The Bolted Nut

Bring back Corney to The Cliffs Of Moher.

2007-01-15T09:39:00.000+01:00

It’s nearly thirty years since I first set eyes on the Cliffs Of Moher. The, it was a windswept, natural place, pretty much unaltered since Cornelius O’Brien, M.P. for North Clare, of Birchfield, Liscannor, built O’Brien’s Tower in 1835 and erected long walls of flagstone on edge, to protect the public from accidentally falling over the cliffs.
For a man of his time, he did an awful lot of good it seems to me, notwithstanding that he had his detractors.

As the late Eamonn Kelly used to say, things rested so for a long time, then along came Clare County Council and their buddies in Shannon Development. Big brown signs went up at every cross for a hundred miles around. Backhanders were bandied about busdrivers, and the concept of visitor pressure was born. The paths on top of the bedded limestone are mere trackways in blue shale, and it duly ravelled and eroded from the countless feet that walked over it. To cope with it all, a visitor centre was built, with a very big gift shop and a very small jacks. You could buy socks with Guinness logos on them ‘til kingdom come, but you had to queue up to discharge your own denatured Guinness. They shot a few seagulls, stuffed them and put them on top of the presses, so that waddly oul’ yanks and long lanky Krauts could get the picture of what was going on outside, while they queued for the restrooms.

Next, some bastard got a really cunning brainwave. They erected a pay-as-you exit parking barrier, so you now had to pay to gaze at the Atlantic Ocean and breathe in the fresh air. The accounting system wasn’t exactly watertight according to some usually reliable accounts, and the car park attendant seemed prosperous. Let’s leave that story for another day. Anyway, the Clare people retaliated to the imposition of the parking charge, as Clare people do, and parked out on the road. Not to be outdone, the County Council then put double yellow lines on each side of the road, for a long distance on either side of the Cliffs. This must surely be the most blatant self-interested abuse of process ever perpetrated in North Clare using yellow paint. I am advised that maladministration in public office is the hardest thing of all to prove in Court, but it would be worth having a go over those same lines, only for the fact that they’re probably gone now.

However, things don’t stand still. Bowing to the visitor pressure they themselves created and nurtured, the powers that be next decided that the visitor centre was too small. In the interests of fairness, a public enquiry was held. In the interests of getting the result they wanted, it was chaired by a road-building civil engineer of some note, whose life’s motto was and remains ‘I’m pro-development’. A man with exceptionally poor eyesight, adjudicating on an area renowned for its exceptional beauty. An honest decent man, but he is what he is. It was decided to build a new centre. Wow. No surprise there for the cognoscenti.

Am I the only one who things that there is something fundamentally wrong and disturbing, if not even immoral, about demolishing a structurally sound and functional building when it is less that a hundred years old? A building should last for generations. A decision to build a structure is a profound one, nicely put by an architect I used to know when he said ‘a building in the wrong place is a mistake that takes us a hundred years to rectify’. I agree. And, why is it the public sector that seems to delight and revel in prematurely tearing down what it has built at our great expense, both ways?

Anyway, there have now been years of moil and toil on the site, tarmacadam has been torn up and relaid, men in shiny jackets to-ing and fro-ing and piddling in portacabins, and it seems they’re now nearly ready to go. I read in yesterday’s Sunday Times that the new centre is almost complete. I wonder how long it will be before the cycle repeats itself?

What they might have done. They could have said, ‘well, our visitor centre is overloaded. Let’s cut back on the promotions side, and fewer people will come. Then the Cliffs will be protected for future generations.’

What they could have done. They could have refrained from putting up all the bloody brown signs right from the start. Then the Cliffs Of Moher would be as Cornelius O’Brien left them. Fewer people would visit. Fewer pairs of Guinness socks would be sold. No seagulls need be stuffed.

It’s called sustainability. We’re supposed to be doing it.

Nuts

Nothing to see in County Limerick

2007-01-14T23:00:00.000+01:00

There is a widely held belief that County Limerick is a kind of Irish Holland – flat, uninteresting and basically serving to keep Kerry and Clare separated. Not so. County Limerick is a place to be appreciated subtly, like the better sort of wine. Just consider one typical journey, from Newcastlewest to Limerick on a Spring morning, and what you might see.

Leaving Newcastlewest, there’s two guys walking their greyhounds and ‘clearing’ them, before their trials on the track at the top of the hill. Next we see the crooked tree, used as a hanging tree in the bad old days. The County Council re-aligned the road in the 1970’s to take away a tight bend, leaving the tree in the island between the line of the old road and the new. There’s some tacky landscaping on the island, but the majesty of the old tree overcomes it.

A little bit further on, there’s Charlie feeding his horses a bit of hay from the back of the car. Wonder if Ballygowan Beauty is one of them?

On the left is John G’s big cornfield – and there’s a fine cock pheasant picking the field. Must come back for him at the weekend.

There’s Frankie Torrens walking around his cottage in his string vest with a mug of tea – a gentle giant, and a legendary truck driver in his time. Frankie used to drive his truck with two trailers up Bridge Street in Newcastlewest, and manage the two tight left-handers at the top, up on the footpaths outside Burke’s chipper. The amusements were an anti-climax after the spectacle of Frankie getting his wagons into the Square. He still has his old Diamond-T trucks at the back of the house, fair play to him.

On to Coolanoran, and glance right to see if the escaped deer can be seen. Look left, to the field where the green plover always wheel and land – there are only three fields in the locality where they will feed – it’s supposed to be a sign of liver fluke larvae being present. The plover eat the larvae, and that’s why they are preserved against shooting. If there has been rain, the fields further down will be flooded – maybe a flock of swans touched down overnight and may be seen feeding on drowned earthworms in the ponds. Maybe some teal will roost in the drains, if the wind has been high and the tide in down on the Estuary, there might be a mallard in amongst them – a great challenge for a shooter to pick out the one mallard amongst thirty or so teal. Away over on the right is Keating’s Castle, where Mackessy shot wild geese long ago – once in a blue moon a skein of them still head out there, whatever old and ancient instinct drives them.

Down the Rathkeale by-pass, and there’s John Flynn ploughing Paddy Bouchier’s field. The best ploughman in the County, in one of the best fields in the County. Check under the high trees for another pheasant, perhaps.

There’s the four spikes of the Protestant Church now showing above Mount Southwell, and shortly the single spire of the Catholic church dominates the whole landscape around it. Glance up towards the Hill, not many of the boys around now, but there was a big crowd last Christmas. Look left to see Paddy Sheridan’s fine herd of horses grazing in his field, and there’s Paddy’s Michael at the gate checking them.

Down into the Dohyle Hollow, over on the left is morning mist rising off the lake, the road ditch is another great place for a pheasant. Check for the white squad, three spots here that they like, keep a sharp lookout. On down the straight stretch, speed getting a bit high - maybe eighty-five or so, watch the sign at the bottom for any furtive movements, might be a ban garda lurking behind it with the car out of sight.

There’s the big ringfort on the left, right on the edge of the by-pass. Over on the right, the sun is just peeping over Knock Feirna, silhouetting the big elms and beeches in Captain Fitzgerald’s.

Down past Smithfield, there’s one of the oaks blown over in a winter storm, Jimmy is out now with his Land Rover sawing it into lengths for the mill – too good for firewood by far. On down to Graigue, and there’s Pat coming back from an early shot with his dogs, looks like a pheasant and two woodcock in his hand, gun broken on his arm so he must have used his side-by-side and he’ll be pleased with that bag.

Down the main street of Adare, couple of scrawny-looking Krauts mooching about, pop in for a haircut if there’s time, or even a full Irish in the visitor centre.

There’s John Shovlin at the door of the Hotel, missing nothing that passes. A tall young lad with his barefoot girl linking arms stroll down the street towards the Hotel in evening wear, she’s dangling her high-heeled shoes from her free hand, must have been a good bash in the hotel last night.

There’s Mikey in his jeep puffing his pipe and blathering into his two Portugal phones, heading for the park with a lawnmower up behind him on his trailer, loads of lights flashing and all business.

Out over the bridge, look left to see the egret at low tide, one of the few benefits of global warming. Speaking of benefits, look right to see the Desmond Castle OPW restoration – did they lay a stone this week yet?

On down to the Lantern Lodge, there’s Hourigan’s ‘box swinging left for the roundabout, there’s racing in Leopardstown today, maybe Beef Or Salmon is on board. Pass Mrs Clarke’s, beautiful flock of well-tended sheep grazing peacefully in their paddocks. Dead fox on the roadside, he must have been crossing from the Dunraven farm passage, and got killed overnight.

Under the Mount Earl overpass, and there’s Mattie McGuire’s magnificent bane of pedigree Charolais’ grazing on his farm on the right, a wonderful sight.

Here’s the blue squad minding the money wagon on a Tuesday morning, it doesn’t matter if you’re on your phone, they can’t break away from the convoy.

On down to the new bypass, really picking up speed now. Watch all the Cork fellas overshooting the up-ramp on their side and getting lost. Getting a bit too fast for looking around, but the odd kestrel hunting the roadside margins and the central median always delights. Check for the Federales under the three-phase power lines crossing below Patrickswell. Shoot up the off-ramp, and we’re there.
What else can the day offer?

Nuts.

The Angelus

2007-01-14T13:48:00.000+01:00

The angelus

Do you know, I get a great kick out of the Angelus. Like repeats of Dad’s Army or Fawlty Towers, every time I watch it, I see something new and get a new laugh. By now you will have figured out that I mean of course the Angelus on RTE television – played on our plasma screens every day at 1800hrs, or six o’clock in the evening as most people I know say, just before the news and the weather. As distinct from the Angelus in an abstract, conceptual sense.

I have it on good authority that there is some sort of Media Skills Unit in Maynooth that looks after how religion is presented to us mere mortals on Irish television. It awards Masters’ to mumbling Monsignors in media matters, archdiplomas to archdeacons, and mere certificates to mere curates. It handed a lot of free ammunition to Dermot Morgan in his time, and lead to the creation of ‘Father Trendy’. And it seems, it has given us the Angelus. Isn’t it amazing how everything with no name in Ireland ends up being called a unit? Kitchen units, refrigeration units, kidney units and all kinds of units. There should be a units unit in Maynooth to keep track of them all. Anyway, back to the Angelus.

There’s a black fella who stops arranging flowers when he hears the first bong. He sets the scene for the whole act that follows. We are subliminally being fed a line that all black fellas are harmless flower arrangers, who are liable to become hypnotically entranced at any sort of repetitive bongs, which presumably remind them of the bongos of home. Nothing to be afraid of there. If you’re ever followed down a dark lane by a black fella, just stand still and say ‘BONG” and he’ll revert to being a flower arranger. As long as you go ‘Bong’ he won’t go ‘Bonk!’, basically. Presumably the fella who had his head cut off by his quare one in Dublin lately was watching the angelus and didn’t notice what was happening until he found himself buried in a flowerbed. Using ‘found himself ‘ very loosely there, because ‘himself’ turned up but the cranium is still out there someplace. Back again to the Angelus.

Next, there’s a Chinese girl, who also lets up on what she’s doing. I need hardly mention how enthusiastically the Irish have embraced the Chinese since we first met them. For God’s sake, there’s even a takeaway in Askeaton now, the last place God made before Ballyhahill and Carrigkerry. I think the reason we like them and the food they sell us a Chinese is because there’s probably little fear of them invading us. For a start, they’re a long way away, but principally the reason China doesn’t invade Ireland is that they wouldn’t all fit, and some of them would have to turn around and fuck off home again and it’s a very long way. The shaggin’ island is too small. Another good reason not to re-unite it – bejaysus, wasn’t Dev the cute hoor all along? Anyway, the Chinese girl cocks her head to one side at the second bong. Now it’s a well-known fact that the Chinese are notoriously inscrutable, so we’re kind of left sort of wondering what’s going on in her noodle at this critical juncture. Wonder no more. I rang her up and asked her, and she said ‘I was merely wondering was that a bong or a Wong?’. ‘Is that right?’, says I. ‘No’, she says, ‘not Light, Wong’. ‘So you’re Wong’, says I. ‘Light, Wong.’ Says she. And that settled that problem.

The next hoor had me baffled for quite a while. He’s the geeky-lookin’ dude playing the tin whistle who stops to say the angelus. Now, in my mis-spent youth, I passed many a fine week in McGann’s and Gussie O’Connor’s in Doolin, where they certainly know the correct protocols for traditional music. Nothing short of a large bullet to the back of the head would stop a proper Irishman playing his tin whistle once he started. There are fellas in Doolin who have grown long beards and fathered numerous children without as much as dropping a grace note in the Bucks of Oranmore, followed by Miss McCloud’s, the Maid Behind The Bar and the Blackbird. Mighty men entirely, and all thanks to the Russells, God rest them. So who is this hoor who stops playing to listen to the Angelus? He must be some sort of an Eastern European for sure. No Irishman, but assimilating himself into the culture. When in Rome, and all that. Very subtle, and top marks to Maynooth on that one. Someone should tell him about the exception to when in Rome. When in Ireland, never stop playing your tinwhistle for anything except to take on or discharge liquid cargos.

Finally though, we get to the best bit of the Angelus. Here’s this girlie, sitting at an angle of forty-five degrees on the edge of her fireside chair, in front of a tiled fire-place that silently screams ‘1968 Council House’ at you, as fast at you could say bale of briquettes. She has blonde hair and black eyebrows. Why is she sitting at that peculiar angle? There’s only one explanation – she must have piles. Why has she got golden hair and black eyebrows? To tell us something about her nationality. So, what race of people wear the colours of a tiger but have a shite health system for people living in Council houses? Y’all know the answer to that one.

She’s the embodiment of the Celtic Tiger. Take a bow, Maynooth. Black, gold and skint with a sore arse – you couldn’t have said it better in ten thousand words.

Weddin's

2006-09-04T22:32:00.000+01:00

I was driving down O’Connell Street the other day, when something caught my eye. Now, on any given fine day, many a thing on O’Connell Street might indeed catch my eye but let’s leave that for another time. Clapton once said he was fifty-one when he stopped thinking like that so there’s not all that far to go, in percentage terms anyway. Maybe. Clapton had a lot higher mileage. Wouldn’t it be great if your libido had a little blue bar like scanner software to tell you how much is left?
Anyway, there I was in O’Connell Street, stopped in traffic, when a dress hire shop caught my eye. In the window were four male mannekins, wearing what the well-dressed Limerick groom apparently must now be seen in on his wedding day. There were three preposterous suits, looking like what a cross between a cheap undertaker and James Onedin might wear on a ship. All brass buttons and frilly fronts and lurid colours like mauve, and cerise, and lilac. Sweet Jesus, imagine getting married in mauve.

Now I know what mauve is. Five-foot sailor recently lost a garment on d’yacht. All the men searched high up and low down. “ Is it this fucken’ purple ting?” we asked, wiping the gearbox oil from our toil-worn fingers. Not a flash of recognition. But when the women searched, they found the same fucken purple ting and announced they had it. “S’not fucken purple, it’s mauve ye blind packa bastards’ they uttered sotto voce, or words to the like effect. Women are great like that. Men have a relatively limited vocabulary when it comes to colour – basically we have the one-colour-fits-all selection, like the form you use to tax your car. Red, green, blue, brown – that sort of thing. Modified by the variables of metallic, flat, bright and shitty. “Your man arrived on to collect my daughter for the debs in a shitty green Hi-ace pick-up” sort of thing. But women know the difference between cerise shoes and pink ones, so they do. And apparently it is a hugely significant difference.

Back to the dress hire window. What really irked me was the fourth mannekin. Jesus, it had a purple tartan kilt. A purple tartan kilt. Bejesus!

What sort of Irishman wants to get married in a purple tartan kilt? What sort of narcissistic git sees himself looking his pathetic ‘best’ in a purple tartan kilt? And what sort of girl thinks her big day will be nicely enhanced by standing alongside a git in a purple, tartan, shaggin kilt? “ Mammy and Daddy, I have big news – I’m engaged to Abdullah from Lagos and we’re getting married next week – he’ll be wearing a purple tartan kilt” – it doesn’t hang together really, does it? Imagine showing your wedding album to your grandchildren “There’s granddad the day he married yer granny” “Why is he wearing a kilt, oul’ lad? Are we Scottish?” “Aye, wee bairn, yer granddad was the last one of the grrrreat McGits of Limerick.”

The only Irishmen who should get married in kilts are those fully paid-up members of a hairy-arse military pipe band who decide to get married all together, They might, just might, get away with it. At least the wife will have fair notice that her bethrothed has a predilection for faffing about in a kilt, so she won’t be too surprised to come home early from work one evening and find him doing his knitting in her leather miniskirt, will she?

Did you ever wonder why the piddlers in posh hotels are never all in line? Did you even notice? The one at the end is always lower. University Of Limerick is another great place for the low one at the end, and it’s cheaper to get into than a posh hotel. Now I was always erroneously led to believe that this was plumbers’ provision for young fellas. A bit like believing in Santa Claus, it seems. I rationally moved on to Scenario B, which was that it was designed to cope with our burgeoning immigrant population from the dark continent. A plausible enough hypothesis, but as yet unverified by any other researcher in the field and therefore unconfirmed. But shag it – what about Scenario C – plumbers install one low piddler at the end of the line for daft Irish gits who want to get married in kilts?

Answers on a postcard etc….

Goodnight – Nuts.

Diver does his bird

2006-08-24T20:58:00.000+01:00

It's a little-known fact that the titles to these rants are actually hyperlinks, and if you click on the title of this entry, it will take you to a story on RTE's website. This dude called Diver killed his wife, and got a life sentence, as you do. See here:

http://archives.tcm.ie/irishexaminer/2000/11/18/current/ipage_9.htm

Apparently he 'had nothing left to give her', according to his lawyer, quoted here:

http://archives.tcm.ie/irishexaminer/2000/10/11/current/ipage_16.htm

Son he gave her the chop. As you would further do, without much ado.

Now, due to some investigative bungling by the boys in bull's wool, out he comes again, a free man. Better that a hundred criminals should go free than one innocent man go to jail, say those who advocate a liberal justice system, and Diver is one of the hundred.

Now, here it gets beyond being just funny, and into the realm of the truly bonkers. Diver buys a catapult, and shoots things at his neighbour's shed. The neighbour being an average clever Dublin sort of chappie rigged up a DIY CCTV system and recorded the bould Diver with smoking gun, or the catapult version thereof. Note the complete lack of bulls wool in the evidence-gathering phase of this investigation. No-one dead, only a vexed neighbour. And what does Diver get?

Jail.

He kills his wife and he walks, he fires things at a shed, and he gets jail. Thank God and the depressive democrats for our liberal justice system.

Nuts

My Portugal phone

2006-08-22T23:22:00.000+01:00

I promised some more on the matter of phones and cars.

The ban on using a phone whilst driving hits new depts of insanity. Driving carefully behind a squadcar today, what do I see? Crimestoppers - ring 1800 25 00 25. On a squad car, driving along a busy road. Now, If I was a painter, I'd have a script on my van. Nuts the painter, ring 1800 25 00 25 for a free quotation yadda yadda yadda. In the hope that some sad bugger would ring, based on the display of the info. Now, applying the same logic to the display of telephone numbers on a garda patrol car operated by the traffic corps, what I saw was an invitation to break the law.

Check this link and note the phone number:

http://www.garda.ie/angarda/vehicles/jeep.jpg

I wonder if the drug squad cars drive about with a sign saying Go on, have a rollie?

And, on the roadside, are a whole bunch of signs also asking the honest joes of Ireland to report traffic violations on the wing. This in a country where the universally popular practise of flashing oncoming cars means there's a motorbike cop behind the next furze bush half a mile ahead of you. So what do you do? 'hello Sergeant, I want to report a serious crime. The fella in the car that just passed me was on the phone, so he was, the dangerous hoor. Where am I now? Well, I'm about five mile from where it happened. Well, I'm six mile from it now. Seven, maybe eight. Can you ring me back, Sergeant, my pipe is quenched and I must light it again. Thanks very much.'

What is honest joe supposed to do, even if he does see a mass murder being perpetrated in a Mini on the motorway? Wait until he sees a phone box?

It calls for joined-up thinking, which doesn't permeate decision taking in this green and pleasant land, not yet by a long shot.

Nuts

Duality, double-chilled

2006-08-15T19:24:00.000+01:00

This blog is back on the air again after routine maintenance, particularly a full lubrication service. I don’t think I got particularly drunk, but opinion on that point varies. I was sitting alongside Five-Foor Sailor in the pub and she sang Slievenamon four times. Or so I thought. The morning after, she denied ever singing it at all, or even knowing it. ‘Slievenamon? What the fuck is that? Don’t know it at all. I NEVER sing Slievenamon. You musta bin’ paralytic’’.That kind of an unconvincing line. Sloop John B maintained she sang six full renditions, and a few odd fragments. All I can say is that the pint in the west of Ireland is nearly as good as in my favourite hotel in Glin. Which is extremely good indeed. And the Black Bush is always good intransigent whiskey wherever you get it. Pure spirit of Drumcree.

Anyway, since I went to the new Doolin cave in Clare and saw all those phonographers in action, I’ve been pondering the dearth of truly successful dual-purpose devices that have ever been on the market. By that I mean things like clock-radios, Swiss Army penknives, and so forth. Except there’s no so forth. Once upon a time you could even buy a vacuum cleaner (no free product endorsements here, take note) that doubled up as a paint sprayer, so that you could clean the house and re-spray the car, if you really wanted to impress visiting relatives.

The sheer nonsensical ridiculousness of the camera-phone is matched only by the refrigerators with televisions in their doors. Now I could see some sense in having the television inside, so you could munch on a ham sandwich and slug a bottle of beer while you watched the Israelis shelling South Lebanon on Sky News. But what the fuck would you do with a television on the door? Invite you girlfriend round for a lobster and Chablis supper, and snuggle up watching the telly in front of a nice cold fridge? Not likely. ‘Fuck off’, she’d most likely say. ‘It’s the whole works – briquettes, doo-dah, de-doo music or nothin’.

You don’t believe me? Then Google for ‘fridge television’ and just see what you’ll get on one pull of the net. You’ll see all about this model, for a handy six grand:

And this is what it does, according to its maker:

Watch TV, listen to music or surf the internet using this titanium finish, state-of-the-art fridge freezer. It’s the ultimate in kitchen technology with a built-in MP3 player for downloading and playing music from the internet, e-mail and video mail using a built-in camera and microphone. It even has full internet access so you can re-stock the refrigerator on-line or check on the latest news and weather - all without leaving the kitchen. And it’s great for storing food too. It has a 506 litre capacity fridge and 310 litre capacity freezer, and a fully electronic temperature control system, which cools each compartment evenly. What’s more, it has a chilled water and ice dispenser, it diagnoses minor faults on-screen and has a contents page for entering and monitoring food content and expiry dates.

It diagnoses minor faults.Most merciful Jesus! What about when it develops major faults? Who’s diagnosing those? Some shagger in a dirty Citroen van charging the price of a full criminal defence? ‘I’ll tell you what’s wrong with the fridge. The minor fault diagnoser web interface module is bollixed, and that’s a major fault. The parts alone are fifteen grand.’ One of those lines. But look closer. It has a microphone, speakers and a camera. Remember Bill Shatner in Star Trek? ‘Computer – how many gigalightyears an hour are we doin’ at the moment?’ Well, you could say ‘Fridge, who drank all the fuckin’ Lidl cider in the yellow cans?’ , if you had a GRD267DTU. And the fridge is likely to say coolly, fuck off you sweaty bollix, you did.

If it were up to me, I’d be thinking along the lines of combining a ride-on lawnmower with a DVD player. You could drive hypnotically up and down the lawn, watching your favourite movies. If you had a few Playstation games, you could even try to get a teenager to do it. Go further, and combine a GPS, a SATNAV and a ride-on lawnmower, and you could really relax. You could programme in a waypoint wherever the barbecue is stashed. Now, the clever part would be to interface the ride-on with the talking fridge, so that you could stop off at the fridge for a can of cider after mowing the lawn. As you do.

Now I’m off to search the web for a fridge with a tap of draught cider and a cigar humidor. Could really use one of those.

Nuts

WTF is a Hasselblad Nut?

2006-08-10T20:15:00.000+01:00

Since writing my few scattered thoughts here on Pol an Ionán, the Nut house has been bombarded with queries. What the fuck is a Hasselblad or words to the like effect. Mistake on my part, to assume that everybody has heard of the best Swedish camera in the world.

So, for the avoidance of all doubt, here is what a classic Hasselblad looks like, in case one falls out of the pocket of anyone walking in front of you going down a cave in Clare.

They are extremely good cameras, so good they were the ones chose by NASA for the moon trips way back when I was a younger nut. They were therefore the cameras used to take this picture, one of the most famous images ever made:

However, such is the way of the world that having been in the film camera business for a hundred years (literally) they have recently reduced their film camera production and are now mostly making digital cameras.

Just by way of a point of clarification.

There will be no posts for the next three days because I will be drunk. And that is a perfectly acceptable excuse in any Irish Court: see Bocktherobber’s blog.

Good evening.

Nuts

Pol an Ionán, or Doolin Cave

2006-08-08T21:23:00.000+01:00

There’s a cave in Clare now called Doolin Cave, the entrance to which is and was in a field once owned by Paddy Woods. I say that because the entrance has been moved. The cave used to be known as Paddy Woods’ Hole by an American friend of mine noted for his acidic wit, who enjoyed his private jokes at the expense of those less travelled than he, in this instance those who had not heard of the Woods’ Hole Oceanographic Institution on Cape Cod, Massachusets, generally referred to without offence as Woods Hole.

Not being native of these parts, he was somewhat insensitive to the lesser joke inadvertently played on Paddy Woods, who is in all respects a decent chap who drinks an odd pint and bothers no-one, leaving all his listeners bemused as to why the yank should insult Paddy Woods. Or his hole either. All of which proves that wit doesn’t cross water very well. Pol is the Irish word for cave, also pluais which nobody uses.

The cave was better, more widely and indisputably more accurately known as Pol an Ionán, and so it appears on maps.

Funny word, bemused. Does it have an antithesis? Amused is not the opposite of bemused. Another funny word like that is ‘disgruntled’. Now, if it had an antithesis, it would be gruntled, would it not? And that is easy to define. Imagine a troupe of marauding Vikings, sailing up the Shannon to maraud Ireland yet again. They see a religious institution – they pounce, drive off the cattle, drink all the liquor and so on. As you do. Now, if it turns out to be a monastery, they’re disgruntled. But… if it turns out to be a convent, it follows logically that they’d be gruntled, would they not? Back to the ship, lads. Better luck next time. 'Nother fuckin' monastery. We're all feeling disgruntled. Could be worse. If it was priests or christian brothers, we'd be buggered entirely. There might be another convent around the next bend in the river.

Back to the cave. In this cave hangs an enormous stalagtite. It has been known for many years that it was there, since 1952 in fact, but only a few truly brave and motivated people ever got to see it. Fewer still managed the considerable feat of photographing it. One was a deceased friend of mine, who put his Leica R5 camera in an ammunition box and pulled it behind him with a string, crawling three hundred feet through a tight passage with a stream rushing through it. It matters not whether it was in his face, because he came back out the same way, which was the only way, but it was in his face going in. Imagine crawling into a river, a few hundred feet underground. With a treasured camera, if nothing else. And a flash, and lights, and all the rest. My late friend took dozens of wonderful photographs like this, which appears on the website of a nearby guesthouse.

(Note: I don’t know who took this fine picture, happy to publish and give the considerable credit due etc., please use the comment facility if you know)

Paddy Woods sold the field to people who have now dug through hundreds of feet of limestone and ten solid years of bureaucracy to open the cave to the paying public. They were obliged by the experts to dig a vertical shaft some distance from the stalactite. They dug it with a mini-digger, round and round in circles through solid limestone. They lined it with pre-cast concrete things, like the London Underground. They more or less made a circle of the concrete things in the field, and dug under them until they dropped.Then they placed another circle of concrete things on the first, and dug again until they dropped. And so on. For years, until they got down to the level of a cave passage leading to the stalactite. It cost millions.

Now a digression. Where the fuck would you find an expert on digging tunnels vertically to see the biggest free-hanging stalactite in the Northern Hemisphere when you needed one? Answer: Your local Council Offices. They have experts on everything, waiting to be asked. They advertise and recruit them. Clare County Council – Wanted, Large Free-hanging Stalactite Expert, experience of vertical tunnelling in the Burren with a mini-digger desirable, salary commensurate with experience, Clean license essential, Bit of Gaeilge great too for dealing with cranky fuckers, Dutch or Swedish accent best of all, good prospects of promotion to Senior Executive Free-hanging Stalactite Expert for the truly asinine. Clare County Council is an equal opportunities employer. So if your name is Joyce and the word Bay appears in your address followed by a number, or alternatively care of a post office somewhere, and you are a blind deaf dyslexic black paraplegic with a peanut allergy and are in receipt of a lone parents allowance ( evidence must be produced) come on and join a vibrant team of dynamic dunderheads bent on destroying dolmens and whatever the fuck else. You know the type of thing.
They’re not overworked, so whenever they get a guy willing to spend a few million improving County Clare and educating the masses, they spend ten years fucking him up if they can. When they feel like a break, Dúchas take up the cudgels in their place.

Anyway, I visited the cave last week. There’s nothing in Paddy Woods’s field only a bit of gravel and chippings to make a car park. There’s no gift shop. There’s no coffee shop. There’s no ticket office. Just two Clare fellas, one drives the minibus and the other fella has a flashlamp in his hand and he does the tours. In you go and he locks the gate because there’s nobody to keep out the wanderers, but he shows everybody inside where the key is, in case of crises. Like a fire in a cave. Simple, blunt but brilliant.

Clare fellas are great. There is a flinty honesty in their character. It is so bloody hard to belt a living out of bare rock and nice flowers, they leave screwing Dubs to the Kerry people. It’s just too easy for Clare people so they don’t bother. They’re all called T. J. or P. J. and they all have a few bullocks in a little field somewhere that they go and see every day. They all drink pints in the same pubs. Donoghue’s, the Roadside, the Hydro, d’Imperial, Monk’s, the Castle. Any castle at all will do, because you’re never very far from one in Clare. Next time you’re anywhere north of the Fergus, say ‘Hallo P.J., will you come for another pint in the castle?” to a total stranger and he’ll say “Well I’d love to but I’m only just after one and I have to check my few bullocks I think wan of ‘em has red water lucky if ‘tisn’t two and I have to go to a funeral in Enistymon later on a fella next door to the wife’s brother that’s dead I can’t know what’s this his name is again so I must go home and get washed up and put diesel in the car and there’s two funerals in Enistymon tonight so it’ll be busy maybe the next time?” while he’s figuring out who the fuck you are and where did he meet you.

These two guys running the Doolin Cave are typical Clare fellas.

The commentary is genuine, not scripted. Con, the Clare fella with the flashlamp,knows his stuff. He delivers it with a quiet passion. An ordinary decent Clare guy who bothered to learn it because he wanted to know it. He knows his rocks and he knows his cave. No bullshit names for the calcite formations. No bullshit bogus bear bones. No bullshit shaggy dog stories. No bullshit sound effects. No bullshit period.
His calm care and concern for visitor safety is uncontrived. He’s not thinking about claims. He just wants you to have a good experience.

I’ll say no more. Go and see Doolin Cave, Pol an Ionán, Paddy Woods’s Hole. Changing the name to something more marketable in an English-speaking world is a nothing.

Only one thing. Like the plot of the Titanic (ship sinks) you know you are going to see the great stalactite eventually. So at the appointed time the guide says ‘ye can all take a few photos now if ye like’ and whipped on a light and all the tourists whipped out their flip phones! Fuckin’ hilarious! Supposing he said ‘ye can all make a phone call now if ye like’ would they all whip out Hasselblads?

Go see it before they build a coffee shop and a gift shop selling socks with Guinness logos on them. Go see it before they put in a lift and too much coloured lighting. Go see it before they irreparably fuck it all up like is now happening at the Cliffs of Moher. Go and take a camera and a tripod, and a huge flash, and take a proper picture and say a prayer for my old friend who did it the hard way, because he was a Clare man.

These people are deservedly going to be multi millionaires in a few years, because they have a better mousetrap.

The website:

http://www.doolincave.ie

A few pics:
http://www.johnpotter.org/cave/DIT/images/CAVE.jpg
http://www.johnpotter.org/cave/DIT/images/Pol%20an%20Ionan%20entrance.jpg

Though a man build his house in the forest,
If he maketh a better mousetrap than his companions
The world will beat a path to his door.

Warm blooded mammals

2006-08-08T19:40:00.000+01:00

Late at night, open ocean. Fourteen nautical miles off the Aran Islands. Pitch dark, heavy mist. Salt and damp in the hair. Cold drops falling from the main. Energy low. Creaking from the cleated spinnaker sheets. Middle of a four-hour reaching run, boat speed 9.4 knots. Hull slapping off the waves from the northwest. Rolling, pitching. Fucking yawing makes me sick. Don’t notice the rolling and pitching but the fucking yawing. Lying third, maybe second, maybe last. No sighting of another boat for the past four hours. Fuck ‘em, that they all may be astray out in the Atlantic someplace. Lights off in the distance, ship or fishing boat probably. Small red light to the East, Inisheer maybe. Isn't there a red light out there where the Lybian dynamite ship ran up on the rocks years ago. Don't know. Only ever sailed past the Islands in daytime going in to Galway. Never landed there. Did you? Yea, in a plane years ago. Mad fucker flying it. Don't know that it's deep enough in by the pier. You don't want to be in the lee of an Island with all those bloody rocks and you not having a clue where the fuckers are. You could get a puff out from the Connemara side that would have you in a minute. Was that landing on grass? Yea. Bloody cold. Go below again if I start shivering. Wishing I were at home with smallfella snuggled up to me. Who volunteers for this shit. Waves spitting at us. Shoes wet from hanging out earlier. Must buy the proper wellies next time I'm in Cork. Bits flying off the tops of the waves. Fuck off. What are ye doing out here anyway. Fuck off, pathetic airbreathers. Ye left this place ten million years ago and good riddance.

Six torpedos off the aft quarter. White lines of phosphorescence, about a metre under the waves. Closing. Fast and steady. Bearing 195 and steady.

Weaving. Red Arrows, eat your hearts out. Synchronised swimming in 3D.

Jumping abeam. Glistening bodies. Intelligent eyes. Hearts lifting. Primeval encounter.

Next business. Peel off at thirty degrees and accelerate away on afterburners.

Torpedos away.

Back to not thinking about the yawing.

Friends

2006-07-21T01:06:00.000+01:00

When you like someone.

I read recently that if you can identify a few people you have been friendly with for twenty years or upwards, you are doing something generally right. Most of the stuff anybody has ever read recently is generally bullshit, but this made me think. In particular, about people I have been friendly with for twenty years and upwards. And that is a lot of people, I am happy to say. And there’s a few at forty years and upwards which is gratifying too, and loads just after tacking around the thirty pin. So I take great heart from that.

My friends give me great pleasure. Someone once told me I treat my relations like friends and my friends like relations. Well, you can do sweet fuck-all about your relations, that’s a well known notorious fact. Only keep the fuck out of their way unless it is absolutely unavoidable and then be polite and have the car and children washed to give the bastards nothing to say.

Friends are people whose nicknames are in your mobile phone, so you can tell who is ringing you and say hello in a friendly tone of voice. Friends are people who have a folder all to themselves in your email, so that you get a moment of intense pleasure and anticipation when you see that little (1) after their name when you hit check mail.

Friends are people who look fine in their gardening clothes. Friends are people you get smashed drunk with once or twice a year just to regain your sanity and remind yourself you’re an Irishman and there’s fuck all wrong with busting your stress with a pint glass of good stout and a big fuckin’ Cuban cigar or multiples of the same in the company of like minded spirits.

Friends are people who would visit you in hospital if you were quite seriously fucked up and hooked up to a ventilator on top and a roches stores bag underneath, and keep coming back.

Friends bring back tools they’ve borrowed, as soon as possible. By fuck, relations don’t do that in my lengthy and exasperating experience, whatever is the reason.

Friends are people who you should meet as often as you possibly can and make the time to meet them as a conscious positive act.

I met a friend recently whom I hadn’t seen for twenty-seven years. It was wonderful.

I lost a friend just over two years ago. Still can’t believe he’s gone.

Friends are people you would trust to drive a boat while your kids slept below deck.

Friends are people you could trust to take your kid away shooting.

I’m already thinking of having a 50th birthday party when the time comes. To celebrate life, liquor, laughter and beating the bag. 'Caballeros y Señoritas – box cars, belt buckles and old faded Levis' will probably be the theme. Jeans and old boots will be the dress code because we all have them. Big belts and Wrangler denim shirts with the white pearly snappers because nothing less will hould back the beer bellies when the pressure come on and you’re out dancing to Paddy Quilligan singing Reuben James after seven pints, three small wans, a mighty feed of chicken kiev and a Monte Christo number 3. Paddy ’s band will hopefully belt out good country music for a few hours if the hoors have nothing better to do. We’ll all get drunk and smoke a few big fuckin’ Cuban cigars. Tony Murphy’s bus will bring the legless home. In the morning we should be all fit for the ventilator and the roches bag again if we get it fairly right.
I can actually think of about five hundred people already who will have to be there. Real men and lovely ladies. And a few wonderful kids. All friends, friends, friends of mine, I’m happy to say.

I’m thinking of doing it like the standard terms of reference for a Rathkeale wedding. If you feel welcome, you are.

Nuts

Smoking out the law-breakers

2006-07-21T00:12:00.000+01:00

I believe that the mobile phone is one of the main semi-conductor based high-tech infrastructural assets of the late twentieth century, heavily underpinning the Celtic Tiger. Not to be confused with the Amur Tiger which is a dangerous bastard if you jump two fences, push through a hedge and rub it when you’re half langers on lemonade, by all accounts. No, the Celtic one is a different creature, related to the leopard, friend of the jackal and sire of a thousand Jaguars but good only in spots, like a Curate’s egg. I never saw a Curate make a nest, let alone lay an egg, but I’m still young. I wonder what sort of nest a Parish Priest makes? Answers on a postcard to the usual address. I've seen a Bishop's nest, on the ring of Kerry.

Back to the Celtic tiger and how it came to be. And it’s all down to the poor ould mobile phone, that and the Hyundai van. Your basic Nokia jobbie, with fuckall bells and whistles. All over Ireland, men in Hyundai vans are running little businesses with 'em as they sit in traffic jams. No little girlie in an office upstairs over a bookie’s office someplace, roaring into a radio like Danny de Vito in Taxi ‘long go. You want a plumber, a courier, a fitter or a hair and nail job, all you do is ring 087 whatever the fuck and on they come. Men in vans with no overheads and no underpantses either, most of ‘em, in my experience of builder’s cracks.

And now they’re all lawbreakers. No more phone calls on the road - did you ever hear such bullshit?

I have often travelled behind an oul’ fella, with a hat on in the car. Him not me. A very bad sign, when you see a fella wearing a hat in a car. Now the mild-tempered person might assume that there was a lake in the sunroof, necessitating the wearing of the hat, but the mild tempered person would be dead wrong. The’hat in the car’syndrome is also characterised by the two door mirrors being at an angle of forty-five degrees to the ditch, the interior mirror used to suspend Padre Pio’s passport photograph, taken posthumously on a warmish day, the indicators that all come on together when the brakes are pressed, and FINALLY, and this is the critical factor in differential diagnosis, the smoking of the hooky pipe, in motion.

Anybody who smokes a pipe when they’re driving is certifiable, but thousands do it. In fact some of ‘em are already certified.

To get a pipe going well, you have to first clean it out and give it a good scrape with a penknife. Then you blow through it, and clean out all the old carcinogenic spits saturated in nicotine, turn it upside down, and tap it to get out the dust. Then you go through your pockets for the plug of Condor, and pare that with the penknife, holding the pipe in your mouth.
You roul the parings with the heel of your hand, forming a sausage as you roul. You ease the sausage of nice stringy tobacco parings into the pipe, packing gently as you go. It is fierce important to get them all knitting together nicely – get this wrong and you’re back to the beginning again. Then you put some of the ash you cleaned out in the first place on top of the freshly compacted sausage, to act as a catalyst to aid the combustion process. Then you clamp the pipe hard between your teeth, put away the penknife optimistically, and search for the matchbox.
You keep taking out matches until you get a good one, a bit like being blackballed in a gentleman’s club. When you get a good match, you strike it, and let a good flame build up, holding the match head-down and rotating it slowly so that the leading edge of the fire traverses the unburnt wood laterally at a suitable rate, optimising the spread of flame away from the seat of the fire. A working knowledge of differential calculus would help here. Now you tenderly hold the flame 1.649568326 inches over the pipe, and start sucking and puffing, like a bagpipes player only the thrust is reversed like a jet engine trying to stop a plane and you usually needn’t go from leg to leg and pivot on your long axis which is tricky while you're driving tha car anyway because you're sitting down. You get the point. All going well, you get a few scrawny puffs of grey smoke before the match quenches. Fuck it. You have to put away the matchbox, and search again for the penknife. You use the long sharp thing for taking the stones from the horses’ hooves to rod the pipe and free up an airway. Penknife away. Matches out again. Another search for a good match. You light the match. On the edge your peripheral vision, a small fragment of sulphur peels off, and describes a most interesting and complex multi-curve trajectory before gravity reasserts itself, a bit like a misfire of a Korean nuclear missile. There’s a tiny, barely discernible, odor of singeing cotton and JESUS CHRIST ALMIGHTY it’s very hard to steer a car when a bit of incandescent sulphur lands on the top of your willy. Not to mention the 2 mm hole in the Armani suit. Thankfully, and this is a little-known fact, our ancestors had this problem too, and evolution has built in an instantaneous involuntary response mechanism in the willy whenever fire threatens the DNA. Long before hommers were invented, doctors used to put fire to willys to check for reflexes. Only when transsexuals joined the US army did the willy test become superseded by whacks on the knee with a hommer. You never saw a dead fella jump when fire was put to his willy, but you could whack his knee all day with a hommer and he’d kick back at you.

Meanwhile, the rest of the match is lighting, so a few more puffs, a good spit out the window, roll the window up again and we’re off. Big cloud of blue smoke hovering before your eyes. Big cough, hawk up a good gob of phlegm, roul the windy down again and let it off, out into the slipstream. ‘Take that, ye fuckers of microbes! How does eighty miles a fuckin’ hour feel now, ye bastards? Living inside in my fucken’ chest for weeks, ye perished hoors, until I smoked ye out, heh? Fuckin’ bacteria, ye’re fucked now, heh?

Nice bit of Music on the radio, Ronan Collins or Tom the Turk, and settle down to enjoy the smoke.

And all of this is going on on the motorway. Or the national primary road which is the same thing only with less safety features. And it’s perfectly legal. At one hundred kilometres an hour or the prevailing speed of the squadcar at the head of the line, whichever is quicker.

This morning I was stuck in traffic in AH-dare for over an hour. I needed to be someplace else. I needed to meet some people and be on time. I had a mobile phone, but if I used it, locked between a lorry and a Hiace van, I’d be at peril of compromising my generally satisfactory record of crimilal law contraventions, (detected/as in/ by policemen).

Think about it the next time you see an oul’ lad with a hat on in a car with turned-in mirrors. I’ll have more to say on this I think.

Nuts

The Fool, the Hooch and the Hungry Tiger.

2006-07-18T00:01:00.000+01:00

Long ago in school, I learnt a little verse.

There was a young lady from Niger,
Who smiled as she rode on a tiger.
They returned from the ride
with the lady inside
and the smile on the face of the tiger.

Did you ever here anything so idiotic as the story of the girl who stuck her paw into a tiger's cage in Dublin zoo in the past few days? What a bloody idiot! It beggars belief. Now it seems that she was badly injured, and that's not to be ridiculed. But great God, what sort of free-range idiots are walking around? The morning after, the zoo's director was interviewed on Morning Ireland, RTE Radio 1, 9:45-ish am. Fair play to him, he got the killer punch in before you could say solicitor. He told the nation in a big chunky Dutch accent that the bottle of soft drink from which the girl had been drinking had been analysed, and it contained... alcohol. Bingo! All the sympathy of the nation flew out the window like Billy Connolly's girlfriend.

Now I'm deeply in utter admiration of the lateral thinking that was at work here. After the ambulance departed from the zoo with it's nenagh-nenagh going, after the tiger relaxed and went back to slurping its kit-e-kat, after the security guys put their hands back in their front pockets to check that nothing was missing in the hurly-burly and after all the wind-down, somebody was sharp enough to pick up the lemonade bottle AND SEND IT TO THE LAB!

Brilliant!

Now, why would the lab in Dublin zoo need an expertise in testing lemonade for alcohol I wonder? Not relevant at this time and not germaine to this thesis. But interesting nonetheless. Back to the story.

Anyway, on comes my man the boss of the zoo on Morning Ireland, and he got his chance to fire the crucial shot and scupper the litigation before it even began. He had some other shite about climbing over fences and all that, but you'd expect to climb a fence if you wanted to feed yourself to a tiger in the zoo, wouldn't you?
The interviewer next asked an incomprehensibly, dumb, assinine, dorky question. 'Will the tiger be put down now?'

And it floored the Dutchman. 'Not at all, it is a beautiful animal' was the lame off-the-cuff reply. Now, the merits of putting down an animal are not a function of its subjective beauty, are they? Supposing it was a crocodile, wouldn't the decision be the same?

Let's digress. Why do we have these euphemisms like 'putting down' and putting to sleep'? Why didn't she say 'will the tiger be shot/poisoned/electrocuted/ hanged/beheaded/euthanised/strangled or just plain KILLED? Why don't we say I'm taking the dog to the vet to be killed because he (the dog) is old and sick? It's a faux politeness I don't like, a bit like people who don't say bitch when they mean female dogs, and ladies who knit teacosies for their jacks rolls.

Anyway, back to the tiger. Dutchman fluffed an otherwise perfect media performance, because he was asked a question so dumb and bonkers he hadn't anticipated it. Now go look at the comments on the story on Radio Limerick's website. Thy are all about the tiger, and why it should not be put down, AFTER the bollix said it wouldn't be happening.

To analyse this further, let's consider for a moment why the question was put. If an animal exhibits behaviour that offends us, we deem it should no longer live. For example, if a rottweiler, a greyound or a cocker spaniel in my neighbourhood ate the arm off some child, I would shoot the dog myself if necessary. The reason is that it is morally unaceptable for an animal to ingest the flesh of a human being. Therefore to respect the primacy of the dignity of all our fellow human beings, the animal should not live and derive its being from human flesh, digesting it for it's own needs. It is not acceptable for a creature that shares our living space, such as a dog, to have eaten a person's flesh and bone, but the difference is that it shares our communal living space. I wouldn't enjoy shooting the dog at all if that unlikely scenario happened, but wouldn't hesitate to do it either. Morally the dog should get a large bullet in the brain, not a painful or cruel death, as there is no logic to punishment when the verdict of ultimate sanction is decided. The principle of distributive deterrent effect doesn't apply to dangerous dogs. I would use the skill I have with a suitable gun to do the necessary thing, but it would be a nasty experience.

Now, a tiger in a zoo is not the same thing as a dog in a housing estate. It is a dangerous creature, taken forcibly from the remote part of the planet it evolved in, and caged artificially in Dublin for our momentary gratification. If we as a society think that is acceptable, then the tiger has done no wrong by doing what any tiger in the same situation would have done. It is a carniverous wild animal, which was presented with something that smelt edible. The tiger is segregated from society because of its nature, and this girl positively acted to overcome that physical segregation by climbing fences to get at it. If a member of our society interacted with the tiger in such an utterly imbecilic way, there is no moral case for harming the tiger in any way afterwards. To sanction the tiger would be to wrongly re-apportion the blame and rersponsibility to some extent, away from the idiot of a girl.
But we now live in a society where people want to have every sort of bizarre and extreme experience, and if it goes wrong, they want to blame somebody else. If they take up hang-gliding, they'll sue the hang-glider manufacturer if they crash into a mountain. Same applies to bungee-jumping, white water rafting, and now tiger-rubbing.

It is not nice to speak ill of somebody who is in hospital with a serious injury, but it needs to be said. Girlie, you're a blithering idiot of immeasurable stupidity. Live the rest of your life more wisely. You will have a mark to remind you. Pat no more tigers in life.

But lets end with the beauty issue. The people who say the tiger shouldn't be put down because they think it's BEAUTIFUL, are equally shallow, moronic, utterly scramble-brained dozy dorks as the fool who presumably patted it for the same reason.

Think it all out. Then decide for yourself. Goodnight.

Nuts

Ministher Dempsey again.

2006-07-17T23:46:00.000+01:00

I met Bock recently to arrange to go to devotions. 'Bock', says I, 'I took your advice.' 'Oh great', says he, can I borrow it next weekend because I'm remodelling the kitchen again'. 'Ah fuckit no I said, not about reconditioning the chainsaw with the nitrous oxide turbo kit, about the blog. I have my own one now'. 'Was that you you hoor you?' says he. 'Why didn't you go the whole way'?

Now in my distant and rapidly receding youth, that particular phrase had, certain connotations. People from Tullamore and Crossmolina used to write to Angela MacNamara in the Sunday Press about it. So it was time to tread cautiously on the thin ice on the extreme outer edges of the vast and deep oceans of Bock's wisdom. 'What d'ya mean by the whole way'? says I, with as much extreme nonchlance as I could muster.

Well, says he, why didn't you mention the way Dempsey adds h's to words. He makes wordsh out of them. So you get sentencesh like 'all the membersh of the consthruction indhusthry featheration have sent letthers through their local representhathivesh exshplaining the pershpectivesh they share on sthrathegic issuesh that affect the workersh rights to take indhusthrial action'.

Do you know Bock, says I, you're quite right. That's him.

And all the other decent robbersh lifted their pints in agreement. He's nothin' but a bollocksh, they agreed.

Nuts

Women, God Bless 'em.

2006-07-17T23:20:00.000+01:00

If I ever retire to a small thatched cottage in the Burren, if there's any of it left in a few years' time, I'll spend the first winter's night drinking a bottle or two of good twelve-year old Redbreast whiskey, smoking a historic Romeo y Julietta No 3 cigar, or even a black Bolivar,and sitting before a sleán-cut turf fire. I need to buy a cottage to do all this, because I can no longer do it in Robert Cassidy's wonderful pub in Carron, thanks to the bloody smoking laws, and I could say a lot about that too some other time. Anyway, once I'm well settled, I'll write a book.

Women - The Workshop Manual!!!

How to figure 'em out. How to re-tune 'em when they're spluttering. Let's not talk about how to make 'em go quicker or handle better in case we get misunderstood by those of low motive. How to accept their need for handbags by the dozen, and shoes by the hundred. Why they need five hundred and seventy six little jars of stuff in the bathroom. How they can look at a stuffed wardrobe and howl 'I've nothing to wear' and mean it. Why candles in the bath make 'em dozy. Why a half-bottle of blue Smirnoff makes 'em everything else.

I reckon a book like that would make a million in the first week alone. Just imagine how it would go on Amazon dot com!!

Customers who bought this book also purchased:
'Advanced Rocket Science', auth. Werner von Braun, Pub. the CIA, [1945] Washington
'Brain Surgery made simple (for Engineers)' Einstein, A., [1958] Seattle WA
'DIY heart transplant techniques' Barnard C, 1970, Johannesburg

And more of that ilk.

'Be the first to review this book'! Just imagine! Doug from Douglas would be spouting Corkman's prose. 'Hey boy, I bought this book, right? I thought, well, just another book for the jacks, right? Well, I'll tell you, right? It's bloody marvellous, ok? Ya know what I mean like? I mean like it tells ya about women, like, right? Whoy they buy shoes, what they carry in their handbags, whoy they love getting shaggin' flowers and all that jazz, right?

It would be a best seller no doubt. But. Like Waylon Jennings said to the band on a live album...

Hold it down...

it's got a hell of a rythym....

Yeah...

I'm just tryin' to think of the first line.

Nuts

The Beginning

2006-07-11T19:23:00.000+01:00

Hiberno-english

Greetings all. I just had a most interesting conversation with Bock The Robber and his famous Manchurian Skobe hound, and I was telling him how much I enjoyed his blog. Bock's, that is, not the hounds'. 'Why', says he, 'don't you set up your own fucken blog, it costs fuckall and you can let off steam about anything you like?' Which of course had the subliminal undertone of the unspoken closing phrase 'an' don't be boring the arses off us ordinary decent robbers and letting the suds go hard and yella on the tops of our pints?'

So here it goes. A blog where I can rant about all kinds of shit any time I like.

I'll start with Noel Dempsey the Ministher, who annoys the shit out of me anytime he opens his gob on the telly. You see, there's no h in ministher, neither is there one in considher or even in sthrathegy. But there is one in the, which he makes into de. So every time I hear him offering his version of standard FF clapthrap in response to some hoor with a microphone on television, I puke.

Let me tell you a little-known fact by way of short digression. Whenever a politician or a senior public servant, which is a distinction without a difference really, is up agin' the wall on something, you can gauge the depth of the shit by the length of the plan. So, a mildly challenging problem warrants a three-year plan, an intractable problem gets a five-year plan, but when they haven't a bull's fuckin' notion what the way out of the hole is, you get a full ten-year plan.

Back to Dempsey. I can just hear him now. 'The Department has considhered all de options to deal with de present sthrathegic crisis you have mentioned. As Ministher, I gan give you a cathegoric assurance dat sthructures will be put in place, and thraining will be given, and a full review of the ten-year sthartegic objectives will be made available as soon as de consulthants reporth is dhrafted and considhered by my Dhepartment....'

OH shit. I absolutely hate it. Maybe because he's the dude who gifted the nation a little-known phenomenon called betther local government. Some call it bitther local government, but I prefer buggered local government. And Dempsey done it, as he might say.

More on dhat later somethime.

Nuts