Raiméis

A friend recently returned from a stay in China and had some interesting advice to give to others travelling there. Of the many points he raised two in particular stood out for me, basically because I have a sick mind, food and ‘food disposal’. To deal with the latter first … generally in China they don’t use our western style toilet with a nice ceramic bowl for you to sit on, instead they have the little hole in the ground which you must hover over in order to deposit your goods, I guess it sort of resembles the cup on a golf green. It takes some getting used to. Regarding the food in China, wonderful it is, but with different bacteria in the food it can lead to stomach problems for many people. On my brief stay in China I had no such problems but I was only in the region for a week (most of the time actually in Hong Kong, eating western food) but many people can react quite badly to the food. Combining these two things, the food leading to stomach problems and the sh1t hole and you have a potential disaster on your hands … or in your pants.
Imagine you have just popped down to the cantine for lunch (in a work scenario here), you had a nice bowl of 只針對軟體, you don’t know what the fuck 只針對軟體 was but 只針對軟體 was damn good! You’re sitting back in your office, happy as larry, when suddenly a tummy rumble disturbs you. The tummy rumble begins to sound and feel more like a volcano, molten liquid running through your bowels, heading for the exit, you head for the exit. You race to the jacks, dash into a cubicle, drop your pants and drop your arse to the floor aiming for the golf cup. Thrusting your body into such a seated position only adds to the immense pressure and the explosion which follows must surely shake the very foundations of the building. But what relief … what joy comes with that release of pressure. However relief quickly turns to horror as you realise that without the funnel shape of western toilets with it’s wide catch-all rim in close proximity to your relief valve you have just splattered half the floor in skitter, not to mention the back of your trousers. Oh the horror! Your mind is racing, you don’t know what to do, and what can you do but pray to Budda that the golf hole will open up and swallow you whole. If ever there’s a time for your prayers to be answered it’s now!
The moral of the story is don’t visit China, or if you do then don’t eat the food, or if you do then immediatly after eating head for the dunny and await the impending volcano.

Bairbre de Brún became the first person to address the European Parliment in Irish today following the decision to make Irish a working language. About EU has all the details including the speech text.
I didn’t think anyone was allowed to use Irish in the EP just yet, I thought it wasn’t coming in to force until 2007!?
In related news Jim Nicholson of the UUP has been whinging & moaning about the status upgrade of Irish.

I was looking forward to see how they would get on with this Cosmos-1 Solar Sail experiment, but it looks as if they’ve lost the damn thing. I suppose when you stick a pimped intercontinental ballistic missile up it’s ass and fire it off from a nuclear sub there’s a good chance something could go wrong.

Now this interets me. Michael McDowell’s expected to announce details of a multi-million Euro package for childcare services thoughout the country. Reports say the funding would be used to encourage groups to set up after school childcare services in school buildings.
Thinking about moving back to Ireland one of the biggest concerns for me is childcare. What do you do when your child finishes school at 3 (or whatever time young kids finish school), both parents work until 5 and you have no friends or family in the town who can help? We’re sorted here at the moment thanks to an excellent daycare, but daycares in Ireland are a scandalous price (twice the EU average) and when our child starts school proper he’ll finish in the afternoon and will need looking after. Most of these services in Ireland suck big time. I don’t mind paying higher taxes here because at least I get the services I need … not so in Ireland. Why move back at all!?!
Related:
• Report – Developing Childcare in Ireland[PDF], A Review of progress to end 2003 on the implementation of the Equal Opportunities Childcare Programme 2000 – 2006.
• Childcare Survery 2005 – with some astonishing information on the costs of childcare.

Should underwear be a basic human right? How about razor blades? Twenty seems to think so. Maybe it’s time to take to the streets and demand change!

The Irish & British Governments are to fund a forensic expert who will be tasked with finding the bodies of 5 young men who were murdered and secretly buried by the IRA back in the 70′s and early 80′s. Some of the candidates being looked at have experience in locating bodies in Bosnia and also those involved in murder cases in England. It will be some weeks before the experts are chosen but hopefully those chosen will be able to bring closure to these cases.

More toast up for auction on e-Bay, this time with Michael Jacksons whiteish mug on it. Apparantly the slices are not fake … they popped out of their toasters before or during the verdicts :rolleyes:
Whoever buys these are about as dumb as the gobshite who bought the Virgin Mary toast for a staggering $28,000 last year.

The sad story of a Congolese child, how she has tried to make a life for herself despite losing her parents, living rough & working for food, and watching her sister die on the streets of Kinshasa. Just one of a million tragic stories in Africa. Makes ya think doesn’t it?

Some masked gunmen stormed a school today holding the young kids as hostage. Initially there were about 70 kids, aged 2-6 but the gunmen later released 30. They were demanding money, weapons and transport and when they didn’t get all that they wanted they shot one of the kids and threatened to shoot the other kids one by one. The school was an international school with kids from all over including some Irish kids, the child they picked out was a 3 year old boy from Canada. Now what kind of sick motherfucker would take a 3 year old child and shoot him in cold blood? What sort of twisted mentality does it take to do something like that, an innocent child and blast him with a shotgun. The death penalty is too good for scum like that, I hope they face much worse. I’d have no problem with seeing these sort of people tortured on a daily basis for the rest of their pathetic lives.

Twenty has an interesting one about the quality of Guinness abroad so I thought i’d add my Finnmarks’s worth. It’s a subject close to me heart … it’s not just teabags we expats (I don’t remember being a pats in the first place but whatever..) miss, nor taytos (the real ones) it’s also da black shtuff. Ah shur ders nuttin behher than a grand pinta shtout rih enuff. An i’ll tell ya, as ye may well know, a good pint is hard to come by outside our own shores.
I (i’m likely alone in this and have no problem admitting i’m a sad git) actually enjoy visiting Irish bars* when abroad and have made it a mission to try to visit as many as possible during my trips abroad. But while traipsing about the planet with work i’ve only gotten to a few Irish bars in places like Finland of course, Estonia, Germany, France and Hong Kong. It’s not that many (i’ve visited a lot more countries) but in each place i’ve sampled the Guinness and lived to tell the tale. I turned down Guinness in China however, you have to watch what you consume there or you could end up with a wicked case of the skitters.
In most places i’ve been where i’ve sampled the stout it’s been, not surprisingly, shite but there’s a wee alcoholics pub about an hour from here that serves grand Guinness, almost (but not quite) as good as home! The main Irish bar in this town (not the one below) serves half-decent Guinness, it’s drinkable … until you hit your fifth or sixth then you’d want to slow down.

Anyway, before this turns into an essay here’s a few tips for Europeans on how to look after your Guinness drinking customers. The Guinness will never match up but here’s some things to watch for…

1. Buy some Tulip glasses ya fucking tulip
2. Learn how to pull a pint, glass tilt & settle time are important, it’s not a cheap beer to be filled by pressing a button on your automatic filler thingies. And don’t fill it up completely first time!
3. A pint is a pint not some European almost pint, when ya top it up it should right to the top! *ergh!*
4. No bloody shamrocks in the top of the pint please.

Get those few things right and I might order a second…

*There’s a pub in this city actually called “Irish Bar” … and there’s fucking nout Irish about it apart from the name and the Guinness sign out front. Awful place, just awful. I’m having cold sweats now just thinking about it. I visited it the first time I came to this city for a job interview and swore i’d never return. 4 years 7 months later I haven’t been back there. I wouldn’t mind but the bastards have a prime location right in the city centre across the road from one of the main hotels. Think of the unfortunate tourists who wander in there. It’s not right so it’s not.