I wanna talk about Michael Bergin

Source: Irish Independent ()

Mark Mahon is obviously quite an operator. Strength And Honour is the 34-year-old writer/director’s first ever feature, and was made in Ireland for tuppence ha’penny, yet somehow he managed to engage the services of actors like Michael Madsen and Vinnie Jones, and secure a nationwide US release.

Mark Mahon is obviously quite an operator. Strength And Honour is the 34-year-old writer/director’s first ever feature, and was made in Ireland for tuppence ha’penny, yet somehow he managed to engage the services of actors like Michael Madsen and Vinnie Jones, and secure a nationwide US release.

A sentimental boxing drama, it stars Madsen as Sean Kelleher, a former
fighter who is taken in by a group of Travellers after a series of personal
misfortunes and enters a bare-knuckle competition to win the money for his
dying son’s heart operation.

It opens here next week, and in the States a week later, and has already won
several awards at the Boston Film Festival. But for Mahon, this recognition
has not exactly come overnight.

He’s been writing and honing scripts for more than a decade, and describes
himself as “a writer/director who was forced to become a producer
because no one would produce me”. He says his work his been well
received in Hollywood, and that several studios had been “courting”
him, but that when he sat down to look at his scripts, he realised that “the
cheapest one I had there was probably going to cost about €25m, and there
wasn’t a hope in hell I was going to raise that kind of money.

“I knew I had to write a script where we wouldn’t have too many
location moves, and so I intentionally sat down in December 2005 and wrote a
script that I could bring in with the budget that I had,” he explains.

Though the first draft of Strengh And Honour only took him three it
went through another 10 rewrites. Then, script in hand, Mahon went
a-hustling.

“I have …

Source: Worcester Telegram ()

Recent Court Records:

Courthouse records

Worcester Superior Court

Judge John S. McCann

Source: Burlington Hawk Eye ()

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Arson

suspected

in fire

By NICHOLAS BERGIN

nbergin@thehawkeye.com
WEVER — The State Fire Marshal’s Office and Lee County Sheriff’s Office suspect arson in a fire that damaged a rural Wever home.
Wever Fire and Rescue responded to the fire at 12:12 a.m. Thursday at 3638 190th St. and had the fire contained within 15 minutes, fire chief J.D. Henshaw said.
Fire officials found evidence of use of an accelerent at the scene causing them to suspect arson, sheriff’s deputy David Hunold said.
The fire started in the basement of the two-story farmhouse and caused about $5,000 worth of damage.
No one was injured in the fire, but residents Terry and Robert Reed were at home when the fire started, Henshaw said.
Officials have questioned a suspect, but are not releasing his name, Hunold said.
He said the suspect had a relationship with a previous tenant of the property and may have gotten into an argument with the previous tenant.
Hunold said the suspect does not know the current tenants of the house.
The house is owned Mike Pieper, who rents it out to farm hands, Henshaw said.

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Source: Burlington Hawk Eye ()

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Big boys play with railroad toys

By NICHOLAS BERGIN

nbergin@thehawkeye.com
GLADSTONE, Ill. — Boys may grow older, they may grow taller, they may even grow wiser, but they will never give up their toys.
The boys at the Burlington Model Railroad Engineer’s Society showed off their toys Friday, Saturday and Sunday during the group’s annual open house.
Miniature engines pulled train cars full of coal, passengers and other goods along 3,000 feet of track crammed into a 30-by-48-foot room in the society’s clubhouse in the Bluffdale Subdivision of Gladstone.
The club, which has about 15 members, opens its doors to the public for three days every year to show off its trains, model towns, tunnels and more.
“This is the only time we clean it up for the public,” society President Mike Klein said. “It gets pretty messy in here.”
The rest of the year, club members meet every Saturday to painstakingly lay miniature track, create mountains, build towns and, of course, play with their trains.
“I’d say we work about 75 percent of the time and play about 25 percent of the time,” Klein said.
About 150 people stopped by the clubhouse last weekend to watch the boys play with their toys.
Burlington resident Sean Persinger visited Sunday to get some ideas for a model train set he wants to help his 9-year-old son build.
Persinger said he grew up around trains, his father worked for the Burlington Northern Railroad and he wants to pass his love of trains on to his son.
“I used to have trains as a kid,” Persinger said. “My son is going to have a train set in his room, so I thought I’d get some ideas.”
After remodeling his son’s room, Persinger said he plans to cut a hole in the wall and run the train throughout the rest of the house, too.
However, he be remodeling his house for the rest of his life.
“They say you’re never done model …

Source: Reuters ()

LONDON, Nov 27 (Reuters) - Russian gas export monopoly
Gazprom (GAZP.MM: Quote, Profile, Research) said on Tuesday talks on the purchase of gas
from the Exxon (XOM.N: Quote, Profile, Research)-led Sakhalin 1 project should take local
gas prices as the basis of negotiation.

This could indicate that the U.S. oil major’s plans to
access lucrative foreign markets might be blocked.

Gazprom Deputy Chairman Alexander Medvedev said the partners
in Sakhalin 1 were aware of price of gas in the Russian Far
East.

“I believe that this price level would a good basis for
our negotiation,” he told reporters in London.
(Reporting by Tom Bergin; editing by Mike Elliott)

Source: BBC Sport ()

Nottingham Panthers extended their winning streak to nine matches with a hard-fought 3-2 overtime victory over Edinburgh at The National Ice Centre.

Kevin Bergin and Shaun Thompson put Panthers in command but The Capitals forced overtime with late strikes from Colin Hemingway and Mike Stutzel.

Robert Stancok grabbed the winner 17 seconds into the extra period - much to the relief of coach Mike Ellis.

“It’s one of those games I’m just happy to get over with,” Ellis said.

Interview: Panthers coach Mike Ellis

“It was definitely not our best performance but the structure was there and we worked hard. We are playing good defensively and need to keep it going.”

Ellis told BBC Radio Nottingham: “It’s really difficult to push the guys to work hard against a team who don’t look the business and the guys were a bit complacent.

“We had a ciouple of guys not playing their best but we still came out on top.”

Source: Reuters ()

(Adds detail, background)

By Tom Bergin

LONDON, Nov 27 (Reuters) - Russian gas export monopoly
Gazprom (GAZP.MM: Quote, Profile, Research) said partners in the Exxon Mobil Corp-led
(XOM.N: Quote, Profile, Research) Sakhalin-1 project should be prepared to accept a price
similar to discounted, domestic levels for their gas.

Exxon wants to export gas from Sakhalin-1, offshore east
Russia, to lucrative international markets.

But Gazprom wants to block this, saying the gas is needed
for the domestic market, where prices are a fraction of
international levels.

“We are prepared to pucharse the entire gas production of
Sakhalin 1,” Gazprom Deputy Chairman Alexander Medvedev told
reporters in London, speaking through an interpreter.

“The people involved in Sakhalin-1 are very well aware of
the price range in the Russian far east. I believe that this
price level would be a good basis for our negotiation,” he
added.

The Sakhalin-1 partners also include Russian
state-controlled oil company Rosneft (ROSN.MM: Quote, Profile, Research), India’s ONGC
(ONGC.BO: Quote, Profile, Research) and the Japanese consortium Sodeco.

Gazprom is the majority shareholder in the Sakhalin-2
project, also on Sakhalin Island, plans to export gas as
liquefied natural gas.

Exxon was not immediately available for comment.
(editing by Mike Elliott)

Source: RTE.ie ()

Don’t be fooled by the Best Actor and Best Film awards from the Boston Film Festival, ‘Strength and Honour’ is an overly sentimental and cliché-ridden film, complete with dodgy Irish accents.

The film marks the directorial debut of Irish scriptwriter Mark Mahon. Mahon wrote the script some time ago but was struggling to find a director so decided to take it on himself.

Set in Mahon’s native Cork, the film tells the story of Sean Kelleher (Madsen), a mechanic forced to break a promise to his dying wife so that he can provide the medical attention his son (Whelton) needs.

Already saddled with crippling debts from his wife’s healthcare costs, Sean must take drastic measures if he is to meet the €250,000 price tag for a life-saving operation for his son, who has inherited his mother’s heart condition.

After killing his brother-in-law in the ring, Sean must go back on his word never to fight again following the failure of the insurance company to honour his wife’s policy.

The only trouble is that to enter the King Puck boxing competition you need to be a Traveller. Sean sells his home to pay off his debts, moves into a Traveller encampment and pays the €10,000 competition entry fee.

As he trains with former mentor Denis O’Leary (Chamberlain) for his return to the game, Sean is joined by Chaser McGrath (Rawley), a young Traveller keen to make his mark in the competition to impress his own father, and the two strike up a father-son relationship.

Jones stars as the fearsome Smasher O’Driscoll, King of the Travellers or King Puck, the man Sean must ultimately defeat if he is to take home the convenient winner’s prize of €250,000.

Madsen’s role is a world away from those he has become famous for such as ‘Mr Blonde’ in ‘Reservoir Dogs’. This film offers him a chance to play a good guy, but he pull it off.

To make matters worse, his accent and background are confusing. While Jones’ accent …

Source: NJ Blog ()

Here’s a look at today’s Hoboken news.

Public Safety Director Bill Bergin locks out Fire Chief John Cassesa; Beth Mason wants Bill Bergin fired; and more on Michael Russo’s appointment to the city’s Hoboken Housing Authority board.

• Fire Chief John Cassesa came back from vacation to find a padlock on his office door; Public Safety Director Bill Bergin tells The Jersey Journal he did it in order to secure personnel records that were in the chief’s office. By the way, Bergin has requested a review of all police and fire department personnel records to see how many vacation and sick days each employee has remaining. That would include Cassesa, who is retiring in June and will get a big pay-out when he leaves based on how much vacation time he has remaining.

• Speaking of Bergin, City Councilwoman Beth Mason said at Monday night’s meeting that the public safety director should be removed from the job, according to a story in this weekend’s Hoboken Reporter. The City Council, including Mason, voted unanimously to approve Bergin’s appointment by Mayor David Roberts last month, but she says she’s since discovered two possible conflicts of interest.

The first is that the city gave Bergin a proclamation for contributing to the relief effort for the city of Kenner following Hurricane Katrina; the SWAT team’s two trips to Kenner are at the heart of Bergin’s investigation into the police department. However, City Councilman Ruben Ramos Jr. noted that Bergin was recognized for collecting items to be donated to the city.

The second apparent conflict is that three members of the City Council who voted to approve Bergin have close relatives in the police and fire departments, which Bergin will oversee, the newspaper reported.

Russo called Mason’s objection “ridiculous.”

• The Hoboken Reporter also has an follow-up to our story from last week about Michael Russo’s appointment to the Hoboken Housing Authority …

Source: Honolulu Advertiser ()

A significant Hawaiian artifact stolen some two decades ago from a prominent Hawai’i family has been found and recovered with the help of Campbell Estate heiress Abigail Kawananakoa and a Hawaiiana expert.

Recovered this week was an akua ka’ai, or stick image, whose purpose was to be taken into battle or used in ceremonies. It is believed to be more than two centuries old and once the property of royalty.

The akua ka’ai was stolen about two decades ago from the ancestral home of the Vredenburg-Hind family in Kona.

The item is believed to have been in the possession of respected Hawaiian art collector, dealer and photographer Michael D. Horikawa.

Horikawa, during a brief interview yesterday at his Manoa gallery, denied any wrongdoing.

“I’ve been a collector for 30 years, a dealer for five,” he said. “I have never knowingly bought or sold a stolen item.”

He declined to discuss details but suggested that people look at his standing in the community.

Don Severson, a collector, dealer and appraiser of Hawaiian artifacts and owner of Hawaiian Antiquities and Tahiti Imports, said Horikawa first brought the item to him 20 years ago, asking his opinion of it.

Severson said he told Horikawa then that not only were there news reports that it had been stolen, but that he had immediately recognized it as an item that appeared in a photograph in the book “Hawaiian Sculpture, Second Edition,” written by Jay Halley Cox and William H. Davenport, which was first published in 1974.

The item, Severson said, was to have been given by Mrs. J.F. Woods to Theodore Vredenburg. Woods, also known as Princess …