‘And where are you from!? Ukraine? F***k off to your Poland then.’

One week after the riot and I am still getting grief from the council estate mamas in their designer runners.

My podcast server kindly offered to transcribe my podcasts, so I decided to put it here in case you don’t like the spoken word or can’t understand my accent 🙂

Hello and welcome to the ‘World According to Gemini’.

As you probably know, we had recently a horrific incident in Dublin which involved a 50 year old man stabbing four children. He was originally from Algeria. It resulted in a riot, burned cars, looting, millions of Euros in damage, crowds chanting  ‘Send them home’, and of course now everyone is crying for blood. Last week wasn’t a good time to be a foreigner in Dublin. My Chinese student who comes to my house for her violin lessons was warned not to show her face in town, so we had a lesson online instead.

The whole world is obsessed with immigration and especially with Muslim immigration. (Not without a reason, to be honest). Everyone is vocal, everyone has a strong opinion and that’s why I keep my mouth shut. There are too many experts in a field.

Since the incident I had a few remarks thrown at me and so, I decided to jump on a bandwagon and join the choir. Being Gemini, I don’t have one opinion, I have two.

See which one you like better.

I just came from Sligo where we had a beautiful gig with ‘NoCrows’.

During the gig I got a phone call from my daughter. She was very upset. Somebody was trying to break into her house. This dude was on drugs, very aggressive and he was trying to smash the door for 10 minutes. My daughter called 999 in total panic. Police came, stopped this character and checked his pockets. They told him he was a bad boy and they told him to never come back. Then they let him go. My daughter was in shock and she was afraid that he’ll come back. Police officers told her they know the guy. He has a history of violence, drugs and drinking. They said, ‘Don’t you worry. We told him not to come to your house again so all is good’.               

Oh, it’s ok then. 🙂

Obviously I was worried as I was in Sligo, hundreds of miles away and the last train has already left. I was on the phone talking to my daughter, trying to calm her down when our frontman Steve came in. He said, ‘Oleg. Let’s go, I’ll drive you to Dublin…’ It was nearly 1AM and for those who don’t know, it’s a four hour drive.

Steve. You are a gentleman!

Thankfully, my son was already on his way, so there was no need for me to go. My son is twice bigger than me and every time he tries to hug me, I get a bit worried. He nearly cracked my ribs once. He is a bodybuilder and he can be quite ‘decisive’, so my daughter was safe. Our Guitar Extraordinaire Ray let me stay in his house for the night. Ray is Irish and so is his sense of humour. When I came to the house, there was a note on the kitchen table: ‘If you find a Russian upstairs, no need for alarm, he’s leaving in the morning’.

Good man, Ray!

I woke up the next morning and went to the train station where I was treated to another dose of Irish humour. We were sitting in the train for half an hour when an announcement was made, ‘We would like to apologise for the delay, we cannot locate our driver’. Apparently he came in, started the engine, went for a coffee and disappeared. In Switzerland he would be shot, his family would be sent to Mongolia and the minister for transport would commit a ritual suicide.

In Sligo, we just had a good laugh and everyone went out for a smoke.

My son apparently spent a night hoping that this dude turns up again. I wouldn’t recommend anyone to break into the house when my little boy is waiting inside. It would be unwise.

Back to the podcast.

Spread the word, brothers and sisters, send this podcast to everyone you know and let’s make it big.

Now. First things first. One of my students suggested that I have it little more organised. He said, ‘You should have it more structured. An intro, part one, part two, a development of the main idea, an appropriate finale, resolution, a moral conclusion, and so on’. Ok. Here it is.

First – an announcement. In my previous podcast I mentioned my motorbike – a BMW GS1200.

I said that it’s the best engineered and the best built bike on the planet. So, the same student sent me a text saying, ‘Ow, you’ll be getting a new bike now.’  Nope, I won’t. My only association with BMW is that I went around the world on three of those 1200cc beasts and crashed two of them, breaking few bones in the process. I am not sponsored by BMW. In fact, I am not sponsored by anyone. I record myself, I use my own equipment, I pay my own fees to the provider, I do my own research, I choose my own topics…. all by myself. Nobody is helping me.. Nobody. I am all alone. God, it sounds so sad! I am alone. I wanna see my mom…..!!!!! I need a hug.

Well. Not really alone. I do have 3 or 4 patrons on a ‘Patreon’.      🙂

Following my student’s advice I’ll keep it well structured.

That was an announcement.

Now, the introduction.

For those of you who don’t know me, my name is Oleg. I am 60 and I have no hair. I am a touring musician, and for the last 45 years I was going around the world with the violin attached to the side rack of my GS1200, playing music, giving masterclasses, workshops and annoying people with my opinions. Before that I was a tank driver in the Soviet Army.

I prefer my motorbike.

So, what else? I have few vices. I smoke a lot and I drink 15 espressos a day.

What else?

I am a peaceful person. I don’t like violence. Growing up on the streets of Moscow, serving in the Army, I saw enough of this crap. Now I love everyone. The only sort of people I try to stay away from are the hypocrites and righteous fools. Right wing, Left wing, they all the same. Everyone else can be dealt with and can be reasoned with. But you can’t reason with a fool. You can’t fix stupid and if you engage with it, your own IQ will go down to a single digit. Fast. So, I don’t engage. I stay away. It’s safer. There’s one more reason I never try to preach to anyone. When I was young I was very clear about the ways of the world. I knew everything. I was arrogant and I was stupid. I was visiting my friend in Odessa once and of course there was a dinner served. You know, the food in Odessa is legendary. One of the guests was an old, sad Jew.  I started to teach this old Jew about the modern ways. I don’t remember exactly what we were talking about. Something about success, making money, this sort of thing. And at one point, this old sad Jew looked at me and said, ‘Young man, if you are so clever, how come you’re so poor?’.

That shut me up for good.

As I said, I am a peaceful person, but somehow I manage to annoy people with my opinions. In saying so, I am Gemini, which means I usually have two contradicting opinions on the same subject and if I annoy ten people, there are always another ten, who are in a total agreement with my other opinion, which balances everything out.

What else?

Now, that’s important. I have an imaginary friend who helps me to see the world in a simplistic way. His name is Homo Erectus, and he arguably can be considered a first proper human being on a planet.

Some people seem to think that I am somewhat clever. Naaaa. Not me. I listen to my friend Homo Erectus, that’s why. I’m not clever. I am mostly confused. When I hear news, far left or far right, (both sides are totally insane, by the way), religious leaders, politicians, journalists, I feel madness growing inside my head. I don’t understand anything anymore. I don’t understand the woke crowd, I don’t understand the politically correct crowd, gender definitions, white guilt, black Cleopatra, rural patriots and their slogans. I don’t understand anything. It’s only because of my friend Homo Erectus, I stay relatively sane. He sees the world as it is. He is not brainwashed by education, politicians or social media. He is like a kid. A simpleton, my friend Homo Erectus.

I am not trying to educate my friend. Instead, I try to see the world though his eyes.

So. What would he think about our immigration issues, I wonder.

Here goes a part one. Immigrants. Foreigners. Aliens.

There are hordes of Gypsies, Russians, Ukrainians, Arabs, Romanians, Africans, Brazilians, Chinese and such, invading the cosy and comfortable West European world, US, Canada and Scandinavia.. in other words, every country which at some point was engaged in things like slavery, theft of resources, meddling in the local politics, you know, the usual. By the way, just to say. You, history loving characters. There’s no one who is white and fluffy in this tit for tat, which is going on right now. White people are killing hundreds of thousands of Muslims. Muslims were killing white people and selling them as slaves for centuries. African people were taken as slaves and killed by colonial powers, but they are pretty proficient in murdering their own people by thousands, committing acts of ethnic cleansing and genocide (Sudan, anyone?). Americans dropped an A-bomb on Japan, but I’m sure you heard about the Nanking massacre. Just to say. No one is white and fluffy, no one has a right to preach to others, and there are no victors in the end, except of those faceless and nameless corporations which earn billions, while others slaughter each other, be that for resources, land, in the name of various Gods or ideologies.

It was much simpler for my friend Homo Erectus. So, what would he do about immigration?

I live in Dublin. We do have a lot of Muslims, Africans, Russians, Polish, Chinese, Brazilians and so on. We’ll talk about the implications of chaotic immigration later, but first, let’s see what my uneducated friend Homo Erectus has to say. What would happen if he encounters a visitor from another tribe? What if this visitor has a different skin colour, wears different style clothes, speaks different language and generally looks different?

His life was simple. He was pretty much confined to the area where he was born. He didn’t have a reason or means to go travelling. He didn’t have an iPhone so he wouldn’t have a clue about geopolitics and about what is happening 50 miles away from his cave, let alone on another continent. He wouldn’t even be aware that there are other continents. He wouldn’t know that there are people with the different skin colour. He would be surrounded by his family, or tribe, maybe 30-40 people, and they would be what JK Rowling calls a ‘Pure Blood’. My friend Homo Erectus, aka Harry Potter.

Homo Erectus is a person of simple convictions. He is governed by two basic instincts which are hardwired into his brain by the mother Nature. To ensure his own survival and to ensure the survival of the species. But. Before those two objectives come into play, there’s one condition – Safety. When you are safe, you can go and play with your basic objectives, look for the shelter, go chasing elephants, girlfriends, indulge in hanky-panky and so on.

But – safety first.

Which means elimination of anything which can present or potentially present a threat to your existence. In other words, everything which is different from yourself. Alien. Foreign. If you put a white dog in a pack of wild black dogs, this dog will be roughed up and most likely killed. A potential threat to the pack will be eliminated. No racism, no politics, no ideology. Pure practicality. Safety. As my corporal told me once. ‘Army is a complex mechanism and you’re a small cog in this machinery. Your only function is to follow orders. You shouldn’t think. If you start thinking, you will become different. If you become different, you become a threat, a danger and you will be the death of the unit’. A wise man, my corporal.

Back to our friend Homo Erectus. Let’s say he is a black person. And let’s say that for some reason a white dude appears near his cave. What would Homo Erectus do? He wouldn’t know anything about the politics, ideology, religion, any of it. He will see someone who is different. He will instinctively consider him a threat. He will whack him on the head and he will have himself a barbeque. That will be the end of this Multicultural experiment.

The actions of Homo Erectus should not be taken as an example on how to deal with foreigners. It’s only a point of view and should not be read out of context.

We live in a different world now. Homo Erectus was a ‘Pure Blood’. Now, many centuries later, there’s no such a thing as ‘Pure Blood’. Look at me, for example. My ethnicity is….complex, at the very least. My predecessors were Russians, Ukrainians, Gypsies, Jews, Georgians, Tatars, Mongols, and God knows who else stopped by. Many years ago in Germany, after the concert, I had a dinner with the conductor of the Frankfurt Opera. After few glasses of wine, he asked me about my origins. He said, ‘Hmmmm. Gypsy and Jewish. You wouldn’t be very popular in Germany in the 1940’. That was a joke, by the way. A German joke.

Yep, I wouldn’t indeed. Because of my ethnicity, I used to get a lot of grief, mostly at the British border, funny enough. But now, thanks to various democratic policies, it seems to be an ethnic minority is actually a good thing. It gives you certain rights which you white masters, don’t, shouldn’t and never again will have. Your time is gone, ours is just around the corner. For example, if I decide to make a sculpture about the tragic history of oppressed Gypsies, which will consist of a broken toilet bowl, dead goat’s head and some barbed wire, I can apply for the grant from the Arts Council. I can ask for 10.000Euro and God help those who will say there is no artistic value in my proposal. I’ll take them to the European Court of Justice and sue them for 20 million. And I’ll win. But to be 100% successful, I have another trick up my sleeve. You see, in our democratic kindergarten there is something else I can use. A sexual minority factor. Very soon, when we all start burning our old shoes and our Shakespeare volumes in order to keep our houses warm and the only way to get food stamps will be to get grants from the government, I shall become a homosexual.

A Gay/Jewish/Gypsy, that pretty much guarantees that I will get any grant I want, no questions asked. And if it’s still not enough, I shall find myself a partner, a vegan, a lesbian one-legged single mother from Uzbekistan. All boxes ticked. Sorted. All I’ll have to do is to find a dead goat.

To continue on the immigration subject.

A few days ago in Dublin, a 50 years old Algerian man stabbed three children. Immediately a demonstration was organised in the city centre. They were chanting ‘Send them home’, ‘Ireland for Irish’ and so on. Soon they forgot why they came there in the first place and started a party. A ‘Black Lives Matter’ style street party. Cars were burned, shops were looted, few million euro damage was  caused and someone got himself a pair of new Adidas runners. Our politicians wisely decided to call them ‘Right wing thugs’ to keep everyone happy. The less controlled social media immediately started on the ‘Islamic’ threat and now there are videos of burning Paris, Leeds riots, London Muslims, Stockholm, German Palestine protesters chanting, ‘Death to Israel’ popping up everywhere.

Let’s stop for a second. There is a problem, yes. A monumental problem. As one of the Dubai Sheiks said in the recent interview, ‘Macron said that Islam has a problem…Islam doesn’t have a problem. You have. We are perfectly fine. We are a prosperous society. We got rid of the scum, the human garbage, of all those stone throwing suicide bombers and you took them in. And now you are complaining’.

You might agree or you might not, but he does have a point.

On the other hand,

(‘On the other hand’. That’s what you always get when you listen to Gemini, by the way.)

I am an immigrant myself. I got my Irish passport 35 years ago. I probably played in every single venue in Ireland and I know Ireland geographically better that some of the Irish who were born here. I know Irish culture and history. I play with Irish musicians, I teach Irish kids, I was a member of the biker club in Tallaght, I had a fight with the Irish builder once, I say ‘Right you are’ and finish all phone conversations with ‘Bye bye bye bye bye bye’. It doesn’t make me Irish though. I love this country, but I am not. It doesn’t mean I can’t criticise things which are wrong. Of course I can, but I do this with respect and understanding that I am still a guest here. That’s what I learned during my 45 years of touring. You can go anywhere in the world and as long as you respect your hosts and abide by the house rules, you will be all right. If you are a good guest, your hosts might even start accepting and learning your own customs and start to incorporate them into their lives. Then you’ll realise that all those ‘Cultural differences’ aside, we all are basically the same people with the exception of radicals, democrats and those who listen to the ‘Spice Girls’.

I have a good friend Fintan. He is as Irish as you can get. He is the best Hot Club Guitar player in the world. He calls me ‘A dirty Gypo’. He doesn’t mind me being an immigrant. He even was trying to learn about our customs, culture and food. He nearly killed himself by drinking half a litre of pure spirit, which my Polish friend smuggled into Ireland. I was feeding him Eastern European delicacies, just to see how far he’d go. He wasn’t too sure about the duck feet and after my seaweed salat he gave up. He got sick in the process, but it doesn’t matter. What matters is that he tried. He doesn’t see me as a threat to his country. Even though he brings his own food now, it’s good enough for me.

Fintan, you dirty bum. If you read this, pop in, I have a box of Latvian pickled herring you’ll love.

So, what about the people who come to Ireland then? From my own experience, most of them come here in order to lead a normal life. They learn the language, they learn how to say ‘How are ya’, ‘What’s the craig’, they assimilate, some successfully, some not, but the bottom line is – most of the immigrants in Ireland are decent and hardworking people. By the way, the guy who stopped this Algerian lunatic from stabbing kids is an immigrant himself. He is a Brazilian Deliveroo driver.

Of course there are few morons who come to abuse the system. Ireland is full of my Gypsy brothers and sisters who are stealing from the shops and beg on the streets.

The patriotic part of Irish society is fuming. They demand to send all immigrants home, they say immigrants are a drain on the system, they say we have to take care of Irish homeless first, they say there is a housing shortage and all of this. Yep it’s true. But let’s look at what will be achieved by sending all immigrants home. Will any of the problems be sorted? Will the housing crisis stop? Will Irish economy be restored? Will the crime numbers go down? Really? 99% of the problems in the modern Ireland were created by Irish politicians, developers and bankers. All decisions which led to the sorry state of this country were made by the natives. By the way, the dude who was trying to break into my daughter’s house was Irish. Chinese didn’t cause the shortage of the medical stuff, Brazilians didn’t create this lockdown madness. Romanians have nothing to do with the abuse of children and Polish have nothing to do with the ‘Troubles’. Also, Gypsies didn’t build the Red Cow roundabout, which in the future will be remembered as the most pathetic engineering attempt in the Irish history. Polish, Russians, Ukrainians,  Indians, Chinese, Brazilians, Africans, they come here, they study, they work as doctors, nurses, drivers, cleaners, builders, programmers, teachers, administrators, musicians, delivery drivers, cooks, they open restaurants, companies, shops, they revitalise Irish economy and they respect this country. They are good guests. Of course there are few morons and parasites. Sure there are. This is what happens when you open the door to your house and let everyone in without even asking for their names. It’s only a question of time before your food will start disappearing from your fridge. If it’s not addressed, your children will be beaten up and your wife will be violated. Look at the cosy and peaceful Denmark. Ten years ago this idiotic bunch of ministers decided to take everyone in regardless of their history. Denmark is not cosy and peaceful anymore. It’s burning. It’s called a rape capital of the world. Just a bit of statistics for you. 67 percent of all Palestinians who arrived to Denmark and who were given houses, money, education and medical care, have committed a crime. Violent assault, aggravated burglary, rape, murder. Danish are scratching their heads wondering what went wrong. They still do. Not the fastest thinkers they are, our Danish friends.

Now. Ireland. We don’t have this problem. Yet. Every single Muslim I encountered here was polite, educated, friendly and respectful. Couple of days ago I had a little accident on a bus. There were two Arab teens who gave a seat to the old lady. . Two youngish women sitting behind me started to mutter something like, ‘Look at yer man, should be sent back with all his friends.’ They were getting quite loud and quite nasty. One of the boys got a phone call and started to speak Arabic. That set off another woman, so soon we had three of those cows, discussing ‘Muslims’ coming to Ireland, taking their money, jobs, the usual. I had to turn and say, ‘Ladies, didn’t you notice? He was the only one to give a seat to the woman? None of you moved. Instead of saying, ‘Well done’, you’re sitting here and giving him grief’. Do you know the reply I got?

‘And where are YOU from? Ukraine? F***k off to your Poland then.’

Nice….

They had their opinion. Fine. Everyone is entitled to have an opinion.

So. Part two. Opinions.

How do we know what we know? Back to my friend Homo Erectus.

He has only two ways to obtain information. First, and the most important – his own experience.

He learned the hard way why it’s not a good idea to go against a sabretooth tiger alone. He learned a lot by trying things out, by gaining knowledge and experience. That’s it. And in this scenario, he wouldn’t have an opinion. Having an opinion is the most ridiculous concept ever. Homo Erectus can’t afford to have an ‘opinion’. He has to have a verified information. Facts which couldn’t be manipulated or presented in a certain manner. He has to be sure if he can eat the thing in front of him or he is likely to be eaten by this thing. He can’t afford to have an educated guess or to have a discussion about the integration, based on what he heard from someone. He knows what will happen if he lets a sabretooth tiger into his cave. No opinions there, just reality. Cause and effect. Actions and consequences.

As I said, we live in a different world now. We have an opinion about Israel and Palestine, even though we’ve never been there. We know nothing about the realities of the situation there. We don’t have a personal experience. What we have is a second-hand knowledge which was heavily modified to guarantee a certain emotional response. And we trust our newspapers and we trust our RTE, BBC and Al Jazeera. Of course we do. We have pictures, right? Of course we know that everything they say is 100% accurate…. They would never lie to us, no.

Three years ago there was a phot of a little girl covered in blood in a ‘TV3’ report, saying that this little Palestinian darling was injured by the Israeli sniper, that her parents were murdered by Zionists and her teddy bear was sexually violated by the settlers. We felt outraged, we demanded justice and we started protesting against Israel. We said, ‘Free Palestine’ and we said, ‘From the land to the sea….’, without even knowing what this phrase actually means… Well done, all!

Two months later the same picture was used in the Belgium newspaper which said that she was in fact a Jewish girl who was injured by the maniac who stabbed four or five people on the street in Haifa. So, we had a bunch of Belgian housewives staging a protest somewhere in Brussels, chanting, ‘Hamas are killers’.

Eventually it turned out to be a stock picture of Mexican girl injured in a car accident.

That’s how we form our opinions.

There’s a beautiful thing called a ‘Confirmation Bias’. Thanks to the internet, we can find millions of articles proving our own point of view. If you are anti-vegan, pro-Israel, anti-Muslim, anti-Ukrainian, pro-Russian, anti-oil, pro-dolphins, anti baby Jesus, anti or pro anything, Google is your friend. In five minutes flat you can find all information you need in order to support your own opinion which was already formed and solidified. Easy. You don’t have to travel to Ukraine to understand what is happening there or go to Gaza with the ‘Queers for Palestine’ project to form an opinion. All you need is to open your iPhone and voila, you are an expert. Time to make a banner and to go on a demonstration. I would highly recommend those ‘Queers for Palestine’ idiots to visit Gaza with their banners. Good luck and let’s see how long you’ll last there. I’ll give you 7 minutes before your throats are cut and you are dragged across the city with the cheering crowd filming your final moments on their iPhones. But the thing is, they will never go. They’re quite comfortable marching through New York, waiving their banners, chanting rubbish while being safely tucked in their democratic blanket which will protect and support those degenerates. They don’t have to go there. They have their iPhones, they have their sources, they have their information and they have their opinions.

Like most of us do.

Poor Homo Erectus will have a heart attack if he finds about the ways his grand grand grand children conduct themselves. Me, I’ll never tell him. He’ll think I’m mad and will never speak to me again. And I wouldn’t blame him.

Back to immigration and ‘Irish Patriots’ games.

Yes, there are serious issues in the Western world. Islamic Radicals are allowed freely and without any vetting process into France, Germany, Great Britain, Scandinavia, US, Canada, Australia and the rest of the democratically controlled territories. They breed and they plot, they rape, burn and kill. Yes, that’s a reality. If you’re not aware of this, you should get out more.

In saying so, Ireland is as always slightly behind the rest of the world in certain areas.

There are thousands of Muslims in Ireland but there are no radical Islamic groups here. Not yet, anyway. And the sad truth is. It’s a local talent we have to be afraid of. Not immigrants. There are areas in Dublin which are war zones. The city centre during the night is a ghetto full of junkies and gangs of kids who terrorise everyone, steal bikes, sell drugs, rob tourists, break into the shops, beat up delivery drivers, throw stones at police, emergency cars, stopping ambulances carrying sick people and fire engines trying to save people from the fire. They all are local.

Two Arab kids who gave their seats to the old lady on the bus. I don’t see why those kids should be sent home, do you? Later, I was served a coffee by a beautiful Brazilian girl who spent 15 minutes explaining to me how and where those coffee beans were sourced, how it was prepared and so on. Why would you send her home? Why would you send home a Romanian girl who works in our local an post in Drumcondra and helps old folk to fill their postage forms? There is a Moldavian dude I know who does shopping for the family with four kids. He has a car and they don’t, so he goes to Aldi every week to get their nappies, burgers and Coca Cola. Send him home as well. You want to send someone home, do you? I can point out a few council estates full of parasites and junkies who never worked a day in their lives. Send them somewhere, will ya? It’ll do a lot of good for your country. Go to the Temple Bar, get one of them ‘Hen Parties’, young drunk girls, screaming, fighting and urinating on the streets in the full view of everyone. Send them somewhere. I never seen a Russian girl urinating on the street. I never heard of Chinese kids beating up tourists in St. Stephen’s Green, I never heard of Brazilian gang robbing shops in Ballimun. Two months ago three African girls were attacked by the bunch of locals from the council estate in Drumcondra. It was a Polish builder who came to the rescue. Sure, go on, send him home as well. The problem is, you can send every single foreigner home, but you can’t send anywhere your ministers or your bankers. You can’t send anywhere the army of junkie parasites or gangs of teenage degenerates. They belong here. They are natives. And for you, Irish junkies are different because they were born here. They are junkies, but they are YOUR junkies.

‘We don’t want any foreign junkies here. We prefer our own. When I’m going home during the night, the chances of me being mobbed by the foreigner are practically zero. The chances of me being mobbed by the locals are plenty. But you know what? I am a patriot. Ireland for Irish. If I am to be beaten up on the O’Connell street at 5 am, I prefer to be beaten up by my own people, not by them foreigners. If someone decides to stick a boot up me arse, I’d rather take it from the Irish boot, deep and proper, straight and proud of me heritage’.

I love patriots. Don’t you? They are cute in their own way, aren’t they?

By the way, who is responsible for the shambolic Irish immigration system, or rather luck of the system, for the lack of the proper vetting process which allows everyone in and then dumps them into the barracks without any thought or planning, creating problems with the locals, creating tensions among the asylum seekers themselves, practically forcing them to start protesting etc.?

Who is responsible for this travesty? Foreigners again?

Yes, there are some Gypsies stealing from the shops and begging on the streets. We have 4 local beggars and 500 junkies in Drumcondra. One of them is a Gypsy and the rest are local. Sure, let’s send all foreigners home. Me including. I am a Gypsy, remember? Or my friend Rudy who is a Romanian Gypsy. He is a well educated man and a brilliant violin player, he is a teacher, kids adore him, I love him because he is a gem of a person. Send him home as well, will ya. Send back to Africa all nurses while you’re at it. Well. You got the picture. Far right. Far left. Go to Hell, all of you. Thankfully, the majority of people in this country judge you for what you are and for what you do. That’s good enough for me and for my friend Homo Erectus.

Now, my friend suggested that I include a finale and the moral conclusion.

Here goes. There is a bit of common sense, something which is too difficult for our politicians to get into their heads. You let in people who are good guests and you keep out the rest. Foreigners are not a problem. Radicals are. Religious fanatics are. Majority or Irish politicians, developers and bankers caused more damage to this country than all the foreigners in Ireland put together.

Back to my friend Homo Erectus. He will gladly share his cave with his friends or relatives.

He might be a simpleton but he will never invite a hyena to stay his cave. He is not an idiot. Our ministers are.

Now, the time for a moral conclusion.

I don’t have one.

I’ll give you two short stories about Irish cops instead.

You can criticise them as much as you want. I find Irish cops to be the best Police force in the world.

Yes, they are undertrained, yes, they are severely limited in what they are allowed to do, yes, they are underpaid and underequipped. But, if you have any idea of what those men and women have to deal with on every day’s basis, you would never complain again. Trust me, I know. I did a bit of police training long time ago, I know what’s involved. They are special people. Also, they have the best sense of humour in the world. Well, Irish in general have a unique sense of humour. Just think about our train driver who went for a coffee and disappeared for half an hour.

Story one.

Lockdown. Everyone is scared to death. The streets are empty. It’s like a plague. No cars, no people, no cats, no dogs. Heavy police presence, everyone who dares to stick their nose outside is immediately apprehended. I decide, to Hell with it, I am not sitting home. We have a beautiful beach couple of miles from our house, so, I’m going there. I start driving, turn around the corner and of course there’s a Garda check point. Crap…….

The old dude sticks his head into my window.

‘Son, are you aware of the restrictions put in place during the lockdown?’.

‘Yes Sir I am’

‘Are you aware that you cannot legally be on the road unless you have a medical emergency or a legitimate reason to go somewhere?’

‘Yes Sir, I do’

‘And do you have a legitimate reason to be driving right now?’

‘Errrmm, yes….I do’.

‘Al right then, off you go’.

Story two.

I am driving my son home. The weather is rotten, the roads are wet. The car in a front stops at the lights. I stop as well, and suddenly, ‘BOOM’. We are hit from behind. Hard. My car hits the car in the front. We get out of the car to see what’s the story. The guy behind us is in tears, he keeps saying, ‘Me sorry, me bad, me sorry…’ so, he is ok. We go check the car in a front. There’s a grumpy couple who refuses to talk. They repeat on the loop, ‘We need to call the police, we need to call the police’. So, we go back to our car and wait for the Garda. A very grumpy cop comes. We are the last car to be checked. He looks at my license and says, ‘Jeesus, you didn’t plan this, did you?’

‘Excuse me???’

Well, the car in a front is Ukrainian, The car behind you is Romanian, you are Russian…..Welcome to Ireland, Gentlemen!!!!’.

Ok, one more story and I’ll go to sleep.

Me and my Croatian friend Luka were invited to play a gig in one of the clubs in a place called Dun Laoghaire. It was a big night and we were invited for a meal after, a five course dinner. This club has a famous wine collection, so we got maybe one and a half bottles of red wine each. We kind of …got distracted. When it was a time to go home, I realised that I could barely walk. Now, boys and girls. Uncle Oleg did something really bad. Drink driving is not good. Never ever drink and drive, ok?

I had less than a mile to drive, so I thought I’d be ok. I started the car and of course in half a mile there was a Garda checkpoint. There was absolutely nothing I could do. I decided to take whatever is coming at me as a man and without any arguments. I knew I will be arrested and anally interrogated as I had a litre of wine in my stomach. I knew there was no way I’m walking out of it. I accepted my fate. So, a lady cop asks me all usual questions and gives me the thing to blow in it. I do. She looks at the screen, then looks at me and looks at the screen again. She says,’ Sir, we seem to have a faulty unit. Would you mind doing it again?’. She was very nice so I said, ‘Yes, sure’. I blew into the thing again. She looked at the screen, went to talk to another officer, came back and said, ‘Sir, we are having problems with this unit as well. Would you mind blowing again? And I have to tell you that you don’t have to, legally, but I’d really appreciate it if you do’.

I started to get interested at this point, so I agreed. I blew into the unit, she looked at the screen and without saying a single word turned it so I could see the screen. It said, ‘Pass’. Then she leaned into the window and said, ‘Sir, I know you’ve been drinking, I can smell it on you. How far have you to go?’.

‘Half a mile, max’.

‘Please be careful. Drive safe and Good night’.

I couldn’t believe my luck, I drove for another 4-5 hundred yards, stopped the car and dialled Luka’s number. I said, ‘Dude!!!! There’s a checkpoint on the road to Dalkey, don’t go there!!!!’.

Luka’s reply was priceless. ‘Don’t worry my friend. You are Russian, I am Croatian, we’ll be all right. We are genetically different’.

On this note. From me, my friend Homo Erectus and my genetically different friend Luka..

Good night and all the best.