This country used to be overrun with tourists.

Whether it was due to the gargantuan cost of everything or the success of the Great Tourist Cull I don’t know but lately they have become very thin on the ground.  This is very bad news for the hospitality industry and also for the Irish Tourist Shooting Association.

Apparently our illustrious gubmint has decided to do something about this and have invited the neighbours in.  And seeing as they had invited in Yer Wan from the East, they had to invite Yer Man from the West so there would be no jealousy.

I have no problems with inviting neighbours in for a cuppa but we seem to have lost the run of ourselves this time.  We are spending fucking millions just to make sure the neighbours enjoy themselves.  We are told that we have to lay on a lavish spread for the neighbours as the hope is that they will go home and tell their mates in the pub what a wonderful time they had here, so then all their mates will drop in too.

For the last couple of weeks the gubmint has been going mad, travelling the country and working out exactly where they are bringing the neighbours.  Having mapped out the route, they have been sprucing up all the villages, resurfacing the roads, removing all the speed bumps and generally trying to make Ireland look like what it isn’t.  In fact the country now resembles a huge film-set, with the facades all gleaming, but if you nip around the back there is still the same old squalor and decay.

In order to convince the guests that Dublin has no traffic problems, they have decided to shut down the city for a couple of weeks.  Us mere mortals aren’t allowed into the city in case we make it look untidy, and heaven forbid that we should bring our cars in as that would give the visitors the impression that parking is hard to find.

Naturally all this is costing millions that we don’t have, which is a little strange as I always thought that tourists were supposed to bring money into the country and not cost us money, but we live in strange times so who am I to argue?

Herself told me last night that she had written to Lizzie [Yer Wan from the East], inviting her in for a cuppa, as she said it was the polite thing to do.

She has even splurged out my pension on a packet of Marietta biscuits.

Now that’s going too far.