Irish funerals are a part of Irish life. To an outsider, I’m sure, they seem strange. I’ve written about them before and it is often said the only difference between a funeral and a wedding is one less drunk. Oh, and no cameras.

The very first I was brought to was of an old man whose family had recently moved here from the west. Days before he died, a keener* had been sent for from Mayo. The sight of a body at the age of four coupled with the keener’s performance frightened me off and I flatly refused to be taken to any more for years, which was much to my parents’ embarrassment - you see, mourning families may not remember who was at their loved one’s funeral, but they will never, ever, ever forget who wasn’t.

So important is it to make an appearance, to show one’s face, that we even offer two opportunities: funeral-lite the night before the burial and funeral-full that day. Funeral-lite is quick, with the minimum of ceremony. It suits people who can’t take time off work the following day and afterwards there is ample time for those gathered to form queues and shake hands with the bereaved. Howya, eh, eh, howya. Eh, sorry for your trouble is responded to with thanks for coming, eh, eh, thanks. Ad nauseum. That you can’t remember the family members’ names, nor they yours, is irrelevant - they will remember you if they didn’t see you.

Funeral-full is a much more lavish affair, though generally less well attended, which is lucky for the family as, while once they were expected to lay on soup and sandwiches, or soup-sandwiches, these days a full sit-down meal is the norm. The graveside also sees more howya, eh, eh, howya, eh, sorry for your trouble and thanks for coming, but not much, which again is lucky for the family who are either pissed off with it at that stage, or having neglected to remove their rings the night previously, are in need of surgery on crushed and swollen fingers.

While the tradition of keener has died out, some of the older families still hold a wake. The starter pack. A third opportunity to shake hands, although those who do attend usually partake of funeral-lite and funeral-full too - the professional funeral goers who have replaced the keeners. I can’t tell you anything more about wakes - the trauma inflicted on me as a four-year-old has led me to avoid them since.

In fact, I avoid most funerals. All breeds of them. Sugar-free. Full-fat. I hate the he was a great man crap. The don’t speak ill of the dead fear. Dying doesn’t change what a person was. The only different between a live bollix and a dead bollix is one is dead.

I hate shite from the priests who offer their brand of religion as support for the family. The family that doesn’t believe a word of it. I hate the professional funeral goers that knew the deceased well - they met them in the shop the odd morning.

I have buried both parents. Both with all the religious pomp. Because that’s what they wanted, not me. I merely did what they had asked of me. (I know of a young man who was recently cremated as he had asked. His parents buried his ashes at a second ceremony, not spread them at the Devil’s Bit as he asked. That galled me). I hated having to shake hands with people I didn’t know. I felt like standing up and saying anybody here who isn’t a good friend of the family please fuck off. I came close but was held back by the, more stable, sibling. I hated people asking if there was anything they could do - yeah, shag off, I don’t know you. I welcomed the support of close friends, more so before and after, the funerals but I hated the intrusion of strangers who felt they had to make an appearance.

I go to the funerals of people I was close to. People whose family I am also close to. If I was close to someone, but not their family, I stay away because otherwise I would be in the way - I would be just another stranger mouthing rubbish and showing my face.

For this, I am a continual source of amazement in the locality. I didn’t see ya at so-and-so’s funeral, Primal. I wasn’t there. Were ya sick? No. I just didn’t go - I don’t know the family. But you knew so-and-so himself. Shur ya used have a pint with him. I knew him. I may have chatted with him in the pub but we weren’t close. I’m talking to you now and we both have pints in our hands but I won’t be at your funeral either. For fek sake, you could’ve at least shown yer face.

A neighbour is being buried as I write. I can name two of his brothers but couldn’t tell one from the other. The other brothers and sisters I’ve never met. Obviously I’m not there. And for the next month or more all I will get is I didn’t see ya at so-and-so’s funeral, Primal.

* A professional mourner. From the Irish, caoin : to cry.

At the post office

Is that O-N or A-N? - An Irish lady making out a cheque to An Post.

In the checkout queue

Three years I’m here. Three years and I’m still a blow-in. - If you know small towns, no explanation is needed.

In the pub

You’re like the back of my bollix - you see nothing but shite - The barman reacts to a customer’s constant complaining.

Same pub - same day

They do curries like in the Chinese, but you get unlevelled bread with them, like in the bible - The local chapter of Mensa discuss the menu for the new Indian takeaway.

A mail burst into my inbox on Tuesday bubbling over excitedly with the news that the County Kildare Community Network website, kildare.ie, run by Kildare County Council, won a LAMA award for “Best Use of External Communications”. You can read it here. Ah, don’t bother - I’ll give you the main points.

LAMA = Local Authority Members Association. Llama = a useful animal.

The award was presented by RTE presenter Sharon Ni Bheolain and John Gormley. For overseas readers, the former is just a teeny weeny bit less hot (about 1cal or 4.1868J) than Jolene Blalock, her name is actually Ní Bheoláin not Ni Bheolain and she works for RTÉ not RTE. The latter is a Green who sold his soul to Fianna Fáil for a ministerial post.

kildare.ie was recently redesigned. Adherence to web standards and improved accessibility & usability are an integral part of the new design. Ah yes, I remember them doing that. I couldn’t view a damn thing on the site for days unless I buried my pride and switched to Internet Explorer. Months later and their online planning system still only supports IE. If your browser of preference is Firefox or Safari you can use their LiteView version. So much for usability.

Here’s an interesting little exercise: Go to the World Wide Web Consortium’s markup validation service and plug in http://kildare.ie/. 23 errors! So much for adherence to web standards.

Go to the Council’s home page. Like the tiny text in light grey font with the white background? Pretty isn’t it? If your eyes aren’t the best it isn’t pretty at all. Oh, hold on, I apologise. I’m being far too harsh - on the right, toward the bottom there is a tiny link for Larger Font. Have you found it yet? Ok, I’ll give you another ten minutes.

*Puts kettle on. Makes nice mug of coffee*

Ok, you found it. Good. So now the font a readable size, even if it is light grey. See the Help/Accessibility link in the same section? Let’s go there and see what it says. Oh no! The font has gone back to the default size! Very accessible indeed.

Ok, well we’ll just have to struggle on. Let’s see what they have in the Publications section. Oh, look, the Development Plan for 2005-2011 is there. This will be interesting. I wonder what they have in store for my area? Now which is my area? I can’t tell because it’s all laid out in gobbledygook map references - I’ll just have to work my way through all the PDF files all until I find it. At least it’s usable.

Now I understand: They got the LAMA award, not for accessibility & usability, but for improved accessibility & usability. Believe me when I tell you most downloadable documents on the site used be in MS Word format - at least I can open PDF.

Personally I think the county would be better off with a few llamas.

Warning: Not for the weak of stomach

I was up to my eyeballs yesterday what with making a shopping list, reading blogs and generally avoiding work when the mobile rang. I grunted my displeasure and frowned at it, but being a cheap Huawei import it has difficulty understanding western social norms and kept ringing. I had to answer it. It was Kathy inviting me out to lunch. Well that was okay then. Very pleasant in fact. As we all know, doing lunch is a 100% legitimate excuse to avoid work. And of course she would have the wee man, Oisín, with her. At just 3½ months old he’s already becoming an individual in his own right with his likes and dislikes, big gummy smiles, eyes that follow everything that moves, little fisted hands that rub his eyes when tired. Mighty craic all together.

Now those of you who are mums or dads will know that the SAS, climbers on Everest and Arctic explorers have it easy - they have damn all supplies and equipment to carry compared to the parent of a baby. When picking a lunch venue you need one with space. Preferably big couches to rest the baby-carrier or to lay the child down on and room for bag(s) with nappies, wipes, creams, soothers, bottles, spare bibs, clothes, shovels, rakes and implements of destruction. The list is endless.

I was commended on my choice. It ticked all the boxes apparently. We chatted away over a lovely lunch all the while being checked on by the staff who were really making up excuses to ooh and aah at Oisín. It never ceases to amaze me how people, even the grumpiest of old men, turn into blubbering idiots in the presence of a baby.

Coffees arrived and an unrequested jug of hot water in case we needed to warm a bottle. Which we did. I was impressed with the service.

I fed himself while Kathy slipped to the loo. On her return she moaned that they were tiny with no room next the wash hand basins to comfortably, or safely, change a child and obviously no fold down contraption for the job. Then inspiration hit her - a quick check and his nappy was just damp. I’ll slip a new one on discretely where we are. That’s a runner, I figured. The crowd had all gone and we were in an alcove hidden from view.

Just as the fresh one was being slipped on there was an almighty explosion and the proverbial hit the fan. Well not totally true. It hit everything except the fan as there wasn’t one. But it would have if there was. Now I’ve had the hottest curries in my day and ended up with an arse like the Japanese flag, but never like this. Good f*ck! This happens once a day, explained Kathy. Like clockwork at 4 in the afternoon. It must have come early as he’s on extra feed since today.

Just then I noticed, well more sensed, one of the staff approaching. I jumped up on my hind legs and intercepted him. Ah, there ya are now, Derek. Ya have the bill with ya. Good man, I’ll get ya on the way back. Just have to nip to the mens. I hovered at the door for a minute or two then returned. Kathy gave me the Iarnród Éireann line - we’re not there yet, but we’re getting there.

Derek was making his way over again. With a cloth in his hand. I grabbed the coffee mugs, pulled a wipe from the baby bag, cleared down the table and made intercept number two. There ya go now, Derek. All done.

Ah thanks, Primal. There’s a job here for ya any day. Want to settle up now? I stalled and made like I couldn’t find the bill. He ran off a copy. I glanced at Kathy shaking her head vigorously. It looked like Oisín was sorted and she was working on the (luckily PVC) couch. Oh, I think this isn’t right. We didn’t have coffees did we? Derek looked at me sideways. But shur you just handed me the empties. Bad stall, Primal - 1 out of 10 - must work harder. I glanced at Kathy now sitting back looking flushed but smiling. Or trying to. Oh, yeah we did. Yer right. I paid and we left.

At the car she remembered her handbag. I went back in. Derek met with it at the door. It must be something in the air today, Primal. You forgot the coffees. Her ladyship forgot her bag. And I forgot to tell ya we have a new baby changing room down the hallway.

No, this is not a sad tale about an immigrant separated from their loved one. It’s about common or garden poles. Ones that began life as trees, were cut down, stripped bare, coated in creosote, returned to an upright position and left to support an electricity cable for the rest of their natural deaths.

They are everywhere. If you live in the sticks like me you probably have one of your own - commonly in the garden, hence the reference above.

They are the life blood of Irish politics when once every five years they clothed in posters. No lost animal would ever be found unless its picture appeared on one. The local crash repairs service would be out of business. And there is the small matter of them delivering power to our homes. We just don’t appreciate them.

Well, not until they aren’t there. Or are there, but you want them over there instead. Such is my case.

The one in my garden is right smack on the corner of the new extension. This fact was discovered in June using theodolites, lasers, sticks and pieces of twine - all very high tech. It had to be moved. Forms were filled and posted. A follow up call was made to the local ESB office a week later. Now the ESB, being one of the few remaining semi-state bodies to be privatised, are duty bound to act as civil servants. And they performed admirably by losing the forms. They lost the second set too, but thankfully a portal opened in the space time continuum that is officialdom and the original ones reappeared. All very Dirk Gently.

But they couldn’t process them. Since the ESB took it upon themselves to redraw their operational districts, the pole in question was 50metres outside the boundary of the local office area. So instead of dealing with an office 8km away we would have to contact one 60km further afield. The builder realised the impending difficulties associated with being the furthest customer from their base and summed up the situation succinctly: We are f*cked!

By now it was too late to pull the old builder’s trick: accidentally knocking the pole while digging foundations, paying the €300 fine and having the ESB crew who would come to restore supply position the replacement pole appropriately. Not that we would have done that of course. Why that would be dishonest. Right?

The third set of forms were submitted and to our surprise and engineer arrived on site almost immediately. Well one month later, which in civil service terms is instant. Kitted out in a shiny white hard hat and spotless hi-viz he surveyed the scene, wrote things in an important looking book and promised immediate action.

More forms, a hefty four figure cheque and four months later a crew came and erected a new pole.

While all this form filling, losing things, finding things and writing in important looking books was going on the actual building work came to a halt. The ground workers couldn’t finish. So the bricklayers couldn’t finish, neither could the roofers. Because they couldn’t finish, the electricians, the plasters, the painters and the candlestick makers were all stood down. So much for it being ready by Christmas.

The really annoying thing is the foreman on the crew that actually did the work said his team hadn’t been overly busy of late and had the work order arrived on his desk any time in the last few months he could have had the job done within days. Isn’t it an awful pity the lad digging the foundations didn’t clip the pole by accident. It would have cost you a few quid but look at the time you’d have saved, he grinned.

I’m back. Well sort of. Let’s say I’m Backish. Like Ivana. I’ll still be drifting in and out of the consciousness that is blogland for a couple of more weeks. It’s not right to be messing with the space-time continuum like that but it can’t be helped for the moment.

Now what was I saying? Oh, yeah, the great tree-felling of ‘07. What I haven’t told you is how the tree was actually cut down.

As it was close to the house, we needed to be sure it fell away from it. Pat’s a good man with a chainsaw but just to be sure, he had me brace a hefty plank ¼ the way from the treetop and then push as hard as I could when he gave the order. It worked a dream.

However, being as useful as tits on a bull when it comes to things like this, I somehow managed to let the plank slip from my shoulder and I tore the muscle on a rib.

Some years ago I had a similar injury and I remembered well how much it hurt when I coughed, sneezed or laughed.

Kismet, as it does, played its part and I got a cold the next day. Cough, fuck, cough, fuck, fuck and atchoo, fuck, fuck, fuck. You get the idea.

Luckily I was working hard and hadn’t time to read blogs so there wasn’t much to make me laugh. But kismet, the bastard, had other ideas.

In the chemist’s collecting a script for an elderly neighbour I coughed, let out a string of expletives and bent over holding my chest. The blonde babe who fancies me* came running from behind the counter. Are you sure it’s a torn muscle? It’s not cracked is it? Here let me have a look and she ran her hand up under my jumper.

She pressed and prodded and I screamed oh god, oh god while she soothingly ooohed and aaahed.

The commotion brought the manager out from the back of the shop and suggested if we were having some sort of role-reversal sexual experience that we were welcome to use his office.

The staff and customers burst out laughing. I did too. But that caused even more pain and I fell over clutching my chest, and the girl’s hand as it was still on the offending rib, consequently bringing her down on top of me.

To add insult to injured rib, the guy who owns my local walked in right then. Never the shy one, eh Primal. That produced another bout of laughter and writhing in pain. Each time the girl tried get up I rolled or jerked involuntarily and brought her crashing down again.

Can security camera footage be uploaded to YouTube? asked the manager. More hilarity. I thought it would never end. Why in the name of the mother of the six sniffling infants did this have to happen in a shop-full of smart arses!

* I know she does ‘cos she dropped a subtle hint one day: The other girls think I fancy you. They could be right - you make me laugh**.

** I asked her if they stocked Scrotox. It wasn’t on the computer but if I explained what it was she’d make some calls. It’s like Botox but it’s for getting the wrinkles out of your sack.