Primal Sneeze

The Aintree Grand National, tomorrow Saturday at 16:15. 40 horses. 30 fences. Big ones. 4.5 miles (7.2 km in new money). The greatest national hunt race of the calendar.

Right. Nothing serious. Just a bit of fun. To take part in a sweep, just leave your name in the comments below.

The first 40 names will be assigned a horse at random. If there are less than 40 names then some, or all, will be assigned more than one horse. Who drew which horse will be published here. Only two people are prevented from entering: Me and Anonymous.

Entries close at 13:00 GMT on Saturday.

The prize. Well I haven’t one. Yet. But I’ll think of something. And sure it’s only a bit of fun. Nothing serious. The prize will most likely be chosen to suit the winner. In fact this bit might be more fun than the sweep itself.

Entries now closed

Note: The ladies got 1 horse extra each as did Eolaí. Not because he’s a lady, but because he said some nice stuff about me on his site this morning. That’s just the way confectionery crumbles.

Result: The Swearing Lady from the Arse End of Ireland won. Silver Birtch @ 33/1

The prize (to suit the recipient, as promised) is a bound set of Terry Pratchett books. Collector’s items. Really! No messing. Just five though, but they’re my favourites (doesn’t include Going Postal or Wintersmith unfortunately). Wailey, fukin’, wailey!

Shite! I phrased that arseways: What I meant was, Going Postal and Wintersmith are not included in this set, but are included in my favourite Terry Pratchett titles. Damn you Sweary for picking up on that! I’ll get ya. I know where ya live (for now).

A French prostitute wishing to ply her trade in a Gaeltacht area is informed by the local pimp that due to an oversupply of Latvian hookers she will be restricted to working after 6:30.

She came to be known locally as Leath uair tar éis a sé.

[US readers. Just trust me. This is fekin hilarious!]

In the way villagers always do, we refer to one shop as the shop. Others are named the little shop, the new shop, the far shop etc. depending on their circumstances and the mood of the residents. Owners spend fortunes on fancy signs advertising their businesses as The Village Stores, F.J. Mooney’s Newsagents and The Corner Shop but to no avail. They are the shop, the new shop and the far shop respectively.

Similarly, doing the shopping means going to Tesco or Superquinn. Going to the shop means buying the paper, bread and milk. Always milk. Sometimes a few other bits and pieces. Soup-on-a-rope, boil-in-the-bucket rice, see-through-cheese slices. Stuff like that, but never more than 6 items in total. They have one check-out signed more than 6 items only. It’s for tourists, blow-ins and people who screwed up doing the shopping in Tesco.

So how do they make their money? Simple. The delicatessens. Deli’s are gold mines. Three or four pieces of pig, a sliced bread roll, 0.001 Watts of electricity, minimum wage for the server and 10 microns of butter: 25 cents maybe. Sold for €4.50. And who are the customers? Building workers and tradesmen.

Now the problem is tradesmen have vans. Tradesmen eat in their vans. Tradesmen eat in their vans in shop carparks. Tradesmen then take a nap, in their vans, in shop carparks. Matty Keane who pops in for the paper and milk (always milk remember) after dropping the little Keanes to school can’t park. He goes home angry, drinks red tea, rereads yesterday’s paper and kicks the dog up the arse like he was bishop Brennan.

No-one wants dogs being kicked up the arse. Bishops are fair game, but not dogs. So the ISPCA approached the managers, Shop Jimmy, Shop Alan and Shop Frank, and warned that if something wasn’t done things could escalate. Cats could end up being kicked. (I’m okay with that myself, but apparently the ISPCA isn’t). Cute little fluffy bunny rabbits could be kicked.

The first idea was to have a 15minute parking limit. But this wasn’t feasible. How would Mrs. Kiely have time to collect her pension, get something for the dinner, buy the paper and milk (always milk) without tearing around the shop so fast that she’d wear the rubber tip off her walking stick?

Installing a height restriction barrier wouldn’t work either. The tradesmens’ business was just too lucrative to lose. And anyway, Mrs. Kiely is afraid of driving under those things since the time she tried to put the car in the garage with the door not fully open.

It’s 8 months now since Matty Keane first kicked the dog and there’s been no resolution yet. The poor dog spends his days with his arse to the wall like a fly-half who accidentally strays into the Emerald Warriors’ showers.

So I’m putting it up to you guys now. I need suggestions. Until we get this sorted the talk in the village will never again be about politics, global warming or world hunger. Not that it ever was, but you know what I mean. We don’t even discuss the weather anymore. And that’s serious. And I’m low on milk. So help us please!

- You shouldn’t do that. It’s not right to be winding up the poor girl like that.

- She asked for advice. I gave it. The best way to solve the problem of lipstick on glasses is to chip the tops. You won’t see women putting them to their gobs then.

- But what if he took you seriously? Her English isn’t great and she mightn’t get the joke.

- Blood is easier get off glasses than lipstick. Anyway, she’s not thick. Didn’t ya see her grin.

- Women always smile at you. Most of them just can’t help laughing. You’re a laughable looking feker. And what about the time in Woodies?

- What time in Woodies?

- The time I was buying a mousetrap and you asked the Polish girl if they did the mice to go with it. And she went off to ask a manager.

- But she got the joke in the end, didn’t she.

- How do would you know? You legged it and left me there to explain. The manager wasn’t impressed. Lucky I wasn’t barred for wasting Garda time, or whatever that’d be in a hardware. Oh yeah, and the soup thing yesterday with the Latvian fella in The Lamps.

- That was his own fault for speaking Latvian at me. He said the cream doojor was chicken & sweetcorn. I said I’d have the chicken. I don’t like sweetcorn - it repeats at both ends.

- Crème de jour is French not Latvian ya gobshite. We can’t go back there for a while. Here. Your twist.

- Hello! Sorry! Howya, eh, two pints there please. You’re from Kracow aren’t ya. It’s in the paper today, Kracow’s going to be twinned with Bargain Town.

- Ah fek this! I’m getting out of Dodge.

I was sitting in the kitchen day dreaming of my up coming trip to Spud World when the phone rang. Ferdie. A neighbour not unlike the Pádraigh lad from a few weeks ago. At least Pádraigh has broadband. Ferdie reckons it’s too dear so the last time a crucial update was needed for his computer I downloaded it and popped it on a CD for him.

- Mornin’ Primal. That CD with the virus [sic.] on it.

- The anti-virus CD? Yeah. How did you get on with that?

- Grand. I got in the machine now. Where do I go from here?

- Ferdie I gave you that CD 4 months ago. Don’t tell me you’re only installing it now.

- I was busy. Shur what’s the rush anyway? So where do I go from here?

- The fekin thing is 4 months out of date now, Ferdie! If you install from that CD it’ll have to update itself with all the new virus definitions. That’ll take hours on your connection. Here, I’ll make you a new one.

- Ah no. This one’ll be grand. A lad in the club told me that you don’t really need a virus [sic.] unless you’re looking at dirty pictures and I wouldn’t be doing that. ** Right, so where do I go from here?

- Ok. Ok. It’s your call, Ferdie. Ok, put the CD in the drive. Go Start>Run>Browse. Select the D: drive. Double-click the file you see there and just follow the instructions on the screen.

- Where’s Start?

- Bottom left hand corner.

- Right. I can see All Programs, My Documents, My Pictures, My Music …

- Run, Ferdie. I said select Run! R-U-fekin-N.

- Right. I have that now. Where do I go from here?

- Browse. Select the D: drive. Double click the file you see there and away you go.

- Ok. I see Browse. Where do I go now?

- Ferdie, do you still have the box the computer came in by any chance?

- I do. Shur herself never throws anything out.

- Good. Here’s where you go from here: Put the computer into it and bring it back to the shop. Tell them the purchaser is unfit for the equipment intended. You might get your money back.

My neighbour wasn’t at home yesterday morning when DHL arrived with a very large parcel. Being the civic minded gent that I am, I volunteered to take it.

Seeing her drive in later, I went out and shouted across the fence:

- You got a big box.
- And you’ve got a small dick. Now fuck off!

I really must chose my words more carefully. Especially when someone’s had a bad day.

- Howya, Primal. Listen, that Internet ya put on the computer for me is useless.

- How so, Pádraigh?

- There’s nothing on it. You’ll have to come over here again and put a different Internet on it.

- There’s only one Internet, Pa. Settle for a minute. Tell me more. You were using Google to look up stuff, right?

- Yeah. And all it ever says is “did you mean something else” or “did not match any documents”. I’m looking at it now and that’s what it says - “didn’t match”.

- Well, the “did you mean something else” is usually because you misspelled a word and it is guessing at the correct spelling.

- That could be it. I wouldn’t be great at spelling. But the other yoke - “didn’t match”. If everything is supposed to be on the Internet, how the fek can it find nothing? You’ll have to get me another Internet.

- Keep settled, Pa. What were you trying to look up just now?

- I was looking for lads around here selling hayledge. I’m selling a few bales and I was wondering what other lads are charging.

- Ok. So tell me exactly what you typed in.

- I told ya already, ya eejit. “Lads around here selling hayledge”.

- I have it, Pádraigh. The problem is between the chair and the keyboard. I will have to come over again. We can’t fix this over the phone. Will you be free today? For a few hours? A good few hours.

I arranged a B&B for two distant relations at the weekend. Home from Spain for a suprise family thing, the surpisers needed a place to hide overnight from the suprisee.

Nora, being the excellent host she is, engaged them in conversation at breakfast. “Are - you - tra - vell - ing - a - round - I - re - land?”

Maura, my third cousin, not far enough removed, politely replied “we - are - here - for - a - birth - day. How - long - you - live - in - Ire - land?”

“All - my - life. I - born - near - here”.

“Then - why - in - the - name - of - fuck - are - you - talk - ing - like - a - half - fekin - eej - it?”

Right lads, where is it? The snow I mean.

On the news last night they were issuing major weather alerts. They showed images of Dublin, where the roads were being gritted, with particular attention being paid to bus routes and around hospitals. Snow ploughs were fitted to the trucks for the first time in six years.* All across the country drifting was expected before dawn. And ice. Farmers were advised to bring their animals indoors.** Strong easterly winds. And anything else the Wintersmith could throw at us.

Met Éireann’s apocalyptic warnings ran like this: “Very cold and windy tonight, with outbreaks of sleet and snow in many areas. Some significant falls of snow are possible, especially over Connacht, north Munster, much of Leinster and Ulster, with some drifting in places before dawn. Drier weather will develop in the southwest later. Lowest temperatures -3 to plus 2 C, with frost in many areas and a risk of dangerous driving conditions. Strong east to southeast winds, easing later.” Exactly like this in fact.

So I got up at 5:00. I had my carrot in one hand and my two lumps of coal in the other. [Bear with me if you're getting the wrong image]. My snowman was going to be there to greet everyone on their way to work. If there were time I could even build an igloo like Irish KC did and I might even get free food.

And what happens. It’s a balmy 1°C, a slight breeze and drizzling. No frost on the car for the first time in days.

Ok. I’m not saying it won’t snow later, or hasn’t snowed elsewhere. But I’m really pissed off that the weather folks got the timing and location wrong and messed up my plans. I might just ring them an rollick them out of it. Like I did to the ESB last night when I had no heating because the power was off for 4 hours and it was -3°C. Then, as now, the only thing being gritted are my teeth.

*Insert your own jokes here about how the snowplough driver gets to work.
**That must’ve caused howls of laughter in urban households.

A hearty breakfast of fried kitten on toast and I was set up for the day. A beautiful day it was, with a hint of spring in the air. What a nice day for a stroll around the town. I was on top of my projects so I could do it too. And I did.

The newsagents first to pick up my copy of EverythingYouWantedToKnowAboutSex ButWereAfraidToAskAtTheLastMacraMeeting Monthly. Then down past the undertakers (which was closed due to a birth in the family) to The Corduroy Calf Travel Agents and Hardware to buy a long stick. You can never have enough long sticks. Especially when your cat is a hide-and-seek champion and you have a king size bed.

On the way home, with the sunroof down and the wind blowing in my ears (because I haven’t got hair so it has to find somewhere else to do its blowing), I waved at the truants merrily throwing rocks off the motorway bridge. I waved at the Gardaí fearlessly eating breakfast rolls at the Spar. I waved at the ESB linesman atop a pole and he waved back. Which was an unfortunate move as it turned out.

Feeling the joys of spring and with no-one readily available to mate with, I diverted my springosity into cleaning. Being the feast day of St. Brigid who famously spread her blanket across the Curragh plains I felt it appropriate to begin with changing the bed clothes.

Removing the duvet cover I was met with an explosion of feathers. The duvet itself had somehow been ripped. I ruled out mice because you never get mice where there are rats. I had to rule them out too as the cat seemed quite plump of late. Feegles then. It had to be.

A needle and thread did the trick. But I still had the problem of a 5cm deep layer of feathers and the vacuum resolutely refused to work. Usually this means the filters need changing and unbeknownst to myself I managed to slit three fingers doing this. When I did notice, the vacuum, the duvet, and me, splattered with blood I tripped with the shock and came up covered with blood and feathers. Believe me, such a quantity of blood and feathers has not been seen since the great dancing-girl massacre of Lixnaw in 1803.

Just then a Garda reeking of rashers arrived at the door to enquire if I knew anything about teens tossing missiles from a bridge, an ESB employee being hospitalised with multiple broken bones and the number of missing kittens in the area. It all went downhill from there.