Primal Sneeze

It seems Irish KC is returning to the old sod from Kansas pretty soon. Here is a heads-up for him to ease the transition.

What’s the same:-

• Gillian Bowler still wears sunglasses … atop her head … in all weathers. Maybe she’s hiding a bald spot.
• Bono is still gifting sunglasses to world leaders. The latest recipient is the Japanese prime minister. Others of note include Pope JP the Twoth, G Dubbya Sceach and Tom McGarr. Well, okay, Tom isn’t a world leader and Bono didn’t give him shades. They just met him in a pub loo and had a chat while taking a leak.
• Local authorities are still building bypasses (halfway) around our towns to alleviate congestion on the main streets. And then allowing building developments on them turning them back into main streets. First prize in this category has to go to the Clane ring-road. Although, in fairness, the M50 is right up there too.
• Despite a steam rolling Americanisation of our culture, we still use adverbs. We move quickly, not quick. Our children do well, not good, at school.
• The powers that be say they are developing initiatives aimed at encouraging people to use public transport instead of their cars. Then at local, usually rural, level, the powers that be charge exorbitant parking fees. So if you have to drive a few km to the nearest bus-stop and then pay for parking, you might as well drive straight to your final destination. The latest is a €4 charge at the LUAS Red Cow park-and-ride.

What’s different:-

• Twink (66), aka Adele King (72), has begun saying rude things. On the phone. To her ex. Luckily some public spirited hacker got hold of the message and it is posted all over the web, including here. My bet is that it was Twink (83) herself - she needs all the free publicity she can get.
• Podge & Rodge have replaced Zig & Zag. The good catholic mammies of Ireland are phoning Joe to complain about the antics and language of the pair of country-puppets. Even though the good catholic children of the good catholic mammies should be in bed hours before P&R come on. But Double Z Enterprises are still laughing all the way to the bank. So maybe this should be in the other category.
• Polski has replaced Gaeilge as the second language. Others in the running, in no particular order, include Français, Deutsch, Italiano, Espanol, Portugues, Nederlands, Dansk, Norsk, Svenska, Suomi, Cesky, Turkce, Ellinika, Maygar, Russkij, Hrvatski, Slovenscina, Romana, Mandarin, Hindi, Arabic, Yoruba, Swahili, Waray-Waray … and many, many more. As an aside, one school on the Arran Islands is teaching Polski.
• Advertising is, well, weird. O’Briens are offering hand-cut sandwiches. How did they cut them before? With a consaw? Oh, and houses which are concrete-built, are better-built. So apparently, even if you get Mr. O’Reilly of Fawlty Towers fame to do the work the end product will be better as long as he uses concrete.