Head Rambles

Grandad October 12th, 2007

So Al Gore has won a Nobel Prize?

Why?

All he did was make a scaremongering film.

I have yet to see his credentials for making that film. He never studied science, physics, mathematics, geology, geomorphology or astrophysics? He studied English and became a failed presidential candidate. So how is he qualified to be the Worlds Leading Expert on Climate Change?

The jury are still out on this whole business. For every expert who says climate change is man made, there is one who says it isn’t. Yet it has become fashionable to talk about Carbon Footprints and all that crap. It is politically correct to “do your bit for the environment”. Like the Emporer’s New Clothes, one is ridiculed and pilloried if one speaks against the mass consensus.

I have been around a while. I remember the floods in 1952 that wiped out the East Coast of England and drowned half of Holland. They didn’t talk about Global Warming then. I remember the winter of 1962 [or was it '63?] when the Blessington Lakes froze solid and you could drive on them. They didn’t talk about Global Warming then. I survived the floods that devastated the south of England in 1968. They didn’t talk about Global Warming then.

So what is different now?

OK. So the climate is changing. Figures prove that. But the climate is always changing. The Earth is a vast machine. And I mean vast. It takes something equally vast to change things. There is a popular theory [backed by figures] that the current changes are as a result of solar changes. I can live with that. The Sun is big enough to affect Earth.

Before any of you jump down my neck, I’ll ask you one thing. Have you put any original thought into this yourselves? Or are you just going to spout the propaganda that you have been spoon fed?

I do my bit for ecology. That’s different. I use CFL bulbs. I drive as little as possible. I don’t use aircraft. I separate my waste and recycle. I even refuse paper bags in shops if I don’t need them. That all makes sense, because there is a problem with over use of finite resources. And CFL bulbs are cheaper to run. But I’ll be damned if I’m going to worry about my ‘carbon footprint’.

If there is a problem with upper atmospheric pollutants, then one of the biggest causes is aircraft. It stands to reason. A single transatlantic flight will produce more pollutants than I will in several years.

What is the betting that Al Gore flies to collect his trophy?

• Global Warming
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Grandad October 12th, 2007

I don’t like to be uncharitable, because essentially, I’m a nice bloke.

There is a resident in our village though, who I can only describe as a pain in the hole.

He is boring, long winded, tight-fisted, miserable, depressed and generally guaranteed to drive anyone to drink. Everyone crosses the road to avoid him. Even the local priest. And he wanders around the village trying to trap people into conversation.

The local shops do a great trade because of him. People nip into shops to avoid him and then feel they have to buy something.

He doesn’t drink, but he haunts the pub, sipping his orange and looking like someone on the verge of suicide. We love sending tourists over to him. We tell them he is the local ‘character’, and full of tales of wisdom.

He trapped me the other day. After about two hours of boring conversation about the weather, and some GAA match or other [where I had to keep shifting to keep upwind of him - he hasn't washed in years], he eventually got to the point. Apparently he had gotten his hands on a computer, and had the idea that I could set it up for him. Some b*st*rd had told him I had a computer.

Normally, I would have told him to f*ck off, but I had been saying “yes” at regular intervals [to make him think I was listening to him], and I found myself saying “yes” to his request.

Sh*t!

I went down this morning. The stench in the house was unbearable, and he kept waffling on about “the Match” [He's always on about some bloody Match]. I worked quickly. I managed to connect him to the Interweb somehow. Then while he droned on in the background I whipped out a few credit cards I had “acquired”.

I signed him up for a couple of dozen hard core porn sites, and managed to find a few paedophile sites too. I used his real name and address, of course. I downloaded as many images as I could, and told him I was downloading the latest version of the Interweb. He now has a hard disk full of really nasty stuff. Even I was horrified at the images, and I’ve been around a while.

I left in a hurry. He, for once actually looked quite happy.

So now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a phone call to make before the local police station closes for the day…..

• Around the village
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