Grandad October 26th, 2008

Here we go again.

Twice a year they manage to screw up my body clock so I don’t know what time it is.  It also leads to the same conversation every time -

“What time is it?” says Herself.

“Six.”

“It feels later than that?”

“That’s because it’s seven.”

“But you said it was six?”

“This time yesterday it was seven, but now it’s six.”

“So what time is it really?”

And so on…

In times past, changing the clocks was a relatively simple affair.  You twiddled a knob, or you moved the hands.  Now everything is fucking digital.  And there are ten times as many clocks around the house.

When I was a kid, we had two clocks in the house, and my parents had wristwatches,  That was it.

Now I have to change my watch, my mobile phone, the VCR, the oven, the microwave, the tin opener, the clock in the car, the timer on the heating and a load of others that I always forget.  And the bastards who make digital stuff never copped onto the idea of going backwards, so every clock has to be set forward by 23 hours.

I think it was back in the 70s, someone had the brave idea of dropping all this crap and leaving the clocks as the were.  It was great.  No clocks to be changed and no jetlag in the morning.  But the farmers complained.  Like death and taxes, the one immutable fact of life is that the farmers will complain about anything.  I think they moaned because they had to get up in the dark to milk the cows.   I never knew that cows ran on Greenwich Mean Time?  I always thought they followed a more natural rhythm.

Anyway, we are back to the farce.  We are back to the dark and dismal evenings, because all the valuable daylight hours have been shoved forward to be wasted in the morning when I’m still asleep.

There is a very simple solution to all of this messing around.

Everyone knows that the sun rises in the east, and that countries to the east of us are already enjoying daylight, while the sky here is only beginning to glow.

If you want brighter mornings, then all you have to do is move east.

Fuck off to Iraq.

• Rambles
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Grandad October 25th, 2008

Friday night in Head Rambles Manor can be very fractious.

The battle starts at around seven in the evening and can lead to a lot of bloodshed, though rarely does it involve ambulances.

The victor gets the remote control for the television.

You see, Friday night is the night the Late Late Show is on, and Herself loves it.

This is yet another aspect of the female psyche that I don’t understand.  Herself hates Pat The Plank with a passion, yet she still wants to watch.

I hate Pat The Plank with a passion and would rather watch the test card.  Test cards are more interesting, more animated and have a much better sense of humour.

After some relatively minor cuts and abrasions, Herself won last night and we were condemned to watch.  I would have gone down to the pub, but Friday night is the night Death Watch Beetle goes for his weekly pint and I cannot stand the bloke.

The programme started, and I waited for The Plank to make his smarmy entrance, but he didn’t.  Instead, out popped Gerry Ryan.

I like Gerry as a person, though I’m not a fan of his on radio.  His forays into television in the past have been a bit of a disaster too, so I perked up to see what kind of a mess he’d make of the Late Late.

The guests left a lot to be desired, but then they were probably picked for The Plank and not for Gerry.  We started with Tony Curtis, who looked like he had been wheeled out of his oxygen tent for the interview.  Gerry was a little at sea with that one.

Then there was Roseanne Barr who used to look like Mary Harney but now looks like a woman.

We had to wade through an interview with Daniel O’Donnell.  If that bloke talked any slower, he’d be talking backwards. 

Tommy Tiernan came on and Gerry lit up.  Mayhem ensued and Tiernan made it blatantly obvious that he was much happier to be interviewed by Gerry that The Plank. 

The show rounded off with Gerry phoning a woman down the country.  He spoke to the husband first but couldn’t understand the bloke.  When he finally got to speak with the woman, he asked her if she was married to an Eastern European.  That was a bit of a gaff, as he was from West Cork.  This flustered Gerry a bit and he happily awarded a prize of a holiday to the woman while forgetting to ask her to answer the qualifying general knowledge question.  Classic!

It would be virtually impossible for Gerry to be worse that The Plank, and he wasn’t.  He was a hundred times better.

But then it’s easy to be a hundred times better than The Plank.

• Television
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Grandad October 24th, 2008

Damnit, but today is one of those days.

I keep losing things.

So far today, I have lost my keys,

my tobacco,

two passwords,

the manual for a Scud missile,

my cheque book,

and my address book.

Has anyone seen my marbles?

• Rambles
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Grandad October 24th, 2008

Our K8 has set up a new page on her site.

I want you to do three things.

Shift your arse over there and read it.

Pass on the word to all your friends [if any].

Digg the page or Stumble it, or whatever it is you do.

Go on then.

What are you waiting for?

GO!

• Uncategorized
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Grandad October 23rd, 2008

There is an advertisement on Irish television at the moment that irritates the hell out of me.

Nearly all advertisements irritate me, but this one is particularly bad.

It is a very clever bit of filming and the effects are quite spectacular.  Obviously it cost a lot of money, which annoys me too, as it’s my money.  The film was made by our beautiful government, out of the public coffers.

If you live in Ireland, North or South, doubtless you have seen it -

Incidentally, this is the Southern version.  The Northern version is absolutely identical except for the registration plate!

Why does it irritate me?

It is supposed to be a warning against the dangers of speeding.  We see Yer Man getting his rocks off with the local slapper, and then we see a car flying through the air at him.

Then we come to the really annoying bit – the stern judge [who is probably pissed off because he has been dragged away from his porn collection] announces that “it is quite clear that you were driving too fast to cope with the unexpected”.

In my book, the poor bastard didn’t do anything wrong.  He is driving along a quiet country road that is nice and straight.  There is no obvious speed restriction [though in this God forsaken country there probably is a 20MPH limit there].  There is a broken white line down the centre of the road.  Visibility is good and the road is dry.  I would overtake there and so would 99% of other drivers.

So he overtakes a car and a dog runs out.  These things happen, though they are extremely rare.  I’d have prosecuted the dog, or its owner.  I wouldn’t say the driver broke the law though.  He was just unlucky.

Now if it had been a warning about the dangers of shagging the local bike in public at the side of the road…………?

• On the road , Television
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