This morning I received more news which made yesterday’s pale into insignificance.

I may write about it sometime.

But not now.

It’s strange how 24 hours can change everything you take for granted?

A heron used to come and rob all the fish in the lake.  Cheeky bastard.

I christened him Bertie Aheron as there was a certain similarity in the beady eyes and the sneaky approach to life.

I haven’t seen him in a very long time and I sometimes wonder what happened to the thieving duplicitous little cunt.  I also wonder what happened to the heron.

I was up at the crack of dawn this morning [it may even have been as early as ten thirty] and the first thing I saw out the window was Bertie [Aheron, not the other little shit].  He was standing there in the middle of the grass looking somewhat frustrated.  And well he might, as I got tired of restocking the lake ages ago, so the only thing he’ll find in it now are some snails and an old supermarket trolley.  A lake isn’t a proper lake without a supermarket trolley.

I presume he was a descendent of the original Bertie, as I believe they have a lifespan of only five years. 

I managed to shoot him.

Unfortunately I didn’t have the rifle to hand [why can you never find a rifle when you most need it?] so I shot him with a camera instead.

That is a magnificent specimen of Ardea cinerea?

What the camera failed to capture was another magnificent specimen – Canis Sandii – who was at that moment travelling in the direction of the heron at about 150 miles per hour.

It was the fastest fucking take-off I have ever seen.

Anyone want some heron feathers?

Every day the papers carry some story, each one more ridiculous that the last claiming that picking your nose causes knee cancer or that using a telescope will cause your eyes to drop out.  Some claims are so patently absurd that you have to laugh, but they are still printed in that air of frenzy that would have you believe they have discovered the meaning of life.

Why?

What is the point of all this garbage?

In an ideal world, the WHO or whatever would inform us that Professor Fred has discovered a possible link between sugar and obesity, or that the University of Narnia thinks cigarettes may be bad for you, and they would then leave us to make our own decisions.  After all, it’s my body, my health and my life.  That’s called free will.

One of the latest bits of blindingly useless bits of information to emerge is that Ireland is to have a 72% increase in cancers by 2030.  Apparently Bulgaria is the place to be with a 2.2% increase.  What use is this information?  Instead of wittering on about future trends, why don’t they just devote their time to finding cures?

Why has the WHO published these figures?  What possible purpose can they serve except to cause depression amongst the gullible few who actually believe the claptrap?  Are we all supposed to suddenly change our lifestyles?  Are we all supposed to switch from high sugar to sugar free?  On second thoughts, sugar will kill you and so will sugar free, so you can’t win there.  It can serve no purpose whatsoever except to justify some grossly inflated salary somewhere.

Of course in the last few years, governments have taken it upon themselves to force us to live their lifestyle of choice.  Smokers have taken the brunt of the greatest “denormalisation” programme since Hitler decided he didn’t like Jews, and now they are turning their attention to drinkers and eaters.  They won’t be happy until we are all eating government regulated food, drinking government approved drink and exercising following an exercise regime laid down by… [you’ve guessed it] government.  Even then, people are still going to fall ill and die so what will they have actually achieved, apart from making society miserable?

Possibly the last paragraph in the WHO statement is the most telling -

“We need to urgently look at introducing fat and sugar taxes and how these unhealthy foods are promoted, and even greater restrictions on the advertising and sale of tobacco”

So having failed to “educate” us, they want reams of further government control on how we live our lives.  [Though I would love to know how they intend to further restrict tobacco advertising here in Ireland – the only places where you ever see any sight or mention of tobacco is in the breathless press releases by ASH and on the little signs in tobacconists about not selling tobacco to under 21s.]

I just cannot see the point to it all.

No?

I thought not…

A school in Clonmel has a perfectly reasonable entrance qualification – they give preference to the children of past pupils.  There is nothing wrong with that. Apparently they turn down around forty applications a year, which is tough on the applicants, but that’s life.

Then along come the Knackers.

They are turned down along with the other thirty nine, and immediately start hollering about discrimination.

Even worse, some fucking smart arse encourages them to bring a court case against the school, which they did, and lost.  They then appeal to the High Court.  And lost.  Now someone has to pay for those court cases, and it’s unlikely we’ll see the Knackers volunteering, so it’s just a further waste of my taxes.

If minorities want equal treatment, then that is fine by me.  I will respect any minority provided they behave like any other sector of society.

But the Knackers seem to think they are more equal than others.

They can go fuck themselves.

Sometimes I come across an article which, quite frankly conjures up mental images which do not sit well with a full stomach or a good night’s sleep.

Articles such as this.

Fancy a good time, Handsome?

“The elephant in the room.”

Now I don’t know who coined this irritating cliché, but he [or she] should be shot, preferably with an elephant gun.

But why do I mention it now, you ask?  Well, probably you don’t but I like to think I give rise to intelligent debate and discourse.  Leastwise, I do have a reason.

Sir Fartzalott arrives here occasionally.  For those of you who maybe haven’t bothered reading this in recent times, Sir Fartzalott is the youngest of the grandkids.

He is a lovely kid with a solemn face and a strange sense of humour.  He has a couple of activities that he indulges in when he comes here.  One is to press every button and switch every switch he can lay his hands on which leads to some interesting surprises, such as music suddenly blaring out at around a hundred watts.

His other activity is picking things up and transporting them.  He loves playing with my old collection of Dinky and Matchbox toys which are all well over fifty years old. I have grown used to seeing little cars in the strangest of places  I would find an old Ford truck on the toilet cistern or a Massy Fergusson tractor in the coal scuttle and know exactly how they got there.

He was here a couple of days ago, and found our elephants.  They are two little hand carved and highly polished African elephants and I have had them for donkey’s years [or elephant’s years?].  One of them ended up on the table in the kitchen, but the other is nowhere to be seen.  For once, Sir Fartzalott has me baffled.

So if you do happen to find an elephant in the room, could you let me know?

I miss him.

Irish officials may adopt UK scheme to cut smoking rates

There are quite a few questions I would have to ask about this.

For a start, I would love to know just what sort of magic bullet the gubmint seem to think this bloke has, that they invite the Gardai and Revenue along. Who is this bloke who seems to claim he can achieve what virtually every country in Europe has failed to do?

Actually, the answer is probably quite simple. He is an expert at bullshitting.

I have seen dozens of statistics that purport to prove without a shadow of a doubt that the rate of heart attacks has fallen dramatically after the introduction of a smoking ban.  And without exception every one of those proofs has proved to be a load of codswallop.  Heart attack rates have been falling steadily just about everywhere, and there isn’t a single case where smoking bans have caused the rate to vary, so the quoted figures, I can guarantee are the figures for the natural decline.  I notice he doesn’t hive a time period for this decline?  Is it since 2005?  2000?  1950?

I have tried to find the source of the figures he quotes, but I came up with a blank.  The nearest I could find was the crowd mentioned in the article called Fresh [Smokefree North East].  Reading through this site there is precious little in the way of hard figures.  It is full of innuendos and the glib clichés that the Righteous love so much -  “it is estimated that”, “a growing body of evidence that” and “the figures show” [which is never accompanied by the “figures”].

One of the claims is that “A campaign against tobacco smuggling has been very successful”.  Apparently this remarkable claim is based on a “survey” of 4000 people.  Now, how can a survey prove that smuggling has decreased? Unless the 4000 are all smugglers whining about their loss of trade, I can’t see how this “survey” can prove anything.  If some health freaks ring me up and ask my about my illicit tobacco supplies, do you really, honestly think I am going to give them the unvarnished truth?  Hah!  I will lie through my teeth just to confuse their figures.

There is one little statement though that really gets me going – “We know from the drink driving law that we can change people’s behaviour”.  Oh boy!  This is the Smug Righteous at their best!  Who is the “we”?  A group of smug little bastards who really sincerely believe that they know what’s best for us and believe they have a natural right to herd us into their way of thinking.

After all, we can’t think for ourselves.

Can we?

He is spending a lot of time over at the Führerbunker with his EU pals and the papers are therefore treating us to loads of pictures of him.

How is it that virtually every photograph shows him with Sarkozy?

There are two possibilities.

Either Kenny is like the small kid in the playground who wants to be “in with the gang” and therefore sells his soul to them, offering to carry their schoolbooks and telling them all the time what great people they are?

Or else he’s in love.

Either way I find it rather disquieting.

And also I’m a bit pissed off that apparently Ireland’s sovereignty is Kenny’s dowry.

Jayzus but you’d swear they were written by a different bloke.

Some of them are long and rambling, and some have a quaint sort of humour about them.  Leastwise once or twice I almost found myself smiling, but fortunately I copped on in time.

So what the fuck happened in the last five and a bit years?  I know Dubya is gone [he used to provide tons of material] and the current incumbent – Obama – is a colourless substitute, if you’ll forgive the expression [hah!].  At home, Bertie the Bollox has retreated to the kitchen cupboard and Cowen has disappeared into an alcoholic haze.  Politics just isn’t fun any more.

So what the fuck happened to turn me from a mildly humorous old fart into a cynical humourless old fart?  Can it be the recession?  Can it be that I’m getting old?  Are they putting something in the tap water?

It’s worrying.

If this trend continues, I’m going to become a right cantankerous old bollix.