Why I hate Aer Lingus - Part II

I should have titled this entry, why I love the Shannon Airport - Part I but since I like to complain, I'll just gloss over the fact that the Shannon airport has free wifi which does actually rock when you find that your flights been delayed for an hour and you've already been waiting an hour for said connecting flight. Bast*rds. So, here I am in Shannon, been here since around 2pm and my flight was supposed to leave 15 minutes ago. Argh. So close and yet so far... I am actually dreaming of homemade pesto and tomatoes from my parents garden and yet... am surrounded by rambunctious American children, giant bags of tayto and cadbury vending machines, all conspiring to make me a) cranky and b) fat. I will do my best to love the wifi and stave off a desire to eat ten bags of crisps and someday, gawdwilling, I'll see you all in Boston. At least, I've managed to escape from the mid-western jesus-geeks student group I was traveling with from Dublin. The best shirt yet: GAP (in giant letters, not unlike the ubiquitous clothing brand of sweatshop fame). Underneath the words GAP, the phrase: God Answers Prayers. Well, jesus, if yer up there, can you get me to Boston sometime this century??? Onwards and upwards.

From A to Zed

Here's another batch of Irishisms for the foreign ear. I never get tired of this.

Naf - Usage: "That club sounds completely naf with its lads in track suits dancing to white boy hip-hop." Have to say I love this one... almost as good as manky, naf is used to describe something supremely cheesy, tacky or otherwise lame.

Gaff - Today is rhyming day. Don't ask me why I decided that naf has one f but gaff has two... but it's my blog so I get to do the spelling. The plaid carpeting in my gaff is completely naf so it is. I really do have green and orange plaid carpeting in my apartment and it is quite eye-catching - in a bad way. For those of you who've seen it, I apologize, for those of you who haven't, come visit. You can sleep in the spare bedroom with it's equally naf, nautical wallpaper.

In case you haven't copped on to the definition of gaff, mine is clearly a wonder of modern interior design. So much better than calling it an apartment or a flaaaaatttt.

Holliers - Just as I had embraced calling them, "holidays" and dispensed with the yankophile, "vacation," I find that I'm still out -o- the loop. Holliers, baby. The beautiful thing is that I'm actually on my "holliers" starting tomorrow when I fly off to warmer climates and an office-free lifestyle. I'm all for it.

Half-inch - More fun with rhyming. To "half-inch" is to pinch. As in, I'm going to half-inch Tom's suncream tomorrow when I fly off on my holliers to warmer climates and leave him to the cool Irish shores. In case you're incredibly thick, to "pinch" something is to steal / gank / obscond with items that are not rightfully yours.

Buck your ideas up - This one only really works if you have a strong Northy accent and an air of righteous indignation about you. It basically means, "Get it together... sort yourself out... catch yourself on." Example, if Tom thinks I'm doing the dishes after I cooked him the loveliest meal of the century he will be bucking said ideas up...

I didn't just lick that off a stamp - This one implies that the speaker can back up his facts, that it came from a reputable source. Heard spoken during a meeting by the most bad-ass, tattooed web developer while dropping f-bombs left and right and telling us wild stories of corporate conspiracies. This guy went on, no holds barred in a room full of suits throughout the wankiest marketing meeting ever. Fair play... or in American, you go. I'll take a geek over a marketing exec any day.

So there ya go. Pretty soon I'll be playing on the other side of the pond. Hopefully, you've learned your lessons well and when I half-inch the last piece of cake at our next dinner pahty, you can tell me to buck my ideas up.

cheers. see you all on the flipside.

It's a small world afterall...

Have had many six (or fewer) degrees of separation moments lately... the strangest being that I met one of my present co-workers over a year ago and we only recently figured this out. We were being being tortured by having to attend one of those ubiquitous "networking," events. From Ireland to California, these things are the same load of sh*te. Fingers foods and fake smiles and handshaking and self-promotion. Gross. I was being introduced to many by my companion (who it must be said was trying to be helpful) and I met my current co-worker in her previous job in another design agency. We were both pretty uncomfortable and immediately escaped to the snacks and wine table and set upon the mini-quiches and the glasses of wine and agreed that except for the mini-quiche, this shindig was indeed horrible. A few weeks into my current job, this networking debacle came up and a few minutes later, it all became clear. Stranger still, we never would have pieced this together had my current company not been doing work with my original companion who invited me to the networking whoredom. Confused? So am I. Dublin is a tangled web of people who all know someone's brother's sister's nephew and it's even more magnified in the little world that is design.

The other night, I was out for a few pints. I arrived with my current co-worker and met up with his girlfriend who I had met before since she is close mates with someone who dates someone who works at another company I used to do work for. Other people from this other company were also there as was a coworker of my coworker's girlfriend (ha. Try sorting that one out.) This person turned out to be the sister of someone I worked with at yet another design studio and I had met her once before at a design lecture. It's a small island afterall.

more euros please

Sitting here in the office (have actually been working in one all summer) and just heard on the radio that Dublin is the 8th most expensive city in the world to live in... that's IN THE WORLD... shit. As I was going off to the bathroom to slit my wrists, the radio announcer said that this fact doesn't particularly matter as Dubliners are paid relatively more than people living in other cities... I dunno if I'm convinced. I think I should get a raise.

The Cheek

It's Aluminum, FFS... or maybe just tin foil... but I'm all for real chips and real beer. God save my waistline.

Subject
BRITS REVOKE USA INDEPENDENCE


A Message from John Cleese

To the citizens of the United States of America:


In light of your failure to elect a competent President of the USA and thus to govern yourselves, we hereby give notice of the revocation of your independence, effective immediately.

Her Sovereign Majesty Queen Elizabeth II will resume monarchical duties over all states, commonwealths, and territories (excepting Kansas, which she does not fancy).

Your new prime minister, Tony Blair, will appoint a governor for America without the need for further elections. Congress and the Senate will be disbanded. A questionnaire may be circulated next year to determine whether any of you noticed.

To aid in the transition to a British Crown Dependency, the following rules are introduced with immediate effect:

1- You should look up "revocation" in the Oxford English Dictionary. Then look up "aluminium", and check the pronunciation guide. You will be amazed at just how wrongly you have been
pronouncing it.

2- The letter "U" will be reinstated in words such as "favour" and "neighbour". Likewise, you will learn to spell "doughnut" without skipping half the letters, and the suffix "ize" will be replaced by the suffix "ise".

3- Generally, you will be expected to raise your vocabulary to acceptable levels (look up vocabulary).

4- Using the same twenty-seven words interspersed with filler noises such as "like" and "you know" is an unacceptable and inefficient form of communication.

5- There is no such thing as US English. We will let Microsoft know on your behalf. The Microsoft spell-checker will be adjusted to take account of the reinstated letter "u" and the elimination of "-ize".

6- You will relearn your original national anthem, God Save the Queen.
July 4th will no longer be celebrated as a holiday.

7- You will learn to resolve personal issues without using guns, lawyers, or therapists. The fact that you need so many lawyers and therapists shows that you're not adult enough to be independent.

8- Guns should only be handled by adults. If you're not adult enough to sort things out without suing someone, or speaking to a therapist then you're not grown up enough to handle a gun.

9- Therefore, you will no longer be allowed to own or carry anything more dangerous than a vegetable peeler. A permit will be required if you wish to carry a vegetable peeler in public.

10- All American cars are hereby banned. They are crap and this is for your own good. When we show you German cars, you will understand what we mean.

11- All intersections will be replaced with roundabouts, and you will start driving on the left with immediate effect.

12- At the same time, you will go metric with immediate effect and without the benefit of conversion tables. Both roundabouts and metrication will help you understand the British sense of humour.

13- The former USA will adopt UK prices on petrol (which you have been calling gasoline) - roughly $6/US gallon. Get used to it.

14- You will learn to make real chips. Those things you call French fries are not real chips, and those things you insist on calling potato chips are properly called crisps. Real chips are thick cut, fried in animal fat, and dressed not with catsup but with vinegar.

15-- The cold tasteless stuff you insist on calling beer is not
actually beer at all. Henceforth, only proper British Bitter will be referred to as beer, and European brews of known and accepted provenance will be referred to as Lager. American brands will be referred to as Near-Frozen Gnat's Urine, so that all can be sold without risk of further confusion.

16- Hollywood will be required occasionally to cast English actors as good guys. Hollywood will also be required to cast English actors to play English characters. Watching Andie MacDowell attempt English dialogue in Four Weddings and a Funeral was an experience akin to having one's ears removed with a cheese grater.

17- You will cease playing American football. There is only one kind of proper football; you call it soccer. Those of you brave enough will, in time, be allowed to play rugby (which has some similarities to American football, but does not involve stopping for a rest every twenty seconds or wearing full Kevlar body armour like a bunch of
nancies).

18- Further, you will stop playing baseball. It is not reasonable to host an event called the World Series for a game which is not played outside of America. Since only 2.1% of you are aware that there is a world beyond your borders, your error is understandable.

19- You must tell us who killed JFK. It's been driving us mad.

An internal revenue agent (i.e.tax collector) from Her Majesty's Government will be with you shortly to ensure the acquisition of all monies due (backdated to 1776).

Thank you for your co-operation.