Sympathies
Grandad October 19th, 2008
From the front page of today’s Sunday Times -
O’Reilly finds it hard to stay a billionaire
Doesn’t your heart bleed custard?
Archive for the 'Rambles' Category
Plunging indexes
Grandad October 10th, 2008
Everyone is waffling on about the Financial Crisis.
I’m not worried about it, for the simple reason that my worrying is not going to change anything. Are people going to stop selling shares because Grandad is worried?
The whole thing is descending into a farce. Britain has even invoked a terrorism law against Iceland, for fuck’s sake, and has frozen all their assets. I wouldn’t say the Icelanders are too worried, as I’d say their assets are frozen most of the year anyway.
Finance was never my strong point.
If I go into a shop and get the wrong change, I’m OK and can cause a financial crisis there until it is resolved, but all this stocks and shares thing has me baffled.
In my simplistic world, I hear about them pumping vast sums of money into the economy to fix things. At this stage we are talking about trillions of whatever currency tickles your fancy.
I have two questions.
Where is all this money coming from that they are pumping in? No country can borrow off another, because all are in the same boat.
Where has all the money gone? Is there some fucker in Wall Street salting away trillions of dollars into a private account for his retirement?
My finances are sound. I know this because I have €7.54 in my pocket and it looks exactly the same as it did a couple of days ago. It hasn’t changed colour, or shrunk. It’s enough for a pint. It’s enough for a pack of tobacco.
Dubya says not to worry.
I see George W is going to make a speech later today reassuring everyone that everything is grand, and that we must stop panicking.
We’re fucked.
Don’t phone me…
Grandad September 23rd, 2008
For the third time in my life, I’m trying to get used to a new mobile phone.
Yes. I have a new one, thanks to the Blog Post of the Month Award.
No. I didn’t win it. Our K8 did.
Herself has been using my original and very first mobile phone. It is still in perfect working order apart from the battery being worn out, so it needs recharging all the time. Not that that makes any difference, because she never answers the damn thing anyway.
She has had her eye on my phone for a while. Mine is also quite old, but it has a colour screen and hers was only monochrome. You know what women are like about colour.
Then, our K8 won the award, and part of her prize was a new phone. With only the minimum or persuasion [that involved nitric acid and an ants’ nest] she agreed to give me her old one, as she didn’t need it any more.
It’s a Nokia 5310 that does all sorts of weird and wonderful things like play music, games, take photographs and browse the Interweb. Hidden amongst all the gizmos is a telephone, which is what I wanted. It is very thin, which is another thing I wanted.
It comes with all sorts of cables and things, so I connected it to my PC. It asked if I wanted to upgrade my software, as my old one was out of date. Foolishly, I gave it the nod. It updated all right, but it wiped all my phone numbers. So if you don’t hear from me, you now know why.
One thing about it that really pisses me off though – somehow [and I have no idea how it happened], it seems to have filled up with business people. Since I started using it, they won’t stop ringing me, and asking me to do boring things, like work.
I wish they’d get out of it. Why can’t they live in their own phones? Why can’t they leave me alone?
I like the new phone.
It would be a shame to have to dump it.
Liars
Grandad September 21st, 2008
When I was away, all I heard from home was complaints about the weather.
While I was basking in thirty degree sunshine, you lot were bitching about the cold and the rain.
I expected to arrive back in Ireland and to be diverted all over the place because of flooding. I was concerned that I mightn’t be able to get home. I was worried that there mightn’t be a home to get to.
And what do I find?
Dry roads.
No floods in sight.
Blue skies.
Sunshine.
Yiz are all a pack of moaners, whingers and begrudgers,
and liars.
Kicking ass in Palm Springs
Grandad August 23rd, 2008
I seem to have developed an ambassador in America.
That is only right, I suppose, as my empire seems to be spreading.
RhodesTer in Palm Springs has awarded me the Kick Ass Blogger Award, as a bribe to obtain the post.
I have nothing against bribes provided
- I don’t have to do the bribing
- Politicians or elected officials aren’t involved.
I think it would have been more appropriate if he had sent it to Kirk M , Maxi Cane or Manuel though [note the 'M' theme?].
RhodesTer has even offered to accommodate me in his hotel, presumably on a lifetime basis.
Now this is quite a nice offer. I could sell up the Manor here, and move to Palm Springs and live a life of luxury in his hotel for the rest of my days. I don’t know much about his hotel except that it has a pool and there is a spot of crime in the area.
I decided to do some research into Palm Springs. The first thing that surprised me is that I thought it was in Florida. Apparently they have moved it though, to California. I suppose they wanted to get away from the hurricanes, which is fair enough. Another thing I discovered is that they have 354 days of sunshine. This sounds impressive, but like all statistics, it hides the truth - they have 11 days in the year when it pisses rain all the time. I don’t know if I could stick eleven days of non-stop torrential rain. Another thing that they don’t mention, presumably because they want to hide the fact, is that it is full of Americans. This offer of accommodation isn’t looking quite so attractive after all.
In an effort to try to get people to visit this hell-hole of a place, they are holding a film festival there. I hope it stays sunny for them.
The film director Shane McCabe is there for the festival and apparently has been reading this site [Hi Shane!]. It transpires that he want to buy the rights to all my books and make a film about me.
That’s fine by me.
As long as I don’t have to go to Palm Springs.
Wherefore the Warfarin
Grandad August 20th, 2008
I won’t be writing anything on this site today.
I just don’t have the time.
I have to head out in a few minutes and go down to the village.
Apparently, I’m to meet a Romanian off the bus. I have been given my instructions by Herself ["Go down and collect a Romanian woman off the bus"] so who am I to argue? I don’t know what she wants a Romanian woman for. She’s done this before, and I came to no harm so I might as well give it another spin. I might even get a quick grope on the way home.
Then I have some work to do around the estate. A few trees and bushes have to be hacked back as I’m running short of firewood.
After that, Herself wants to go into town.
*sigh*
This, of course means that I have to get tanked up on coffee while I wait for her. I asked her what she wanted to buy there and she muttered something about rat poison. That, by my reckoning is at least a two hour wait, whereas if I went to buy it I’d be home in half an hour. But she wants to go to the shops and I’m not going to have a fight over it. We have spilled enough blood over the last couple of weeks, and I’m getting too old.
I don’t know what she wants rat poison for?
We don’t have rats.
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