Land of Saints and Scholars - part one.

Good afternoon and greetings from LL towers, where I have finally arrived home after an exceptionally enjoyable week away, to a rapturous welcome from the zoo. Firstly let me apologise again for the (albeit temporary) outburst yesterday. Sometimes we all have to release what I call my "inner fishwife", I don't like doing it, it's not befitting the person that I am but hey, when pushed far enough it's in all of us.

If the truth be known, that's twice I've had to do it this week, allow me to explain. J and I arrived in Dublin and checked into our beautiful five star hotel, situated as it was not too far from Grafton Street (which is where the posh shops are, innit) but also just a stone's throw away from some of the grottiest tenement flats in Dublin's inner city. So if you turned left, you could indulge yourself with your credit card, but if you turned right, you could be met with the traditional Irish welcome of a needle to the neck and a stamp to the head, thereafter someone else could indulge themselves with your credit card.

Come the late evening, I stood outside the front door of the hotel to admire the passing shiny tracksuits when I saw what can only be described as an advertisement for rehab, trying desperately to steal some bikes from across the street. When he couldn't free them from their stands, he proceeded to start to kick the crap out of their frames. I deplore anyone who wilfully destroys the property of other hard working people, it drives me mad. Dublin's answer to Tristan Smedley Smythe was beside me, on his Blackberry. He said that he was going to call "The Guards". Now I knew that was never going to work, the only way to get the Irish police to respond is to tell them that shots have been fired or that a perfectly happy and independent escort is working in an apartment, (whoops, did I say that out loud) ?

I will (again) apologise for the ensuing filthy language here, I'm just glad J didn't hear me because I think it would have frightened him to death, being the genteel soul that he is. I should also point out that real inner city Dubliners drop every 'd' and 'h' available to them, if you're not familiar with the dialect then you can view our own Mrs. Brown
here. So, I took a deep breath, moved towards what we Irish lovingly refer to as the "scumbag" and shrieked -

"OI !! GET DEFUCK AWAY FROM DEM BIKES ROITE NOW YE SCUMBAG, I'M AFTER CALLIN DE GUARDS. G'WAN YE KNACKER, AFORE I LOSE ME BLEEDIN TEMPER."

I'm delighted to say that seemed to have the desired effect and he scampered off, presumably to see if any of his esteemed friends had any Tesco value weed to spare.

Tristan Smedley Smythe was flabbergasted.

"I say, bloody well done. Did you go to theatre school?"

"Something like that, yes".

Wearing a large grin, I went back to join J for dinner.

I will pop back later in the week to finish my holiday tale, in the meantime I'm off to launch the Spanish inquisition, whilst I was away some fecker ate my Double Decker Easter egg, and they needn't bother blaming the cat this time, heads are going to roll.

LL xx