Archive for October, 2010

A toast to Herself

October 31st, 2010

I decided to cook dinner for Herself last night.

I know some of you think I am a little harsh in my treatment of my good wife, but I appreciate all the hard work she puts into the digging, planting and harvesting.  She deserves a little treat from time to time, and I like to make these little gestures to show my appreciation.

Anyhow, I started to think as I waited for her slice of toast to pop out of the toaster, and I had quite a profound thought.

I have been around now for over sixty years, and some of those years were quite hard, and others were quite harsh.  There were all the years at school. with all its attendant beatings and all the years at college where times were harsh, trying to fit in all the parties and the boozing sessions.  Then there were the years of sweat and toil where I tried as best I could to last in the job until retirement.

All in all my life has been quite a struggle for survival.  All those years of very hard work.  All the expense my parents had to bear while I was educated.  Sixty long years of sheer fight.

And all those years led up to that point where I was standing waiting for a slice of toast to pop up out of a toaster.

I hope she appreciated her slice of toast.

One hell of a lot of fucking effort went into its making.

Halloween is a speed bump

October 30th, 2010

I think I can safely say that I do not like this time of year.

Halloween is like a speed bump at the end of a motorway.  You are flying along at a respectable speed when suddenly you hit this bump at the end of October, and you know you are in for a very rough ride for the next couple of months.

Halloween used to be OK.  Kids would sling an old sheet over their heads and go around the neighbourhood blagging apples or a few sweets.  Then the fucking American thing took over and it became Trick or Treat.  That expression really annoys me.

Then the clocks go back.  That is another pain in the hole that I swear was introduced just to piss me off.  I hate dark evenings, so they introduce this gimmick to make the evenings even darker.  Fuck that.  My clocks are staying the way I set them.

Post Halloween we enter the feeding frenzy that is Christmas.  Already the advertisements are appearing.  The same tacky shoddy overpriced crap is going to be rammed down our neck for the next two months.  The same ghastly ‘songs’ are going to be crooned at us wherever we go.  How I would love to consign Bing Crosby and Slade forever to Room 101.

It has been a pretty good Summer, as Summers go, and even now it is mild outside; mild enough that I needn’t wear a jumper.  But from now on is when the weather takes a sharp downturn.  The last of the leaves get blown off the trees and we are left with bare branches glistening in the Winter rain.

November and December are the country lane of the year, all right.  Full of potholes, mud and rocks.

‘Tis time to abandon the car and take to the pub.

Somehow November and December seem almost bearable when viewed through the bottom of a glass.

Metro my arse

October 28th, 2010

I just don’t understand this Metro business.

For those of you who are not aware of what’s going in this dear old fucked-up country, they are talking about running a brand new railway from the very heart of Dublin, through the airport and on to Swords which is one of those sprawling dormitory towns to the north of Dublin.

Because it starts in the heart of Dublin, it has to go underground.  It also has to go underground at Dublin Airport.

To build this railway, they will have to excavate O’Connell Street and St Stephen’s Green.  I have to admire that bit of planning, as they couldn’t pick two better spots to utterly fuck up traffic in the city [which is pretty well fucked-up anyway].  They will also have to destroy St Stephen’s Green which is one of the very few nice places in the city.

This is an expensive project.  They haven’t a fucking clue how much it is going to cost, but they reckon on between three and five billion.  Now the fuckwits who do the planning and costing in this country always get it wrong, so a more realistic estimate of the cost would be between six and ten billion.

What the fuck is all this for?

OK, it would be nice for the people of Swords to have a third method of getting into the city [they already have the train and buses], but is it ten billion’s worth of nice?  It would be nice to have a railway running to the airport, but is it ten billion’s worth?  This country is bankrupt.  They are saying that they have to find fifteen billion for the country to survive, yet they are still talking about spending up to ten billion on a piece of luxury?  That would be like a bloke who is about to lose his house because of mortgage arrears, deciding to go an a round the world cruise.

So they are going to spend shed loads of money on a project we don’t really need, and disrupt the capitol city for months if not years, when we haven’t two cents to rub together?

How fucking insane can you get?.

Feelings

October 27th, 2010

Did you ever have that feeling where you know there is something you have to do?

I have it right now.

I just feel that I am missing something, yet I know for a fact that it’s not so.

I sat down for a while to think about all the things that I should be doing, and I came up with a big fat zero.  What was worse – because I was sitting thinking, my conscience pricked me because now I was sitting doing nothing, when I knew i should be doing something.

The only thing I could think of that I hadn’t done was to update this site.  But that’s not important.

It will have to wait until after I do whatever it is that I can’t remember what I have to do.

So there!

Get off my land

October 26th, 2010

They say that the only two things that are inevitable are death and taxes.

The majority of taxes are reasonably moral, in that you pay them because you are getting something in return.  You only pay a television licence if you are going to watch television.  You only pay car taxes because you are going to use the roads.  You pay income tax because someone has to pay for everything from street lighting to hospitals.

They are seriously talking about water charges and property taxes.  Water charges are arguable because someone has to pay for the piping and all that shit.  But what about property taxes?

I own my own house and land.  What am I paying for with a property tax?  Are they taxing me because I spent a lifetime paying off a fucking mortgage?  If I don’t pay it, they can hardly take my property away from me?  That would presumably leave a  wedge shaped hole right down to the centre of the earth, which wouldn’t be very nice for the neighbours.

So what exactly am I paying for with this property tax?  Am I paying for the right to live on my own land?  Am I just being penalised for working hard all my life to pay for my current situation where I am retired and living on my own property? 

They can go and fuck themselves.

They can’t evict me from a place that I own.  Apart from anything else, I’m fairly sure the Constitution would have something to say about that?

They can put me back in gaol, but that will do them a fuck lot of good.  It will cost them a shed load of money, and they still won’t get my property tax.

If I ever get a tax demand through the post I am simply going to readdress it. 

“Not known at this address.  Try Anglo Irish Bank, Connaught House, 1 Burlington Road, Dublin 4“

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