Relax. Take a break. You deserve it.

Traditionally August is known as the silly season. You spend the rest of the year trying to keep up with the more serious stuff, the good and the bad, coming at you in a ceaseless torrent from the news media, print, television, radio, and more recently over the Internet.

Wars, plagues, politics, disasters of every sort, earthquakes, droughts, floods, elections.

This is the time to have a quiet chuckle at the more flippant events of the season.

Recently the good burghers of Dublin-that's an Irish oxymoron-discovered that their spanking new, rust proof, self-cleaning Millennium Spire in the middle of O'Connell Street, isn't. It will need to have its rust and dirt removed in a cleaning operation every year and a half, something its promoters turned a blind eye to, a Nelsonian touch that will cost taxpayers from now to eternity, or until it blows down, or up, depending on the wind or an old alarm clock.

Still in Dublin:

Wee Willie Winkie
Ran through the town,
Upstairs and downstairs,
In his nightgown.
Rapping at the windows,
Crying through the lock,
"The pub has no licence,
The Dáil is closing down!"

Seems the bar in Leinster House, of fond memory, (see "A Reporter's Reminiscences") hasn't got a licence to sell beer and spirits, and hasn't had one for the eighty odd years of its existence, making it the oldest shebeen in the land.

Lawmakers breaking the licensing laws! Irish lawmakers breaking the licensing laws!! Saint Patrick must be having a fit.

According to Willie O'Dea, Minister of State at the Department of Justice, there are some people who believe the bar is not legal, and the Justice Minister himself, Michael O'Dowell, will now introduce legislation to grant a licence to the Dáil bar.

In July, Inchigeelagh was the town on everyone's lips, from Malin Head to Mizen Head, from the Cape to the Horn, the Magdalens to the Queen Charlottes, and all points in between, when it won renown as the home of a real life Mr. Magoo who went shooting wascally wabbits along the Main Street of Dunmanway at 3 a.m.

He missed, but succeeded in blasting a hole in the family home. His solicitor told Cork Criminal Court it was a case of "drunken bravado". The Judge accepted a plea of reckless endangerment with a firearm, and imposed a fine of €500.

The Dunmanway rabbits are renowned for their fierce nature, and tourists are advised to avoid them, especially in the early hours.

And in Canada, a Vancouver man claimed his pet rabbit attacked him. His story was deemed too far fetched to be credible, and he was prosecuted for throwing his bunny against a wall and kicking it-the bunny, not the wall.

Not to be outdone, a bloke in England was sentenced to five years in jail for shooting himself.

Seems he got into a row at a pub, went home, collected a shotgun, and headed back to the pub to continue the row.

Not wanting to be seen carrying the gun, he shoved it down his trousers, and accidentally discharged it, making life painfully difficult.

Because the shotgun was a banned weapon, a judge at the Sheffield Crown Court said he had no option but to impose the statutory minimum sentence of five years imprisonment.

That really hurt.

There is a building boom taking place in Ireland, thanks to the roaring Celtic Tiger economy. Natives are blasé, having seen it all before. An archaeology conference has found that the megalithic tomb complex at Carrowmore, in Sligo, is older than the Egyptian pyramids. In fact, the greatest public building boom in the country took place between 4,200 BC and 3,500 BC.

Joyceans know their Leopold Bloom, but what of Godfrey Bloom? Talk about putting your foot in it, Godfrey put both feet in it. Godfrey represents the United Kingdom's Independence Party in the European Parliament in Strasbourg, where he told a women's rights committee that no self-respecting businessman would employ a woman of child-bearing age. He went on to say that women "do not clean enough behind the fridge, and should spend more time at home."

Thanks are due to the Ottawa Citizen newspaper for its in-depth reporting on the composition of the new federal Cabinet of Prime Minister Paul Martin. From it we learn that of the 39 members only 9 are women, 13 have grey hair, 4 of white hair, 10 have brown hair, 7 have black hair, 5 have blond hair, and there are no bald members. There is no mention of redheads.

Such discrimination against bald people and redheads is an infringement of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and merits reference to the Supreme Court of Canada.

Thankfully the silly season will soon be over.

--30--