NiallOK’s Blog

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I have to go to court this week… but no, I haven’t done anything wrong. I’ll explain,…

I had a brief ‘dabbling’ with the courts system a good few years ago when I was arrested by a rookie garda in Dublin city centre. At the time, I was in a group of people walking up a main street in the city. Without going into too much detail, a few guys in our group (whom I didn’t know) started causing hassle with some club bouncers, who then called the gardaí - a number of whom showed up and started - naturally - asking us to clear away from the area.

Having no wish to get in trouble, I started to leave - but stopped for a chat with another of the gardaí present, actually asking him to explain a section of a legal act that I was curious about - and that another garda had quoted me previously - and he was happy to oblige, explaining it in detail. I got the feeling from him that he realised that I was just a bystander, not involved in the incident at the club door, but while he was chatting with me, the first garda - a trainee - the one who had originally instructed me to move on - came over and formally arrested me for being drunk and disorderly and not moving on when asked. Read the rest of this entry »

One of the best singles out at the moment - one of the best things on Phantom’s playlist … and it’s about Dublin…

Been busy lately. Worked a fair bit. Got my new laptop. Met some legends of radio (Ray Foley is a lovely fellah, by the way) and enjoyed two new stations on the air now in Dublin (a college classmate of mine is reading the news on one of them!)… oh and I’m back in this situation again (off the cigarettes - and today is day 16, coincidentally) … but anyway… I’ll blog about all of that later.

For now, why not enjoy the wonderful attraction that is … a giant panda vomiting out top quality photos on a rainbow? … Oh YES!

Here he is!

Oh, and I made this video… just trying something out. Sad, I know.

Went to McDonalds today (won’t say which one) for a quick bite to eat. So much for my new year’s resolutions, eh? Broke both of them fairly quickly…

Anyway, I was sitting down, near enough to the counter, starting to dig into my double quarter pounder with just cheese, ketchup and lettuce - a burger whose size I wasn’t quite prepared for to be honest - when an asshole with a thick Dublin accent (the sort of thick Dublin accent that made him sound thick, to be honest) went up to the counter and after a minute started hurling abuse at the staff there at high volume.

When he got no joy from that, he called for the manager and started hurling abuse at her, eventually calming down after about 5 minutes and sitting down again. A few minutes later, a staff member went down to the table he was at with his family with a burger or something and had abuse hurled at her briefly before she escaped.

I asked one of the staff members what the heck it was all about and she explained that earlier, this guy had slipped on a wet patch of floor while walking down to his table. He fell, and his tray - full of food for 4 people - went all over him and the floor. After cleaning himself off and while two staff members cleaned the floor, he went back to the counter to get the food replaced. What made him fly off the handle and start yelling was that he was charged for the replacement food.

The thing is, the wet patch of floor was clearly marked. There were two or three ‘Wet Floor’ signs standing there, - and to compound it all - only 3 or 4 minutes previously a blind man with a cane had noticed and navigated his way safely around the wet patch thanks to those signs!! This guy though, just wasn’t paying attention - he didn’t look and ploughed straight through the signs onto the wet patch, slipping and ending up on his ignorant arse.

Then of course the pure embarrassment sets in for looking like such a tit, and the natural way to react to that is to deny responsibility and take it out on someone else - blaming the staff, blaming the manager, blaming anyone but your stupid ignorant arsed clumsy self.

The thing that surprised me most though was the sheer amount of abuse that the manager allowed herself and her staff to take from the guy. Frankly, if I was the manager I’d have told him to get himself and his family the hell out of the place immediately and never come back. Nobody should have to put up with assholes like that and staff should be more prepared to stand up for themselves and forget the age old adage of “The Customer is Always Right” … as it’s complete bollocks, really.