It's been a good day for … wedding guests
It's been a good day for … wedding guests
Weddings can be good fun, dutifully bearable … or just a long and tedious undertaking. A bit like marriage, really.
The outcome depends on many things, not least the entertainment.
This started early for the happy couple and their guests in Oldcastle, County Meath, when the priest rounded off the ceremony by bursting into a rendition of Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah. The bride and bridegroom knew nothing about Father Ray Kelly's plan. He had even rewritten the lyrics to make them more appropriate for the occasion.
There was a standing ovation from the stunned congregation and the video of Kelly's performance has been watched on YouTube almost three million times in the past week.
Kelly, who is a trained singer, said: "The way I look at it is, it's a gift one has, and if you have a gift you use it."
It's certainly one wedding present that will never be consigned to the attic.
It's been a bad week for … workaholics
I've done it while celebrating a rather large birthday at Ayr racecourse. I've also done it halfway up a hill in Ardnamurchan and on a beach in Spain. I've even done it in the bath.
But that's life if you have been bestowed with a work mobile phone and answer it when out of the office.
I can't say it has bothered me over the years (although much as I value my colleagues in the press hall, I don't really want to share a bath with them).
But France has sounded an alert to workers receiving out-of-hours calls and emails. A new law says that if French workers happen to get a message from the office after they've finished for the day, they simply have to ignore it.
About one million French workers in the digital and consulting industries will be required to turn off work phones and avoid email before 9am and after 6pm, barring "exceptional circumstances".
The agreement, reached by employers federations and unions, also states that employers cannot pressurise their employees to ignore the directive.
While it would be tres bon to just say non, I fear I won't be switching off my mobile outwith office hours any time soon.
Call me an eternal optimist, but I still live in the hope that one day I might actually get some good news. I'd even take it in the bath.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article