Apologies for the length of time between the last couple of posts. I was over in Sweden trying to get a deal on some mobile phones for my charity, Dubs in Distress. As the man says; Give a Dub a fresh cod and he'll eat for a day, give him a phone and he can ring the chipper whenever he wants.
Anyway, on to the matter in hand. As you know, tomorrow is St. Patrick's Day. You may think that this would be a Dub's dream. An excuse to get baloobas in the middle of the week, loads of tourists around to con out of a few bob, the whole world telling us how great we are, etc. For any real Dubs, however, this is a nightmare. This post will explain why.
First of all, a Dub does not need an excuse to get drunk in the middle of the week. And even if we did, Cheltenham is on, which gives us the perfect excuse. And yes, we get a day off for our national holiday. But being in work would still not stop a Dub from hitting the boozer mid-week. It all comes down to who your boss is, you see. Bosses fall into two categories; Sound Men and Bollixes. Sound Men account for about 45% of Dublin bosses according to a recent survey (that was also the percentage of Dubs who were self-employed as taxi drivers and window cleaners, two fine Dublin professions, but I'm sure that was just a coincidence) and these lads would hardly begrudge a hard-working fella like yourself a drink in the middle of the week.
Bollixes, on the other hand, are there to be conned. Sneaking off early for a few pints is the most satisfying way of doing this, so you may as well.
The tourists and occasional drinkers are the next little annoyance. All your favourite pubs will be packed to the un-dusted rafters with them. Americans annoying the barman asking for a skinny latte when all he has is a Burco boiler and a box of teabags; English tossers wearing pink t-shirts and getting pissed on two bottles of lager; and worst of all, the Irish gobshites making a show of us all with their green hats, green shirts, green facepaint and green vomit. A quick message to these clowns; if you can't handle your drink the other 364 days a year, what makes you think March 17th is going to be any different?
Unless you're one of the lucky few whose local will remain "closed" on St. Patrick's Day, your best bet is to stay at home for the day and drink Guinness out of tins.
As for the attention we get from the world's media, we'd rather go without it, thanks. It's all very well having parades in Baltimore and Budapest, but if you really have nothing better to do than hold a parade in another country's honour (or in the case of the diaspora, show everybody how much you think of the country that isn't good enough for you to live in,) but keep it to yourselves. We know you think we're great. That's because we are. Or most of us are anyway. We try to keep the mullahs hidden away when we see the BBC and CNN vans approaching. They can usually be found in un-mapped and unexplored villages around the country, having "parades" consisting of the local pig-breeder (and therefore King of the Town) driving his tractor up and down some poxy pothole-ridden main road, pulling a cart with the local lovely girls (who mostly have all their own teeth) piled on top of it.
That's just about all I have to say about that. If you enjoyed it, there's no need to send cash or pints my way. If you really want to express your gratitude, fire-bomb the Leprechaun Museum for me. It's at the back of the Jervis Shopping Centre. It used to be a Fás centre. But letting tourists know we're as stupid as they thought we were is much more important than helping people find work. Happy St. Patrick's Day.
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