The Wisdom Of King Bob

It has rained constantly for over a week. There have been floods in many places and my garden has turned into a mulchy moss ridden bog. I am going to check under the shed tonight to see if there people from Roscommon living under there. If there are they can fuck off back to their own bogland.

Quoted from the local TD in 1963 “I have never seen such a sleazy and squalid seaside town”

I must say that in 2008 not much has changed, other than the fact that most inhabitants of Bray are wannabe Dubliners, who wish they could afford a house in Delgany.

This is class, Steve Mclaren former England coach suddenly adopts a Dutch accent

I am going to offend someone here, but lets face it this word “Hero” is used too often but in short here is what I consider a hero:

1) Firemen
2) Lifeboatmen
3) Mountain Rescue volunteers

There are other ad hoc examples, but the gist is that you commit some selfless act of bravery to help another person.

Climbing up a big fucking mountain and dying does not make you a hero.

I was at Croke Park on Saturday when the supporters of County Down arrived, they were a right motley crew. There did seem to be a disproportionate number of handicapped and smelly obese people. I will not be visiting County Down.

There are some amazing things about living in this country, one which is not so great is the power the unions hold. Now, in principle I approve of unions, the only thing the worker has as a bargaining tool is the withdrawal of labour , and this is only useful in a collective fashion. However, in Ireland the unions run like a seventies sitcom such as On the Buses.

In the last eighteen months there has been a litany of industrial action, and what prompted this post was the breakdown of the national pay talks. In this current economic turndown the unions are demanding more money, and of course management are claiming times are bad. Quite frankly the fuckers should be glad to have a job, there have been a few people getting laid off recently.

Other than that Irish rail have a dispute because private companies were contracted to lay new track, probably to avoid being delayed by union nonsense, earlier train drivers went on strike because they didn’t want to train people. And of course let’s not forget the classic where electricians went on strike because someone in a hospital changed a lightbulb that was not qualified to. To cap even this, a bunch of amateur sportsmen went on strike because they were not happy with the coach or something equally trivial.

Well fuck you all, if your demands are unreasonable or your strike unauthorised you should be fucking sacked and not allowed to collect the dole. There are plenty of people who are willing to work in a fucking cushy public sector job so don’t fucking whine.

There was recently a furore over the recent racist comments being slung at a young lad at a GAA game in Carlow, and quite rightly so. So imagine my fascination (and horror) when I picked up the programme for the Wicklow Regatta and saw an advert for an event called “Golly Fishing”, immediately my mind was filled with inappropriate images of those black dolls being thrown into the river and being fished out. You may think that’s a bit far fetched but only last week I was watching fucking pig racing in one of the counties main towns.

The build up for this highly charged racist nonsense was huge, I was looking forward to taking pictures and posting them here so all the cultured people could point fingers and howl with derision.

The thing is, I never made it, but I think a “Golly” is not a black doll but a crab or fish given all the lines with bits of prawn and shit on them that were left over. In truth I heaved a sigh of relief I didn’t really want to think I was living in Ireland’s equivalent of Alabama.

I am not surprised the pigs didn’t want to race if this is the reception they got.

You can shove your Cheltenham Gold Cup, Galway Races and in fact Royal Ascot, because I was at the racing event of the year. I mean, there was no ladies day or competitions to see who had the best outfit but there was still an undercurrent of excitement and anticipation. In fact the concept of dressing up may have involved washing the kids faces, putting on a clean tracksuit top and polishing ones bling.
The buildup to the main event was equally unorthodox, with an ice cream eating competition and pushing the mini race, I couldn’t work out which was stranger, but watching someone shove cheap ice cream into their face whilst being egged on by the crowd was disturbing.
The racing event started, and in true culchie fashion it was not horses but pigs. I shit you not, pigs. Now if I was a betting man I would not reckon pigs have a huge reputation for their racing prowess, and I would be right. It was a fucking debachle, the trap opened and the fuckers wouldn’t move and quite rightly so. If you were faced with a crowd of semi-drunk natives all screaming you would have stayed in the trailer as well. With a little encouragement the pigs eventually left, five raced, well sauntered up the track at a casual pace, and one smartass ran under the trailer. I must say I can’t wait for next years Arklow Seabreeze Festival to see what other treats they have in store for the unsuspecting visitor.

There has been some new hires at work so our newly formed team was been taken out to lunch, I think as some kind of bonding excercise. The venue was Pepeloes in Stephens Green, Dublin. I reckoned the place would be OK because our resident South Side foodie booked it, and she likes her booze and food. On arrival I had the pre-meal smoke. Across from me was a young girl in designer dress (bit overdressed for lunch) having a conversation that kind of went “Oh my God, Yah,I am so excited, Yah, Oh My God yeah, I’m in Pepoloes”, for the duration of my smoke. On entering the establishment we were directed to the bar where your obligitary yacht club member sat (in his late forties, jumper on shoulder, chinos and deck shoes) drinking white wine and consulting his Blackberry. Fortunately being as adaptable as a Transformer I quickly grabbed the wine menu and ordered the first 50 quid bottle of wine there was. Fuck it the boss was paying and I needed to get well oiled, and jesus did we get oiled. My end of the table drank enough wine to keep Falcon Crest in business for a year, by the end of the main course I was pissed, and spoiling for an argument which leads me to the next part , the service.
The waiters were pretty cool, not too fussy, seemed to know their shit and laughed when I berated my colleague for eating off my bread plate and said he was a typical Dub wannabe (Bray) that needed to learn his table manners before Killiney would accept him.
However we had our first argument with the waiter when he served the wrong dish to someone, when asked what the the dish was “it’s fish” he responded. “We know it’s fucking fish the tail and shit being the giveaway, but it’s not what the lady ordered.” says I, the booze was talking. A similar incident occurred during the sweet when he denied a particular item was on the menu and tried to convince me that the rhubarb crumble was in fact strawberry tart. The head waiter arrived, I think they thought we were going to kick off, but we got it sorted out without a riot ensuing.
The food was good, I had crab to start and it was excellent, however the beetroot overpowered the flavour of the crabmeat which was unfortunate but more of a matter of personal taste. I had rabbit wrapped in filo pastry and stuffed with mushrooms, which I must say was excellent, I did not have a sweet and the cunts forgot my coffee.
It was a pleasant lunch mainly because of the company, food and wine were superb and generally the service was OK, they were busy and a table of ten must be an arse-ache to deal with. However I would not go back there if I was paying the bill.