Archive for November, 2010

Looking after the elderly

November 30th, 2010

During this little chilly snap, there are frequent reminders for people to check on their elderly neighbours.

Fuck that.  I haven’t seen sight nor sound of any of my neighbours in ages.  How fucking inconsiderate can you get? I could be frozen solid for all they care.  Bastards.

So it’s just me and Sandy [and Herself, I suppose] fending off the elements by ourselves.  I have been feeding the fox and the birds as I like to think I am a little more considerate of wildlife than my neighbours are of me.  Bastards.  Actually, the birds are remarkably cheerful, and I heard a blackbird ripping forth with his best Summer Song yesterday.  I have a sneaking suspicion that I may have fed them the wrong seeds. 

I ran out of some essential supplies so I had to go down to the village today.  Do you think my neighbours would offer to go for me?  Not a fucking chance.  Bastards.

It wasn’t too bad out there.  It was fucking cold, but I suppose that is to be expected, what with the cutting wind, the blast of dry icy snow and the sub-zero temperatures. 

I made it back in one piece.  In spite of falling a few times, I managed to get home without breaking any bottles of whiskey essential supplies.  As I arrived at the gate, one of my neighbours was driving past in his four wheel drive.  He asked if I wanted anything from the village.  I told him to fuck off and that he should have asked me earlier.

Bastard.

In the pink

November 29th, 2010

From the moment Al Gore started to waffle about Global Warming, I was an unbeliever.  It was patently obvious to anyone with a modicum of sense that it was the greatest load of bollix.  Junk science piled on top of junk science.

Unfortunately, the Earth’s population as a whole doesn’t seem to be blessed with a modicum of sense, and they lapped it up.   Eventually, the Global Warmists decided that their junk was no good, so they modified their campaign to Climate Change, thereby avoiding the embarrassing fact that the Earth seems to be cooling.

I am a firm believer in Climate Change.  Why?  Because it’s fucking obvious that the Earth’s climate has been changing since the year dot.  In fact, if it ever stopped changing I would start to get worried.

There is no doubt that Ireland is experiencing a wee drop of Climate Change of its own.  It has been snowing here since Friday [or was it Thursday?] and the worst is yet to come.  They are forecasting ten inches of snow over the next couple of days, which means that Up Here in the mountains, it’s going to be a lot more.

I like snow.  I especially like snow when I don’t have to go out in it.  The old Manor always looks good under a good blanket of the white stuff, as all the weeds, long grass and other bits of junk lying around are all nicely hidden from view.  Possibly the only down side is that Herself refuses to live in the garden shed, so in the spirit of whatever, I have allowed her indoors.

The big point is though, that I don’t ever remember a proper fall of snow in November.  The second half of December, maybe, but not November.  Add to that the fact that a ten inch snowfall is rare even in January and also that we are breaking all records for the coldest November temperatures,  I think we can safely say that has been a wee drop of Climate Change going on in just this neighbourhood.

It’s just after four, as I scribble this and the garden is looking splendiferous under a thick blanket of pink snow.  I say pink, because we have had some weirdly coloured skies lately.

It certainly makes for some interesting opportunities with the camera.

This is how it should be done

November 28th, 2010

There is a wee video that has been doing the rounds of web sites in the U.K.

Here is a politician speaking his mind.  I just had to compare him to our lot.

First of all, we have damn few politicians who can speak without notes.  They stand up to make their point and you would swear they were trying to convince their neck-ties.  They stand there with their heads bowed muttering and spluttering their speech, as they read it out from a sheet of paper.

The main difference though is the fact that Farage has balls.  He can stand there and make a speech [with only occasional reference to his notes] and he doesn’t give a shite that everyone else is patently wishing he would drop dead.  You only have to look at the faces around the hall.  They hate him, and they hate what he is saying, but he says it anyway.  He has a magnificent Fuck You attitude.

Can you imaging Cowen giving a speech like that?  Apart from the fact that he cannot speak and prefers to stutter, splutter and stumble his way though his clichés, He just wouldn’t have the guts to do it.

Oh no.  Our lot are cringingly subservient. They wouldn’t dare say a single word that would offend their lords and masters in Brussels.  Cowen and Lenihan are pathetic in their attitude to Europe.  When Merkel tells them to bankrupt the country to pay back German investors, they just cannot wait to do it.  Bankrupting Ireland is the very least they can do to earn a nod of approval.  I swear if Merkel asked Cowen to cull half the population, he would agree without blinking.  Our politicians are spineless obsequious grovellers who will do anything to please Brussels, whatever the consequences.

They are just a bunch of pathetic wankers.

I wonder if the UKIP accepts members from Ireland?

Reckless materialisation

November 26th, 2010

They are showing that fucking advertisement again.

It pisses me off on so many levels.

First of all, there is the weird stereotyping – [supposedly] beautiful young girl who is a victim, while the “guilty” party looks like the redneck offspring of inbreeding. 

Then there is the accident itself.  Redneck is following a car.  Road is dead straight and clear.  Redneck overtakes but dog crosses road.  Redneck swerves and crashes.  What’s wrong with that?  It’s an unfortunate accident.  If anyone is to blame it’s the dog or his owner, not either of the drivers.  Logically, an argument could be made that Redneck should have run over the dog, but when you have microseconds to judge, it is difficult to act logically, and the instinctive thing to do is to swerve.

Another wee point that baffles me is the Third Car.  Redneck overtakes a car on a clear straight stretch of road.  The overtaken car then smacks head on into another car.  Where the fuck did the Third Car come from?  It wasn’t there when Redneck started his manoeuvre, but somehow materialised miraculously just in time to add to the mayhem.  If anyone should be in the dock, it should be the driver of the Third Car, charged with reckless materialisation.  That couldn’t happen though as even stranger, the Third Car has no driver.

Then to cap it all, the judge states that it was “quite plain that he was going too fast to cope with the unexpected”.  What the fuck?  Do we all have to drive as if expecting a dog to run out at any time?  Do we all have to watch out for Third Cars that may miraculously materialise in front of us? We would never get anywhere.

There isn’t a single part of that video that doesn’t annoy me.

Fucking Nanny State!

Retrospection

November 25th, 2010

Those of us “of a certain age” are often accused of remembering the past through rose coloured spectacles.

But do we?

With the modern world rapidly going down the toilet, am I right in thinking that times past used to be so much better?

When you compare the Ireland of today with the Ireland of fifty or sixty years ago, there are massive differences, but are they really so beneficial? 

If I could transport myself back to those days, what would I really miss?  I suppose I would miss the Interweb as it hadn’t been invented yet, and the same goes for computers.  There again, because they hadn’t been invented, they weren’t missed.  A consequence of having no Interweb would mean I would have to go out to do my shopping, which again tended to be a more pleasant experience.  No supermarkets or self service meant a more personal touch.

Back in those days, the Nanny State also hadn’t been invented.  There were no signs anywhere telling you what you had to do, or what you weren’t allowed to do.  We were treated like responsible people who could look after ourselves and if we injured ourselves, that was just our tough shit.  We would take the consequences on the chin.  There was no concept of litigation as we took responsibility for our own actions.

As a kid, I used to cycle into Dublin city centre regularly.  Traffic was a lot lighter then and crime wasn’t such a problem so the idea of a ten  year old cycling into the city centre and wandering around wasn’t at all remarkable.  I doubt there is a parent in the country now who would happily let their offspring have such an adventure?  Also in those days, children remained children well into their teens.  There was none of this crap about make-up parties for girls before they had even reached their teens or boys pretending to be men before their voices broke.

One of the great things that has disappeared over the decades is respect.  In those days there was respect for your elders and for authority.  Any kind of cheek usually meant a swift clip around the ear, and there was no busybody standing on the sidelines screaming about child abuse . 

Politics was different then.  It was a quiet affair, and we rarely heard about it.  Politicians were in the main, respectable honest men.  There was little evidence of backhanders or corruption in those days.

Probably the one really bad thing then was the Catholic Church and the nefarious deeds done behind closed doors.   But the majority were not aware of this, and the rest lived in fear of the religious so, for the times, it was understandable that nothing was done about it.  You would have had to have lived in those times to understand the mindset that existed then.

On the whole though, times may have been rougher, and we may have had to cope without mobile phones, but I still maintain they were better times.

Or am I wearing rose tinted glasses?

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