Going all foreign
The strangest things seem to happen on the Interwebs.
Many many years ago, back in 2007 I scribbled off a piece – How to survive your first Guinness – which for reasons that completely baffled me became a bit of a hit. In fact a couple of days after it went up, the traffic to it crashed the servers leading to frantic phone calls from the engineers wanting to know what the fuck I was up to. Naturally, after a while things calmed down a bit and the world lost interest.
Last year I got an email. It was a very nice complimentary email from a Spaniard who had come across my Guinness thing. He wanted to meet up on a visit to Ireland. Being a gentleman of the highest order I replied to his email. In fact I went one better and wrote him a post on this site.
Recently I received another mail from Alberto. He explained that he had written up his own site and was looking for permission to use my Guinness piece, suitably translated, onto his site. I replied that it was a free world [or something like that] and he could fire ahead.
I had a look at his site – Un apasionante viaje por Irlanda – and was impressed [it takes a lot to impress me]. I then ran the site through Google Translate and was even more impressed. This chap seems to have a little bit of a grá for the old country.
Yesterday I was meandering my way through various sites and tool another look at the site. Fuck me but he had stuck me on the front page [I bet that doesn’t last long!]. So I am now “the coolest and grumpiest grandfather in Ireland” which is a bit more flattering than some of the names I have been called.
This is what he writ. [Thank God for Google Translate].
I feel a bit of a bastard now. If I had known he had been so keen…..?
If he’s ever back here on the mainland I might even let him buy me a coffee.
If I’m still around.
Coolest, grumpiest and greatest 😉 And no, i’m not Ludmilla from Moscow hahaha
“i’m not Ludmilla from Moscow” – bugger. You win some and lose some…..
Someone should have mentioned the flatulence.
Something for others to survive.
In my [much] younger days myself and a few palls did a four week camping trip around Ireland. We existed solely on chips, baked beans and Guinness. Also we only had one pair of socks each. The air over the tent used to shimmer and softly glow.
Grandad! My Dad was the engineer for Guinness Hop Farms in England, with a huge farm in Bodiam, Sussex, another near Sittingbourne in Kent, and yet another near Malvern, near Worcester!
He managed all the new innovations in hop-picking exclusively for Arthur Guinness, like machines, oasts, gardens etc., and I sometimes worked for him on designs for the super-oasts for drying the hops and getting them to Park Royal in West London!
You know my email address, if you feel like chatting further, just get in touch, as there’s a swathe of information on all this!
I have Guinness in my veins…
Yesterday, when visiting here, I got a “Server resources exceeded, try again later” or some-such. Must have been all the web traffic from Spain 😉
Sorry. I must have forgotten to put a shilling in the meter.
My first Guinness was direct from my Mum in her womb. She was anemic carrying me, and her doctor prescribed a 1/2 pint bottle of Guinness a day as it was (an is) a good source of iron.
I started drinking bottled Guinnes because its what my motorbike freinds drank, we would ride out to a country pub and drink a couple of bottles of Arthur Guinnes – Gettit ? Arthur Guinnes, half a Guinness ! Well we thought it was a great thing a 17 years old !