Normally this isn’t a problem as I trip over them sooner or later.  However, the odd time when I’m away from home, I forget where I put the car.  That can be tricky.

When I got the SatNav, I realised that all I had to do was bring the unit with me, and it would always tell me where the car was, and how to get back to it.  Roger is a clever little bastard.

Then someone [I think it was our K8], mentioned geocaching.

What the hell is geocaching [I asked]?

Apparently it’s like finding your car when someone else has parked it.  They tell you the number to put into your SatNav, and you toddle off to that location to see what they have parked.  Usually it’s not something useful like a car though.  It’s more likely to be a CD of Celine Dion or a key ring or something like that.  I suppose it’s a handy way of getting rid of rubbish?

This geocaching is quite popular.  There are web sites devoted to it.  You dump a bit of rubbish in a field somewhere and put the coordinates onto the web site, and then someone else goes and finds your rubbish and they get all excited over it.  Very strange.

Of course, to someone like myself, this seemed like too good an opportunity to miss.

I signed up for a geocaching site.

I put in the coordinates of a place and said I had left some very valuable stuff there.

I sat back and waited.

I visited the spot recently, and there were a few cars and motorbikes parked there.  There was no sign of the owners, but I didn’t expect there to be.

Pat’s Hole is well known in the area.  It’s a bog hole near the top of the mountains.  We steer well clear of it as it has a nasty reputation.

It looks like solid ground, but it isn’t.

God knows how many sheep, deer and geocachers are at the bottom of it now.

I met up with a group on Friday to do some filming.  That in itself was fine.  I don’t mind cameras, except that I always sound like a total wanker in the final film.

What struck me for the umpteenth time was that I was a fish out of water.

Sitting here up the mountains, it’s just me , the laptop and The Other Fella doing the typing.  I can forget about the world at large.

But then I meet up with the people who also blog and comment on this site and I feel bloody ancient.

When I was their age, none of them had even been thought of. 

In the bad old days, when I was a grunt in an office, it occurred to me that most of my colleagues hadn’t even been born when I started in the organisation back in the seventies.  That is a very scary thought.

So there I am, sitting in a group who know what an iPod is and can work their way through an Xbox.  This is the Twitter generation I’m mingling with.  Can you seriously imagine a pensioner at a student party?

To make matters worse, I get home and there is a big fluff going on about a fourteen year old blogger who probably knows more about the game than I do.  I am old enough to be Tommy’s great-grandfather.  Fuck!

Maybe it’s time I went back to the old fountain pen where I belong?  Maybe I should be meeting up with the local pensioners instead of hanging around with the young folk?

What the hell am I doing here?

Spot the odd one out

You would imagine that with five hundred or so channels there would be something passable on, but there wasn’t.

Herself somehow managed to flick over to the Late Late Toy Show.

To those of you overseas who have missed this annual treat, maybe an explanation is needed?

The Late Late Toy Show is an orgy of commercialism directed at the toddlers of Ireland.  They fill up one of RTE’s largest studios with toys, pack in an audience dressed tacky reindeer horns and Santa hats, and then let loose a pack of kids into the toys to let them play.  The Master of Ceremonies for this mayhem is The Plank himself.

The biggest problem with this scenario is that apart from having the personality of a gravestone, The Plank hasn’t a clue how to interact with children.  He has a couple of his own, and I dread to think what they will develop into.  To The Plank, children are like tiny adults, to be ignored at all costs.  They are an irritant, and worst of all, they have the potential to take the spotlight off Plank and his massive ego.

The programme started showing Plank doing something.  It has to start showing Plank, just to reinforce the idea that the programme is about him, and the children and toys are just incidental.

I squirmed.

The children were brought on and the show started.

Straight away, Plank started interrupting the children any time they had anything to say.  Plank knew there was a risk they might say something cute or funny that would outshine his efforts.  Each child was dismissed like unfortunate candidates at an interview.

The toys were the usual collection of utter shite.  They were all the kind of toy that would have an attention span of ten minutes and an horrific price tag.  Every toy required batteries.  Every toy had to talk, sing, walk or shit itself.  Every doll or stuffed toy seemed to have enough computing power to land a man on the Moon.

I got drunk.

The Plank grabbed more and more screen time.  The camera men obviously had orders to focus on the main even, which was Plank and not the children.  All we saw was Plank grinning inanely into the camera as he showed off.

I threw an ashtray through the television screen.

Herself wasn’t too happy about that, but she should have known it would happen.  It happens every year.  She shouldn’t have switched it on.

At least this year I managed to restrain myself for a full twenty minutes.

Who is Tommy?

Tommy must be Ireland’s youngest blogger.

Don’t go running away just yet.

He may be 14, but he ain’t a Bebo writer.  In fact, if he didn’t mention his age, I would have said he was twice that.  He is a damned fine writer.

I often wondered about the age range of bloggers.  Am I the oldest?  Is Tommy the youngest? 

Maybe I can be Tommy’s virtual Great Grandad?

The Book is going off to the printers tomorrow.  I shall be at the station to wave it off on its journey.

A final decision has also been made on the cover….

You can click on it if you want to see the larger version and read the blurb.

The sketch on the back cover is a doodle our K8 did one day.  She wasn’t that happy with it, but I was, so I sent it to the publishers.  They loved it, and there it is.

I didn’t like the cover initially, but it is growing on me, along with the moss and the ferns.

I’m still not sure about the bald head, as baldness doesn’t run in the family, but it will help when it comes to dodging the paparazzi in the future when I am world famous [“That can’t be Grandad – he has a full head of hair”].

I’m also a little annoyed that they have taken my name off it, yet The Other Fella who only does my typing gets his name right at the top.  Fuck him.

And what is this shit about “Ireland’s most cantankerous Auld Fella”?  They have a fucking nerve.  Bastards.

All in all, apart from those little errors, I think it is a good design.

In fact, I think the cover alone is worth the price, and to hell with the contents.

There was a time when eating was something we did at mealtimes.  Three meals a day and that was it.

Nowadays, it seems to be compulsory to eat at all times of day and night.

It is almost impossible to walk the streets without seeing someone walking along with a can of liquid sugar in one hand and something greasy in the other which they stuff into their mouths as if their lives depend on it.

Television is full of advertisements for crisps, chocolate bars, chips, pizzas and worst of all, burgers.   What is this thing about snacking?  Why do we have to stuff our faces all the time?

Last night they were waffling on about obesity in the news.  That is to say, the news wasn’t obese; they were just talking about it.

Apparently two thirds of the population of Ireland is now overweight. And if that isn’t enough, a quarter are obese.  This is scary.  These people are not only heading for heart attacks, but are lining themselves up for diabetes and even cancer.

It is interesting to note that despite the massive problems with future mortality, the government aren’t banning eating outdoors.  They aren’t restricting sales of fast food.  They could do it with the smokers, but not the eaters, apparently.  Our government, in it’s usual cack-handed fashion is muttering about regulating the amount of sugar and salt in our food, for fuck’s sake!!

Most of the blame lies at the foot of fucking McDonalds, Burger King and all the other fast cholesterol  take aways.

What is our government doing about this?  Nothing.

They are talking about their sugar and salt restrictions, which is about as much use as a fart in a gale.  Why aren’t they restricting the number of fast food outlets?  Why aren’t they educating the children [and their parents]?

Maybe we should take a long hard look at Harney [not easy, I grant you] -

Our Minister for HEALTH?

A great example?

No?

Retribution was swift and involved petrol, matches and a Barbie doll collection.

She has called me a bollox again last night, but this time I’ll forgive her.  In fact I consider myself rather honoured.

I received an email that was entitled “Your bollox”.  I was going to discard it as I thought it was one of the usual enhancements that I’m offered regularly, and I don’t need any more of those.  I’m fully stocked.

Then I realised it was from Our K8.  She isn’t in the habit of sending me medical aids so I opened it.

Apparently she has awarded me her Dog’s Bollox of the Month Award.

To those of you who are not familiar with the expression, “dog’s bollox” is akin to “the bee’s knees” or “the cat’s pyjamas”.  It is very definitely an expression of approbation.  Why canine testicles should be a good thing, I don’t know.  Unless you’re a dog, of course.

Apparently previous recipients are Laughing Lion Design, Problemchildbride, Maxi Cane and Just Thinkin’ 

Of these, only Kirk M of Just Thinkin’ has the courage to display it on his site, but then he is The Dog’s Bollox [with no insult intended to the others].  Maxi has displayed it on his site, but he is disqualified anyway because he asked for his.  He is just The Bollox.

So I have to get to work now and fix my new award onto the site.  This should be no problem as there are plenty of builders looking for work at the moment.

And the next time someone calls me a bollox,  I shall reply “Yes, I am The Bollox”.

“The Dog’s Bollox”.

Ken Sweeney had a wee follow up on the Plank escapade on the Late Late.

One interesting aspect of it is that the woman won three items – cash, a trip to Dublin and the infamous tickets.  She won them, ergo they are hers.  So, when The Plank tore up the tickets, he was tearing up her property.  He now claims he is going to raffle them off.  He is offering her tickets [which she wants] for sale.  That would make a very interesting court case, and I hope she sues him.

Plank is still gobsmacked that there is a person who doesn’t want to go to his precious show. 

As far as he is concerned, each and every one of us would sell our grandmothers for a chance to be in the audience.

The Late Late Toy Show is true car-crash television.  We don’t want to watch, but it is so compelling in its awfulness that we have to watch.  It has one of the highest cringe factors in the universe.  We only watch to see Plank make an utter arse of himself yet again.

The Late Late Toy Show is Murphy’s Law in reverse – Everything will go wrong and at the worst possible time.

It is tacky in the extreme.  It is one long advertisement for grossly overpriced useless toys that won’t last twenty four hours. 

Yet Pat says “he is at a loss to understand why the woman had entered the competition”?  Does he not realise that there was €10,000 at stake?  Does he honestly think that €10,000 is a trivial thing compared to Late Late tickets?  What kind of idiot is he?

He then goes on to say

“Tickets to The Late Late Toy Show are impossible to get. No one can buy them. There are people in PR who can get you tickets to Barack Obama’s presidential inauguration. They can’t get tickets to The Late Late Toy Show."

So The Late Late Toy Show is more desirable than Barack Obama’s presidential inauguration?

The Plank is more popular than Barack Obama?

Is there no end to this idiots ego?

Does anyone actually likes this tacky sickly stuff?

Does this shite actually put people in a festive mood?

How do people work in shops where they are blaring out this rubbish non-stop?

I would rather have my eardrums perforated with red hot needles.

Yuletide jollies, my bollox.

Next time I hear it, I’m going to kill someone.

It was “Vantage Point” if anyone is interested.  I enjoyed it, but this isn’t going to be one of those film reviews because your taste in films mightn’t be the same as mine.

At the end of the film, I ejected the DVD, and the television reverted back to the last channel we had been watching.

Up pops the Late Late Show.

My luck was in because The Plank was just finishing, and was doing his phone competition crap.

For those of you lucky enough not to experience The Plank, he has a competition each week where he phones some member of the public.  They have to answer some question and he make a big deal about giving them a prize.  You’d swear it was coming out of his own pocket.

God and his Disciples 

The Plank loves it when the phone victim squeals in delight [“Ah! Is it yourself, Pat”] and his ego reaches yet uncharted heights.  To this end, he tries [badly] to disguise his voice.

The phone was answered.  “Is that Mary?” croaks The Plank like an asthmatic donkey.

“It is,” said the woman at the other end.

“Do you know who this is?” says The Plank, waiting for the adulation he expects.

“I do,” says the woman in a very bored voice.

The Plank was gutted at the lack of squeals, but he recovered and asked her the competition question.  She answered it correctly in a tone normally reserved for a very irritating child.

“You have just won a weekend in Dublin, two tickets to the Late Late Toy Show and €10,000 spending money!!  Who will you bring to the Toy Show?”

“I won’t be going to that,” answered the woman in the same unimpressed voice.

The Plank’s face fell.  Someone was being given the chance to see him in the flesh, and they had turned him down.  He looked like he had been bitch-slapped with a wet haddock.

He asked her to repeat her statement in the hope that his world wasn’t collapsing around his ears, but she was adamant – she was not interested in the Late Late.

In a fit of petulance worthy of a five year old, he ceremoniously withdrew the two tickets from his pocket and tore them up into little pieces.

The woman didn’t break down and beg for mercy.  She wasn’t impressed at this wanton destruction of such highly prized items.  She was unmoved.

The Plank asked her if she wanted the rest of the prize.

“Yes,” says she.  “I’ll take the weekend and the money.”

Pat slammed the phone down.  He had never heard such insolence.  His gargantuan ego had taken a mighty battering.  He was devastated.

He sat silent for a moment as he tried to come to terms with this shattering turn of events.

“I think it’s time for me to quit this job,” he muttered.

YES!!!!!!

Update

The clip has appeared on YouTube [And it proves my memory is nearly right]: