Month: April 2016

Hopefully while you’re reading this, you’re sitting comfortably with a cup of coffee and not in any immediate danger of departing this world for the next. If, however, you happen to see a guy wearing a dark cloak and carrying a large scythe walking through the living room then you might want to cancel your holiday plans and forget about changing the car.

Death is one of the few certainties in life and the Grim Reaper is going to come for us all at some point. Less certain is what becomes of us after he has completed his dirty deed. Do we all meet up again in another space or is that the end of it? Well whatever the answer is I’m in no particular rush to find out.

While we might not be able to control what happens to us in another life we can certainly control how we leave this one and there are basically two options, burial or cremation.

Traditionally burial has been the standard form of interment for the majority of us in this country but in recent years, cremation has been gaining a large share of the market. When you consider that there are about thirty three thousand people dying every year then you can see how it could be a lucrative business to be involved in with no shortage of customers.

I personally have an issue with burial. I think that putting human remains, often very diseased remains, into the ground to decay is not very hygienic. Every village and town in Ireland has at least one piece of real estate set aside for use as a graveyard. These sites are full of holes containing human remains in various states of decomposition. Every now and again some of these holes are reopened to inter additional remains. That can’t be healthy for anyone living nearby.

Another difficulty I have with burial is the whole graveside scene. Standing around the newly dug grave, often in the rain and the cold is not the most dignified way to say a fond farewell to a loved one. The placing of the coffin into the ground is one of the most painful aspects of the entire funeral service. The dull thud of the coffin as it reaches its final resting place is always upsetting.

But apart from the cosmetics of the ceremony itself, there have been independent studies conducted into the condition of the soil in these places to establish if they present any health risks for the living. Apparently they do and that shouldn’t be any great surprise.

A Case Study of Zandfontein Cemetery in South Africa by Cornelia Jonker^* and Jana Olivier shows that aDepartment of Environmental Sciences, University of South Africa, P.O. Box X6, Florida 1710, South Africa; Email: az.oc.bewm@1anaj^* Author to whom correspondence should be addressed; Email: az.ca.asinu@zceknoj; Tel.: +27-12-543-0185.pproximately 60,000 coffins were buried at that cemetery in Pretoria, South Africa. The study was aimed at determining whether this burial load affected the mineral composition of the cemetery soils, thereby causing a potential health risk. The results indicated that burial loads have a direct impact on soil-mineral content and that cemeteries can be regarded as sources of contamination.

They recommended that similar studies should be conducted at other cemeteries to establish whether they should be considered to be similar to, or even more hazardous than landfill sites.

Another case study in Portugal examined groundwater contamination in cemeteries and concluded that cemeteries may contribute to groundwater contamination. Site-specific risk assessments should be conducted to protect the groundwater and provide a normal process of body decomposition.

Cremation on the other hand appears to be a cleaner method of disposing of human remains. The service takes place indoors and at the end of the ceremony the coffin simply disappears behind a curtain. The remains are reduced to ash with extreme heat and then at a later stage the family are presented with a neat little box containing the ashes of their loved one.

The idea that we should still be putting bodies into the soil seems a little strange to me when you consider the regulations that exist in relation to septic tanks which appear, on the face of it, to present a far less serious health risk.

Septic tanks were a regular feature on our landscape for many years but if you try to put one on your property these days you will be made to jump through many hoops by the planning authority. The disposal of domestic human waste is a serious business. There was a time when you could get your friendly farmer to empty the septic tank and he would then spray his field with the contents to give the earth some nutrients. Good for the crops they said.

Nowadays there are volumes of regulations in place in relation to septic tanks to ensure that you don’t contaminate the water table and poison your neighbours. The waste must be almost edible before you can discharge it into the ground and it must smell of rose petals. That’s as it should be but maybe we should be giving burials the same consideration.

In ancient India, elderly people who were close to death would often chose to have themselves rowed out into the middle of the Ganges River and then they would throw themselves into the sacred water and disappear in the flood. Forever.

Now I’ve been giving this some thought. If we were to chuck all our grannies into the River Lee we could definitely reduce the number of graves. It might clog up the shipping lanes in the lower harbour and it would probably create some issues for the local fishermen. It’s early days and this idea needs some more work but apart from that I think I’m on to something.

Driving back from Dublin recently I decided to stop off for a cup of coffee so when I saw a sign for services I decided to take that exit. I didn’t study the sign, just more or less glanced at it. I expected to find the service area just off the motorway but maybe that was expecting too much.

I was driving along a poor road for a bit until I eventually found myself in Cashel. I poked around there until I spotted a restaurant. The restaurant was fine and I have no problem with either the food or the service. My issue is that I didn’t want to be in Cashel. If I had wanted to visit the place, I would have planned for it.

I don’t think it’s unreasonable to expect the service area to be adjacent to the motorway. Neither do motorists wishing to take a quick break expect to exit the motorway and spend the rest of the day negotiating traffic in a congested town while trying to find a place to park and get something to eat.

As it happens, I wasn’t in a rush that day but if I had been on a tight schedule and just wanted a quick fuel stop I would have been furious. As it was I could happily have dug up that sign, cut it into small pieces and chucked it into the office of the Taoiseach of Cashel or whoever is responsible for putting it there.

I was angry with the community too. It was like being in an old Hitchcock movie and this was all part of a huge conspiracy. The locals had deliberately tricked me into making this detour into their small town. They were peeping out through the curtains and they were laughing at me behind closed doors. They knew the strange secret of this town and I would be lucky to get out alive. Many had made this journey before me and were never heard of again. I could hear the scary music in my ears.

Of course that’s not true. But it is true to say it’s extremely irritating to be taken on an unnecessary detour. I would imagine that I’m not the only one to have made this road trip.

I understand that certain towns have suffered because of the introduction of the motorway system and I can see why they want to attract visitors and generate some income. On the other hand all of our European visitors are well used to motorway driving and they would not expect to make an overnight hike just to find the services.

There is a serious lack of service areas on the Cork to Dublin route which seems to be down to a number of issues. Things like planning applications, objections, appeals, more objections, more appeals, lack of funding and probably a boat load of red tape.

The planners have to consider a number of things when it comes to the granting of permission for a service area. They have to make sure that there is a need for one, that it won’t adversely affect the environment, that it won’t undermine the core business in the locality and that it won’t constitute a hazard to traffic.

That’s fair enough. Everything has to be done properly and to a specific standard and that’s how it should be. I’m a believer in health and safety and all that. Those who construct motorway service areas understand this too so it shouldn’t be a major problem. But this is Ireland so everything takes an eternity and there are always problems. If problems don’t exist, then we create some.

At the end of the day what most people want to do is to exit the motorway, use a bathroom, grab a coffee and a sandwich or whatever and be on the road again. The design of motorway service areas caters for that need. It’s a simple formula that creates a slip road into the area, provides parking and services within the area, and creates another slip road to get back out onto the motorway again.

They are in operation all over the world and they seem to work very well. You don’t hear too many stories of mayhem and chaos in service areas. You don’t hear of cars and trucks colliding and causing total carnage and it doesn’t take a fleet of traffic cops to organise parking. You don’t need to do a course on how to enter and exit a motorway service area. It all runs fairly smoothly and there’s no big mystery to it.

The planners/developers have to make sure they don’t create a traffic hazard but by not getting on with the construction of these things they are continuing to endorse an already existing hazard. Motorists at the moment are pulling in where they shouldn’t, while trying to find gates and hedges that they can duck behind to use as an outdoor loo.

You regularly see parents of young children struggling to balance the child precariously on the side of the road, trying to avoid disaster as the poor child has its bum exposed to the wind and rain and risking hypothermia for the want of a pee.

There are drivers fighting tiredness for the lack of a coffee or the want of a place to pull in to throw the seat back for half an hours sleep. These are the real hazards.

So please, just get on with it and build the damn things before we start using time travel and we will no longer need them.

 

 

 

It has now become very possible for us to go through life without having to engage with another human being. We have technology that allows us to survive without ever having to speak to anyone ever again. All you need is an internet connection and a smart phone or a tablet and a desire to be a little anti-social.

With online banking you can pay for your mortgage or rent and your utilities with the click of a button. You can shop at your local store online and have your groceries delivered to your front door. You can pay your motor tax and insurance online. If you decide you need a break you can book a flight online, print off your boarding pass and if you want to buy something for the flight you can use the self- service checkout facility in most airports. You can do all this without having to speak a word to another living soul.

You can drive where you like without asking for directions because now you just put your destination in the satellite navigation system and follow the lady’s instructions.

This is great news for those who have a desire to live as a recluse but, like everything else in life, it’s not always straightforward. Sometimes the machinery can let you down and it becomes necessary to speak to a person, but then sometimes they can be a little broken too.

I had time to spare recently and I decided to renew my car insurance. So I went to the car and took out the insurance disc to get the details, got my credit card ready and I was all set to go.

The name of the insurance company was on the disc. So I called them and after selecting twenty different options I eventually got to speak to a human person type. She was a nice, friendly lady.

I told her my insurance was due for renewal and gave her my policy number. She then told me I wasn’t insured with them and that I must have gone through a broker. I assured her that I had an insurance disc in my hand that had her company name written on it and I was pretty certain that I hadn’t used a broker for over forty years.

She advised me that I was insured with another company who had apparently taken over some of their business. Ok, but while I was on the phone with this lady I thought it would be worthwhile to get a quote. But there was a problem. Even though I had been a customer of this company for many years they couldn’t quote me for a renewal but they could give me a quote for a new policy as a new customer.

So for the sake of it I decided to get a new quote. The nice lady asked all the usual questions but the computer was crashing on her because it kept sending her back to the old Trevor instead of the new Trevor that old Trevor had to become in order to get a new quote. We eventually arrived at a figure but then she advised me that I could get it cheaper if I did it online myself. I thanked the nice lady and hung up feeling a little bewildered.

Next I went to the company that I was now apparently insured with. I went through the same ritual with another nice lady and eventually arrived at another price. I thought that this was a bit excessive and she informed me that all the premiums had increased thanks to our nice Government people. I told her that it was too dear and that I was going to try elsewhere and the nice lady immediately reduced the price by fifty Euros. I paid that because I had spent enough time on the phone and I was losing the will to live.

After a short rest I decided to pay the Road Tax. I got on to the website and entered my PIN. I went through the various pages of data and got to the point where I entered my credit card details and suddenly all these red letters appeared on my screen. I had entered some incorrect information so the machine told me to try again. I did what I was told with the same result. Then the machine told me that it was cancelling my effort and that I would have to wait to try again because I had exhausted my time.

Well they were right about that. I had exhausted myself and apparently the machinery as well. So I just closed the lid of the lap top and put it away gently with the intention of trying again the next day. I’m actually quite proud of myself because those nice people in the insurance companies and the motor tax office have no idea how close I was to putting the lap top into the car and sending the car into the river.

There is no doubt that technology can definitely improve our quality of life but it’s far from perfect. Tesco and Morrison’s in the UK introduced the self-service checkout system but found customers felt that the voice on the machine was too aggressive and sounded as if it was shouting at them. To overcome this problem they had to make new recordings with a friendlier voice.

So, let me offer a word of caution to any of you considering the life of a recluse. Keep some human lines of communication open because sometimes they’re easier to get along with.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In Ireland we only started naming our storms recently but already we’ve had Abigail, Desmond, Eva, Frank, Gertrude, Imogen and the most recent one was Jake, I think. I’m probably missing a few but at this rate it looks as if we’re going to need a longer alphabet. We also have a colour coded tag for the severity of the wind, yellow, orange and red just in case it feels left out.

Whatever about the name or the colour, they all have one thing in common. They upset us and we don’t like that. Strong winds, heavy rain, flooding, fallen trees and wires, loss of electricity and pot holes. They cause inconvenience to our travel plans with flights being delayed or cancelled and disruption to ferries and trains and it is all very irritating.

And after every storm we get a crop of fresh pot holes, nice big ones that could eat your wheel or sometimes your entire car. We complain long and hard about these and eventually, after a few years, the council workers come along with their trucks and their shovels. They fill the craters with tar and beat the piles into submission with the back of the shovel. If necessary they drive over the humps of tar to make them nice and neat and all is well again.

That is until the next storm comes and washes all the tar out of the holes and we find ourselves back at square one.

There is so much rain falling here that we are all in danger of drowning. If countries could shrink, Ireland we would be no bigger than Blackpool Shopping Centre at this stage. We can’t drain the land because we’re a tiny little island sitting on a large body of water. We can only divert water and move the problem from one area to the next. It’s kind of like playing pass the parcel with water.

Then when the land is so wet that it can’t possibly take any more water, we open the dams to relieve the pressure and we wet it some more. When we have submerged another few villages we toddle off to the insurance companies to get some money to fix the damage but they won’t cover it because we’re prone to flooding. So it’s a vicious circle and Mother Nature is in charge.

The US Department of State is used to this kind of weather and it does offer advice for its citizens who are thinking of travelling to storm-prone regions. “Those who choose to travel should devise an emergency plan in advance of their departure.  Even inland areas far from the coastline can experience destructive winds, tornadoes, mudslides, and floods from tropical storms”.

While, hopefully, we won’t reach those levels of destruction here, maybe it’s time the State Department added Ireland to its list of dangerous destinations. They would also need to add a little paragraph about potholes for the information of those travellers thinking of hiring a car when they arrive.

They would have to include a survival manual for those unfortunate enough to encounter one and they could recommend carrying a step ladder and some climbing ropes. They could also have some photographs of the more regular potholes that reappear after each storm. Maybe we should even start naming them too.

In America they can say with some certainty that the hurricane season runs from the beginning of June to the end of November.  Typhoon season typically runs from April to December, and cyclone season runs from November to April.

We can be less accurate here but we can definitely say that our storms are likely to happen between January first and December thirty first. On the positive side, apart from a few freak cold snaps, snow is scarce.

So, seeing that the weather is so unpredictable, what advice should we give to our visitors then?

According to Discover Ireland,” there’s no such thing as a perfect time to visit Ireland. The summer months are considered high season for visitors and they come for the long sunny evenings, parks in full bloom and eating al fresco in cafés. And of course they come for the summer festivals”.

“Autumn and spring are mid-seasons for travellers who enjoy kicking bronze-burnished leaves about in autumn, while spring sees nature kick into gear and flowers blossom. As for winter, a walk through a national park on a clear, crisp winter’s day can mean seeing nature at its most impressive”.

Kicking bronze-burnished leaves about in autumn sounds idyllic and creates a lovely image of harmless fun and carefree abandon. But there’s no mention of the fact that this would be likely to get you showered in dog poop.

They also have some advice about what clothing our tourists should bring with them. “You’ll need to be adaptable so go for layers that you can put on or take off as the temperature changes. Bring a sweater, even in summer, waterproofs to accompany all outdoor activities, sunglasses, comfortable walking shoes and an umbrella and when the sun shines in Ireland it’s quite strong, so wear a high factor and bring a sun hat”.

And don’t forget the kitchen sink!

While the general impression is that it rains quite a lot of the time in Ireland, Met Eireann says,” the average number of wet days ranges from about 150 days a year along the east and south east coasts, to about 225 days a year in parts of the west”.

The rest of the time it’s just damp.