The floods of the apocalypse

I'm thinking of changing the name of my blog to "I think it's going to rain forever", or maybe "Two giraffes just walked past my building".
My current title was supposed to be kind of metaphorical so I have to change it to literally mean it's going to rain today. And tomorrow. And forever, probably. It's getting to the point where even when I'm inside I feel damp, where I've given up on even using an umbrella and where I'm wondering, working-man style, if I've ever seen the sun. My feet are wet, my kitchen is flooded, my mood is black and the forecast is for never-ending rain. It's not even the manageable rain, the fat ploppy drops with no wind so they fall straight down. It's windy in your face rain, frizzy hair rain and stingy rain all at once. I don't know what the seven signs of the apocalypse are (or even if there are actually seven signs) but I bet flooding is one of them.
I hope the Liffey floods and drowns my office building. I'm watching out for this to happen so if it does I'll be prepared and can get myself and a few others out.
Only one or two others though.

How do you cure a hangover? Easy

It's easy ONLY when you know exactly what to eat in order to rid yourself of the worst hangover of your life.
Last night Janice, Shane and I headed warily to the Blue Goose, a former seriously dodgy gay bar on the quays, where our boss had inexplicably decided to have a colleague's going away do. Shane is gay and he was even scared of the place as it used to be. (Think less Wham! and pink hats and more heroin dealers and chains).
Anyway, in we went, stepping over the usual piles of vomit that decorate the entire quays, only to be pleasantly suprised by the new, clean decor, the nice Polish barman (who has a jukebox behind the bar and played whatever we wanted) and the cheaper than usual drink. The place was empty but only because no one knows about it yet. When it gets popular I'll hate it.
We liked it so much we ordered about 20 cocktails each, and you know the rest. Drunken Times at Ridgemont High, etc.
So there I was in work this morning, so sick I could feel my liver shuddering with agony, when I remembered the only thing that would make me feel better...a big, dirty, All Day Cure from Itsabagel in the Epicurean. This is not just a breakfast roll, or even a bagel. It's a miracle worker. With relish.
I roused Janice from her desk (where you could actually smell everything we drank last night) and made her make Pat from Sales go get us some All Day Cures. After eating those, we are no longer hungover. SO GOOD.
Of course we're still pretending we're hungover so we can try explain why we're doing absolutely no work.

Everything and the kitchen sink

I've been away sick for a while and so haven't posted (like anyone cares) but I am pleased to do so now with the good news that Sinkman is back. Neither Janice (my flat and work mate) nor I have seen him in a while and I was beginning to worry that he had been re-admitted, or worse, run over or something. But no.
Sinkman, by the way, is not a Spider-Man style superhero, solving crime by pouring water on criminals, he is a possible raving lunatic who frequents parts of Dublin 7 brandishing a crutch (or sometimes just a stick) in one hand and an actual sink in the other. I first met him last Christmas in Smithfield when he jabbed me with his crutch and waved his sink in my face. (It's a small-ish sink, stainless steel, looks like he polishes it.)
He could be an escapee from St Pat's or just some crazy homeless person. He's great though- in this age of more homeless people than you can shake a crutch at, he's unique. Plus I think he's beginning to recognise me.
I wonder where he goes when he puts down his sink, though, and is just like every other homeless person in Dublin. There are so many of them.

Dance, dance...and orgasm

The nice people at Apple have once again freaked out over someone attemping to imitate (or steal, whatever) their branding... except this time it's not the Beatles under fire, but Ann Summers' new vibrator.
The brilliantly named iGasm has pissed them off because it uses similar advertising to their own, real iPod ads.
It connects to iPods and--this is the best bit-- lets you "Go at it hard and fast with a pounding drum 'n' bass track or chill with ambient classic", according to the marketing release.
Come on Apple, lighten up. Just think of all the people who are missing out having an orgasm on the bus in the mornings, or walking home for work, or standing in line at Tesco...
Research tells me there's a few of these gadgets available, including the equally brilliantly named OhMiBod.
Soon iPods will be able to do everything...

Tell us something we don't know

I hate news stories, surveys and research that only serve to confirm what we all know already. There are some things that have been true since the dawn of time and don't need research to prove it. Like, would I go and do research to prove that little kids like sweets? What would be the point? (I'm sure psychologists are sneering right now but I stand by it.)
This recent survey by Hibernian Insurance found that working women are spending up to 60 hours a week on housework, minding kids, driving kids around, cooking and doing the shopping. Now in fairness, what we may not have known here is the exact time women spend doing all this. But we do know women still struggle to maintain their "traditional" (i.e forced) roles in the home while going out to work, either because they love their job, or they want to, or they have to help pay the mortgage. Even women who choose to stay at home still do more work than the average man out working 40 hours a week in the office, and I don't care who tries to argue otherwise. Two hours of minding screaming kids is more work than four hours sitting in an office, in my opinion.
Anyway, the end result of this survey, Hibernian tells us, is that if the woman tragically dies, the poor man will be left struggling because "most men would quite simply not be able to cope and would need to pay someone to carry out many of the domestic tasks while they earned the family income as the sole remaining breadwinner."
Obviously the insurance company are coming at this from a "get life insurance" point of view, but I resent that the worse thing (or so we're told) about women doing all this extra work is the man might be left unable to cope if she dies.
How many men will read this survey and think "Shit, I really am a lazy bastard and I must think it's 1949. How about we share the housework?" Hardly any, I'm guessing, and the rest will think "Shit, I need to get life insurance in case my wife dies and I can't afford someone to iron my shirts."

How did this happen?

I can just about, just about, stomach Fianna Fail being back in Government after next week. They are like a non-removable stain that you can try cover up or alter slightly, but that will never go away, no matter how many Enda Kenny Power Cleaners you spray at it. Maybe FF and Labour would be OK, I've been thinking. I'm all for change but I don't even bother hoping anymore that people will get sick of Lying Bertie et al and feck them out.
But the thought of the PDs, aka the Privatisation Dickheads (sorry, that's pretty bad, but I'm hungover) being back in Government with FF, or anyone, makes me sick. And scared. The PDs are unashamedly pro-rich- people-and-fuck-the-poor -people, a sentiment Michael McDowell got across nicely in his leaders debate last week. Their opinion poll rating is at an all time low. Their leader is possibly Hitler reincarnated. Mary Harney wants to use our money to pay American private healthcare corporations to build private hospitals on our public hospital grounds, thereby creating two hospitals in the one place, one with a sign saying 'rich people' and one with a sign saying 'everyone else- get in the queue'.
And yet the PDs are confident they will be back in Government, and think they will get 10 seats at least. Their maniacal optimism is starting to scare me and I'm wondering how this happened, and are people really that stupid?
Last week I was one of a gaggle of journalists gathered around Harney as she waxed lyrical about how brilliant they are. I asked her about the low PD rating in the opinion polls (with a smug tone in my voice, I must say).
"No one has voted yet," replied Ms Harney, with her usual steely-glinty-eyed stare. "In 2002, we were even lower in the polls and we got into Government!"
Exactly.

Throw pies at Michael McDowell

Could this be another ruse to get young people involved in politics? I'm not sure, but it's fun, and it wasted a good half hour for me in work, so nothing wrong with that.
(If that link doesn't work, click on the post title.)

Choose unbiased information on abortion

I went to the cinema last night to see Spider-Man 3, and was just thinking “if one more ad comes on I'm going to throw my sour Starburst at the screen…” when one more ad did, in fact, come on. I was about to start throwing when I noticed the ad began by saying, 'Some choices are harder than others' and I wondered could it be about abortion. This genuinely surprised me, as I have never seen an ad blatantly about abortion in my life, although maybe they have always been on and I was always too busy moaning about how I hate ads to notice.
Anyway, I watched in amazement as this blatant display of what can only be called brainwashing flashed over the giant screen. In the ad, which was made by the pro-life organisation Family and Life, a mother is looking lovingly at her two young children playing on a swing, when suddenly one disappears and the mother is left with a regretful expression on her face. “Life is precious,” the ad then tells us. “Choose Life.”
I don’t know how long this ad has been running, but the Family and Life website proudly tells me that not only do they run this ad in cinemas, they visit schools speaking about abortion—I can only imagine how those visits go. I wouldn’t be surprised if they hand out leaflets showing aborted babies, you know the ones those idiots stand with on Dame St, trying to harass people into signing their religious petitions.
Now, Family and Life are no Youth Defence, as in I am not aware of any particularly disgusting attempts at harassment on their part. But really, when the message is the same does it matter how it is delivered? Why are young women and men in this country still allowed to be taught that abortion is evil and wrong? Why, after the pro-life ad in the cinema, was there not an equally blatant one telling women not to let religious groups decide what they do with their bodies?
I know the Crisis Pregnancy Agency is one group that does provide unbiased information for pregnant women, and they are to be commended. But in their ads they don’t explicitly tell women to go off and have an abortion, do they? Pro-life groups think pro-choice ones are ‘pro-abortion’, which is a complete misunderstanding of the whole point of the pro-choice movement.
'It is Not for Us to Decide Who Deserves to Live or Not’, Family and Life hilariously state on their site. They are referring specifically in this case to the Miss D debacle, when a 17-year old girl was stopped having an abortion in the UK, which she wanted so she wouldn’t have to carry a dying baby to full-term.
The slogan is a ridiculous one. Firstly, because in this case the baby is definitely going to die, and no amount of pro-life preaching is going to change that. How dare these people tell a young girl she has to risk her health, mental and physical, carrying a baby to full term that is going to die soon after? Their whole ‘don’t kill disabled people’ mantra was a ridiculous argument in this case.
Secondly, because it is grammatically incorrect.
And thirdly, because by ‘Us’, I hope they are referring to themselves, in which case they are inadvertently telling themselves to stay out of other people’s lives and decisions.
I’m not saying all pro-life campaigners or individuals are ridiculous and should be banned. But if there are going to be such blatant ads on abortion then it should go both ways.