You are commissioned by Mr. Del Trotter of Peckham Springs Ltd. to carry out a survey of the population’s like/dislike of mineral water. Mr. Trotter would like to discover people prefer his product, though he doesn’t say it outright.

So you head down to a predominantly Muslim area of London with your clipboard and approach people on the street asking “if you had the choice, would you prefer to drink a) mineral water or b) beer?”

The results: When asked, a staggering 95% of the population said they prefer to drink water! [The remaining 5% were recorded as "don't know" - they may have said "tea"].

It’s wrong isn’t it? Pure wrong. It’s cheating. You wouldn’t take on such a commission would you? You wouldn’t lie like that.

The Catholic Church did. The Council for Research and Development of the Irish Bishops’ Conference yesterday released the results of a survey on the “Factors Determining School Choice” [in Ireland, north and south]. A survey carried out by their own researcher.

You can read about it on the Irish Independent website or, if you have money to spare, you can read a different slant on the Irish Times website. If the Catholic Communications Office got its act together you could probably read the full text of the press release on their website too. But they haven’t published it (yet).

Here are some of the “findings”:

- 98% said they were aware when applying to enrol their child that the school choice was a Catholic choice.

Insinuation: 98% of parents selected a Catholic school.

What the parents were really saying: More than 3,000 of the 3,200 primary schools in the country are Catholic. Of course we were aware.

- 94% said that education was a shared responsibility between parents and the school.

Insinuation: 94% said that education was a shared responsibility between parents and the Church, as the school is Church run.

What the parents were really saying: Education is a shared responsibility between parents and the school.

- A clear majority believe that Holy Communion and Confirmation are best prepared for within the school.

Insinuation: Hey, look at us. Aren’t we great? Look at all we do for you? Look at the trust you place in us. Look at how much a part of your lives and the community we are.

What the parents were really saying: We couldn’t be bothered / don’t have time to do this ourselves. Shur we wouldn’t know the first thing about it, and anyway, we’re only going ahead with the Communion business to keep Granny and Grandad off our case.

- 60% believe that the school’s teachers should promote the religious life of the school.

Insinuation: 60% truly prefer a Catholic education for their children.

What the parents we really saying: As above - you fire ahead with this religion business and keep Granny and Grandad off our case.

- In the preamble (in the Irish Times) it said “three new State-run schools will soon open, but the question of faith formation in these schools has still to be resolved”.

Insinuation: Look at the results of our survey. Clearly you need to hand the management of these schools over to us. It’s what the parents want.

Del Trotter would love this researcher.

So the cat’s gone. Anonycat got put down. AIDS of all things. The dog missed him a bit at first. They were sometimes-friends - on the cat’s terms of course. Some nights when it was cold the cat would be kind enough to let the dog share the dog kennel. Other nights he’d evict the dog with one well placed swipe of a claw - especially wet nights. The dog isn’t the brightest and never realised the cat was a proper bastard. But I hated it. I hate cats.

Peace and tranquillity were once again restored to Sneezy Manor. Never again would I be tripped up by a fluffy white thing crossing my path at faster miles an hour. Why did it always do that when I had my arms full? Never again would I be woken at 2am by Anonycat having his way outside my window with some floozie he picked up on the street. Never again would there be scraping and yowling at the door at 3am - deed done, now looking for food and/or a cigarette.

Then what happened? A mickey-relation heard the cat was dead and took pity on me. Pity! Pity, I ask you. What feking pity? I didn’t want pity, I wanted party. They got me a replacement. 06D reg. FSH. Range of optional extras included. Low mileage. i.e. Less than 2 years old, used belong to some old dear in Dublin, all certs provided, box of toys, house cat. A fukin house cat! Bad enough having one around the yard but now I have one that lounges on the couch all day watching soaps. I suppose you’re going to suggest I put a cat-flap on the fridge in case it gets peckish during Dr. Phil, I asked. Don’t be silly, she said. Here’s his food and here’s his menu. It’s a two week rota so he doesn’t get bored. How can something that watches Oprah get any more bored?

Anonycat was pure white. This one is mostly white with brown patches. And one small black patch. Where? Right under the nose. You’ve dumped me with a Nazi cat, I yelled. Ah don’t be silly, the little moustache is cute.

I whipped the cat up and frantically turned it this way and that. What are you doing? You’ll hurt the poor kitty. I’m checking it doesn’t have a number tattooed somewhere. 666 or 667. If it’s not the Beast it’s the Neighbour of the Beast. See the way it’s piercing me with its eyes? See the way its paw is outstretched like that? That’s a salute I tell you. Is its name Adolf or Damien? Would you relax! Its name is Alex and he’s a little dote. So was Damien at that age. It’ll make the dog jump to his death from the balcony. Mark my words. You don’t have a balcony. A high wall then. You don’t have a wall either.

I less than two weeks this damn cat has caused more trouble than the last one did in three years.

The painter-in-law (he’s married to my cousin) arrived one morning last week. Where’s the cat, asked Lar. Oh, it’s here. Just hidden. Not hiding. Hidden. He is a master of camouflage. A stealth cat. One minute there won’t a be a sign of it anywhere, then you’ll notice it asleep on the seat next to you. This cat is SAS trained. I’m sure of it. Jayzez, you’re right, Primal. I thought I was losing the plot, said Lar. I came in for the tea yesterday morning and it wasn’t here. I dropped me bag, hit the button on the kettle, turned around and it was asleep on the mat. And all the meat was gone from me sandwiches. Yeah, it does that, Lar, I agreed. You’d want ears on the side of your head with it. This one has read too much TS Elliot. Too much what? Don’t worry about it, Lar.

But for once the cat really wasn’t there. We could hear it meowing somewhere, but couldn’t find it. Ah bollix, groaned Lar. The utility room. It’s fallen down behind that wall unit. Listen. And that’s where it was. How it got up there is a mystery. But then, one of it’s pastimes is performing a tightrope act on the tops of doors.

Lar got his step ladder and we dropped a sheet down the back so it could climb up. We waited and waited. Lar got a bigger ladder and I climbed up a shone a torch down. It wasn’t there. It must be underneath the units. But which one? We prised out the kickboards one by one. No cat. The one kickboard we hadn’t taken out was the one wedged in by a skirting board. It had to come off. And it brought an acre of plaster with it. The cat strolled out with a what-the-fek-kept-yez look and perched on a chair.

Lar and I spent ages on the repairs and went around blocking up any other gaps over the units it could fall into. He finally got to start painting at 10:30. Two and a half hours lost.

Even then he wasn’t having a good day. The wind was bitterly cold and gusting up Arctic strength as he worked on the plinth either side of the glass doors. He laid out a narrow strip of carpet to protect his knees and catch any drips. A full 5l paint drum on one end and he on the other prevented the wind lifting it.

He happened to glance up. Coming straight at his face with claws bared was a feline Hitler. (The cat had jumped from the back of a chair onto the door handles). Startled, Lar toppled back. The carpet whipped up in the wind sending the paint drum toppling too. Lar dived to save it but was too slow. 5l of paint poured onto the path. The strip of carpet flapped in and out of the paint puddle, splashing the walls, glass doors and Lar in patterns that would put Hirst to shame. I hooked up the garden hose but the wind was drying the mess too fast and it was pointless. We spent the next three hours scrapping splotches off the doors and repainting the walls. The cat dropped gracefully down off the door handles and went for a snooze on the mat. I could swear I heard an evil snigger.

And that was just one day. There have been ten to date. I am sick of screaming “get thee to a cattery”. This cat is the result of some mad scientist’s genetic experiment - part Nazi, part SAS commando, part Omen, part McCavity. A genetically modified moggie.

Below is this morning’s 3 Day Outlook from Met Éireann, the Irish National Meteorological Service.

It will remain cold and unsettled for the rest of the Easter weekend. Good Friday night will be very cold, with a mixture of clear spells and scattered wintry showers. Frost and a risk of icy patches also. Holy Saturday will remain very cold, with sunny spells and occasional showers. Some of the showers may be heavy and of hail, with a risk of thunder. Some showers of sleet or even snow are possible on mountains. Breezy, with moderate northerly winds. Frosty for a time on Saturday night, but less cold conditions, with outbreaks of rain or sleet, will develop during the night and there is a slight risk of snow, mainly over high ground. Easter Sunday will be mostly cloudy at first, with outbreaks of rain and drizzle, clearing from the north to sunny spells and scattered showers. Some of the showers may turn wintry later. Frost on Easter Sunday night. Easter Monday may have a few sunny spells, especially in eastern areas at first. Cloudier in the west, with outbreaks of rain, tending to become more widespread.

Earlier in the week there were predictions for Holy Thursday.

Met Éireann is attached to the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government. It is an official government service.

Whether we like it or not, the State it seems, wants us all to be Christians. Or she believes in a Christian climate. Weather - you like it or not, I don’t like the forecast for this country.

Today is exactly Tuesday. The time is precisely about 09:33. The weather is roughly rainy. It is about 6 days to the day when Americans celebrate something they know nothing about.

But most importantly, today is absolutely, precisely and exactly the first day of Cheltenham. At absolutely, precisely and exactly 2:00 this afternoon a roar will rise from the pilgrims at Prestbury Park and echo around the Cotswolds and into bars and living rooms across the length and breadth of Ireland. Those gathered in pubs here at home will roar right back at the TV and so will begin four days of the best National Hunt festival on the racing calendar.

And where will I be? Riding a high stool. Clutching my betting slip white-knuckled. Heart pounding faster than the horses’. Normally, yes. But not this year. Not today anyway. Why? Because UPS couldn’t find my house last week.

Let me rephrase that: UPS didn’t bother their arse trying to find my house last week.

I got a postcard from them yesterday. “Unable to deliver: Receiver not present, three times“. The Receiver was present. The Receiver was working from home. The Receiver didn’t even venture out to the shop as the Receiver knew a delivery was arriving.

I phoned a machine in UPS. I pressed *. (Why I had to press * before the machine told me anything more I don’t understand). The machine told me about other exciting numbers I could press. I pressed 0. The machine allowed a human on the line. The human asked for the Package Tracking Number. I gave it.

- Oh, yes. We were unable to deliver as the Receiver was not present at the given address on three days.

- So says the postcard you sent me. Bolloxs say I - I never left the house. And three days? That’s strange. The postcard says you received a parcel for me on the 6th and the postoffice stamp says the 7th.

- Is your house difficult to find?

- Well, I’ve never lost it. It is a pretty sizeable structure made of concrete blocks and stuff. It would be hard not to find.

- I mean is the address difficult to find?

- No more than any other rural address. Rural roads don’t have signposted names and rural houses don’t have numbers, but finding the general area isn’t difficult, if that’s what you mean. Then it’s just a matter of asking someone for more precise directions. Why I’ve even heard of drivers calling the number on the delivery docket and being guided by the Receiver. Yeah, mad isn’t it. I don’t suppose your drivers ever do that?

- We have no phone number for you.

- Really! My number is on the postcard you sent me. Look, why don’t I just give you the GPS co-ordinates?

- We don’t have that. Can you just give me directions? We’ll send the package out tomorrow.

Virtually every delivery I (don’t) get is the same. The courier company send a postcard a week later. The excuses are always the same few: No one at home, unable to locate address, or just failed to deliver, x times.

Why am I penalised for living rurally? This is where I was born, bred and buttered. I love it here. Why should I move to an urban area just to suit courier companies?

This is not about Ireland not having postcodes other than in Dublin. This is not about rural areas not having road names. This is not about rural dwellers not knowing the GPS co-ords of their home. This is about economics. This about a driver who is paid per drop - in a town or village, even without road names and house numbers he can do 10 in an hour - in a rural area, with the distances involved, he may only do 1 in an hour. Grand, I have 10 drops in Naas. Lovely. €50 for an hour. 1 for some tool called Sneeze out in the sticks. Fek that. I’ll just say I couldn’t find the place.

But why won’t the courier companies admit this? Why won’t they just come straight out and say no to rural deliveries? I suspect there are three reasons: 1) They still make some money on rural drops. 2) Rural dwellers get these postcards and fall for the courier’s excuses - they drive to the depot to pick up the parcel and hence do the courier’s work for them. Free of charge. 3) If they refuse to do rural deliveries they would be ruling themselves out of the running for a piece of the pie if the postal service were to be privatised.

I really think we need some rebranding. Let’s call them absolutely, precisely and exactly what they are:

UPS = Urban Parcel Service. DHL = Dublin & HinterLand. SDS = Special Dublin Services. FedEx = Fek Everyone, Dublin Excepted.

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.

Let me ask you this: What do you, the regulars, read when you arrive at this blog? I could ask why, but let’s start with the easy one.

The answer is the latest post(s) and comments. That would make sense - you want to read the latest. Let’s call it the news.

There is a bunch of other junk accessible by the menu at the top of the page: About, FAQ, Mo Rogha etc. Do you / have you read these? The answer is you may have flicked through one or two at some point but seldom, if ever, opened them again. You may check Mo Rogha once a week for an update - for the news. But you don’t want the same stuff rehashed over and over again.

Now what about those of you who come upon this blog for the first time - what do you read? Well, you read the first page of posts, maybe the second. You click randomly on the other junk. Some of you click on a subject of interest in Sneeze Types. Based on this, you decide whether to return or not. Fair enough. You can’t be expected to read every damn thing. It’s not as if you are a judge for some awards thing and have to read everything in case you’d be accused of judging a book by its cover.

How can I say all this? From my stats of course. The trends are clearly visible. Regulars read the news while newcomers read a small sample. Actually, now that I notice it, almost all judges for awards things read exactly the same way as newcomers. But that’s okay, because judges have certain powers that allow them see content through a book’s covers.

My point is this: If you read a blog or newspaper regularly then all that interests you is what’s new - the news. The Irish Independent was slipping for a long time and finally lost my readership when it ran front page stories about the death of someone unknown outside the dinner party circle. To me, this simply was not news.

Following a brief and passionate affair with the Irish Examiner, I decided to settle down and spend the rest of my life with the Irish Times. No, I didn’t love her, but she was the best I could get. I would grow to love her.

Sadly, this relationship is failing too. On Saturday, Madam (as we must address her) announced “major developments”. I won’t bother inserting a link as you need pay an expensive subscription to view the article. Yes, even this article, an advertisement, intended to tell us how great her paper will be, is pay-per-view.

So what are these major development? Basically, magazines and supplements (which are magazines on poor quality paper). Maga-fukin-zines. Every fukin day. As if my recycle bin isn’t already under enough pressure, now Madam wants to burden it with more. Madam, I DO NOT WANT a health magazine. I DO NOT WANT a property magazine. I DO NOT WANT a motors magazine.

I WANT NEWS. I want news from a newspaper. Just like I want news from the blogs I read.

If Madam wants to dish out more fodder for my recycle bin, fine - I’ll work something out. But here’s the insult to the injury: It will cost 10¢ extra Monday through Friday and 30¢ extra on Saturday for all the extra junk I just don’t want. Why can’t I just have a newspaper? If I feel the urge to read a Guide to the 100 Best Wines why I can’t go buy it separately? Once I’ve read it I won’t have to read it again for a year - the interim issues will just be rehashing the same stories.