Public Transport and the Great Unwashed

GAH! What is it with pulic transport and people that stink? I mean, it's alrady bad enough with the screaming children and the drunken scumbags arguing about something totally unintelligible, but nasal assault is going beyond the pale.

Tale today's trip home for example. First of all some youth in a hoodie lurks in the middle of the carriage of the tram and distributes a mildly unpleasant funk. Luckily a load of people get off and he goes off to sit somewhere out of nasal range. Great! No more stench.

Wrong. At the same stop a guy gets on and sits right on front of me. I've no idea of he was a hobo or not, but the sheer brute force of his personal malodour was staggering! A subtle blend of sweat, cigarette butts, unclassifiable filth and unholy mingingness. He was also unclean. Dirt that has died, started to rot and has risen again to feast on the living. Utterly vile.

On the plus side, a guard had some little scumbag up against a fence by the front of his (doubtless stinky) shirt

Service Announcement Shenanigans

So there I was, waiting on the platform for the tram to turn up, when the tannoy chimes and there is an announcement: 'All LUAS tickets are Valid on Dublin Bus'.

'That's nice' I thought to myself.

Followed by a 'waitaminute...what?'. WHY are they telling me this?

It turns out that due to an issue further down the line, the tram was only going about half way to town. Hats off to the tannoy guy for an all new level of sneakyness.

Luckily, just as i got on the tram, it was announced that the issue had been resolved and normal service was resumed.

An awesome surprise!

A surprise late birthday present from my brother in law. He stood in line for hours to get a copy of neil gaiman's new novel signed for me. I'm especially blown away because it's not just signed, but neil drew a whole page illustration to go with it.

Thanks andrew, that was an awesome gift!

Trams, suicide and disgusting similies.

We had a rescue helicopter flying around our building at lunchtime. Apparently someone had fallen or jumped from o'connell bridge into the Liffey. I have no idea if they were rescued or not, but I hope they've had their shots recently. The Liffey isn't a good place to end up for the unprepared.

I'm not sure if it's connected of not, but there was an incident somewhere in town that caused all the trams on the northside to be held up for twenty minutes or so. Fortunately I get on at the terminus, so I got a seat before the Japanese-metro-like crush turned the tram into a rolling tube of bad tempered meatpaste.

Other than that, my day has been pretty uneventful.

Oh! Claire wasn't made redundant today, so I guess we're surviving the train wreck that is the Irish economy slowly and painfully prolapsing. I'm not sure if I mean a cunning running-together of "professional" and "collapsing" or about arseholes turning inside out.

Same thing when it comes to Irish banks and the government

Here we are again, restarting my blog. I got an Iphone 3g for my birthday (black, 16GB) and after jailbreaking it I realised that maybe, just maybe, i should do something productive with it.

So, the iphone brings with it great connectivity (responsibility optional), and with the addition of an app called shozu, im good to go for full-on mobile blogging with photos direct from the handset. The fact that i finally have a qwertyphone helps too.

anyway...i'll post intermittently and incoherently, so hold tight for a rollercoaster ride of mundanity interpsersed with sarcasm.

Love and hugs etc