Irish Americans who aren’t at all American

It seems they are everywhere. It has only become more noticeable since John and Edward began to grace our screens at the beginning of the X-Factor Season.

Little brats talking like they spent most of their lives on the West Coast. What’s it all about? Oh my Gawd loike it was sooooo rad dude, I mean yaaaah, it was like, soooooo awesome. It’s not so much the words but the twang and the almost composed melody to it. The over pronounciation and exagerration of every letter rolling off their tongues. Putting three syllables into a word which has only one.  A group of girls in their school uniforms looking like they have the nest of a family of bullfinches on their head talking like Paris Hilton. “Oh, silly bitch, ur my BFF really” hawdy ha ha. Then ordering lunch and telling Pascal in Subway – “No TO-MATE-TOE dude”.  The word on this side of the Atlantic is tomato. TO-MA-TO.

And what is with the unnecessary amount of pauses in the sentences. For example, overheard whilst strolling to work and passing a certain school opposite the Green – “Oh.My.God.Are.You.Serious.No.Nooooooooooo.Oh.My.God.Dude.Like wooooooow”.

In my personal opinion the word ketchup should be deleted from our vocabulary aswell. Unless of course you’re in TGI Fridays. Be traditional, it was red sauce when you were 4 years old and it’s still red and it’s still sauce so go back  to the West Coast with yer ketchup. So long as it’s Heinz and not Chef I don’t give a rats arse

Send them all down to the Gaeltacht and let them converse in Gaeilge for a few weeks and see how they do. It will stop them speaking like they’re trying to give an Oscars acceptance speech and be so much easier to understand.

Go n-eiri leat!

Louise x

 

 

Pipe Down Lady!!!

Everyone is good at something. Some are great at sports, others fantastic at dancing, some are complete geniuses and others are just downright bloody fantastic at being annoying.

The main culprit- the girl who has the conversation on a certain bus from Lower Leeson Street to Lucan EVERY Monday to Friday evening. Apart from her voice echoing the entire double decker bus I’m not even capable of understanding how one can talk so much bloody crap in the space of a 45 minute journey.

Get an ipod, sob over a Cecilia Ahern book, do a sudoku or just do what the rest of us do and sit nice and quietly for the whole flipping journey and occassionally read the adverts from time to time to rid yourself of any neck creaks.

As soon as I hear that ring tone every evening on my way home after work my eyes begin to well up.

I don’t care that you think Maire looked really well after losing all that weight or that Alan was acting like an arsehole all your birthday party in Coppers. I don’t care that your  3 month old golden retriever puppy scratched paint off the wall of your new kitchen, I don’t care that the bagel you ate at lunch keeps repeating on you and I do NOT care that you “can’t wait to see what happens in Fair City tonight”. You see where I’m going with this yuusss?!

You are committing a serial breach of what is socially acceptable on the bus. Not just any route but an EXPRESSO route. A bus carrying booted and suited people returning home from a days work who will kill for peace and quiet. Not to listen to you debate whether you want to be a feisty pirate or a sugar plum flipping fairy for Halloween. All above 60 decibels may I add. So in laymans terms you’re not just damaging my sanity but the general health of the publics ears aswell.

Talk away on the phone lady, but pipe down for jesus sake. I do wish you well on your driving test and I did make a mental note on Tuesday to “never buy the Pinot Grigio from Lidl” but please stop with the noise pollution as my consumption of panadol has reached pandemic levels and that cannot be good.

We will see how next week goes. If I still return home with a better understanding of what is going on in your head than what is actually going on in my own I will have to delve further and try name and shame you my dear stranger who wears the royal blue military style coat and is most recognisable from the infamous Nokia handset held permanently to her left ear ( deep breath aaaaaaahhhhhh).

I shall see you soon. Quietly hush hush. “CWYYYY-ITTT-LLEEEE”.

Louise xx

Cancer awareness for November, do some good!

November is the month for the male population to bring out their inner neanderthals and beastly masculinity oh yes oh yes oh yes …. too far? Maybe …. well MOVEMBER is an event run throughout the month of November to raise much needed awareness for mens health issues and Prostate Cancer.

Get the lads in your workplace to grow a moustache for the month of MOVEMBER and become their mo’sista supporting them along the way and helping them to raise funds for what is always a worthy cause. Separate the men from the boys and get on down to Motown!!

 Details on registering can be found at ie.movember.com or uk.movember.com so get on to it pronto and have a laugh at the same time. A bit of facial hair might even turn the office geek into Mr.I’d-so-do-you-right-now !!

P.S It is quite acceptable to bully male colleagues who are reluctant to leave behind the clean-shaven look into taking part. It may not be quite so acceptable to threaten them however keep the HR dept.at bay and then you should be able to threaten away.

P.P.S It is not acceptable to bully Sarah who sits by the water cooler into taking part just because she gets a lip wax once a month.

 

Have fun and raise some cash people!

 

Louise xx

lay off the single parents

I generally have one objective when I order a taxi and that is quite funnily to get from Point A to Point B. Perhaps with some polite conversation if needs must, you know – “terrible weather we’re having” and all that shite. Of late the word “recession” is usually brought up in some form or another. Generally when paying and the driver complains of not getting any decent fares. Em excuse me I’m being charged 15 blips for going 5 minutes down the road in a Volvo that smells like a damp dog and would set alarm bells off as soon as it came within 50 feet of a test centre.

  On Saturday I also paid to listen to a heap load of b*llocks from a patronising, ignorant, condescending and quite frankly ugly specimen of a man.

 So Mr. T.D as I’ll refer to him overheard a conversation I had on the phone. He questioned me about my little boy and I replied proudly and enthusiastically when he asked his age and if he was toddling around. All polite but needless conversation in my opinion.

Then came the question “So is he with his Daddy tonight while you’re out with the girls?”. Innocent question I guess but no-one who is a single parent is going to get into the ins and outs of their babysitting arrangements with a taxi man so for ease of conversation I said yes and swiftly tried to divert the conversation by asking if town had been busy for the night.

 Then he started.

 Chuckling he went on to say “Sure you would probably be better off if you were a single mother these days. Taxi Drivers like myself trying to make a decent wage and they’re off getting everything just because they got knocked up”.

 ”Knocked up”. I didn’t even know anyone except Catherine Tate or 15 year olds who went too far with there 14 year old boyfriends used that expression.

 He continued. “You’d be living in a nice new apartment, driving a great car, being paid for any study you wanted to do, it’s ridiculous all these women and they getting everything and we’re paying for it. Same with the foreigners.”

So I thought to myself. What have I done wrong? I have a decent enough car but if I remember correctly it was a man in a garage who gave me the keys after I handed over a cheque. I don’t recall Brian Cowan dangling the keys to a shiny new Beamer in front of me as I waited my turn in the “free cars for single parents” queue. I also want more information about these free houses that apparenty exist everywhere. If I want to request landscaped gardens and a pool who do I go to and if it is the same organisation that give away the free cars should I have not automatically received a house?!?

Mr Taxi Man continued but without turning this into something about racism it would be pointless of me to quote anymore of his waffling  jibber that was doused with pure ignorance, anger and almost a sense of superiority.

To the people who are so unfortunately dumb and ignorant my heart really bleeds for you. Single parents can and do get help from the government. Some single parents do cheat the system. Other single parents work there arses off and do the best they can without any help. We are in a recession and the number of people signed on is at record levels. Yet single parents and non-nationals are getting the brunt of the anger from people with regards to government spending. What about Joe who is officially unemployed but getting €203 a week on the dole and another few hundred euro doing nixers. That’s happening aswell so open your bloody eyes. Whatever the system someone will always be cheating it so to the numerous people who I have heard say “go have a baby” when conversing about financial hardships I will say f*ck you all because the sad truth is you do not have a clue about the entitlements or help that is in place.

 Also to Mr. Taxi Driver –  After your little rant which you would have never been able to back up with substantial evidence that it is in fact the truth you spoke, I got more than angry. Not just with what you said but the tone,the anger, the patronising manner and almost believable conviction in your voice that you knew what you were talking about. The fact I also nearly choked on the smell of Old Spice mixed with stale cigarette smoke did nothing to help your case. If you had half a brain cell you would have copped my disgust at the things you blabbed about.

So ………………………………………….

when you find the 8 inch scrape along the left side of your smelly Volvo don’t blame me but blame Brian Cowan for giving me the keys in the first place.  Signing off for now,

 Lou