i am sparticus: Words

The Sky

As I was looking idly out of my window I saw a large strip of cloud reaching between two buildings it's top side curving down to the left and right and for a moment I thought I wasn't seeing the clouds from earth below but space above, that some how a new planet had appeared and we were up here staring down at it and it's blue oceans. And then I realised we weren't in space. One day.

Ireland (again)

Clarifications: As you'll remember from last time, Ireland's wet, it's full of drunks and there's a highly confusing traffic system that may have come across as a poorly thought through attempt at a sheep/car/pull-over joke. You'll be pleased to note that since then the author (me) has felt a slight twinge of conscience and is now seeking to undo the misconceptions created by his previous writings. Ireland is pretty, the traffic system is as it is in the U.K. and not most are drunkards. I take back nothing about the weather.

Ireland

Is wet, like most make it out to be. Did you know that the average rainfall in Ireland is measured not in inches fallen but in people displaced? Obviously this is slightly subjective, but ever since the rainfall reallocation program in the sixties and the consequent move to spread the Irish population evenly over the countryside it's been a fairly reliable indicator of precipitation. Other well know facts about Ireland I won't bore you with concern the high volume of alcohol in the tap water, the low fertility rate of their chaffinches, and the detailed rules of their national sport "cabbage".

Anyway, the first thing you notice about Ireland upon arriving in it is that it's wet. No wait, we've covered that. Alas. Okay, so well, the second thing you notice is how remarkably evenly spaced people are around the landscape. No wait, that's been covered too. Did I mention the high amount of alcohol in the tap water? Not so much something you notice immediately as something you notice after you wake up from the immediately. Which means we've still got a third thing you notice on arriving. Which will probably be the traffic. Due to legal difficulties, the confused system of relationship with Northern Ireland and a legal loophole allowing sheep to drive, cars are forbidden to drive on the right. And also on the left. This makes it simultaneously the simplest and most complex system of driving in the world. Most problems have been solved by fixing all main roads as one-way, though this still leaves issues with minor roads, and makes missing your turning on the outer ireland ring-road a real bugger.

That said, when the rain clears, you can find a way of getting where you want to, and if you can find a sheep to drive you car you can see some mighty fine scenery.

Airports

(on travelling to Ireland a few weeks back)

Just after security a man tries to explain to a woman that she'll be let back through if she goes back out of security as long as she takes her boarding pass with her: "Carte de embarquet? El carte de la embarquento? You speak Italian? Oh Spanish. Oh well, they're all the same aren't they?"

Why are they always trying to raffle off super cars at airports? Do they get tax-free super cars? Or is there some clever gambling / airport / super car loophole? Or are just people especially gullible at airports? My favourite theory is they started with the raffling of super cars when you had to be loaded to fly and essentially any airport departure lounge was exclusively first class and so super cars went hand in hand with jet planes. Now of course, anyone can fly, but the companies are still stuck with the super car airport gambling contract praying desperately that Mrs. Chantelle Smith accompanying her nan from Luton to Majorica won't win it.

Boy to his young brother in Starbucks both drinking some super concentrate healthy hippy fruit juice when all they wanted was orange squash: "Just keep drinking it, it'll get better". Yeah start believing that line now kid.

Also in Starbucks; blueberry muffins. (I can't remember if that was it or it was going to be the start of a witty anecdote that I just didn't finish because they called my flight.)

Holiday

Mark is on holiday for a bit. Try again after the 27th or so.

Christian Scholarship

"The matter is quite simple. The Bible is very easy to understand. But we Christians are a bunch of scheming swindlers. We pretend to be unable to understand it because we know very well that the minute we understand, we are obliged to act accordingly. Take any words in the New Testament and forget everything except pledging yourself to act accordingly. My God, you will say, if I do that my whole life will be ruined. How would I ever get on in the world? Herein lies the real place of Christian scholarship. Christian scholarship is the Church's prodigious invention to defend itself against the Bible, to ensure that we can continue to be good Christians without the Bible coming too close. Oh, priceless scholarship, what would we do without you? Dreadful it is to fall into the hands of the living God. Yes, it is even dreadful to be alone with the New Testament."

-Soren Kierkegaard, "Provocations: Spiritual Writings of Kierkegaard"

2 Weeks Later

When is it alright to spoil the plot of Harry Potter to everyone who hasn't yet read it?