K8 the GR8

I have a trick.  I use it to make people think that I’m very intelligent, even though I’m not really.  I learned this trick from my dear dad when I was very small as I was evesdropping at the kitchen table.  He would be describing something, whether it was something that happened in work, or something he’d picked up in a newspaper article, and would drop impossibly big words.  He would even accent certain parts of the words, making me think that he was showing off for my benefit, thinking I wouldn’t understand him.  It worked.  I never did.  A typical example would be something like:

 ”It seems that it would drastically substansiate the claim…” or:
 ”That picture is anatomically incorrect.”  This sort of talk to a five-year-old is baffling.

So, to instill the same sort of awe in other people, as I grew up, I’d look for ridiculously long words in the dictionary to use in casual conversation or in english essays.  What a geek.  I know!  I just love this language.  It’s something I’m going to encourage my kids to do, too.  It did, however, get me into trouble with teachers.  I remember once when I was about seven, I wrote an essay for school.  The teacher seemed very cross with me the day after I handed it in. 

 ”Stand up at the front of the classroom.”  She said.  “I want to prove to you all why it is NOT a good idea to get your parents to do your homework for you!”

When I was nervously standing to attention in front of a sea of watchful scandal-loving eyes, she then proceeded to list words from my essay and get me to define each one.  They were words such as ‘dishevelled‘, ‘menagerie‘, and ‘audacious‘, as far as I can remember.  I defined each one quickly, watching teacher’s face get redder and redder.  When she’d finished, she roared at me to sit back down and to ‘not be such a smart-alec!’.  This was the same teacher who used to shake a pair of scissors at the class when she was frustrated with us.  One day the two halves of the scissors came apart and one blade went flying through the air to lodge in the cork-board at the back of the class with an amazing ‘DOYOYOYOYING’ sound.  It was awe-inspiring.  Ironically, her laziness or tardiness punishment for us was to do the word-definition excersises in the back of our school dictionary!  Go figure.

To this day, by habit, my brain will only let me use big words in sentences.  I can never think of the little ones.  It seems pretentious, but it comes in really handy in some conversations.  Quite often I get labelled before a person has a chance to talk to me because of my youth, or the way I look. So what starts off as a descending lecture often ends up as ‘I’ve misjudged you..’ or ‘It seems that you have a clear understanding…’, even though I haven’t a clue.  It’s pretty satisfying.

If anyone’s asking, my favourite word is ‘discombobulated’.  My least favourite is that nasty ‘c’ word that everyone loves using so much.  You know the one I mean.

And your favourite nerdy wordy would be…

Yesterday was bin-day.  You need to buy tags for bins around here to pay for the service.  The local shop is only 5 minutes away by foot, 20 minutes with a toddler.  However, knowing my luck, I’d be halfway home and miss the binmen, and was having a decidedly lazy day so I decided to drive.  That was a HUGE mistake.

As I pulled away from the shop and rounded the corner home-bound, flashing blue lights and Hi-Viz vests greeted me.  As I cruised towards them, a multitude of thoughts ran through my mind… where’s my license? is my insurance up to date? is my tax paid?  In the 20 seconds it took to reach them, I realised I was unbuckled.  DAMMIT!!! I toyed with the idea of telling the copper I had an exemption, but there was no point.  I was snared.  Caught with my proverbials down.  I got a €60 fine and two penalty points.  My first penalty points.  I’m no longer a clean-license virgin.

I came home and cried.  I cried out of anger, raging at all those other speeders and traffic offenders and dangerous drivers out there who literally get away with murder, and here I am, sullied by a stupid mistake.  It’s stupid not wearing a seat belt, don’t get me wrong.. and I’ll gladly pay a fine, but the addition of points just makes me feel dirty.  Apparently the police caught and fined 10 people in the hour they were there, on that quiet country road that leads nowhere.  Who would have thunk it?  What did I do to piss Karma off? 

There is, however a healthy balance.  When I stopped the car at the checkpoint and rolled down the window to talk to the policeman, my toddler gasped and pointed with a delighted face and shouted - “It’s a pig!!!”  That to me was worth about €15.  Also I called Tesco yesterday to bitch about the fact that I hadn’t gotten any coupons in the last year.  They told me there was a typo on my file that was now fixed, and that I was due €45 in vouchers.  So, this Karma thing repaid itself in strange ways. 

Hopefully the hopeless state of affairs with the police-ing system here means that my points won’t be applied until someone is actually paid to do some office work in Garda HQ so I might be laughing yet…

Yours truly was at a hen party last weekend.  Hen and Stag parties seem to work especially well here in Ireland, because most of us are so immature.  I learned many things during my adventures with this particular gaggle of women. 

Firstly, Kilkenny city seems to be the Hen/Stag capital of the world.  Even the police will flirt with you there.  The streets are paved with party paraphernalia such as fake willies, wedding veils, ‘L’ signs and devil’s forks.  Everything is tacky and comes with a free shot of Bacardi.

It struck me over the course of the weekend that the reason our government is having such trouble with its 15-40 year olds is that Ireland’s social scene is very much in its pubescent stage.  It refuses to listen to authority, it’s belligerent, and it is constantly trying to keep up with its ‘cooler’ big brother, the US of A.  Our own culture is being quickly forgotten, and is replaced by the Pussy Cat Dolls and Justin Trousersnake.  Women are a commodity, to be picked and chosen for the amusement of smelly blokes with dodgy moustaches like farmers at a cattle market.  The less a girl wears, the more confident she feels.  Violence is king.  No wonder we feel the need to be constantly twisted.

I also learned how to cure a hangover.

Friday night found me happily buying rounds with my friends.  I was drinking pints of Carlsberg.  This went swimmingly, until a few kind anonymous souls decided to buy me a drink, all at the same time.  I came back from the loo to find 3 pints waiting for me.  I’m not a wasteful girl, so I did my best.  Having finished my 11th pint, I was happy to see the bar close, though common sense evaded me in the resident’s bar of the hotel later on as I accepted my 12th beer.  By 4am I was having a deep and meaningful conversation with God on the big white telephone, and by 1pm the following day, I was praying for death. 

My lesson was learnt.  I spent Saturday lying in bed flicking channels and painting my nails while the rest of the gaggle went shopping.  It was heaven.
By 7pm that evening, the drinking had started again.  Beverage of choice: Vodka and lime. I made a pact with myself to drink a pint of iced water for every four drinks consumed.  Although I lost track of the amount of vodkas I’d had, I know I had 4 pints of water.  I was drunk enough to dance uninhibited, but had the good sense not to stay on the dancefloor for such classics as ‘YMCA’ or ‘Daydream Believer’.  The only purpose of this overplayed so-called ‘music’ is so that the DJ can have a good laugh at our expense.  I might add that I was berated several times for drinking water.  To be out of your tree is cool, to drink so much that you don’t care if your knickers are showing makes you a good person. Right!  That makes sense.  I woke the next morning fresh as a daisy, and with a very vivid memory of my peer’s drunken antics.  I made sure to remind them in great detail and then took photographs of their pallid faces.

The binge is now out of my system, at least for another few months.  We bonded and we parted.  We made new friends, bitched about them behind their backs, and in turn were bitched about behind our own.  It was more fun than a barrel of monkeys.  I still say I’ll never understand women.

Which reminds me.. the last things I learned were: don’t put ice down the back of a girl’s knickers until she’s had at least 7 pints, and the best way to get rid of a smelly man is to tell him you’re a proctologist named Fanny.  Works every time.

When my eldest kid was two months old, they told me he’d be disabled.  They said that the reason he’d been kinda jippy and acting strange was that he had a rare epilepsy disorder called Ohtahara Syndrome.  He’d never go to mainstream school, in fact he’d never talk, or walk, or be the kind of kid I was expecting him to be. Seizures would get worse, and a lot of his life would be spent in hospital. BAM! The information slapped me across the face like a wrecking-ball.

I and his daddy repaired to the pub across the road from the hospital.  We met two prophets disguised as a drunken prison convict and a drunken ex-policeman who helped to stitch up our new scars.  They bought us many pints and told me I was pretty with my red blotchy tear-stained face and snotty nose.  The convict stole my shoe and held it over his head, teasing me like a kid.  The distraction worked a charm.  When I returned (with both shoes) in my drunken discombobulated haze to the cot where this tiny helpless soul lay, I sat wide-eyed until the wee small hours thinking it all over.  That was the worst day of my life. 
He’s five years old now, yes he’s in a wheelchair and he doesn’t talk in any language you’ve heard before, but he doesn’t have seizures anymore, he goes to a better school than I ever went to, and he’s a bright ray of sunshine in everyone’s life who knows him.  We’re well used to things the way they are.  I don’t look at other five year olds anymore and wonder what my kid would be like if he’d been okay.  Going back in time would be futile… I wouldn’t change him for the world.  We’ve met so many amazing people in the last five years, between new friends and helpful organizations, that we would never ordinarily have bumped into.

I wasn’t aware of disability before I had him, wasn’t aware of all the families with such a different take on reality.  My friend noticed the looks of sympathy we got from strangers as we were strolling around one day and got angered.  She felt like shouting at them to point out their ignorance, but I’m used to that.  You’ll get folks with disabilities who are extremely sensitive about their ailment, and will correct you or try to make you feel un-appreciative of the gifts you have, but I think a bit of honesty goes much, much further.  I find it easier to understand that folks are just curious, that they don’t want to make a disabled person feel uncomfortable.  There are others, of course who ooze sympathy on every encounter.  Now this annoys me.  At a recent function, I was accosted many times by people telling me how sorry they were for my troubles, he must be such a burden, how do I cope?  I smile and tell them what they want to hear.  They don’t understand that he isn’t heavy because he’s my son, and it’s a real gift to be able to care for someone like him.

Kids are the bee’s knees when it comes to honesty.  “Why can’t he talk?”, “What’s wrong with him?”, “Can we use him as a goalpost?”… now these are all questions I can handle, and I like to think that perhaps they are gaining experience, and they won’t think disablity is such a weird thing as they grow older.  I have a two year old girl now, who went through a tear-jerking phase of hitting her brother out of frustration that he wouldn’t play with her.  She would collapse in tears and her baleful look would ask me what the problem was.  She seems to understand now though… she leaves toys on his lap, shouts ‘SHUDDUP!’ when he cries, and kisses him when he comes home from school. 

What I’m starting to think of late, is that maybe the prophets I mentioned above weren’t a coincidence.  Maybe I’m looking after the key to a higher power, or a spirit on a different level.  As you’re reading this, unless you’ve met Sean, you probably won’t know what I mean as it’s very hard to describe.  Maybe my mum put it in the best words.  She got right up close to her grandson and whispered;

“Say hello to God for me!”

I tried to write a poem about Seán, but the words won’t form.  So here’s a picture of him instead.

I and my bestest girly friend Louise were wandering through Dalkey yesterday on our way to a Christening party.  We were talking about kids and genetics, trying to decide who my son looked more like, me or his dad. 

 ”OH!  That reminds me..” she suddenly exclaimed, “I read that there’s serious research being done into female fertilisation, for lesbian couples mostly.  What they do is create a sperm cell from the bone marrow of a female donor, and fertilise a female egg!  Amazing, huh?”
 
 ”What?! But if you became pregnant with your own baby, you’d be cloning yourself surely?”
 
 ”No, you can’t do that… and don’t call me Shirley.  The egg can only be fertilised with the marrow from a different person.  Like a lesbian partner.”
 
 ”I see.. but then what do you do about the Y chromosome you get in men’s sperm?  You’d have double amounts of the X chromosome, so therefore you’d get a girl every time?”
 
 ”Yyyeahhh…” She said, trailing off.

We walked in silence for a bit, lost in thought.

 ”So in theory, it’s possible that men could be obsolete?  The future could be run by women, in a predominantly female world?”
 
 ”Yep!!! No war, just bitching sessions”  (Much laughter)

We talked for a while about such a world with no men.  I’ve been thinking about it pretty much ever since.

I can’t imagine a world with no men.  You’d have the ying without the yang.  It gives me the willies, so to speak.  I love men, and prefer male company to female, with the exception of my wonderfully eclectic girlfriends.  Yes, the face of war would change.  Our roads would be safer, and crime rates would drop,  but our heads would be wrecked with flowery paraphernalia and constant clashing PMT.  We would have to force ourselves into lesbianism.  I would consider myself to have a healthy balance of male to female hormones.  It’s what makes me a reasonable driver.  I have the female patience, with a touch of male aggression.  I play shoot-em-up games on the playstation.  I hate shopping.  I like painting my nails,  I love cute kittens and heavy metal music.  Balance. 

If there were no men, could we still produce testosterone ourselves?  If not, it would have to be artificially injected.  So, all women would have equal amounts of testosterone.  Would this work?

I would strongly petition for the production of men, if it came to this sort of scenario.  They would be very handy for amusement and slavery purposes.  You could keep a bloke in a household like a pet.. let him sleep in the kitchen on a blanket and feed him regularly.  You’d play with him when you’d feel like it, and train him to obey simple commands.  Hmmm…

What do you reckon? 

This is a soundbyte I downloaded a while ago, listed as ‘Monty-Python: The definition of the word ‘fuck”. It’s narrated by an american bloke, with Vivaldis ‘Four Seasons’ playing softly in the background, if you can imagine this as you’re reading it.  I love it.  Also it’s a pretty great way to learn english grammatical terms…

Perhaps one of the most interesting words in the English language today, is the word ‘fuck’.  Out of all the english words that begin with the letter F, ‘fuck’ is the only word that is referred to as the ‘f’ word.  It’s the one magical word.  Just by its sound can describe pain, pleasure, hate and love.  ‘Fuck’, as are most words in the english language, is derived from German, the word ‘frichen’ which means ‘to strike’.  In english, ‘fuck’ falls into many grammatical categories:

As a transitive verb, for instance: “John fucked Shirley.”

As an in-transitive verb: “Shirley fucks.”
 
Its meaning is not always sexual… it can be used as an adjective such as: “John’s doing all the fucking work!”

As part of an adverb: “Shirley talks too fucking much.”

As an adverb enhancing an adjective: “Shirley is fucking beautiful.”

As a noun: “I don’t give a fuck.”

As part of a word: “Abso-fuckin-lutely” or, “in-fuckin-creadible.”

And, as almost every word in a sentence: “Fuck the fucking fuckers!”
As you must realise, there aren’t too many words with the versatility of ‘fuck’, as in these examples describing situations such as:
Fraud; “I got fucked at the used car lot.”

Dismay; “Aww, fuck it.”

Trouble; “I guess I’m really fucked, now.”

Aggression; “Don’t fuck with me, buddy.”

Difficulty; “I don’t understand this fucking question!”

Inquiry; “Who the fuck was that?”

Dissatisfaction; “I don’t like what the fuck is going on here.”

Incompetence; “He’s a fuck-off.”

Dismissal; “Why don’t you go outside and play hide-and-go-fuck-yourself?!”

I’m sure you can think of many more examples.  With all of these multipurpose applications, how can anyone be offended when you use the word?
We say, use this unique, flexible word more often in your daily speech!  It will identify the quality of your character immediately.
Say it loudly, and proudly!

“FUCK YOU!!!”

There’s a part in one of my favouite books (The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger) where the hero is loitering in a deserted schoolyard.  He spots some graffiti someone has scrawled on the wall: ‘Fuck You’.  The sight depresses him, and he vainly tries to scrub it off, to protect young eyes from its foulness.  He longs to protect innocence, to ward off adult ‘phoniness’ for as long as he possibly can.  I love that book so much.

Holden Caulfield would have a heart-attack if he spent five minutes in the housing estate where I live.

There will be a lot of swear-words to follow.  This is for quoting purposes.  If I censor it, it doesn’t have the same tragic message.

The village population here is less than 200 at a guess.  The housing authorities parked a clump of houses on its outskirts to cater for travellers, unwed mothers, disabled batchelors and widows.  They have just finished building a few private houses in the estate, but nobody will buy them because they are too scared to live here.  It really isn’t that bad.. if anything it toughens you up, gives you an education into human nature that you won’t find anywhere else.  I’m also pretty confident that my house won’t be broken into.  The general rule is that you don’t shit where you eat.

There’s one lady… lets call her Jacinta.  She’s a big scary woman who has a long, depressing and sordid past as gossip would have me believe.  She has three children.  I overheard her one day in the parking lot of our local supermarket;

 ”Get into the fucking car yiz fucking little cunts yiz!!”. 

Her brash voice frequently slashes the peace of a sunny afternoon with little gems like this.  Her latest quote would be;

 ”That fuckin’ mouth o’ yours is gonna land you in shit oneday, son!”. 

Talk about the cat calling the dog ‘hairy-hole’?!  Jacinta is our local Avon representative.  If only they knew!!!

The most wonderful thing about this woman is that she is raising the most polite children on the road.  They are helpful, nice, and pretty articulate for their age.  When I commented once on the fact that their mum doesn’t half swear a lot, they said in words beyond their years… ‘it’s just her way.’  Chatting with them is a pleasure.  The same cannot be said for the rest of the children.   The three-year-old next door was sitting on the wall today, watching me water my plants. 
 
 ”You’re a fuckin’ ath-hole” he said.  I ignored him.  “And my dad’th a fuckin’ bathtard.” 

I felt like throwing up.  The child is too small for that.  I tried telling him that he sounded very silly, that cursing isn’t a smart way to talk.  This started a parrot-like litany of “Ath-hole ath-hole ath-hole ath-hole etc..”  at the top of his voice.  Nobody came out of the house to correct him.  Everyday I hear conversations being held in innocent childish tones along the lines of.. “Ronaldo’s a fuckin’ queer!”,  “He’s not!  Fuck you, ya fuckin’ cunt!”  It makes me cringe.  Nobody EVER comes out of their houses to correct them.  I’m being dead serious here, no exaggerations.  I want to emphasise here that these are NOT traveller kids I’m talking about.  The traveller kids keep themselves to themselves, and always have a friendly wave for me when I walk past.

I’m moving out soon, my family is in this house temporarily while another is being built.  I’ll miss the amazing views of the wind-farms on the Irish Sea from the upstairs window, but other than that I’ll never look back. 

I really really hope that ‘this sort of’ child is confined to ‘this sort of’ housing estate.  I remember being shocked and appalled when my dad was reading a Beatrix Potter book to me at the tender age of five.  ‘Peter Rabbit was shut-up in the oven’ it read… or something like that. 

 ”That’s so RUDE!!!”  I gasped, before being taught about context. 

I and my peers NEVER cursed until the age of about 10, and even that would have been mild.  You didn’t do it.  It’s like stepping on the cracks in the pavement.  If you did it, bears would eat you, or Santa would cross you off his list.. who knows?  You just DON’T DO IT.  It’s a shame that the parents referred to above don’t instill the same wisdom in their own kids.  The wooden-spoon is a valuable entity in my eyes.  (*gasp*, did she really just say that??!)  Yes, she did.  Authorities are telling us not to smack our kids, but in some cases I believe it’s truly warranted.  A new generation of bubble wrapped children is being spawned.  I fear for the future.  I really do.

Cheers Brian!  I’ve been stuck for something to write about…
Grandad didn’t tag me as he thought I’d say ‘Grandad made me’.  This is partially true.  I was pretty much afraid to blog, afraid to put myself up for rejection, afraid that there was nothing I could say that hadn’t already been said by someone else.  I also thought that blogging was limited to opinion.  I see now that it’s not, and it’s just as well, because I’m a pretty naive chick.  I don’t know or care that much about politics.  I vote out of the vain hope that I’ll make a difference, but on the grand scale of things I know I won’t.  I keep up with current affairs for the most part, but nothing really sticks out enough for me to want to rant about it.  Make love, not war, I say.

Most of all, I like creating things.  I draw things, I try to make something out of nothing, draw beauty from boredom.  Blogging is a way to do that, it’s a challenge to look at the little cursor-thingy blinking at the start of a blank page.  You can write anything you want with no limits, which is pretty exciting.  I’m really thankful to Grandad’s buddy Ron for setting up this site for me.  I was worried about not getting hits or support, but you’ve all been so nice in the comments that you’ve written and the links you’ve added on your own pages, now I’m like a little kid waiting at the front door for the sound of the postman’s van… intrigued by the prospect of contact from the outside world.  I love the give-and-take aspect of blogging too.. insult flinging, sh&t stirring and shenanigans are always great ways to spend your afternoons.

I originally told Grandad that I didn’t have time to blog, what with kids and life and stuff to be dealing with, but I figured out a way to sort out that problem.  I chain my children up in the spare room and padlock the door so that they can’t get into trouble, and let my dog do the washing up by putting the dishes on the floor and letting him lick them clean.  Sorted.

Now to pass the torch…
I’d love to hear what flirty has to say :) 
MA! Get out o’the bed and get typing…

Ok smartarses.  Here are your answers.

1.Is there really much Iron in a pint of Guinness?
A: If you are drinking it to raise your iron levels you will need an awful lot!  The RDA of iron for men is 11mg and for women 14mg; the iron content of a pint of Guinness is  0.3mg! 2 Weetabix= 4.5mg; 1 lamb chop= 1.9mg; 1 egg= 1.1mg.

3. Is it true that Oliver Cromwell once cancelled Christmas?
A. Grandad Cromwell was a big believer in solemnity and hated all the partying that went along with Christmas.  He believed that the day should be acknowledged only by sermons and prayer services.  To this end, the British Parliament officially abolished the celebration of Christmas in 1643.  Apparently nobody paid a lot of attention to this as Cromwell had another go at banning the yuletide festival in 1649 when he outlawed Christmas carols!  The Puritans in America also tried to take the fun out of Christmas and promoted Thanksgiving Day as the major annual festival.

4. Who is the richest person in the world?
A. There really is no contest.  Bill Gates is the world’s richest person by a considerable margin.  He was the world’s first $100 billion man and, if his wealth continues to grow at the 61% compoud annual rate it has enjoyed so far, he will become the world’s first trillionaire, worth $1,000,000,000,000.  Apart from his 21% stake in Microsoft he owns several other companies and is the major shareholder in a $9 billion satellite venture.  Bill Gates’s personal fortune now exceeds the economic output of all but the 18 wealthiest nations and is likely to overtake the gross national product of the UK.  And, don’t forget, this is the guy who dropped out of Harvard!

5. What’s the appendix for?
A. It used to be believed that the appendix had no function and was an evolutionary relic but it is now thought to play a part in the immune system.  It contains a large amount of lymphoid tissue, which protects against local infection.  It is also believed that it exposes circulating immune cells to antigens from the bacteria and other organisms living in your gut.  This helps your immune system to tell friend from foe and stops it from launching damaging attacks on bacteria that happily co-exist with you.  However, you can live quite healthily without an appendix and for this reason it can be a useful ’spare part’; it is often used in reconstructive surgery of the bladder without the risk of refection that would be triggered by using tissue from another person.

6. Do dogs laugh?
A. Researchers in America have recorded ‘breathy exhalations’, different from standard doggy panting, which could be the canine version of a laugh.  This particular sound can trigger playfulness in other dogs and is never observed during aggressive behaviour.

7. What is the difference between beer and lager?
A. (See Brianf’s answer in the last post… it’s better than mine!!)

8. Is it possible to loop-the-loop or roll a jumbo jet?
A. Nobody has been foolish enough to try!  Apparently a Boeing test pilot did barrel roll a 707 in a reckless moment and the general consensus is that a 747 could do the same, but it is an expensive piece of kit to be playing with.  As to a loop, there is doubt as to whether a 747 could achieve enough forward speed to achieve the extra lift that a loop requires.  Don’t try it at home anyway!

9. Can you get twin chickens?
A. Although you might occasionally crack a double-yolk egg into your breakfast pan, fertilised double-yolk eggs are extremely rare and twin chicks almost never both survive.  In a normal, single-yolk egg, the chick has to move around and get its head up to the air cell (the round end).  If there are two chicks they will fight each other and usually both die.  In a few, rare cases an egg has been deliberately opened at the right time and twin chicks have survived.

10. Can animals be homosexual?
A.  Some species of animals do form long-term same-sex relationships.  Bottlenose dolphins, which are not known to form heterosexual pair bonds, often form life-long homosexual pairings.  Animals which maintain ‘bachelor groups’, such as bison, gazelle and antelope, commonly form same sex pairs, which last until one of the pair leaves to breed.  Homosexuality has also been observed in gorillas, orang-utans, chimpanzees, and elephants. 

11. If someone looks like a horse you might descrive them as equine; likewise cow features, bovine or cat-like, feline.  If someone looks like a rat, how would you describe them?
A.  You could call them unfortunate but the correct term is murine.  And here are a few more gems which you might like to add to your animal lexicon:

 bluebird - turdine
 frog     - bufotenine
 kangaroo - macropodine
 magpie   - garruline
 ostrich  - struthious
 pig      - porcine
 reptile  - reptilian or serpentine
 skunk    - mephitine
 wombat   - phascolomian

11. If one synchronised swimmer drowns, do they all have to?
A.  NO!  Silly…

There is a morning show here in Ireland, hosted by Ray D’Arcy.  It’s called ‘Fix it Friday’ and it’s the bee’s knees.  You get a lot of silly questions like - “Where can I buy pink tights like Paris Hiltons?”, but mostly they are legit questions that everyone finds themselves wondering at one point or another.  My lovely fella bought me a book last year called ‘Fixed 2 - More Answers to Ireland’s Frequently Asked Questions’ which is a really good bathroom read.  I’ve picked out a few doozies for all you blog readers to mull over while supping your pints or cups of tea.  I’ll tell you the answers tomorrow.

1. Is there really much Iron in a pint of Guinness?
3. Is it true that Oliver Cromwell once cancelled Christmas?
4. Who is the richest person in the world?
5. What’s the appendix for?
6. Do dogs laugh?
7. What is the difference between beer and lager?
8. Is it possible to loop-the-loop or roll a jumbo jet?
9. Can you get twin chickens?
10. Can animals be homosexual?
11. If someone looks like a horse you might describe them as equine; likewise cow features, bovine or cat-like, feline.  If someone looks like a rat, how would you describe them?
11. If one synchronised swimmer drowns, do they all have to?