Samhain?

Another weekend, and another load of even more miserable-fuckery on my part.

Halloween was a non starter. I don't rate this as a holiday and have steadfastly refused to garnish my house in plastic tat, pumpkins, and other tomfoolery, even if all my neighbours are buying into it. As a consequence, my house probably looks "scarier" than all the others. Having bought some sweets, I laced them carefully with chilli and Ex-Lax, and left them by the door, I waited for the sound of tentative steps to my door. None came. Bah. I like chilli anyway so everyone's a winner.

I'm in my town of origin, Kilshite, at the moment visiting the folks until tomorrow. It's a beautiful, tiny place about two hours' drive from Ballyfuck. It has lakes, mountains and old nineteenth-century buildings. It also has nineteenth-century ethos. It's full of begrudgers, backbiters and gossips. Brinsley McNamara could have written Valley of the Squinting Windows as an elegy to my home town. It gets claustrophobic if I spend more than three days here. Visits from the more annoying members of my extended family and nosey neighbours grate on my nerves, so I'm looking forward to going out on the piss with local mates later. . .

On a happy note, I saw the new James Bond film, Quantum of Solace on Friday. With the delectable Daniel Craig. With a villain that looked a lot like Robert Carlyle (I couldn't take him seriously as a villain, as I kept thinking of that dancing Dole Queue scene in The Full Monty) - but it wasn't him, and not enough explosions or gadgets (where was Q?). Still, good entertainment and highly recommended.

C*nty Council

When will the fucking county council stop tearing up our roads?

As regular readers will, no doubt, be aware, I live in Ballyfuck, which is down a bog road with grass growing up the middle in the arse-end of nowhere. It has a church, a school, a shop, and several pubs. All within walking distance.

My commute to work is lengthy and not without interest. It takes me over mountains and hump-backed bridges, past farmyards plastered in inches of cow scutter and pubs in the middle of forests that I must visit for a few pints before the drink-driving laws cause them to close. Occasionally my travel time is increased by a herd of cows being brought for milking, suicidal pigeons and fucking crows literally throwing themselves at my front bumper, stoned pheasants JUST STANDING THERE in the middle of the road and, on one occasion, a deer with its white arse turned towards me in a gesture of defiance, the fucker. It’s wonderful and the rising petrol costs only detract from it slightly.

Lately, however, the county council have been fucking it up. Recently they decided to tear up the main street of another village which I pass through on my way to work. This resulted in my having to take a small detour. This went on for so long that I had almost forgotten the place existed.

This week, they are working on a stretch of road near that village, which I now can no longer get into from Ballyfuck direction. To get there, I must now take a long detour.

I’ve started to explore the network of “roads that aren’t even roads if you look at them on a map” in order to reach my destination. Some of these work out extremely well, but they rely on a sharp sense of direction, as there are, inevitably, no signposts. These, I believe, are adorning the walls of some old-fashioned pubs.

The trouble with these roads, though, is I run a real risk of being stuck behind a big tractor pulling a trailer load of silage or an evil-smelling shit spreader. Or sometimes I take a wrong turn at a - typically unsignposted - junction and drive down a narrow public road which bizarrely tapers off into someone’s private driveway and I have to do a hasty turn as the occupants of the house gaze in bewilderment from the front windows. Only yesterday was I chased half a mile (thank god for being encased in a metal thing on wheels) by an irate, unmuzzled Rottweiler, and a Jack Russell with a nasty habit of nipping at my wheels.

I suppose it still makes for an interesting journey. And I got home in one piece.

Only to find that the council are tearing up Ballyfuck’s main street for the third time in as many months and there is now a crater six feet deep which is full of men in hi-vis vests drinking tea.

And my fucking water is cut off. Again.

If the wider civil service could transfer to county councils (we can’t) I would gladly do so and attempt to fuck things up for them (just ahead of transferring back to the Department), like putting dead pigeons (see above) in their water tanks, digging a big hole in the county engineer’s parking spot and putting “DIVERSION” signs and traffic cones in the corridors of power.

That would fix ‘em, the bastards.

Crapitol City

I'm in Dublin today. Work related stuff. Oh GOD what a fucking smelly hole it is. I've managed to go for a long time without coming here. It makes me appreciate my current situation even more. My crap EO salary wouldn't go very far here, never mind being able to afford to buy property.

Plus, the amount of Ross O'Carroll-Kelly wannabes is alarming. Actually hearing that "roysh" accent in the flesh was quite scary. I'd laugh, except I'm scared they'll throw their mocha-latte-frappucinos or other such poncey coffees over me.

Not to mention, it's windy and stinks of piss here.

Ok, I'm off now to remortgage my house for some lunch. Then I'm getting the hell out of here.

PS - I agree with one thing, though. The stickers on various places around Kildare Street are right. There really is "Far too much Bertie".