HOME Saturday 5 August 2000

Watching the shapes formed in the clouds is a relaxing way of passing a few minutes, but it would be a mistake to take it too seriously. (There is a recorded incident of French peasants seeing a cloud formation of a broken crown in the sky, just weeks before the French Revolution started. Given the endless formations possible, this has less relevance then the predictions of Nostradamus.) However, few people seem to pay much attention to some of the strange land formations on Planet Earth.  Anyone who has bothered about it at all, will have noticed the high-heel, Cavalier-type boot of Italy, kicking Sicily towards the coast of Tunisia.  Ireland, I have always thought, looks like a Scottie-type dog, sitting on its rear end, (although some strange people think it looks like a Teddy Bear.), its mouth in Donegal and its head inclined towards Scotland, while at its rear end, near its tail, is Carnsore Point, where, decades ago, it was proposed to build Ireland's first Nuclear Power Plant, providing a ready access for Nuclear Affluent into St George's Channel. (Fortunately, in those days, the ESB had less clout and incompetency than it now has.) Looking at the head, again, at the parts gouged out by Donegal Bay and Lough Foyle, perhaps the island looks more like an elephant, a baby one.  The island of Britain does not appear to have an easily discerned shape, unless it is that of a dragon, sitting on its haunches. The part between Glasgow and Middlesborough, however, looks like a dragon's head, trying to take a bite out of Ireland.  Norway, Sweden, Finland, and a piece of Russia, look like a distorted Labrador, nosing its way towards Germany  New Guinea, in my map book, at any rate, coloured a stunning glassy green, looks like a godzilla-type reptile, reaching out with one claw for the Philippines.  South America is rather puzzling. Is it a bunch of grapes that has been eaten off at the bottom, or a badly-diseased heart?  Cuba is an eel heading with purpose towards The Antilles. The Lesser Antilles resemble a shoal of amoeba, curling around towards Venezuela.  North America looks like some kind of odd, halfmade creature, with a small head and a fish tail, throwing a large claw into the Bering Sea.  If you look at the states of the USA and the countries of Africa, your eye will be offended by geometrical shapes of their states and countries, and the straightness of their borders. They look, as is, indeed, the case, like something artificially created, with tiny outgrowths of nature slowly reshaping them. And what about Spain and Portugal? A sort of square hammer head being used by France to flatten the tip of Morocco and drive it back down into the African Continent, which, itself, resembles a heart with a large slice (Arabia) cut out of the top of one side.  Here I must stop, or else I'll go mad.

Friday 11 August 2000

Ah, the weather. What can you say about it that hasn't been said before? It might be just bearable living in a country with water on all six sides of us - the four points of the compass, plus the water underneath and the water in the sky above us - if one wasn't absolutely certain that, after one rare week of sun, the county officials will start talking of a drought, and every Tom, Dick and Mary you meet, mops imaginary sweat from their brows and brings out that most idiotic of all small talk, "We could do with a drop of rain."  Why, for pity's sake? There is very little difference between the present state of the atmosphere in Ireland and the bottom of the sea, if you set aside the trifling consideration that the water on top of us is fresh. Pretty soon, fishes will be as common in what we laughingly call the air, as the birds are.  As for drought, I could never understand why the authorities in Ireland take their water supplies from the potentially poisonous rivers, when so much that is clean and safe lies under our feet, just a few hundred centimetres down. Again, rivers can dry up during hot weather, underground supplies will not. Why not then sink a well - or a few of them - for a towns or a citys water supply? If millions of pounds can be spent on roads (That's what they tell us, anyway. I see no evidence of it on the road I have to travel, a road that has not been resurfaced for twenty or thirty years.), why not spend the same amount on ensuring a continuous supply of healthy water for our towns and cities into the foreseeable future?  Alas, politicians have a logic, of which logic knows nothing.  I remember, back in the sixties, reading somewhere or other, that the climate of the world was warming up, that, in decades, all the tropical countries would be deserts, the British Isles would be like the tropics, and I presumed, although they didn't mention it, that the Scandinavian countries would have a climate much like ours, if they weren't totally under water from the melting ice caps by then. "Ah," I thought to myself, "I can look forward to retiring in the tropics without actually having to go there." At this stage, I can see it's not going to come soon enough. There are still a few decades to go.  The strange thing was, no one seemed to know about a hole in the ozone layer back then. All the blame was put on the sun heating up, as it does, apparently periodically, before cooling down again, which was supposed to explain all the ice ages as well. And it has been doing this for aeons, without any hole in the ozone to play around with.  Who knows? The sacred facts of today are usually the bellylaughs of tomorrow.

Friday 18 August 2000

I wonder if anyone could say, at the present moment, what is the colour of the world infamous, Manchester United Jersey. In fact, if a questionnaire was held on the subject, and a hundred different answers were given, every one of the answers would be found to be correct.  A warning here to computer users: do not try to display United's complete set of jerseys on your screens with a colour setting of 255, or less. It would probably take True Colour to display the astonishing amount of shades that United's designers have gone though in the last few years. For God's sake, they even used grey!  Hands up, those who remember the grey jersey. It didn't last very long. One match, or two, at the most. The problem was, the players couldn't see each other in those grey jerseys. Passes were going into no man's land and being snapped up by the surprised and grateful opposition. And Alex rewarded his army with new jerseys instead of contact lenses. Another good one for volume thirty-five of Great Manchester United Excuses.  Perhaps, they should try an invisible jersey. Just think of it, money for nothing, and the supporters would be able to see the designer vests worn by the Red Devils. Maybe they could get a season or two out of that. Of course, only true-blue Reds would be able to see these amazing jerseys. The Plebeians (also known as The Rivals, The Enemy and Those Of Little Fate) would only see sweaty and grubby vests. On the other hand, the more cynical mothers of the Little Supporters, might not be too happy to see their offspring playing football in their underwear.  It would have to be allowed, of course, in a supreme effort to be impartial, that part of the reason for the hate and contempt in which Man United are held, is plain old green envy. Other clubs feel a bit miffed that the Great Red Ones are creaming off so much of the commercial opportunities on offer. Naturally, they feel that they are not getting their fair cut of the loot. Scratch that. I meant, of course, their fair share of the market. And the Anyone But United Association feel they are not winning their fare share of matches. The United Family are leaning on the referees. Referees are on the back foot. Everyone knows that. Television audiences got a shot of Don Roy and his Mob in action last season. And the cowardly Feds – sorry, I meant, of course, the FA – are not giving the referees protection from the likes of David The Beck and Andy The Coalman.  I conclude by calling for three cheers for Manchester United.  Hip! Hip! Boooooooh!  Hip! Hip! Boooooooh!  Hip! Hip! Boooooooh!  Oh, come on, now. You don't really mean that.

Saturday 19 August 2000

Gay Byrne used to like to say, referring to politicians and their salaries, "If you pays peanuts, then you get monkeys."  Politicians, themselves, are always saying the same thing in a different way: "If you want to attract capable people to a job, you must make it worth their while."  So what are Mr Byrne and the politicians really saying?  That honesty and patriotism can be bought?  That they, the politicians, will display integrity only if they are paid enough?  The truth of the matter is, that, no matter how much you paid, you would probably get monkeys, anyway. Politics seems to be a profession that attracts them

Friday 25 August 2000

After our statuary two days of warm, dry weather, things changed this morning. Enter Mr Thunder and his mob. Intimidating charcoal clouds moved menacingly about the sky, while Mr Thunder, himself, mumbled and grumbled overhead. Miss Flashy Lightning threw out a few sheets of oddly drab light, but nothing spectacular. Great fat drops of rain fell straight down, and, on the horizon, the sky smouldered, a rusty red.  When it had all cleared away, of course, the leaves and grass shone as if they had been polished and the air felt fresher and more moist, almost good enough to drink. If it was like this all the time, one wouldn't grumble too much, but there is a residing fear in the heart of every Irish person, that rain is a forgetful entity, who may one day forget to stop. Evidence of its continued decline into senility has been very strong in recent years. This year has, perhaps, seen a return to the better balanced weather of yore.