Exactly one year ago I was in Bangkok to witness a last-gasp win for the Irish women against Bangladesh in a thrilling contest that ebbed and flowed before Lucy O'Reilly belted the last ball to the boundary, sealing victory in the T20 World Cup Qualifier.

Sometimes there are things that you're just not very good at. You should be good at them, you can see no reason why you wouldn't be good at them - but you're not.

We're off to India again for the World T20, exactly five years to the day after the greatest triumph in Irish cricket history.

The Irish squad have been on their travels again, in Australia this time, where their quest for Test status moved a step closer with a hard-fought win over Papua New Guinea.

BARELY a day seems to go by without the back pages being full of Premier League managers and coaches coming under pressure or being sacked, yet in the 15 or so years I've been involved with Cricket Ireland we've been incredibly lucky with the men we've had in charge.

THOSE of us of a certain age can remember one of the most famous battles in corporate history between Sony and JVC for domination of the emerging video tape market in the late 1970s.

IT was the ghost of girlfriends past for me last week as I went Christmas shopping in my native Derry; in the space of 30 minutes I bumped into two former loves.

I had a minor health scare during the recent T20 WWCQ in Thailand, waking up in the early hours with chest pains, shortness of breath, and my throat almost completely closed.

A scene from the 1975 classic film Jaws came to mind recently when I was trying to drum up some media coverage for the women's World T20 qualifying tournament in Thailand.

I wrote about another retirement yesterday - I seem to have written quite a few of them recently. They are almost always tinged with sadness, having the feeling of an obituary.