Head Rambles

Grandad March 31st, 2007

Herself wanted to buy a bottle of water.

So I had a pleasant couple of hours to spare in the village, where I sat out in the sun with my coffee and pipe, outside the coffee shop.

There was a nice couple at the table beside me. They were talking away, but I’m not the type to listen in. I just enjoy watching life go past.

However, as I lit the pipe, I couldn’t help but overhear them say what a pleasant smell pipe tobacco is. And they agreed that you don’t get the whiff as often these days.

So their conversation naturally turned to people they had known who smoked a pipe. Their Grandads! They started reminiscing about their childhoods and their granddads, and I didn’t listen in any more. Because it was none of my business.

But my simple act of lighting a pipe brought back memories for them. I hope they were pleasant memories.

So, far from being banned from places, I should be encouraged to enter. I should be allowed puff my pipe whenever I like. Because a pipe produces a pleasing aroma, and evokes memories.

I should be paid to smoke in pubs!!

• Around the village , Smoking
• Comments(20)

Grandad March 31st, 2007

We have a new addition or two to the family.

George and Mildred have decided to build an annex on our house. In fact, they have built just outside our kitchen window.

It is a beautiful nest, and extremely well hidden, even though it is only a foot or two from the window pane. I tried to photograph it, but as I didn’t want to disturb anything, I had to shoot through the glass. And that causes reflections…

I have put a little arrow in showing the nest, but even then you can’t see it.

I tried a telephoto shoot of the nest, but that didn’t come out too well. And even then it’s hard to see.

The nest is the lower half of the photo.

George took a long time to build that nest. He started off with twigs. Then came the moss. And finally, a nice layer of Sandy’s hairs which I left out nearby.

George and Mildred are blackbirds and are having a busy time of it. They are taking turns on the eggs at the moment. The switch-over happens every couple of hours. One will land in the branch just at the window and the other then flies off for a drop of lunch or whatever.

Then come evening time, George heads up to the top of the nearest tall tree and joins in with the other blackbirds and thrushes and they all roar their heads off. It’s quite a sound.

I like Spring.

Breaking news….

I just went to boil the kettle, and had a look at the nest.  As I watched, George arrived with a beak full of grubs, as Mildred flew away.  George did his bit and then he too flew away.  So the eggs have hatched.

Congratulations George and Mildred.  I haven’t seen your offspring yet, as I don’t want to disturb anything.

Which goes to prove - you can’t make a blackbird without breaking eggs.

• Around the garden
• Comments(8)

Grandad March 30th, 2007

I had to go into town this morning.

As you may have gathered by now, I hate going into town.

But I had to meet some people and, what was nice, they let me use their parking spot. So that was one problem out of the way.

However, I also had to leave a yoke in for repair way up the other end of town, and I wasn’t going to try finding parking there, so I decided to walk. Big deal, I hear you say.

Now I like walking. I used to do a lot of hill walking, and a 25 mile ramble was nothing. But now I have a ‘condition’ [which I am not going to go into] which means that any sort of exercise leaves me knackered. So I walked up to the other end of town and got rammed by the usual clutch of Skobies. I left in the yoke but they told me I’d have to call back later. B*ll*x!!

So back I trundled to the first place and had my meeting. Very nice. I could sit down, and I had a nice cup of coffee.

But then I had to walk up to the other end of town again. I collected the yoke, which was nicely repaired, but at this stage, all strength had gone out of me. I had to rest.

So I found a nice quiet doorway and sat down for a smoke. I was out of the way of the Skobies, and the muscles were beginning to ease, and that cheered me. So I began to sing softly to myself.

Herself is very fastidious about the way I dress when I’m going out, but this morning I’d managed to sneak out in my usual clobber - runners with a sole coming loose, tatty jeans and an old cardigan. I had the cap with me too in case it rained, but I just left that on the ground.

I suppose it was an easy mistake to make. And quite a few people made it.

And I made €83.50.

• Around the town
• Comments(15)

Grandad March 30th, 2007

Head Rambles seems to do quite well in the search engines.

People find my humble site using all sorts of strange search terms.

I’m used to the usual searches for old folk doing unnatural things au naturel [and I have to be careful of the words I use here, otherwise they'll start finding this page!]

One that amazed me recently was a search for “عباس بن Ù?رناس”. Yes. I copied and pasted that off Google. And Head Rambles came up at number 5 on the list.

Also I am making Damien Mulley uncomfortable because he thinks I am redefining, or hijacking the word Grandad. He might be right. I did a search on “Grandad” on Google, and I come up number 4 there too!

So I am writing to all the various dictionaries to let them know. The on-line ones can take care of themselves. I suppose I’d better write to “Who’s Who” also.

-oOo-

Noun

1.

grandad - the father of your father or mother gramps, granddad, granddaddy, grandfather, grandpa grandparent - a parent of your father or mother grandad - narky old git who writes a blog called Head Rambles

• Internet
• Comments(9)

Grandad March 29th, 2007

I started a bit of a stink yesterday.

I posted about my old hobby horse - smoking.

Before I start I want to make one thing plain - I AM NOT ADVOCATING SMOKING. People seem to think I am launching some sort of campaign to get everyone lighting up. I’m not. Don’t be stupid.

But the whole thing got me thinking about the subject of passive smoking, and more generally on how we inflict ourselves on others.

I am really going to get it in the neck here, but I don’t think passive smoking is anything like the threat that people make it out to be. It is merely a politically correct bandwaggon that was launched in the US [where else!] that the non-smokers could latch on to.

The Surgeon General of the United States stated [and I quote] “Sustained exposure to second-hand smoke was equivalent to smoking about two cigarettes a day”. Fine. But the key word here is “sustained”. So, if I live with a partner who smokes 40 a day, then I smoke 2. That seems reasonable. But if I only share a room with them for a couple of hours [say, in a pub] then simple maths shows that I would inhale the equivalent of 0.17 of a cigarette. Wow! So if I go to the pub seven nights a week, I smoke just over one cigarette. I think, somehow that the alcohol will do more damage than that!

So the anti-smoking lobby are latching onto this and it has become politically correct [and a vote catcher] to talk about passive smoking.

What about passive inhaling of exhaust fumes? This is a subject that doesn’t hit the headlines very often, yet is probably a far greater killer. Incidents of asthma have soared in our cities. All they have done to date is to ban lead in petrol. But there is no great move to ban cars…. Smokers are a much easier target!!

I suffer from an allergy. I am allergic to artificial scents. Those air-fresheners drive me mad. I cannot tolerate perfume or aftershave. I get headaches, running eyes and all the symptoms of sinusitis. It is extremely unpleasant. I would prefer to stand in a field of slurry than share a lift with a beautiful woman who is wearing perfume.

I think it is only fair that people with perfume and aftershave be banned from pubs. They are inflicting their foul habits on me and are affecting my health. They are the scum of the earth. They should be vilified for what they are - selfish ignorant people who are affecting the health of others with their foul habits. The sale of air-fresheners should be banned for the sake of public health. Likewise perfume and aftershave. I have my rights as an individual, and I demand that those rights be respected.

• Smoking
• Comments(18)

Grandad March 28th, 2007

Is the government totally insane, or am I missing something?

At the end of the month another one of their incredibly inane laws comes into effect.

Since they came into power, this government has wasted billions at a time when they had a chance to really do something worthwhile. The Health Service is still in a shambles. Don’t even mention the elderly or special needs. We have a housing crisis, a spiralling crime problem, drug problems.. I could go on but you get the drift.

But this government is obsessed with smoking.

I’m not in favour of smoking, so don’t start whining at me. I enjoy the odd puff of the pipe, but I’m not a cigarette man at all, at all.

First they introduced the ban on smoking in public places. Pubs are now closing at the rate of one a day. The government won’t admit this - they put it down to other factors, but the publicans say that it is a major factor.

Now they are banning the sale of 10s. You can only buy 20 fags at a time. What, in the name of all that is holy, is the logic here?

I had my first cigarette when I was in school. We used to buy one on the way home. Yes - one. I think it cost 3d, including a match.

I didn’t get hooked. Many’s the time we wouldn’t bother. I suppose I smoked two or three a week. We did it for the laugh. In fact, in my last year there, I didn’t smoke at all. It wasn’t until I went to college that I started buying them in packs of ten. Then I had them in my pocket, so I smoked them. I got hooked. I switched to the pipe a few years later, but that’s a different story.

I presume the logic behind the new law is to dissuade kids from starting. How? If they can’t buy ten, they’ll buy twenty. It’s as simple as that. Kids these days have money, so it won’t make the blindest difference. It just means they will smoke more, because they have bigger packets.

One sector of society that doesn’t have much is the pensioner. They have to eke out their pensions, and a pack of ten fags can be important to them. But they can’t afford twenty. So they either have to spend money they can’t afford or they have to go without.

According to Lynn Swinburne, Health Promotion Coordinator of the National Youth Council of Ireland -

“92% of young people report that they are not asked for ID when purchasing cigarettes. I am certain that if the provisions of the 2002 Public Health Act are enforced, whereby shopkeepers found to be selling cigarettes to minors will be banned completely from selling tobacco products, asking for ID will become the norm”

So here we have a typical Irish solution - instead of enforcing the existing laws, we have to introduce new ones.

Harney -you are worse than useless. You are a liability. You are spending money like there is no tomorrow. You are pouring billions into the health service and for the last years all we ever hear is that it is “going to improve”. Jam tomorrow, but never today.

And now you are costing even more by bringing in a hair brained law which is going to exacerbate the smoking situation, rather than enforce a law that has been there for years that would actually work.

• Politics , Smoking
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