I have nothing against Paddy’s Day itself.  It’s one day of the year when I don’t have to think up a reason to have a few pints.

They have lost the run of themselves again though, in typical Irish fashion.

No longer content with a few blokes wandering down O’Connell Street following a couple of geezers wheezing on some bagpipes, we now have to have a fucking festival.

Again, I have nothing against festivals, and am quite prepared to watch a few very scantily clad women develop frostbite for my delectation, but let’s not lose the run of ourselves?  All these damned American ‘pipe bands’ and Rio de Janeiro type floats are just going too far.  There is nothing Paddy’s Day about them?

The Paddy’s Day Festival kicked off with a grand fireworks display down in Limerick.  I suppose that had to find some way of disposing of all the explosives they had found down there, and it makes a change from murdering each other, but has no one notice the incongruity of the title?  Paddy’s Day festival?  Paddy’s Day isn’t until Wednesday, for fuck’s sake, and they start it on a Saturday?

Once again, I have nothing whatsoever against people enjoying themselves, and if that were the extent of it, then let people get pissed and beat each other up in the streets – that’s part of modern society – but what really pisses me off are the crowd who haul in on the back of all this frivolity.

The main criminals are our Glorious Government.  This is their annual holiday at the taxpayers’ expense.  They see this as a glorious excuse to jet off the the far flung corners of the earth on the pretext of drumming up trade.  Has one single job ever been created by these jaunts?  Are foreign companies so fucking gullible that they will set up in Ireland because some fucking minister bought them a pint on Paddy’s Day.  Fuck off!!

I notice that these ‘trade missions’ are very nicely located.  Auckland?  Sydney?  New York?  Tokyo?  Very nice, at this time of year.  Most are heading off for a week or so, but of course Harney has to have 15 fucking days in New Zealand with her husband.  And these little jollies are all paid for by the taxpayer, who was recently told that there is no money left, and that we all have to pay extra to solve the financial crisis.

A small thing that irritates me about this time of year is the insistence of barmen at scribing a shamrock on the head of a pint of Guinness.  What the fuck is that all about?  Do they think we are all fucking tourists who are going to melt at the Irishness of it all?  They’ll be giving away fluffy leprechauns and floppy green hats next.  It is fucking embarrassing.  Wankers.

At this time of year, our local barman Pullit always draws a neat penis on the heads of the pints he pulls.

Now, he has the right idea.