More Memorable Typos - Lifting the Pre-Budget Blues

I was out for a walk last week and spotted this
congratulatory beauty in a shop window. Luckily I had the camera in my pocket for a quick snap, capturing the sentiment for posterity, and being the typo terrorist anorak that I am - after winning the Irish Times Terrible Typos competition in September there's no stopping me now - I just couldn't pass this by. 

Camogie, for the uninitiated, is hurling for girls and  women, it's very popular among local teams but has very poor national support compared to the senior hurling and football All-Ireland Finals in Croke Park, which are usually sell-outs. The GAA tried to sex it up a few years ago by a "Chicks with Sticks" campaign, but while it might have boosted the game's image and shown the calibre of the players, it smacked of desperation to me and many other old-school feminists out there.

Then a few days later I was at a conference in the West of Ireland and this wonderful misspelling jumped out at me from the ticket to the Gala Dinner - or Banquette? It set me thinking of the unreliability of grammar and spellcheckers that are so ubiquitous in computer software but don't bypass the need for proofreading and judicious editing before committing to print. This would surely prevent a lot of red faces when the errors come to light.

Last week I was listening to Liveline - a phone-in daily RTE Radio One show that purports to take the pulse of the Irish listeners and reflect the zeitgeist -when this woman with a plummy South Dublin accent rang in to say she was in the horrors over a typo on a baby vest she'd spotted in Dunnes Stores. (Note the absence of a possessive apostrophe in their title - deliberate or not no-one seems sure.)
You can link to the audio clip here.

Well she set the airwaves alight! The baby vest for infants under a year had typos that made a nonsense of the little slogan but was of the kind all too common on fake designer rip-offs when we lived in Laos. ("Your going to fast in your little red car" was the slogan!)She came over all righteous and wanted a head on a plate but had got no joy from Dunnes other than a vague assurance it wouldn't happen again - so she made good on her threat to "Talk to Joe" and  fired off a missive to Liveline. The response she got from other listeners can't have made her day as she got no support and was written off as a tad OTT. Her own cliché was picked up when she said "At this point in time" so she wasn't getting away with anything.

Fair enough - I get grief from my lads for being an "Eats shoots and leaves" typo type, but I do hope I don't get too smug over it all! Some would say Liveline caters to the whingers and moaners who have nothing better to do than ring in with their gripe of the day, but it is incredibly addictively listenable when a good row gets going, and certainly has ruffled political feathers on many occasions. 

Courtesy of RTE - protest at hospital closures

Finally - the pièce de résistance! This was broadcast on national TV news the other evening at a protest march against local hospital closures when the extremely unpopular Minister for Health Mary Harney was present.  That she's seen as the Angel of Death to local hospitals is quite understandable - but this put a whole new angle on the situation! Given that she was splashed with red paint the previous week at a sod-turning ceremony, it's amazing that she had the brass neck to put in another public appearance where she would be heckled. But she's got brass neck in spades (couldn't resist that pun!) and there are some terrific Photoshopped images out there - Santa killer below being one of the best! 

Courtesy of Photoshop - Mary Harney kills Santa!

Enjoy them and forget the wolves at the door - in the guise of the IMF or the European Bank Bailout Crew - whom we are told with Shakespearean denial (as in protesting too much) by the government are not on the horizon - we all think they are, sharpening their calculators to see how much they can bleed from the peasants come Budget Day on December 7th. I think I'll just knit my way through the recession - it'll take my mind off the dreary penny-pinching days ahead!

A day at the races - and other events

This weekend the sun shone gloriously and it felt warm outside, lovely to be out and about in jeans and a jumper, shedding all the layers of winter (apart from the fat layers - that comes later!). Today was Mother's Day and was pretty much the same as any other Sunday, I guess I like every day to be Mother's Day ideally and am not too keen on manufactured days whose raison d'etre seems to be overly commercial, and to enhance Hallmark and their ilk with cheesy cards. (Oh dear, that sounds curmudgeonly and sour grape-ish on re-reading, but I am really not into all the hype). At the same time I spent time today with my mother in her long-stay care unit - she is almost 94 and has been bed-bound for the past year or more, and has dementia, which is very sad. We shared some chocolates, which is one treat she still enjoys.

I like to relax at the weekends, though this one involved some activity as we were getting the polytunnel started up for the year. My back was stiff and achey from the unaccustomed bending - transplanting strawberry plants in the tunnel even though hubby did all the hard labour - digging in the compost as we emptied the bin last week and raking and tilling the soil to a nice dark fine tilth. We will plant courgettes, tomatoes, lettuce, herbs, peas and beans, and beetroot, and the rhubarb in its outdoor bed is coming along nicely after being under buckets for the past few months.

Ireland won the rugby Grand Slam yesterday for the first time in 61 years by beating Wales in a nail-biting final in Cardiff, and the country went as mad as it only knows how when Ireland win a major international in any sport, with a major homecoming today in Dublin. Then late last night Bernard Dunne became won a World Boxing title in Dublin while Katie Taylor won another boxing match; she is already a world champion. All told it was a good weekend for the Irish in sport, and at local level, our daughter's camogie team, the Lismore Under-14s, won a match this morning against rival neighbours Tallow, I think the final score was 10-9 to 0-0! The Lismore Senior girls from the local Blackwater Community School won the All-Ireland Camogie schools championship during the week, so yes, it was a good week for much needed morale boosting wins!

Between St. Patrick's Day, lovely weather and sporting victories, even the economy got eclipsed and the recession put on the back boiler for the moment, though not for long as the spring of discontent looks set to continue well into April. There is another union-led day of work stoppage/strike action on March 30th and on April 7th there is another hairshirt mini-budget which promises to be anything but (mini). Watch this space for updates!

I went to Dungarvan on Paddy's Day to bring teen daughter and her friend to the parade, which is generally a showcase for local business and clubs, with some marching bands and floats. The political one this year showed a cow(en?) and some dodgy looking politicians with the caption "TDs milking the country"! (TD is MP in Irish). Otherwise the parade doesn't vary from year to year so we went to the cinema to cry at "Marley and Me" - the film that seems to get grown men bawling, can see why!

Back to the races. The annual Point-to-Point races have been an institution in Lismore as long as I can remember, and as I know nothing about horseracing, all I can tell you is that the race is a cross-country circuit on the Castle farm lands. They start and end at roughly the same point (hence the name I guess) and it is a good day out for the racing fraternity from far and wide, and for the locals if the weather is nice. My memories of the point-to-point races are usually associated with freezing sleety sideways driving rain, and Glastonbury-proportioned mud squelching, but not today.

I wandered up to the course at around half past two, and managed to miss all but the last race which was at the ridiculously early time of 3.30pm. I didn't back any nag, as I wouldn't even know how to read the form on the racecard, but enjoyed the ambience and the colour of the jockeys' silks, the bookies' umbrellas, the stalls of toys and trinkets and fun stuff for the kids, and the smell that I always associate with outdoor events like this - the ubiquitous chip van. I couldn't resist joining the long queue for some delicious curry chips from Kearney's van, which shows the strength of my Lenten willpower. Daughter and friends, basking in their camogie victory, were having fun spraying their hair pink and the boys with "fart spray" which was a new one to me seemed to be a hot favourite with both sexes. By the time she got home it had dissipated somewhat but it was straight to the shower nonetheless! In my young days I loved the "amusements" - the Chairoplanes, the Swing-boats and the Dodgems or Bumper cars. They are no longer there, probably a victim of health and safety regulations, which is a pity.

I started the day with a rush of domesticity, and made a batch of mini-bakewell buns, fairy cakes and an apple tart, and found some strawberries in the freezer and made some pots of jam, which made me feel very virtuous (see the photo at the top!) and with enough energy to enjoy the rest of the day - at the races.

Tomorrow is my birthday and as I have already had my big present in advance, with my lovely new camera, it will be a low-key day, which suits me fine as I have the day off and will just enjoy it - with a dental appointment! Oh well, timing is everything!

(NB: I am experiencing some gremlins with posting photos here, as I wanted to add some more but can't move them around - they may have to be in a separate post. Hope this is a one-off !)