If ya like it then ya shoulda put a ring on it

What do I want for Christmas? Little ol' me? Why, nothing! World peace and harmony maybe, or universal suffrage. And a surprise. Naw, seriously. I'm easy to buy for, I like everything. Ya wanna know what all the kids are getting this year? Engagement rings. Srsly. And alarmingly longsighted wedding plans. 2010? Ya know what happens in 2010? I'll be 27 first of all, so that'll be a huge downer. Also, trillions of my acquaintances are getting hitched. 2010 my friends? I actually have trouble getting excited about anything that is not happening RIGHT NOW THIS INSTANT so I feel literally nothing regarding your wedding. As my ever-graceful mother said: 'Crikey. 2010? Why, to fuck? I swear to God, I've never had a wedding, nor has your father, and it's looking like neither of ye girls will ever either, but I promise you, if you do, and the way I find out about your engagement IS NOT you ringing me and announcing that your wedding has just taken place in a foreign city somewhere, I SWEAR TO GOD: I'll murder you.'

WTF?

"Older meanings of FTW

Years ago, "FTW" used to have a very negative meaning: "f**k the world". This was a term commonly used by social rebels, anarchists and anti-authoritarian types to express frustration with modern society."

This is exactly what I thought it did stand for. Oh.

Wordle.net: Some find it diverting

This took me FOREVER to find my favourite one. I find it kinda amusing that the words 'shit', 'Lucy' 'like' and 'seriously' pop up most frequently. Haw-haw, I have no vocabulary! Kinda amusing, not hugely so. I'm not completely dense, despite repeated evidence to the contrary.

A startling new hurdle

INTERIOR. Late afternoon. A COMELY MAIDEN dozes on a sofa under a duvet. It is LUCY, heroine of our piece.

PHONE RINGS: Rrrrring! Blip-whirr-click!

LUCY: Bleurg. Hello?
MARIE: Hellllloooo!
LUCY: Ugh.
MARIE: Are you asleep?
LUCY: I was trying to...

M: Well, it's five o'clock, you really shouldn't be.
L: Sigh. I'm terribly tired. I was dreaming...of facebook.
M: Good grief.
L: Yeah. Don't tell anyone.
M: Good night?
L: Very much so. Possibly still drunk.
M: Where is Mags? She's not answering any of her phones.
L: She's probably asleep too, if she knows whats good for her. Also her house has ridiculously bad coverage.
M: Ah-ha.
L: Why did you ring me looking for Mags? I'm not her minder.
M: You were my next choice.
L: I'm flattered.

[LUCY coughs loudly and at length]

M: That's attractive.
L: Thank you. I was saving it for ya. Where are you, standing in the rain? I can hear water noises.
M: The bath.
L: Ah, dude! The bath! Stop fecking ringing me from the bathroom, it's starting to make me uncomfortable.
M: I am very comfortable.
L: I don't doubt it.
M: So...tell me stuff.
L: I couldn't be bothered.

M: I'll tell you stuff so. We did the guest list.
L: For...?
M: My wedding? Like, hello?
L: Seriously? It's in two years dude, you surely won't like the same people in two years as you like now.
M: Yes I will! Anyway, mine comes to 150, and Aled's got 60.
L: Am I invited?
M: Like, duh.
L: On which list? Can I be on both?
M: ...
L: And get two dinners and two chairs? That would be deadly.
M: You'll get no dinner and no chair if you're not careful.
L: Well! That's a lot of people! You don't have 150 friends!
M: Yes I do, and anyway, that's people's 'plus one's aswell.

L: Fuuuuck. Do I get a plus one?
M: Of course!
L: Fuck you. Where am I going to find a plus one? The Internet?
M: Londis Corner?
L: Shit shit shit. Will Sally do? Shit shit shit.
M: Ah now. Dial it down, it's in two years.
L: You're saying there's a possibility I might meet and speak to a member of the opposite sex in the next two years?
M: Of course!
L: You're hopeful.

I verily believe...

I verily believe all that is desirable on earth- wealth, reputation, love- will forever to you be the ripe grapes on the high trellis: you'll look up at them; they will tantalize in you the lust of the eye; but they are out of reach: you have not the address to fetch a ladder, and you'll go away calling them sour.



Charlotte Bronte, The Professor (Ch. 22)

Absolute rubbish, but you understand?

Once, my car broke down on the road from Kilmeaden at something like eight-thirty at night. One minute I was driving through the night: smoking furiously and singing along to the Kings of Leon, probably- the next moment everything was pitch black and the dank country swirled bleakly in my ears. Apparently, something moved on the battery and the car just died, cutting out instantly and trickling to a stop in a ditch. That's all very well and good, and I'm glad we all know the mechanics of the situation, but at the time, as my breath froze and darkness slammed into my eyes, I quite calmly responded by putting my fingers to my throat to check for my pulse. Yes; when faced with sudden unanswerable quandaries and shifts in my surroundings, I just assume: why yes, I am dead. That is the only logical answer.

Today, powered only by the shameful thrust of my hangover and litres of toothpaste, I half slumped, half drifted through the day, surrounded by goons and fools, badgering me about the various hundred things wrong with their library experience. For a solid hour, I walked around twenty-five PCs and typed the same password in to them all repeatedly. Futile you may say, and I'd have to agree with you. The public saw it differently though and insisted I keep trying to establish a relationship with the non-responsive Internet. 'But why is it broken?' they sputtered annoyingly, as if I knew the answer. To anything. Ever.

Let me tell you straight off: on a recce of personal days of excellence, today was a write-off. I rocked and I rolled, pointing out the fabulous signage (created by yours truly) explaining the fuck-up in the whole Internet exchange, and finding bizarre, non-existent books without laughing('Pictures of houses of Georgian style, but not actual Georgian houses that were built in a Georgian era nor actual pictures, per say, just an idea because I want to draw my daughter a picture. No no, that will not do: do you not have a book on 'So you want to draw your daughter a picture...?' No??') while still pretending to care about the needs of others. I know. Sometimes I exhaust myself with my selflessness. But the stress! I can't tell you. It was horrendous. I was LITERALLY counting the hours until I could have a vodka. So there I was, serving the public and then... Then- all outta nowhere- a plaintive violin starts up from beneath me and suddenly FLASH FLASH FLASH

Did you feel death over your pale shoulder near the end of the last paragraph? Because, by God, I did. 'Woah', I said to Yvonne, who chose that time to wander the room: I placed my hands palm down on the desk and looked about wildly. 'Did you see that too or did the world just end?'

Yvonne stopped dead and stared at me. She looked at the ceiling, quite seriously. Then she considered the walls, the floor, the windows. 'No' she said, vehemently. 'No, I don't think so.' I checked my pulse, quite seriously. 'Nah,' I said, 'I think we're okay for now.'

Holy cow, but. Turns out it was an exhibition launch two floors down. The plaintive sawing of death was actually the sound of a pretentious pre-exhibition strum; the flashing lights merely the lights of our esteemed local press taking rabid photos.

All the same, I think you can understand why I was perturbed.

Leading you whores to culture

Do you like art? I know I do. Other things I like: websites, boats, sunsets, redheads. Uh-oh, excuse me: strawberry-blonde heads. I can feel your vehement nods over the information super-highway: I like those things too, you say! Well, what if I told you there was a place you could go to meet all your needs? Now there is!

It's called kensmith.ie, a veritable paradise for all you eclectic boat & art lovers out there. There you can paddle about in all your art-loving glory, doing your arty...things. In addition to painting pictures, our pal Ken enjoys building fabulous websites like this in his spare time. I know what you're going to say: too much spare time. I don't want to be a bitch or anything, but Ken is clearly missing some of the essential criteria for website creation, ie. funny video clips, drunken photography, blatant self-love and interactive quizzes. Bebo isn't a hit for nothing, Ken.

All the same, did Van Gogh have a website? No. Did Rembrandt, Monet, Rolf Harris? NO! Did any of these people have friends as famous as me to leach internet fame off? I THINK NOT.

Magical Evenings in Waterford City

The other evening, after another day's hard slog serving the public, I was sat waiting for my bus. It was 8.15 at night and darkish and chilly. In an effort to warm up I took to chain smoking. It was a poor idea, born of pure laziness. Slugging from my bottle of Fanta, I raised my eyes from the dull stream of passing cars and they were arrested by the twitching of a net curtain in a first-floor flat across the road. Idly I watched as the curtains were parted by hands and a man came into view, slight in build and wearing a red hoodie. His head, coronaed by the lamp behind it, bent towards the glass of the pane as he peered into the street below. Was he waiting for someone? I wondered, idly. 'Wouldn't it be nice if my bus turned up early' and 'I wonder if that is dried vomit on the bin' were some of the other thoughts that flitted through my head at the time. As I said, idle wonderings.

It came on me, all a-sudden, like a snail attack: his face wasn't scanning the path or the street. His gaze was fixed directly across the road. At me. Does he know he's staring straight at someone? I wondered, a little less idly this time. Really I was getting a bit peeved by now. It is extremely blatant, when doing some idle people-watching, to spy continuously on one lone soul by the bus stop outside your house. Frankly, I'd call that staring. Huff. I pointedly gazed down the road, indicating my absolute disinterest in his actions.

The curtains closed. Well good, I thought; about time. Now where was my bus? A black couple walked up to the bustop and sat down fifteen feet away, inside the shelter, and began speaking French so I had a crack at eavesdropping. Was that 'Je pense'? I know what that means! God, I'm so good at French, I can practically-

The curtains were drawn wide open now and I saw, with virtually no response that the red hoodied man had opened his belt. My mind still crackled with French as I saw the buckle hanging low down his trouser leg: Oh, he's taking his belt off, I realised. I was slowly losing my place in the conversation as I noticed his hands move to the button of his fly and slowly start to peel open buttons, flattening the flap of jeans against the waistband, his hands moving towards each other. Oh, I was wrong, he's taking his cock out, I corrected myself.

Abruptly, not knowing why I did it, I stood up and walked briskly towards the couple in the shelter. They looked up when I sat down right beside them: Do we know her? These Irish, they are friendly! they thought as I shivered melodramatically and grinned: Trop froid, non?

Troubles and Trials

I've lost my white plastic bangle! What do you mean 'what white plastic bangle?'? My white plastic bangle that is somewhat related to the excellent plastic bangles for charity that everybody likes to wear. What do you mean, 'nobody has worn plastic bangles for charity since oh, 2000'? I have no idea what you're talking about. I wear a plastic bangle, therefore they are hip and groovy once more. You know what else is hip nowadays? Saying 'groovy'. So says I.

Buzzcocks without Bill

Do not underestimate the resourcefulness of the Augh

Yes, that is a log.

I broke my bed

Not through frenzied pillow fights or anything remotely fun. No. I broke it by getting in it one night. 'Why doesn't she lay off those tuna melts and chocolate n' cheese based edibles' I hear you moan. Oh, grow up, I didn't break it with my arse. I am a sturdy and well-built young lady, 'tis true, but I am not remotely near to bed-breaking capacity yet. I blame faulty bed engineering. See that white plastic thing? That was the only support for the middle part of the bed for all these years. Bizarrely, it has stayed put but all the surrounding timbers have given up the ghost. I've been sleeping on what is essentially a precarious hammock for the past three nights because I am too lazy to do anything about it. But what can I do? Can a carpenter fix it? Do carpenters even exist in these fearsome recessive times? Can I stack things under it to act as a support? But what? Will stacks of books and old magazines do as they are the only things I have to hand? Shall I abandon the frame and turn Japanese, inviting visitors to lounge on my futon with me?

Should I (horrors!) buy a new bed?!

Ce n'est pas gravé

I am home from France. It is cold here in Ireland. I am covered in mosquito bites including one on my eyelid prompting swelling that threatened the sight in my right eye there for a while. Also threatened: my startling good looks. Do you think anyone gave a shit? Not on your life. 'Oh, look at my eye, I am like that Hey you guys dude from the Goonies! Or maybe Paris Hilton, I don't know how bad it's gonna get.' Blank stares is all I got. Not an iota of sympathy, despite the fact that I now could not attempt to seduce the pool man, generally agreed to be the most handsome man in all France and evidently the richest if he can charge that much for 15 minutes work.

I was mislead about my holiday; I thought it was your typical French getaway, occasional swims and forays into local villages the only things to punctuate long spells of sunbathing, reading and lazing in hammocks. In fact it was a working holiday, and I was regularly spun from my book-reading, hammock-snoozing daze to sweep, dust, weed the garden and skim the pool.

I need hardly tell you that I would have thought twice on going on this free holiday if I'd known there would be any work involved. My excessive sleeping habits were commented on at least twice in the last six days, my ability to eat everything around me mocked at least once. And that's not the half of it: suspicious rumblings went round like warm cake when I was found to be hiding in the pool whenever something heavy wanted lifting down stairs.

'Good God, I cannot take these constant attacks!' I screamed but no one was around to hear me because I was in a seven bedroom villa in the South-West of France. 'How am I supposed to live in these conditions?' I asked of my only true friend, but he couldn't reply as he was only an empty champagne bottle, so I tossed him into a shrub and opened another. 'What is there left to enjoy of a persecuted life?' I wept miserably to the fields of sunflowers that rolled over the horizon.

The dashboard melted but we still had the radio

My sister asks so many questions. She staggers through life in a fug, startled frequently by unfamiliar words and concepts that leap on her like beggars in the dark. A typical half hour spent in her vicinity can yield such eccentric requests for information as: 'What's 'velocity'?'; 'Who's this McCain guy?'; 'What's a 'Republican'? Do they make everyone get a gun or what?' ; 'What's this 'vulva' thing I hear so much about on the telly? Is it catching?'; 'How do you spell 'hymen'?'

On most occasions I launch into a lengthy explanation: 'Well, it's not that simple to explain. You see the vulva is...' and ten minutes later she goes 'Oh. Right. Well why didn't you just say so. You do go on a bit, don't you.' I am a futile professor with an inattentive class.

Most recently these questions have veered off into 'If you are travelling at night with a wind speed of 30 knots and air temperature is clearing 260 degrees, Kelvin, and a horse-drawn vehicle signals that you insulted a member of their family, into what lane should you change and how many millimeters should you be from the moon? And oh, wait you're in Florida. And it's a Tuesday. Answer all applicable'. The Driver Theory Test, it's gotten ridiculous. Back in my day, it was tricky enough for me to fail it first time round but that was when the hardest question was 'If a pedestrian crosses in front of your vehicle (when it is in motion) should you a) run him down or b) not.' Nowadays you have to answer loads of maths-y junk and know the correct type of lantern you should carry if escorting a party of boy scouts from the scene of an accident and how you should alert a vehicle travelling to your rear that you are a gemini. While juggling.

'Driving is not complicated', I have to point out to her as I manoeuvre gracefully round a traffic island, one hand manipulating the radio, the other hand lighting a cigarette, the other hand painting my toenails. 'It's about feeling at one with your car, knowing it's limitations, it's hopes and dreams.'
'Are you still drunk?'
'No! Well...'

'Whup! Didn't you see that speed bump?'
'It was a secret one. Those buggers will creep up on ya. First lesson: look out for pot holes.'
'Watch-! And pedestrians?!'
'Well, only at crossings. The rest of the time they're on their own. Second lesson: Keep your eyes on the footpath.'
'Don't you mean the road?'
'No! Who am I gonna see to honk at on the road? Watch out for the footpath and see if there's anyone I know walking along it and we can stop and talk to them.'
'Right. Never mind, I'll just use the book.'
'Lesson three: You don't need to go down a gear if you're going around a corner, you just to need to speed up so you don't conk the engine.'
'Shut up. Even I know that's wrong.'
'Lesson Four: When driving in high heels, one should- oh fuck, cops!'

Oh, Woe!

Mary in work told me today that there is a wheat crisis afoot. 'So what, no Weetabix' I said in an offhand, I'm-not-really-interested-in-this-shit-you're-telling-me, but-i'll-listen-cos-we're-work-colleagues kind of way.

'No, no bread. Did you not see the wheat crops this year? Black!'

Why she would assume I knew the condition of wheat crops, I don't know, but there you have it. What a strange after-work life she must imagine I have, popping my head over silos and trailers to check on the condition of crops. Maybe that's what she does, cycling round the countryside and observing tillage. I have better things to do, thank you very much.

No matter. What Mary does on her own time is up to her. What counts here is that wheat is involved in the production of bread (I know! Who knew?!) and I live almost entirely on bread. Seriously. My diet is made up of about 75% bread-based products (ie. 'Les Sandwiches'), a fearsome chunk in these breadless times. The other 25% is derived from tobacco and caffeinated goods, which are rumoured not to have the best dietary heft. What will I eat?!

BIG NEWS!

Mags has coldsore. Is gross. Also: internet cafe PC in Berkeley did NOT auto-complete blogger.com when I typed it in. What? I thought everyone in California had a blog. Is MINDBLOWING. In other news:

• Am alcoholic now (Now?, you say)
  
• Planes suck
• Cork must be empty as entire population over here
  
• Timezones suck
• My sister is a selfish dork
• 'Frisco ROCKS!

Why doesn't everyone in the world live in San Francisco? Is most amazing place on earth. Let's just give up on rest of it and move all people here.

PS: Only on blogger because am killing time while Mags is beboing EVERYONE SHE KNOWS saying 'SFran is deadly! Not married yet! Fingers crossed!'

I never met a Toby that I didn't like

What is this junk, anti-folk?

Wikipedia doesn't know: 'It is still highly debated what exactly the defining characteristics of this sub genre are'. How utterly shaming, to be defined as something unknowable and only distinguishable as opposite to something else.

I'll admit right now I like to use the anti- tag for anyone who offends my delicate sensibilities by opposing any of my principles as being 'the anti-Lucy'. What are these principles? So far it seems they are 1) anything can be made better by having a drink, 2) Reading on buses is OK with me and 3) Amanda Brunker is an idiot. I'm only a wee one though, I'm sure to have a few more in time. Anti-folk now, they're in trouble.

I read in a magazine that record companies made up 'World Music' to push non-English language bands they wanted to promote, and to give music shops a name to house this new section. 'Ethnic Music', 'Earth Music' and 'Racial Beats' were all dismissed as being too offensive. I shit you not. I think I will rename Anti-Folk: 'Hipster jazz' is okay; 'Young Dudes playing Old' is better. I infinitely prefer 'Underused-Arts-Educations-and-a-tambourine Music' though. What feel you on this important topic?

What am I doing here? I should be packing my swimsuits and sparkly dresses: guess where I'm going next week!

Angry Lucy

Somebody is annoying me very much. I have spoken to him for precisely two and half minutes today and he has already pointed out three things I am doing wrong, laughed at me, and taken something heavy out of my hands because 'you looked like you were struggling'. I am oh, so, very, very angry. You would not like to see me angry, I feel. Fun, pleasant Lucy is gone and is replaced by someone who slams around the place and barks out commands in a humourless tone. I've been cracking jobs off in mad haste here this morning. So angry, I couldnt wait for glue to dry, for machines to heat up, to check if printers were switched on before I checked every wire coming out of the back of them. Goddamnit, I'm ANGRY, I can't sit around. Fuming in my futile rage, I sat down to eat a big bag of skittles and check my emails, but instead found myself activating my internet banking, checking my standing orders and ordering a credit card. Angry Lucy gets shit DONE. But no one likes her.

Loan-city. Next stop: full-blown maturity

Do you know what is actually dead easy and nobody knew? Finances. I mean, I never have any, nor do I spend much time thinking about them, but I walked into a financial institution this afternoon and walked out again in ten minutes fifteen hundred euro richer. What's the catch you may well ask. Well-GET THIS- I have to give it back. IN A YEAR! Like, are they thick or what? Is this the way our economy does business? No wonder there's a recession on!

He got me pegged

Do you know George, our resident Auld Fella? Ah, ya do. He who spends all his days on a sofa in the library reading Chekhov and an 800-page Nureyev biography, and occasionally delights us all with his opinions on such varied topics as the stupidity of the government, the stupidity of the young, and the stupidity of the Irish. He who we all refer to as 'fecking George' as he sends us off to find a T S Eliot authored account of Oscar Wilde's time in the Far East which, patently, does not exist. Today, prompted by my unasked retrieval of his cane from where he left it in the loo, he chuckled and threw his head back in a gesture that really made me fear for his stability: 'My deaaaaarr!' He croaked. 'For someone who works at such a mundane job, you really do seem to have a glow of innocence about you!'

Two weeks, six days

I missed my bus this evening. Missed TWO of my buses. The first because I was late, the second because I was reading an article in Cosmo about a girl who got twenty years in a Thai prison for smuggling marijuana and whose sister has moved to Thailand so she can visit her every day and bring her mascara and new clothes to keep her spirits up. I was reading the article and I started crying and I dropped my magazine and all my books and when I looked up I saw my bus drive away.

I think I miss my sister. Either that or I have smugglers remorse.

PS: I didn't buy Cosmo, I stole it! From the library, which you may not count as stealing but I DO.

Tragic events

ucy is getting the bus with all the other car-less saps for the forseeable future.

Tea Lady

I've been doing some investigatin' and apparently circulation figures for the Waterford People did not spike when I issued my internet directive last week. Is okay, am sure you all shared the one copy, pouring over page 16 until it disintegrated limply in your greasy paws. Before you email me to tell me, YES I know I look pregnant. And busty! And YES I know my name is Carmel Hughes now. Things change, guys, move with the times.

Your mission for today

I think everybody who has a spare €1.60 in their pockets should go out and buy today's Waterford People and turn swiftly to page 16.

Tramps Like Us

Raaar! He's coming to git ya!

In other news, Lorretta needs a class in correct photo-framing techniques, and the RDS concert staff are very prone to letting a little bit of power go to their heads. You need to tone down the attitude, people! What is this, like, a Big Brother, Orwellian concert? Are we attending a over-protective nanny-concert, where simple folk like you and I (more I than you, I'll admit) are prohibited from smoking cigarettes in the stands and dancing in the aisles? I ask you, what next?? No singing in the stands? No-shockhorror!- drinking in the stands?? THIS MADNESS MUST STOP!

Ongoing Learning

I am a master in few fields, but I think I can safely say, without fear of angry accusations, that I know those few fields and master them masterfully. These fields are, in no particular order: the Dewey Decimal system, making the under-fives laugh, having an encyclopedic knowledge of every Sinead O'Connor song ever recorded and achieving alcoholic intoxication. They don't let your friends rank you in this shit on facebook but if they did, I'd be #1. After intensive investigation from my R & D team, I can now announce a new sub-genre of my last and I think we can all agree, most fabulous talent: Dinner Drunk.

I guess I'm dealing with laymen here so I won't dress it up in fancy terms that us scientists like to use. You guys know about normal drunkeness, right? You have a few drinks and start feeling loads happier than you did before you had a few drinks and suddenly you're hugging your best friend from junior infants and telling everyone how beautiful they are. Yeah, you guys get it.

Now, Dinner Drunk is a cousin of regular-style drunk where you pretend to be all fancy and put on your nice dress and eat fancy food that some other people cooked for you. Because you're eating your fancy food and pretending to be all middle-class and shit, you disregard the numerous bottles of wine you toss down, 'cos wine is all fancy and doesn't count as real booze. You have fancy conversations with your dinner companions about increasingly abstract topics and generally believe that the problems of the world are being polished off along with your rhubarb crumble.

You pay the bill, over-generously tip your waitress and stumble outside to procure yourself a 'real' drink. HALT, soldier! This is where the problems start. Dinner Drunk is a curious phenomenon whereby the participant feels alright because of all the shiny cutlery-ed trappings of dinner when in fact he or she is in the same state as your average wino at 9am on a Saturday morning: nicely juiced up and thirsty for more.

Woe! you shriek, I knows it! I have known the lure of clean crystal and fabric napkins also! Woe begone, say I: there is hope. Friends, am I #1 in fictional facebook leagues for nothing? Nay! Here comes your solace: Dinner Drunk, because of it's close ties with the dining-out bourgeoisie, is one of the most respectable kinds of drunk there is! It totally out ranks Cider Drunk and Niteclub Drunk, and is only pipped to the title of The Best Drunk, Ever by Wedding Drunk which, if I can make a sporting comparison for the common man here, is the Chelsea of Drunk: exquisitely put-together and fearfully unbeatable. Wait, what?

Dinner Drunk is how middle-aged depression can be assuaged and a non-existent social life overcome. Dinner Drunk, like Rich Drunk, totally doesn't count and you can't be held responsible for anything that occurs. In fact, since Dinner Drunk actively supports our catering staff during this critical financial clench and eating in snazzy restaurants makes a dining drunk feel super-posh and intellectual, you might say that he or she is in fact behaving as any fine, upstanding citizen should.

So there you have it: information, explanation, debate. Next week: Dewey numbers!

Infamy, infamy!

Ins. Hunt said Mr O’Brien claimed that he had gone for a drive on Sunday October 1 after arguing with his wife the previous night when he caught her kissing a mutual friend.He said he drove his own car to Tramore and sat in it reading the Sunday papers and listening to the radio.

Yes, Tramore is the prime alibi for murder suspects. Yes, we are proud of this fact. We promote newspaper-reading and radio listening amongst our best-loved tourist attractions, that and conviction-dodging. Why yes, you can come visit! No, we can't promise you won't be spotted on CCTV near the spot your wife's body was found at the exact time you claim to have spent a pleasurable afternoon reading newspapers in your car in lovely Tramore. We're not that good.

What's a good April Fool's joke to play on someone who works at the library?

A fine question. To play the best joke, you really need to work at a library or know someone who does. One excellent gag is to find someone who works at the library and has a teenage daughter, pull up the daughter's record, and reserve a half-dozen books on subjects like teen pregnancy, what to expect when you're expecting, and a book of what to name your newborn child. When the books arrive, show them to co-workers and spread nasty rumors. At the end of the day, tell the person that their daughter's books have arrived. Wait a day before you tell them it was a joke.

If that's too mean, here's another good one: Most databases allow you to insert a note field in the patron's record where you can write messages to alert other workers if a patron was rude to you, lied to you, smelled like urine, etc. The purpose of this field is to keep track of a patron who isn't paying fines or has some sort of other repeating offense, but that doesn't mean you can't have a little fun with it. So, find a loyal friend who has a library card and put a note in his account that says something like, "If patron is wearing a red T-shirt and a Disney hat, he may try to kill you. If he asks you how many books he can check out, he is about to go crazy. Alert police immediately." Give your friend a red shirt and a Disney hat, tell him to go into the library, check out a book, and ask how many books he can check out. When the police arrive, tell him it was just a joke.

McSweeneys.net

Other fun jokes I just made up include sticking a security strip inside someone's coat, and telling someone the Dewey Decimal system is being by shelving according to height. Heh. Me so funny. If only I had friends to appreciate my funny...

Not pictured: Sacrilege!

Also:

You wanna buy some stuff?

Do you often find yourself in need of somewhere to put your daffodils? Or somewhere to play Monopoly? Or carry out your elaborate art projects? Fret no more, ease your trouble, that's what I do! Here is a genuine wooden table with genuine wooden chairs thrown in! As you can see, this table has all four legs intact and is literally made from wooden trees! The trees have, of course, been cut down and de-squirrelled for your convenience, because no one wants to eat their breakfast with squirrels.

And that's not all! This table also comes with two excellent drawers that slide in and out of the drawer-shaped holes on either side! Fitted with no expense spared, these drawers come with handily-shaped knobs, all the better to facilitate your drawer-opening needs! You can put literally anything in these drawers, from napkins and candles to more candles and bits of broken crockery you don't want anyone to see you broke!

But wait! There's more! What about when you have people over for some tasty pasta meal you just invented with the help of your head-chef, Mr. Dolmio? How do you make them feel at home AND ensure they stick around long enough to help you clean up? Why, with chairs of course*! This table comes with six genuine wooden chairs absolutely free!

Is that all I hear you say? Are you trying to flog us some meaningless albeit fabulous wooden table with exquisite accompanying seat parts? Is that it? I am a deep and profound person, I need something more than mere surface beauty to feed my deep and profound soul.

Fear not, precious customer. I can now reveal that this admirable piece of furniture comes from the estate of none other than the Great Lucy Aughney. It dates from that historically significant year, 2004 and has featured such luminaries as Lucy herself at trough over it's rich pine. Gaze in wonder at the wise old gleam that was witness to countless wise aphorisms and sparkling witticisms over the years.

Would you deny for your family the opportunity to own a genuine antique? Would you? Bid immediately on this priceless relic of greatness and you too can share in the glory!

L'histoire de la table

This one time, we had a party with the table.


Another time, Sinead and the table drank all the vodka.

Then this other time, Lucy was cross with the table. Both parties have tried to forget the incident but local folklore claims it was something to do with how the table got Lucy so drunk and fat-looking.

They got over it, and to this day Lucy enjoys hanging out with the table and having a beer.

*Research has proven that it is significantly harder to escape from somewhere if you are sitting in a chair than if you are standing up.

I think this guy is stealing my schtick

Damnit! I was gonna cover misogyny and date rape this week! Back on with the ideas hat I think.

Situation: Managed

Good news!

The crippling guilt and empathetic mortification that kept me from gracing my favourite off license with my presence for nigh-on six weeks is all over! It's made like a tree and fucked off! Vamoosed! Hopped a train for the west! What does that mean? I don't fucking know, I just write this stuff, it's up to my biographer to figure it all out!* You see, I encountered my favourite off-license employee, we'll call her Amy, out in a popular local nightspot over the Christmas holidays and, all buoyed up on the joy and festive guff that trickles from other people being around and hugging one indiscriminately, I insisted that she join me in a wee dram. Of tequila. The aforementioned fave off-license employee claimed excessive inebriation but I waved this off as feminine coquetry. Why I thought this is anyone's guess. We ordered shots, received shots; ladies and gents, we shot.

And then she vommed all over me. Exuberantly. One might say, explosively. Then she started to cry and scarpered swiftly. So, because I am a lady of class and discretion, I have avoided her ever since. Until tonight, when my newfound fondness for making smoothies at all hours sped me to her place of work to purchase tinned pineapple. I crossed my fingers, toes and legs (I'd had two cans of Fanta before setting out) and hoped against hope that she had been fired. For her sake, you understand. I was horrified for her. Nobody minds a bit of vomit on them, especially if one deserves and probably induced it but, my God! The humiliation that girl must have suffered, night after night, concerned for my take on the situation.

So. Short story long, I mustered my troops and plopped my pineapple and six pack of Fanta down on the counter. 'Ooh, Amy, you got your hair did!' I exclaimed. Yes, my lips uttered trite inanities but my eyes beseeched: I forgive you, little sparrow. Now, forgive yourself. It was enough. We are firm friends once more. Relieved? Dude, I nearly puked!

*Yeah, by the way, you need to get cracking on that, Mr Biographer. I have six shoeboxes of juvenelia sitting around here, just waiting for you to unearth my precocious intellect!

She got tha moves

My new craze is Salsa. The dancing, not the dip. Though the dip is pretty funky too. Oh, didn't I tell you? I kicked guitar to the curb. My teacher just wasn't down with my personal sound. Also, he had a strange obsession with girls having good posture whilst playing guitar. Yeah. So, instead, Mags and I are going to become fantastic Latin-type movers. It's going well so far. And when I say 'going well', I mean that we turned up, paid an obscene amount of money for what seems to be a slightly more energetic form of line-dancing, got scolded by a stone-cold Spanish bitch of an instructor and looked like full-on tools. Without dancing a step!

I'm a PAYE drone! Like, for real!

I don't know about this 'new job' malarky. Yeah, I get these important-looking keys that swing off my belt and make me look really cool, and I get money for going in there every day, but otherwise, what is it really doing for me? I mean, my sleep pattern is totally thrown off with these early mornings. And my gratutitous internet browsing is really down. There are literally thousands of gossip blogs and web cartoons going unread by me on a daily basis. Until half an hour ago, I hadn't checked my emails in two days! Yeah, I only had seven new mails and four of these were from myself on my work email saying 'hi! Isn't is so so so so so cool having a work email?! Kisses, mwah!', but, my God, it's the principal of the thing. This is the question I find myself asking on an hourly basis, especially in those wearisome hours when I have to fill out accident reports for knocking a coat stand on myself, or when I have to talk to yet another customer about how much they just loved PS: I Love You: Is work worth working for?

That doesn't make sense? Well, screw you, I've got a pension now. And maternity benefit should the unexpected happen. Oh, if only the unexpected would happen...