When your daughter insists on going in the One Direction that creates the most stress

The stress of being a One Direction fan.

Saturday morning was a stomach-churningly tense time (for some) in our house. My wife tells it better than I could.

18 years ago I looked down at her little crying face and I promised myself that I would do anything for her.
She opened her new born eyes, stopped crying and I was hooked.........
I never expected that feeling to lead me to the morning of Saturday May 24th 2013.
The clocked ticked, the THREE computers and the phone were primed and ready.
My fingers were stretched and hovering above the keys.
Her little face was looking at me again - full of hope and anticipation.
The clock struck 10am and we were off.
Trembling fingers now, total concentration on our goal.
12 open tabs, 3 different browsers. How could we fail??
The phone was under the chin now, just in case she had to speak to a real person in order to achieve our desire.
Seconds turned into minutes. The unblinking focus on the screens.
The circle of dots going round and around, a short message informing us that the waiting time was 15 minutes. Then 13. 10. Then 12. 12? How could it go up? Then it started to go down again.
Stress levels rising.......
What was Twitter saying??
Out came the tablet.
Now we had a fourth electronic device on the go plus the old fashioned land line!!
All the while the inexorable ticking of the clock was in my head.
What if it did not happen??
What if that precious face crumpled up and cried like it had done 18 years ago????
Knots in MY stomach now!!! Would it happen? Would I be able to make it happen for her??
Minutes seemed like hours now.....
Then tab after tab started reporting failure.......
The quiet sobbing started to my left......
What could I do???? One last tab......one last possibility.........one last hope.
The sobs turned into a sharp intake of breath beside me.
Fingers trembled and shook almost uncontrollably. Numbers typed or maybe mistyped. Blurred vision now......Oh! Please let this work!!!!
The screen changed again.
All hope rested on this screen. No breathing, no blinking to my left!!!!!
Total stillness!!!!
Then at last.........SUCCESS!!
Tears came then. I looked at her little crying face. I knew that I would do anything for her.....including now being the proud - NO!!!- the super proud, stressed-out but amazingly (in my case!) "over the moon" owner of ........TWO General Admission tickets to see ONE DIRECTION in Croke Park......on May 25th 2014!!!!!!

{Photo thanks to Zimbio.com}

Coming soon to County Cork 'Dallas' - Oil industry could change Ireland forever

Josh Henderson, who plays John Ross Ewing III on Dallas.
{Photo: International Business Times}

Oil has been found under the seabed off the coast of Cork in Ireland and the company that found the oil says the field "should yield 280m barrels of oil."

280 MILLION barrels of oil and at $100 a barrel that is ... wait ... hold on ... oh forget it - a whole pile of cash.

Ohhh, there's going be to some wealth kicking around Cork all right. There'll be a lot of rich people. Rich Cork people. Dubliners will be sick.

I can see it all now. Cork will soon be dominated by huge, ugly, glass skyscrapers where in the top floors oil millionaires named John Joe will chase even more millions and young female minions. These same men will also snap up Cork's grand old estates of the landed gentry so that they can carry on the hard work of greed and lust in an 18th century manor house surrounded by a few hundred acres of lush pasture land. It'll be great!

They'll insist on displaying their love for Irish culture by giving their estates fake Gaelic names like Áibhéalín - meaningless in Irish - but they'll pronounce it as Abilene as in Texas and they'll feel good about themselves for spelling it as if it's a native Irish word.

These new Hibernian oil barons will be known as Oilbernians. It won't be a case of the Celtic Tiger reborn. It will be far worse than that.
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Read More:
Could Ireland’s economy be on the up? Barryroe oil could mean beginning of Irish oil industries

Providence Resources wins rights to drill for oil off Dalkey, Dublin, despite environmentalist’s objections

Ireland needs to "drill baby drill"
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Without a doubt Hollywood get wind of this and will jump at this story of all this new found money in the old world. The idea of the misbehaving Oilbernian will be too good to pass up.

It could be a movie. I'm sure you could do justice to the story in a movie, but I'm hoping for television. Not just any old television either, but the show that I believe will be used a model by the Oilbernians - Dallas.

Dallas should come to Cork. Dallas will come to Cork. I'm sure of it. Just think about it: the Ewings in Cork.

Dallas was massively popular in Ireland in its heyday in the 80s. I don't know if the new show is or will be as popular, but, regardless, when the film crews and, especially, the actors arrive the people of Ireland will go gaga. The show's makers won't be able to resist that kind of pull.

So John-Ross Ewing will come to Ireland to do some deals with a (hopefully) glammed up version of the real-life John Joe. And John Ross will find that Middleton's whiskey and John Joe's niece, Bridget, appeal to him a great deal. It'll all get very messy when John Ross isn't put off any of his pursuits, including Bridget, when everyone discovers that John Ross's great-granddaddy and John Joe's great-granddad were brothers.

Of course an attractive, sexy, greedy, conniving woman will have to have come with John Ross. She'll roam the highways and byways of south Cork looking for Bridget or some dirt that she can use to disgrace her, to separate her from John Ross.

Eventually she'll find Bridget's home is in Youghal and she'll want to go there. And then it will happen. The moment will have arrived. That moment I've been waiting for for so long, a quarter century, since I first heard how Youghal is pronounced.

The woman will be driving along Cork's small, windy roads, getting lost regularly. She'll be wearing next to nothing, well other than a raincoat over a sweater and a shirt or two, long trousers, two pairs of socks and wellington boots - gotta keep it somewhat realistic - when she'll slows down to speak to a local lad of about 19 years of age walking along the road. This besotted, be-spotted young man will stare in utter awe as the Texan beauty slowly and drawly asks him, "Y'all from Youghal?"

I'll leap out of my chair and punch the air. "Y'all from Youghal?" I'll shout it out loud a dozen times or more. I've been waiting so long to hear a Texan to speak those words. I'll laugh and sing it out again and again.

At some point it will pass from vaguely amusing to annoying to worrying to the point where my children are crying and my wife is calling for the men in white coats to come take me away. I'll go happily too - asking each of them in turn if "Y'all from Youghal?"

What of John Ross, John Joe and the two women I hear you ask. I don't know. I can't get past that moment, but it will be great when Cork is rich on oil and Dallas comes to the Rebel County.

* Of course, given the prejudices of Dublin people, I'm sure they'd have a different television show in mind for Cork people and their new found oil riches - The Beverly Hillbillies.