Archive for August, 2010

Letter to Google

August 21st, 2010

Dear Google,

I am delighted for you that you have decided to expand your operations here in good old Ireland

Before I go any further, I would like to bore you with some holiday photographs.

Well, actually, they aren’t photographs; rather a series of Google Earth images of where I have stayed on holiday for the last three years.  In each case, the house I stayed in is bang in the centre of the image.  Each one is taken from around the same height just so you can compare them.

GE1
France 2008

 

GE2
France 2009

 

GE3
Ireland 2010

 

They are lovely, aren’t they?

It’s a pity about the last one, but that is because it is an Irish snapshot.

So stop fucking faffing about with your fucking Google Local and your fucking Google Maps, and do something about giving us some decent coverage of this country that you seem to like so much.

Wankers.

Yours affectionately,

Grandad

The ostrich syndrome

August 20th, 2010

I was passing the pharmacy in the village the other day, and thought I might as well top up on supplies.

I asked the girl there for a box of Neurophen Plus, and she started a long lecture about how dangerous and addictive they are.  I sighed, told her to shut the fuck up and just give me what I had asked for.  She’s a lovely girl, and she fancies me something rotten, but I have sworn to be faithful to Sharon.  She told me that she had to give me the little lecture as it was now ‘required’.  The fucking Nanny State strikes again.  I don’t know what the fuck they are on about anyway.  I have been taking Neurophen Plus regularly for years, and it has never done me any harm.

When I got home, I opened the bag with the tablets in it, and a little piece of paper fell out -

guidence

I suddenly realised what is going on.

Obviously, buoyed by their law requiring cigarettes to be hidden from view, and its resulting resounding lack of success, our government have decided that the best way to treat anything potentially harmful is to hide it.  If we can’t see it, we’ll forget about it and won’t want it.

Personally, I find the whole thing a massive pain in the hole.  Not all shops sell my tobacco, and in the Good Old Days, I would simply scan the tobacco shelf to see if they had it, before ordering.  Now I have to fucking ask every time, which irritates me and the shopkeeper.  Now I have to do the same if I am calling into a strange pharmacy.  Fuck that for a game of soldiers.

You know where this is leading, don’t you?

Fast food outlets will be next.  No longer will we be able to see those college drop-outs boiling the grease behind the counter.  No longer will they be able to display those completely misleading pictures on their menu.  Your order of greasy chips and flaccid hamburger will be carefully wrapped in a box long before you get it, in case the sight of it may tempt an innocent child.

Pubs will be next on the hit list.  No more colourful bottles on shelves behind the counter.  No more beer taps.  A pub will consist of a bare counter and blank cupboards behind the barman.  Even the legally required price list will be hidden behind a blank sheet of wood, in case the words may tempt you into a night of drunken debauchery and binge drinking.  Pints will be served in boxes in case some child might see them and become an instant alcoholic.  You can’t be too careful, you know?

Seeing as the sight of fat people is now a cause of obesity, anyone deemed overweight will be required to travel in a car with tinted windows.  Of course, they can’t leave the car under any circumstances, as you never know who might see them and become instantly overweight.

I would congratulate our government on their excellent initiative, but I haven’t seen any of them in ages.

Maybe they have fallen foul of their own initiative?

Damned computers

August 19th, 2010

I don’t know if it’s just me, but I find a lot of the advertisements on television rather disturbing these days.

I find all advertisements irritating, but there seems to be a fashion nowadays to treat all adults as if they had the mentality of a five year old.

Cartoons are for children?  Right?  So why do the insist on trying to sell their shite to adults using cartoons?  I am sick of furry little animals and strange characters prancing around silently on my screen.

There is one advertisement that I find particularly disturbing.  I think it’s for some fucking fabric conditioner or other, but they have these nauseating little rag dolls poncing around the screen.  Am I supposed to be impressed? I can tell you here and now that I’m not.  I’m nauseated.

Then there is that revolting nodding fucking dog, Churchill.  Oh, how I would love to ram a ten foot pole wrapped in razor wire up his condescending arse.  That would wipe the fucking smirk off his face.

Another one that I find deeply disturbing is that one with the characters with the long noses.  I don’t know why, but I get the feeling I’m witnessing someone’s nightmare in glorious technicolour.  

ads

Of course none of these advertisements would be possible if the advertising industry didn’t have computers. 

I wish we could go back to the good old pre-computer days, when cartoons had to be hand-drawn

Forest Eireann

August 18th, 2010

I received a mail yesterday.

That in itself is not noteworthy as I receive a lot of mail.  This one was good news though.

There is an organisation in the UK called FOREST [Freedom Organisation for the Right to Enjoy Smoking Tobacco].  They have been around for quite a while [since 1979 to be precise] and are widely respected and recognised as the voice of the disenfranchised smoker.  The mail I received informed me that FOREST have now opened their first non-UK branch here in Ireland – Forest Éireann.

Personally I think their aims are reasonable.  In some ways I would consider them to be over generous, but be that as it may.

  • debunk some of the myths about smoking (especially so-called "passive smoking")
  • counteract the “denormalisation” of smoking
  • stop the introduction of further restrictions on smoking in public or private spaces
  • lobby politicians to amend (not repeal) public smoking bans and relax excessive regulations on outdoor smoking shelters
  • highlight the enormous financial contribution made by smokers to the public purse 
  • build support among smokers and tolerant non-smokers
  • highlight the increasingly intrusive nature of Big Government in the lives of private individuals

To quote John Mallon, Forest Éireann’s spokeman -

The outcome of the smoking ban, now in its sixth year in Ireland, suggests that it has been counter-productive. Smoking rates have increased while one pub a day closes due to the effects of the ban. Meanwhile society is polarised at social occasions due to large numbers of people being forced to go outdoors to smoke.

Our aim is not to overturn smoking bans because we respect the wishes of non-smokers who prefer a smoke free environment. But we would like to see the law amended so that licensees can provide a separate smoking room indoors if there is sufficient demand. We also want the regulations on outdoor smoking shelters relaxed so that people can smoke outside in much greater comfort, and we want politicians in Ireland to stop using tobacco taxation as a form of social engineering.

Tobacco control affects everybody, smoker and non-smoker alike, because it creates a less tolerant society. If like-minded people don’t fight it now a host of other restrictions will surely follow.

I think that is pretty reasonable?  I have signed up to show my support. 

Why don’t you?

Why not show your support by sticking a badge on your side [like what I done]?

Go on. 

Ah, go on, go on, go on.

Skyping Herself

August 17th, 2010

I don’t know if I mentioned before that Herself is a bit under the weather?

Maybe I did, and maybe I didn’t.  It’s not important.

Anyhow, she started complaining and coughing a few days ago.  I ignored it, but then the neighbours started complaining that her coughing was keeping their children awake at night when she was working in the garden.  I brought her to the doctor.

Now, Doc is away on holidays and there was some stand-in replacement at the surgery.  This replacement obviously wasn’t very good as she immediately gave Herself some tablets and told her to take things easy.  Take things easy?  For fuck’s sake!  It’s no wonder the replacement doesn’t have her own practice if she is dishing out namby pamby advice like that.

Anyhow, yesterday the coughing was getting on my nerves so for once, I told her she could have a day or two off and have a lie in in her shed.  The potato crop can wait for a day or two.

For those of you who have never visited the Manor, the shed is quite a distance from the house.  It’s in the far corner just behind the nettles.  This presented a problem.  How was I to stay in touch with her?  I could have used my mobile phone, but she has a habit of switching hers off for some reason.  I didn’t feel like shouting so I was in a bit of a quandary.

Then it struck me.

The perfect solution.

Now, I like Skype in my laptop.  It’s a handy little programme and is great for keeping in touch with people.  I installed it on her laptop, and brought it down to her.  That cheered her up because she likes playing on the Interweb.  I showed her how to answer Skype and I left her to it.

Now, if I want to talk to her, all I have to do is Skype her. 

I think I’ll Skype her now.

My mug of tea needs refreshing.

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