Archive for July, 2007

The most insane story of the week?

July 24th, 2007

I was browsing the Sunday Times and came across a little snippet.

I’m sure they wont mind me stealing robbing borrowing it ……

Council officials have warned a woman that birds in her garden are singing too loudly. Environmental health officers told Dorothy Berry, 65, that the blackbirds in her trees were upsetting neighbours in Fulham, west London.

“I have a lovely garden in which the blackbirds sing in the trees. But I really don’t see what we can do about that.”

What?

These morons are complaining about blackbirds?

This is so stupid, it just has to be true.

I don’t know which is worse – the neighbours, for complaining, or the council for listening to them.

I’d ram the neighbours’ iPods up their backsides and play Status Quo at them at full volume for a week.

They might appreciate the beauty of a blackbird then.

kick it on kick.ie

The decline of the village

July 24th, 2007

I went down to the village again for coffee yesterday.

This is getting to be a habit.

As I sat in the sun, supped my coffee and puffed the pipe with Sandy sitting at my feet, I contemplated village life.

When I first moved here [long before most of you were born], it was just a little country village. I was treated as a ‘blow-in’ at first and was tolerated with politeness. It was a close knit community where everyone knew everyone else and outsiders were treated with a little suspicion.

I moved away for some years, without losing my village connections, and am back again. The place has changed. The village is much the same but houses are springing up in the surrounding area. The new ‘blow-ins’ are all so impressed to be living the village life, but they don’t understand what village life is.

Their community consists of the golf club or the tennis club. They sit in the village and arrange dinner parties [at the top of their voices so that we are in no doubt what they are talking about] on their mobile phones. Of course, they all drive SUVs. They talk [again, as loudly as possible] how they are just back from Thailand and can’t wait to get to Marbella next month.

The village is infested with affluenza.

Those of us from ‘the old days’ are now firm friends. We are sticking together like animals in a dwindling clump of rain forest.

We know our days are numbered.

Exercising Sandy

July 23rd, 2007

I like to bring our Sandy for a five mile run every day.

I’m not up to that kind of running so I got an idea from our K8.

I let her [Sandy, not K8] out of the car and then drive for five miles at about 20 mph. Sandy runs like the clappers to keep up and she loves it. It’s great exercise for her.

The only snag is that once she got distracted by some sheep. Now, I don’t want her to be shot by some irate farmer for sheep worrying [how can sheep be worried? They don't have enough brain cells], so I took to tying her to the car with a length of rope.

This has worked very well. But lately I’ve noticed something very sad.

She is getting old. She can no longer manage the full five miles.

I now have to drag her along the ground for the last mile.

New policy for tourists

July 22nd, 2007

I went to the village this afternoon.

I was sitting outside the coffee shop, enjoying my coffee and a puff on the pipe when I saw a couple of tourists.

They were prime targets. Not only did they look lost, but one of them was a SOTH [Sunglasses On The Head - for future reference]. I was just lining up the shot, when they caught me by surprise. They called me over!!

I crossed the road to see what they wanted. Luckily they didn’t notice the rifle. Apparently they wanted someone to photograph them. So I did. I shot them with their own cameras, so to speak. They were delighted and were very grateful. They then asked for directions………….

Now I felt a bit sorry for them. I was tempted to send them up to the bogs, but it’s getting quite crowded up there. And anyway, they were a nice couple. So I told them I was a stranger to the area, and they would be better off asking directions in the local supermarket.

None of the staff in the local supermarket speak English! They can’t find where the pipe tobacco is, let alone where the local tourist attractions are.

I went back to my coffee and waited to see which direction my friends ended up taking. They came out of the supermarket and headed off on the wrong road, of course.

So. No more bog. From now on, I’m going to send everyone into the supermarket.

I can take bets with myself as to which road out of the village they’ll take. It’s like a lottery.

It’s much more fun.

Am I a suicide bomber or just getting old?

July 22nd, 2007

I recently discovered I’m a Boomer.

This worried me for a while, as spontaneous explosion is a messy way to go. Ask any suicide bomber.

Apparently what it really is, is an age demographic, and it roughly means anyone born between 1945 and 1955. Trust the Americans to come up with that expression.

I have been following the Boomer Exploits on various American sites, as they have loads of blogs and sites for us oldies. One of the quirky things they say about us is that we are more likely to use emoticons. :o

I suppose this makes sense as we are more used to personal contact, and are still a bit bemused by all this anonymous typing-on-the-Internet thingy. We are used to finely crafted handwritten letters that explain how we feel, whereas the new technology forces us into brief, curt sentences where we have to explain everything in shorthand.

Emoticons are a convenient way of doing this.

If I wrote to someone and said “You are a greasy little dago” they might be insulted. But If I wrote “You are a greasy little dago ;) ” they know I’m only joking. I hope.

Anyway, Going Like Sixty has come up with some great new emoticons especially for us oldies. LOLX…..

-oOo-

Just as an idle point of interest, yesterday was the fist time ever, that this humble little site had more visitors from America than it did from Ireland.

Could it be that the Irish were all outdoors enjoying the first dry spell in 45 days?

Or did everyone follow me into Facebook and got lost? Like I did? I found quite a few of my Irish friends wandering around the corridors desperately trying to find their way out. It’s a very confusing place.

Or could it be that the Internet is turning me into an American?

I think I’m going to spontaneously explode…….

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