The Irish thing
I do not understand the Irish Phenomenon.
On a global scale, we are a tiny island stuck out in the Atlantic to the west of Europe. Coming in from outer space you’d be lucky to find us at all unless you had a damn good satnav The entire island would comfortably fit, multiple times in most other countries.
There are only a few million of us. The population of the entire island is less than that of many of the worlds cities. If they accidentally stuck our population into a table of the world’s major cities, we would be way down the list. I just did a check – there are 80 cities with a larger population than all Ireland. Tokyo alone has seven times the population of this small island!
So why does Ireland have such a massive influence on the planet? Saint Patrick is being celebrated right across the globe as I type. There are parades, green floodlights on world famous landmarks and Chicago is even turning its river green. I would imagine that a hell of a lot of the worlds revelers don’t even know where Ireland is, yet they still celebrate “Irishness”.
The remarkable thing about the whole phenomenon is that I don’t know of any other national holiday that gets worldwide attention. Does the world go mad on Bastille Day? Are there worldwide parades to celebrate American Independence? No. National holidays come and go and the world ignores them, but not Paddy’s Day. That has to be celebrated from New York to Sydney, from Dublin to Dubai. Just for one day, everyone seems to want to be Irish.
Even outside Paddy’s Day everyone seems to know the Irish. It always amused me that in France I would walk into a shop and stumble out my pidgin French. I would be greeted with mild hostility and a flood of the local dialect in return. I would slip in that I’m Irish not British and instantly I am best friends with the shopkeeper who suddenly speaks fluent English.
Don’t get me wrong. I am proud to be Irish. Amn’t I directly descended from one of the great High Kings of Ireland after all?! I am Irish first and foremost and then a citizen of the World. Under extreme torture I might even add being European.
Beannachtaí na Féile Pádraig oraibh go léir.
Running out
Yesterday was one of those days.
It started off badly [I can’t remember why] and went downhill from there.
The mood was bad and kept sinking into a morass of negative thoughts. It wasn’t so much depression, more anger for various familial reasons which I won’t go into. Herself occasionally has similar thoughts and I can talk her through it but somehow I’m not very good at talking myself out of such situations.
Then my laptop stopped working. It had run out of disk space. My previous machine had a 1Tb hard disk, but this one only has half that and I keep forgetting to clean it out. Bugger! Luckily my mood meant I wasn’t interested in ‘puters so that little job was put on the long finger.
I also discovered that our very good neighbours are on the move. It has been on the cards for a long time even to the point that we know that our new neighbour is apparently a very nice bloke, as is his husband. *cough*. I’ll really miss the old neighbours though.
Then last night I discovered I was out of medication. Actually I still have a very low stock but had completely run out of sleeping tablets. I don’t know why they should go first as I stick rigidly to medical routines but my Sleepers are listed amongst the vital ones.
So last night I went to bed in the sure and certain knowledge that I wouldn’t sleep. I even warned Herself that she was likely to hear me mooching around the house in the small hours.
I slept. And then I slept some more. And more. I woke finally at around eight, came out to my armchair and fell asleep again for another couple of hours. Wow!
So today I feel a hell of a lot better. The anger has evaporated and is now just a very sad acceptance of affairs. I’m having bets with myself that the new neighburs will have a dog and it won’t be of the Alsatian or Irish Wolfhound variety. I’m offloading about 257Gb of files onto a backup disk as I type. The kitchen sink is unblocked and Queen are playing on the radio.
Life is good again.
I wonder if I’ll sleep tonight?
Joining The Circle
Yes, I’m now a member of the Inner Circle.
Granted it’s a club no one ever wants to be a member of, but being in the Circle has it’s advantages.
I first discovered this on Tuesday. It was my Blood Test and Consultation day. I made my way through the miles of corridors in the hospital and was out of breath when I reached Reception. Without my saying a word, the wee lass on reception looks up – “Howya” says she, “I have you booked in”. I suppose I do have a somewhat memorable face? I sat down in the waiting area and in the course of the mandatory hour wait [actually it was a bit longer] I was greeted by a couple of nurses, my psychiatrist [they leave nothing to chance] and a consultant. They all know me now. I have arrived!
Wednesday was the same. I was placed in a nice quiet corner while they dripped various crap into me and again more specialists [another consultant and my personal dietician]. Word just seemed to spread that Grandad Has Arrived. I’m even getting chatty with some of the other regulars.
Their main concern this week seemed to be my weight. In the last couple of months my weight has dropped by a quarter with no signs of a slowdown. If I could bottle my secret I’d be up there with Musk [financially, not in any other way].
So I am now on a diet.
If it’s unhealthy, go for it. Anything that mentions Slim or Diet is to be avoided like the plague. Lots and lots of gunk. I laid in a stash of brownies yesterday from the coffee shop – slabs of chocolate that sink like a brick to the stomach and are delicious. Eat, eat, eat.
I’m back there again this afternoon.
It’s no fucking wonder everyone now knows me.
Photographing my hole
I received a letter last Friday.
It was from Social Services, informing me that my free travel-pass had expired.
Note the tense – had expired. Past tense. In fact it had expired in January of last year as I discovered when I checked the card. Now if I had known this, I would have renewed it then even though at the time I never used it.
The problem now is that for the first time, I really would like to use the card just to get in and out to one of my fleet of hospitals. No problem, says they, all I have to do is apply for a renewal online. Grand. I’ll do that.
So I waded through several gubmint websites finding obscure links to even more obscure sites until finally I found the page for renewal. Simplicity, says they, just fill out the form and send us a passport photograph.
Bugger!
I could take a photograph of myself, following their rigorous instructions, but bear in mind that my face has a fucking great hole in it where my nose and part of my mouth used to be. Now I could still send in this grizzly grossly distorted and hopefully temporary image, but what happens when I receive a prosthesis at some point whereupon the photograph of the hole will once more become redundant?
Why the fuck can’t they use the existing photo [which I might add is good enough for my driving licence]?
I haven’t changed much.
Apart from a hole…
