Views from a bar

Well hello there

2009-02-04T22:37:00.006Z

I am back again! This blog is becoming an almost annual event at this stage, but the mood has taken me again (plus I remembered how to sign in).

I am now working in North Sydney for a firm which will remain unidentified but, suffice it to say, it is one where communication is very important. I am no longer a journalist - yes I sold my soul but I am quite happy with the price I got for it. (edit: Just realised I used this line in an earlier blog but I like it, it's my blog and I can do what I damn well please ALRIGHT!!)

North Sydney is a moderately interesting place to work - it's kind of 'Suit City', almost moreso than the centre of Sydney. It's the urban equivalent of the colour beige. It seems to be a place where people come into, work, then leave. On the weekend you can see tumbleweeds roll down the main street, and deserted saloon doors swing and creak in the breeze.

The thing that really gets me about this place is that when it rains everyone - and I mean everyone - pulls out a huge fecking golf umbrella. We are talking superdome sized umbrellas. For feck sake you can barely get down the street without losing an eye. Small asian women carrying an umbrella each which could not only shelter them but even their whole fecking family.

Why does everyone need their own cone of silence for Chrissake!!! It drives me mad. No little extendable black number for me, oh no I want to carry a HUUUGE fecking thing around. Play golf? Me never, got this thing as a promotion gift from a software / accounting / banking / pharmaceutical company.

Sometimes I fantasise about a sudden gust of wind catching about 50 of the feckers and carrying out over the harbour, before fading away. Another daydream is running along the street with one of those small electric gardening saws and going to work so the bastards get to carry a stick with a handle.

As you can see I am at peace with the world and am maintaining a healthy level of insanity.

Till Next Time

o/

First post in six months

2008-05-28T00:32:00.002+01:00

Nothing to see here.

No really nothing.

Except this is my first new post in six months. Why? I hear you ask. Why have we been denied the witticisms, keen observations and insights of such an eloquent writer.

Well boys and girls. Initially it was because of being stuck in a kind of communications black hole in the Southern Highlands of NSW, Australia. Then it was because my family arrived over from Ireland. Then it was because we were still stuck in a communications black hole.

Then it was because we were moving into a new house and were awaiting broadband connection (never again will I give out about Irish broadband - my experiences with BigPond and Tesltra will be the subject of another blog). Then it was because I couldn't post at work as I was trying to make the most of a new job.

Well now I am moving on and I don't give a shite who sees that I am faffing around. Only two-and-a-half weeks to go and I move back into the heady world of public relations.

Yes I have sold my soul, but I am quite happy with the price I got for it.

Slan

Yahoo another post!

2007-12-10T00:42:00.001Z

Yes the beagle as finally landed.

I have arrived on the golden shores of Australia and can now bask in its sunshine, enjoy its inexpensive food and drink (relatively speaking), gape at the new expressways of Sydney (and their fecking tolls) and gasp at the hectic pace of real city living.

I survived the 24-hour flight on Etihad Airways from Dublin to Sydney which was broken by a brief stop-over in Abu Dhabi. Now one of the major attractions of flying Etihad (apart from the price) was the fact that it went direct from Dublin to Abu Dhabi (or Scooby Dooby as my young daughters called it)then Scooby Dooby to Sydney.
(The other attraction was that I felt the risk of being taken out by a Christian suicide bomber on an Arab Airline was very, very low)

I got out of the aircraft at Abu Dhabi airport (there was not an option) to find that the airport's architects had taken the term 'international hub' literally. Passengers got on and off their aircraft at the end of the spokes of the wheel and were directed to the hub in the middle of the complex.

Sure there were shops and stalls in this 'hub' but, like a scene from an old prison movie, a great number of passengers - most of them obviously from the Middle East - were killing time walking around the hub and doing so in an anti-clockwise direction.

Now I blame the jet lag (even though I was only seven hours into the sojourn) but after observing this phenomenon for a good 15 minutes I decided to join this almost migratory movement around the terminal. But not satisfied with just joining the throng I decided to go against the tide and walk in the other direction.

I politely stepped out of people's way, waving and nodding politely to passersbys, smiling broadly to those I passed on a regular basis for the next 20 minutes.

Then the number of walkers started thinning as I am sure some became quite perturbed at the friendliness and effusive smiling of this daft Westerner.

Within half-an-hour of me starting my perambulation around Abu Dhabi airport the anti-clockwise movement of walkers had almost completely stopped and I noticed people started walking in the same direction as my good self.

SO I can honestly say that I started a new movement in the Middle East.
BOOM-TISH (I'm here all week, try the veal.)

Anyway after an hour or three in Scooby Dooby I was back on the plane and heading off to Sydney. 14 hours later I land - on schedule - and get through immigration and customs in double quick time.

I head towards the doors into Sydney international terminal ready to embrace the family I hadn't seen in almost seven years....how will they have changed? Will my parents look older? How much older? Will my brother and sister be there? Their children? An old mate had made sure he was in Sydney this week to greet me. Ahh I will enjoy that first ice-cold VB!

Don't get emotional, I say to myself. Keep it together...remember you are an adult...

The entrance to the concourse gets closer and closer and then I am through!! My eyes eagerly scour the people gathered at the entrance....and continue to scour......and keep looking...check again.

After about 10-15 minutes of looking, sometimes at an embarrassingly close range with some people, of walking up and down with my luggage through the crowds gathered at the gates - who are embracing long lost relatives and loved ones - the stark realisation hits home. THERE'S NO ONE HERE!

Oh shite...

Missed me?

2007-10-16T15:18:00.000+01:00

Well ladies and germs, it has been some time since I have had the drive and inclination to post something on this blog. This has a lot to do with the particular circumstances I have found myself in recently, where I received a massive kick to my metaphorical goolies on the job front. Not to be confused with a massive metaphorical kick to my job-fronted goolies.

Apart from missing out on a great job I have also had to swallow every ounce of pride and self-respect and stay where I am due to be being a father of three, with a mortgage.

BUT NOW THAT HAS ALL CHANGED.

I am heading back to the land Down Under. Make no mistake, I have still had to swallow every ounce of pride and self-respect, becaused I am moving back into "marketing" as a career rather than persist with my writing but hell, I get to leave a miserable Irish winter and go straight into an Australian summer.

I was actually hoping that I could work myself up to make some rash and ill-thoughtout remarks about the reasons for my departure back to sunnier climes. But you know what. It ain't worth the effort.

I promise the next blog, I will be back in some good humour....or bad humour, depending on your view.

Well I thought it was funny

2007-07-26T16:38:00.001+01:00

Now I found this very funny. Apparently it is an interview on Dutch TV about medical mishaps. I don't what happened to the woman in the wheelchair but apparently the fellow with the beard had his testicles removed by mistake.

Of Stiffys and Fecking Irish Whiskey

2007-07-20T15:32:00.000+01:00

Looking at my blog I have noticed that I seem to be concentrating a lot on dogs and bollocks. I would like to apologise for this concentration on the tawdry and would like to say that I am delighted to now move onto something far more high-brow: Stiffys and Fecking Irish Whiskey.

Most people would be familiar with the phrase "Only in America", well I think the fact that Stiffys have been banned but Fecking Irish Whiskey remains readily available could only happen in Ireland.

The self-regulatory body for booze makers and marketers in the Irish Republic - MEAS (the Mature Enjoyment of Alcohol in Society Limited) - has adjudicated that Stiffy's, a vodka drink manufactured in Scotland, breaches its code of practice due to "sexual connotations" - GASP! Yet MEAS (which would appear to be maturely enjoying vast amounts of alcohol) found that Fecking Irish Whiskey, while branded in poor taste, did not contravene its non-regulatory regulations.

It is a uniquely Irish proposition, by the way, that if you swap the 'u' for an 'e' no one will realise you are swearing and you can 'feck' all over the place - radio, tv, church, you name it.

So one survives and the other disappears which is a bit of a pity because I always thought that the two went hand-in-hand. Although too much of one often precludes the other, so I am told.

Anyway the full text of the media release on Stiffys and FIW is available at the MEAS website just to prove I am not making this up. The good news is that Stiffys could be making a come back as apparently the manufacturer is meeting wih the MEAS Advisory Service to bring its product into line.

Now that I don't want to see...

Not normally my cup of tea

2007-07-16T15:05:00.000+01:00

I am not in any way an animal lover but I saw this pic on flickr.com and I loved it so much I thought I would share it with you.

I guess its because I identify with the little pooch. If it was me though I would be facing the other end of the Great Dane and would most likely be covered in faecal matter

Speaking of bollocks...

2007-07-11T14:13:00.000+01:00

I remember at one stage when I lived in Sydney I had a dog. This day I was buying a large bag of Pal chunky bits at the local Coles supermarket and was standing in a queue at the check out. A woman standing in line behind me then asked me if I had a dog.

I told her that no, I was actually planning to try the 'Pal Diet' again. The what diet? she asks. The Pal Diet, says I, although I probably shouldn't because I'd ended up in the hospital last time. But I'd lost 50 pounds before I awakened in an intensive care ward with tubes coming out of most of my orifices and IVs in both arms.

I told her that it was essentially a perfect diet and that the way that it worked was to fill up your pockets with Pal nuggets and simply eat one or two every time you feel hungry. The food is nutritionally complete and so, bugger it, I am going to try it again. (I have to mention here that practically everyone in the line was by now enthralled with my story, particularly a bloke who was in line behind yer one.)

Horrified, she asked if I'd ended up in the hospital in that condition because I had been poisoned. I told her no; it was because I'd been sitting on the road licking my balls when a car hit me.

Stupid bitch, why else would I be buying dog food?

There are no rules to blogging...bollocks

2007-07-11T10:38:00.001+01:00

There are no rules to blogging, man. Create yer own space, man. Say what ya wanna say.

Bollocks. Of course there are rules to blogging, as I was reliably informed the other day. The first one is you need to add blogs on a fairly regular basis. See this is hard for me. I mean, lets face it, blogging is really just an exhibitionist's 'Dear Diary'.
I had a bad day. Boohoohoo. Woe is me. Now wait a minute, if I write it down and post it on a blog everyone will know how sad and unfortunate I am. I can share my misery.

Now this is an issue for me because I have never been good at doing anything on a regular basis. I am more your 'will-get-to-it-eventually' type guy. I used to start diaries when I was younger. They would start with lengthy diatribes for the first few days and then become shorter and more sporadic as time went on. Eventually, after two weeks or so (if I was really dedicated) the final entry would start, "Dear Diary..." and that would be the end of it.

Of course, there are also other rules to blogs. Link other bloggers in the 'blogosphere' (what a wank - the term, not the bloggers) who you admire, add in some news links, funnny picture links, youtube bits and pieces - anything that can help drive traffic to your site.

In fact, take every step you can to become a complete traffic whore so you can say to your mates: 'Oh really, well I have 5,000 visitors to my site today dontchano.'

Look, quite frankly if I have something interesting to say (at least as far as I am concerned) I will write it; if a blog catches my attention, I will point it out; if I see a great picture, I will rip it off and stick it here; and that, ladies and gentlemen, is that.

BTW did you see the news story about the singer from Metallica who got interrogated at Lucan airport because his beard was too "taliban-like"? Now that is funny.

Thank Christ all this terrorism stuff broke out after my grandmother died. She never would have made it through Luton airport.

"Excuse me madam, if in fact you are a madam. You seem to be sporting a Bin Laden. We will need to interrogate you for three hours." (Sound of rubber glove being snapped into place).

Copulater

Welcome one, welcome all

2007-07-06T12:14:00.000+01:00

Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, welcome to the inaugural blog from Views from a bar.

Disappointingly, however, I don't have anything particularly insightful to say today. It's Friday, I am tired, not too agitated about anything in particular but thought I should at least type something here in order to acknowledge the limited amount of effort I went to to create this blog page.

The urge to to start this blog really came from the fact that I have to write a blog as part of my 'real' job and there are some limitations to what I can and can't say when blogging for The Company. I can't swear, for example. Now anyone who has spent anytime in Ireland will know that swearing is a national pastime. There are wall-to-wall "shits", "fucks", "pricks", "gee-bags" and other words for female genitalia that I am not too comfortable saying (no, it's not vagina.) - and that's just from the women.

So here, in the bar, I have the ability to swear as much as I want to. But I won't do it that much. I have learnt restraint in my old age and my mum might be reading this.

How ye, you old bitch?