Wicklow Whispers News

Head Rambles Posted on by 5

I honestly don’t know what came over me.

I read over that little scribble I penned on Wednesday and I cringed. What the fuck was I thinking? I can only put it down to sleep deprivation and a bad humour. I would delete it but I suppose there is a chance that Joe Duffy will get to read it [I’m damned sure he Googles his own name several times a day!].

One of my big problems is that I am no longer able to have a crack at the ongoings in this crazy world. Life really has descended into a pit of parody and farce. How can I parody something that is itself so farcical that it is already a parody?

I saw an item last night which is a perfect illustration. I read it twice and had a laugh. It had to be Waterford Whispers or The Onion taking the piss out of the Mercans. But it wasn’t – It was the Wall Street Journal and they were fucking serious!

Walmart Pulls Guns, Ammo Displays in U.S. Stores, Citing Civil Unrest

Just think about this for a moment. For a start, we are talking about a supermarket that actually has a guns and ammunition aisle. Granted that would make the Saturday shopping trip more interesting [a Glock as an impulse buy?] but my head still spins at the thought. And then the thought that they are removing these items before an election in the expectation that there will be riots? This is the stuff of comedy sketches, not real life, but there you go. That’s the modern world for you.

Things aren’t much better in the other direction in the UK. There we have a game show contestant/host who made his name by being a bumbling fool but he gets himself elected into the top spot and can’t slip out of his television persona. He can’t seem to make his mind up about anything and has a permanent look of bewilderment on his face. In the meantime I get the impression that the police are having a field day and are making the most of the lack of control.

Here in Ireland we don’t really have a government at the moment. The country is being driven over a cliff by a bunch of “medical experts” who are more concerned with statistics than anything else.

Life is slowly making me redundant.

DeadLine

Head Rambles Posted on by 2

My regular reader may be aware of my pet hatred on radio?

I refer of course to Liveline on RTE, and in particular, its presenter Joe Duffy.

Now Joe is a nice enough chap, and I speak from experience as I had many dealings with him when I worked in RTE and I got on very well with him. But somehow his on-air presence curdles my brain. I don’t know why.

Is it his accent? He is of lowly origins having been born into one of those areas in North Dublin where I wouldn’t want to visit, let alone live and that’s fair enough. But I get the impression there is a touch of accentuating the accent a bit to come across as “ah sure God bless him but he’s one of us”?

Then there is the sycophantic manner in which he treats his phone in guests. Give him a sob story and he’s all “dear dear” or “my oh my” and “that’s terrible” instead of just telling them to get a fucking grip. Of course people tend to phone in with their little gripes about some dealing they have had with someone or some company so there is plenty room for Joe to drip and drool his sympathy.

Herself likes the programme though for some reason. It usually depresses her and I constantly tell her to switch the fucking radio off, or at least go to another channel, but does she listen? Yes she does, but to Joe, not me.

I have just had an earful in the background as I tried to doze. Callers were on about weddings being cancelled due to Covid [99% of the calls these days involve Covid of course] but there was one chap on about his mobile phone company – Three.

I happen to have a pre-pay phone with Three and I got a text message from them a few days ago telling me they had changed their contract from the start of December. What they intend to do is to syphon off any remaining credit into their own pockets if the user hasn’t bought any new credit during the previous 180 days. This is a rather nasty bit of money grabbing, but on the other hand it’s unlikely I would go a full six months without lobbing in a fiver or so. I was annoyed at their sharp practices for a moment or so but then I forgot all about it.

Not so some old fart who obviously blew a fuse at this message so on he gets to Joe Duffy so he can pour out his invective into the ears of the nation. Of course Joe was all sympathy and treacle with lots of “oh dear oh dear oh dear” [and reminding us to “washyerhands” every now and then]. I missed the end of that little exchange as I got a phonecall of my own, but it illustrates the level of complaint on the programme.

Incidentally, he must realise himself how tedious his programme is, as every now and then he holds a “Funny Friday”. This is a programme where he lines up faded and jaded “comedians” and we are regaled with “funny stories”, “jokes” and crap impressions.

Funny Friday would make a Christmas Cracker joke sound hilarious.

Let’s face it

Head Rambles Posted on by 12

It crossed my mind recently that I have never seen a definition of a “mask”.

By law, I have to wear a mask entering any public area or on public transport and can be fined on the spot for not wearing one, yet they have never actually said what constitutes a mask. In theory I can wear anything from a strip of paper up to and including a full Darth Vader headpiece.

On one of her virtual shopping sprees Herself bought me a Snood. I had never heard of the things before but she reckoned it would be a good way around the mask farce. The material is decorated like military camouflage so I don’t mind wearing it too much. I just wear it around my neck like a scarf, and when the time comes I just pull it up over my nose.

It had its first outing today. We were heading for a clinic and I presumed [correctly] that everyone would be wearing a face nappy, so on went the Snood for its first outing.

It worked perfectly. There was a brief moment as my glasses fogged up but breathing was easy enough – the problem I had experienced with the “official face nappies [which actually remind me of sanitary towels].

Next time i think I’ll add my wide-brimmed hat [tilted forwards] and a pair of sun glasses.

That should scare the shit out of everyone?

Snood
Not me!

Deliverance

Head Rambles Posted on by 1

Herself likes shopping.

This has been a bone of contention for many years as the house slowly but surely fills up with stuff to the point where it’s difficult to move around.

Stuff can mean anything. In particular it means clothing which will never be worn but can also mean furniture, paintings and weird objects that are supposed to decorate the place if only we had somewhere left to put them. Nothing gets thrown away. I have taken to sneaking stuff into the bin but what I really need is an industrial skip.

Of course this time of year is a grand excuse for more of her “retail therapy” and she is currently buying up half the Interwebs on the pretext of buying presents. This of course leads to a lot of parcel deliveries.

Parcel deliveries here fall into a few categories.

If it’s a big box or crate it is either dropped just inside the gate, where obviously they couldn’t even be bothered to open the gate, or else left on the wheelie bins just inside the gate. This isn’t too bad unless it rains in which case the box or crate gets soaked.

The next category is the plastic bag. This is usually clothing so fortunately it isn’t fragile. This is just as well as the method of delivery here is to carry it as far as the garage door and then do a Frisbee impression by flinging the parcel the rest of the way to the front door where it lies in a rumpled heap on the boot-scraper.

The final category is the small box. They define this as a size which is very approximately the size of our letter box. In most cases though they tend to be somewhat optimistic so the box gets rammed firmly into the letter box where it gets stuck and is very difficult to remove.

I am actually quite happy with these arrangements as they all have one thing in common – they are silent. Usually the delivery happens at some godforsaken hour in the morning and I wouldn’t be too pleased to be woken by the door bell.

I just hope Herself doesn’t order anything fragile…..