Well I’m impressed, Primal. The extension is coming along very well. I love the gun turret. Great idea. It’ll be right handy come the council elections. Listen, if you need to borrow the tractor and trailer to take away that pile of rubble just let me know. I’ll have it hitched up, filled with diesel and I’ll leave the key in it. No rush bringing it back.

Harry was being extra pally. Normally I just get a grunt over the hedge. I had intended cadging the tractor. Now it was being offered. This was great.

Then it dawned on me and I got that sinking feeling. The one you get when you press basement. That sudden panic you get having made it to the jacks just in time for a world record flash-dump only to realise there’s no bog roll.

The feker was looking for something.

You wouldn’t be free for a few hours on Thursday? It’s just that, with Tom off sick and the young lads away in Spain, I’ve no-one to give me a hand sorting a few sheep.

The golden rule of the countryside is stay in with the farmer with the best tractor. The silver rule is keep out of his way until you need to borrow it. I think they should be the other way around.

Now those of you, who like me, are desk jockeys and spend your days massaging lumps out of your chair with your arse, may think sheep are lovely fluffy white things that you’d love to have roaming around your lawn. Let me tell you they’re not. They are stubborn fekers that will lull you into a false sense of security when being herded through a gap and change direction suddenly, for no apparent reason, and run like greyhounds to the far end of the field and laugh at you. Their wool is not soft and downy - it’s got more grease in it than the fifth wheel on an artic. When penned they won’t shy away in a corner - if they think you’re blocking the exit they’ll jump at you and knock you senseless if you don’t hit them with an American football blocking tackle.

When Harry said sort a few sheep he meant a little more than that: Select lambs for market; select more for next fortnight’s market; dose lambs to be kept; dagg them if dirty; spray them with dip; check the teeth and elders of the ewes; pare hooves if needed.*

There were 350 ewes and 500 lambs. I came home as exhausted as a hooker from the rugby world cup. Either type of hooker.

Scrubbed and scrubbed in the shower and I could still smell them such is the way their scent permeates the skin. Lynx or any other smell-well doesn’t mask it.

And worst of all, not being used to manual labour, I woke up this morning with aches and pains in places where I never had places. Even worser than worser the builder has organised a truck so I don’t need the fekin tractor after all.

I’ve seen Snakes on a Plane and it didn’t scare me. Goats on a Boat didn’t either. But one movie I know I couldn’t watch would be Sheep on a Ship.

*If you don’t know what some or all of this entails, believe me you don’t want to know.

While most of the country were glued to the Kerry-Dublin match a few of us had another great sporting occasion to entertain us - Ireland’s one and only all-weather track in Dundalk held it’s very first meeting.

For those who aren’t familiar with the terminology, an all-weather track has a sand surface as opposed to grass, or turf as it is called. Dundalk is more correctly termed a polytrack, meaning it is made from a combination of sand and parrots, or sand and synthetic polymers which are make-believe sea parrots. And like it says on the tin, it can be used in all weathers. Which is useful in a country where all weathers can occur on the same day.

With that in mind, a small band, including myself and a grumbling* national hunt jockey, settled into our favourite all-weather pub to view the momentous proceedings. The winner of the first was Ms Victoria, trained by Mick Halford and ridden by Johnny Murtagh. Remember that. It will pop up at table quizzes in years to come and you will astound your friends with your knowledge of things sporting.

After the second, race, not drink, someone commented both winners had come out of stall 3. The pattern continued and the third and fourth races were also won by the horse drawn 3. Luckily we had listened and capitalised on this. It didn’t continue but we made some money anyway. Not that we could spend it - the staff were all out the other side watching the football and getting their attention was like trying to catch a fart bubble in a bath.

Now why was I so excited about a flat race? Those who have read my previous posts on racing will know I’m a jumps fan. I dislike the flat and despise the all-weather. As a stereotype Kildare man it’s my job.

Well for one, any first is worth getting excited about. More importantly I was excited about the benefits this track will bring to the national hunt scene. Many flat races will be transferred to Dundalk from other meetings freeing up slots for more jump races. In a country where we have too many horses and not enough races this can only be a good thing. It might get my mate the grumbling jockey a few more mounts too.

*He’s always grumbling. Just ignore him.

In the town where I was born, bred and buttered, you were nobody unless you had a nickname. Lack of a nickname meant you didn’t stand out from the crowd in any way. Nicknames derived from your job, your hobby, your appearance, your family background, something totally stupid you did at some stage, an infirmity. Nothing was sacred.

When Pat Smullen lost the hearing in one ear he became known as Look Left. You work out which ear.
Larry the Leg was so called because he had a wooden one. He never seemed to mind. The name, not the leg.

Others hated theirs. Peter was a short stocky soldier with a big beer belly. Being called The Flab was bad enough but when he discovered it meant Fat Little Army Bollix he flipped altogether.

Pat Kavanagh was a big man too. Full of drink, he fell asleep buck naked on a beach in Spain one time and got seriously sunburned on the back. Bra in The Bra Kavanagh stood for Big Red Arse.

Seán Hayes was a martyr for the whiskey and had a bright red nose as a result. Over the years this turned blue and then darker. He ignored his doctor’s warnings until folks began referring to him as The Purple Hayes.

In a time when parents didn’t call their children after celebrities or brands of perfume there was an abundance of Pats, Micks, Joes and so on. There could even be five or six Pat Murphys in the same town. Our problem was the number of Joes.

We had Joe the Egg who kept hens. His son was Joey the Yolk. There was Joe the Dog who hated cats. His cousin Domino Joe, undoubtedly the best dots player around.

There was Tony Two Lines who loved to sing with a few pints on board but always trailed off quickly. Mick Million Papers would insist on consulting everyone else’s racing pages before picking his horse.

Some families even had nicknames. The Bibles because they named their kids Noah, Moses and Eve. None of us had much time for the Power-Smyths and their greater-than-thou attitude. Hence The Sour-Shits.

Some inanimate objects had nicknames too. The Toss-Bank Bike named after the source of the money that paid for it. The Roadstone Ranch was built after a farmer sold land to a quarrying company. A company whose employees were known as Roadstone Cowboys after the song of a different name, if you know what I mean. A quiet side road used by the local ladies for their morning walks was Big Arse Boulevard.

This seemed to be dying out as the village succumbed to the influx of Dubs who brought their own brand of nicknames with them. To get a Dub’s nickname just add an O to their name. Go on. Try it. Johno. Liamo. See. It’s easy. Try some harder ones. Petero doesn’t work, but Pedro does. If you get stuck with the first name, try the surname. Kavo for Kavanagh. Try some more. Have fun. Or die of boredom.

Then yesterday I noticed a small resurgence. Vladimir, a Russian working in the local shop, is being called Vlad the Retailer. Now that’s class! It has to be one of the best of all time, unless you have better.

Now some crowd called the Metropolitan Police Sikh Association (MPSA) in London have gotten into the should Gardaí be permitted wear turbans debate. They say the uniform policy was 40 years behind the United Kingdom and accused the Gardaí of racial discrimination.

Well lads, do you know what you can do? You just go fuck off! It’s none of your business telling a police force in another state what they should, or shouldn’t, be doing. That kind of shite is best left to despots like Bush and Putin.

Why are they spouting on anyway? Probably because some Irish journalist passed the story on to them and asked for a comment.

Why do our journalists and politicians always insist on using Britain as a role model? Ireland brought in ASBOs because Britain had them. Dublin is considering congestion charges because London as them. Ireland implemented a penalty points system for driving offences because Britain had them.

Where will it end? Will we revert to measuring things in inches, ounces and acres because Britain do it? Will we pull out of the euro just to be like Britain? Quick lads, Britain has had a foot and mouth outbreak - we’d better have one. How about a monarchy?

Do our law makers only read the Guardian or the Times and only watch the BBC? There are more countries in Europe, never mind the world, than Britain. Hey, Bertie, go get yourself today’s Frankfurter Allgemeine, El Pais, La Stampa. Oh, I forgot you don’t speak foreignish - well sit down and look at Euronews or France24 for an hour.

Britain may be our closest neighbour geographically and, in some ways, culturally. But she is not our twin. Ireland’s issues of multi-racialism, multi-culturalism and integration are not clones of hers. Too often we forget that Britain went out into the world and created an empire. Ireland didn’t *. Britain retains strong links with former colonies. The Commonwealth of Nations. Former protectorates. The people of many of these territories are legally British citizens or entitled to be.

Often we hear it quoted come into my house, respect my rules or when in Rome, do as the Romans do. In Britain’s case, most of her immigrants are Romans. It is their house.

I am not saying that Ireland can therefore ignore the issues or be heavy handed in imposing Irish culture and values on newcomers. What I am saying to our law makers and commentators is to seek out another role model. Stop slavishly following Britain’s lead.

* Okay we did a bit of it around Britain’s west and north west coasts, the Kingdom of the Isles and all that, but we took weekends off and after invasions we always said sorry about that, lads, but shur it could’ve been worse.

Read Back to School #1 and #2 …

We were a group of six. From three different countries. Spoke three different languages - four if you count two distinct dialects of one. Varied in age from 20 to, well, to my age. Six different educational backgrounds: Maths, Agriculture, Economics, Physics, Civil Engineering and Robotics. Six different reasons for taking the course.

The initial social groupings were based in either language or gender. i.e. Who went for coffee with whom. Within a week, this had all changed and we became one big team. A six pack. We were all a bit surprised as each confessed to being poor team players.

We were taking 1st, 2nd and 3rd year modules. We were competing against the 2nd and 3rd years who obviously had an edge on us in terms of pure computer science. Even the 1st years had an advantage - Straight out of secondary school, a lot of scientific and mathematical theory was still fresh in their minds. But each of the six pack had an area of expertise and we would coach each other. Even the arts graduate, with no scientific or technological skills, helped those with poor English, and later proved invaluable, saving us hours of research when we were given a finance-based coding project.

The lecturers were as I expected. Some were excellent teachers and communicators, willing to go that extra mile, willing to stay back and answer questions. Others were droning twats who pretty much read from the same script they had prepared years ago. It was the same my first time around all those years back. Some things never change in academia.

What I didn’t expect was the attitude of some of the lab demonstrators. (Note I say some, not all). A more condescending bunch of jerkoffs I never came across. Most were Ph.D. candidates who just a few years previously would have been struggling with the material we were now. They would sit back against the wall chatting among themselves and ignoring requests for help. When they did get up off their arses it would be to tell someone the task was easy, just do this and punch a few keys for them. Who learns from that? Earwigging, I would hear thicko and the like peppered through their conversations.

Now before I go further let me say that in all honesty thicko did aptly describe quite a few of the students I met. Why they were attempting degrees in IT was beyond me. Numbers applying for such courses had fallen and the intake wasn’t of the standard of years back. That’s a separate post for another day. But it did gall me that these demonstrators were being paid for a job they were not doing. It was not their place to make judgements and to decide coaching students of poor ability was pointless and not to be bothered with.

I knew I would crack eventually. And I did. I was failing miserably to get some code working and asked one of them over. He grunted that I should have had that part done an hour ago. I would never survive in the real world by being so slow. Real world! That was a red rag to a bull.

Listen hear, sonny boy. I was working in the real world, as you call it, when you were still shitting yellow. Don’t you dare tell me about the real world - you’ve never been there. You never will in fact - no employer would hire an attitude like yours. I’ve fired people like you.

My fees are paying your wages for this lab session. You are working for me now. So sit down there and do what I’m paying you for.

There was an eerie silence in a room of 50. Not even the sound of a proverbial dropped pin. He sat down slowly. Glowing bright red. Which is a sight to behold when the one blushing is a dark skinned Indian.

From then on no-one had a problem getting help from him, or any other demonstrator, while I was in the room. It isn’t like me to freak out like that and I apologised immediately, but it really gets on my wick when someone is paid for a job they aren’t doing.

Now read #4.

• Here I go again, quoting Annie who wrote: If you’re still using Internet Explorer please do the world wide web a favour and download Firefox instead. It’s free and it will get you laid.

Well, lads, lets me tell yez, if Firefox’ll get you laid, then the latest release of Thunderbird will get you laid by ninety nine vestal virgins - every hour. It rocks. It’s the Rolling Stones without being stuck in the carpark*. You’ll never use Outlook or it’s ilk again. You’ll never, as Bertie would say, go back to yer auld pencils and paper.

Version 2.0.0.6 (20070728) was released on July 28 - who’d have guessed? Get it now!

Note: A small word of warning: Even though you don’t expect a vestal virgin to be carrying anything, it pays to take precautions. If you are upgrading from an unvestal virgin, some of your plug-ins may no longer work or may have to be reinstalled. (Excuse the imagery). But that said, it is still well worth it.

* The sibling and partner are sitting in the car at Slane after tonight’s concert and haven’t moved in over an hour. MCD screws up again?

• I don’t know why, but the following from years back just popped into my head. Maybe it’s all this talk of virgins, or the Welsh connection.

There was a young girl from Aberystwyth
Who took some corn to the mill to make grist with
But the miller’s son Jack
Laid her flat on her back
And united the organs they pissed with

• And speaking of boys and girls, the Reluctant Memsahib (who is a girl - a stunner in fact - I’ve seen her picture) praised me no end during the week and I quote: she’s said very kind things about both home school and the inevitability of boarding. And she frequently makes me laugh. Well Mem, you made me laugh too, and so much that your post is my pick of the week for Mo Rogha.

• Back to slogans: Every time I login to StatCounter I read the message Increase your log size today and can’t help silently adding Eat more fibre. By the way, is it just me or has StatCounter become disastrously slow in the last few weeks? Has Aodhán’s getting the award attracted so many signups they are having trouble coping? The answer is probably somewhere on their blog or forum but they are equally slow to load so I couldn’t be arsed checking.