Irish O'Bama

Sing along here:

O'Leary, O'Reilly, O'Hare and O'Hara
There's no one as Irish as Barack O'Bama

You don't believe me, I hear you say
But Barack's as Irish, as was JFK
His granddaddy's daddy came from Moneygall
A small Irish village, well known to you all

Toor a loo, toor a loo, toor a loo, toor a lama
There's no one as Irish As Barack O'Bama

He's as Irish as bacon and cabbage and stew
He's Hawaiian he's Kenyan American too
He’s in the white house, He took his chance
Now let’s see Barack do Riverdance

Toor a loo, toor a loo, toor a loo, toor a lama
There's no one as Irish As Barack O'Bama

From Kerry and cork to old Donegal
Let’s hear it for Barack from old moneygall
From the lakes if Killarney to old Connemara
There’s no one as Irish as Barack O’Bama

O'Leary, O'Reilly, O'Hare and O'Hara
There's no one as Irish as Barack O'Bama
From the old blarney stone to the great hill of Tara
There's no one as Irish as Barack O'Bama

2008 the white house is green, their cheering in Mayo and in Skibereen.
The Irish in Kenya, and in Yokahama,
Are cheering for President Barack O’Bama

O'Leary, O'Reilly, O'Hare and O'Hara
There's no one as Irish as Barack O'Bama

The Hockey Moms gone, and so is McCain
They are cheering in Texas and in Borrisokane,

In Moneygall town, the greatest of drama, for our Famous president Barack o Bama

Toor a loo, toor a loo, toor a loo, toor a lama
There's no one as Irish As Barack O'Bama

The great Stephen Neill, a great man of God,
He proved that Barack was from the Auld Sod
They came by bus and they came by car, to celebrate Barack in Ollie Hayes’s Bar

O'Leary, O'Reilly, O'Hare and O'Hara
There's no one as Irish as Barack O'Bama



By

Hardy Drew

Ji Chou

Thanks to Craig here's something funny to celebrate the Chinese New Year. It reminds me of the time that a friend of mine wrote to Richard Branson complaining about something that happened on a Virgin flight from JFK to Heathrow. Within a week Branson phoned him personally and to quote my friend, "I was so surprised that he had phoned me that he had me eating out of his hand."

PS If you ever feel that I'm lazy, or short changing you by showing pretty Chinese pictures or saying something fatuous like Happy Chinese New Year, please let me know. I'll put your complaint in my oval, white, water filled complaints folder and reply as quickly as I can. I promise to reply personally in nothing less than twelve months or so.

Move over Burns

Robbie bloody Burns, the writer of the biggest load of rubbish ever, tries to muscle in on my birthday every year. And what's all this rubbish about Burn's Night? All the false bonhomie by English (and deep fried Mars bar munching Scottish) people over a so called poet that they have never studied or have absolutely no interest in whatsoever.

Here's part of a poem written in 1789

Expect na, sir, in this narration,
A fleechin, fleth'rin Dedication,
To roose you up, an' ca' you guid,
An' sprung o' great an' noble bluid,
Because ye're surnam'd like His Grace-
Perhaps related to the race:
Then, when I'm tir'd-and sae are ye,
Wi' mony a fulsome, sinfu' lie,
Set up a face how I stop short,
For fear your modesty be hurt.

This may do-maun do, sir, wi' them wha
Maun please the great folk for a wamefou;
For me! sae laigh I need na bow,
For, Lord be thankit, I can plough;
And when I downa yoke a naig,
Then, Lord be thankit, I can beg;
Sae I shall say-an' that's nae flatt'rin-
It's just sic Poet an' sic Patron.

Inspiring isn't it? I prefer reading spam. At least you can understand most of it.

Dinosaurs

You read it here second. I nicked this from Peter over on The Languedoc Page. If you want to read the small print, click on the picture to make it bigger.

Your mate's very tall

I was just reading the BBC News site and read an article about the electricity problems in south west France. At the end of the article it asked for people who have lost their electricity to let them know by posting a comment. Doh. So I posted a sarcastic comment which hasn't appeared yet. I wonder if it will?

***

It's now 16.31 and the deliveryman from Boulanger, who phoned at 14.00 and said that he'd be here at 15.00, still hasn't arrived. I'm busting for a fight!
He arrived at 16.37 and fitted the machine with his mate who was a big bruiser, so I chickened out.

Time to reconsider

Never mind all that idyllic rubbish posted by over at Chez Loulou about life in the south of France. The reality is somewhat different. We were expecting delivery of a new dishwasher today and the sales lady in Boulanger promised that the deliveryman would call during the morning to confirm the time of his arrival this afternoon. He didn't call, so we were then stuck at home and unable to spend our usual Saturday morning at Elie's bar, trying to drink the place dry, with our chums.

Still, without resorting to taking photographs of the front door, or any of the vegetables in the house (OK, that's enough sniping - Ed) I cheered myself up by watching the tennis from Australia. Despite him being a miserable git and dissing all us good solid English folk, Andy Murray does play a mean game of tennis. He destroyed the world number 31 Jurgen Meltzer, in three sets, the second set to love, and gave himself an easy passage to the last sixteen. Even though he is a racist bigot and doesn't like me (not many people do - Ed), I will still follow his progress, cheer him on and support him.

Can I point out to all my golf loving friends (yes that's you Bob, Kevin, Mark and Will) that there is more wrestling, darts and ocean going sailing than golf to watch at the moment and that maybe you should reconsider your sport. (Who rattled your cage this morning? - Ed)

Love thy neighbour

Two Arabs boarded a flight out of London.

One took a window seat, and the other sat next to him in the middle seat.

Just before takeoff, an American sat down in the aisle seat.

After takeoff, the American kicked his shoes off, wiggled his toes and was settling in when the Arab in the window seat said, "I need to get up and get a coke."

"Don't get up," said the American, "I'm in the aisle seat, I'll get it for you."

As soon as he left, one of the Arabs picked up the American's shoe and spat in it.

When he returned with the coke, the other Arab said, "That looks good, I'd really like one, too."

Again, the American obligingly went to fetch it.

While he was gone the other Arab picked up his other shoe and spat in it.

When the American returned, they all sat back and enjoyed the flight.

As the plane was landing, the American slipped his feet into his shoes and knew immediately what had happened.

"Why does it have to be this way?" he asked.

"How long must this go on? This fighting between our nations?

This hatred?.... This animosity?.... This spitting in shoes and pissing in cokes?"

Keep death on the roads

I love driving in Italy. I live and drive in an area of France, where the driving is quite fast but can be downright dangerous. I drive in England where it’s quick, aggressive but quite safe, in Spain where it’s very fast and safe, but you never come across anything like they drive in Italy. They’re crazy. In the space of a quick trip to the supermarket this morning we were nearly hit from the side by a crazy woman jumping the lights and whilst we waited at the lights for a left turn, against a red light, some bozo overtook us on the wrong side of the road and ignoring everything else turned left whilst cars skidded around him. You drive with your heart in your mouth but as long as you are very, very aware you can arrive safely. It takes time and effort, and if you ignore all your instincts, and watch what they do, you can have a lot of fun.

I love Italian television. It’s so bad, it’s good. Over lunch on Tuesday the TV is blazing away in the background and there’s a cooking programme on. I think they were cooking a cheese and turnip recipe (you’re a mean sod – Ed) and at a certain point the tall, willowy, beautiful hostess (with her ample breasts hanging out), the short fat cook, and some other guy all start dancing to music. At which point all the bloody audience jump up and start dancing as well. The gorgeous hostess, who has obviously never cooked a thing in her life starts to cut an onion. It was so, so funny. Excellent.

Whilst I find Italy a wonderful place, it has scenery to die for, the food is wonderful and the people are open and friendly, in many ways it can also be frustrating and incomprehensible. I wonder if it would drive me mad if I lived there? In some ways it’s a little like France. Rules appear to have evolved in a way to combat thieves or those trying to buck the system. For example we popped out to buy something at a large shop. We paid for the goods, took the receipt and then were directed to a security guard near the exit who checked the goods, tallied the goods with the receipt and then gave us a bag to put the goods in. They don’t even trust their cashiers!

Or the little old lady, way over the speed limit, hunched over the wheel of her car, sitting on my tail and flashing me as I was obviously pulling over to let her past.

Or I get to Pescara Airport, which proudly announces that it has wi-fi so that I can happily while away a couple of hours, but the shop that sells the cards that help you connect is shut and there is no way that you can buy time on line. What a stupid system and very frustrating.

However, it's still a bloody nice country.

Obama day

Apologies, we left the hotel Monday morning and I’ve been without internet since we arrived back here early Wednesday morning.

Holly and AJ have been really great company, and love this area as much as we do. It was sad to part company. After dropping them off at Bari airport, we headed up the coast to Foggia.

Foggia is my Italian home town or, to be more precise, my mother’s home town. Pia and Dino, my only aunt and uncle, were as usual so welcoming.

Needless to say, Pia had cooked up a feast. It was a feast of all our favourite dishes. For me, it was parmigiana, a lasagne of aubergine, mozzarella and a rich tomato sauce. It would almost be a vegetarian dish if the tomato sauce hadn’t been enriched by several cuts of different meats to enhance the flavour. The sauce alone takes a couple of hours to cook.

Jan on the other hand likes pizza patate, which is best described as a bake of mashed potato with mozzarella, mortadella, eggs and parmesan. That makes it sound so simple but it’s absolutely delicious.

Anyway, this morning we were watching television over breakfast and needless to say the subject of Obama came up. It’s interesting that the Italian people, like a lot of the rest of the world, have such hope and expectation of this man. I find it kind of scary. It’s great to have hope and expectation but in my view people are likely to be ultimately disappointed. He’s a man. One man. A very eloquent and intelligent man but I am personally cautious about what he can realistically achieve. Good luck to him.

For me disappointment is the difference between expectation and reality. If expectation is set too high and he can’t achieve too much then people are likely to be disappointed. We shall see.

At breakfast on Tuesday morning (keep up, I'm trying to cram several days in here) we were talking about assassination (as you do) when Pia started to rant about Berlusconi. I pointed out that he had been democratically elected twice so he must appeal to a lot of people. Pia dismissed my observation with a flick of her hand and said, “lots of politician seem to get assassinated, why not Berlusconi?”

It’s the Italian way!!

Sorry

It's two in the morning and we've just got home. I've had no internet for a couple of days but I'll catch up tomorrow.

Trulli, deeply madly

OK, back to the travels. It was AJ's birthday Saturday and we took a trip out to Alberobello. This place is a UNESCO World Heritage site thanks to a unique collection of Trulli. I can't say that they do a lot for me, because once you've seen one Trullo you've seen them all. Jan was not impressed when I said that I expected a munchkin to hang out of a window.
Anyway, it was back to Ostuni in the afternoon to add a few more kilos at Osteria Piazzetta Cattedrale. Roberto and Marilea run a lovely restaurant and the more you get to know them the more you want to be there. We also had the best wine of the trip so far, a Primitivo di Manduria 2004. A huge beast of a wine. Excellent.
Apart from the wonderful food and excellent company this resto has the only perfectly square toilet bowl that I have ever seen. All I need now is a square bum.

Bring it on

I thought that I might get a backlash from my recent cheese post but then I thought that the people who read all my rubbish are hardly likely to be the same intellectual standing of the people who read Chez Loulou.
Anyway, in order to no doubt garner a bit of sympathy about my mean posting, Lou goes and posts the whole thing on her blog. We didn't worry about copyright then did we Lou? Needless to say some of her no doubt ardent supporters decided to retaliate.
'Dear' wrote to me but decides to be anonymous, which is something I hate, not having the courage to identify him or herself, so the comment has, in my eyes, no value whatsoever.
'MitchieMole' made a few legitimate points but then adds another comment accusing me of being the 'cheese police.' Mitchie, take a look at Lou's Jan 18th post about chickens. Who's policing what here?
'Lesley' attacks my rubbish, fair enough, but then when you look at her blog she spends a lot of time attacking the writing of others. A tad two faced if you ask me Lesley.
I haven't missed the irony of people complaining about what I'd written about Chez Loulou whilst at the same time proceeding to attack the rubbish that I write. That's kinda spooky mes braves. If I wasn't starting to enjoy this so much I'd let it drop but as if to prove my original point about Lou's blog, and in the process making her supporters look a tad foolish, take a look at her piece on Jan 18th.
Post a photograph of chickens on a supermarket shelf and then proceed to insult the hundreds of thousands of people who buy it. The inference being that they are too stupid to know what they are doing and that they should be wealthy enough to buy better quality. A dumb post and food snobbery of the highest order. QED. I'm ready to debate!

La Sommita, Ostuni

We were up at the crack of dawn for a quick breakfast and for the three hour drive down to Bari. Why Bari? Holly had seen this article in the Sunday Times and had liked the sound of Puglia and had very kindly invited us along. They had taken an early Ryanair flight from Stansted and we had agreed to meet them. As we walked into the arrivals hall at Aeroporto de Bari, they walked out of customs. What a bit of good planning (and a lot of luck - Ed). All that remained was the forty minute drive down the coast to the hotel in Ostuni.
La Sommita is a fabulous hotel perched high on the top of the hill of Ostuni. This part of town is zoned for pedestrians and inhabitants only and is barred from general entry by bollards. Bollards that can be operated by certain people but not all.
AJ and I walked up the steep cobbled streets to find the hotel, realising that there was no way that we could carry the cases up the hill. No problem said the staff, get in the buggy outside, we'll take you down the hill and lead you to the carpark and then bring you and your luggage back. Excellent and a lot of fun. Before we even got to see the rooms, and deciding that we were a bit peckish, we wandered a bit further up the hill to Osteria Piazzetta Cattedrale for a quick bite and a couple of bottles of wine. Even though it was after 14.00 we were served a sumptuous feast of antipasti and starters. Roberto and his wife, who cooks, were kindness itself. This is the life.

If you think that you've got problems