Miraculous safety
The bods in the Road Safety Authority are giving out again.
Not content with telling us how to drive in our own gardens they are now screaming that there aren't enough people being arrested for drink driving.
We need more patrols! We need more road blocks! We need more prosecutions! We need more ENFORCEMENT!!!!
Now it may have escaped their notice but road fatalities are decreasing nearly every year, but when that trivial point is put to them, they of course scream "we cannot afford to be complacent" [now where have I heard that before?].
I suppose they have to try to justify their existence but like most gubmint agencies they are obviously out of touch with the real world.
Not so in Mayo.
They have come up with the eminently sensible suggestion of bringing religion into it.
Let's bless the roads, they say, and no one will be killed.
I quite like that idea, though they'd require quite an army of clerics to cover the entire country? I suppose they could concentrate on the main roads and put up road signs – "You are now entering a Holy Road", with a corresponding "End of Holy Road" at the exit? You would then know you're safe for that bit anyway?
There is one huge benefit to this system.
"Well now Grandad. According to the breathalyser you are waaaaay over the limit!"
"Well it's like this Garda, Before coming out I drank five pints of water…..
And then I drove over a Holy Road……..
The water must have turned into wine?
It's a fucking miracle!"
It works for me 😉
Well, I don't care if it rains or freezes,
Long as I have my plastic Jesus
Riding on the dashboard of my car"……..
They could bless the rustic potholes, then we'd have holy roads, holy wells and holy potholes. All this official busybodyness is a holy show.
The puns are endless. It's good to see the ol' church muscling in though. Just like old times.
The comments on that article are just priceless!! Can't stop laughing!
They have built up a bit since I first visited. There is nothing like a daft article to bring out the wit though! [I'm still laughing]
Grandad,
Off topic, as they say on Blog comment threads, but just to complete our journey back to childhood dayz, arm yourself with a drink and enjoy your evening reading this wonderful piece relating to playground football. I must have read {red} that a thousand times and it never fails to make me laugh and I, as I'm sure you will be able to, can roll back the years and relate to every word.
http://www.bone.me.uk/playground-football-rulebook.php
Ah yes! That brings back memories. It appears the rules are truly international.
At last I've finished my list of pubs, clubs and even restaurants in Ireland that have places where you can smoke – and yes I've done as you requested and included Wicklow.
Do please open the "photos" link to all the places in Kilkenny; some of them must have cost a small fortune to construct and Matt the Millers has a real nice moving picture show of theirs.
http://www.mullingscot.com/ireland-dublin-pubs-smoking-allowed.html
Oh and the Workman's Club in Dublin. That's cool in a trashy sort of way – even has it's own burger joint!
Very nice! Maybe Kilkenny might be an alternative holiday destination?
There are still a few missing though [think about it – a large county and only five pubs?]. What you need is some serious research. Please send a blank cheque and I'll see if I can add to that list?
Funnily enough, when I was a young reporter, I helped keep death off the roads by covering the sermons of one of Jesus's little helpers in detail.
We used to have an old school bishop who drank from his first hair of the dog in the morning, through sherry parties and business lunches and on until, totally inebriated, he'd jump in his car to give an evening sermon somewhere. He was a personal friend of Prince Philip, so the local cops were reduced to trailing him home in case of disaster but didn't dare pull him over.
From seeing him in action at one of the evening gigs I saw that he'd lost all inhibition by that point and was good for some fruity quotes, so it became a running story for a few weeks.
Eventually we reached a 'gentleman's agreement' that if one of his minions drove him about to avoid me having to eventually report something much nastier, like him mowing down some kid, then I'd look elsewhere for material. He never went back on his word, and though on the surface we had absolutely nothing in common we shared many a joke and strong drink together in later years.
Sadly, they don't make colourful clergy like that any more. Absolute opposite to a 21st century prodnose.
When you think about it, there seems to be a complete lack of colourful characters these days. Dublin used to be full of them [who can forget "Bang Bang"] but they seem to have died out with the passing of "The Diceman".
For the benefit on non-old-Dubliners.