Head Rambles

Grandad January 28th, 2007

I like the British Government.

Since they came into power they have done some pretty wonderful things, Some of those things are funny, like spending millions on a Millennium Dome that no-one can find a use for. Some of the things are scary, like licking up to the U.S. and helping in an illegal war.

Their latest problem is that their prisons are overcrowded. So the Home Office sent a letter to all the judges and told them only to lock up people if they were dangerous. So presumably the prisons are currently full of harmless people?

The judges didn’t like being told what to do, so they held their own unique form of industrial action. They refused to send paedophiles to prison. I would have thought these people were a danger to the public, but the judges quoted the Home Office letter and let them out.

But then we hear of two who were convicted of the most henious crime imaginable. They were sent to prison, no problem. After all, they had intercepted voice mail messages left for royal aides. My God! No-one is safe from these two. The British public must be saved at all costs and it is only right that paedophiles be allowed roam free to make way for them.

Rumour has it that they are about to release six serial killers to make way for a bloke who was stalking Camilla.

They came up with another classic one then. They have decided that they can get heroin addicts to quit the habit by offering them vouchers. I can just imagine the scene – an ex-addict going off to spend his £1.50 voucher [and trying to find something that he can buy for that massive amount of money], and being so relieved that the cold turkey was so worth while.

Keep it up Tony. May you stay in power forever. You remind me that our lot aren’t the only shower of incompetents around

• Politics
• Comments(3)

Grandad January 28th, 2007

I seem to have upset one of my readers.

I’m sorry Nancy. You seem to have taken exception to my little article the other day. That’s your right. But you are confusing me a bit.

For a start, you take me to task for implying that all Americans are stupid. In fact I said [and I quote] “I said how I didn’t think they were all stupid. Only the ones who voted George W back in.”. I stand by that.

No. The only people who proved themselves to be stupid [and ignorant] were the people who were interviewed. And they were – you’ve guessed it – Americans.

I take your point that the Australians could have interviewed other people. You even provide a list of alternative candidates.

Bill Gates – OK. I’ll give him ten out of ten for constantly nearly getting things right. They never work properly the first time, otherwise why does he keep having to rush out fixes? I certainly wouldn’t buy one of his cars if he made them!

Doctors and staff at the Jonas Salk Institute – I’ll disqualify this one, because there are research institutes all over the world. Some worse. Some better.

Neil Armstrong – Hold on now! He is a fighter pilot who was trained for a different job. He did it well, I grant you but it doesn’t qualify him as a mastermind. I think you are confusing intellect with achievemnt here.

Hillary Clinton – Ex-president’s wife? Senator? How does this qualify her?

The staff at Google Earth – OK. You have one here. Hats off to them.

Oprah Winfrey – Now you are joking! She’s like Pat “The Plank” Kenny on speed with a screechy voice. Disqualified.

Noam Chomsky – A professor. I would expect him to qualify. No problems there.

Thomas Friedman at the New York Times – He’s a journalist. I would expect him to know about things.

The engineers and designers at Boeing – They are designers and engineers. That’s all. The world is full of them.

No Nancy. You are missing the point entirely. If I had a film crew, I’m sure I could travel to the States and interview some great intellects. I’m sure if I brought the same crew around Ireland I could find some right gobshites. But in either case, I would have to do some research first.

What worries me is the magnitude of the ignorance. I doubt there are many people in Ireland who would say that Australia is Iran, just because someone had changed the name on a map?

Incidentally, I did a search on the Internet using the term “are americans stupid” and got 2,930,000 results. Wow!

One I picked at random was quite good

And by the way, Nancy – I didn’t write the above.

Maybe we should start a debate on the American sense of humour?

• America
• Comments(9)

Grandad January 27th, 2007

I used to be plagued by cold-callers on the phone.

They were all trying to sell me something I didn’t want. The worst offender was Smart Telecom, trying to get me to switch my phone account to them.

“You won’t regret it” says they. Ha ha! How wrong they would have been. [For the benefit of overseas readers, Smart failed to pay their bills and left thousands of their customers high and dry with no phones]

Lately I’ve come across a new breed of cold-callers. The Surveys.

I keep getting calls from people who hastily tell me that they don’t want to sell me anything, but could I answer a few questions for a survey please.

The first couple. I let through and answered their questions.

Then it occurred to me – why not have some fun? I didn’t ask them to ring after all.

So the next few that came on, I answered their questions with random answers.

How many bottles of water do you drink in a day? – 156.

How many children under the age of 18 reside with you? – 25.

What type of pet do you have? – A bottle-nose dolphin.

How far do you commute to work? – 15 feet.

You get the idea.

I think they began to get suspicious, because the calls started to tail off a bit. This annoyed me because I was having fun. So I decided to go for broke.

The phone rang the other night.

“Hello. Please-don’t-hang-up-I-am-not-trying-to-sell-you-anything”

“Is this a survey?” says I.

“Yes” says he, sounding very relieved. “I won’t take up much of your time. I just want to ask some quick questions”

“No problem” says I. “Can I see some identification?”

Long pause. “Pardon?” says he.

“I’ll need to see some identification so that I know you are who you say you are”

“But I only want to ask you some general questions. No personal ones”

“Ah!” says I, “but if a stranger arrived at your door and didn’t identify himself, would you invite him in even if he said he wasn’t going to steal anything?”

He thought for a while. “No. Probably not”

“Damn sure, you wouldn’t” says I. “Now show me some identification”

“I can’t. This is a phone line. I take it you don’t want to take the survey?”

“I don’t mind answering any and all of your questions, if you show me some identification first”

There was a very long pause. He muttered something and hung up.

Now a lot of companies get their information this way. And then they throw it back at us in their advertising.

So the next time you see an ad on television proudly announcing that “99% of all known cats brush their teeth with Gro-more”, don’t mind it. It was just me having fun.

• Around the house , Rambles
• Comments(5)

Grandad January 26th, 2007

Woops.

Irish Blogs Awards are apparently bringing the internet to it’s knees.

Who says electronic voting doesn’t work!!!

ENN Article

• Internet
• Comments(0)

Grandad January 26th, 2007

I received an e-mail from Robert who apparently is a reader.

He wrote to me because of my attitude to Americans.

I wrote recently about my latest opinions on Americans, and I hope it was reasonably flattering. I said how I didn’t think they were all stupid. Only the ones who voted George W back in.

Incidentally, I got a postcard from George W the other day, which was nice of him. He signed it personally and all……….

Anyway, I digress.

Robert’s mail enclosed a link, which I followed. To say it is scary is understating things. This is horrific stuff. It’s a video of ordinary Americans being interviewed on the street by an Australian TV crew. It would be really funny if it weren’t so frightening.

Now I know there are stupid people in Ireland. You only have to look at Ryan Tubridy or any of the Boy Bands to see that. But we don’t have Weapons of Mass Destruction.

About the only sensible answer was from one who was asked to name the countries in “the Axis of Evil” and he suggested “California, Florida and New York”.

Go on. Watch it. You know you want to

I rest my case, M’lud

• America
• Comments(27)