the scoring PIC:ACTIon IMAGES

Rooney finding rivals success hard to take Wayne Rooney admits he is finding it difficult to watch Manchester United’s deadly rivals Liverpool and Manchester City fighting it out for the Premier League title while David Moyes’ side are struggling. United face Liverpool at old Trafford on Sunday knowing defeat would be another blow in a painful season. The england striker said: ‘To see City doing well, and particularly Liverpool, is really difficult. ‘It’s not nice when we know we are capable of being up there challenging and we haven’t been doing that this

season. However, it means we have to step up and get back up there because the feeling we’ve had this season is not a nice feeling at all to have.’ Rooney (pictured) accepts he and his United teammates have to take responsibility for the club’s problems. ‘as a group of players and a team we haven’t been good enough this season and we have to put that right,’ he said. ‘Hopefully, we can make the top four but, if not, we will still come back firing for next season.’

Liverpool greats robbie Fowler, Dietmar hamann and Jason McAteer were int own yesterday as Carlsberg launched their #JoInThEGrEATS campaign, giving Irish fans the chance to play at Anfield. See facebook. com/carlsbergfootball for details of this and other prizes.

REsuLTs uefa champions league round of 16, second leg Barcelona ................. 2 manchester city ...... 1 Messi 67 Kompany 89 Alves 90 (Barcelona win 4-1 on agg) psg ........................... 2 Bayer leverkusen .... 1 Marquinhos 13 Sam 6 Lavezzi 53 (PSG win 6-1 on aggregate) sky Bet league 1 sheff utd ...................1 carlisle .................... 0 scottish premiership dundee utd ..............0 st Johnstone ............ 1 inverness ct .............0 hibernian................ 0

24 METRO HERALD Thursday, March 13, 2014

Messi business as ten-Man City bow out of Champions League

«see page 23

Mcgeady’s Scot what it takes to Park fears by PADRAig MORgAn Republic of ireland winger Aiden McGeady admits it is inevitable that he will suffer abuse from the Tartan Army when he returns to Scotland for the euro 2016 qualifiers. The paisley-born everton attacker sparked controversy as a celtic teenager when he announced he would commit himself to ireland rather than the land of his birth. That decision made him a target at grounds across Scotland during his celtic tenure. Now the 27-year-old says he expects to face more flak when Martin O’Neill’s side take on the Dark blues on Friday, November 14.

McGeady back once he had established himself as a Hoops regular but the 64-cap winger insists he made the right choice. ‘i have no regrets because i’ve played a lot of games for ireland, i’ve got a lot of caps and i’m still only 27,’ he said. ‘i’ve played at the euros and i can say i played at a major finals. McGeady is not the only irish player with Scottish heritage. Former Hamilton midfielder James Mccarthy was born and raised in Glasgow but like his new everton team-mate, chose to represent the Republic. ‘We were just talking about who would get more stick and i said him,’ joked McGeady. ‘but we’ll deal with

picture: pa

That man do: Ireland’s Andy McBrine fields during the warm-up match against Nepal ahead of the Twenty20 World Cup Cricket in Fatullah, Bangladesh

‘I have no regrets because I’ve played a lot of games for Ireland and I’m still only 27’ Speaking as he helped launch the pFA Scotland player of the Year Awards, McGeady said: ‘it’ll be strange playing against Scotland at celtic park. Although if it’s at celtic park it might give ireland the advantage because there will probably be a lot of fans there in the Scotland end who are actually ireland fans. ‘i’m old enough now to deal with it, though. When i was a little bit younger it used to get on my nerves. but people can say what they want at grounds and they’re entitled to because they’ve paid their money. McGeady was prevented by celtic from representing his school as a youth, but the Scottish Football Association would only select youngsters who played with classmates for the Schoolboy squad. ireland had no such rule and used the row to their advantage as they persuaded McGeady to represent their youth set-up. The SFA did attempt to lure

‘I’m old enough now to deal with it’: Aiden McGeady is prepared for the welcome he is likely to receive if Ireland’s Euro 2016 clash with Scotland takes place in Celtic Park picture: inpho

it if and when it happens. it might not be as bad as we think.’ McGeady won both the player of the Year and Young player prizes for 2008 and believes this year’s recipient of the top prize will come from his former club. ‘i’d say Kris commons is the outstanding candidate,’ he said. ‘commons and Virgil van Dijk are probably the most consistent performers from celtic.’ McGeady was joined at the launch by fellow Goodison forward Steven Naismith. He agreed commons and Van Dijk were the favourites but suggested former Rangers strike partner Kris boyd was a decent outside bet. ‘You’ve got commons for his goals, Van Dijk who has been cruising through games at the back and even the keeper Fraser Forster, who has had some run of shut-outs,’ Naismith said. ‘but out with celtic, someone like Kris boyd has impressed with the goals he has scored.’

iRELAnD bATTLE TO nEPAL vicTORy

Ireland Cricketers left it late to win their World Twenty20 warm-up game against nepal, but eventually triumphed in style. Having lost the toss and been put in, nepal made 137 for seven in their 20 overs. Gyanendra Malla top-scored with 47 and put on 55 with captain Paras Khadka (31), while andy McBrine, Kevin O’Brien and George dockrell each took two wickets. Captain William Porterfield (38) and andrew Poynter (28) had Ireland going well at 78 for two, but they slumped to 102 for five before Gary Wilson and Stuart Thompson saw them to 141 for five and a five-wicket victory. Thompson hit 19 not out from nine balls including the winning four from the first ball of the last over, which followed back-to-back sixes from Wilson (31nO) at the end of the19th.

Kearney calls on spirit of ‘09

Ireland’s 2009 Grand Slam side must lead from the front in Saturday’s rBS 6 nations decider with France, says rob Kearney. The fullback is one of only six of Ireland’s likely squad for this weekend who were part of that side who won the title, and ahead of

the trip to Paris, he admits that he and the other five will need to play a key role if Ireland are to beat France and claim the rBS 6 nations title. He said: ‘Those guys who were involved in ‘09 have a huge responsibility.’

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Kearney: Key roles