Events of 2001:Tuesday 10th April 2001It all seemed to make sense at the time. Last week I went down to Cork to see an orthodontic surgeon, so that I could finally sort out the tooth problem that nearly killed me in November. He said I would be better off if I had them taken out, which makes sense. He said he could take them out in May in Tralee hospital. Tralee! Ye Gods! Not that I have anything against Tralee. Actually, that's a lie. I've never been there and I hate the place. I have no idea how to drive to Tralee, and, frankly, if I have to die due to complications arising out of misappropriated anaesthetic, it's not going to be in Tralee. So he said he could do it in Cork but it wouldn't be until September. The trauma of being in Tralee was weighed against the trauma of having two bits of sharp bone ripping through one of the most sensitive parts of my body for three months. I'm scheduled in the Mercy hospital in September. In other news, Brian (my father) risked the wrath of the law and bought an Easter Lily a few days ago to commemorate the dead of the 1916 rising. Apparently, it's illegal to sell or buy these commemorative badges, but it's not illegal to buy and sell those little poppies that they have for the dead of the English army. Weirdness Thursday 19th April 2001My father asked me an interesting question about the US spy plane shot down over China. If they have super-great satellites that can read newspaper headlines on the ground, why do they need spy planes in the air? I feel sick, in a strange Kafkaesque, Jhonen Vasquez type of way. I feel a background nausea whenever I venture outdoors (which is thankfully not often). I blame my overpowering contempt for humanity. Apart from that, it's all good. Tuesday 24th April 2001I bought two Hunter S. Thompson books today. Surely this man deserves a Nobel Prize! Maybe not. He'd probably try to smoke it. Legend has it that he was in the hotel at the time of the Watergate wrongdoing, but was in the bar. Thursday 3rd May 2001I had my driving test yesterday, but I didn't get very far. "I can't take you on the test," he explained, "when your brake lights aren't working." They were working fine on Sunday, but not yesterday. How embarrassing. It's like my final year of college all over again. I failed my final exams, but not because I failed to achieve a high enough grade; I had failed to hand in a compulsory six-page essay. I did the essay, repeated my exams with an identical standard of answer, and got my degree, possibly by the closest margin in the history of U.C.C. Now I have to reapply. I thought that would have been one of the benefits of being in the tax net: no more exams. This is simply not the case. I'm watching Waterworld with Kevin Costner. It is about half way through and the news is on in the middle of it. I remember when it came out the critics hated it, but I rather like it. Does that make me a bad person? Sure, the lines are painfully predictable, and every scene with Kevin Costner provides a slightly sick feeling in the stomach, but the basic idea is good. Of course, I have yet to see the rest of it. More of which, later. Wednesday 30th May 2001I have another driving test on Friday. I fully intend to make it at least a yard down the road this time. I had a massive headache for the last two days but it went away this morning. I blame atmospheric pressure coupled with high humidity levels. It's either that or a brain tumour. Either way, it's gone now. We have to vote on a referendum soon. It will either determine the future of Europe and our role in it, or be yet another savage burn at the hands of a bunch of fundamentalist Nazis. I'm voting no because progress annoys me and I fear change. We might be in the shit, but by god it's our shit. I had two Germans in my shop today. Where are you from, I asked, waiting for a reason... anything at all I could use. Switzerland, they said. But one immediately put his hand to his ear and the girl looked to the floor - they were lying! But I knew. They asked, after not buying anything, for directions to the post office, so I sent them the wrong way. Alles in Ordnung. Monday 4th June 2001Well, I failed my driving test. We have two testers where I live, and they seem to exist in a good cop / bad cop balance of terror. I got the allegedly harsh tester, but no matter! I've been driving for two years, I reasoned, so how hard can it be? I didn't think it was that bad. In fact, as we marched back into the building, I was reasonably confident of success. This was wrong. The phrase "menace to society" was used. He gave me a piece of paper outlining the precise areas of my failure. I have decided to look on the bright side, however, and apart from -- my knowledge of the Rules of the Road; maintaining a correct position on bends (multiple faults) and within traffic lanes; following the correct course while turning right; following the correct course while turning left; taking proper observation when overtaking; taking proper observation when turning left (multiple faults); using mirrors properly and in good time before overtaking, at roundabouts (multiple faults), turning right and turning left (multiple faults); reacting correctly to hazards; adjusting speed correctly on approach to roundabouts (mutiple faults), turning right and turning left; making proper use of accelerator, clutch, gears and handbrake -- I did fine. Oh who am I kidding? I feel terrible. I've let everyone down. I've let my family and friends down, but most importantly I've let myself down. I only hope I can muster enough courage to face work tomorrow morning, with the full realisation of just how much of a failure I am. Wednesday 15th August 2001I had an American girl staying with me for the last week; I've just put her on the plane out of Shannon International Airport. She is a vampire. It's not like V drinks blood or anything (although I wouldn't put it past her) but you should see what happens when sunlight hits her. It's not pretty. She insisted on drinking strawberry tea. With no milk. Something they don't have in America, apparently, is proper tea, or kettles, or, let's face it, castles. There's a girl I rather like in town called S. Well, I may have mentioned in passing (to V) that I rather liked S, which may have been a mistake. V dragged me (literally, by the arm!) into S's place of work and said "Hey! Are you S? 'Cos solo1 told me all about you". Thanks, V. Now I don't know what I'm going to say to S when I see her next. However, in her favour, V was an attractive girl, with not a jot nor a care in the world for the opinions of others. She's even more unhinged and paranoid than I am. Which is nice to know. Monday 27th August 2001Travelled to Dublin to see Billy Connolly today. He is a funny man, but he's only an inch tall. I was expecting more. I could have stepped on him and done some serious damage. Either that or we were sitting far away. I'm not sure which. Killian went to see him on the Tuesday night, and apparently he had a completely different set. No script. He's great, despite his obsession with vaginas and flatulence. I elected, despite my provisional status, to drive up alone, which was fine, because I know how to get into and out of Dublin city. Although it's unwieldy, I find that the {SCR / Clanbrassil St. / Patrick St. / Phibsborough / NCR} route pretty much takes care of anywhere you want to go. Fatefully, I took a taxi back to my car in Phibsborough, and explained my reasoning. "No mate," he opined, "you'll do much better going through the Phoenix Park and onto the M50 to the Naas turn-off. No problem." No problem indeed. Not for the first time, I took the advice of another on the basis that they might know better. Do any of you people know where Dundrum is? Because I do. But I learned something. I learned that the semi-circular-shaped M50 motorway employs a very liberal use of the term "Southbound". Thursday 30th August 2001I come home from work .. the place is crawling with cops. What's going on? I have the radio on ... Two dead bodies! What? What the hell? I knew it! Those goddamn Nazi cops saw me coming .. they must know .. who told them? My mother .. she's always had it in for me, ever since that fourteen hours of labour ... Monday 3rd September 2001O.K. Apparently what happened was that the man who was living, unbeknownst to every neighbour he had, in the house across the road for the past ten months, had kidnapped his daughter to avoid having to live up to the custody arrangements. Apparently, he thought it would be a good idea to shoot the little girl rather than have her return to the mother. Then he shot himself. Sad time. On a happier note, I was supposed to go to the local nightclub, Danno's, with some friends of mine on Saturday night, but fortune favoured me when I was coerced to cancel through the invented illness of a friend. I could just stay home and watch videos! Yes! Maybe next week... Thursday 13rd September 2001So, the time nears for my surgery (see 10th April 2001, above). At least, it would be if I hadn't cancelled it. For a start, as soon as I had scheduled my surgery, the pain stopped. Up to this point, I would get painfully infected gums once or twice a month. For the whole summer, however, I was clear. How odd, I thought to myself, perhaps this is the end of its reign. I weighed up the advantages and disadvantages of having the (by now merely precautionary as opposed to preventative) surgery, and decided to cancel the appointment. The nurse on the other end of the phone was very understanding.
Friday 4th October 2001Today I decided to find out about PR. For those of you who don't know (and you are legion), PR is the voting system we have in this country. Under Proportional Representation, unlike other voting systems, every vote gets counted, one way or another. Everyone has a basic idea of how it works, but no one seemed to know the exact mechanics of the thing, which intrigued me. Did no one else feel bothered by the fact that they had no idea what happened to their vote as soon as they put it into the little box? Apparently they had so lost hope in the concept of a vote making a difference that they didn't care. Either that, or they actually trusted other people to do the right thing, and we Irish are a suspicious people. Conversation with a few vote counters yielded nothing but vagueness. This surprised me. I was then directed to the Town Hall. Surely they will know, I thought. I addressed the main desk around lunchtime, and the clerk told me that he didn't know himself, but that there was "probably someone around". After a little walk around the building (lovely architecture, panoramic views) we discovered that no one in the Town Hall (which is supposed to be the bastion of local elected officers) knew exactly how PR worked. They directed me to the County Council Offices. The County Council offices are not a pretty set of buildings, and seem to have been laid out in the most counter-intuitive manner thought possible at the time. I was bounced from General Reception to Information to (two flights up, to the left, through double doors and wait) the rates office. From there I was directed to (back through the double doors, one flight down, to the right, knock twice on the little wooden doors) the planning office. Finally, having learned that no one in the County Council knew how PR worked, I was directed to the Courthouse. This was, after all, the place where they counted all the votes once they had been collected, and the place where a valid election was declared (or otherwise). At the courthouse, I was directed to a few offices before I divined that no one here knew how it works either. I was then referred to
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