St Patrick Humbug
I couldn’t be bothered writing anything today.
I have nothing to say.
I’m in a foul mood because I had a lie-in and that always gives me a hangover.
And anyway, everyone is just wittering on about St Patrick’s Day, and getting drunk and you don’t want to listen to a voice of sanity in all the mayhem.
Anyway, who is mad enough to be reading blogs on a Sunday?
Not me.
Me neither!
I rest my case.
Sandy?
It was yesterday, Grandad.
The church moved it.
Tomorrow is not Saint Patrick’s Day, unless you are one of those naughty people who don’t listen to the bishops and that’s a sin!
Sandy what?
Ian – I discovered that last night. I missed it. Great! But everyone seems determined to turn it into a week long excuse for binge drinking and mayhem.
Does the church have a right to muck around with the calendar? I think that’s a sin?
I’m only just out of bed myself and I have a nasty hangover too without having touched a drop of booze in 5 days.
Mind you it might have been because I stayed up to watch the Australian grand prix live and only got to bed at 7am.
We don’t really do saints, but there’s a church rule that saints’ days falling in Holy Week must be moved (On the basis that the rest of the world thinks that Patrick’s Day is tomorrow we are having a service for the faithful twenty who will turn up)
Protestants tend to think about what the church has to say and then decide for themselves (Catholics do the same, but the bishops and Dana think they don’t).
“you don’t want to listen to a voice of sanity”
sanity? 😉
St Patrick’s Day is a public holiday but I’ve just been made redundant and I’m on holiday anyway. So does that mean I have to work on St Patrick’s Day? Or do I just have to be extra relaxed and laid-back holiday-style? Yours, Confused.
Feck blogs, Grandad. It’s Paddy’s Day, for feck’s sake. Have a nice half-un. That’ll sort the hangover for ye.
http://skinflicks.blogspot.com/2008/03/jc-skinners-guide-to-irish-whiskey.html
Haha . . it’s Monday for me! Happy St Patricks day!
How can you belittle the man who rid our country of snakes?! If it wasn’t for St Paddy you’d have a phobia of being bitten by a rattle snake or crushed by a boa constricter every time you went outside – shame on you Grandad!
JC – You’re really promoting that link. Have you got shares in Bushmills? Personally, I have no problem with Jamesons.
Baino – stop gloating. We’ll still be getting pissed when you are well into Tuesday.
Quickroute – With all due respect, he did a crap job. How come we are still infested with corrupt politicians?
Ian – Actually, you have pointed to an interesting barometer of the state of the church in Ireland.
The bishops [and Dana] say that Saturday was Paddy’s day, but all the parades are being held on Monday. Fifty years ago, there wouldn’t have been a soul or a sinner on the streets if the bishops [Dana wasn’t invented then] had spoken…
Just trying to spread the good word, Grandad. The local industry produces the best product in the word. But it’s dying. I felt the need to proselytise a little.
Can’t agree with you about Jemmy though.
Happy Paddy’s Day. Enjoy a Jamesons if you must!
JC – Bushmills is dying? You’d be better off campaigning to get the smoking ban revoked in pubs. That would get the business back on its feet again 😉
Nobody does St. Patrick’s Day like Chicago–they even dye the Chicago River green. I watched the parade on TV, and no green beer for me! By the way, is it true that a lot of Irish pubs are closing because of the smoking ban? Just wondering.
Marlys – Everyone knows that Paddy’s Day is celebrated more in America than in Ireland. Here, they just get drunk!
Irish pubs are closing at the rate of about one a day. The official story here is that it is down to other factors, such as the price of drink [which never stopped anyone in the past] and clamping down on drink-driving. But is it a coincidence that the sharp decline in pub attendance started when the ban came in?
19 comments to a guy who says nothing. I’d say you’re doing okay, even if a few of those are replies from you to the others.
RhodesTer – God help me if I ever get around to saying anything!!
I always opposed the ban. It’s the nanny state at its worst. But I was talking about the Irish whiskey industry in general, not specifically Bushmills, whose future does lie in the hands of a foreign conglomerate.
There are now only three distilleries left in a country which invented whiskey, a country which once boasted hundreds of great local distilleries and whiskies.
All three remaining are foreign owned. Two of them run by international conglomerates who could choose at any stage to shut them on a financial whim.
Japan has more distilleries than us these days! If people don’t rally round and start supporting the indigenous whiskey industry, soon it will be a thing of the past, like smoking in pubs.
JC – You never mentioned Kilbeggan Whiskey. That distillery reopened recently.
Now, Grandad. If you read the section I wrote on Cooley (who own the Kilbeggan site) you’ll see that I did indeed mention that it’s been taken out of mothballs!
As I wrote, it’ll be at least another five years before even the youngest whiskey is produced there. Kilbeggan whiskey is being distilled at Cooley currently, and will be for the foreseeable.
And based on the hit-and-miss performances at Cooley, the results when Kilbeggan does become operational may be patchy. Primarily, though, I’m pleased that they’ve re-opened Kilbeggan.
On the other hand, if we’re reliant on the same two Americans to single-handedly resurrect our national drink industry, then we’re in pretty bad shape, aren’t we?
I do beg your pardon JC. I have never tried it, I must admit though I have been in Locke’s Distillery many times. I am now the owner of a bottle!
Same place! They’re distilling there now, but what’s in your bottle was made at Cooley. The new Locke’s and Kilbeggan made on site won’t come on stream until 2014 or so.
I can wait 😉