Wednesday 24 February 2010

What's the crack with all the ARSEs?

There was something in the morning freebie last week about a guy who parked his car in the vicinity of a LUAS stop, perfectly legally, in order to take public transport to work. Fair play to him – I hear you say - for saving the planet, improving the city’s air quality, and saving the lives of sundry cyclists, pedestrians and drunks by not driving his car over 30 km/h in the city centre.

Not everyone was so appreciative however, as when he returned from his hard day’s slog he discovered his car was minus a windscreen wiper. “Random vandal” he thought. The following day he discovered his windscreen covered in some oily substance. It seemed that somebody – with the leisure time to sit in their living room all day, twitching the curtains - didn’t like him parking on the public road, outside his/her house.

You get it around my locality too, but even here they are too civilized to resort to wanton vandalism. But someone from the residents’ association called around with a leaflet a while back, complaining about people parking on the roads near the local train station.

As I say, here they are more subtle, but every bit as petty. Their preferred method is to place those little yellow plastic cones – obligingly supplied by the boys and girls in blue – on the miserable bit of road in front of their houses. I should also point out that we all have off-street-parking here, in the form of driveways, so parking is not a problem for residents.

Ironically, not that long ago there was talk of increasing the size of the nearby train station’s car park, but the residents didn’t want that either, citing “increased traffic” as their grounds for objection.  So, if people can’t park on the public roads due to residents objecting, and if a decent park and ride facility can’t be built because the residents object to that too – what the hell are commuters expected to do?  Sit at home all day, presumably in some subsidised form, listening to Joe Duffy and gawping out the window?

As far as we in Gombeen Manor are concerned, people can park wherever they want on “our” street, as long as they don’t create an obstruction. But then again, we work for a living. As such, we don’t have the time nor the inclination to hinder other people who do the same thing, but happen to live further from the train station than we do.

You’ve all heard of NIMBYs (Not In My Back Yarders), I’m sure?   Well, here it looks like we have a lot of ARSEs getting into a sweat about where people should park their cars.  

Any Road Somewhere Else.

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7 comments:

Ella said...

Hi GM, this story sums up the paddy mentality, stupid, just stupid. I don't understand it myself. Same spiel round my way too. Love the ARSE acronym.

Bernd said...

Gawd, that brings back fond memories of living in the Roselawn area, where I caused a massive bruhaha when I parked in front of the neighbor's house. He came running out, yelling at me that I could not park there. When I asked why, he shouted at me that if I parked there his daughter couldn't park there. I agreed with the logic and went inside. Next thing I saw was my landlord literally begging me on his knees to move the car because he had so much aggro with the neighbor already.

When darling daughter came home later, she parked in front of our house, cause daddy parked in front of their house and the driveway was empty (but daddy's patch). I grinned, nearly losing my two front teeth to daddy who came charging out again, berating me for "smirking" in his direction.

After I pointed out, that his daughter was now parked illegally (at least according to his logic), he drew himself up, inhaled deeply and pronounced with heartfelt sentiment that that was different "because you don't own the house, you are just renting".

The Gombeen Man said...

@ Ella. Seems to be a lot of it about. Maybe the term might catch on?

@ Bernd. I know the area well. What a complete and utter twat, eh?

Anna said...

There is a revealing anecdote in one of David Mc Williams books: he grew up in a new 1950’s development in Dun L- not ultra posh, but still middle class compared to many 19405 and 50s council estates nearby. Seems the estate didn’t have a name when his parents moved in. A Pope may have just died – or there may have been some type of holy year going on. So a religious person at a Residents association meeting proposed something like ‘Pope Pious 46th Ave’ or something.
The residents were Aghast- Far too Working Class…. so Of Course, in line with their Aspirations, they gave it an English name, Eg something like Windsor gardens, Harrogate lawns, Chelsea mews etc…
Snobbery, pretty mindedness, and an attitude of wanting to show your power
( i.e. class) by causing inconvenience to fellow citizens is all too prevalent in this country ( I Never saw anything like it when I lived in NI, England or Guernsey)

Anonymous said...

In Drumcondra onetime years ago I committed the henious crime of parking in front of this guys house (no driveway -on street parking) his response to me parking in "his" personal space was to double park -blocking my car (not to mention a large part of the street) in the process.

On confroning the guy I was told it was "his" parking place whereupon I pointed out that it was public road wherupon he pointed out that he wasnt going to move whereupon I pointed out that if the (expletives deleted) didnt move his piece of (expletive deleted) within the next 15 seconds I was going to (expletive deleted) move it for him and deposit it in the Royal (expletive deleted) canal wherupon he pointed out that he was going to call the Guards whereupon I (gesturing towards his illegally parked car) invited him to be my guest and save me the 20p.............

Needless to say the situation was resolved without any "Guards" being troubled !

The Gombeen Man said...

@ Anna & Anon.

I don't know what it is with these people.

I've always felt that such idiots are all too plentiful here. They aren't happy if they aren't interfering or messing about in other people's lives in one way or the other. Your comments (and Bernd's and Ellas) seem to confirm it.

Anonymous said...

NIMBYism emmm, what do you expect?

Dakota