Sign of the Times

Today, I am standing in a frill-free, foreign-owned supermarket, peering at the Schnitzeblibil herself has found at a bargain price.

"What is a Schnitzeblibl?" I ask, innocently. It's been a long week.

Herself looks down her nose at the foreign label on the plastic bottle.

"It's either a shampoo... or a salad dressing. I'm not sure."

"Ah."

I lift up a green net bag.

"And the Defergaumin?"

"Six for the price of four," she says.

"Do you think," I ask. "Do you think the Defergaumin could be served with the Schnitzeblibl?"

"Don't be silly," she says. "Look, give me that trolley and go and look at the Man stuff."

I examine the rotary motor mower; poke briefly at the energy-saving L.E.D. work lamp; try on then put back the protective chainsaw boots. I meet Herself in the next aisle, where she is wrestling another woman to the ground, growling menacingly.

"MY....! I said MY Liebenhaffabudenschtiffel!"

In the car park, a man is tentatively cutting off a shopping trolley wheel with a brand new plasma rig.

"Only nine-ninty nine in the third aisle," he says, grinning.

I pack the groceries into the car and we drive away.

The Daily Grind

So, as you know, this little old geezer accosted me back in February '08 with an announcement that I was looking at him and that he didn't like people looking at him.

I hadn't been looking at him on the bus that morning, but I sure as eggs look at him every morning ever since! He uses the same bus stop as me in the morning and I always know at what point and at what distance he is from me.

Some research has provided a few details into who this fellah is. It seems he once sold charity gaming cards door to door in the area and was plagued by the attentions of children who (being children) used to get a rise out of him for the sake of being chased. I think he isn't the full shilling to begin with, but the story of the kids pestering him explains some of the more peculiar behaviour I've observed in him recently.

One morning as I hauled myself up the road on the way to another blessed day of being told by the telephoning public how useless I am, I spied yer man shuffling across the green area to my left. He dresses in a kind of shabby brown canvas jacket and is continually blowing his nose into a great white handkerchief, peering over it suspiciously through his black rimmed spectacles at anyone who might be about. He increased his pace on seeing me and walked ahead, shoulders in their customary hunch, his face down. Instead of turning left at the top of the road for the bus stop, he went right disappearing into the next line of semi-dees. He turned up about five minutes later at the stop. I figured he must have been calling into someone's house on the other road.

Then a few days after, I was a little later in leaving the house and saw him ahead of me, hunching along with his hands in his coat pockets. He stopped suddenly and stared straight ahead where a car on a school run had reversed out of a driveway a couple of houses up. He took two steps to the right and hid for a moment behind a hedge. The car paused halfway across the road as seatbelts and schoolbags and the usual morning chaos were sorted. He stepped out and seeing it was still there, stepped quickly back in again. When it pulled away he resumed his shuffle up the road, head lowered, handkerchief dabbing at his nose.

I saw him from afar another morning walking by the shop units in the local centre, heading for the bus. A schoolboy about twelve or thirteen years of age was coming in the opposite direction, not heeding him at all. Our fellow did a quick turn to the left to face into a shop front until the youngster passed by.

When the bus pulled in, he did his usual morning barge past everyone in the loose queue, flashed a pass at the driver and went up the bus slamming windows closed, keeping the outside world at bay.

Who do you do?

If you could be someone else for a while, who would it be?

Second Life, the "3D online virtual world", claims to have 50,000 people finding out the answer to this any given day.

The online world, which is free to explore, allows visitors to create a fantasy representative of themselves, called an avatar. Avatars come in basic patterns which can be modifed in appearance and dress. To explore the world, one sends one's avatar from place to place, on foot, driving, even flying, and in the process you get to see what other people have made in the form of virtual villages, shopping malls, gardens, apartments and houses. Avatars may "speak" with each other, dance, attend events. There is also a Second Life economy, based on imaginary land ownership and the Linden Dollar. Visitors may earn some play money for their online excursions or spend real cash to extend their character's possessions into buildings or to purchase an island of their very own.

Real world educators and charities have used Second Life to spread their message and to earn some real cash from donations. Bands have played Second Life concerts. I have visited a space centre and an ecological project where I've been lectured on wise use of fossil fuels. I've also had my male avatar kissed passionately by another male avatar quite unexpectedly, and been chased by a maniac in a steam roller! My character, Si Lytton, has also come fourth in a bull-riding machine hall of fame, failed miserably at managing to ice skate and spent 20 minutes sitting with a robot having a conversation about shoes.

Visit it. Take a look. See what you like or don't like.

You need to download some software to create an avatar and visit Second Life.

I'll be at Cheerz Bar, learning to dance.

What is "Cheer Up Card" etiquette?

Herself and I were wandering around a local shopping centre a few days ago and in one of the greeting card and general souvenir sections I spied, in passing, a "Cheer Up" card.

I was so surprised (and was on my way out of the shop in the next moment to viewing it), that I didn't actually get too close a look at the card. I think it mentioned that the recipient's Guardian Angel was going to arrange for nice things to happen in the next little while. It didn't explain how the person sending the card knew this. Nor did it seem to reveal exactly what the etiquette for sending a "Cheer Up" card was.

Would you send a "Cheer Up... they can do great things with plastic surgery these days" message?

Or "Cheer Up... you still have a second one" card?

Or maybe "Cheer Up... the insurance will probably cover it"?

The mind boggles.

You might have been in the wrong political party anyhow, missus

RTE radio's Morning Ireland programme, this morning. Twenty percent of the environmentally-savvy Green Party are ticked off that the party will be going into government with Fianna Fáil:

Interviewer: "Will you be resigning your membership of the Green Party over this?"
Lady Green: "Yes I will... And we will be gathering next week outside the Dáil to protest and burn our cards."

Sheesh!

Hail fellow...

"Is that an MP4 player?"

"Yeah."

"What's the memory?"

"Dunno. 2,000 CDs, or something."

"How much was it?"

"I don't know. It's my sister's. €180 or something."

"You paid €180 for 2,000 CDs worth? That's good."

"I don't know. My sister got it. It might have cost more."

"Do I know you from somewhere?"

"You might have seen me around Jobstown."

A pause.

"Cloverhill?"

"D-wing?"

"Yeah!"

"Have you got a smoke?"

"Yeah. Here. Something better."

"You have some."

"No. I don't want any. You have it."

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah."

The conversation turned to who knew who and who had prayer meetings every Wednesday because they were Born Again Christians. And getting out of jail.

"I spent three days in a bed and breakfast. And two days on someone's sofa. And two days in a hotel. And I went to them and said 'I need a place because I've spent three days in a B&B and two days sleeping rough and two days in a hotel.'"

"Yeah."

"What's your phone number?"

I just wanted the traffic to move so the bus could take me home.

I only have an ordinary music player. I've only been in a B&B on holiday. I've slept rough twice, because I chose to. To me, Cloverhill is on the way to Liffey Valley Shopping Centre on the back roads. Lucky.

Culture shock

The bus pulled in at the terminus at The Square and in keeping with tradition the passengers disembarked and the engine was switched off and somebody started to complain as the driver tried to go on his break.

"You're late!" the middle aged Dublin woman said to the African in the Dublin Bus uniform who was trying to wave her off the step so he could shut the door.

She stepped back down onto the pavement.

"I've been waiting here for hours and then you just go on a break!"

The driver calmly closed the door. He said:

"How many hours?"

There was a definite look of surprise on the woman's face. Not only was she, a native Irishwoman, being addressed by a black person, but also by a black person in a position of authority. It was evidently a shock to her system.

"How many hours have you been waiting?" he asked. "One hour? Two hours...?"

She looked at him in bewilderment.

"Half an hour!" he said. The bus arrives every thirty minutes or so.

She retreated to the relative safety of the bus shelter. No-one else joined in the argument on her side.

"That's right," she rallied. "You go on your break now and get your cup of coffee or whatever it is you're getting."

The driver spoke quietly to her and I couldn't make out what he said. But her reply must have included something along the lines of

"And what are you going to do about it?" because he then said, loud enough for all to hear:

"I can refuse to take you on this bus. All of these people can travel. You cannot."

He turned and walked off in into the Square.

Ten minutes later we boarded the bus. The complaining passenger politely proffered her fare and was given a ticket. A few stops on, a friend joined her. They spoke cheerfully abut the weather and about hospital appointments and stuff like that. Then after a quarter hour their voices lowered and they whispered together. I wonder what the subject was.

Nice one, driver. I think.

Ozone layer gone

"It's global warming now, boys!"
"But what about the ozone layer and its great big hole?"
"Old news."
"CFCs?"
"Yesterday."
"Aerosols?"
"Spray 'em to heck! We've a new scare."
"Bandwagon?"
"Definitely."
"What about the water rising?"
"Ever hear of Noah?"
"I see his ark every night on a beer ad."
"Says it all then really, doesn't it?"
"Fear?"
"Yep."
"Shame?"
"Yep."
"Best two subjects for advertisements?"
"Only next to the 'Stupid Man' ads."
"Rock on."

No Junior Cert astonishment & indignation here

Nope. I don't subscribe to it. I've been listening to the annual astonishment, indignation, condemnation of the activities of our 15 year olds celebrating their Junior Cert results, and it's the same old annual nonsense trotted out each time. Fact is, we're human beings and humans have dolled themselves up and got hammered to mark all sorts of events from the time we discovered drugs and alcohol. In some Brazilian rainforest a teen is probably painting themselves red and black right now and going on the lash with copious amounts of fermented grandmother spit. The only difference is that our wee lassies paint themselves orange all over and wear more clothes. Barely more.

Same thing next year. Mark it in the calendar.