Things that piss me off #9: Air Force One (The film)

What an utter catastrophe, even Arne Schwarzenegger films are more realistic:

• Groups of Russians standing in Red square screaming and waving American flags! Yep, maybe in 500 years...


• Going around a corner on two wheels in a 747 - yeah G-Force!


• Using a rope to ferry people between two planes - Hey Dad how does that work with 300 Kmh winds and in BOTH DIRECTIONS?


• The Whitehouse having a direct connection to microphones in a prison in Kazakhstan!? Wow, the CIA are getting better


• Scrambling planes to Kazakhstan in 2.4 minutes!? Yeah @ mach 49

I'm sorry but the whole patriotic "President of America saves the world" is just too much to stomach

Things that piss me off #8: Existing narcotic legislation

It just doesn't work. How many examples does mankind have to see before realising that making something illegal only makes it more desired and therefore expensive. Try these:

• Prohibition in America worked wonderfully - Al Capone laughed all the way to the Bank. Even now the remnants of prohibition i.e. the draconian law of making it illegal for under 21s to drink alcohol leads America to have one of the highest juvenile alcohol abuse statistics. The same applies to Sweden - very high alcohol prices (to try and deter people from drinking), but a very high general alcohol consumption.



• The ban on Pornography in Ireland - every young adolescent I knew had a playboy under the bed and worst of all the numbers of sex offenders, paedophiles and rapists in Ireland is horrendously high.



• Case for the accused: The Netherlands. I have no statistics to back me up here but from my general feeling, the Dutch have definitely got a lower percentage of sex crimes and drug related offences than most other European countries.

Things that piss me off #7: British Xenophobia

"The dawn of a new error" was the Sun's (British Tabloid newspaper) comment on the coming of the Euro. I'm sure the Sun asked many an objective economist from various countries and then made a considered opinion, but then again they probably just thought fuck it, anything "European" must be bad. (Mini piss me off point #1: English people saying "in Europe they do things differently" or "Over in Europe..." - just in case you forgot, one fact that can never be changed is that the UK is in "Europe" if only geographically)

My favourite comment was "we'll lose our national Identity with the Euro". Well I've had Euros in my pocket for the last couple of years and strangely enough I still feel very Irish. Come on England wake up, just cos you pay 3.50 Euro instead of 2.50 Pounds for your fish 'n chips, you are not going lose your national identity. Or do you really need to see the queen every time you buy a
pint??

Things that piss me off #6: George W. Bush

Bushorchimp.com/
No comment.

Things that piss me off #5: Countries who don't use the metric system

12 Inches in a foot, 3 feet in a yard, 1640 yards in a mile
16 ounces in a pound, 14 Pounds in a stone, 94 stones in a ton.
Sorry people, the imperial system is SHITE. Illogical, impossible to work scientifically in and just basically crap.

Things that piss me off #4: The Irish Public Transport system

Update, Update: Also due to my extreme ranting Ireland is now building a Tram system (Luas) it is only 2 years past delivery date and about 3000% overbudget...

Sorry I forgot, there is none, therefore it can't piss me off.

Some facts:

• Dublin (to the best of my knowledge) is the only European Capital city with neither an Underground nor a Tram system! Instead it relies on Busses - Mmm - pollution, traffic, high speed!!



• It takes over one hour to drive from Blackrock to the City Centre of Dublin. A total of 8 KM. And instead of investing in Public transport, the Irish Government wants to build more roads and make existing ones wider. Forget Emerald Isle, more like Concrete Isle soon.



• For the Intercity Journey between Dublin and Waterford (160 KM as the crow flies), it takes 4 hours by train - a stunning average speed of 40 KMH. In my cycling days I could have beaten the train.



• My favourite: It takes me 1 hour 30 minutes to travel the 14 KM from the airport to my home - another case of taking the bike. Every year they try to introduce an "new, better, faster" system - "AirportExpress", "AirCoach" and "AerDart" being the latest additions - they all take the same amount of time and just cost more and more each year. In Frankfurt the distance is 10 KM and is done in about 23 minutes and for half the price.

Things that piss me off #3: German shop opening hours

Update, Update: Due to my large scale campaigning and ranting about the subject,
German shops now open until 20:00 on Saturdays!!

Want to go to buy a Pizza and a six pack at 20:15 on a Wednesday evening?
Well then son, I recommend you go to your local Pizzeria, cos you ain't going to be able to go to a Supermarket in Germany after 20:00 during the week. And because the employees in Germany aren't really motivated to sell, sell, sell - they stop letting people in in some shops @ 19:45... How modern.

Forget to buy Milk & Nappies for your baby on Friday evening and
oversleep on Saturday?
Hard luck, because in case you don't live near a large train station, petrol station or an Airport, then you are stuck until 9:00 on Monday morning. Yes, believe it or not German shops close at 16:00 20:00 (That's 8 PM for the Americans out
there) on Saturday and don't open AT ALL on Sunday!! Cool. City people have the great loophole that in the train stations & airports one can buy everything, but only "traveller's needs" - that explains why they sell things like watermelons and bottles of whisky. Oh yeah and in Germany it is illegal to offer customers discounts (sorry: only twice a year - winter sale and summer sale).

Germany - a consumer's paradise...

Things that piss me off #2: Mobile phone users that do not know how to regulate the ringing volume

So you are sitting there in the restaurant looking lovey-dovey into the deep turquoise pools of your partners' eyes and hey presto, Bach's symphony #3 strikes up at 120 dB at the next table.

Everybody tries to ignore it, but somehow the harder you ignore it, the longer it takes the person to find the frigging

phone. To make matters worse, the clever soul has customised the ringing tone to get louder after every ring,

so that after 10 seconds the whitehouse is scrambling jets to the restaurant, fearing the Iraqis have created a new sonic weapon of mass destruction.

These people are of course not rocket scientists like myself and therefore have not discovered the secret menu for making the telephone silent. So for all those poor people out there I have made a little diagram:





If you press the little red button you now have the power to make the phone silent. USE IT.

Things that piss me off #1: Mobile phone accessories

OK, admittedly mobiles are damn useful, sometimes even vital, but they are:

A) Not toys
B) Not to be treated as a fashion accessory.
C) Not to be displayed publically, especially not in a clear case strapped to your belt (except if you are a network administrator (then it is perfectly acceptable))

So please write to your local politician and ban these things:



Mobile phone chairs: So you really need to put your phone in a deck chair, do you?
I bet your colleagues are really jealous when they see that on your desk? Especially the one with the flashing lights!! Mmm. How tasteful.

Press on covers: Michael Schumacher is without doubt a great formula one racing driver, but a) he is woefully ugly, and b) do you really want to see his face every time someone calls you???

This goes for all pop-star, football, winnie the pooh, kiss me quick, I am so fucking witty union jack etc. etc. covers. Repeat after me, Mobile phone covers ARE NOT COOL. Damn Nokia for ever inventing them.

Phone cases: If fax machines were reduced in size, would you then wear one on your waist? I think not. Phones are telecommunication tools, and therefore do not belong in public view.

They should be stowed safely in your back pocket / jacket / back pack / shoe / jam jar / arsehole, but NOT, and I repeat NOT paraded about on your belt as if nobody had ever seen one, and that you were showing the world something new.

Worse still: combining the phone case idea and the "lets make it wacky, by putting frogs on it" concept... I resign...