Sandra Harris Writes

FANTASY DINNER PARTY: WHOM WOULD I INVITE? BY SANDRA HARRIS. This is a good question. I can invite everyone/anyone I want, as many as I want, living or dead, fictional or from real life? Brilliant. Great stuff. As a lifelong reader and book enthusiast, my guest list'll probably be top-heavy with writers. I don't just love reading, I love the physical books themselves: collecting them, choosing them in a bookshop, handling them, bringing them home, breathing in their scent whether they're old or new, shelving them, re-arranging them endlessly, housing them by category and so on. I'm a major book person. I'll probably be buried with some of my favourite reads. I might even choose to marry a book, lol. After all, it won't ever cheat on me or forget that women like cuddling after sex and not just being told, can you see yourself out, I have work in the morning...? Anyway, here goes. Let's see if you agree with my choices! William Sh...

A MESSI FINISH: SO LONG, WORLD CUP 2026. BY SANDRA HARRIS. I genuinely didn't know we had so many Spanish people in Dublin until last night. When Spain was declared the winner of the 2026 World Cup at around eleven o'clock Irish time, after beating title-holders Argentina 1-0, the pubs in my local area erupted in the loudest noise imaginable, then for the next few hours there was shouting, singing and dancing in the streets, cars hooting their horns and even people blowing on vuvuzelas. This is a noise-making instrument (you can't really call it music) so obnoxiously loud and dangerous to human hearing that it's been banned at major sporting events, including the FIFA World Cup, but apparently it's perfectly okay to blow one outside my bedroom window in the middle of the night during a heatwave which just will not end. I didn't really mind Spain winning as I have nothing against them, but I was kind of hoping Argentina might do it because Lionel Messi seems...

  HE SHOOTS… HE SCORES!!! ANOTHER ACE-IN-THE-HOLE FOR CR7. BY SANDRA HARRIS. © Ah, Jaysis, Ireland, what are yiz like? Losing at football again. Last night, we lost to Portugal in a World Cup qualifier. Two-one. But all our pundits said that that was the best we’d been at losing in ages, so it’s all G. Meaning, we’re edging ever closer to, maybe, someday, actually nearly winning a game, or, at least, losing so well that it’s almost the same as winning. That’s hilarious and so typically Irish. We sometimes beat really piddly teams like, say, the Faroe Islands or Gibraltar, where the footballers’ main job is not footy at all but farming or bee-keeping or being a fisherman or something. Then we act all big and important for a bit but put us up against virtually any country with a decent team and we fall apart. Remember Italia ’90, our proudest footy moment ever? The song clearly said that we were going to ‘inflict our game’ on the opponents, and how many goals did we score? Two. Two? ...