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.

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*

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.

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.

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.

I had to go down to the village.  There was nothing surreal about that, and Sandy drove beautifully, as she always does.

I dropped into the pub to buy some tobacco, and to have a chat with Pullit, as one does.  We stood and batted the breeze and looked out the window.

It was then I saw them.

There was a group of about six in front of the grocery shop.  They were obviously tourists, as they all had massive cameras around their necks.  But they were just standing there, like sheep.  Every now and then, one would raise a camera and photograph nothing in particular.

After I left the pub, I realised there were a whole lot more.  I would say there were around two dozen in all, and they were all just standing silently and photographing nothing.  Have you ever seen “Children of the Damned”?  It was a bit like that, only more hair raising.

I stood near a group to hear the accents, but no one said a word.  They looked like your typical Americans – over fed and over here, but they were too quiet.  Eerie.

I waited until another raised his camera, and I stood right in front of him to block his view.  He never batted an eyelid, and just carried on staring through the viewfinder, with a glazed expression.  There was a woman beside him who was very busy photographing the sky.  Maybe they were Americans who had been trapped here by the airlines’ inability to fly through imaginary dust, and were just going through the motions until they could get home again?  Who knows?

It was really scaring me at this stage, so I shot one just to see what the reaction would be.  There was a reaction all right – they all came over and clustered around the body and photographed it, in total silence.

I admit I was really scared it this stage.

I got home as fast as the dog could drive me.

It has depressed me beyond your wildest imagination.

It started with a simple visit to the coffee shop.  There were some tourists who pissed me off so I decided to send them to meet their ancestors.  I nipped back to the car, and then it happened.  I realised that I had left all my hunting equipment at home.  I drove home as fast as I could but by the time I got back to the village the feckers had gone.

This has never happened to me before.  My quarry has always ended in the quarry, and the vision of those bastards who got away will haunt me to my dying day.

I have decided it’s because I am getting old.

I knew this day would come eventually, and have already made the appropriate arrangements.  I am already a member of Dignitas and have informed my solicitor that I am quite prepared to make my own choice about the date and manner of my exit from this life.  The one thing I refuse to even contemplate is the vision of myself sitting in the corner of some Old Folk’s Home, dribbling, pissing and shitting myself and mumbling incoherently about the good old days.  And if anyone says that is the way I am now, you can go fuck off.

My arrangement are quite comprehensive.

I already have my open ended one way tickets to Switzerland.  I need two tickets, because I have to be accompanied, apparently.  I have arranged a surprise trip for Herself here.  She has always said she wanted to visit Switzerland.  There is no point in her returning to Ireland as, in the old Celtic tradition, I shall be burning my house to the ground before I leave, so I will be booking Herself into Dignitas at the same time.  Actually, rather than burning the house down, I shall be using Semtex and Nitro Glycerine as I intend to go with a bang.  I had better warn the neighbours to start looking for alternative accommodation beforehand?

So there you have it.

I shall be winding this site up shortly and shall be taking my one way trip.

…..

But there again, I have just remembered that trip to the coffee shop was after forty eight hours without sleep……

Maybe on second thoughts, I’ll postpone Switzerland for a while.

I’m off out now.

Today is the biggest day in the sporting calendar.

As I have said here before, I was somewhat erring on the tired side, so I thought that while I was there I would have a mug of strong coffee.

It was very pleasant outside the coffee shop.  The sun was shining, the birds were singing and the ice was nearly melting on the footpaths.  There was a feeling of Spring in the air.

As I was leaving, I found my way blocked by two elderly women.  I know I am getting on in years, but these two were old.  One stood firmly in my way and glowered at me.

“Are you Low Cal?” she asked in that terrible accent that sends shivers down my spine. Forget your swallows or your cuckoos – the Americans have arrived!

“They call me Polly Unsaturated” says I as pleasantly as possible while wondering what the fuck she was on about.

“Do you live around here, Polly?” she asked without missing a beat, and in a voice that started dogs barking a quarter of a mile away.

Ah!  She was asking if I was local.  Fucking Americans.

“I do,” I replied.

“Is this it?” she asked sweeping her hand around to indicate the village.  “Are there no more shops than this?”

It was the way she said that last bit that did it.  I can take a lot, and had even silently vowed to be nicer to tourists this year, but what the fuck did she expect in a country village?  A fucking Walmart on every corner and the gaps filled in with drive through McDonalds?

“That’s all there is,” I said in a take it or leave it kind of way.  “It’s just a country village, and that’s the way we like it.”

“I know it’s just a country village!” she barked in unison with the dogs in the distance.  “I just expected a bit more.”

Well, fuck her.  I bet she comes from Hicksville, Arizona too.  She was really pissing me off at this stage.

“Is there any WahDur around here?” she said as if accusing me of murdering someone.

“Water?” I said.  I was about to suggest she ask for a glass of the stuff when she ordered her coffee, but realised she meant more than that.  “There’s a river under the bridge over there,” I said helpfully.

“I mean real WahDur” she snarled.  Fuck me but she was a prime example of womanhood at its worst.

“Go a few miles that way and you’ll come to the sea?”

“Would that be the Addalantic?” she asked suspiciously.

“No.  The Irish Sea.  It’s smaller but just as wet.  If you sail across it you’ll come to Wales.”

“What would I want to go to Wales for?  We’ve just come from there.”

I sighed. 

“Would you like some real shopping?” I asked.  “Somewhere you can buy real, authentic Aran sweaters, and CDs of Riverdance?”

“That would be good,” she muttered, but I could see she was hooked. 

I gave her the directions, and left her to turn her coffee sour.  Not a fucking word of thanks, or a farewell, or even a ’have a nice day’.

Later they drove past me, following the directions I had given.  I waved to them, but they ignored me.

I hope they enjoyed their drive.  It’s a beautiful road with incredible scenery.  There are no shops or tourist attractions ruining the distant vistas, just endless miles of bogland.

No American has ever come back alive from The Bogs.

I felt good.  Summer really is coming.

I love them all, with the possible exception of Jedward and guinea pigs that twang the bars of their cages.

I was delighted to hear then that they are banning deer hunting in Ireland.  Not that it makes much difference as most people ignore the law anyway.

I was a bit puzzled when I heard the Ward Hunt in North Dublin were complaining about this though.  I thought they were similar to the Moorhouse Hunt in Bray and the McDonagh Hunt in Mullingar, and confined themselves purely to two legged animals, but I must be mistaken.

I love deer in particular, and am at a loss as to how people can hunt them.  They are majestic beasts and are kings of the mountains.

I would ask you to look at the following two pictures.

Now answer me this.

Which of these is the most majestic?

Which of these is a positive addition to the scenery?

Which of these is gentle, quiet and unobtrusive?

Which of these should be eradicated from the mountain tops?

There is no doubt about it.

The War on Tourism must continue.  It was the only good thing that Dubya ever started.  I’m all behind Obama sending in more troops.  Tourists must be eradicated from the face of the earth.  They are a scourge on mankind.

I am stepping up my campaign.

And I’m adding deer hunters [officially] to my list.

Never heard of it?  Nor had I until today.

It is a city in Russia with a population of around half a million.

I am interested in Tver, because there is a street in it called Sovetskaya.  And the reason I am interested in Sovetskaya is because there is a sneaky fucking bollix by the name of Alexander Goganov living there.

Alexander Goganov is dead meat.  He has about thirty nine minutes left to live before a 28 Megaton eBay special eradicates him, and all who live around him.

I am sorry for the other people of Tver.  I mean them no harm but as the old cliché goes: you can’t make an omelette without breaking eggs.

You see, I have just wasted that last twenty four hours repairing a few of my sites.  That little fucker managed to hack a little file on my server that caused Google to think it was spidering my site, when it was in fact spidering that little fuckers site.  And his site is full of warez and shit like that, so Google now thinks my site is full of warez and shit like that.

I had plans for today.

I was going to celebrate the official opening of the Tourist Season by going on a little rampage with the lads, and then end up in the pub and get hammered.  They have gone off without me now because I was too busy to go.  I can hear the sound of distant gunfire, and I really resent being stuck here undoing all Alexander Goganov’s handywork.

You now have around thirty two minutes left, Alexander.  Say your prayers to try to redeem your sad little life.

I’m off to the pub now.

At least all the day won’t be wasted.

I will raise a glass to the other 499,999 people of Tver and say a silent apology.

But shit happens.