Archive for 2010

Happy new whatever

December 31st, 2010

Traditionally, this is the time of year for a drop of retrospection.

I ain’t going to do that. Frankly anyone who does wish to look back on 2010 must have a psychotic streak of masochism.  It was the most miserable fucking year in my lifetime, and anyone else’s, unless of course, you are old enough to remember the Famine.

I am delighted to see the end of that year.  I shall not shed a tear as I bin the calendars, or tear up the diaries.  The only good thing about it is that 2011 has to be better, as it surely couldn’t be any worse.

Likewise, this is the time of year for New Year’s Resolutions.

In my opinion they are a load of bollox.  In fact they are merely a vehicle for making you depressed about yourself.  You make some fancy resolution to exercise more or to smoke less or whatever, and within a couple of weeks you are back to your old routines, only now you have a sense of failure on top of everything else.  Way back when, I made a resolution and I have actually kept to it for the best part of fifty years.   I haven’t broken it once since.  Not bad going?  I resolved never to make another New Year’s Resolution.

Lastly, it is a time for wishing everyone a Happy New Year.  I have stated before why I think that’s a load of crap.  You either wish people well all year round or you don’t.  Why reserve your good wishes to one day of the year?  Do you really wish people ill for 364 days in the year, but come New Year’s Eve you suddenly have a change of heart and wish them well?  Nah!  It’s bollox.

Less than eight hours now and we can forget 2010.

Time to start getting pissed.

That’s the only sensible tradition on this day of days.

Crisis

December 30th, 2010

A few of the more observant of you may have noticed that I haven’t been putting pen to paper much over the last week or two?

There is a very simple reason for this – there has been fuck all to write about.

One only has to watch the news to see that there is fuck all going on apart from the weather and water.  It is a well known fact that the Irish are obsessed with the weather [probably because we have so much of it], but for four straight week on the trot, all we heard about was the snow.  One would wonder how the meeja could manage to waffle on about a single topic for a whole month, but they managed.

Then overnight, the temperature jumped by about twenty five degrees [from around -15 to +10] and the snow vanished in the blink of an eye.  Overnight, the meeja lost their favourite topic.  Overnight they found a new one – the Water Crisis.

I have noticed in the past that we never have problems in this country; we always have a ‘crisis’.  We switched overnight from a snow crisis to a water shortage crisis.  As we lurch from one crisis to another, we surely have established ourselves as the newest member of the Third World.  So far this year we have had a flooding crisis, the crisis in the Catholic Church, the banking crisis and a few other crises that pop up from time to time to fill in the gaps.  Ireland has become an old drunk, staggering from lamppost to lamppost in a tortuous attempt to get home.

They say that we are about to enter another cold spell.  Doubtless this will cause another crisis in some shape or form.  We have yet to have our annual flooding crisis, where Cork City, or half of Connaught will vanish beneath the waves and we shall be treated to yet more images of rooftops peering from beneath Ireland’s latest lake.

What a fucking country!

Doldrums

December 28th, 2010

Well, that’s Christmas out of the way.

Now we have to survive that peculiar week leading up to the New Year.  I always found this to be a rather strange week.  Those of you who got involved ion all the hype are now wondering what the fuck happened, as you enter the great anti-climax.  The rest of us are just enjoying our hangovers.

I never know quite what to make of this week.  It’s not exactly a holiday, yet most people refuse to return to work.  Not that I blame them.  It’s a sort of Doldrums that happens every year where no one seems to quite know what they should be doing.

One thing that pisses me off about this week is the annual retrospection.  For those of you who enjoy sport, I would like to point out that you have had your thrills and spills.  There is no need to run endless programmes reliving those boring moments when some overpaid tosser scored a fucking goal or whatever.

I know this is traditionally the time of year to look back on the year’s events, but I have a little suggestion to make.  Let’s just forget about it.  OK?  Do we really want to relive one of the most disastrous years in history?  It was bad enough living through it once without having to relive it all over again.

I suggest we all go and get hammered.  A few bottles of whiskey should do it.  With a bit of luck, by the time we sober up, we should all be suffering from collective amnesia, and 2010 will be but a vague blur.

Christmas cheer

December 26th, 2010

How we celebrate Christmas up the mountains.

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Felicidades

December 22nd, 2010

Please accept without obligation, either express or implied, my best wishes for an environmentally conscious, socially responsible, low-stress, non-addictive, gender-neutral celebration of the winter solstice, celebrated according to the most enjoyable traditions, religious beliefs or secular practices of your choice, with due respect for the religious/secular persuasions and/or traditions of others, or their choice not to practice religious or secular traditions of any kind at all;

AND

a fiscally successful, personally fulfilling, and medically uncomplicated recognition of the onset of the generally accepted calendar year, but not without due respect for the calendars of choice of other cultures, whose contributions to civilisation are also acknowledged, and without regard to race, creed, colour, age, physical ability, religious belief, choice of computer platform, or sexual orientation.

Disclaimer

By accepting this greeting, you are accepting the following terms:

This greeting is subject to clarification or withdrawal. It implies no promise by the wisher to actually implement any of the wishes for her/himself or others; is void where prohibited by law; and is revocable at the sole discretion of the originator. This greeting is warranted valid within the standard parameters of well-wishing for a period of one calendar year, or until the issuance of a subsequent greeting, whichever comes first, and warranty is limited to replacement of this greeting or issuance of a new greeting at the sole discretion of the originator,  who assumes no responsibility for any unintended emotional stress these greetings may bring to those not caught up in the seasonal holiday spirit.

IMPORTANT: This message is intended for the use of the individual addressee(s) named above and may contain information that is confidential, privileged or unsuitable for overly sensitive persons with low self-esteem, no sense of humour or irrational religious beliefs. If you are not the intended recipient, any dissemination, distribution or copying of this message is not authorised (either explicitly or implicitly) and constitutes an irritating social faux pas. Unless the word "absquatulation" has been used in its correct context somewhere other than in this warning, it does not have any legal or grammatical use and may be ignored. No animals were harmed in the transmission of this message, although the Jack Russell next door is living on borrowed time, let me tell you. Those of you with an overwhelming fear of the unknown will be gratified to learn that there is no hidden message revealed by reading this warning backwards, so just ignore that Alert Notice from Microsoft. However, by pouring a complete circle of salt around yourself and your computer you can ensure that no harm befalls you and your pets. If you have received this message in error, please note that it was your fault.

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