My son’s favourite motif in his drawings at the moment. Should I be worried? Only that he’s going to turn out like me, but that’s a good thing. Yes it is. Quiet down the back.
I especially love this:
“Rest In Quiet”?
I find this really reassuring: the guy is smiling the whole way through his life, right up to the end. You’re born, you live, then you die. So why worry?
So don’t worry. Just keep smiling and waving.
Clearly word’s got out about the Bernard Matthews Massacre among the chicken community. Not only are chickens everywhere on their best behaviour, the’re keeping the peace among other species as well:
Went for a Sunday drive with the family to Lettermullen in Connemara yesterday after visiting the Coral Beach past Carraroe. As we neared the top of a hill we could see what appeared to be distant mountains- except they were moving. As we crested the hill we saw a sight that took our breath away. The sea was boiling up into 30-40′ waves that were crashing onto the coast, creating a thick spray that was being blown inland for miles. It’s hard to get a sense of the scale from the photos, but if you can imagine the sea wasn’t even a quarter mile from the shed above.
I’d never been out that far before and I’ve never seen waves that huge so close to land- and I grew up in Donegal! Sometimes the sights you see around Galway when on a whim you take that back road instead of driving on are a treasure, and Galway has so many of these hidden gems warped into the rugged coast that you could spend years finding them all.
For a delicious piece of Valentine’s cynicism check out this week’s Double Vision by Charlie Adley (and it wer me what droow it!)
This is a scam warning to any small business owners reading this. A company called Vardis are cold-calling Irish businesses offering advertising in directories for the benefit of a charity called Foresters Fund for Children. I was called this morning. They don’t identify who they are and the whole thing is like a Derren Brown mind-control exercise- everything is kept very vague and delivered in a very sweet tone of voice. I smelled a rat and politely hung up after taking their name and the charity’s name. I googled their name and found this forum, full of the gory details of this scam.
For example:
“I have been involved in an argument with Vardis since 2003 they are without a doubt a complete group of charletans the company has been persuing me for £464.13 for an advertisement which apparently I agreed to in 2003 for an advert in the Forresters Fund For Children Publication. On Numerous occasions I have contacted their office asking for details of the advert I “placed” none has been forthcoming, on the 22nd January I recieved a letter from Crown Debt Recovery telling me that I would be persusued through Livepool County Court for the Money
Liverpool County Court have never heard of Crown Debt Recovery!
Crown Debt Recovery are owned by the same people as Vardis
Crown Debt recovery are nort a regisered debt collection agency and have no licence as such.”
Nice bunch of people. And this is from the Daily Mirror’s website:
A WORD of advice if you’re asked to “donate” towards a handbook for the Foresters’ Fund for Children – DON’T.
The Fund is a genuine children’s charity, but the booklet is published by a commercial Merseyside operation called Vardis.
The Fund told us donations were split “50/50″.
A spokesman explained: “We get 12.5 per cent, and Vardis gets 12.5 per cent.”
According to our abacus, that’s 25 per cent.
What about the rest? “That goes to Vardis as well, that’s their costs.”
So if Vardis calls and you didn’t agree to donate, or it didn’t explain how the cash is divided, just say get stuffed. “
So don’t fall for this scam: if someone rings about advertising do not agree to anything, ask who they are; and if they’re Vardis, hang up.
Me on Culch.ie
