John Keyes

On Friday June 22nd, I attempted an Everesting – to cycle up and down the same hill until the elevation gain matches the heigh of Mount Everest, 8848m.

Read on and find out more about the training involved, the day itself, and the causes who will benefit from the fundraising.

A word of warning, it’s a bit of a long read.

Paying for public services is a hot potato topic in Ireland, given the Irish Water debacle. My main issue with the Irish Water saga was with the awarding of the metering contract to GMC/Sierra when Siemens offered to install meters for free back in 2010. Another classic example of an Irish Government wasting money – see electronic voting machines, and giving away our natural gas resources for other examples.

I don’t know enough about these topics though, I should educate myself more on them, but limited time and other priorities scupper that. I do have a little proposal that may make some sense.

I do a fair bit of running around the streets of Kilkenny, and I have a few little things I’m aware of that I try to keep in mind when doing so. Read on to see my top tips for urban running.

I believe, that in general, the burden of responsibility for injuries caused by dangerous driving needs to be weighted towards the drivers of the automobiles, not towards vunerable road users.

While I dream of legislation to facilitate this, maybe we can we educate drivers to improve behaviour, or maybe we should inconvience the bejaysus out of them.

Maybe.

It’s okay to be ignorant. Accept that as position to learn from. Ignoring something or outright denying it even though you know it’s true is not okay. It’s a coward’s position.

I take the examples of global warming deniers, and gun rights advocates, as two untenable positions to take, given the evidence we have.