Sticky little explanatory post

Head Rambles Posted on by

Here is a small sticky post for new visitors, or visitors who haven’t visited in a while. You might notice that the writing style here has changed and that deserves explanation.

This site is now a legacy site left by the legendary Grandad who died on the 7th May 2025. His spirit lingers, and you might catch a faint waft of pipe smoke every now and then for no reason, but this is the new normal. I wouldn’t even be at all surprised if he leaves an occasional comment in some form or another.

Rather than let Headrambles stagnate, it’s now being occupied by his daughter. My name is Kate, and I’m pleased you’re here whether you’re a long time lingerer or a first time reader.

Go raibh an ghaoth go brách ag do chúl.

 

A rehab story

Head Rambles Posted on by 4

Everything in the smoking room was brown. Everything from the walls, to the sticky floor,  to the public health information poster on the wall (which was pretty much illegible from all the brown), to the glass of the barred window which never opened.

We shared that room in various stages of our alcohol withdrawal, some of us grounded and locked down for the first week of our incarceration in case we take notions to wander out in the grounds and have ourselves a seizure, or make a run for it and aim for the nearest pub.

There was one week however, when everybody was locked down. It was during the autumn season of ’17 and a massive and violent storm had erupted with power-cuts threatened so they wouldn’t let us outside to smoke or wander in fresh air to break the monotony of sobriety. We were all stuck inside together, jonesing and shaking, probably smoking a lot more than we normally would do.

I’d rolled up a few cigarettes and was perched on the bench in that smoking room, not wanting to spark up yet another one, but not wanting to leave the company of my ragged friends. We took bets as to what the colour of the walls behind the public health poster would be, played word games, made up dirty limericks… then I spotted the air vent.

The screws were loose on the vent when I poked at them, so I pulled them out and lifted the sticky brown grille off. Behind it, inside the vent tunnel, was years and years worth of sticky brown fluff and gunge. I felt around in there gingerly, and… YES!!

There was a baggie.

Inside the little brown baggie were little brown pills.

Everybody in the room grew quite excited, and I’m sure were all thinking the same thing.

The most hardened alcoholic among us took the baggie out of my hand, opened it and pulled out the pills to see if he could identify them.

“Do you dare me?!” he asked, with a big grin on his face.

“Um, NO!” we all replied in unison, but secretly all probably hoped he wouldn’t listen.

He did not listen. He left three pills in the baggie which he stashed in his pocket, and swallowed the remaining two. ‘They taste like a hobo’s arse’ he told us, before wandering off back to his room to enjoy the buzz, or whatever there was to come for the mad bastard.

He didn’t die. He went very quiet for a while, then followed this up with a brief phase of intense paranoia, then about a week later he disappeared never to be seen again. Nobody knew if he checked himself out, or finished his rehab term, or wandered off into a forest to have himself a seizure.

This was a pity, if he’d stuck around longer, he’d have found the little bag of cocaine hidden inside the guitar in the entertainment room.

 

Hot Politics

Head Rambles Posted on by

Is it just an Irish thing to feel a little bit resentful when someone tells you they’re going, or have just been on holidays? I don’t get to go away very often but when I do it’s entirely deserved but there’s this feeling of guilt and shame about it if I wind up telling someone about it.

I feel this especially with elderly people who are stuck in their homes, between the same four walls day in day out with no way of escape without the assistance of a kind family member or a local club of some sort. They don’t complain about it much, so I’m not about to rub my freedom into their faces.

I got lucky though, I really did. My cousin works as a professional warrior for human rights and gets to travel the world organising protests and attending seminars, she frequently asks me to join her. I usually tell her that I can’t due to work and family responsibilities but this time she was quite insistent, and booked the flights before telling me I was going.

So, at the weekend I found myself in Seville. Summer in Spain is no joke, especially in Seville which got nicknamed ‘The Frying Pan of Europe’. No kidding. At its peak, while I was wandering around the districts I saw a billboard outside a pharmacy declare the temperature to be 45 degrees Celsius. I drank three or four litres of water a day but only pee’d once. Sitting down in the shade became problematic because lone tourists attract beggars and chancers, so I had to keep moving. I covered about 10km a day exploring the place in all its historic glory.

K8 in front of an impressively architected building

The first day, I had local beggars chasing me down for business but by day three I was brown enough that Spanish women would mumble complaints about the price of the fruit beside me in supermarkets thinking I was one of them. At least I think that’s what they were saying. They could have been KGB for all I know. I was just happy to blend in.

On the final evening, it was declared that I would join a protest with my cousin and some other equally powerfully spirited people. Entry into the world that evening was like opening an oven door, the sweat began to bead on my forehead instantly, and after fifteen minutes my heart began to race making my brain giddy. A permanent river ran down my back as I held the banner, but the energy of the crowd drowned out any discomfort and a woman with a knapsack tank sprayed us all down periodically.

It was fantastic. Such passion and gusto for the protest was highly infectious and before long I heard myself shouting along..

“END FLOWERY FAXES!”

… for I am not very good with politics and wasn’t entirely sure what I was angry about.

I used to think that protesting was quite pointless. Fat cats aren’t going to pay attention to them, it’s just a whole lot of noise to create awareness I thought. Now I realise that even if they aren’t effective at face value, they’re effective at holding a line and preventing things from going backwards. I sensed a fragility at the truth, a fighting fatigue. Some of these people had been fighting for decades not really getting anywhere. I learned very quickly to shut my mouth and listen to what they had to say but all I really learned was that the spirit of the people at events like these are shatterproof, and my respect goes out to them for what that’s worth.

I’m not a protester by nature but I can see now that it’s not futility I sensed before, but shame. Self resentment for not fighting for important things maybe. Bad things will always happen around me and I can’t change them, but if enough of me shouts about it, maybe there’ll be a tipping point.

I’m curious to hear if anyone out there reading is a protester, how did you first begin, and do you get the fatigue? What keeps you shouting about the flowery faxes?

 

The King’s Castration – Part 3 of 3

Head Rambles Posted on by

This post is brought to you from beyond the grave – a story hidden deep within the document folder of Grandad himself which he seems to have written under the influence of something wonderful.

I am delivering it in three parts, so that you may sip at it like a well aged scotch over the weekend.

Part Three:

Later in the evening the King entered the Royal Boudoir and beheld the Queen lying on the bed, clad only in Nature’s attire. “Roll over, Queen!” ordered the King. “I’ll be fucked if I will!” shouted the Queen. “You will at that,” observed the King, “but you’ll be corn-holed if you won’t!” Hearing this, the Queen shat a gold brick, for in those days a square ass-hole was a symbol of royalty.

When the King saw this, he cried, “Balls!”; not because he had to, but because he had two. And the Queen replied, “Balls!? If I had two, I could be King!”

Whereupon the King, having partaken of over-ripe olives, hied himself to the innermost part of his kingdom and proceeded to shit buttermilk for three days, and thereafter was forever known as King Dairy-Ass, throughout the world.

Blaming Daniel for his digestive discomfort the King sentenced Daniel to wander in the wilderness for forty days and forty nights, for in those days the King’s word was law and the King ruled with an iron hand.

And so it came to pass that Daniel wandered in the wilderness for many a long day and many a long night. But in the evening of his thirteenth day in the wilderness, Daniel was set upon by bandits! Not, as you might at first surmise, ordinary bandits, but Mexican bandits. Nor, as you might at second surmise, ordinary Mexican bandits, but Mexican bum-bandits, who debagged him, scragged him, and shagged him, and left him with his pockets jingling, and his ass-hole tingling.

Months went by before the Queen came unto Daniel. “Oh Daniel, I am heavy with child. What steps are to be taken?” “fuckin’ big ones!” replied Daniel as he vanished over the Southern horizon.

 

FIN

 

The King’s Castration – Part 2 of 3

Head Rambles Posted on by

This post is brought to you from beyond the grave – a story hidden deep within the document folder of Grandad himself which he seems to have written under the influence of something wonderful.

I am delivering it in three parts, so that you may sip at it like a well aged scotch over the weekend.

Part Two:

Again on the third day, the King came unto Daniel, but it had come to pass that on the morning of the third day, Daniel had shat a great shit, and the lions were sore affronted. Almost all of them had thenceforth kept their distance from Daniel. But one of the lions took a liking to Daniel’s left nut, and began to munch upon it. “Oh, it tickles, it tickles!” cried Daniel. “What tickles?” asked the King. “TES-TICKLES!” roared Daniel, thereby scoring another point for the common people. Upon hearing this, all the ladies in the courtyard took out their tits and tittered.

Then the lion crouched as if to spring, but instead laid a big turd. This amused the King, and he ordered Daniel to come forth, but Daniel slipped on the lion’s turd and came fifth, thus utterly losing the race. This angered Daniel so greatly that he picked up the lion turd and, with menacing accuracy, hurled it at random. Random, being a crafty little bugger, ducked, and the turd hit the King full in the eye.

Now, this made the King exceedingly angry, whereupon he inquired, “Where’s the Queen?” “Milord, she is on the Royal Crapper.” “And is she well-supplied with paper?” “Milord, she has forty reams of the finest linen.” “It is good,” said the King. “And where’s the Princess?” “Oh, she’s upstairs in bed with laryngitis.” “Not that fucking Greek again!” cried Daniel.

This amused the King and he spake, “Oh, fuck the Princess!” and another 40,000 loyal courtiers were trampled to death in the rush, for in those days the King’s word was law, and the King ruled with an iron hand, and besides, the Princess was a comely wench. This made the King exceeding angry, but the Queen only said, “Well, I’ll be fucked!” — more in hope than in indignation. But nobody moved, save a solitary senile seneschal, quietly masturbating in a corner into a silver teaspoon, and Daniel, who, taking her at her word, grabbed the Queen by her butt-cheeks and slipped her onto his **** like a well-worn jackboot.

…to be continued