Hello Blogosphere

Hello Angels, I’m your substitute blogger for the week and you can call me Miss Panda. My first day on the job and I barely got my post in on time. Inkpot didn’t tell you anything about me, so I better introduce myself. I’m a Dublin girl, born and bred. I work in the entertainment industry. I met Inkpot a while ago at an audition. I don’t have a blog (although I have lurked) and I’m interested to try one on for size. As far as you are concerned, I’m about 5ft 6, am covered in black and white fur and have the round cuddly body of a panda. However, don’t be taken in by my looks. I have very powerful jaws and long claws on my paws (but mostly I look cute).
I thought I would spend the week telling you a bit about life in Ireland – or more specifically Dublin. My plan is to take a different aspect of Irish life and write about it every day. Today my topic is politics.
You may or may not know that Ireland is a Republic. That means it doesn’t have a king or queen and is run by a group of ugly bullying school teachers who like to give us lots of homework (aka raise our taxes) and slap us for being naughty (aka voting against their wishes in a referendum).
The country is split into 32 counties, 6 of which don’t belong to the Republic (and therefore don’t exist). The most important county is Dublin, because that’s where all the interesting people live, especially in the Southside. The city is divided by the River Liffey into the Northside (ugh) and the Southside. The people of the Northside and the Southside have been locked in battle since the Vikings first invented Dublin about a thousand years ago, but recently efforts have been made to bring peace and reconciliation. Landsdown Road (in the Southside) used to be where all the Rugby matches and interesting concerts were staged until the Bullies (I mean Government) shut it down for “refurbishment” and forced the rugger crowd to move to the Northside and play in Croke Park (home of the GAA – you know, Gaelic football and hurling and stuff like that). It was supposed to bring the two sides of the city together in their equal love of sport. The jury is still out on whether it succeeded or not.
The headmaster of the bullies is called the Taoiseach (pronounced Tea-Shock) and is always a member of the Fianna Fail party. There used to be other political parties but Fianna Fail lackeys planted body snatcher pods in their green houses and took them over.
As well as the Tee-Shock, Ireland also has a President. This was installed by the first Tea-Shock, the devil – oops, I mean DeVelara. He loved being given a salary by the state so much that he invented the need for a president and set himself up for the rest of his life. Since then several more ugly beggars have managed to get looked after by us poor students (I mean taxpayers).
Unlike places like the U.S, our president is nothing more than a well paid puppet that has to attend show jumping festivals and occasionally gets to shake hands with real presidents and important people. Unfortunately puppets do very well in Ireland and tend to take over our TV shows as well as our cushy political positions (Google Podge and Rodge if you don’t believe me).
The president lives in a big house in Phoenix Park called Aras an Uachtarain (which roughly translates as something about ice cream).

Phoenix Park is one of the biggest enclosed parks in the world and is bigger than Hyde Park in London and Central Park in New York.
Dail Eireann is where the Tea-Shock and his minions hang out. It is located somewhere near the President’s house. Here is a picture of our current Tea-Shock, Brain Cowan.

Once a president has filled her seven score years in office she can look forward to a large pension to keep her in the comfort she has grown accustomed to for the rest of her life. Once a Tea-Shock is finished wringing the country dry and selling his soul to Europe for a handful of beans, he can look forward to a retirement full of tribunals and being asked questions like “How much exactly was in those brown envelopes people kept on handing you while you were in office?”
I hoped you enjoyed your lesson about Ireland and its political system. There will be a written exam at the end of the week to see how much you took in.
As tomorrow is St Patrick’s day I thought I would tackle the subject of religion.
Slan
Miss Panda