Halcyon Dublin

As the cow gathered momentum down the hill, it became difficult to distinguish the back end from the front end and vice-versa. Likewise, the cow's, it may have been a bull but it was hard to tell in the dark, cries of distress became one long cry making it impossible to tell where the "moo" started and then finished.

It's probably much the same thing as watching your dad fall down the stairs. He first tries to grab the banister and when fails there is a small yelp of surprise, which evolves at an astonishing rate into the familiar "Aaahhhhhhhhhhh", as he is pulled down the stairs by Newton's old friend. At that point it is best to run as you'll only get the blame anyway.

It is one thing that has always amazed Spudnik about human kind. It’s our eternal capacity to laugh at people or animals falling over, or even funnier still, being pushed.

Cow tipping may not be the most politically correct of activities one could get involved in, but to some it makes for a thoroughly pleasant evening.

Animal lovers may not agree but there is quite possibly something worse than cow tipping. That is watching babies take their first steps, which is always going to end in tears for the tike, and then laughing as they fall over. These events are usually videoed and shown to anyone gullible enough to watch them, mostly neighbours and family, therefore aggravating any embarrassment caused by the initial incidents.

It seems as if it's actually politically correct to laugh at celebrities, politicians or anybody in the gaze of the media when they lose their footing.

So from the youngest to the oldest, from the two legged to the four, it seems that all sections of the world we live in are fair game. Except if your drunk.

When drunk it's only other people who are drunk that will laugh at you. The rest turn their heads away in disgust. But now is the time to redress that imbalance with, whether you believe or not as Ripley used to say, a true story.

A nameless man has been out for a few bevvies. Naturally he has got some serious munchies on him, so, on his way home he stops for a take-away curry.

The curry now becomes the centre of his world. His life now is a simple one. Get home, eat the curry and go to sleep with all his clothes on. But potential danger lurks a few feet away.

In Dublin, and not so long ago either , it used to be the practice that people working on pavements or for that matter roads, would not erect the proper warnings that such works were in existence. So you can see that are friend with the simple life is in danger.

He comes to the hole. He doesn't notice it, so, therefore can't evade it and plunges into it's murky depths. He does however take his mind off the curry long enough to realise that he's falling, which in turn brings him back to the curry and what will be an astounding feat of coherence and agility for a drunk man.

It is now an inescapable fact that his curry, or more correctly, his enjoyment of the curry, is going to be ruined.

Quickly and instinctively he raises the curry over his head while simultaneously pushing his feet into the side of the hole and slowing his decent until, finally coming to a safe halt at the bottom of the hole, with his curry raised aloft like the World Cup, just appearing out the top of the hole.

Needless to say this being Dublin, the curry did not remain in his possession for much longer. A quick thinking passer-by grabbed the curry from his outstretched arms and made off with it at great pace.

Our friend panics, tries feverishly to clamber out of the hole, slips, falls and ends up lying in the puddle at the bottom of the hole he had just been standing in.

A true story.