Northern Ireland has its share of stupid news too!

14 July 2011
430

R. Linda:

Well, not to be outdone, me sainted little apple cheeked, grey haired Mam (after reading me latest blog entries) sent me her hometown news. So in all fairness of which be more ridiculous, hers or mine, I be setting to paper the news from Newry, Northern Ireland in the little section of that town where me parents still live. I see a lot of similarities I do, which just goes to show people are no different no matter where they live.

Just last week the neighbour down the road from me sainted parental units, called the local constabulary about a harassment complaint. The men in uniform responded quickly to find the neighbour living alone except for his dog, a German Schnauzer named Sigfried. Seems Siggy (as he's affectionately referred to) did not like the new brand of dog food his owner had purchased. A lot of yipping, nipping, and not coming when called was acted out to show Siggy's displeasure. FOR THIS the constables were rung up to come settle the irate Siggy down to "good doggy" status. On finding out that THIS be what they were called for, the men in uniform told the owner the only way to resolve his Siggy problem was to go back to the old dog food and so they left him to work on the issue himself. Hum, don't get comfortable there is more to this.

Seems two days later a German Schnauzer with a blue bandanna around it's neck, but no collar or owner tags, was seen running amok after a ginger cat in the vicinity of me Mam and Da's next door neighbour Mrs. McConnelly. The cat was hers and she was upset the dog was going to eat her cat if it got hold of it. She told the men in uniform, "That dog be awfully hungry, acts like it hasn't eaten in a week!" Well, the men in uniform recognised the dog as being one Siggy, the harassing Schnauzer. They netted the still irate animal and took it down to it's alleged owner's house, only the man wasn't home he was at Sainsbury's super market returning a ton of dog food he had got on sale just a week earlier. Having no recourse, the constables transported the angry dog to the dog pound where I be sure Siggy got a decent dinner, and leaving a note for the absent owner where he could retrieve his dog. Gees.

I see me Mam too has a 999 call to rival the 911 I reported on. Seems 999 was dialed and whoever was on the calling end hung up. Never a good thing, it could be a robber keeping the woman of the house from ringing for help by grabbing the receiver and hanging it up. Luckily the local constabulary has caller I.D. and the local men in uniform drove over to the suspect address guns drawn. Seems the people who answered the door were terribly shaken and surprised to see them, guns pointing in their direction. When told a call had come to their offices from that residence, the wife said, "Oh my that must have been me! I was dusting the phone and didn't realise . . . " Yup.

Seems another strange call was from an elderly gent who had some property papers he was having trouble deciphering, so he rang up the boys down at the station and had one of them come up and spend the evening helping him sort through. Oh boy.

I rather find this one fascinating. A farmer outside of town couldn't get his own village police because they were elsewhere occupied assisting immigration and customs on taking into custody an illegal immigrant from Bangladesh for opening an Indian food Restaurant without the proper paperwork (I'll let you think on that one and just go on, shall I?) so the farmer called the next town over and got me Mam's local men in uniform who reluctantly left their jurisdiction to have a look see. Seems the complaint was that two cars filled with men had covertly pulled off into the hedgerows, and the men were chasing the farmer's sheep around the field. He was not sure what exactly they had in mind when they captured the sheep, nor what they were going to do with them. HUM. Anyway, the men were caught and rounded up for questioning. Their explanation was they had been to their local, had a few drinks and then challenged each other to who could find the tallest sheep. So they were all out in the field measuring. Yup. How exactly they were doing this without benefit of tape measures no one could say. I gotta tell ya, I be suspicious it wasn't measuring for tall sheep they were about. Harrumph!

There was also a complaint on harassing phone calls, almost like the one I wrote about. Talk about coincidence, a call was put through to the local men in uniform that a man down on McConnell Street was getting harassing calls. They went down to investigate this and sure enough as they walked up to the house they called hear the phone ringing off the hook. Well, it turned out to be the man's son's school calling to tell him, school was having a two hour delay opening the next day because of repairs being made to the water pipes that burst in the school basement. Seems the School Calling System kept redialing the same numbers over and over and . . .

And here's a familiar complaint, seems Siggy's owner had had enough of that overly particular dog. He gave Siggy to a woman down the road on a "trial basis," but seemed after a week, the old owner was missing that stupid dog and so he called the woman to see how she and Siggy were getting along, in the hopes that Siggy was giving her as hard a time and would be given up to him, the old owner. Well, the woman was not returning any of his calls so he rang up the boys in uniform to go make sure that hungry dog hadn't eaten her. The boys in uniform advised the "former" owner his call was a "civil matter" and that he could take the woman to small claims on the situation if he was inclined. Yes, R. Linda, the boys in uniform had had enough of Siggy and his former owner. And if Siggy had really gotten all that hungry and eaten the woman, shoes and all, who'd know?

Another situation was a man called the local constabulary because he was getting billed by a snow plow company and after ignoring them, was now getting harassing phone calls demanding payment. The man didn't own a driveway, nor had it snowed this being July. The man stated he had never hired a snow plow company in his life living as he did on the top floor of a flat that's front door opened onto a sidewalk where there was no driveway. He didn't own a car either, so he was not a happy gent. The local constabulary mediated between the frustrated non existent driveway owner and the plow company and all was resolved. Now that sounds like something that could very well happen HERE!

Oh the fun continues! After celebrating an Orange parade, a family of Proddys had a backyard cookout. Only the drink took over the celebration and a dispute broke out with a few broken noses. The next door Catholic neighbours were amused and called the men in uniform. Hearing who the party givers were, the men in uniform recruited a few more men in uniform fearing some kind of rock and bottle throwing party was in progress. So off they went and when they got there, it seemed the dispute was over a volleyball score, that one side said the other cheated and fist-a-cuffs broke out and that was only the women! The men were egging them on, literally tossing hand fulls of egg salad in the midst of the fist-a-cuffs, they said to break it up, but you know that wasn't why. Police mediated the dispute and to the clapping and cheers of the Catholic neighbours on both sides, the police withdrew leaving sulky egg salad drenched party goers with a few bloody and broken noses watching them go and then slinking inside to get out of sight of the cheering and hooting neighbours. How embarrassing.

Last one for now, it was reported that Donahan Dugen was driving home in the rain when the road got very slick. Dugen's tyres were treadless because he just could not find the time nor the money to buy new ones. So it wasn't a surprise when his motor water planed spinning him around and ended up in a culvert. Problem was, though the motor was facing toward the road, it was bogged down in mud and no way could Dugen get it moving. Add to this, Mrs. Jackie Clooney who was directly across the street sitting in her large bay window sipping tea and listening to the rain pour (one of her favourite things), found her serenity interrupted when Dugen's motor came spinning into view. That it didn't end up over itself was good she told officers later, BUT the tyres spinning in the ditch was interrupting the quiet and she could not hear the rain falling for the grind of tyres and oh the smoke coming up and then a loud POP (which was one of the treadless tyres bursting). So she had called the police with a complaint of someone disturbing her peace. It was found that Dugen was unable to drive from the scene for being beyond the motor's axle in mud, and flat tyre which further inhibited any forward progress. He was given a ticket for reckless driving and failing to operate a safe vehicle. BUT it doesn't end there, there was rain all that night and all next morning and the tow company finally showed up after lunch. By now Dugen's motor had sunk in the muddy earth and as Mrs. Clooney later said, it looked like "some kind of horrible metal sculpture" that she was forced to take her tea staring at. Now this was sometime ago, and well the tow company came out again when it dried up but the car was now cemented in that culvert and having no shovels they did nothing about it. This drove Mrs. Clooney to near distraction it did. No matter how many times she complained, and how many times the towers came out, the circumstances stayed static. But not all was lost. On the front page of me Mam's local news was a picture of a first place garden prize winner entitled Car Being Born. There it was, Dugen's forgotten and dilapidated motor, the  front end sticking up in the air, the back end long sunk in the earth and in the shattered front windows was a burst of colour. The old rusted thing was filled with flowers, yes, R. Linda, if Mrs. Clooney was going to be forced to look upon that junk for the rest of her days, by the saints she'd make it worth looking at. First prize she won for innovative flower sculpturing. YUP. There be a lot to be said about us British and our flowers.

Gabe
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