Archive for March, 2010

Faces I could never tire of kicking – 2

March 12th, 2010

I suppose it was inevitable that this one would come up.

Normally I would include people in this hall of fame because of an irrational desire just to have a good kicking.

This week’s candidate is more than that.  I have a rational desire to smack her one with the back of a shovel, but she still fits the bill, because she’s an ugly cow.

Minister for Obesity

From the irrational point of view, I just hate her sulky scowl.  She rarely smiles, and has one of those voices that drones on on a monotone that is a guaranteed cure for insomnia, if it weren’t for the fact that she talks such bullshit.  This is a face that definitely requires a drastic piece of reshaping, preferably by non-surgical methods.

On the rational side, she is a fucking menace to the public.

Once again, there is another scandal in the health service.  One of the nation’s major hospitals has admitted that 57,000 x-rays were never reviewed by a consultant.  This has resulted in at least one death.  On top of that, they never bothered even opening 3,500 letters of referral from GPs.  This is a mess that is just another in a long litany of cock-ups, foul-ups and disasters in our health service, which all started when our Minister for Obesity Health decided to ‘reform’ the health service.  All she has succeeded in doing is to dismantle a system that worked reasonably well, and replace it with a bureaucratic nightmare that doesn’t function at all, but costs the state a staggering fortune per year.

The worst part about it is that she refuses to see what a monumental bollix she has made of the system.  She just keeps digging us deeper and deeper into this appalling mess.

And where is she now during this latest revelation about the x-rays?

She is swanning around New fucking Zealand with her husband at our expense. We are paying for her to have a nice little holiday on the pretext of ‘an official visit’ for Paddy’s Day which isn’t until next week.  God give me fucking strength.

This cow is a menace to society.

She is a corpuscle on the face of mankind.

Pass me my hob-nails.

 

The Faces collection.

Can you pee standing up?

March 11th, 2010

The other day was International Women’s Day.

I let it pass, as I let a lot of things pass [like No Smoking Day in the UK] because, well, I didn’t have much to say about it.  I just ignored it.

Yesterday I read a post by Sabrina Dent in which she comments on being mentioned as a “Top Female Web Designer” and takes umbrage, as well she might.

I do not understand the compulsion to gather us together and stick us in a special little ghetto. I don’t want to be praised for my gender; I want to be respected for my work on its own merits.

Now this did get me thinking, coming on top of Women’s Day as it nearly did.

What the fuck is this thing about segregating women?  I just don’t get it.

Women are different from men.  We know that.  They have soft bumpy bits, and they lack dangly bits, and they can’t park a car if their life depended on it, but apart from that they aren’t much different.  I grant you they can have babies where men can’t, but they’re welcome to that little trick.

Now Sabrina is a top class web designer, but why should she be celebrated just because she can’t park a car?  Why should there be a special day set aside for women just because they lack dangly bits and can’t read a fucking map?  Why should women have their own days and groups just because they can’t pee standing up?  I’m baffled.

There is no International Men’s Day, and that doesn’t bother me.  I don’t know what I would do with it anyway.  Would I have to walk around all day with no trousers on to show my pride in being a man?  International Women’s Day doesn’t seem to do much for women either.  It’s just a load of [lack of] bollox, if you ask me – which you didn’t. They waffle about it and it gets a mention in the papers [at the bottom left hand corner of page 16] but that is about the limit of it.  I don’t know why they bother with it at all.  It’s just an irritation.  It’s not as if women walked around all day with no clothes on to show their pride in being a woman?

Now there’s a thought…….

Vows are made to be broken

March 10th, 2010

I had to go down to the village yesterday.

As I have said here before, I was somewhat erring on the tired side, so I thought that while I was there I would have a mug of strong coffee.

It was very pleasant outside the coffee shop.  The sun was shining, the birds were singing and the ice was nearly melting on the footpaths.  There was a feeling of Spring in the air.

As I was leaving, I found my way blocked by two elderly women.  I know I am getting on in years, but these two were old.  One stood firmly in my way and glowered at me.

“Are you Low Cal?” she asked in that terrible accent that sends shivers down my spine. Forget your swallows or your cuckoos – the Americans have arrived!

“They call me Polly Unsaturated” says I as pleasantly as possible while wondering what the fuck she was on about.

“Do you live around here, Polly?” she asked without missing a beat, and in a voice that started dogs barking a quarter of a mile away.

Ah!  She was asking if I was local.  Fucking Americans.

“I do,” I replied.

“Is this it?” she asked sweeping her hand around to indicate the village.  “Are there no more shops than this?”

It was the way she said that last bit that did it.  I can take a lot, and had even silently vowed to be nicer to tourists this year, but what the fuck did she expect in a country village?  A fucking Walmart on every corner and the gaps filled in with drive through McDonalds?

“That’s all there is,” I said in a take it or leave it kind of way.  “It’s just a country village, and that’s the way we like it.”

“I know it’s just a country village!” she barked in unison with the dogs in the distance.  “I just expected a bit more.”

Well, fuck her.  I bet she comes from Hicksville, Arizona too.  She was really pissing me off at this stage.

“Is there any WahDur around here?” she said as if accusing me of murdering someone.

“Water?” I said.  I was about to suggest she ask for a glass of the stuff when she ordered her coffee, but realised she meant more than that.  “There’s a river under the bridge over there,” I said helpfully.

“I mean real WahDur” she snarled.  Fuck me but she was a prime example of womanhood at its worst.

“Go a few miles that way and you’ll come to the sea?”

“Would that be the Addalantic?” she asked suspiciously.

“No.  The Irish Sea.  It’s smaller but just as wet.  If you sail across it you’ll come to Wales.”

“What would I want to go to Wales for?  We’ve just come from there.”

I sighed. 

“Would you like some real shopping?” I asked.  “Somewhere you can buy real, authentic Aran sweaters, and CDs of Riverdance?”

“That would be good,” she muttered, but I could see she was hooked. 

I gave her the directions, and left her to turn her coffee sour.  Not a fucking word of thanks, or a farewell, or even a ’have a nice day’.

Later they drove past me, following the directions I had given.  I waved to them, but they ignored me.

I hope they enjoyed their drive.  It’s a beautiful road with incredible scenery.  There are no shops or tourist attractions ruining the distant vistas, just endless miles of bogland.

No American has ever come back alive from The Bogs.

I felt good.  Summer really is coming.

Looking for Morpheus

March 9th, 2010

I didn’t get much sleep on Sunday night.

I don’t know what the cause was.  It was just one of those things.  For hours, I lay in bed and stared at the darkness, but the brain just refused to sleep.

Eventually, I did nod off, and was woken by the dog a couple of hours later.  Once again, I was wide awake, so I decided to cut my losses and get up.

Yesterday was a shit day.  I like my sleep, and when I don’t get it, I’m like Mary Harney without the HRT.  All day, I wandered around in a bit of a haze, kicking the guinea pigs [they make quite good footballs, incidentally] and generally breaking things.

My one consolation was that I knew I would have a grand sleep last night, because I was knackered.  I didn’t get to bed too early because a certain dimwit had fucked up his site, and he came clamouring to me, late in the evening to fix it.  I told him to fuck off, but he said he’d pay me in pints at the Blog Awards.  That was enough for me, so I set about fixing it.

I quit after a couple of hours, and went to bed.

Do you think I could sleep?  Like fuck, I could.

I lay there for five hours or so staring at my old friend the darkness.  I tossed and turned but Morpheus had fucked off on his holidays.  No sleep.  Not a single fucking wink.

I got up as dawn broke, as I was sick of the tossing and turning.  I went back to Dimwit’s site and eventually fixed his problem.  Three hours in total, it took me.

I did some sums.

I think I am worth around €100 per hour as a consultant.  Three hours?  Three hundred smackers.  Converted to pints, that comes out at somewhere around eighty pints that Dimwit owes me.

Now, I should sleep after that…………

Going for a Wii

March 8th, 2010

I am going to the Irish Blog Awards for several reasons.

First and foremost, I think I deserve some [hah! some?] pints with my old friends that I met in the previous couple of sessions.

Another reason is that there are a lot of you women who attended last year, who would like a second crack at The Ultimate Sensual Experience.  It’s true what they say about the oldest fiddle making the sweetest music, as I’m sure you will agree?  However, on my doctor’s advice, I’m afraid I have to limit myself to no more that eight women this year, so it will be on a first cum come first served basis, as it were.

Also I have booked a place further west for the next few nights, so Galway is merely an overnight stop on the way to better things.

The one reason I am not going is to pick up an award, as I very much doubt that that will happen.  It didn’t happen last year [ya miserable fuckers!] so I’m not holding my breath for this year.

There is one thing that does concern me about the Awards thing though, and that is Herself.

You see, she isn’t fit.

I have noticed this lately.  It takes her twice as long now to plant a field of potatoes as it used to.  I also notice that when I let her carry my bags, she tends to drop them a lot.  It was time I did something about it.

I went and bought a Wii.

I have never bought a games console before, and the very name of the Wii makes me want to vomit, but in times of crisis I have to put my principles to one side.  I really need her to be fit in case she has to carry me anywhere.

I set it up, and she insisted that I try it first, so I did.  I am, apparently a perfect specimen of manhood, but then you all know this anyway.  My balance is perfect and my Body Mass Index is bang in the middle of the ‘Ideal’ range.  I did a few exercises and notched up quite a good score.

Then it was her turn.

She stepped up onto the little pad thingy, and the Wii screamed.  She fell off with the fright and landed on the coffee table, which of course smashed.  She then tried standing on one leg.  That went well…. for about half a second.  She slowly keeled over, like one of those brick chimneys being demolished, and ended in a heap in the dog’s bed.  She cried; I sighed.

I think there is a lot of work to be done before the end of the month.

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