I pulled into the red carpark of the Whitewater shopping centre at lunchtime yesterday. There is a green car park too, but I decided that my green car might be difficult to find in that one.

Just as I got out of the car the red carpark became the black one. A power cut. Lovely! Now my car would be even harder to find. Arms outstretched, I made my way to the stairwell and climbed 4 or 5 flights to the bridge linking to the shopping centre. Two thoughts crossed my mind:
Why, if I had driven up into a multi-storey carpark, was I still climbing? It seems they built the high-rise carpark in a hole making it a low-rise.
Why were none of the floors I passed signed? They did have up and down arrows telling you what was above or below you but not where you were. And no, not what was exactly above, just that it was above.

By peering out from the stairwell at each floor I finally found the one with the bridge and made my way into the centre. Another thought: Would there be a couple of hysterical blondes stuck half-way up an escalator?

This I was denied. Maybe the security team had helped them down already.

But I was to be compensated tenfold.

The generators had kicked in so at least the shops (and their tills) were all brightly lit. Passing the customer services desk I overheard a customer being told by one of the girls that it would be 3 hours before power was restored, that the generators were not for the carpark and that she could not validate parking tickets. She was so, so, so sorry but there was really nothing she could do. The beaming smile and compassionate voice belied the attitude of “listen, sucker, I’m stuck here until 5:30 putting up with your whinging, so I couldn’t give a tuppenny fcuk. It’ll be restored long before I leave”.

Purchase made, I headed back to the bridge.

Little miss tuppenny fcuk’s message had spread and a crowd stood staring longingly at the lifeless ticket validation machine. One man paced back and forth telling anyone who would listen that he had to be back at work by 2.

I gathered my own team of ‘anyone who would listen’ and tried to explain that
a) even if they got their ticket validated the exit barriers were electrically powered too so it wouldn’t achieve anything and
b) given the circumstances, he likelihood was that the barriers had been manually lifted and we could drive out for free.

Of the 20 or so ‘anyone who would listen’s’, only one did. I helped her carry her shopping down the stairs and we were waved through the open barriers with an apology from a security guy for any inconvenience caused. The others headed back to the shops and foodcourts to wait it out (and spend more).

Little miss tuppenny fcuk will probably get a raise for increasing revenue.

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.

We thought the Danes didn’t do speed limit enforcement. But they do. And it’s probably the best enforcement ever.