Happy holidays

Its Christmas week once more, and may I take this opportunity to wish you all a very
merry holiday season, and I hope you all have a job to return to in January.

Not the most cheery of greetings, but one that will ring a bell with many, and
those many most definitely wont be hearing sleigh bells this year.

But we must make the most of it, and so as you sit on Christmas morning, burning
the packaging from the kids presents as you can’t afford to run the heating, raise a
glass of Aldi’s mulled wine to our intrepid TD’s as they begin their, so they think,
well deserved 40 day break, safe in the knowledge that they have another four years
on the gravy train before we get another chance to be rid of them. Although with our
track record we will simply vote for the same old names and give them another four
years to cock things up further.

And lets not end the cheer there, while you sit down to your Bernhard Mathew’s
turkey breast roast, raise a frozen sprout in prayer that with the coming of 2009
you may find yourself with a decent wage, or at least around €9 an hour and think of
how much work our poor TD’s have to do to earn around €200 - €250 per hour. This of
course takes into account them actually turning up at the Dáil for all of the 96
days it happens be open, and work there for a full eight hour day.

I am of course taking into account all the tax free expenses that our beloved
leaders get to claim on top of their wages, with one of the highest, clocking in at
a massive €89,705 total expenses and allowances is Mr eloquence himself, Jackie
‘nobody can understand a feckin word I say’ Healy-Rae. Perhaps he should consider
putting some of those expenses towards speech therapy, maybe then he would be less
of an embarrassment to the whole country, although a change of hat would probably be
required as well.

Another who has now recently hit the big numbers with €54,705 is Bertie ‘now that
I’m not Taoiseach I have to buy my own brown envelopes’ Ahern, which he has knocked
up in a measly six months.

It doesn’t take me to point out that in the current state the country is in,
figures of this calibre are not just crazy but completely immoral, perhaps it does
need said though that even if the country were not in the present condition figures
like that would continue to be immoral, particularly for the gaggle of incompetents
we laughingly call our elected leaders.

It is of course Christmas and I had said last week I would try to find something
positive to look on, well so far 68 less people have been killed on our roads this
year than last year, though this is probably because nobody can afford to drink and
drive any more.

This little piggy

For once Brian ‘this little piggy went to market’ Cowan moved with alarming speed
during the recent dietary disaster. What we have to ask is was this for the good of
the general public or was it because when he was told there was trouble with the
pigs he thought Mary ‘this little piggy stayed at home’ Coughlan, Mary ‘this little
piggy had roast beef’ Harney, Micheál ‘this little piggy had none’ Martin and John
‘this little piggy went wee wee wee all the way home’ Gormley were in the shit
again. We shall have to wait for the biography to find out.

Whatever the reason he did act fast, but now is being attacked for his unusually
un-sloth like reactions to crisis’. I can’t bring myself to disagree with the
decision, I am for transparency in government, and I am not talking about Mary
Harney’s underwear, but I can’t help but laugh a hearty side splitting laugh at Alan
Reilly’s comment that leaving the meat on the shelves would have resulted in them
being ‘lambasted for being irresponsible, and in all probability we’d be out of a
job.’ Alan, none of them should still have a job, what harm would a few contaminated
sausages have done to the government’s reputation.

Well the hams are back on the shelves and so there is nothing to spoil our
Christmas, except of course spiralling unemployment, growing repossessions, a health
service that won’t be able to cope with the winter rush and of course charity
collectors.

I am not uncharitable, even though Scottish, but I would enjoy being able to walk
more than twenty feet along the street without some fool waving a collection box,
clipboard or scratch card in my face. Even going into my local supermarket I am
forced to pay two euro’s extra for my six pack so that some snotty kid can put it in
a bag for me, and then a further two to the pathetic looking woman collecting at the
door.

I don’t want to sound like scrooge, but let’s face it, not being a TD, I have to
pay my own postage for my Christmas cards, and not being a TD, if I was rich enough
to have a second home in Dublin, I would have to pay for it myself.

The festive season is upon us so I am going to stop complaining now and look on
the bright side. Nope sorry I can’t find one, perhaps next week.

It could be worse

I have decided to take a philosophical view point this week, and why is this, well
I’ll tell you. I have a healthy distrust of opinion polls, they are conducted by
students and people who can’t get a proper job, and the questions are answered by
the sort of person whose opinion is generally not worth the ink it takes to tick the
boxes. I am of course talking of the recent Irish Times poll which states that twice
as many people would prefer Bertie ‘I had a major hand in the shit we are in but got
out before that said same brown stuff hit the whirly thing on the ceiling’ Ahern to
be leading the country than Brian ‘even David Blunkett has nightmares after meeting
me’ Cowan.

And so I will not complain that Mary Harney can’t find a few million to protect
our daughters from cervical cancer. Neither will I consider drawing attention to the
fact that our children are going to school in dilapidated portacabins, into which
will soon be squeezed so many pupils that each teacher will have to be given a daily
snort of speed to be able to call the roll before lunch.

And why should I not mention these facts in a derogatory fashion towards the
imbeciles that are running and have previously run the country, because, and this
may sound harsh, we are the imbeciles that vote them in, continue to vote them in,
and we are the ones with the memories of a dementia patient, and so what is the use.

In the last general election we managed to vote in a government that comprises of
the same old turkeys joined up with a party that was going out of business quicker
than a porn star with premature ejaculation, a political party that would have
afternoon tea with Osama Bin Laden as long as he didn’t turn up in a 4 x 4, and
somebody from Kerry that nobody can understand.

So how on earth could things be worse? How could we possibly be more stupid and
misguided? What could we do to ourselves that is more self destructive? We could be
Janella Spears. No she’s not the long lost, drug addicted, alcoholic, sister of
Brittany returning looking for a stabilising influence, she is the fool of a woman
who has over the past three years sent a total of over $400,000 to Nigerian internet
scammers. And although she is American, she must have an Irish voters streak, she
was warned off by the police, the FBI, and the bank, though we can all understand
why she ignored a bankers advice, she continued to send the money, just incase the
pay off happened to come.

Rejoice all you out there who put pen to paper, or answered answers in a poll, at
least you can say there is at least one person in the world more stupid.

Normal service has returned

First an apology, due to unforseen circumstances, well I'm not
a psychic, the Scotsman has been off line for a few weeks, but
normal service has now returned.

And so what has been happening while I have been away?

America has spoken and voted for it's new president elect,
which is all very cool and groovy, forward thinking and other
such high brow talking and such and so on, and now I am totally
bored listening to the whole thing, give me a shout when Barak
parts the Red Sea and then produces enough buns for Mary
Harney out of a mouldy donut from the local petrol station and I
will take notice again. For now I've heard enough about the
second coming to last me a while.

Brian 'I knocked this up on the back of a fag packet while
down at the local' Lenihan produced the worlds first bouncy ball
budget. It was a budget designed to hit the most
vulnerable in society and protect the civil 'jobs for the boys'
service, and was provided with the full backing of the cabinet
until it had to be reversed and then you had such as John
'honestly I didn't agree with it in the first place but was too
busy talking to a pot plant to say anything about it at the time'
Gormley come out and attempt to avoid the backlash. Though it
was certainly summed up by our esteemed Minister for foreign
affairs when he pointed out that as is usual in Irish politics, it is
perfectly acceptable for the government to make a complete
dog's dinner out of the country as long as in four years time you
grant as many planning decisions and solve as many boundry
disputes as possible, while kissing babies and telling everybody
the next four years are going to be rosy.

The biggest travesty of all which has occured in my absence
however has to be the death of free speech on the BBC. While
Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand's trick phone calls could be
said to be wholly juvenile, and not particularly funny, they
really didn't warrant the furore that was caused.

If it was justified then why has the X Factor not been removed
from our airwaves, and why was Jeremy Beadle never put
against a wall and shot.

At the end of the dat, surely performers such as Ross and
Brand are paid to be juvenile, and if their humour isn't to your
taste then don't listen, or better still, move to Iran, they like
censorship there and I'm sure all the puritanical wingers would
have a great time throwing stones at the disgraced entertainers
or burning their effiges in the streets.

Since normal service has returned to the Scotsman in Ireland
page I think it is very important to make this call for free speech,
otherwise I would have to go offline for life. But wait, don't tell
me this is the Irish cabinet armed with pitch forks advancing
down my driveway, no it's ok it's just a charity collection party
from the Cope Foundation/

Boring, boring, boring

It is quite a surprisingly strange feeling when you realise that you are boring
yourself, it seems at the moment that it is impossible to have a conversation
without talking about the recession, and I am no different and it’s all getting a
bit tedious. At the end of the day it’s there, it’s there to stay for a while and we
can rely on the daring duo of Brian ‘my sister is called daisy’ Cowan and Brian
‘what comes after ten’ Lenihan to continue to cock it up the whole way through, and
the bankers who have helped the crisis along the way will remain in their jobs.
There are so many other interesting things happening that we can talk about without
mentioning the ‘R’ word, so here goes.

Congratulations, or not if you are a regular cannabis user, has to be given to
the Rosslare sniffer dog Dillon who found around €10M euro worth of cannabis after a
Dutch registered truck was highlighted due to risk assessment. This probably wasn’t
to hard as the driver had dreadlocks, a colourful woolly hat and was heard to say
‘hey man this is all really groovy’.

It turns out, after the list was published on the Department of Agriculture’s web
site, that Mr Green himself, Michael O’Leary, received almost €13,000 last year from
Brussels for improving the environment in his farm in Co. Westmeath. Those
improvements have to include such things as planting hedgerows, keeping livestock
away from waterways, reducing the amount of slurry spread and of course redirecting
Ryanair flights from flying overhead, keep up the good work Michael.

O J Simpson has finally been convicted for something, and from the sounds of it
his role as Detective Nordberg in the Naked Gun films was the best bit of type
casting in Hollywood history. With what looks like a minimum of fifteen years in
front of him I’m sure he has to be worried about the amount of tattooed sailors in
Joliet Prison looking forward to the new ‘squeeze’ arriving.

Talking of Hollywood, who must now be getting really strapped for cash since the
MPLC, who collect royalties for the big motion picture companies, have contacted the
pre-schools in order to levy €3 plus vat per child a year for watching DVDs. For
goodness sake Disney, have things become that bad, or are you just trying to find
the wages to pay Tom Cruise to play all seven dwarves in the remake of Snow White.

Few, done it, all these interesting things happening and I never once had to
mention recession, oh damn it!

Return of the mattress

There have been many great comedy duos over the years, Morecambe and Wise, Fry and
Laurie, the two Ronnie’s, Reeves and Mortimer even, but none come close to the comic
talent writing the new hit sitcom, the Irish economy, oh yes, let me introduce you
to Cowan and Lenihan.

It’s a perfect partnership, Cowan writes the scripts, it took a few years to
perfect, and then Lenihan acts them out and between them we have the farce of the
century.

Lenihan of course now is taking over the writing, giving Cowan more time to play
crazy golf and do guppy impressions at the ploughing championships, and we wait with
baited breath for the next instalment of the recession busting budget, though don’t
hold your breath too long, if passed performance is a bench mark, you will be dead
from suffocation long before he learns to count never mind save the day.

Public spending is of course going to be cut, no more medical cards for all the
over seventies, if you have a bit of cash sitting you can just damn well go and buy
your own tablets, after all you probably use more tablets than the average ecstasy
user and you are just costing the HSE far too much money. The HSE can of course
afford to pay out over €700M in extra payments to staff but would leave you lying on
a trolley, paying for your own tablets and weighing your incontinence pads to save a
bit.

Minister ‘I can’t count past ten’ Lenihan also took a bit of a swipe at Joe Duffy
over his programme which questioned the safety of Irish financial institutions. It
seems his critique has called up mass hysteria and panic in the populace not known
since Brian Cowan and Mary Harney chose the same moment to walk over the Ha'penny
Bridge.

Let’s face it there is a credit crunch on, which means that the Irish financial
institutions don’t trust each other, why should we have anymore faith in them than
they have in themselves.

With that in mind there has been a rush on in the sales of mattresses as people
follow Bertie Aherns example and return to keeping their money stuffed inside soft
furnishings and out of the eye of the inland revenue, sorry I mean where it will be
safe from your bank imploding.

It does appear that there is one place where the credit crunch has not hit home,
Debenhams, in a single visit to the department store you are assured to be asked a
dozen times whether you would like to take out a new credit card. The Scotsman’s
credit crunch survival advice would therefore be, head to Debenhams, get a credit
card and buy lots of mattresses, but do it quick before the special mattress levy is
brought into place on the 14th.

A Green And Pleasant Land

It may have been noted from past writing that I am in no way a great fan of the bun
eater extraordinaire that is Mary ‘politically defunct’ Harney, but it is with a
hint of sadness that we note the fall of the Progressive Democrats. Not that I have
any favour with the policies of the now dead PD’s, but neither have I any favour
with the policies of Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael, Labour Party, Socialist Party, Sinn
Féin, or the Green Party.

What is a shame is that a party which was at least begun with a political agenda
is closing up shop, and a party with its grounds in quasi-religious, lentil eating,
whining, Arran jumper wearing, 4 x4 scratching ideals remains in government.

Residents of Tralee will have noted, as the think tank season draws to a close,
the smell of day old tofu has hung heavy in the air, as it always does when John
‘gormless green’ Gormley and his merry band come to town.

So what pearls of wisdom, solutions for the countries crisis, or great political
thinking have come from the mung been infused atmosphere, which is the Green Party
annual strategy meeting?

Surprise surprise, the focus is to be on public transport, the fact that they are
against building any decent roads on which to have this recession beating policy to
run on hasn’t dissuaded them from the same age old bleating.

When Minister Gormley was asked about his stance on the reintroduction of third
level fees he replied, ‘I am not in the habit of giving personal views nor am I in
the habit of answering hypothetical questions.’ So John what is a politician
supposed to do, oh I forgot as a Green you are supposed to wear waxed jackets and
toe the Fianna Fáil line.

It is with a tear of laughter in my eye that I watched footage of the post think
tank walk about. Only the most bereft of a sense of humour could fail to become
mildly incontinent at the sight of the Minister in an overly tight Kerry jersey man
handling a football with all the grace of a man hauling bricks. Obviously his time
with Bertie Ahern has not been a total washout, though he perhaps could have
listened more intently to his betting advice, with the loss of €20 on the All
Ireland Football final he will have to come up with a different excuse should any
brown, of course recycled, envelopes should land on his desk.

It is a worry however with the new found popularity of the Greens since entering
government that their membership has risen from 2100 members to around 2800, this
thankfully though is still slightly less than the average number of crab lice found
in an infestation.

It seems though Mary that all is not lost, John has stated that members of the
PD’s would be very welcome within the ranks of the Greens, though you may want to
think hard about the offer, as it probably comes with the proviso that you convert
to Satanism, sorry, I meant vegetarianism.

Not in my back garden

There are many things that people seem to accept having in their back garden that I
wouldn’t like. Shopping trolleys, for example, or garden gnomes, and even caravans.

Most are fairly easy to get rid off, apart of course in some circumstances, the
caravans.

There are many other things you wouldn’t like, figuratively speaking, in your
back garden.

Nursing homes, particularly if you live down wind, or you don’t like escapees
knocking you on the door, and offering you scones.

Drug dealers, not unless you like watching gang warfare out your bedroom window,
or you’re a member of the Dáil looking for Charlie, and I don’t mean McCreevy.

Churches, unless you have made the decision not to have children.

Haulbowline, unless you are John Gormley, as he thinks it’s safe, you are Willie
O’Dea, who obviously thinks that his ridiculous moustache will work as a filter
against pollution, which being the case it is a shame the filter doesn’t work the
opposite way as an excrement filter, or you have made the decision that you would
like children, but you would prefer them to have two heads.

The Large Hadron Collider, unless you are not one of the complete maniacs who
think they will be sucked into a tiny black hole, though if you are not reading this
now then we have been.

The hottest thing at the moment that some people don’t want in their back garden
is the Corrib Natural Gas Project, the Shell to Sea protesters probably feeling
fairly disappointed that a baby black hole didn’t form and suck the whole thing into
oblivion. It would have of course sucked all the protesters in with it, but with
current events, perhaps they would feel it was an acceptable sacrifice.

I am of course referring to the latest turn of events from the protest with Maura
Harrington’s hunger strike.

Protest is a healthy thing, as history has shown, dreadful things can be done by
individuals, corporations and countries where it has been possible to suppress
protest from people.

There is perhaps a fine line between protest and fanaticism, animal rights
protesters have long since stepped over that line, along with pro-life protesters,
with the announcement of Maura’s protest that line for the Shell to Sea protest is
being pushed to breaking.

Shell probably has a few options coming from Maura’s demands.

They could sit the Solitaire where it is for ‘repairs’ until such time as Maura
is too weak to continue and is forced to eat, or the worst were to happen, which is
quite frankly, a momentous waste of life.

They could send it back quickly, do a couple of weeks work, send it out of Irish
waters for a couple of weeks to allow Maura to get some food inside her, then return
and finish the job.

They could just work away, hope that they finish before major permanent damage is
done to Maura, she comes to her senses or her family or fellow protesters convince
her to stop.

They could also admit defeat and stop the whole thing altogether, which isn’t
very likely.

None of the options are good, but then neither is the push from protest to
fanaticism.

Maura, please, you have made a point, step back from the fanatics road, get out
of the car, have a ‘Big Mac’ and pick up the placard.

Scotland the brave

What is Wimbledon anyway? I never knew, never watched it, except of course for the
women’s finals, and that was only for the bit of nipple action from Venus. But now I
have.

I have also taken some strange interest in cycling. Not actually doing it, but
watching them go round in circles. Which you must agree, is a particularly boring
thing. Not so, there has been Scottish success, and so it becomes interesting.

I have recently found out that there is a US open, I always thought the US was
open 24/7 but no, it’s a tennis competition for goodness sake.

It appears there is a US open in golf as well, so many opens I knew nothing about,
and so many things to find patriotic, let’s face it, darts, snooker and curling
where getting a bit repetitive.

So yes I did watch Wimbledon, to a point, and I will watch the US open final, in
tennis, I’m not so patriotic that I could possibly watch golf, but it’s all a bit
sad.

There is nothing wrong with being patriotic, but it is far too easy for
patriotism to spill over into racism and bigotry. And it seems none so more than
within sport, or more, using sport as an excuse.

For some strange reason, football fans seem to be the worst offenders. We have
knife wielding idiots fighting with each other in the name of football, and some
strange idea that Rangers and Celtic have some religious significance, they don’t,
they’re only football teams.

You also have the myriad of Irish football supporters, who not only think that
football tops are an acceptable piece of clothing, which they aren’t unless you are
playing or watching the game, but also find no duality in supporting English teams,
but would support Robert Mugabe if he was playing England at tidily winks.

I would be the first to gloat to my English friends if Scotland beat England at
any sport, as I would gloat with my Irish friends if the same where to happen. I
wouldn’t if they got beaten by anybody else.

Let’s put the sport back into sport, and remove the bigotry, otherwise the
Football World Cup will stoop so low that it will be as bigoted as the evil that is
the Eurovision Song Contest.

Pity the little children

The little darlings have returned to that boot camp that is customarily known off as
school. Depressed after a summer of rain, floods and crap on you tube.

Pity not those children, more pity the parents who are putting their little
darlings through Ireland's version of free education. Of course they are allowed to
walk through the gate of the school for free, and the teachers themselves don’t tend
to send an invoice home with the children each Friday, not unless they have used any
paper during the week.

Bat O’Keeffe is now in charge of what has to be the Ryan Air of education
systems, you’re never quite sure what it’s going to cost you, and mid term, a
barrier free toll both could be set up outside the pupils toilets, and all you could
do about it is pump diuretics the night before.

You could save a bit of money using passed on books, but no, the consortium that
is the education system and the providers of textbooks like to change a couple of
words each year, new edition, that will be forty Euros please.

You could shop wise when buying the uniform. No sorry, the school dictates where
you can buy that, and normally at over extended rates.

But at least the education is top standard, and our devoted teachers are
providing the best for each and every student that passes their desk. That being the
case, why are grind teachers and grind colleges making so much money.

So Bat, yes, if you must, reintroduce third level fees for the students that can
afford it, no fees hasn’t made the take up of third level education any greater
amongst the socially disadvantaged, and plough the money into the basic education
system, perhaps those that can’t afford national school, never mind third level,
might get a fair crack at the whip.

But I have digressed from the poor children I was thinking off. Pity the poor
children born of the frog king himself, Paul McCartney, for in a household that has
no problem meeting the cost of a decent education, they are blighted by that most
foul disease of the vegan who thinks it’s a good idea to force their children down
that road.

It is at least a bonus that your father will have enough money to have state of
the art dentures made for you, and employ bone specialists to straighten your
withered limbs from the debilitating conditions you are destined to contract from
his decisions.

Yes, pity the little children, the little children who will transfer to become
little adults because their parents think perceived cruelty to animals is worse than
cruelty to children.

Guilty or just bloody stupid

No for a change it’s not Bertie Ahern we are wondering about, with his bumbling at
the Mahon tribunal. Nor are we asking if Brian Cowan has mismanaged the country or
both he and Brian Lenihan’s bungling of the economy. And for once we are not even
asking if Mary Harney has totally cocked up the HSE or is she just incapable.

All of the above are of course completely embarrassing for the country, but the
latest embarrassment of the highest order is Denis Lynch and the Olympic sport of
being a prat.

So guilty or just stupid, does it really matter, the embarrassment is the same
whether cheat or idiot. Either Ireland’s athletes are drawn into disrepute for using
dodgy tricks or they are looked on as being so thick that the words, ‘banned
substance’, don’t have any meaning.

It seems though that using the stupidity defence is the way to go, along with
Denis, Maria McMahon and Andrew Bree should perhaps learn to read the labels.

Perhaps it’s best to call the whole thing off and have our athletes compete in an
appropriate competition, and so I am proud to announce the upcoming inaugural
Scotsman in Ireland Bar Room Olympics.

All will be glad to know that in the Bar Room Olympics the use of performance
enhancement substances is not only allowed, it is actively encouraged. Of course
with the level of alcohol found in Michelle De Bruin’s urine sample she would have
to remain banned.

So in a short four years time the sacred candle in a Chianti bottle will be lit and the first
games shall begin.

There shall be many events within the games, of course darts and pool tournaments
a plenty along with the less well known games of, the ten yard three pint shuffle,
and the bar mat flipping.

The second hour will see the downing the shot and synchronised tequila slamming.
A short fag break will follow to allow the athletes to prepare for the second half.

The second half could start to get messy, which is why the famous ten minute talk
drivel has been left till then. Kicking off shortly after is two rounds of bad
language and shoulder shuffling.

Heading towards the closing ceremony we enter the wet area with the five yard
hurl followed swiftly by the candle being blown out and the final event of the
night, the flinging out of the door.

All the athletes will then be expected to hang about outside the door, smoking
fags, shouting at strangers and telling all the other athletes they love them.

I look forward to your applications, and all being well, perhaps Bertie will be
on the pundit panel.

Have they looked out of the window

There never seems to be any end to the government’s wasting of money. There are
cutbacks a plenty in all areas of public spending, but still the public purse seems
to be freely open for the mad, bad and ridiculous.

Dublin city council have recently released records which admits that it spent
nearly €450k on foreign junkets for councillors, that would pay for a lot of
trolleys, sorry beds I should say, for the HSE. If they need to have a ‘knowledge
exchange’ with somebody in Beijing, surely they have heard of that new invention,
the telephone, or perhaps there has been a cap put on the phone bills.

We have paid in the region of €3 million to store voting machines that are
useless and will never be used, even the other €1.8 million that has been paid to
yet another commission, to produce two reports on e-voting, hasn’t made them
useable. That would amount to eight years of trips for Dublin City Council to Las
Vegas, and still leave enough for the cabinet to have a tea party.

The government is even paying private companies silly money to store paper
records for them, and pay each time they want to access them. Surely a few good
computers could do the job as easy. Aideen Ireland, of the National Archives
questioned the viability of digital storage with this statement, ‘Storing data on
electronic disk is truly one of the most impermanent modes of retention. The digital
world moves so quickly, and systems need to be constantly updated. We would need to
ensure the records would still be accessible in 50 years’ time. Good quality paper
lasts a lot longer in the right conditions.’ That is basically a long winded way of
saying we can’t trust the staff not to leave their laptops at bus stops.

The most ridiculous waste of public funds at present has to be the recent radio
advertisements for Dublin water. It does state that it is the most extravagant
advert ever made, and that it is. How stupid do we have to be, to think at this
point, that we would in any way need waste Dublin’s water by watering our lawns.

Look out of the window guys, at present I have a cow swimming past.

How to help the environment

The scourge of ‘Global Warming’ and ‘Climate Change’ is upon us, and the social
worker fingerings and capital letters only go to show how serious a subject this is.

So what can we do to reverse this worrying trend? Let’s have the Green Party in
Government, and please let’s not be cynical and think that the Greens are only in
government because the PD’s cocked up the election.

It should be noted that although the Green Party come out with some, dare I say
ridiculous, ideas, they are thankfully yet to follow in the policies of one famous
Green politician, Radovan Karadzic, and consider genocide as a legitimate way of
reducing a countries carbon footprint.

John Gormley’s Department of the Environment has declared war on littering in
Dublin, with a scheme, funded with €200,000, of billboards on the streets with anti
litter warnings. Not only has this scheme caused problems with the roll out of the
‘free bike scheme’, but it has been slated as ‘a blot on the landscape’ and ‘the
biggest litter blight we have had on the city’s streets in a long time’ by Ciaran
Cuffe of, you guessed it, the Green Party. John you really should keep an eye on
what those Greens are up too.

If you are serious about helping the environment though, I can see no better way
than dealing with that most devastating blight on the landscape, the ‘animal rights
activist’.

If the wellington wearing activists went to work, say picking up litter, or
better still, give them a shovel, a wheel barrow and a ticket to Haulbowline, they
could do more good for the environment.

Unfortunately they don’t see it that way and seem to think that protesting
outside restaurants that sell meat, and harassing children on their way to the
circus is doing their bit.

They of course won’t be happy until we all follow in their footsteps, wear
wellingtons, wax jackets and eat sprouts. This last part of course would be the most
dangerous part for our future survival into the future, a world populated by the
bean and sprout eating fraternity would surely produce so much methane after every
meal that the ice caps wouldn’t just retreat, it would be a full scale rout.

With the danger from the vegetable eating ones on the rise I have decided to
produce the Scotsman in Ireland recipe page, I hope the recipes which shall feature
there will help keep the population on a meat eating diet.

I’m doing my bit, I’m of to the shops in my 4 x 4, to buy a steak.

Alibi of the year award

Following on from last weeks bravery award, I am proud to announce the winner of the
Scotsman in Ireland Alibi of the Year Award, but first lets look at some that didn’t
quite make it.

Special commendation must be given to Bertie Ahern’s, ‘I didn’t receive a shit
load of money from anybody, I won it on the horses.’

Of course Brian Lenihan’s excuse for the economy being in the brown stuff, goes
along the lines of, it wasn’t me, it was some other incompetent before me. Perhaps
he should remember that the incompetent before him is now Taoiseach, bodes well for
the future, don’t you think?

I can only imagine, with the health service not actually being in the brown
stuff, but being saturated with it, that Mary Harney must be saying that it wasn’t
my fault, I didn’t notice anything, I was eating a bun at the time.

There can be no legitimate alibi given by Tesco’s or Dunne’s to explain why it
has taken till shoppers have started to move allegiance to the cut price retailers,
for them to start cutting prices in their stores, other than, ‘we were ripping the
piss, but now we’ve been caught!’

Radovan Karadzic, is sure to use the alibi that he couldn’t have committed
genocide as he was on tour with the Dubliners at the time, and definitely will be in
the running for next years award. He has though picked up third prize in the Santa
lookalike competition, he may have got first if he hadn’t insisted that a
Kalashnikov is a legitimate present.

A little known one, and of course a complete lie, is the excuse letter written to
Winston Churchill, by one Adolph Hitler, stating that it couldn’t have been him that
invaded France as he was too busy invading several other countries at the time.

But let us move on to the winner of this prestigious award. It must of course go
to Barry George with, 'I didn't kill Dando - I was stalking another woman'

Thankfully, it has come out due to an extreme miscarriage of justice being
overturned, though lets be honest it cannot be attributed the same status as the
Birmingham Six, the Maguire Seven, or the Guildford Four, but a miscarriage it most
definitely was, and a worthy winner of the award.

With all this in mind, and in the spirit of the public good, I have put together
a few unused alibis which you are free to use as the circumstance arises.

‘No dear, I didn’t sleep with that woman, I was with a prostitute.’ and ‘Of
course he’s your child, he just has a good tan.’

A shining example of bravery

There are countless examples of bravery, but there is probably a thin line between
bravery and insanity.

Eating Scottish food is most definitely on the insane side of the line. Even if
you ignore, which is very hard to do, the now famous ‘deep fried mars bar’, and
other various confectionary coated in batter, you really would have to enjoy wearing
a special white jacket, or have a death wish to partake too often.

Apart from deep frying, which accounts even for pizza, there is always the pie.
This really involves hiding the things that fell apart when you deep fried them in
gravy and topping with pastry so that the environmental health inspectors can’t spot
it.

There are, of course, the vegetables, these are usually prepared, if at all, in
the ancient tradition, passed from Scottish mother to Scottish mother, down the
centuries, and known as ‘boil the crap out of them’.

Brave or insane, the eating of Scottish cuisine may be, within those bounds you
will not find the bravest person of the week. No, that honour must go to President
Sarkozy’s visit to Ireland.

Not that he would have anything to fear from Irish protestors, a couple of eggs
and a bit of heckling doesn’t really constitute a major security risk.

He had little to fear in meeting with the ‘no’ contingent, they had about enough
time to throw a couple of glaring glances in his direction, and not much more.

No he should, and must, be awarded the international medal of bravery for kissing
Brian Cowen. This is of course swaying towards the insanity side of bravery, but we
should give him the benefit of the doubt.

It is of course brave in many different levels, it is difficult to imagine the
view you would have as your face approaches that point of no return. I feel even the
closing of the eyes routine may not be sufficient.

The thing however, which marks this out as the bravest act of the week, must
surely be when he must return to the, well known, bosom of the fair Carla. How can
he continue to maintain a, let’s face it very public, loving relationship when at
each embrace all he will be able to picture is Brian puckering up.

And so, Nikolas, we salute you, if all men were as brave and selfless, the world
would be a better place.

Giving up the fags

As anybody who knows me will tell you the title is a complete lie. It has been said
that the only way to get a nicotine patch to work on me would be to stick it over my
mouth.

This of course means that when my euro millions ticket comes up and I decide to
donate a large sum to charity, I will have to ignore the lung cancer charities, they
surely couldn’t possibly accept a donation from a smoker. Sounds like nonsense to
me. However three breast cancer charities in a row have turned down what would be a
minimum five thousand Euros because the charitable donator is a topless model.

Admittedly I don’t have breasts, so perhaps I am missing the point, are people
that easy to offend? Does this mean that the Irish Heart Foundation should turn down
any HSE funding just because Mary Harney is health minister?

Aware, of course, would have to turn down any donation from Nicolas Sarkozy, he
has most definitely lost the plot. A second referendum on the Lisbon treaty would be
like colonic irrigation, pump us full of crap and get the same shit back.

The different factions in the Lisbon treaty campaign have been given an audience
with the great Sarkozy, and in a move of generosity each have been given three
minutes to talk to him. Three minutes, politicians couldn’t tell you what they had
for breakfast in three minutes, let alone explain their stance on a document which
is more complicated than the Da Vinci code.

I have tried it, not the Da Vinci code, speaking for three minutes. You can just
about say Lisbon referendum and that’s about it. If you include the now famous
politician stutter I’m not sure if half of them will even get that out.

That aside what Sarkozy and his EU buddies seem to have forgotten, is that
democratically the treaty is dead, it is an ex treaty, it’s lying at the bottom of
its cage not moving. It is not just resting, this isn’t a Monty Python sketch,
farce, yes, comedy, no.

That of course leads nicely to ‘The Life of Brian’, but all that has done is to
give me an awful mental picture of Brian Cowan, throwing open the curtains stark
naked, to find his garden full of campaigners, with Sarkozy in the background
shouting, ‘he’s not the Taoiseach, he’s a very naughty boy!’

That is such a horrible mental picture that there is only one thing I can do,
have a fag, maybe tomorrow!

A lesson in belt tightening

So we are heading for a recession, oh no we’re not, oh yes we are, oh no we’re not,
oh for god’s sake can you make up your mind.

Nobody, it seems, can make up their mind. The government has stepped in with
their belt tightening measures, that basically means that we all put up with cuts
and they defer their pay rise, as if they needed one, for a bit.

You could wonder if they are really taking it seriously though, on the eve of
cuts, Micheál Martin announced the posting of a tender for consultants to research
what went wrong in the Lisbon vote. Are they insane? So our hard earned taxes are to
go to high paid consultants, to tell the government where they went wrong?

In the absence of any leadership from the government, there are a few things that
we can do to ease our way through.

Firstly, the next time you are heading to the shops, set your Sat Nav for your
nearest Aldi. Admittedly their car parks are a bit tight for your average 4 x 4, but
with a bit of manoeuvring, you’ll get it in there, though if there is a nearby
Dunnes you could always park there and walk across the road, saves a lot of bother
and embarrassment.

A word of warning, when you take your trolley, laden with cut price Foie Gras, to
the checkout you may have to queue with some foreign nationals. This can be a
problem when you find your cleaner ahead of you and your gardener behind. Explaining
that the trolley of truffles and Champaign are for your charity work with the Simon
Project, should neatly extradite you from a potentially life changing disaster.

Do bring bags with you, not for any environmental reason, but you need to protect
yourself from the walk of shame back across to the Dunnes car park, carrying all too
conspicuously emblazoned baggage.

By doing your shopping there you can also make a start with the second cost
saving measure. Charity collectors never stand outside and Aldi.

Of course there will be times when not everything you need can be bought there;
you may have to brave the gauntlet that is the city centre. With a little practice
and planning it is possible to survive with your wallet intact.

The Scotsman in Ireland’s four step programme to chugger avoidance is as follows:

1. Awareness. If you know where the enemy is, by varying your walking pace as
appropriate, you can pass by while they are harassing someone else.

2. Props. By plugging your head into a music player you can pass safely all but the
most vicious of chuggers.

3. Planning. By knowing which chuggers are out there, you can recycle all of last
year’s badges, stickers, etc. This will save you from most, though different
chuggers taking up flanking positions can cause problems.

4. Subterfuge. Join the Guide Dogs for the Blind puppy walkers, they never get hit.

With these small changes in your life, it may be possible to weather the storm of
recession, and perhaps even our poor under paid politicians may not have to give up
that second holiday.

The worst things to hear

As the title suggests I am a Scotsman, and more exactly from Glasgow, and so there
are many things I hate to hear.

Some of the worst of course are, ‘is it your round?’, ‘I’m sure I paid for dinner
last!’, and ‘I know what I want for my birthday!’ These sounds are sure to bring a
shiver to a national stereotype’s soul.

Coming in close from there, especially with being a Glaswegian, is the beep as
you go through airport security. It is at that point that you franticly pat your
pockets, thinking ‘I’m sure I left the flick knife at home.’

If you have ever been in company, and unfortunately I have, and the conversation
migrates to potatoes. You know you are going to have to listen to floury versus
waxy, roosters, pinks, new, and old. All you are thinking is who cares; they are all
the same when cut in strips and deep fried.

There is of course nothing that can be eaten, that isn’t improved by use of the
deep fryer. Scottish cuisine was never designed for nutritional value, more as a way
to prove how tough you are.

You would never want to hear the words, ‘Boyzone are reforming!’, and I still
pray that one day I will wake up in bed, look across at Louis Walsh walking out of
the shower, telling me it was all a bad dream.

Coming in a close second has to be the third person in an evening who tries badly
to do a Scottish accent; which has you franticly patting your pockets, thinking ‘Now
I hope I didn’t leave that flick knife at home!’ The fourth person of the evening
isn’t a problem; at that point you will have returned home and brought back the
knife.

The worst thing to hear however, and unfortunately it happens all too often, is a
question, I shall explain with a conversation.

Me, ‘Hi how’s it going?’

Other, ‘Oh, your from Scotland, what part?’

Me, ‘Glasgow.’

Other, ‘Ah, are you Celtic or Rangers?’

I am afraid that this goes far beyond a flick knife moment, this becomes a spoon
moment, anybody who has ever been attacked with a spoon will understand.

The gratuitous, but necessary, spoon moments could easily be avoided, if people
could be simply up front, and ask what religion I am.

And so let’s get it out of the way, I’m an atheist, and I hate football.

Things you wouldn’t do

There are many things in life that you just wouldn’t do, but then there are as many
people in the world as things you wouldn’t do, and so statistically there isn’t
really anything that nobody would do. In fact by definition, if there is something
you wouldn’t do, it is something that can be done, so you can be damn sure that
somebody has done it.

Now you can take it to extremes, and say that I wouldn’t want to be eaten, that
is unless you are Bernd Brandes. You will remember he was the German engineer who
replied to an internet advert to be eaten, funnily enough he ended up being eaten,
kismet.

You can go political, and say I wouldn’t make Brian Lenihan minister for finance,
well somebody did, much it would seem to the annoyance of even Brian himself, who
said he had the ‘‘misfortune’’ to become finance minister. Enough said perhaps?

You could go environmental, and say I wouldn’t leave that there, two words,
Haulbowline Island, and perhaps a few more words, Environment Minister John Gormley.
With that in mind another wouldn’t springs to mind, I wouldn’t live within a mile of
Haulbowline.

You could go culinary, and say I wouldn’t eat that. If you eat sausages at all,
there is a good chance that you have eaten that, and that, and more besides.

There are countless examples, but there is a specific one that brought the
subject to mind. I wouldn’t let a friend cut my hair, even more so when it is early
morning, after returning from a night out in the city.

It is of course understandable if you are a teenager, not so two, supposedly,
grown up forty something’s. To fully understand how my partner and her friend
managed to decide to go through with this course of action, I have included a
transcript of the conversation.

Partner, “I hate my hair I’ll have to get it cut, oh yes I will have another
beer.”

Friend, “I can cut hair, I’ll do it for you, oh here’s your beer, I may as well
have another myself.”

Partner, “OK then.”

Friend, “I’ll go and get the scissors, I may as well bring another few beers
while I’m standing.”

And the rest is, as you say, history, as is any shape, style, symmetry, and a
whole list of other ‘s’ words.

One last wouldn’t, I wouldn’t go out without a headscarf for a while.