My embarrassing past

Head Rambles Posted on by

I used to be a member of An Taisce.

In fact for a year or two I was actually a committee member.

Those were in the days when An Taisce was our equivalent to the National Trust – a sort of heritage protection group that campaigned for the protection of historical buildings and the like.

So what the blind fuck are a heritage protection group doing demanding parking charges in shopping centres?

A charge of 50 cent an hour for currently free car parking at out-of-town shopping centres could raise more than €16 million a year, with the revenue used to support town centres and local public transport services, according to An Taisce.

It is none of their fucking business.

Is this a symptom of the modern age where we mustn’t be allowed get anything for nothing?  Are all these busybody groups searching around just to see what can be taxed even tough it is way outside their remit? 

My mind really is boggling at the utter stupidity of this idea.  Are they seriously proposing that the charges go to the local councils where it will just be pissed up against the wall?  And what’s this crap about hybrid transport?  What has that got to do with our heritage?  In fact what has any of this got to do with our heritage?

The only reason I can see for this mindless drivel is that they are hoping to step into the vacuum left by the implosion and timely death of our Green Party.  I find it hard to believe that an organisation that I was once proud to be a part of can sink to such depths.

The sooner they go the way of the Greens the better.

And I shall be leaving that episode of my past out of my autobiography.

 

More duplicity

Head Rambles Posted on by

I got another of those damned “Government Information Booklets” yesterday.

We have a referendum coming up the week after next and we are supposed to vote on whether or not to abolish the Seanad [Senate, Upper House, call it what you will] along with some change to the courts system.

So far, the arguments for the abolition of the Seanad run along the lines –

  • It costs a lot of money.
  • Jobs for the boys.
  • It’s irrelevant.

We have heard precious little as to why it shouldn’t be abolished.  Seeing as all the main political parties are urging abolition, that’s not surprising.

I shall be voting No.

Why?

The answer is simple – because the gubmint want me to vote Yes.

It pains me to vote No as I would love to see that anti-smoker fascist Crown turfed out on his ear but sacrifices have to be made.  However I have learned over the years never to trust a single word from any of our politicians.  If they told me that today was Wednesday, I would seriously go and check a calendar.  When they tell me the financial situation is stabilising, I know we are in deep shit.  They told me the EU would be good for us – need I say more?

When the gubmint urges a Yes vote, I immediately seek out a reason, and the reason is plain to see – it gives them more power.  Not much more power I grant, but currently the Seanad is there to provide some notion of checks and balances.  In my book, the Seanad should not only be kept, but strengthened.

On the face of it, they are urging Yes in order to save money.  The sheeple of course will fall for this as it strikes a chord, but it really is all about power.  If it were purely a question of money I can guarantee I could save them ten times, if not a hundred times as much by simply going through the books and eradication all those fucking gubmint departments and qangos that do sweet fuck all except produce reports, lobby the gubmint itself and generally do little more than keep seats warm.  Give me a red pencil and I can promise I could produce savings of hundreds of millions per year, if not thousands.

I haven’t decided on the Courts bit yet.

I’m negotiating.

I’ll vote Yes if they promise to be more lenient with me next time.

 

I’m a lumberjack

Head Rambles Posted on by

Around forty five years ago my father and I went on a raid up the valley.

We raided a birchwood for saplings and brought home a whole load of ‘em in the boot of the car [an MG 1100, if anyone is interested].

birchesIn the intervening years, those saplings along with a whole mixture of other species have grown voraciously and we now have the two woods on The Manor – the North Wood and the South Wood.

I noticed a couple of years ago that one of the trees looked a tad sickly.  It was leaning precariously out over the lane and looked in imminent danger of collapse.  However it didn’t so I sort of put it on the long finger.  I mentally names it “The Dead Tree”, and left it at that.

We had some fairly strong winds for the last few days.  I didn’t think twice about it.  But yesterday I had to go out.  The first thing I saw was that one of the larger branches off the Dead Tree had fallen.  I examined it for blood but it seemed clean enough and if it had killed someone, presumably someone would have mentioned it.

I realised that something had to be done.  There were two more major branches that looked like they wanted to take a dive so I decided the time had come. for some action.

Tree felling is NOT a solo job, so I phoned around the lads from the pub.  Amazingly not one of them was available.  A couple were even washing their hair which is a first.  The fact that it was still howling a gale and pissing out of the heavens might have had something to do with it though.

Some one has nicked my power chain-saw and all I had was an electric one, so my first job was to find a few extension leads and string them all together to get power out to the lane.  I managed that with about three feet to spare.  I shinned up the ladder and started work.

Take it from me – standing at the top of a twenty foot ladder hanging on for dear life with one hand and wildly swinging an electric chain-saw with the other hand while in a gale and pissing rain is NOT a fun way to spend an afternoon.

Rain + Aluminium Ladder + Electric Chain-saw = Not Good Idea.

I finally got the first branch, but then ran into a problem.  There were only two ways I could prop the ladder near the second branch.  One way I couldn’t reach the branch properly and the second way involved standing on the ladder directly underneath the branch to be cut.  Again, not a very good idea.

In the end I just took the bruit force approach.  I just cut the fucking tree at the base and let the whole lot crash down.  It made a bit of a mess of the neighbour’s hedge and he really shouldn’t have parked his car just there either, but you can’t make an omelette etc etc.

I’m knackered today.  I still have to go out at some stage and cut the fucking tree up into something that will fit into a fireplace but that can wait.

At least I’ll have some fuel this winter?