meditations on a day in dublin

Wandering through the Stephens Green Centre art gallery.
There are paintings of members of the pop group U2 hanging on the wall.
Bono, Larry, Philmore and Scrotie.
The paintings are priced at 5000 quid each.
I think to myself: "I'd nearly pay 5000 quid if they'd just take the blooming things down."

Afternoon in the pharmacy at Lucan.
A secret of the universe has just become apparent to me.
No pretty girl working in a pharmacy anywhere on the surface of the planet earth since time began has ever been attracted to a man to whom she has just sold worm tablets.

Evening in Starbucks of Dawson Street.
Across the road I can see a building occupied by something called The New Ireland Assurance Company.
There are adverts in the windows.
One of the adverts trumpets that "€3.13 a day can provide a lump sum of €200,000."
Can provide.
Can indeed.
Rarely happens though I'll wager.
You'll have more chance of getting €200,000 if you throw a dead cat over your shoulder in a graveyard at midnight.
Well, it cures warts.
Hilarious no?
They're still at it.
The financial services people are still playing the same old games.
It doesn't matter how many people have lost money with them in the past, they reckon more fools will be along presently.
We have to start looking out for each other.
We have to start shouting these hucksters off the stage.
In any case if you really feel like giving the New Ireland Assurance Company €3.13 a day, you should remember you're going to end up paying them more than a thousand quid a year.
I'd advise you to keep your money.
Let the heros of the New Ireland Assurance Company start to work for a living instead.
By getting real jobs.
The financial services con job industry is past its sell by date.
Memo to the New Ireland Assurance Company: If you'd care to send me just €20 a day for three decades, maybe someday in the far future I'll pay you ten million quid. No guarantees mind. Depending how I'm feeling thirty years from now.
Ha, ha, ha.