Mine's A Gallon

It’s the eve of St. Patrick’s Day. An analyst on the radio today commented that we, as a people, don’t seem to be able to shake off the boozy image abroad.

Well I’ll tell you why that is shall I? Because we’re not trying to, we’re actively promoting and propagating it.

It’s all we have and we’re hanging on for dear life.

Inappropriate Language

A lengthy and complex form arrived the other day from the HSE. It contained information relating to vaccination programmes for the kids. Bizarrely though there were two versions of the form – one in English which I, like everyone else, read and one in Irish which I, like everyone else, threw in the bin.

It’s interesting to ponder the grim reality of what’s happening here; Special Needs Assistants are being shelved to allow this bullshit to continue.

Does the troika have any jurisdiction over this fuckin’ racket? After all these years a quiet word from our friends could be all that's needed. The potentially delicious irony of it being a German to finally knock it on the head is admittedly a nice bonus.

Comedy gold there baby.

No Joan Unturned

Joan Collins is busy. She was in London the other day to announce that women over fifty should not wear denim. Presumably from there she had to go to New York to similarly decree that the mature woman should not be wearing jeans and then onwards to Los Angeles to proclaim that there are certain youthful clothes which women of a certain age should not contemplate.

I’m not that well versed in the itinerary of your typical denim declaration tour but, based on the U2 model, I am assuming that at that point Joan would have had to resume the European leg taking in, at the very least, Paris and Milan.

Which is all great stuff. But you would have to wonder. About the only gainful thing I've seen Joan Collins do in thirty years is a Snickers TV advertisement. Are Snickers bankrolling the denim tour? Is there an inversely proportionate relationship between denim and Snickers sales and Joan has been tasked with surreptitiously driving down the former in order to boost the latter?

That must be it.

Quid Pro Quo

David Norris used his Senate position to mouth off about the questionable morality depicted in the TV3 programme Tallafornia. I wonder could we get a cast member from Tallafornia to return the favour and go on air to mouth off about the questionable morality of a Senator looting half a million from the State over a sixteen year period on the back of some wafer thin disability yarn.

Cén Fáth? FFS

Last year, amidst all the indecipherable pre election noise about senior bondholders, collateralized debt obligations, bank guarantees, reputational damage etc. there arrived one, solitary soundbite which grabbed the attention and raised the hopes of every right thinking person in the country.

One tiny morsel of sense at the banquet of bullshit. “Irish will no longer be compulsory for the Leaving Cert.” Oh how we rejoiced, the tyranny was finally coming to an end, forty years too late but ending nonetheless. Parents and kids up and down the country samba danced together in the streets – it was a Rio beach party, Mardi Gras and Lollapalooza combined. God almighty we’re free at last.

So now fifteen months later how are the plans progressing? They’re not. WTF. Enda? Ruaidhri? I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt, you’ve been busy, and maybe you just haven’t got to it yet. But you better.

Dilemma

Steady As We Go

I have to admit I shared in the hysteria last week over the numbers who attended the working abroad expo at the RDS. Seemingly 12 000 people showed up over the two days. Joe Duffy, George Hook, Matt Cooper et al were all “astounded” by the numbers. Exactly lads, where the fuck were the other 438 000?

Do The Math

Could our broadcast media maybe get together and organize some grinds for themselves on figuring out the difference between a million and a billion. It shouldn’t really be that hard but evidently it is.

Whose Life

I noticed a competition in the Sunday Independent’s Life magazine last week to win “a once in a lifetime trip to New Zealand.” You don’t know me.

I’m a hedge fund manager, I go on long haul trips at the drop of a hat anytime I like. I could spend the entire summer in Barbados if I fancied it; a holiday in New Zealand means nothing to me.

I left school at fourteen, I’ve barely heard of New Zealand. I have no interest in ever setting foot outside Clondalkin. I’d swap the trip for new kit for our soccer club.

I’ve never had a job, it’s eleven o' clock on a Tuesday morning and I’m on the couch watching Jeremy Kyle in my underpants, drunk. I couldn't be arsed.

Trip of a lifetime? How the fuck would you know?