Tis the Season to be Trollied!

Greetings from the McDonnell family estate in salubrious North Dublin. Last night I drunkenly promised to start updating my blog again when reminded that my friend Benny looks forward to them greatly. When writing these things there is always the nagging sensation that they are trees falling in the vast sound-proofed forest of the internet, and bearing in most of the other trees contain porn, it can seem a tad pointless. However, Benny assures me otherwise and seeing as he works in the glamorous field of waste management, I realised that my ill-punctuated ramblings are the silver lining in what we’ll tactfully refer to as a cloud for at last one person. They way I see it, if I improve Benny’s working day, he’ll executively manage waste more efficiently, that whole environment thing will be taken care of and this blog may single-handedly save the planet. At the very least, blogging is easier than figuring out exactly what Leamington Spa’s arsey recycling collectors will or won’t take every second Friday.

And so here I am at 7:30PM on New Years Eve, lying in bed, abusing the neighbour’s unprotected wireless Broadband connection. I’d like to tell you I’m knocking this off quickly before heading out to some fabulous New Year’s Eve party but I’m not. The reasons for this are twofold, firstly, I’m feeling a bit fragile after last night’s drinking and secondly, New Year’s Eve can bite my turkey-filled arse. How a housekeeping event of one year rolling into a new one became worthy of such special attention boggles the mind. Don’t get me wrong, miserable grouch that I am, I have no problem with copious drinking, collective counting down from ten to one and snogging nearest and dearest, or even just nearest but the collective desperation to have a ‘great’ new years eve and the willingness to pay through the nose for it, I find faintly depressing. I have also spent enough time over the years in the irrational victory of hope over experience that is a Dublin taxi queue to be happy to give that a miss. Wars have been fought in less time than it takes to get a taxi in Dublin and with considerably less casualties.

The one thing I will miss though is watching several hundred people all trying to get mobile phone reception at the same time. Previous generations had joining hands and singing nonsensical songs; we have people hanging out of windows trying to get three bars to ring their ex-girlfriend in Mayo. How many people fall to their deaths from tall buildings every New Years’ Eve trying to get decent reception? Not nearly enough in my book.

Happy New Year!