Hello, everyone!
How’s your summer?
Sometimes, Ireland can be a depressing place to live in, and I don’t mean weather wise.
In the wee hours of Sunday 16 Aug, a horrendous accident happened on Ireland’s M9 highway. A BMW got on the highway in the wrong direction, and collided head-on with another car travelling in the right direction. All five men inside the BMW died on the scene; the four passengers in the other car, three women and a boy were seriously injured. The five men in their late teens to early 20’s had stolen the BMW for what news media had repeatedly called a “joyride.” This incident happened just days after another similar one on the M50 highway, where eight men crammed into a stolen Toyota, drove on to the highway in the wrong direction, and collided with another car. Apparently these crimes were committed, filmed and uploaded to TikTok, for some fucking likes. I understand this is not a unique Irish problem. On Saturday, a carbon copy of the accidents above happened in England, killing all seven people involved, two of which police officers. I can’t help but wonder how the system has created these monsters? Is it the parents, the schools, the community, or the news media? Or maybe all of the above? I don’t know if there’s an answer to the question, but at least somebody should go look for one.
And now, we get to my recent encounter with a bunch of racist young males, the same type as the monsters in the accidents above.
If you object to explicit languages, please avert your eyes. Skip to the first photo, and you’d be safe.
One evening, George went out for his bike ride after dinner, I was after him as usual. We passed a football pitch. On a bench sat a bunch of young men. As I walked past, one of them yelled: “slow down, jackass.” I supposed it was at me, because there was no one else in the 50 metre radius from these fuckers. I turned around and walked back to their bench and asked the men: What did you just say? The fucker immediately folded and said he was talking to another one in the group. He didn’t even make eye contact. I find his cowardice almost funny. I was expecting a confrontation, but I don’t think they were expecting me to respond at all. Fucking pussies! I told them to shut the fuck up, and went on my way. As I was walking about 20 metres away from the bunch, the fucker started again, and the rest of the bunch joined the chorus. I can’t be bothered with these pathetic dinguses, so I kept walking. Shit like this does not happen every day, but just often enough that it never leaves my head. Over time, I’ve started to see the pattern. It’s always teenagers, mostly men, in groups, where they feel safe, and in situations where they expect no response at all, much less any pushback. In my case, I was chasing after a little dude on bicycle. Every time without fail, the second I confront these assholes, they turned into their mama’s boy. I’d hazard a guess that they never do this shit to anyone who’s white, and that is one of the failures I’ve observed of the Irish society. Underneath the performative niceness, there’s something else. Racism is taught by…. Someone needs to fill in the blanks.
That’s the end of the joyful blabbering of this week. I hope you’ve enjoyed it.
On to photos. I don’t have much. I think I hit a wall again. So here’s some photos I shot around the house. I don’t pretend they are half decent, but I don’t have anything else. So here we go.
George’s cryptic.
A photo of a photo.
Budding.
Shadow on table.
Suncream in the sun.
Backyard.
Shark tank.
Have you noticed the last two percent of the toothpaste lasts longer than the other 98 percent? And if you have a new tube ready, forget about it, the old one becomes bottomless.
And that’s it for today! Thank you for stopping by! Enjoy the week ahead! Until next time!
The thought of getting attention by whatever horrendous video you put out on Social Media apparently is enough incentive to commit such crimes. I see and hear so much violence and verbal abuse, I sometimes have serious difficulty with not going nuts about it. Our societies (the Netherlands aren't that different from urban Ireland in this respect) are full of people who obviously have decided there's no reason to be polite, friendly or even just well-behaved. They lack compassion, respect, and are, as you rightfully say, often real cowards, Hang in there, my friend.
I'm glad to see you still feel inclined to take beautiful and playful black and white photos. You're right about the tooth paste, by the way.
Fuck em. This shit seems everywhere these days but I see the same reactions myself, they shrink into themselves when confronted and attempt to gaslight. Fuck em.