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I know it’s been a week, but I’ve not had much writing in me to be honest. Also, as this is my 400th blog entry (Jaysus..!), I wanted to wait until I had something to say. Not sure it’s going to live up to the hype now…
Today, I’ve to bring my brother to the airport as he’s flying back “home” to England after visiting for the long weekend. My parents are away until Thursday and we’ve had the place to ourselves. I’ve no job (although I’m waiting to hear back on a few things), no girlfriend/fiancèe (and still utterly heart-broken) and don’t really know anyone around here, so most of the past couple of weeks have consisted of long drawn-out days where I’ve had little to do but think. And I’ve done a lot of thinking. Too much, probably.
Anyway, I’ve to bring the brother to the airport. While there, I’ll probably day-dream about escaping this island for a while and doing some travelling/living/discovering/etc. myself. I dunno. Before dropping him in there, I decided to go finish off my unemployment claim (had to bring in a few more things to them - proof of address, P45, the usual), but didn’t realise the local office (2 prefabs behind a Garda station, basically) doesn’t open on Tuesdays (WHY?) so I went and wandered around a bit.
I went down the main street and into a shop to buy a paper and some m&m’s and there was a man in there almost blocking the entrance lying on the floor having some sort of fit. Epileptic, probably - I’m not sure. Most of the staff were completely ignoring him, apart from one who was trying to get him into a chair and saying “You’re alright, Alan, you’re alright” over and over. A crowd of customers (at least twelve of them) were standing around - keeping their distance, but watching intently, like motorists who slow down to stare at a car crash.
I hate those people.
I paid for my paper (the Sun with the mildly attractive Irish Page 3 girl, Claire) and my m&m’s and asked the staff member if anyone had called an ambulance. “No” came the slightly surprising reply. “For fucks sake, do it then!” I said. She did. I left.
On the way home, listening to the radio in the car, I heard Claire, the Page 3 girl, who was on Ray D’arcy’s programme on Today FM. That show just keeps getting better and better, eh?
So, how’s your day going?
![Monty Python's Flying Circus - The Best Of Monty Python's Flying Circus - Vol. 1 [1969]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/516TDJW8R8L._SL160_.jpg)
3 Responses to “Slowing down to stare at a car crash”
I’ve run into the same thing recently. Very odd thing, I practically had to shoo some people to get them out of the way of someone trying to get into a theatre with water.
http://dansullivan.blogspot.com/2008/02/standing-about-gawking-isnt-form-of.html
Have you being listening to Phantom FM? They’re running a promo at the moment that totally rips the piss out of the Ray D’Arcy show. Quite funny.
Incidentally, something is pushing these comment boxes out by about 50 pixels to the right in Firefox.
Paul> Well, can you see the gravatar image on the left? That’s what’s pushing the comments over…
It looks like this:
Mine looks like this: 
Dan> Pretty similar experience, yes. And perhaps I should have hung around longer but I left the shop until I heard the staff member say “the ambulance is on its way”.