35,000 people were caught using a mobile phone while driving last year.

It’s the biggest penalty point earner behind speeding.

A Tesco customer is being sued by a delivery driver who claims he injured his ankle on the man’s driveway while delivering his groceries.

The customer remembered the incident as being ‘insignificant’ and that the delivery driver at the time made little of it.

Tesco, it appears doen’t support it driver’s action.

The world is indeed fucked up.

Amazing how a wildcat strike by train drivers can affect 10,000 passengers in one foul swoop!

All because a train driver didn’t want to move from his passenger train to take another guy on a training drive.

Boo to you ….. it could only happen in Ireland.

A study of young people’s alcohol and drug habits in the south and south east has found that:

• Among 15 year olds – 12% of males and 20% of females said that they drank once a week or more
• The average age for the first drink was 13
• 62% of teens drink regularly (at least once a month)
• 51% of teens binge drink regularly
• 50% of teens have taken an illegal drug at least once in their lives
• 38% of drinkers suffered consequences compared to 11% of illegal drug users
• 20% of drinkers were involved in arguments (4% for illegal drug users)
• 18% of drinkers were in trouble at home (3% for illegal drug users)
• 13% of drinkers were in physical fights (2% for illegal drug users)
• 13% of drinkers suffered an accident as a result (13% for illegal drug users)
• 13% of drinkers damaged property (3% for illegal drug users)
• 10% of drinkers were in trouble with the gardaí (3% for illegal drug users)
• 7% said that their drinking affected theri performance at school (7% for illegal drug users)

The report also found that females were drinking more frequently and drinking more spirits than males.

14% of young people also said that they used cannabis regularly.

The Revenue Commissioners are to clamp down on large scale tax evaders … the banks will now have to provide Revenue with the names and addresses of DIRT liable account holders whose accounts earn more than €635 in interest. If you’ve got €100,000 or more in the bank ….. pay your DIRT tax and get your other tax affairs in order …. ‘cos the tax man is a coming to knock upon your door!

About time too … tax evasion is rife in this country … the fat cats are creaming it while us Joe Fools are screwed in the PAYE system.

And George Redmond has been found not guily of receiving a IR£10,000 bribe from a Fianna Fáil councillor. The wheels of Justice have twirled, twisted and turned. A verdict has been reached. But look at the can of worms he has opened!

And Biffo (Brian Cowen) still hasn’t read the Lisbon Treaty …… neither has Mary Coughlan I believe …. what a wonderful leadership we’ve got. Still it doen’t matter … the Fianna Fail flock et al will vote as they are told to ….. YES …. baa baa baa! (I’m still voting NO …. so stick that into your pipe and smoke it Mr. Cowen. And no bad language in your retort please!)

Mallow G.A.A. club had a concert recently …. tickets were €50 with complimentary cheese and wine …. teetotalers had to pay for their drinks. And then we wonder why alcohol is such a problem in Ireland!

And oil is at €131.70 a barrel ….. I think we’re in trouble. When it hits €2.00 a litre we’ll be fairly broke … when it runs out we’re done for.

My car will stop, the lawnmower will stop, my chainsaw will stop, my brush cutter won’t work either, nor will my hedge trimmer.

No more tarring, no more etc. etc.

Enough said …. I must wash the car …. and cut the grass!

I’m not one …. thankfully!

I was listening to ‘Morning Ireland’ on Radio One on my way to work this morning.

I heard Pascal Sheehy, R.T.E.’s Southern Reporter, talking about the terrible burning of a 13 year old boy in Cork.

The boy and his friends had been inhaling petrol vapours from plastic bottles.

To increase the vapourisation process they were heating the bottle with lighters.

Needless to say tragedy stuck and now a 13 year old is fighting for his life in Dublin.

My difficulty with the report was the detailing of the whole process of the inhalation of petrol, from plastic bottle, to petrol, to lighter.

The R.T.E. anchor on the programme asked Pascal Sheehy to reclarify it again …. just in case we hadn’t heard.

Teenagers and others now have a new way of inhaling …. so new that even the Guards in Cork hadn’t heard of it before.

The newsreader at 8.30 bulletin called it an incident related to petrol.

The morning is a time when the radio is on in a lot of households and in a lot of cars with lots of impressionable ears listening.

It was very irresponsible reporting.

I hope the 13 year old boy will recover.

A few commentators took exception to his posting and proceeded to lambaste the man for all the wrong reasons. Jenny, a lecturer in Belfast, in particular, took grave exception to his posting and even suggested that Grandad not bring Irish blogging into disrepute through such intemperate posts.

Grandad replied here … and again, restated his point about political correctness language/wording.

I commented thus!

The official Paddy Bloggit line is that we are an ‘Equal Opportunities Blog’ ….. we treat everyone the same …. if they deserve praise they will receive it …. it they deserve criticism they will receive that also …. regardless of creed, colour, gender, sexual persuasion etc.

All get it equally here ……

That little incident knocked the wind out of my sails but I’ve so much to say that’s it’s time to start saying it. I’ve been reading some wonderfully entertaining blogs lately and they have spurred me on to get writing again.

Paddy Bloggit is back!