No Tea, no Wine .. no kidding

On the Ryanair flight from Murcia (Espana) to Dublin last night the airhost(esses) were informing the mostly Irish travellers that they had no tea - or white wine. So I opined that it was the first time I had been on a flight leaving Spain with no wine (produces millions of litres of the stuff) and going to Ireland with no tea (highest per capita tea drinkers in the world)

Things I Wont Do

Ever again buy petrol at a Shell Filling Station after their disgraceful treatment of the people of Rossport and their stealing of Ireland's natural resources.
Ever buy a copy of "The Sun", "The Star" or other "west-brit" media including "The Sunday World"and everything else published by sir (sic) Tony O'Reilly.
Ever again purchase a Kit Kat bar because the Nestle multinational company are pushing their manufactured powdered milk in India and developing countries and trying to get mothers to use their products instead of breastfeeding their babies.

* Support the Shell To Sea campaign

* Look up Nestle Boycott

Sheer bloddy arrogance!

I listened to an Taoiseach Mr Ahern on the news defending his massive pay increase - 38,000 Euro to be exact. His tone was one of arrogance tinged with greed. Basically he was sticking his two fingers up at the people of Ireland. Here is the same corrupt "politician" who took massive sums of money from various "friends" in the nineties. Because he was found out he is now effectively giving himself and his cronies millions from the public purse - from our taxes in other words. This kind of daylight robbery happens in other countries of course, mostly in Africa and South America in countries run by juntas and Dictators.
Ahern is now one of the highest paid "politicians" in the world, he is paid more than Bush and Gordon Brown. But sure what is 310,000 Euros?
Meanwhile, the health service is in disarray and people are dying because of the cutbacks imposed by Ahern and Mary Harney - probably the worst Minister of Health in the history of the State.
What a crowd of wasters!

On Raglan Road - by Patrick Kavanagh

On Raglan Road of an Autumn day
I saw her first and knew,
That her dark hair would weave a snare
That I might someday rue.
I saw the danger and I passed
Along the enchanted way.
And I said,'Let grief be a fallen leaf
At the dawning of the day.'

On Grafton Street in November, we
Tripped lightly along the ledge
Of a deep ravine where can be seen
The worth of passion play.
The Queen of Hearts still making tarts
And I not making hay;
Oh, I loved too much and by such and such
Is happiness thrown away.

I gave her gifts of the mind,
I gave her the secret signs,
That's known to the artists who have known
The true gods of sound and stone.
And her words and tint without stint
I gave her poems to say
With her own name there and her own dark hair
Like clouds over fields of May.

On a quiet street where old ghosts meet
I see her walking now,
And away from me so hurriedly
My reason must allow.
That I had loved, not as I should
A creature made of clay
When the angel woos the clay, he'll lose
His wings at the dawn of day."

Noel - a true Republican

Wolfe Tone Grave Memorial, Bodenstown, County Kildare

Why Me?

Why is it that the person in front of me in the Bank queue is the person with loose change that has to be counted, is looking for information on credit cards, hasn't got their account number to hand, wants to set up a direct debit....
I just ran in for 2 minutes, am parked on double yellow lines - and just want to lodge cash in my account. There is only ONE teller working, the other 3 are talking/ shuffling paper/looking blankly at their computer screens/counting money. (Banks hate customers)
And now "person with loose change" is talking about their holiday in Turkey with the teller!
Help!!!

Shooting Fish in a Barrel

It's also called "nothing to do and all day to do it". The M7/Naas Road out of Dublin is a new 3 lane dual-carriageway from Newlands Cross to Naas. It is probably the busiest road in Ireland - and probably the safest! The speed limit on this road is 100 Km per hour. When you reach the Naas byepass and from there on it is a 2 lane dual-carriageway, but the speed limit increases to 120 Km per hour, because it is classed as a Motorway.
The first piece of the M7 to Naas is without a doubt the best and safest part but with the lowest speed limit. Almost EVERY driver goes over the legal limit of 100 Km because it is perfectly safe to do so and there are few accidents on this stretch of road.
Our beloved Garda Traffic Corps have other ideas though and constantly sit along this road with their speed cameras. Why? Because it's easy to catch people here. It has Nothing whatsoever to do with road-safety and everything to do with boosting the figures that Garda bosses can boast about. More importantly it is to do with MONEY. It is in fact a revenue collection exercise on behalf of the Minister of Finance and our corrupt Taoiseach. The Gardai are being used - the same way that the police and army are used by corrupt Dictators in Third World banana-republics.
p.s. *The above mentioned Finance Minister lives in County Offaly and uses this road. Does he stick to the speed-limit in his top of the range Ministerial Garda driven car?
** Look out for the speed camera at Exit 6 on the Naas Road. Not at the official ramp where the Garda car is supposed to park but sneakily just after you pass under the bridge where there is a road exit - where I would have thought it is a dangerous place to park!

Town Planning Gone Mad

I'm all for saving the environment, saving the whale, reducing greenhouse gases, recycling, etc, etc, etc, but forgive me I just can't stand these sandal-wearing, bicycle-riding types who inhabit the town planning department in Dublin City Council.
The latest example of their madness is Capel Street in Dublin city centre. Here, they have taken a nice one-way street that takes you on to the Quays and over the Liffey and completely ruined it for traffic. The new granite pavements I can live with, but do they really have to have all those space wasting islands that serve no purpose?
But, who in the name of God decided to reduce the middle part of the street from 2 lanes to one? The result is a complete bottleneck. At the bottom of Capel Street you have 3 lanes but the traffic turning left onto Ormond Quay is backed all the way up Capel Street to the new one lane, thus preventing someone trying to get over the Liffey from progressing. I used to leave North King Street, cut through the Market onto Capel Street, over the Liffey and into Dame Street. It used to take me 10 minutes to complete this journey in my car. Now with this lunatic redesign of Capel Street it takes me 20minutes plus. So I burn more fuel, create more emissions, greenhouse gases and waste more of the world's depleting oil.
So who is this genius, how much of my taxes does it take to pay him?
Secondly - HOW MUCH DID THIS DISASTER COST???
They have stopped cars from crossing the Liffey at O'Connell Street, the Church Street crossing where the lights stay green for a few seconds is another disaster and the new Joyce bridge simply does not work for traffic!
If there is a North/South divide in Dublin then Dublin City Council are certainly doing their best to maintain it.

Happy(ness)

What is the secret of Happiness? Fitzsimons in Temple Bar,Dublin, fri night. Drink, feck, girls (as in Fr Ted - Fr Jack, etc Watch it Sometime!)
So many Happy People having fun. Why fight, have wars, kill...
Ok, I'm a little drunk... But I promise, 2Moro I'll be Grumpy again.

For a few dollars more

If you are the Government of Ireland Minister for Finance and people are coming up to you and giving you large sums of money do you think that is unusual? Do you ask yourself the question "why... and what do these people want in return?"
We are talking about sums of tens of thousands of Euro (Punts at the time). We are talking about briefcases stuffed with cash.
Funny but when I go to the bank to make a lodgement the teller asks me how much am I lodging, then counts it and gives me a receipt. But if you are the Finance Minister or his Partner you hand over a briefcase full of cash which you haven't even counted?
Come on Mr Ahern, we are not stupid, YOU ARE CORRUPT, you took bribes, you are not fit to be Taoiseach, do the decent thing and GO!

Mise

Bloody Election

I wish to God it was over and done with! What a crowd of wasters! Bertie was up to his neck in it , the dogs in the street know that. So we have a choice between the brown envelope party or the Blueshirts/ Right-wing Labour / not so green Greens (well I listened to T. Sargeant backing Fine G AND ASKING US TO VOTE THEM IN. Green Party my foot!
I hope Sinn Fein and Joe Higgins hold the balance of power and make these chancers answerable to the people.