Head Rambles

Grandad May 20th, 2010

By now, you should know my love for cold calls on the telephone.

There is another sub-breed of bottom feeder that is somewhere around the same spot on the evolutionary scale and that is the door to door salesman.

I was sitting here today minding my own business when the door bell rang.  By coincidence, both dogs were indoors at the time [they had both been wandering in and out, as I had the door to the garden wide open], so I shut them in and made my way through the house, wondering who the hell it was.  The dogs followed me so that when I opened the outer door, I had to hold the inner door in case the dogs came barrelling out.

At first glance I thought they were God Botherers, and they were both squeaky clean.  They scotched that thought though by introducing themselves as being from Bord Gais.  We don’t have gas.  Nor does anyone else around here.  The nearest gas-main is about six miles away.  But it transpired they were trying to sell me electricity.

Fuck it, but they were persistent.

I’m open to argument about who supplies my electricity.  I don’t give a shit just so long as I can boil a kettle and the supply to the seed shed isn’t cut off for too long, but I do not like to be pushed into things.  And these fuckers were pushy.

I asked if Lucy Kennedy was thrown in with the deal.  They said she wasn’t and insisted on showing me a computer.  I have a fucking computer, so I didn’t want to see theirs, but they insisted on showing it to me anyway, and said they could sign me up on the spot.

I started off at ten on the scale of politeness.  Within minutes, I had sunk to one, and was blatantly telling them to fuck off outa there.  They still persisted.  I told the main man that he was a persistent cunt, and he just smiled, agreed and carried on selling.

In the end, the needle hit zero on my politeness scale. 

I released my grip on the inner door, and loosed the dogs.

It was over in seconds.

One managed to make it over the gate, but the other one didn’t stand a chance.

The ambulance has just left.

It would have saved a lot of trouble if they had just thrown in Lucy Kennedy.

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Grandad May 19th, 2010

Herself wants me to install a shower.

I haven’t a clue where that idea came from.  Our toiletry arrangements have been fine for years, so I can’t understand why she wants to change things now.

I have always been very accommodating about her needs.  I have even been known to help her get the tin bath off the hook on the wall.  If she decides to have a bath during the winter, I even let her bring it indoors if there is snow on the ground.  You can’t say farer than that?

Eventually, her nagging got to me.  She is one of the world’s greatest naggers, and she made a point of watching all those fucking ‘makeover’ programmes on television for the last few weeks, and shrieking at me any time they showed someone’s bathroom.   I gave up.  A friend of a friend has just called around and the plans are in place.

Herself is to get her shower.

It’s quite simple really.  The back storeroom has a leak in the roof, so Benny is just going to put a flat pan thing under the leak to catch the water.  Herself can have a shower any time it rains, and I don’t have to get the roof mended.  Two birds with one stone, as it were.

I don’t understand all this modern obsession with hygiene anyway.  The body needs its natural oils and washing them off can’t be healthy.  I find that a good walk home from the pub in the rain does a good job, and in my opinion, that’s the way nature intended things to be.  I have heard that some people actually take a bath once a week, which is fucking ridiculous.  It’s no wonder there are problems with water shortages.

I blame the fucking Americans.

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Grandad May 18th, 2010

Summer must have arrived.

In the space of half an hour, I have just swatted two wasps.

But then it occurred to me – isn’t it a bit of a coincidence having two wasps in half an hour, when I haven’t seen a single one before this?

There is only one answer.

The first wasp must have resurrected himself.

Fuck!

I have just killed a god.

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Grandad May 17th, 2010

I hate advertisements.

In The Good Old Days, they were things you would find peppered inside newspapers, and that was fine.  They were easy to ignore.

In the last few decades however, the advertising industry has gone into overdrive and is now intent on ramming useless products at us at every available opportunity.  We are now treated to programme breaks between advertisements on television.  Every available blank space is plastered with hoardings advertising pure shite.  Even our buses have become nothing more than mobile platforms for garish tacky promotions.

The latest insidious form of advertising is sponsorship.  This one really pisses me off.  Every fucking event or festival has to have some fucking brand name in front of it.  You can no longer have a Dublin Literary Festival.  Oh no. It has to be the Durex Literary Festival or some such fucking name.  What’s worse, all the drooling knuckle-draggers out there take to this like a duck to water and happily prattle on about The British Nuclear Fuels Garden Show or The Tampax Grand National as if it was the original name.  How long before we have Hallmark Christmas?

Now they have gotten into the act of naming buildings.

I liked the Point Theatre.  It was a name that reflected its origins.  The building was part of Irish Railways Point’s Depot before it was sold off, so the name had an historical significance.  Then they renamed it the O2.  Fur fuck’s sake!  I hate the name O2.  It means nothing.  It is a fucking stupid name for a tacky mobile phone company.  But now all we hear about is events at the O2.  Every time I hear that name, my bile rises.

The latest abomination to hit the scene is the revamped Lansdowne Road Stadium.

Lansdowne Road is part of Dublin.  It is part of my history, having graced its turf myself some years ago.  Its name was its location and that was fine.  If anyone wanted to know where the stadium was, they just looked it up on a map.  Then they decided to pull it down.

I have a lot to complain about with the new stadium.  Over 140 million of my tax money was ploughed into it for a start, and am I ever going to see a red cent return on that?  No.  Then there is the fact that the new structure looks like a cross between a half eaten Yorkshire pudding and a punctured bouncy castle.  It is fucking hideous, and the architect should be immediately deported to Mars for life.

Worst of all though is the name.

They no longer refer to it as Lansdowne Road.  It is now the Aviva or some such fucking inane name.

I don’t know who Aviva are and I don’t care.  The word Aviva is a meaningless verbal fart that grates on my sensibilities, and it irritates me intensely that I am going to hear it for years to come simply because some company forked out a wodge of silly money for the honour.

Aviva, whoever they are, can go fuck themselves.

It will always be Lansdowne Road to me. 

Even if it is now a carbuncle on the Dublin skyline.

Here was Lansdowne Road

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Grandad May 16th, 2010

Our K8 has gone off on a wee break.

Somehow, and I’m still not sure how, I was conned into looking after her dog.

Wouldya/Woodja is a nice enough dog.  He is big.  He is heavy.  He is very friendly.  He is the most stupid dog I ever met.  The simplest of tasks can overtax his single brain cell.  He is the Mary Coughlan of the canine world.

Looking after dogs is much the same as looking after children – it’s just a question of keeping them entertained.

We went out into the garden for a spot of ball.  I threw the ball for Woodja, and he disappeared into the undergrowth.  Sandy and I had a quick set of tennis [Sandy won again].  Woodja eventually came back all pleased with himself and dropped a rock on my foot.  I sighed.

Maybe active sports aren’t Woodya’s thing so I thought I’d try something a little more cerebral.  I set up the chess board.

Dogs aren’t very good at tossing coins, so I tossed, Sandy won and she chose white.  She quickly pawed her queens pawn forward two squares, which is one of her favourite openings.  Woodja ate his king.  Obviously not a chess player.

I gave up.

Sandy is now lying on my bed reading a book.  Woodja is snoring on the couch.  It’s best to leave them that way.

There is no doubt about it – Woodja is fucking stupid.

But it’s hard not to like him.

Nice but dim.

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