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.
Monday, July 28, 2008
Monday, July 21, 2008
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!
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!
Sunday, July 13, 2008
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.
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.
Monday, July 7, 2008
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.
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.
Tuesday, July 1, 2008
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.
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.
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