Looking for Morpheus

Grandad March 9th, 2010

I didn’t get much sleep on Sunday night.

I don’t know what the cause was.  It was just one of those things.  For hours, I lay in bed and stared at the darkness, but the brain just refused to sleep.

Eventually, I did nod off, and was woken by the dog a couple of hours later.  Once again, I was wide awake, so I decided to cut my losses and get up.

Yesterday was a shit day.  I like my sleep, and when I don’t get it, I’m like Mary Harney without the HRT.  All day, I wandered around in a bit of a haze, kicking the guinea pigs [they make quite good footballs, incidentally] and generally breaking things.

My one consolation was that I knew I would have a grand sleep last night, because I was knackered.  I didn’t get to bed too early because a certain dimwit had fucked up his site, and he came clamouring to me, late in the evening to fix it.  I told him to fuck off, but he said he’d pay me in pints at the Blog Awards.  That was enough for me, so I set about fixing it.

I quit after a couple of hours, and went to bed.

Do you think I could sleep?  Like fuck, I could.

I lay there for five hours or so staring at my old friend the darkness.  I tossed and turned but Morpheus had fucked off on his holidays.  No sleep.  Not a single fucking wink.

I got up as dawn broke, as I was sick of the tossing and turning.  I went back to Dimwit’s site and eventually fixed his problem.  Three hours in total, it took me.

I did some sums.

I think I am worth around €100 per hour as a consultant.  Three hours?  Three hundred smackers.  Converted to pints, that comes out at somewhere around eighty pints that Dimwit owes me.

Now, I should sleep after that…………

Going for a Wii

Grandad March 8th, 2010

I am going to the Irish Blog Awards for several reasons.

First and foremost, I think I deserve some [hah! some?] pints with my old friends that I met in the previous couple of sessions.

Another reason is that there are a lot of you women who attended last year, who would like a second crack at The Ultimate Sensual Experience.  It’s true what they say about the oldest fiddle making the sweetest music, as I’m sure you will agree?  However, on my doctor’s advice, I’m afraid I have to limit myself to no more that eight women this year, so it will be on a first cum come first served basis, as it were.

Also I have booked a place further west for the next few nights, so Galway is merely an overnight stop on the way to better things.

The one reason I am not going is to pick up an award, as I very much doubt that that will happen.  It didn’t happen last year [ya miserable fuckers!] so I’m not holding my breath for this year.

There is one thing that does concern me about the Awards thing though, and that is Herself.

You see, she isn’t fit.

I have noticed this lately.  It takes her twice as long now to plant a field of potatoes as it used to.  I also notice that when I let her carry my bags, she tends to drop them a lot.  It was time I did something about it.

I went and bought a Wii.

I have never bought a games console before, and the very name of the Wii makes me want to vomit, but in times of crisis I have to put my principles to one side.  I really need her to be fit in case she has to carry me anywhere.

I set it up, and she insisted that I try it first, so I did.  I am, apparently a perfect specimen of manhood, but then you all know this anyway.  My balance is perfect and my Body Mass Index is bang in the middle of the ‘Ideal’ range.  I did a few exercises and notched up quite a good score.

Then it was her turn.

She stepped up onto the little pad thingy, and the Wii screamed.  She fell off with the fright and landed on the coffee table, which of course smashed.  She then tried standing on one leg.  That went well…. for about half a second.  She slowly keeled over, like one of those brick chimneys being demolished, and ended in a heap in the dog’s bed.  She cried; I sighed.

I think there is a lot of work to be done before the end of the month.

Half a million

Grandad March 7th, 2010

Half a million.

That is one huge fucking number.

500,000.

Half a million miles will get you to the Moon and back.

Half a million hours ago, I hadn’t even started in Junior Infants.

Half a million days ago, Ireland was still ruled by the Celts.

Half a million Euro would nearly pay a minister’s salary for a whole year.

Half a million words is two thirds the total output from Shakespeare, or two thirds of the entire bible.

That is a lot of fucking words.

It is the number of words I have written since I started this lark.

I must be mad.

Half a million words

Caring for the elderly

Grandad March 6th, 2010

I must say I am more than a little disappointed.

For reasons beyond my sphere of influence, I was a little tied up yesterday.  I would have been more tied up but Herself always was fucking useless at tying knots.

I had things to do; people to meet and, when you boil it down to the essentials, a life to lead.  In other words, I didn’t have the time or the inclination to scribble on this site.

Now, I knew I was in safe hands.  I knew you would drop by and having found no new material would while away your hours finding those gems that you had missed in the past.  I refuse to believe that you have read everything that I have ever written [even I haven’t done that] , so I can guarantee there are hidden treasures that you have missed.

I finally got around to switching on my laptop last night, and what did I find?

I found that you bastards hadn’t bothered your arses dropping by at all.

OK, there were one or two who had enough of a soul to visit, but the rest of you are just fickle, fly-by-night fair-weather users. Have you not heard all those advertisements asking you to check on your elderly neighbours?  For all you know, I could have been dying here of hypothermia and starvation, but do you care?  Not a fucking jot.

You see, I am now officially an Old Age Pensioner.  I must be treated with respect and reverence.  I must be treated with care and most of all, you need to make sure that I am OK.

Yes, I am disappointed, and more than a little hurt.  I thought you cared, but you are more interested in your fucking iPods and your fucking Facebook than you are in my welfare.

I have a good mind to start charging entry into this site.  By God, but when you have paid your €1,000 per year to visit, you’ll want to get your money’s worth and will drop by whether I have written or not.

I was so disheartened last night that I had to console myself by leaving sarcastic comments on Twitter about Ireland’s entry for the Eurovision which was being voted for on the Late Late Show.

The entries were like you lot.

Pathetic.

World Book Day

Grandad March 4th, 2010

I see today is World Book Day.

This doesn’t surprise me because every fucking day is World Somefuckingthing Day, so I suppose books must get an elbow in at some stage.

I received my first cheque from the publishers a couple of weeks ago for my Magnum Opus.  Quite an occasion?  I brought it to my bank to lodge it, and there were the usual embarrassing scenes where the manager came out with the champagne and cigars [whereupon we had to go outside to smoke ‘em in the rain, which wasn’t exactly the ambience he was trying to create?].  He started plying me with leaflets telling me all about their fantastic investment schemes, and I told him to fuck himself, that the money was already spoken for to pay the balance on that island in the South Pacific.  Did he honestly think I was going to hand my money over to a fucking bank to mind?

Anyhow, I digress.

Apparently, World Book Day is a day for encouraging people to read, and there is an emphasis on reading sessions in libraries.  I have already contacted as many libraries as I can find and have received promises from them that my book will be on the reading list for the children’s sessions.  It’s wonderful what a simple threat of arson will achieve?  I didn’t particularly like resorting to threats, but I consider it my mission in life to broaden people’s minds, and where better to start than with the young?

I see those fucking publishers have dropped the price of The Book a tad, which means the next cheque will be a bit smaller.  Bastards.

Head Rambles

If you want to get your orders in for Mother’s Day [assuming you really hate your mother?] then you had better hurry – Amazon in the US have only five left, and there are just two left in the UK.

I see there is a new review on the US site.  It’s long and rambling, but reasonably flattering.  They end up with the paragraph:

Head rambles is a delightful read which makes you stop and laugh at the small things that make Irish life unique. The random order of stories and topics makes the book feel how it was meant to; like a witty, grumpy old man venting his frustrations about everyday life to the world.
You can almost see him sitting at the laptop with a cup of tea and his pipe. Highly recommended.

I wouldn’t object to this apart from the second last sentence – “You can almost see him sitting at the laptop with a cup of tea and his pipe”.  What the fuck do they mean by that?  “You can almost see him”? 

Are they implying that it’s all a figleaf of my mind?

Do they think I am making it all up?

Fucking nerve!

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