Archive for January, 2010

Waiting for the white smoke

January 8th, 2010

I love living in the mountains.

There are one or two slight problems associated with the location though, and the principle problem at the moment is that roads tend not to be horizontal.  In fact, I’m not sure where the nearest completely flat piece of road is around here, as it is a constant undulating area, occasionally interrupted with fucking steep hills.  There is no way out of here without encountering at least one long steep second [or first] gear hill.  A small, little known fact of physics is that steep inclines and ice don’t go very well together, unless you are into some hair raising weird sport.  They are certainly not the motorist’s best friend.

I am completely cut off.

One of my biggest concerns at the moment is the central heating.  My next door neighbour’s tank is nearly empty.  I don’t know if he realises the fact [and he might wonder why I am concerned?] but it is irrelevant anyway as no delivery lorries can get here.  So I am stuck with a choice.  Do I freeze, or do I tap into the other neighbour’s tank?  The latter is the obvious choice, but I’m not sure I have enough piping.

The other, and far more critical problem is that I am running very low on pipe tobacco.

I could send Herself down again, but I doubt she’d make it, and I would hate to lose her.  I need someone to do the washing and cooking and stuff like that.

In the good old days, tea leaves could be relied upon in an extreme emergency, but all I have now are fucking tea bags.  All you get in them is powder, which is fuck all use.  We are a little low on pot plants at the moment, and with the oil situation, I am conserving the heating at the moment so I couldn’t dry any leaves anyway.  There is a load of dog hair floating around the floor but you can take it from me – it doesn’t taste all that nice.  I had to brush my tooth this morning after a wee experiment.

Are there any experts out there?

I need ideas.

Just follow the instructions

January 7th, 2010

You have to laugh.

I saw this on the RTE web site -

Gardaí in Offaly are asking people not to use Sat Navs following incidents where several motorists have ended up stranded in snow in the Slieve Bloom Mountains having been directed by Sat Nav.

Apparently people are finding the main roads impassable due to snow and ice, and are asking their SatNavs for an alternative route.  Normally, that would be a logical conclusion, and I have used that facility to great effect myself in the past.

But think about it….

If the main roads are impassable, why would the side roads, and back roads be any better?  In fact I can guarantee they are infinitely worse.

Modern society though has been brought up to rely completely on technology, and even worse, to obey any instruction they are given without any thought.  It has reached a state where people are not capable of thinking for themselves at all.  They blindly follow instructions even though those instructions are patently stupid.

There is a very simple answer to this.

I would suggest that they include a new section in the driving test.

The new section would involve a SatNav system in the test car.  The SatNav would give them clear and concise instructions.  It would direct them up a main road.  It would tell them to turn right at the next junction.  It would tell them to proceed for the next five miles.  They would pass warning signs telling them that it is unsafe to proceed, and that to do so would be fatal.

It would instruct them to drive off the top of a five hundred foot cliff.

I think that would sort the wheat from the chaff?  I don’t think there would be any appeals against a failed test?

The Darwin Theory at its best.

Heh!

Cabin fever

January 6th, 2010

It’s snowing again.

*sigh*

I’m getting a little tired of it at this stage as it’s stopping me from going out.  When I got up this morning, it was the little dry pellet type snow, which later became nice big feathery flakes.  Now it’s the powdery stuff blowing horizontally across the land.  I think I’m going snow blind.

I sent Herself down to the village last night to replenish my whiskey stocks.  She tried to argue but I reminded her how I got her cigarettes the other day.

I haven’t seen her since.

It’s nearly eighteen hours since she left, and I am beginning to get a little worried.  I don’t fancy having to revert to that cheap stuff I brought back from France.  However, in times of crisis, I suppose I must expect some hardship?

So it’s just Sandy, me and the guinea pigs [and the occasional mouse].  We are beginning to tire of each others company.  The guinea pigs are starting to look delicious again, which is a bad sign.  There has been fuck all response to the alerts put out on television for people to check on their elderly neighbours.  I could be dead for all my lot care.  I wish they would call though – it would be nice to have someone make me some lunch.

If anyone out there wants to help me, could you please arrange for the Coastguard helicopter to drop emergency supplies into me?  Two large Jameson’s should be sufficient for the time being.  I don’t want to be a burden.

I’m tied of being stuck indoors all the time.

I’m bored.

Cold

January 5th, 2010

Jayzus, but I’m cold.

There is about an inch of snow covering solid ice on the ground, and I keep falling over.

There are icicles everywhere.

The thermometer is unusable, because it is frozen over and I can’t see what it says.

There is only one consolation……

It’s even colder outdoors.

The cost of living

January 5th, 2010

We have a very unusual public health system here in Ireland.

I would go so far as to say it is probably unique in the world.

The way it works is this – we pay nearly fifteen billion into an organisation and get nothing in return.  That fifteen billion presumably doesn’t even cover salaries, as they come out of a different budget, but who cares?  No one seems to know where this fifteen billion goes to, though a fair proportion seems to go into building hospitals which then remain closed because they can’t afford to run them?

Incidentally, please remember that Ireland has a population roughly equal to that of Los Angeles, Melbourne or about half the size of London.  We ain’t very big.

I would wager a fair proportion of the money goes into the pockets of ‘expert consultants’ who are hired to find out why the system costs so much.

If you fall ill in Ireland, or have an accident, you are fucked.

First of all, they have to find a hospital that is open.  If they manage to find one, you are brought there and placed on a trolley in the corridor where you are left to fester for a few days.  At the end of that time, you are brought to a ward where there is more than a high chance you will catch MRSA, or some other deadly ailment known only to Irish hospitals.  After giving you a lung transplant [when you only went in with a broken leg, which by now has fallen off anyway] you are packed off home to die.  Most people just wish they had died first – it’s quicker and less painful.

The upshot of all this is that those of us who value our health [and sanity] try to take out private health insurance.

Health insurance in Ireland is not cheap.  It requires a fair percentage of income, but it is the only way of ensuring that you have a good chance of survival.

Unfortunately, this all means we are now at the mercy of the health insurance companies.

I am with the largest one – the V.H.I.  I am with them for the simple reason that I get a discount by being insured through my old employer [whom I no longer work for, but one has to fiddle the system somehow?].

They are now bitching because people are starting to cancel their premiums.  Presumably, if you are unemployed, life becomes a luxury you can’t afford?  I would have thought this was a good thing for the V.H.I., as fewer customers means fewer claims and less overheads.  They could afford to reduce premiums to attract people back?  That would be the logical thing to do, as any accountant will tell you.

But this is Ireland.

The V.H.I. are putting their premiums up.

Fuck!

In Ireland, when we talk about the cost of living, we mean precisely that.

It’s the cost of not dying.    

« Prev - Next »