Kiss me...

So, as I think the whole world knows March 17th was indeed St Patrick's day. Living in a country other than Ireland now I think it's kind of weird that most other places seem to celebrate it to a much greater extent than Ireland. I mean I don't ever remember Belfast having a parade with a large amount of inflatables or having to queue for 6 blocks to get into a bar. As for the green beer...what's wrong with Guinness or Harp...at least they're the correct colour and actually Irish, imagine that! However I will admit I miss having the day off and watching the rugby.
I think what annoys me...like massively annoys me is this thing where everyone tries to prove their Irish. This isn't an annoyance which stems from me being 100% Northern Irish, nope, this stretches to all the sort of claims like this whether it be Irish, Spanish or Australian. I think it annoys me more because I live somewhere which is classed as a 'new' country and therefore a lot of people have immigrated here as supposed to being born here....myself included.
My peeve comes to a head on days like St Paddy's Day. Last year I heard someone proudly claim they were 1/12th Irish....yeah...and I'm 1/18th Apache. Seriously...that is how ridiculous it sounds. I don't even understand how you can be 1/12th something...how do you even work that out! I mean it doesn't annoy me if someone was to say oh my parents are Irish or my grandparents are Irish...even great grandparents. It's this 1/12th, 1/9th 1/whatever...what do you base this calculation on?!!? Clearly if you're telling someone you're a fraction Irish...you're not Irish. Like I said this goes for every country not just Ireland. I don't understand why people do it. Are they unwilling to say where they were born? Is there a need to belong to more than one country? I just don't really get it.
It gets better when they start to run through the shopping list of countries that a fraction of them belongs to. It usually goes something like 1/12th Irish, 1/9th Norwegian, 1/6th Japanese...I don't even know how they calculate this. To me it sounds like one of those ridiculous claims on Jerry Springer...I'm having an affair with my mum's brother's sister's best friend's uncle's hoover and want to marry it. I honestly don't get it...however next time someone says it to me I am tempted to say I am 1/6th Mexican just to see the looks on their faces at my blatant lie.

Wikipedia and Norn Iron so it is...

I love Wikipedia. It really is the best website ever. One minute you're looking at 'Sparta' and the next you're looking up 'poppies' in some sort of wild prolonged random tangent. However recently I've felt slightly dismayed by my source of all knowledge.
It all started when I was in a store and a song called 'Africa' came on but not the version I knew. To be honest this is so far from my taste in music that I'd rather push pieces of wood under my finger nails than listen to it but I was sure this was not the song I'd heard before. So I googled it...and low and behold Wikipedia had the answer. Firstly I found out that this was a cover of the song I had thought it was and secondly I was a tad miffed. I kind of put Wikipedia up there on a knowledge pedestal only for it to be knocked off it when I discovered it had a flippin page dedicated to 'Africa' by Carl Wolf...since when did that deserve a page?!!? It's not even his song! When did music artists get so uncreative that they just keep releasing covers?? I did not go on my usual tangent into Wikipedia that day. I closed the page and sulked.
I use Wikipedia quite a bit when people ask me questions about home. I mean it's really just too hard to explain the vast history of the problems in Northern Ireland to someone. Someone once said to me in total shock that they'd just realised that Bloody Sunday wasn't just a nice song by U2....give me strength. My response was "no...one of the most well known and most violent days in Ulster's history was not just a 'nice' U2 song". So recently I decided to take a proper look at what Wikipedia said about some Northern Ireland related events...have to say it kind of puts a bit of a one sided slant on some of the things.
Unfortunately there is not a Wikipedia page that I can direct people to when they ask the question "Do you not feel so much safer now you're not living there??". Answer in short...no. I actually would be more scared of the random violent events that take place everywhere else. I think most of N.I's problems are targetted. I lived there for 18 years and I don't think I ever once feared for my safety and that included being stuck in a bomb scare which actually had a bomb. Plus I'm young enough to have missed most of the severe violence but both my parents lived through it unscaved.
My friend Pete once asked me if I'd ever seen the Captain Planet episode about Northern Ireland. Captain Planet is a cartoon superhero that was designed to increase peoples knowledge and awareness of pollution etc...and apparently world events. I watched the episode and honestly I think it suggests that all of N.I's problems can be solved if we all co existed and ran bread factories and bakeries together.... click for a bread shaped tomorrow
I mean wouldn't bread just solve all of the world's issues...hunger, poverty, war could all be solved with a piece of sundried tomato focaccia.
So yes in all my readings I was thinking about retarded questions I've been asked about home. Here is my list...and I apologise in advance for any which are not policially correct but it is what I was asked.
Do they have cars in Ireland?
Do they have roads in Ireland?
Do they have black people in Ireland?
Do people only eat potatoes? (originally I thought they were joking...they weren't)
Is everyone in a sort of mob?
Do you own a gun?
Have you ever been shot?
Have you ever seen someone be shot?
Have you ever used a gun?
Can the Northern Ireland and Southern Ireland not just be one place? (ummmmm....)
Is the head of the IRA Michael Flatley? (I think I actually laughed so hard at that one I cried)
I think Northern Ireland in general gets a bit of a bad reputation. It's honestly not as bad or as backward as the people who ask me retarded questions appear to think. The last one is fantastic though...I could just see terrorist organisations putting down their weapons in favour of Irish dancing.
I love Northern Ireland and miss it and although I wouldn't go back to live it'll always be home. I also still love Wikipedia even though it has a page dedicated to 'Africa' by Carl Wolf...it did answer my question I suppose...