Humans are strange

As the week of inexorable tedium drags its malignant reeking corpse slowly onwards, I am heartened to know that mankind remains as odd as ever.

 

50 grand (!) on printer ink? Someone is having ze leetle joke, no?

Electricity scam?

Say, did any of you hear a mention on the radio yesterday that the ESB are going to CHARGE/FINE people for low usage of electricity? I thought I heard it in passing, but was so unrelentingly flat-out yesterday I forgot about it and can’t actually locate a story about it today.

Is it true?

Or was I hearing things?

And if I was not hearing things…

WTF?

How can a company – that makes a profit– CHARGE people extra for NOT using much of its product?

This speaks to my soul*

 

I’m so farking busy today I can scarcely breathe but when I got this in my in box I laughed so – as I am a thoughtful person– I feel I ought to share.

 

* does not believe in souls.

Afraid of big spiders? They might not be that big.

Happy Ginger day to you all. The weather has warmed slightly, which naturally leads me towards spring cleaning and this involves chasing the spiders from my office and taking down the MASSIVE orb webs from the shed ( I do it every year after winter, they rebuild of course, but that’s okay, I don’t mind SHARING the space, just as long as it’s even Stephen, not the espeeders 80/Fat cat 20 sort of dealio we currently have going on)

My oldest friend is arachnophobic to such a degree that I can’t even have this conversation with her without her feeling slightly faint. How she lives out in the countryside is beyond me, surrounded by fields and woods, espeeder land if ever there was one, although this time of year is not so bad, September October is bad when the big guys decide it is high-time to head in from the cold, that’s bad.

Not for me, I used to be scared of espeeders to a certain degree until I moved to spain, then, between snakes lizards, cockroaches, and the various other indigenous monsters I battled daily, I began to look rather fondly on espeeders and my tolerance of them bloomed to such a degree that I remain practically benevolent towards them. I leave various ones in situ, I catch the big fellows and put them outside, I provide safe haven for the shed ones year in and out and when Elvira’s babies hatched I removed them from my office, all eleventy billion of them, to the shed too.

Naturally my friend thinks I need to go see someone to talk it over.  OR to put it in her actual words, ‘Urgh honey, you’re fucking mad to go near them…shudder shudder.’

But it is interesting the reactions to espeeeders. I don’t mind looking at them, but I do not like it when they scuttle across my hand and while moving boxes the other week, a rather massive one scuttled, alarmed from the huge bloody web it had constructed over December, to escape, the very first thing it did was run right over my wrist, causing me to perform Swan Lake in my hall while singing Don Giovanni. Once I had finished my gran jeté avec cadenza and staggered to the kitchen to locate the ‘catchin’ glass’, it occurred to me that this must me how my friend feels every time she open a cupboard or put her shoe on. Ghastly.

I caught the monster and set him on the lawn outside. He clumped off, possible muttering under his breath, into the night, and thus harmony and heartbeat were restored to normal.

The next time I saw her I gleefully told  my friend, who is horrified by such talk, all about it. By the time I had finished she was paler than the moon and my large house espeeder was– in her mind– something like this ( by the way, these are not actually espeeders, but no matter) when in fact it was more like – this

Curious about all things arachnid, I was delighted to come across the following article this morning in my customary perusal of all things scientific.

“The more afraid a person is of a spider, the bigger that individual perceives the spider to be, new research suggests.

In the context of a fear of spiders, this warped perception doesn’t necessarily interfere with daily living. But for individuals who are afraid of needles, for example, the conviction that needles are larger than they really are could lead people who fear injections to avoid getting the health care they need.”

The rest of the article can be found here.

Makes a kind so sense does it not? the more we fear something the greater and more terrifying it becomes. I dislike heights, I am  convinced  if I am too near a ledge I will faint, then roll clean off it to my death. because of this I make sure I climb Glendalough at least twice a year, where I gallop over the Spinx, heart in my ears, knees close to buckling so that I may descend again on the other side triumphant and unlike my mother. I know it’s kind of pathetic, but one cannot be bested by one’s fears, that way leads to Lilac…Mordor. NO!

In the spirit of scientific sharing, I read the article to my friend this morning and suggested we trap one of the orb weavers in the shed and observe it. She laughed and then said in a very serious voice. ‘No, just no. I’ll kill you.’

‘How bout we start off with something smaller then?”

‘No.’

‘Earwig?’

‘NO!’

‘Daddy long legs, they’re harmless.’

‘I’m hanging up now.’

‘You know you’ll need to get shit out from under your stairs some day.’

‘No I won’t,’  she said. FIRMLY.

She will you know, and I’m not driving to Wicklow to do it for her. But enough about espeeders, let us gaze on some real beauty. Oh Carrot Top, I would totes be your bunny any day. XX

Funeral attire and etiquette.

Maybe I’m making something out of nothing, but bear with me here and see if you agree or not. Yesterday I could not help notice quite a number of people at the funeral I attended arrived wearing runners, jeans, hoodies and so forth. These were not people grabbing a quick hour from work to attend either.

When attending a funeral, I would wear a dark colour, black or navy, and be as smartly turned out as possible. To me this is showing a certain level of respect both for the departed and, more importantly, for the family of the departed.

Is this not the norm?

People also stood outside smoking during the service, some people left before the family and the coffin, and a NUMBER of phones went off during the same service ( don’t even get me started about the service itself, the most inappropriate homily I’ve ever heard, bashing humanist services and talking about Whitney Houston??). My friend, who were there with me, also found it all rather depressing.

Are we that blasé about funerals these days that we forego etiquette? Everyone here knows I’ve an atheist, yet, while I did not pray yesterday, I stood, kneeled and acted with polite deference as I was in a church, and it behooves me to behave accordingly.

 

Maybe, as I said, I’m making a thing out of nothing and it’s enough to turn up and be supportive. But I don’t know, it’s not that hard to put on a clean shirt and a pair of shoes or whatever either. Again, it could just be me being old-fashioned, but what do you think?

I hate my wardrobe.

I must away most of today to various things, all of them involving me being smartly dressed. This is not a problem, my wardrobe teams with smart clothing, going to meet potential employers/funeral/lecture garb I have aplenty, what I DON’T seem capable of doing is buying smart/casual no I didn’t fall out of a hedge backwards thank you, clothing.

I don’t know how other women do it. They pair casual trousers with a nice shirt or blouse and hey presto chango they look like the stepped off the set of some white woman of privilege show.  I have developed a Idée fixe about it. I look at wardrobes in magazines, where crisp white shirts hang against pale delicate wools and floaty dresses and think ‘where is the bloody fleece? Where are the countless shapeless t-shirts from Dunnes/Pennys? The collection of tights, some ancient, some still in packets? The jeans that are falling apart they’ve been worn so often? Where’s all the sports clothes? The going out clothes? The clothes people give you that you’re afraid to throw out in case they ever ask why you never wear it, so you keep it in terror of offending them? Where’s all that crap?

Rolling as I am towards 40, I feel ought to do SOMETHING about this state of affairs. But god damn it, I do so hate to be uncomfortable in any way when I work. But I also hate looking like a hobo.

I’m going to have to do a cull, a vicious clothing cull. I will throw out shit, I will stop hoarding useless unwearable tat. I WILL buy a dainty cardigan or two, more fitted shirts. PANTS! I will buy Pants!

No doubt when I have accrued all this,  I will promptly put my jeans and a fleece on and admire my wardrobe, before closing the doors, sighing in relief.

SIGH.

Pancake* Tuesday?

…that one really creped up on me.

( Pancakes are over rated)

 

Dogs on the other hand-

Dawkins has ancestors. BURN HIM!

I don’t know, indeed it really hard to fathom, what was the point of the article about Richard Dawkins, posted in the Telegraph over the weekend. Dawkins has ancestors, ergo god?

Dawkins himself addresses the piece, but it’s really painful reading. Especially the following-

“

He is now facing calls to apologise and make reparations for his family’s past.

Esther Stanford-Xosei, of Lewisham, south London, the co-vice chairman of the Pan-African Reparations Coalition in Europe, said: “There is no statute of limitations on crimes against humanity.”

 

For the love of marmalade! Could you imagine? Being held accountable for the carry on of one’s ancestors?! That like Sisyphus we would be forever condemned to an endless task, generation after generation. Will future Fatcats need to go apologise for whatever misdeed we have performed. Could you imagine the annual get-togethers of our kin? Cursing our very existence for all that we wrought?

 

There are things to criticise Dawkins for, his ancestors is not one of them.

But one thing is clear, if the woo-botherers are stooping to this level, they are definitely worried.

Phone Phobia?? On Gingerday?

There’s a fellow on the radio now talking about ‘phone phobia’, apparently 66% people have ‘nomophobia’ the fear of being without their mobile phone.

Seriously.

Perhaps it’s my truculent nature, but I immediately cried ‘oh horseshit!’ had a cup of coffee and went to the bedroom to locate my own mobile phone, which as always is out of credit.  For many years I was one of the few people I knew that didn’t have a mobile phone. After we got rid of the house phone it became imperative to get one. I still dislike the wretched thing, and regularly leave it behind if I’m going places. I accept it as a necessary evil.

This is the POLAR opposite to the Paramour, who, if he could, would like an extra arm or two like Vishnu so that he could text, scroll, email and do whatever the hell else he does 18 hours a day. I have never seen him out without his phone. I genuinely don’t think he’d cope. To be fair his business relies on him to be constantly on watch, but it is alarming to watch him navigate his way around the world, head down, eyes on the teeny tiny screen. I asked him recently if he would consider leaving his phone behind if he went on holiday and his reply was ‘ why would I do that?’ But the look of sheer horror on his face was comical.

So what about it? Can you go out in a cheery relaxed state sans phone? Or does the very notion of being phoneless make you break into a cold sweat?

How do you feel about the pope coming to Ireland?

There’s an awful lot of unsupported waffle about ‘militant secularism’ in the press of late, which to me is nonsense and, in my opinion, the plaintive whinge of those who are used to have their particular brand of woo being accepted as worthy of great and unquestioned respect. When the metaphorical curtains are yanked back and their woo discovered to be nothing more than some weird guy pulling some tattered strings, they are naturally quick to get gnarly.

Well get gnarly all ye want woo-meisters, it is what it is.  If you want to believe in a rather capricious deity, knock yourself out, but don’t expect everyone else to hold your beliefs any higher than they might hold your reverence to a particular football team. While the majority of our schools remain are under the wing of the CC and we have the Angelus on both state radio and television  I doubt militant secularism is really too rampant.

With gnarliness in mind, Enda Kenny, our current honcho, has spoken of a visit from head catholic honcho, the Pope. There is chatter that he might pop over to Ireland to shore up the leaking dyke of the catholic faithful. Attendance in the churches is way down, and our a la carte attitude to our nation’s number one religion suggests our (generic) faith is slip-shod at best.

Enda says the Pope, should he visit, would have ““proper decorum in respect of his position and his status”.

But what is that status?

Now that Ireland has closed the Vatican Embassy here, do we still consider the Pope leader of a state? Can the vatican really be called a state?  I don’t know, I pose the question so that we can discuss it. Should we, the tax-payer foot the bill of a papal visit, regarding it as a visit from a head of state– much as we did with Obama and Queen Elizabeth, or should we get real, realise the Vatican is hardly a true state and let the Pope pay for his own travel plans as head of a religion.

Frankly, we’re pretty much broke as a country and minding the Pope would be an expense we could well do without. But if our census is to be considered we are still a catholic nation and he the spiritual leader.

I do not consider myself catholic so I could long do without the pomp and twaddle of a ceremonial visit, but perhaps others feel differently. So what do you think? Pope visit, yay or nay?