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Duke attempts the Impossible
duke3016:
We used to deliver groceries to people in the outlying areas who had no transport, pillars of the community us (or mean grabbing b*stards).
Anyway, I was delivering up the mountain to the last house in the road where lived one Mike “mowley” McNamara. He was a bull of a man if a little slow in the upstairs department. Would give you the shirt off his back and then beat you to get it back.
My very first encounter with this man was in Minogues Bar in the village. He didn't come down the mountain much but when he did he would stay for a while and get absolutely plastered. Anyway he walked into the bar and had a tray of the most obnoxious looking vegetables that he had grown himself. They were awful. Denis Minogue obviously saw my face and whispered.
“Buy some off him” says he
“What” says I
“Trust me” says he
Mike trust the tray under my nose and the smell was awful, I picked one particular manky looking tomato and placed 50p on the tray.
“Thank you sir” says he waiting.
“I'll finish my pint and get some salt before I eat it” says I with a sincere look on my face.
“Good Man” says he
He went over to another man, a stranger to the village and thrust the tray under his nose.
“Feck off” says the man
“Oh Oh “ says Denis Minogue
Then the scene exploded, Mike dumped the tray on this guy's head and proceeded to kick the Shiite out of him, tables were over turned as we grappled with Mike, God he was a strong bugger. As quick as the fight started it was over. The stranger had legged it and Mike picked up the tray and thrust it under the next man's nose. He did a roaring trade.
Back to the grocery delivery.
I was going down their long drive to the house when a car came out and I was forced to move to the left. Crunch, my front wheel when into the ditch. The other car kept going and I got out and the wheel was well and truly in the ditch. Mike walked up the road took a look and lifted the front of the car effortlessly out ditch and back on the road.. One of the strongest men I have ever met.
duke3016:
Now there is a subject that might offend certain people on this forum, but for me it was a way of life. I am referring to hunting. The fact that I do not take part in this activity anymore is that I have got old and fat, and my ethical thought processes may have changed.
One day we decided that we would go back to a more traditional way of hunting. This involved leaving the shotguns at home and going after rabbits with a wattle. Now a wattle is a piece of wood approximately 1 metre in length and uniform in girth, a bit like a elongated relay baton.
The object was that the dogs would flush the rabbits out of the undergrowth and you would then try and knock the rabbit over by skimming the wattle just above ground level and then if successful get to the rabbit whilst it was dazed and deliver the coup de grace with a well placed chop on the neck ensuring death was instantaneous.
This method at least gave the rabbit a fighting chance to get away. The only point of caution would be do not try this method immediately after a few pints in the local.
The participants this day were myself, my uncle Dex, Eugene Canny, Dominic Stuart and John Nash. We had a few pints in the local and collected our wattles and strode over the fields with the dogs in tow.
The dogs were good at flushing the rabbits we were slightly less successful in hitting them
Dex hit Eugene on the ankle twice
John poleaxed his dog (and the dog fecked off home in disgust by the way)
Dominic hit me in the shoulder (he didn't quite grasp the technique)
Eugene nearly decapitated John when John was bending down to retrieve his wattle and a rabbit ran in front of him.
We must have missed a score of rabbits but we were in stitches every time there was a miss or one of us was hit.
Then it happened, Eugene couldn't hit a barn door if he was in the barn. On this occasion the poor rabbit was misfortunate enough to run into the wattle rather than it being expertly thrown. The rabbit tumbled over and Eugene sprinted and grabbed the rabbit in order to deliver the killing blow.
He chopped the rabbit behind the neck and dropped it to the ground at which point the rabbit hit the grass looked at Eugene, seemed to poke it's tongue out, and took off at high speed into the undergrowth. Well we just collapsed and had to abandon the activity and retire to the pub to discuss the various techniques of throwing whilst exercising our elbows.
Rabbits (1) - drunken incompetent hunters (Nil)
n.b. By the way we were never once successful whilst hunting with wattles but it was a very very funny way to spend a couple of hours.
duke3016:
Now, there is an overworked phrase, “that's a hard man and is totally without fear”, but the next subject for this senile author is just that. Paschal O' Halloran played hurling to the max, joined in the usual Saturday night rumble to the max and worked at everything he did to the max. You could beat him for a week and he would still get back up right at you.
In one junior hurling match, the full forward line was , right corner forward - Paschal, Full forward - Me, Left corner forward Micky Hill. Well shortly after the start it kicked off I was locked in a little altercation with the full back and Micky was squaring up to his oppo when he dropped his hurley and put up his fists. His opposite number then just hit him with his hurley. Paschal ran over, dropped the corner back, looked at Micky spread on the ground and said “Never disarm yourself” before trotting back into position. The full back stopped trying to take my head off, looked at me, I looked at him and he said “Fecking hell who is that”. Good days..
Anyway, Paschal worked for a landscaping firm in Shannon and there was a fire in the storage shed. The boys all ran out and were surveying the fire with detached interest when someone said “Shaughnessy is still in there”. Paschal just took off and ran through the flames found the man collapsed on the floor. He picked him up and when he couldn't go back through the inferno he kicked down the galvanised panel at the back and carried him to safety.
As a footnote Paschal spent 3 months in and out of hospital with burns to 50% of his body and still bears the scars. The man he saved had no injuries bar smoke inhalation and sued the company for a huge wedge of money.
Paschal went back to work for the same firm and wasn't' going to claim a penny, until someone pointed out that the insurance would be paying not his boss. A man for your corner that's for sure.
duke3016:
Now we all know the larger than life character that is Jack 'Tecnolog' Prime. A regular on the APAT circuit and a jolly nice chap. Well there were a couple of 'incidents' over a certain weekend.
'Incident' 1.
After a lovely night in the town and a wee trip to the casino, retirement to the hotel was thought to be the best option. Objective achieved, most of us retired to await the carnage that was to be the morning rising.
However one of us, Jack to be precise, needed to arise during the night in order to attend the bathroom. According to himself, he arose out of his bed and wandered to the toilet, missed the toilet door and opened the room door. He walked a couple of steps and soon realised that the scene in front of him did not resemble the topology of a bathroom.
The 'click' as the door closed was enough to sober the poor man up and realise the quandary he was in. Naked as the day he was born and in a hotel corridor. Nothing for it but to go down to reception and ask for a duplicate key. Down in the lift and out into a thankfully deserted foyer. On requesting the key the guy on reception allegedly enquired whether or not Jack had ID on him. GG WP
Oh and as an aside, as he recounted this story the next day he uttered the immortal sentence.
“I would not mind but that's not the first time I have done that”
duke3016:
I moved energy supplier recently and was in credit with them. Now why the hell did they decide to return my excess monies to me by cheque. I mean, would it not have been cheaper and more convenient to return the monies to the account from where I had been paying my direct debit.
Anyway that meant I had to nip out at dinner time to the bank to pay it in. The bank was of course crowded because it was lunch time when most working people, if they had to, would be visiting the bank. Therefore it was entirely logical that they had 2 of the 7 windows in operation. So I waited (I know I could have used the fast pay-in but I am a distrusting person) and I waited and eventually one of the two windows freed up. The queue was still fairly long and I popped my cheque and payment slip under the window.
The teller did her thing and just before she handed me the receipt she engaged me in conversation.
“There is a person available right now, if you wish to discuss your account” says she
“Oh is there” says I
“Oh yes” she beamed
“And is this person trained in all aspects of banking procedures” says I
“Absolutely” smiled she
“Then wouldn't their time be better spent opening a third window, rather than trying to sell me a product I don't want.”
“Eh” gawped she
“Good day” says I
Simple things like that piss me off, really they do..
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