Seriously

Why aren't we billing people who irresponsibly go to sea or climb mountains in bad weather?

We've already heard of the surfers who went out to surf in 40 feet surges, only to demand that their rescuers, risking life and limb to save them, bring their boards onto the helicopter too.

Now we've got another flurry of idiots, as predictable as the inclement weather, hiking into difficulties that can only be resolved by their deaths or extremely expensive rescue operations which put the emergency service personnel themselves at risk of life and limb.

According to one rescuer, visibility was down to five feet due to freezing fog, with snow knee deep. Seriously, what the fuck were those morons doing, going up there in the first place, during a cold snap, in Winter?

Twats who go sailing around the world and end up seeking help to stop themselves drowning are, in many parts of the world, subsequently billed for the cost of their rescue. Often this is even covered by insurance policies which acknowledge and reflect the danger/stupidity (delete as you feel is applicable) of their endeavours.

That should apply to all such rescues. If you want to hike up mountains in Winter, then go get very expensive insurance, and let the state bill you for the cost of hauling your moron ass back to safety.

We're in an economic meltdown, for crying out loud.

Emergency services should be for genuine unforeseeable emergencies, not to act as an expensive taxpayer funded safety net for the rash thrill chasing of morons who don't check the weather forecasts (or indeed notice the snow belting down) before gallopping up mountains unprepared.

Kill off the marathon cult

Today I got penned into the house by a horde of marathon runners. It was a bit like being stuck in the house on the 12^th of July in the North, only without the sectarian banging of drums and alcoholism present.

However, the sense of smug and unwarranted superiority emanating from the sweaty, heaving throng of middle management jogging bores in shorts was just as potent as that which comes from an Orange Order march.

What is it that makes people, in this age of the combustion engine, want to run pointlessly for over 26 miles? Furthermore, why the fuck do they have to run past my doorstep and block the city up while they do it?

Fair enough, when Pheidippides first legged it from the site of the Battle of Marathon to Athens, he had a reason. He wanted to tell his pals that they had defeated the mighty Persians.

However, today’s numpties running in gorilla outfits or dressed as French waiters may be interested to learn that Pheidippides dropped dead on arrival in Athens.

No silver paper cape for him, no medal or commemorative T-shirt. No sense of palpable achievement. Just heart palpitations, the ironic words ‘Victory is ours!’ and then death.

Sadly, health science and medicine have improved somewhat in the past 25 centuries. Nowadays, even beer-bellied middle-aged men undergoing midlife crises can be cajoled to jog for 26 and a bit miles without death ensuing. More's the pity.

But that doesn’t mean that marathon running is good for you. It isn’t. The impact on the joints alone means that marathon running does more harm than good. Face it, the lesson of Pheidippides is that running for that distance is bad for you.

Of course, we live in a free society. If people insist on trying to add some challenge to their humdrum existences by running endlessly around various cities, who am I to try and stop them?

But can someone please explain to me the point of closing off the entire city for most of a day to let this cult of jogging loons have freedom of the roads?

It might be a bank holiday, but some people have work to go to, you know.

Others just want to go out and enjoy their day off without having to traverse their way through endless Garda diversions.

Diversions which have been judiciously placed to ensure freedom of the city for the jogging nutters and utter frustration for those who have lives and want to travel across town in order to live them.

In short, there’s no good reason to pen people into their homes in order to facilitate this cult of crazies in their lung-busting attempts to kill themselves slowly.

If there must be a Dublin Marathon, let’s have it at four in the morning over the Christmas holidays when it will cause least interruption to the rest of us.

Oh, and let the cars on the road at the same time. At least, with the addition of a goodly few festive drink-drivers weaving their way drunkenly at night and at speed through throngs of mongs in shorts, the Marathon might finally become a spectator sport I’d want to watch.

Eco-idiots, plane and simple

Eco-morons are currently preventing passengers at Manchester Airport domestic terminal from getting onto planes.

These delusional hobbits apparently believe that stopping people from going about their business (businesspeople being far and away the biggest travellers on domestic flights) is going to convert millions to their 'return to the Middle Ages' ethos.

Perhaps they should have turned their attention to the low-cost airlines that ply routes abroad instead, since that is where the bulk of so-called 'binge-flying' actually takes place.

But that would make sense, and these morons rarely make sense. As one astute London blogger has spotted, the last time these freaks held a protest, they protested in the wrong place.

Instead of targetting Easyjet, instead they targetted a completely different company. And now we see them, arm in arm in armtubes, blockading the wrong terminal at an airport.

The best thing about global warming is the prospect that these idiots will fry.

Who said Americans were stupid?

Aussie broadcasters reveal the true extent of the average American's idiocy and lack of knowledge of the world.

Q. Which countries are in the axis of evil?
A. California, New York, Florida, Mississippi...

Watch and weep!