Archive for July, 2010

Smoking makes you grow older

July 30th, 2010

I am amused.

I know I shouldn’t be, but I am.

You see, for a while, they insisted on printing pretty little pictures on my packs of baccy, with the general intention [I presume] of putting me off smoking for life.

They have the opposite effect.

Many years ago, the tobacco companies used to put little cards in packs of cigarettes, in the sure and certain knowledge that people would start collecting them.  They did, and some fantastic collections were built.  The pictures on the packs of tobacco have become my modern version of the cigarette card, and I am now buying more tobacco than ever, so I can collect them.

What I love about these pictures is the attempt to scare the shit out of me, when in fact they are so over the top that they just make me laugh.

Wrinkled hands

So smoking is supposed to cause wrinkles?

To prove this they show a pair of wrinkly hands.

Whose hands are they?  If they belonged to a twenty year old, then I would say the point was made, but for all I know, they just found some eighty year old and used his or her hands.  In fact they remind me of my mother’s hands, and she didn’t smoke.

Now my hands are fine.  They may not be up to the class of a baby’s arse, but considering whet they have been up to, and where they have been in the last six decades, they are in pretty good shape.  They are one hell of a lot smoother than the ones in the photograph, and I expect them to look like that in maybe twenty years time.  So what the fuck difference does it make whether I smoke or not?  My hands are going to get wrinkly because that kind of shit happens when you get old.

They have it all arseways anyway.  Smoking does not cause ageing of the skin.  Age causes ageing of the skin, and it is going to happen whether you like it or not.

Now, if they had said that quitting smoking stops people ageing, I might be interested.

But then, fuckit..

Who wants to like forever?

Studies have shown

July 29th, 2010

Herself came up with one of her Fascinating Facts last night.

She was browsing in the Interweb at the time, so I asked her if the fact contained a “research has shown”.

She admitted that it did.

The papers and the Interweb are crawling with these studies.  They always start with “research has shown” or “a study has found” or something that indicates that this is a bunch of nobodies, trying to make a name for themselves and to justify their existence and their budget.  I have reached the stage where I don’t believe a single one of them.

The “fact” that Herself discovered last night is that apparently having few friends is as damaging to survival as smoking 15 cigarettes a day or being alcoholic.  Straight off, this confused me.  Smoking 15 cigarettes a day is the same as being an alcoholic? Wow! That’s bad.

When it comes to friends, I have no complaints.  Herself isn’t too badly off, as I let her share my friends from time to time.  At least I know now that there is little chance of my ending my days in the gutter, or dying of liver failure?

If the government sees this, we are fucked.  It will be compulsory to have friends.  They will set up matchmaking offices around the country and we will all be registered.  All males will be required to carry an IFA card and all females an ICA card.  Social Welfare cheques will not be issued to anyone who isn’t accompanied by at least ten people [excluding family].  They will insist on setting up a Facebook account for everyone in the country [at a cost of 12.5 million?].

Maybe they will pass a law requiring everyone to attend a pub at least once a day?  Of course then we would all gain friends, but become alcoholics which might defeat the purpose?  But then pubs are closing at a great rate because of the smoking ban and causing people to lose out on a social life, which is a sort of Catch-22 conundrum?

I’m going to play safe.  I’m not an alcoholic, so I’m all right there.  I don’t smoke 15 cigarettes a day, so that’s fine.

Just to be on the safe side though, I have booked myself into Lisdoonvarna.

Our lane

July 28th, 2010

I think I may have mentioned Our Lane before.

It is a narrow lane that serves a few houses and looks like a cross between the Sahara Desert and the Grand Canyon, without the scenery.

In winter, it floods so you can’t get down it unless the floor of your car is a couple of feet off the ground.  In summer, it’s a dustpan where any movement throws up gigantic clouds of dust and rocks.  Winter or summer it is full of potholes that would try the strongest of suspensions.

We are always complaining about the lane [well, we have to complain about something?] and strangely enough, the loudest complainers are the ones who expect to treat the lane like a race track.  In fact, I have noticed that the volume of complaints is directly proportional to the speed of the driver.  There is a lesson there somewhere.

There is a lot of noise out there at the moment.

It started with a lot of beeping, and I looked out to see what it was.  It was a council lorry reversing up.  Now, the council only come here for one or two reasons.  They are either going to fill some of the potholes, or they are going to remove some to place on a major road where they can be better appreciated.

I suspect the latter.

I cringe whenever the council come out.  The last time they came, a couple of years ago, they threw a fortune’s worth of asphalt into the potholes and then buggered off.  After they left, I checked their work and they had nicely managed to asphalt over all the drains [that didn’t work very well anyway] so that wasn’t going to help the flooding.  Of course, a week later, the asphalt had all broken off and the lane was back to its old Sahara self.  The only asphalt that had managed to stick was the drain blocking stuff.

I have to go out shortly.  What’s worse, I have to bring the car.  I don’t know if I will have a lane to drive on, so I may only get as far as the front gate.

If I don’t come back, don’t come looking for me.

I may have fallen into a new pothole.

No one ever comes out of them alive.

UPDATE

I managed to return alive.

I was amazed at the [lack of] work they managed to do considering the noise they made.  Thay have a) thrown a couple of shovels of asphalt into one or two potholes, and b) thrown a couple of the neighbours’ bins into my garden to make way for their lorry.

The lane will be back to its old potholed self within days, but at least I now have a selection of bins.

How to revitalise Ireland’s tourism

July 27th, 2010

There has been a lot of navel gazing in recent months about the fact that the tourism market has collapsed.

There have been programmes on television and articles in newspapers and they try and analyse the reason for this.  They mainly waffle on about the high cost of everything here which is a fair argument. 

I have a very simple solution, that will be guaranteed to not only create a boom in tourism, but will revitalise a lot of businesses here as well.  What is more, it will cost absolutely nothing.  It won’t require a single cent of investment.

Repeal the smoking ban.

Just think about it for a moment.

What is wrong with this suggestion?  If businesses don’t like the return of smoking, there is nothing to stop them retaining the ban in their own premises.  If non-smokers don’t like the return of the smoky pub, they can carry on patronising the pubs that retain the ban [if any!  Hah!].

What would be the benefits? 

Well, just look at the UK for a start.  At a conservative estimate, 25% of the population of 65 million smoke.  That’s around 16 million people who need holidays like the rest of us.  I can absolutely guarantee that a large portion of these would be more than delighted to come over here, simply because there is nowhere else for them to go.  Speaking for myself, when the ban came in here, I started to holiday in the North.  When the ban came in there, I started to holiday in France.  It’s not that I am desperate to smoke in pubs, but rather to holiday in a place that doesn’t treat me as an inferior form of low-life.

Is there any drawback to this suggestion?  Is there is a single reason why it shouldn’t work?

Ireland would become a Mecca for holidaymakers, and a beacon of light in the fight against the Nanny State.

Apart from anything else, I’m running out of targets.

Not a hangover

July 26th, 2010

You can say what you like, but this ain’t no fucking hangover.

If I do feel a little out of sorts after a feed of pints, a good night’s sleep or a massive fry-up or a bottle of whiskey usually sorts everything out.

I had a fairly good night’s sleep, apart from some very strange nightmares.  The bottle of whiskey was enjoyable but ineffectual.  The stomach couldn’t take a fry-up.  And I am still feeling like I have been snogged by Mary Harney – aching all over; breaking out into sweats for no reason and generally feeling rotten.

I fucking hate being like this.  I can’t tell Herself because she goes all motherly and fusses over me, insisting I take things easy and giving me loads of strange potions to drink.  If there is one thing I despise in life it is being fussed over.  I hate sympathy.  I hate being mothered.

The brain is kind of fuggy too.  As a result, I won’t be writing anything today, so you’ll just have to manage without me. 

I’m off now to try another bottle of whiskey.

I know it won’t cure whatever the fuck I have, but who gives a shit?

It’s a damned good excuse.

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