Head Rambles

Grandad November 24th, 2006

Herself wanted to go to the city on Wednesday.

I said no.

She demanded.

I shut her in the coalhole.

She thanked me after, because that day, Ireland had its worst ever traffic jam in history.

Mind you, records only go back to the middle of the nineteenth century, so there may have been longer ones before that. But I doubt it.

Apparently a man dug a hole on the hard shoulder of the N11 in Bray, while 18 men watched him. Note that this was the hard shoulder, not part of the road. But they put up thousands of cones anyway. What the heck. They’re cheap.

Now no one thought to tell anyone about this. The Gardai didn’t know. The AA were very slow on the uptake. But not as slow as the drivers who got stuck in the jam. The jam eventually stretched back for fifteen miles along the M11 and the M50 [if you want that in new money, you can work it out for yourselves]. Some of these people were stuck for over seven hours.

Jam on M11 and M50

There were women with babies. There were women about to give birth. There were people trying to get to meetings. There were old people. There were people just trying to get home. And none of them had food or water. Or toilets.

Now when you get to my age, the first thing you think of when you get stuck in a jam, is “Thank God I don’t need a pee”. Of course that thought brings on the urge. And how do you hold onto an urge for six hours??

I could have been in there

And all of this was caused by a bloke digging a hole.

Now some people got wind of this and took to the back roads. But of course they were laying pipes there so the roads were all ripped up.

So some took to the mountains, but they were making a film up there so the road was closed.

So that basically left one road south. But a bloke was digging a hole. The entire south of Dublin and North Wicklow came to a standstill.

Herself has promised that the next time she wants to go to the city, she’ll lock herself in the coalhole.

• On the road
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Grandad November 23rd, 2006

I want to be a celebrity.

I’m not quite sure how I go about it, but I’m going to try.

First of all of course, I have to have a boob job. I think 40H would look good. A sort of Dolly Parton with a beard. It’ll give me something to play with when I’m bored.

Then there’ll be the total lobotomy. I have to fit in with the crowd after all. All my worries and cares gone. No thoughts at all.

I fancy the life of luxury, being whisked off to tropical islands and eating live maggots and things. I fancy being filmed while I take a dump. I fancy being headline news in the gossip magazines ["Grandad has trimmed his beard again"]. I fancy being chased by the paperazzi.

Imagine being a guest on Podge and Rodge! I might even be interviewed by The Plank on the Late Late.

And celebrities don’t seem to have to work at all. Unless of course you are David Beckham and you have to kick a ball around a field for a few days a year.

My only real problem is that I don’t really understand how to get there. There are loads of people out there with huge boobs and no brains who aren’t celebrities. Why not? Why didn’t they make the cut?

I’m not related to anyone famous [which seems to be one of the requirements], unless you count my Uncle Archie who was once arrested for exposing himself to a sheep? [The sheep didn't press charges, by the way. She quite fancied him].

Do I put an ad in the Sun saying “New celebrity on the block. Now available for mindless TV shows and interviews”? I’d include a topless photo of course. No point in wasting that surgery.

So if anyone knows how I get in with the “in crowd” [whatever that is], please drop me a line.

• Rambles
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Grandad November 22nd, 2006

Breaking news!

I have always had my suspicions about George W. I’ve said it before – the funny walk, the vacant stare, the apparent lack of awareness of his surroundings….

So I decided to do some investigation.

What I uncovered is even worse than I feared.

I have a theory that there is a massive conspiracy to cover up the truth. This conspiracy involves my old friends in the CIA, makeup artists, Hollywood, computer graphics people and God knows who else.

For years now, they have been using holograms and makeup to show us the George W that they want us to see.

I asked a friend of mine in Washington to hang around the White House. I explained my theory, and told him what to look out for. He said I was mad. He said I was deranged.

He hung around the White House anyway just to humour me.

He arrived back yesterday. He was a changed man. He was gibbering and drooling and crying a lot. He managed to give me the photo he’d taken before the nice doctors took him to a resting home with kind nurses and gentle doctors and very high walls.

When I saw the photo, even I was a bit surprised at what I saw. It was worse than I thought.

He had managed to photograph George W out for a ramble in the garden, but without his makeup on.

• America , Politics
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Grandad November 21st, 2006

This is not a rant. This is not a ramble. This is just a little piece about my grandson, Sean.

Sean is five and a half now. He is a beautiful child. He is very happy and he brightens up our lives. He has made us all into better people. We have learned what love really is. Sean has Cerebral Palsy.

His mammy wrote a letter on his behalf, because he can only speak with his eyes, and he can’t hold a pen. That letter has been published on the Jack and Jill website. You should read it, because it shows real love and understanding. It also explains why I have a link to Jack and Jill on this blog.

Last night I ordered some toys for him on the Internet. I ordered them off a site called Thinking Toys. This is no ordinary toy shop because they also cater for children with very special needs.

There was a slight glitch in the order process, so I phoned Aine who runs the business. She couldn’t have been nicer or more helpful. I sent her a fax showing what I had ordered and she rang me back within minutes to say she was dealing with it straight away.

It isn’t often you get service like that.

So, in spite of all my moaning, I do think there are good people out there.

And it’s only fair that I write about them sometimes.

• Around the house , Internet , The Family
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Grandad November 21st, 2006

I meant to mention it before, but I forgot, which is surprising because it’s big news. But then the memory isn’t what it was.

Bertie rang me last week. He must have got my number from the CIA.

Frankly [and I have to be honest here], I find it very difficult to understand Bertie at the best of times. Even when he talks slowly.

But he was obviously very excited to be ringing me because he was shouting a lot. And I mean really shouting. Maybe the line was bad at his end, but I could hardly understand a word he was saying. And I didn’t like to be rude and ask him to repeat himself. So I only caught the odd word. But it was enough.

The conversation was rather one sided. In fact he never gave me a chance to say anything. What he did say was [and I've left out the words I couldn't understand]:

“I’ve been reedin your…..about de cycleway…..draw de line….callin around…takin out a contract..your name on it…don’t write…more..”

There were a lot of expletives in there too, but I put that down to his excitement.

I gather he wants me to design the new cycleway between Sandycove and Sutton for him and will be calling around soon to sign the contract! Wow!

So I have been working out some ideas. Now, I think I can save the government a lot of money here. Or maybe I’ll just charge them the full €40,000,000. They like paying out huge sums of money.

For a start, most of the cycleway is there already. The stretch from Merrion Gates to the Liffey is grand. So is the stretch from Fairview to Sutton. So that only leaves two gaps – the one between Sandycove and Merrion Gates, and getting across the Liffey.

The Liffey bit is tricky. I thought of a bridge, but then the ships couldn’t get in or out. I thought of a tunnel, but they probably wouldn’t build that high enough for a cyclist [they aren't very good at measuring tunnel heights]. So I came up with a brainwave. Let’s build a ford. After all, Baile Atha Cliath is the Town of the Ford of the Hurdles. So this will be very traditional, and we might even get grants from the Heritage Council, and An Taisce.

So I’m going to build the cycleway across the bed of the river. The cyclists will have to hold their breath for a bit but I’m sure they’ll manage.

So that just leaves the stretch between Sandycove and Merrion Gates. I’m OK between Sandycove and Dun Laoire, but then the problem starts. The cycleway has to follow the coast, and the only way of doing that is to follow the railway, as the roads are all inland. I don’t think they’d like it if I took over the railway, so I had another brainwave. Let’s share!!

What I propose is to build a cycleway between the rails. Simple. It will be an incentive too, to the cyclists not to linger, so it will be good for their health.

As for the payment.. I suggest, Bertie that you contact Major Kowalski in the CIA. He is looking after my case. He’ll give you my address. The usual brown envelope will do, but mark it “Private – not to be opened by tribunals”.

• On the road , Politics
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