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 Michael Ryan’s battered old car was stopped by the Gardaí, just outside of Thurles town, around 3.00 a.m. last Saturday, after he had left a local poker game.
Michael slowly rolled down the car window. “Good night to you sir,” said the police officer, “And would you mind telling me your intended destination, at this time of the night.”
“Sure I don’t mind at all, officer,” said Michael politely, “Believe it or believe it not, I’m on my way into Thurles to attend a series of lectures on the abuse of alcohol and the long term dangerous effects it has on the human body. The lecture will also include the latest scientific findings on the over use of tobacco, not to mention the erosion and eventual breakup of the family unit, brought about by parents who continually stays out late every single night of the week.”
“Really,” said the police officer surveying Michael suspiciously, “and tell me this now sir, who would be holding lectures at this time of the night, might I ask?”
“Me current Missus, officer,” replied Michael.
A new integrated transport ticketing system called the Leap Card, has been announced today for, yes you guessed it, the Greater Dublin area. As many as 40,000 holders of smart cards on Iarnrod Eireann (30,000) and Luas (10,000), will immediately have their cards replaced with these Leap cards.
North Tipperary’s TD Alan Kelly was on hand, as usual, for photographs and a wee opportunity for a TV spot. (Matthew 18:20 springs to mind “For where two or three gather together as my followers, I am there among them.“)
The new Leap Card is expected to be available to all commuters by the end of this year. €48m has been spent on the system to date over the last eight years and €55m will have been spent by the time the system is ready to roll.
So now you know why Thurles has no funding for it’s proposed and identified €48m, 8-kilometre, 100 metre wide corridored by-pass. The estimated €48M was spent on an integrated transport ticketing system for Dublin.
 The new Thurles integrated transport system Some good news however for Thurles. We may not have to leap over the shallow end of the river Suir to go shopping this Christmas.
Traffic was at a standstill for 2.5 hours today as workers dropped cement bollards and sand bags into the river to protect the only vehicle crossing into our town. Note, I can not confirm that this means that badly needed repairs to the decaying Barry’s Bridge connecting Thurles to the rest of the world is now imminent. It might have been undertaken because of a severe weather and flood warnings from our good friends in Met Éireann.
Like the new Dublin integrated transport Leap card, one of our resident frogs also came out for a look, but he was to be dissappointed, there was no sign of Alan Kelly, RTE or any other of our North Tipperary politicians in attendance.
Still, all is not lost, Thurles Co-Op are offering a great deal in wellingtons and waterproof waders at present.
 Department of Social Protection I suppose it was the day every employer fears, the unexpected arrival mid month, of the officious brown envelope, bearing the insignia of a black harp.
Patrick Ryan, an elderly Tipperary farmer, received such a letter from the Department of Social Protection recently. The letter stated that they suspected he was not paying his employees the Statutory Minimum Wage. The letter further stated that they, the Department, now felt it necessary to send an Inspector to audit Paddy’s affairs and to interview him, personally.
Sure enough, on the appointed day and true to the Department’s promise, a rather stern looking Inspector, complete with heavy black rimmed glasses and matching black leather briefcase, turned up to Paddy’s farmhouse door, apparently oblivious of “Shep,” Paddy’s rather cross and aging sheepdog.
Parking himself on a chair at the kitchen table, he began to interview Paddy. “Tell me Mr Ryan about your present employees, how many staff do have working here on your farm at present? ” he began.
“Well now let me think,” said Paddy, “First I suppose there’s the farm hand, I pays him about €240 a week, and he has the free use of a cottage, its the gate lodge near the entrance, as you drove in.”
“Then of course there’s the housekeeper,” said Paddy, obviously thinking carefully. “Now I believe she gets €190 a week, along with free board and lodgings, here in the main house.”
“Then of course we mustn’t forget the village idiot, he is a bit of a half-wit. He works about 16 hours a day, seven days a week, and does 90% of the manual labour. He earns around €25 a week, or whatever is spare at the time, along with the occasional bottle of whisky thrown in. Oh, and as a special treat, occasionally he is allowed to sleep with my wife.”
“That’s really disgraceful,” said the Inspector, “I would like to interview this half-wit immediately.”
“No problem,” replied Paddy “Sure it will be me you need to talk to then.“
 There has been another spate of PC scammers trying to scam Thurles people out off their money this last couple of weeks. Just yesterday I received a call from an African sounding man who claimed he was from ‘Microsoft Support’ and that something is wrong with my computer.
If you receive one of these calls Hang Up Immediately!
What they are actually trying to do is trick you into giving them access to your computer to plant malicious software or worse. Once your computer is infected they can use it to send spam from your email account or monitor keystrokes on your keyboard so that they can get access to your bank account!
Scammer Gets Annoyed
Anyway, this being about the 4th time getting a call from these scammers in the last few weeks I decided to try and track down where these scammers are calling from. So this time I immediately wrote down the phone number. The number began with ‘0025’ which after a quick Google search came up with the area code for Africa. The 5th digit was ‘1’ so that meant he was calling from ‘Ethiopia’. Meanwhile, I’m still on the phone to this man, deliberately wasting his time. After a few minutes I confronted him with this info, I told him what I thought of him and that I was contacting the Police…well, the scammer was not impressed, and started screaming expletives at me while I was laughing at him on the other end of the phone! I wouldn’t recommend anyone to engage with these scammers at all, but he certainly gave me a good laugh that day!
Once again, we would like to warn people to be vigilant. Remember, if you get one of these calls, Just Hang Up!
 Ireland Basically I am seriously fed up today here in Thurles. People keep asking me why I didn’t decide to throw my hat into the ring, with a chance to win the first prize of almost €250.000 plus €317, 434 annual expenses. First I thought they were referring to a possible share in the National Lottery, but no, I found out later they were referring to the “Race to the Áras” more often referred to as “The Irish Presidential Election,” due to be held on Thursday, 27th October 2011.
Now please don’t spread this around locally, but truth is, despite the poor pay and overall lousy working conditions, I did seriously considered applying for the post. However having weighed all the pros and cons, (Particularly the cons.) I decided I didn’t stand a chance of winning with this €400,000 a ticket lottery, of which 50% is being paid by less than intelligent taxpayers.
Well you are all not totally stupid, look at my opposition for God’s sake. I have never killed innocent women and children as a member of an illegal organisation, unlike Martin McGuinness’s IRA, so no Sinn Fein votes for me. Fianna Fáil had already put in place their “Secret 007 Undercover Agent,” Séan Gallagher, so no votes from there either. Unlike Dana, my brief singing career begun in the late 60’s, brought my small audiences literally to tears, (in the true sense I mean). My inability to write, mainly due to free education, let alone write letters seeking clemency on behalf of a man charged with the statutory rape of a 15-year-old Palestinian boy, meant that David Norris would wipe the floor with me. I had no worries at all about Mickey Higgins and Gabriel Mitchell, as I reckoned they would be a pushover. Now while I specialise in social entrepreneurship and am a strong unpaid disability rights campaigner on a regular basis, for some strange and unknown reason I have never been co-opted to any State Boards as yet, unlike Molly Davis.
Having thought it all over then very carefully, I decided to discuss the matter with my director of elections for many years, Michael. Michael a regular commenter on Thurles.Info, as usual put me to thinking straight immediately. “I am going to extol to you the parable of the body politic” said he with his usual knowing nod.
“Think of it like this,” said he, slowly and knowingly sucking on his pipe, “all the organs of the body are having a meeting, trying to decide who is the one to be in charge.”
“I should be in charge,” said the Brain, “because I administer all the body’s systems, so without me nothing could happen.”
“No I should be in charge,” said the Blood, “because I circulate oxygen all over, so without me you’d all waste away.”
“No I should be in charge,” said the Stomach, “because I process the food that gives all of you lots of necessary energy.”
“You lot are joking, I should be in charge,” said the Legs, “don’t I carry the whole body everyday, wherever it needs to go.”
“I should be in charge,” said the Eyes, “because I allow the body to see where it goes.”
“I should be in charge,” said the Rectum, “because I’m responsible for all recycling and waste removal.”
All the other body parts laughed at the Rectum and insulted him, so taking the attitude of over worked nurses recently in Limerick Regional Hospital, he shut down part of his daily duties for a couple of afternoons.
Within minutes, the Brain began to suffer from terrible headaches, the Stomach became bloated, the Legs got weak and wobbly, the Eyes became blurred and watery, and the Blood became toxic.
Following a series of Body Social Partnership meetings to discuss the current situation, the assembled group, led by their union representatives, all decided that the Rectum should be elected as the boss.
“What is the moral of this story you might ask? ” said Michael. “Its very simple, here in Ireland an Anus or Rectum usually wins any positions of power.”
Dear God, what would I ever do without you Michael, sure you speak the tongue of the common man.
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