Gibberings CLXXXVII - Feeling Funky (monkey)

[felix]

plus that annoying bitch who lives in the sat-nav (she must be small)

Can you not change the voice, if you'd prefer to be ordered about my a man? :D I use CoPilot GPS on my iPhone and you can change it to all sorts of voices, including Sean Connery and Alan Partridge. Which are funny for about a minute before I change it back to the nice lady.

After a couple of days of suffering, I decided to bite the bullet and spend £4.60 at the shop for 7 cetirizine. It's ridiculous. It should have got off my lazy arse and walked into town. In fact, it would have been cheaper to get the bus and get the tablets at a chemist - £1.50 for the town service and £2.50 for 30 generics

I have to take a cetrizine every day (bloody cats & pollen & life in general). Do you have a Home Bargains shop? They're about 49p for a box of 14 there.

I just checked and your nearest is in Larne. Next time you're in the big city, you should stock up.

 

[BigG]

Nah it was a mates car. Our big flashing vehicles have a thing called a terrafix which is like the Gucci of sat navs....tells you everything and constantly updates for road conditions traffic etc to tell you the beat route

Wired you should ask that about what people dis in the "old days" but I was out with this 54 year old bloke the other day who had been a Met police officer before joining the ambulance service and paramedics dis apparently have to do the knowledge in the old days...or at least be posted to places where they knew their way around.

As to why I'm using a sat nav round my home town....that's really simple....despite passing several advanced driving courses in a bad driver and get lost easy...simple as that really

 

[Don Luigi]

I have to take a cetrizine every day (bloody cats & pollen & life in general). Do you have a Home Bargains shop? They're about 49p for a box of 14 there.

I just checked and your nearest is in Larne. Next time you're in the big city, you should stock up.

It'd be much more convenient if you got on one of yer bikes and hopped across from Cairnryan, then popped up with them. Larne is one of the most depressing holes in Ulster. It's only worth traveling through if you're taking the Antrim coast road for the scenery.

I've been taking it every day and, because I'm in such close proximity to my ratties, I generally need 20mg for it to work (or so it seems). It's all a bit worrying because of that article about anti-cholinergic drugs and their link to Alzheimer's.

EDIT: The last bit just struck me as quite funny, considering the amount of untested chemicals I've shoved in my body over the years.

 

[BigG]

What's Northern Ireland like Don?...i mean since the troubles have calmed down and all that?

I've only ever been to Dublin and I got serious food poisoning....kind of took the shine off it really

I like Ireland though...never been to the north but aren't there some scenic places?

 

[ScotchMist]

You remind me of this old fella I worked with, he didn't drive anywhere without the sat nav on. We was working in Norwich and our hotel was 10 minutes from the job, the drive had about 6 turns at most. Now I can't stand Sat Navs anyway but this guy had Ozzy fuckin Osbourne directing us... Drove me mad, I'd say "I know the way don't bother with it".... nah, he had to put it on, so we'd sit on the car park whilst he mounted it, turned it on and then wait 5 minutes for it to find a fuckin satellite. I thought he was just winding me up but apparently he doesn't drive anywhere without it on..

He's about 60 years old, god knows how he used to get anywhere pre satellite days :D

 

[Don Luigi]

What's Northern Ireland like Don?...i mean since the troubles have calmed down and all that?

I've only ever been to Dublin and I got serious food poisoning....kind of took the shine off it really

I like Ireland though...never been to the north but aren't there some scenic places?

There are many beautiful places, but that's true for every country in these Isles. I'm only 25 so I missed the worst of the troubles. My town never had too much trouble. There were a couple of bombs but it wasn't exactly Belfast or Armagh.

The place is a complete joke, to be honest. It's very embarrassing watching our political representatives play Sunday league politics. All of the parties spent so long in opposition, that they don't have a clue about how to govern. Most of our representatives are basically gangsters, from both sides. Now the former RIRA members at Stormont condemn violent struggle. However, it must look quite appealing to new dissident republican groups because look at how well Sinn Fein did from their armed struggle. Many of the new generation are completely non-sectarian but it's mostly down to where you grow up. Consider the fact that this is the third year they've been protesting about a flag being taken down.

There's just still a lot of bitterness from and towards all sides. The collusion of the Britsh military and intelligence forces is a bitter pill for even some ardent loyalists to swallow. Quite frankly, we're an inconvenience; ROI doesn't want us and neither does Britain. I've found that growing up here, I lack a clear sense of national identity. I feel more Irish than anything (despite all my ancestry being Scottish) and I'm a populist when it comes to reunification. On the 2011 census, 'Northern Irish' was included for nationality, I chose Northern Irish and Irish; this is basically an oxymoron for many republicans.

 

[BigG]

Yeah...ive done a bit of reading on the troubles and its a very complex subject. People tend to oversimplify it by saying that I was simply a case of catholic republican terrorists fighting protestant loyalist terrorists and the British army and RUC fighting both sides....but as you know its more complex than that.

Your right about people seeing where Sinn Fein are now and thinking that maybe violence is the answer after all.

A history of the troubles would be a thread on its own but even an insensitive clod like me wouldn't start that one off as it would turn sour even quicker than the WW2 one did when I started that (its picked up now though since only people like us who are genuinely interested in history post there......no silly "you are all bastards for even discussing it" posts anymore.......which is nice

 

[felix]

During my first ever trip to Belfast last year, I was pretty shocked by the "Peace Walls" and the fact that they're still in use. Mental.

 

[Don Luigi]

I've been in that taxi :D

Yeah, unfortunately they're necessary in some area. There were a few times in West Belfast that I pretended to have a different name. I'm not saying that it was necessary to do this, but it made me feel a bit less paranoid.

(explaining to them that you're a 'halfa-jaffa' doesn't quell things)

 

[BigG]

Nowhere near the same thing but I once saw someone walking down Northumberland Street (the main thoroughfare in Newcastle city centre) wearing a Sunderland shirt......either really stupid or really brave....i didn't stop to find out .. I imagine certain parts of Belfast are like that x1000.

Such a shame that these things exist (the walls I mean) and we cant all just get along......i wonder if in another 25 years or so things will be different (here's hoping )

 

[Don Luigi]

I hope I didn't paint this place in too bad a light because it's not dangerous or anything like that. It's not a case of constant open hostility, it's just a cultural thing within certain areas. People who've never been tend to have skewed perception because of the troubles. I remember the first time a Scottish friend (called Kate, funnily enough) from Inverness came over, her family were all worried about her getting petrol bombed or something. If you went into a loyalist heartland wearing a Celtic shirt or vice versa, you're quite likely to get abuse. However, this is really only if you go into these well-known areas. If you have any sense and aren't just trying to start trouble, you know where not to go wearing certain items. This is part of the main problem with parades over here (loyalist bands marching through Catholic areas to celebrate a victory that barely any Irishmen actually fought in).

I feel much safer in Belfast than I have in any other city I've been in and I believe it to be safer than most UK cities. I know it can barely even be called a city but there's not a whole lot of crime. There aren't many different racial groups in most of the city. I lived in the south, which is the most ethnically diverse and it was peaceful enough. People do seem to have taken exception to Romani people coming.

There's quite a problem with racism in much of the province but, until recently, we haven't had much ethnic diversity here.

 

[Sammy G]

I don't think Sinn Fein's political rise encourages young would-be paramilitaries. I appreciate their history makes them objectionable to some, but they did follow the peace process accordingly.


It's not as if they / the Ra really had any other choice than armed struggle, is it? By that I'm not condoning civilian bombing campaigns.

As for RIRA in Stormont, I was under the impression that SF and RIRA aren't affiliated and never were. PIRA, sure.

 

[BigG]

Maybe not affiliated but those huge PIRA arms caches that RIRA and CIRA promised not to touch were very soon....err.....well.....touched

 

[Sammy G]

And your point is?

 

[Don Luigi]

I don't think Sinn Fein's political rise encourages young would-be paramilitaries. I appreciate their history makes them objectionable to some, but they did follow the peace process accordingly.


It's not as if they / the Ra really had any other choice than armed struggle, is it? By that I'm not condoning civilian bombing campaigns.

As for RIRA in Stormont, I was under the impression that SF and RIRA aren't affiliated and never were. PIRA, sure.

Ah sorry, yes I did mean PIRA.

I also didn't mean just the most recent incarnation of Sinn Fein, I mean even back during the war for independence; armed struggle has resulted in political power. I also agree that, given the circumstances, they didn't have much other choice than armed struggle. There was certainly no framework within Northern Irish society for nationalists/Catholics to empower themselves; just look at what happened when they tried to gain civil liberties. I know that the civilian bombing was atrocious but attacking economic targets makes sense in a guerrilla war and, for most instances in Northern Ireland, they did provide warning to lessen civilian casualties. As the troubles went on, things became more and more bitter due to mounting atrocities from both sides. The Enniskillen was a big turning point in terms of bringing people to the table.

There's just no straightforward answer to what's right and wrong. You can point to something that one side did and say ''but sure, the other side did this''. Something that's made it hard is O'Connell making nationalism an almost exclusively Catholic thing. It's hard for protestant nationalists to be taken seriously or feel included. I hate that it's not just a political issue but a sectarian issue. A lot of people don't know their history from both sides and just don't know why they hate. People just want to fenian this and hun that. Try telling some people that James Connolly, one of the biggest figures in the formation of modern republicanism was protestant.

 

[One Thousand Words]

Yeah...ive done a bit of reading on the troubles and its a very complex subject. People tend to oversimplify it by saying that I was simply a case of catholic republican terrorists fighting protestant loyalist terrorists and the British army and RUC fighting both sides....but as you know its more complex than that.

Your right about people seeing where Sinn Fein are now and thinking that maybe violence is the answer after all.

A history of the troubles would be a thread on its own but even an insensitive clod like me wouldn't start that one off as it would turn sour even quicker than the WW2 one did when I started that (its picked up now though since only people like us who are genuinely interested in history post there......no silly "you are all bastards for even discussing it" posts anymore.......which is nice

You fail to mention you were cold turkeying from methadone and had more sand than Dunkirk in your vagina until you gave up

 

[Sammy G]

I thought you meant PIRA.

We agree on every point you raised, and I see what you mean about nationalism dividing people along sectarian lines, though I wouldn't attribute it solely to O'Connell, but again I know what you mean.

I find it hilarious and disturbing that some folk can slag the prods while singing the praises of the United Irishmen, for example.

 

[BigG]

I don't think that's even worth a response. Plus i wasn't aware you knew my medical history? Are you really my pain consultant? Dr Dodds? Is that you?.....oh shit no its an Australian bloke who posts shite....my mistake

Edit that wasn't too you Sammy.... Out was to the lovely gentleman who posted before you

 

[One Thousand Words]

If you think I have hacked your facebook then you are more paranoid than raas.

 

[One Thousand Words]

Are you really that interesting?