It’s about time

Head Rambles Posted on by 1

I’m a placid peaceful bloke, in case you hadn’t noticed.

However….

If I were forty or fifty years younger I would be in there chucking petrol bombs or worse.

My contempt for politicians is at an all time low and sinking by the day.

There is a housing crisis here.  House prices and rents are through the roof.  Interest rates are constantly rising and evictions are a daily occurrence.  The gubmint did introduce a moratorium on evictions during the Virus but they were very quick to remove it again so now we have in excess of 10,000 homeless with hundreds living on the streets.  The gubmint does fuck all except mutter about how they built a few houses and give promises of thousands to be built in the future.  Everything is going to be solved in the future.

Banks have announced massive profits running into hundreds of millions.

In spite of the housing crisis they keep welcoming in refugees.  Fair enough but they somehow seem to be sorted while the existing homeless grows.  There is a rapidly growing anti-immigration movement and the gubmint is surprised?

Utility prices have soared this year, in particular electricity.  An expression which is frequently used is the choice of “heat or eat”.  Food banks are doing a roaring trade and charities are swamped.  People literally are going without food in order to keep up with electricity bills.

The ESB [Electricity Supply Board] announces profits running into the hundreds of millions.

The political system here is broken.  There is basically just one party here – Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael.  Both are identical and if it looks like one or the other is going to lose then they just coalesce.  They are obviously pro-big business and the latter seems to get all the tax breaks.

I could go on.

Now they seem surprised that there is a growing anger.  Councillors are being given a €2,500 allowance [tax payers’ money of course] for home security.  There is a growing number of demonstrations.  People are reaching breaking point.

More power to ’em, I say. .

Addendum….

I have just heard on the radio that the protesters [according to a TD] were “Far Right” [of course – blame everything on Far Right because it sounds good]. “Racists”, “Xenophobes”, “Conspiracy Theorists” [?], and “Fascists”.  Obviously no room then for the ordinary people who are just pissed off with the way the country is being run?

 

Creating a stink

Head Rambles Posted on by 8

The floor here looks strange.

If anyone came in they would either think it has snowed in here, or else we had had one hell of a party with coke strewn all over the carpet.  However it is one line of coke I would not like to snort.

I have taken to laying down layers of bicarbonate of soda.  I sprinkle it liberally all over the bedroom and living room carpets and today it’s the turn of the carpet in the South Wing.  It looks a right mess but it does the job magnificently.

One of the small problems with an incontinent dog is that she tends to pee all over the place.  I spend my time mopping up puddles and lakes so I get through vast quantities of kitchen paper.  I had a grocery delivery yesterday and the delivery bloke commented on the number of rolls of kitchen paper I had ordered.  “Incontinent dog” I said and he laughed very sympathetically.

However kitchen paper only goes so far when it comes to lakes on a carpet.  The residue festers away in the carpet and eventually produces an almighty stench.  It is hard to describe but I would imagine it is akin to a body decaying in a septic tank.  The air shimmers with it.  It is fucking rank.

I then discovered the joys of bicarbonate of soda.  It works brilliantly.  I sprinkle it all over the floor, leave it for a few hours and then whack out the Dyson.  I alternate this treatment with carpet shampooing.

An incontinent dog is a lot of hard work.

 

A useful education

Head Rambles Posted on by  

Ireland is taking in Ukrainian refugees.

This is all very well, but there is a housing crisis here with over 10,000 [Irish] families homeless.   But the Ukrainians still pour in with nowhere to put them.

Basically, they are being placed anywhere that has a roof.  Calls have gone out to the public to host families in the spare room.  Hotels, hostels and guest houses are all being used.  They are talking about resorting to tents again.

Naturally the refugees find themselves in strange and in some cases rather remote places.  Quite a few have landed in a Gaeltacht [one of the areas in Ireland where Gaeilge – the Irish language – is predominant].  So kids in school are naturally taught Irish as the main language.

I feel very sorry for those Ukranian kids.  They are flown to the far edge of a continent into a strange country where few speak Ukrainian and in the middle of this strangeness they have to learn a new language.

So the kids happily head off ag caint Gaelge [talking Irish] amongst themselves.

And very few will understand them…..

 

 

By way of an apology

Head Rambles Posted on by 4

Some may have noticed I made a couple of adjustments to my site?

Years ago I had a subscription thingy which worked well.  That was fine until my thingy went tits up and I had to replace it.  I thought it was a simple case of copying in the list of subscribers and that would be that.

Last week I discovered that my new thingy didn’t work by default.  I had to make some substantial changes, some of which still have me a little confused.  However I started seeing reports telling me that a couple of hundred emails had been sent and that a percentage had actually reacted to them.  That percentage is around the six percent number.

This all means presumably that I am pissing off the other ninety four percent who are just cursing me and binning their mails.  Sorry about that [*uncrosses fingers*].

Probably a lot of those old subscribers had forgotten Rambles and have no wish to return [I’m not hurt.  Honest].  Some may have shuffled off their mortal coil.  Some may have abandoned some old mail account.  Some may have grown up and forsaken the Interwebs.  There are many reasons.

If however you are one of the 94%, all you have to do is unsubscribe.  I won’t be hurt.  Really.  I will only set fire to one kitten for each unsubscription.

That will leave enough room for the thousand and more email addresses I have collected over the years in my Thunderbird account.

Won’t all those businesses, relations and old friends be delighted to join a club they didn’t know existed?