h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Sounds like you have been keeping quiet the past few weeks.. Hope everything is ok.

Hello there, thanks for askin', yes, i wasn't here a lot, on account of bein' terribly busy with work and all sorts of thing, and on top of that i got a cold! But i saw that you've been a good citizen serving on a jury...

Yes, I just finished yesterday. Quite an experience. It's left me feeling somewhat cynical about the whole process.

The whole city centre was flooded on Wednesday after a storm off the south coast dropped a few million gallons of water on the surrounding area. There's a big cleanup operation here at the moment. So much for the Irish being used to rain!

Cork flooded? You're kidding me! Hope you didn't get a cellar full?

No - I live a few miles out of the city, and I work up da Northside! The whole central island was under water during high-tide. They are calling it "Hurricane Finbarr" here.

Take a look at this - I think you'll enjoy the article - there's also some photos. http://www.peoplesrepublicofcork.com/

Very funny! Oh well, I wasn't worried about the isle, they got fine high barstools there in most pubs

Yes, barstools, Beamish, and a good sense of humour about it all...

It brings to mind something that happened in jury duty last week which exemplifies this country to no end. We are in the courthouse - the centre of justice in the county - and one of the jurors asks if there is any place to go for a smoke. Now, its lashing down outside, and there's no door to the outside anyway, so the clerk of the court says "Well, officially its illegal, but you can go into this room here and puff away, just close the door". So much for our celebrated smoking ban!

That's what i've always liked about Eire, the prevailing humanity there, being so ... unjudgmental!

Oh, there's plenty of judgmentalism about... You should have seen how a Bush supporter got hot-roasted on the TV last night !

Well he's an evangelicalian idn't he, those go straight to hell, don't they? Maybe be Lutherans do too, but my friends were too polite to mention it.

They probably couldn't find anything to light the fire with!

or there was too much stout sloshin aboot, all soggin wet, like

Hey, hey, steady on - that's a lot of pints you've bought and you still have to drive back to Germany afterwards!

no i don't, i'll crash on somebody's floor, people are generous with floors in Eire ... why aren't you in the pub now, it's 5 p.m. through?

Now THAT is a good suggestion!

i dare say! Never thought to meet an Irishman who needed a German to tell him go to the pub

There's one for the history books!

Things are changing here a bit though - a lot of people are deserting the pubs in favour of staying at home. Beer prices are too high and the days of nipping into your car after 5 pints are long gone in most places. So its even worse than that - we're becoming German!

Yeah but drink is not all there is to pubs, sometimes there are amazing networks operating out of them ... even if i can only afford 5 pints instead of 7 ... as to driving on those, you think places like the Goleen area are likely to change? I hope not

I'm scratching my head trying to remember where Goleen is! That's a good sign already!

I don't blame you, i have held for years that such a place did not exist. And when i wanted to go there one day i couldn't find it at first, there were any amount of signposts sayin Goleen but i only ever arrived at villages whose name was not in the least like Goleen... or at another sign post. However, in that eery hour of twilight i was finally able to locate the place ... it was in the Skull area just as i had been told...not sure if i'd find it again...