Archive for the 'Tourists' Category

Entertaining the neighbours

May 16th, 2011

This country used to be overrun with tourists.

Whether it was due to the gargantuan cost of everything or the success of the Great Tourist Cull I don’t know but lately they have become very thin on the ground.  This is very bad news for the hospitality industry and also for the Irish Tourist Shooting Association.

Apparently our illustrious gubmint has decided to do something about this and have invited the neighbours in.  And seeing as they had invited in Yer Wan from the East, they had to invite Yer Man from the West so there would be no jealousy.

I have no problems with inviting neighbours in for a cuppa but we seem to have lost the run of ourselves this time.  We are spending fucking millions just to make sure the neighbours enjoy themselves.  We are told that we have to lay on a lavish spread for the neighbours as the hope is that they will go home and tell their mates in the pub what a wonderful time they had here, so then all their mates will drop in too.

For the last couple of weeks the gubmint has been going mad, travelling the country and working out exactly where they are bringing the neighbours.  Having mapped out the route, they have been sprucing up all the villages, resurfacing the roads, removing all the speed bumps and generally trying to make Ireland look like what it isn’t.  In fact the country now resembles a huge film-set, with the facades all gleaming, but if you nip around the back there is still the same old squalor and decay.

In order to convince the guests that Dublin has no traffic problems, they have decided to shut down the city for a couple of weeks.  Us mere mortals aren’t allowed into the city in case we make it look untidy, and heaven forbid that we should bring our cars in as that would give the visitors the impression that parking is hard to find.

Naturally all this is costing millions that we don’t have, which is a little strange as I always thought that tourists were supposed to bring money into the country and not cost us money, but we live in strange times so who am I to argue?

Herself told me last night that she had written to Lizzie [Yer Wan from the East], inviting her in for a cuppa, as she said it was the polite thing to do.

She has even splurged out my pension on a packet of Marietta biscuits.

Now that’s going too far.

Musicians and tourists

May 5th, 2011

I was at a session last night.

It’s a long time since I heard any decent music in a pub, as these days the ‘musician’ tends to be some bloke with a keyboard full of gizmos that provides what may be termed as ‘background’.  The lads last night however were different.  Between the pair of them, they had a fiddle, a bouzouki and a guitar, and the only electronics was a couple of microphones.

I probably mentioned it before, but I used to be a bit of a musician myself.  I have played at such auspicious events as the Kilkenny Beer Festival [now defunct], the Bennetsbridge Festival [now no more, as far as I know], the Cambridge Folk Festival [still going strong] and just about every pub in the southern half of Ireland.  In other words I think I am in a position to know what it’s like on stage, even though that was nearly forty years ago..

There was a fair crowd there last night.  There was a gang of rowdy women who left as soon as the music started [thank God], a few locals and a load of tourists from Holland and America.  The old tourist trade seems to be picking up again?

The two lads were good.  And when I say they were good, I mean they were fucking good.  They not only knew their way around the instruments but had a fair line in banter.  They mainly played folk and traditional stuff and in between songs they insulted the audience.  At one point he shouted down from the stage, asking what country I was from.  He had for some reason taken me for a tourist [*shudder*].  I told him I was from the next village, and he had the grace to apologise.

During the next fag-break I got talking to the two lads.  I asked why they had assumed I wasn’t local.  They said it was because I was listening to the music.  I know what it’s like to play to a packed house only to have half the audience yakking away, and it can be tough. 

Sadly, they are right.  The only people who will really listen to good music are tourists and ex-musicians.

Some things haven’t changed.

*sigh*

Spring has sprung

March 22nd, 2011

I received a letter from my ex-employers the other day.

The letter contained a form that I had to fill in to prove that I am alive.

Why are they writing to me if they think I’m dead? Fucking idiots.

Anyhow, I was about to sign it when I noticed that I had to have the signature witness by a Garda.  Now the signature is no problem.  I am getting damned good at forging my own signature and have reached the stage where it is almost indistinguishable from the original.  Getting a Garda to witness it could pose a problem though, as Sheriff can be an awkward bugger to find when you need him.

I had to go down to the village this morning, so just on the off-chance, I called into the Garda station.  As luck would have it, there was Sheriff having a quiet smoke and a read of the paper.

I showed him the form and asked him to put his X at the bottom of it.  He refused.  I asked why.  He said that he never put his signature to anything unless he was ‘in possession of all the relevant data’.  Sheriff can be a right bollix sometimes.  I asked him what the fuck he was on about and he replied that he couldn’t sign it as he didn’t have conclusive proof that I was alive.  I told him that that was fine by me, because if I were dead, he wouldn’t be getting any of the pints I owed him.

He signed the form.

On the way to post off the form, a car with German registration plates pulled up beside me.  The driver wanted to know the way back to the main road as he wanted to get to Dublin.  I sent him up the Bog Road to the mountain tops.

My first tourist of the season.

Spring is definitely in the air.

How to order a Guinness

October 20th, 2010

Four years ago, I wrote a wee article.

It was a simple pub survival guide, and it became the most popular thing I ever wrote. To date, it has been read by over 75,000 people. I thought it was time to revisit the subject with a drop of illustration.

For some strange reason, people [mostly Americans] haven’t a fucking clue how to order a simple pint of Guinness. You would think it would be a straightforward process, but no.. they still fuck it up which not only means they get a shit pint, but they really piss off the barman in the process.

OK. This is the moment you have been waiting for. After waiting for fifteen minutes in the otherwise empty pub, you have finally managed to catch the barman’s eye. You are obviously a tourist, so it is tradition that you be kept waiting. However you have now ordered your first pint, and the barman starts to pour.

You have now reached your first hurdle. This is NOT a pint of Guinness. It is a partially pulled pint of Guinness. Any fuckwit who grabs it at this stage will be really lucky if they live, as barmen DO NOT like the glass to be touched. A lot of barmen keep their weapons of choice for this moment. Make a wrong move and you could be at the receiving end of a baseball bat.

Just be fucking patient and wait. If the barman wanders off, he hasn’t forgotten you – he is just waiting for the next phase.

Eventually the barman will return. Make any sort of comment about being kept waiting and the chances are you will get shot. You have waited a lifetime for this pint, and another few minutes aren’t going to make any difference. The barman now tops off the pint and will place it back on the counter. This is usually the time you offer to pay.

Right. You have paid for your pint and there it is. A full pint glass of frothing liquid. What do you do next?

No. You don’t fucking drink it. You can now remove it to wherever you want to drink it, be it at the bar or at a table, but YOU DO NOT DRINK IT. This is the moment to savour the anticipation. You may carry on a conversation, have a cigarette or just sit and watch, but it does not go near your mouth. Yet.

Right. This is the moment you have been waiting for. Note the crisp black and white? That means the pint has settled. You can now drink and enjoy.

It’s all quite simple really. Even an American should be able to understand that? I doubt it though.

-oOo-

I would like to say at tis point that no animals were harmed during the filming. I would like to thank Mash [so called because he distills the best Poiteen in the village] for his patience.

In order to bring you the best photographs, we had to do about eight takes.

Then of course I had to drink the props.

It’s a tough job, but someone has to do it.

How to revitalise Ireland’s tourism

July 27th, 2010

There has been a lot of navel gazing in recent months about the fact that the tourism market has collapsed.

There have been programmes on television and articles in newspapers and they try and analyse the reason for this.  They mainly waffle on about the high cost of everything here which is a fair argument. 

I have a very simple solution, that will be guaranteed to not only create a boom in tourism, but will revitalise a lot of businesses here as well.  What is more, it will cost absolutely nothing.  It won’t require a single cent of investment.

Repeal the smoking ban.

Just think about it for a moment.

What is wrong with this suggestion?  If businesses don’t like the return of smoking, there is nothing to stop them retaining the ban in their own premises.  If non-smokers don’t like the return of the smoky pub, they can carry on patronising the pubs that retain the ban [if any!  Hah!].

What would be the benefits? 

Well, just look at the UK for a start.  At a conservative estimate, 25% of the population of 65 million smoke.  That’s around 16 million people who need holidays like the rest of us.  I can absolutely guarantee that a large portion of these would be more than delighted to come over here, simply because there is nowhere else for them to go.  Speaking for myself, when the ban came in here, I started to holiday in the North.  When the ban came in there, I started to holiday in France.  It’s not that I am desperate to smoke in pubs, but rather to holiday in a place that doesn’t treat me as an inferior form of low-life.

Is there any drawback to this suggestion?  Is there is a single reason why it shouldn’t work?

Ireland would become a Mecca for holidaymakers, and a beacon of light in the fight against the Nanny State.

Apart from anything else, I’m running out of targets.

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