Head Rambles

Grandad February 21st, 2010

It is sad how boring the Americans have become.

When I started this site, some years ago, the Americans provided me with an incredibly rich source of targets for my hilariously funny and profound witticisms.  Not only that, but they also provided me with a plethora of targets for my days out hunting.

Then they went and elected that Obama bloke.

I have nothing against Obama.  The world is a lot happier place, now that we are all free from the threat of invasion and World War Three.  But you have to admit – he is fucking boring.

Gone are the good old days of Dubya slamming his foot into it at every available opportunity.  Gone are the good old days of invading every country that so much as sneezed.

The recession hasn’t helped either.  In the Good Old Days, convoys of jumbo jets would fly Americans across to Ireland, full of loudmouths wearing loud clothes and carrying fine fat wallets, and at the end of summer, a Boeing 737 would fly the survivors back again.  That is no more also.  Now all we get is the odd Chet and MaryBeth over looking for their ancestral home, and they are usually skint by the time they get here.  So the hunting season last year was the worst on record, and this year is not promising to be any better.

I haven’t written about America in ages.  They used to feature here at least once a week, but sadly those days are gone.  They never do anything funny any more.  They have pulled up the drawbridge and for the first time in a hundred years are actually minding their own business.  They still try to pollute the airwaves with their intensely unfunny ‘comedy’ programmes on television but I just ignore them.  They still haven’t learned to spell either, despite my best efforts.

The majority of Americans who visit this site now are just looking for porn.  One thing I can tell you is that the Americans are the world’s filthiest fuckers when it comes to pornography.  If you saw some of the things they go looking for on the Interweb, it would make your hair curl.  I mean to say – it would never even have occurred to me that you could try doing that with a guinea pig?  I used to think it was the Russians who were the worst perverts, but those fucking Americans are only disgusting.

I miss the old days.

I wonder if there is any chance of getting Dubya back?

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Grandad July 31st, 2009

America seems to have a strange effect on the Irish.

I have a brother in law who lives over there.  You may be surprised to know I have a brother-in-law, but in fact I have several.  When I first met Herself last century it came as something of a shock to discover that she had parents, let alone a large swarm of siblings.  Of course they are now scattered all over the place like discarded beer cans, and as I said, one ended up in America.  I have heard rumours that it was a case of America, or ten years without remission, and he chose America.  I was told with some authority by the bat my mother-in-law that he lives “beside the Post Office in Boston”.  Who am I to argue?

He came to visit not so long ago.  He seemed to have inherited some of his parents’ genes as he had a large brood of his own with him.  It took two cars to shift them from the airport to the house.  The swarm descended on the place like a ship load of randy sailors finding a brothel.  Within a blink, they were everywhere, rooting through cupboards and nosing in places where they shouldn’t.  One of them came back to report to his father that he had found a VCR.  I was about to mention I didn’t have any war medals, when his father replied that “just because they have a video recorder, that it didn’t make them someone special”.  I had to rough him up a bit for that, but it left me thinking.

That is when it really hit home.  These bastards [I never inquired whether I had a sister-in-law-in-law] thought they were back in the land of pigs in the kitchen and thatched cottages.  I think they were amazed that we even had electricity.  It’s just as well we didn’t have one of our regular power cuts at the time.  It didn’t seem to occur to the brother-in-law that by the time he left the Old Sod that we were actually quite civilised, and that in the intervening years we had actually discovered such things as television and computers.

The other thing that struck me about him was that I could hardly understand a word he said.  I have heard American accents before such as when I accidentally switched on an American programme on television [I estimate that there is about a 90% chance of that] and quite a few times I have heard various American Dialects up at the land fill, but that was mostly just squeals for mercy before I dispatched them.  This brother-in-law of mine had spent all his formative years in Ireland, and the chances were that he managed to pick up a fairly good Irish accent during that period.  Yet he fecks off over The Pond and in a few short years he is more American than the Americans themselves.

I have witnessed this elsewhere.

Herself has a friend [yes – that came as an even bigger shock to me than discovering she had parents] who went to Florida for a weeks holiday.  This friend came back after a week, and I swear to God, even the Americans couldn’t understand her.  She had the thickest American accent I have ever heard.  Not only that, but her holiday had suddenly become a vacation and she couldn’t understand how ‘us guys’ could get by without a regular work out at the gym.  In the space of one short week she had become an American.  Her only saving grace was that in that short week she hadn’t been able to grow a new set of teeth.  Americans have this obsession with teeth [do they think we are all horses?].  If God had intended us to have a perfect set of teeth, why did He invent decay?  Answer me that one!

Anyway – back to the Brood from Boston.  They stayed with us for a week.  It was a miserable week, with brief respites of joy when I managed to corner my nephews and nieces and fill them full of Guinness.  Have you ever seen a five year old pissed out of his mind?  It’s a bit like watching a new born giraffe.

I got rid of them in the end.

I told them there was a new McDonalds that had just opened in the quarry.

…

Well, how was I supposed to know they were blasting that day?

Heh!

-oOo-

Article submitted to The Irish Book Review

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Grandad June 19th, 2009

I used to have great fun slagging off the Americans.

Let’s face it – they deserved it.  They kept electing that dumb fuck Dubya into office and the world watched in horror and amusement as he lurched from one crisis to another.

They have become very quiet of late.

There have been quite a few occasions where I wondered how Dubya would have reacted.  He probably would have started a war or two in Iran by now, and would doubtless have tried to nuke North Korea.  His answer to the American automotive crisis would doubtless have been to nuke Japan into the bargain.

Overall, the majority of people who visit here are American.  Yup.  More Americans than Irish.  If you want to be pedantic, 34.9% of visitors are from Bar Strangled Banner-land, and 33.4% are from the Auld Sod.

I’m not sure why so many Americans visit.  I know during the Dubya Era they were looking for The Voice of Sanity, but they spoiled it all by getting rid of him, and electing someone with marbles.  But why do they still visit?  I suppose a lot of them think that Ireland is a small state in the US somewhere west of Oregon [Americans are well known for their knowledge of world geography] and a lot of them aren’t aware that you can remove bookmarks in your browser, but I still get comments from Americans.  Why?

Don’t get me wrong.  I like Americans.  They make easy targets, both with humour and with a Glock.  I like it when they comment even if I sometimes don’t understand them.

Do they like being abused?

Is that why they kept electing Dubya?

It’s one of the great mysteries of life.

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Grandad January 21st, 2009

A couple of days ago I received a comment from Jedrzej [who I am delighted to see has been nominated for Best Photography in the IBA] under one of my scribbles.

A little off topic, if I may.
Grandad, in case you haven’t seen it yourself, I would like to bring to your attention a good-bye letter written by the US ambassador for Ireland (just leaving): 
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/opinion/2009/0119/1232059658577.html

It was off topic, and normally I leave the comment there.

In this case, I removed it as I thought it warranted a closer look.

The article, in case you haven’t bothered to read it, is a farewell from the American Ambassador who has left after two years, giving his opinions on this country.

At first I thought it was a joke, but the Irish Times doesn’t usually go in for that kind of thing.  Then I realised he was serious.

He starts off by stating his goal, on appointment to the job.

The goal was under no circumstances to allow war to break out between Ireland and the United States on my watch. With only one day to go, it looks as if I will succeed, surprising most of my best friends at home.

What fucking planet is this bloke from?  I suppose he is right to be scared though.  We would annihilate them.

He then goes on to admire our magnificent service.

Being United States ambassador here has been a great privilege and a wonderful, fulfilling personal experience. The job comes with a magnificent house, superb staff and all you can eat.

People return your phone calls quickly, you never have to worry about parking, and restaurants will find a table for you even when they tell others they are full.

So you never have to worry about parking huh?  Of course you don’t, with your fucking CD plates on your car.  You can flaunt the law and make life a misery for the rest of us.  Ya bollix.

And you are the fucker who grabbed that last table I had booked in that restaurant?  Well, fuck you.  I hope the food chocked you.

He then comes up with one of the strangest one yet.

I notice a much higher level of cynicism here toward your most important institutions and leaders than I am used to in the US. Gratuitous criticism is accepted as good sport in Ireland. The media are some of the most enthusiastic participants.

A little scepticism is undoubtedly a good thing, but institutions and leaders perform better and can deliver more when they are believed in and held in high esteem.

He has to be joking?  Is he really serious?  He has been here for over two years so he should be familiar with Bertie and Biffo?  He must know that we have amongst the most corrupt incompetent shower of fuckers who, along with their builder pals have shafted this country almost to bankruptcy? Is he seriously suggesting that if we spoke nicely about Biffo that he would then start making decisions that actually make sense?  If we stopped calling Harney an incompetent obese slug, that the health service would start saving lives instead of killing people?

Of course he does come from the Land of the Free, where they have complete freedom of speech and expression [and you can be sent to a concentration camp for having a beard] so he presumably knows what he is bullshitting about.

We get another little insight into his flawless logic with

Many in Ireland seem impulsively to side with underdogs, presumably a product of a strong sympathetic response and Ireland’s historical experience. But underdogs aren’t always right and have no inherent claim to high moral ground.

This is very interesting.  Because of our history, we have been under the misconception that the minority have rights?  This is good news though. I now have total freedom to annihilate any ethnic minority I find.

But then we come to the really serious stuff.  We now know what has been going on in that house in the Park and in the embassy. We have been under scrutiny and we have been found wanting.

The pepper in Ireland doesn’t smell right and someone really should do something about it.

Oh! My!  God! 

How have we survived this long?

How can we hold our heads up amongst the civilised nations?

Is this the real reason behind the demise of the Celtic Tiger?  We are using the wrong pepper?

I am cheered to read that he will be back as a visitor.

I will cheerfully welcome him with open arms.

Well, actually they won’t be open.

But they will be loaded.

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Grandad January 9th, 2009

I have a dream.

Barrack Obama is sitting in the White House, having just taken over the presidency.

He has a mountain of problems on his desk.  He has the financial crisis to solve, the mess in the Middle East and how to eliminate Condoleezza Rice because she won’t hand over the keys to the executive washroom.  He solves all these in the first morning when the next thing, an insurmountable problem arrives on his desk.

An invitation to visit his ancestor’s supposed birthplace in Ireland.

He knows well that the Irish will manage to drag up some kind of ancestral link to absolutely anybody, and he feels sorry for them.

How the hell is he going to get out of a visit to some arsehole in the bogs of Ireland?

The stress begins to tell.

He whips out a cigarette.  But then he remembers that the White House in a non-smoking area.

“Fuck this,” Obama says to himself, “I am the Goddamn president now, and I can do what I like.”

So he lights up.

The White House staff are a bit annoyed at this political incorrectness, but they can’t give out to The Boss, so in a monumental piece of arse-licking, they declare the White House to be a smoking zone.

Word soon spreads throughout Washington that it is now politically incorrect to be a non smoker, and signs start appearing everywhere – “Smokers Only”.

America is now in a quandary.  They have declared smoking and passive smoking to be lethal, yet they have to be politically correct.  They send their scientists and researchers back to the drawing board.

Reams of research that has been stashed away in vaults around the country is dusted off and they suddenly discover all the stuff that has been buried.

There are the figures that give the health benefits of smoking.  There is the research that shows no discernable deleterious effects of passive smoking.  There is even a paper that shows that pipe smokers increase their life expectancy.

Throughout America, all the anti-smoking laws, rules and regulations are rescinded.  In some states, it becomes compulsory to smoke from the age of five.

Of course this rash of fervour soon spreads throughout the world and we can all get back to normal again.

All we need is for the people of Moneygall in Offaly to send that invitation.

I wish they’d hurry up.

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