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Thread: Life in the City

  1. #1
    Oliphaunt Rube E. Tewesday's avatar
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    Default Life in the City

    So yesterday my kid and I had breakfast at a downtown diner, the one we always go to when we're going to get our hair cut (the barbers are right around the corner).

    The waitress offers us the only window seat. Even though it's kind of a small table, we take it so we can watch the world go by. (We're right on Yonge Street, Toronto's main drag and supposedly the longest street in the world. )

    As it happens, there's a massage parlour over the diner. From our seat, we can see the massage parlour's door.

    It's a bit after eleven in the morning. Suddenly a woman comes up to the massage parlour. She's dressed OK, she's closer to middle-aged than young, and she's speaking very forcefully on her cellphone.

    She tries to open the massage parlour door.

    It's locked.

    She starts to speak even more forcefully on her cellphone. She stands back and looks that the address. She comes over and starts whacking the number on the sign with her finger while speaking even more forcefully. She stands back.

    She comes forward and starts pulling on the sign, which isn't screwed down all that well.

    She pulls the sign forward a bit. I'm wondering how much I should worry about somebody vandalizing a massage parlour.


    She reaches behind the sign and pulls out the keys. She unlocks the door and heads upstairs to start work at her new job.

    My kid says, "You never need TV."

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    Oliphaunt The Original An Gadaí's avatar
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    OK is it a massage parlour or a brothel?

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    Oliphaunt Rube E. Tewesday's avatar
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    Quote Originally posted by The Original An Gadaí View post
    OK is it a massage parlour or a brothel?
    It's both. Generally in North American English as I understand it, "massage parlour" is a brothel, a real massage therapy establishment is something like a "clinic" or a maybe a "spa". You see both legitimate and dodgy places in the neighbourhood I was in, but you can usually tell which is which without much effort, and this place is a brothel
    Last edited by Rube E. Tewesday; 28 Nov 2011 at 02:19 PM.

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    Oliphaunt Rube E. Tewesday's avatar
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    On Saturday, was on the subway with my kid. We noticed one of those little brown bank envelopes on the floor, sealed. I told him to open it, 'cause hey, you never know.

    Inside was a religious tract that some enterprising fanatic had found an ingenious way of getting people to notice.

    I wonder, though, if it occurred to him that he's now going to burn in Hell for all eternity for stealing from the bank.

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    The Queen Zuul's avatar
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    I'm sure he'd say the means justify the ends, and so long as he repents he'll be fine!

    Out here in the middle of nowhere, the peace really is a blessing, but I miss the sheer entertainment factor of living in the city. It was especially fun when I took the bus to work every day. Oh, the people you'll meet.
    So now they are just dirt-covered English people in fur pelts with credit cards.

  6. #6
    Oliphaunt Rube E. Tewesday's avatar
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    So yesterday the kid and I went to our first Blue Jays game of the season.

    We went to the corner where our usual scalpers hang out, and these two guys, who look like the kind of degenerated decent folk cross the street to avoidl were all "Wow, look how big he is -- he started coming here, he was just this little guy!" like a couple of uncles you don't see that often.

    Life in the city.

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    Member Elendil's Heir's avatar
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    Where everyone knows your name! Or at least recognizes your kid.

  8. #8
    Oliphaunt Rube E. Tewesday's avatar
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    On the subway, tonight: dude changed his pants, right in front of everybody. (He was, thankfully, wearing baggy boxer shorts.) He was also doing a fair bit of loud talking about the subway system, even though he was alone.

    Nobody said or did a thing.

  9. #9
    The Queen Zuul's avatar
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    I saw that once on a city bus.

    ...dude was not wearing baggy boxer shorts.
    So now they are just dirt-covered English people in fur pelts with credit cards.

  10. #10
    Oliphaunt
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    Every time I meet someone for coffee in the Castro, I almost run into some naked-from-the-waist-down guy. So many more penises than I ever wanted to see ...

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    Member Elendil's Heir's avatar
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    My big city fortunately lacks such... gentlemen. Or perhaps they frequent different neighborhoods than I.

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    Oliphaunt The Original An Gadaí's avatar
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    I was meeting my friend in Dublin City Centre yesterday. We picked the O'Connell Monument to meet up. It faces onto O'Connell Bridge, a major thoroughfare of the city, which was then very busy with rush hour traffic, both vehicular and on foot.

    First I had to run the gauntlet of the north quays. Somewhere around the Ha'penny Bridge, an elderly enough man in an electric wheelchair, who I'd noticed guzzling from a two litre bottle of cider, hid the bottle then proceeded to try and tap me for a few quid. When I got to O'Connell Bridge, a somewhat discombobulated elderly man asked me for €2 until tomorrow "payday". He said he didn't smoke or drink, he just wanted to get a cup of tea in the Kylemore Café.

    I sat at monument for maybe 15 minutes as people from all walks of life walked by. All human life was there. I forget, sometimes, that I'm a suburbanite, and it's only when you see a great mass of people moving through an urban public setting I appreciate what the city is. People from toddlers to tottering octogenarians, weary looking folk in business attire, tourists from everywhere with perpetually held cameras and souvenir t-shirts, drifters, kids going home from school, people acting the maggot, migrants from the four corners of the earth. The general impression was punctuated by a few eccentrics such as the young man on a bicycle shouting a stream of expletives in the driver's side window of a taxi.

    Eventually my friend arrived to give me my first royalty cheque (woop) plus some cash to pay a performer at a concert on Friday. We felt like we were doing a drug deal. "The crow flies at dawn," he joked as we awkwardly shook hands, transferring the two 50s. My coach appeared and I was was off on my merry way home, back to the dull comforts of suburbia.

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    Member Elendil's Heir's avatar
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    Nice little scene of Dublin life - thanks!

    What it mean to "act the maggot"?

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    Oliphaunt The Original An Gadaí's avatar
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    Quote Originally posted by Elendil's Heir View post
    Nice little scene of Dublin life - thanks!

    What it mean to "act the maggot"?
    Messing, joking, up to no good.

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    Oliphaunt Rube E. Tewesday's avatar
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    Today, at noon, on a cold Toronto day, walked past a burrito shop. There's a young woman outside, eating.

    Her dress stops at her waist. Pretty much her entire bottom is on display, and she's only wearing a little thong.

    Nobody said a thing.

    Life in the city.

  16. #16
    Oliphaunt The Original An Gadaí's avatar
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    Ha I don't live in a city really, more a suburb but recently I was out for a walk in close to 0c temperatures. I had my wooly hat, big earphones that keep my ears warm, my hoody up and gloves on. I walked to my store to take a look see and just as I got to our little mall there were these girls, maybe in their mid-teens, sprawled across the pavement changing out of parental approved clothing and getting into clubbing attire and precarious heels. I think one was also applying fake tan. They politely excused themselves for being in my way and I went on my merrie way. I hope they found a club that would let them in after all that.

  17. #17
    Oliphaunt Rube E. Tewesday's avatar
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    So I'm in Starbucks, waiting for a chance to get at the counter where they keep the serviettes and the cup tops. Some young women are maybe taking a bit too long chatting as they pour their cream and such like. A woman, neatly dressed, looks like any other customer comes up and obviously wants to say something to me. I figure it's about the girls

    She says: "World wide death sentence, eh? World wide fucking death sentence." And walks out, without, as far as I can see, buying anything or doing anything else in the store.

    I think I have my new catch phrase. World wide fucking death sentence.

  18. #18
    Oliphaunt Rube E. Tewesday's avatar
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    Walking at lunch time, passed a beggar with a sign.

    The sign said: "Don't just think about kicking me. Do it. You'll feel better."

    I have a feeling he didn't mean it.

  19. #19
    Oliphaunt The Original An Gadaí's avatar
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    Would that hold up in a court of law?

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    Oliphaunt The Original An Gadaí's avatar
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    If I got a gun of some sort and loaded it and started firing at people at random in Dublin City Centre, more than half the dead and wounded would be wearing ridiculous Christmas jumpers. This pestilence must end.

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    Administrator CatInASuit's avatar
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    When did the fashion for these garish Xmas jumpers come from. I thought they had been lost in the 70's and embarrassing photos forever.
    In the land of the blind, the one-arm man is king.

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    Elen síla lumenn' omentielvo What Exit?'s avatar
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    What is a Christmas Jumper? Are they the Irish answer to ugly the hideous xmas sweaters that show up in America?

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    Administrator CatInASuit's avatar
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    Yeah, them.
    In the land of the blind, the one-arm man is king.

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    Along with Christmas sweaters, comes my over pet peeve, the gigantic over-the-top Christmas Attraction lights burning off more electricity than your average small town.
    In the land of the blind, the one-arm man is king.

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    Oliphaunt The Original An Gadaí's avatar
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    My neighbours just a few yards from my door are the more well-heeled types and the street up there looks like the housing estate from Home Alone. There seems to be a Christmas lights arms race going on, ten different ways.

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    Oliphaunt Rube E. Tewesday's avatar
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    Lady in front of me getting off the train this morning was wearing a hijab.

    And totally see-through white shorts, with a really tiny thong under them.

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    Oliphaunt Jizzelbin's avatar
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    I get that. Kind of incongruous, I guess.

    OTOH, I think I kind of understand the impulse to be daring in lands of relative freedom, and I certainly understand that essentially no amount of patriarchal authority suppresses a woman's basic need to feel pretty.

    That sounds pretty sexist, or whatever, but it is also, when you've lived as long as I have, pretty much seen to be true.

    Oh yeah so for my "city" (close-in suburb, I guess) tale, just now had another encounter with my good friend Ralph. Locking the door on me at *MY* group home. Equally his, supposing he isn't some renter.

    "I wouldn't worry about it."

    (insert his semblance of a beatific grin, and then "What?")

    "I wouldn't worry about it, Ralph."

    --"Oh just respecting the sign on the door is all."

    Two seconds later, the deadbolt clicks, so I just walk around in front of the plate-glass window, through the understory shrubs, let myself in using my RFID pass, and sit down again.

    Four minutes later, same deal, without the conversation.

    Do these people not understand that maybe if you're some young woman jogging on a treadmil in a sports bra, you don't want to look at some dude walking around in the understory?

    I know that would make me a bit uncomfortable.

    Ralph needs to shut the fuck up, and mind his own goddamm business. I pay for this place, I'll sit where I want, and when I do it my way, I'm not being a menace, you fucking enormous douche. Shut the fuck up, stay the hell out of my way, and don't fucking talk to me. That's the rules.

  28. #28
    Oliphaunt Rube E. Tewesday's avatar
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    So, I'm taking my usual lunch-time walk, and a couple passes me. A woman with a huge skull tattoo on her back is saying to a guy: "So lap-dancing was only legal if no booze was available. So the owner of the place I worked set up a separate lap-dancing place in the same complex..."

    And then they were out of ear-shot.

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    Elen síla lumenn' omentielvo What Exit?'s avatar
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    She had such a thoughtful boss, didn't she?

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    Oliphaunt Rube E. Tewesday's avatar
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    A lot of my anecdotes seem to involve seeing or over-hearing strippers and hookers near where I work.

    This probably says something.

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    Yeah, was going to say, but...

    Oh never mind my life in the city today after a whole bunch of pretty good stuff was walking back to my condo's clubhouse, I guess I faced the music, the office manager had some words for me about my comportment with whatever. Stupid candyasses fucking with me, whatever. Fuck, it's just a more hassle for me to go somewhere else but I'm vindicated it's *my* clubhouse, I pay for it, bunch of bitches. "Oh, that man was mean to me, who was sitting minding his own business, so I'm going to pretend I complain and whatever bullshit, even though I went up to him and said stuff and was shocked and amazed that he was really mean to me and my friends." Stupid moron bitches, don't fuck with me, and whatever.
    s

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    Oliphaunt The Original An Gadaí's avatar
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    I was walking down Dublin's main thoroughfare last week, it was a sunny day, everyone in fine fettle.
    At a corner where it's not unusual to see "anti-social" problems I heard glass smash and a scream.
    Half the street and I turned around to see what commotion was, expecting an assault or fight to have happened.
    Instead everyone saw two embarrassed young ladies, dolled up to the nines, glad rags on, and one holding a cardboard sixpack bottle holder
    sans bottles. They'd fallen straight through the bottom of the holder and had smashed all over the street.
    After a split second, realising everything was ok most people chuckled and went about their merrie way.

  33. #33
    Oliphaunt Rube E. Tewesday's avatar
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    OK, back to hookers from near where I work.

    Last night I'm walking to the subway. I see a woman standing in a parking lot, smoking.

    She's wearing a bathrobe.

    I realize that she must have stepped out of the massage parlour next door.

    Apparently there's a lot you can do in a massage parlour, but smoking in the workplace isn't one of them.

  34. #34
    Oliphaunt Rube E. Tewesday's avatar
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    Standing on the corner waiting for the light yesterday, dude's going by on a bicycle.

    He utters a whistle, and says "Just beautiful".

    I look behind me. There's a woman who appears to not really know what to do with this.

    It was odd. Odd in any case, but in all honesty, the woman, while not unattractive, was no show stopper. She was Asian, but even a guy with an Asian fetish is going to see a lot of more attractive Asian women in this city.

    Anyway, he kept on biking, the lights changes, and life went on.

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    Oliphaunt The Original An Gadaí's avatar
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    A kid, whom I suspect has eastern European parents, keeps landing down at our music venue on his bicycle and looking for "sponsorship". He has a form that looks about 30 years old and is most insistent. He asked me if I was a hippie, I told him no and he said "then why are you going into the hippie place?" Part of me wants to give him money but the other part of me realises if I do he'll never stop irritating us and bringing his pals along to boot.

  36. #36
    Oliphaunt Rube E. Tewesday's avatar
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    Sponsorship for what? That's an odd story, although i realize that its oddness is the reason you're telling it.

    And from what I know of you, AG, "hippie" doesn't sound too on the mark.

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    Oliphaunt The Original An Gadaí's avatar
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    Quote Originally posted by Rube E. Tewesday View post
    Sponsorship for what? That's an odd story, although i realize that its oddness is the reason you're telling it.

    And from what I know of you, AG, "hippie" doesn't sound too on the mark.
    Schools here have sponsored fun runs. They long since realised that some families and kids were looking for sponsorship where they shouldn't so most schools have a rule where they can only ask parents/families of other students for sponsorship, they can't go about unsolicited. Still there are some unscrupulous parents and/or smart kids who let them solicit donations from rank strangers such as us. I think the venue is more aptly described as "hipster" if anything.

  38. #38
    Oliphaunt Rube E. Tewesday's avatar
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    Lunch-time walk, guy coming towards me yelling into his cell phone: "YOU ARE BEING ABRASIVE!"

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    Oliphaunt Jizzelbin's avatar
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    Did you even say 'hi' to me?

    The nerve.

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    Oliphaunt Rube E. Tewesday's avatar
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    Hah, that was pretty close to a genuine LOL.

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    Just moved into the bona fide city and it is nice. Today, on my way to an ATM I encountered a man who was so inebriated he was communicating with a drain, then after that the most almighty horrendous breakup scenario. On my way back I noticed that Mr Inebriated had made his way to the other side of the street wherein he was pontificating to himself upon matters beyond our ken.

  42. #42
    Oliphaunt Rube E. Tewesday's avatar
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    Life in the city, AG, life in the city.

  43. #43
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    On the subway, two dudes with hipster facial hair:

    Hipster 1: I'm thinking of going somewhere....

    Hipster 2: ...remote?

    Hipster 1: Yeah, like Sweden.

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    Member Elendil's Heir's avatar
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    Just had coffee with a friend outside the courthouse, soaking up the autumnal sun as we talked and sipped. Very nice.

  45. #45
    Oliphaunt Jizzelbin's avatar
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    Quote Originally posted by Elendil's Heir View post
    Just had coffee with a friend outside the courthouse, soaking up the autumnal sun as we talked and sipped. Very nice.
    That is about the most boring "Life in the city" story I have ever heard.

    Judas priest, couldn't you guys have fought with, like, knives or something?

  46. #46
    Oliphaunt The Original An Gadaí's avatar
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    I went for a 5KM stroll. Along the way I noticed a barbershop in an old house, only indicator it isn't an abode is a sign in the window. When I landed down at the next village the cops had it on lockdown, dozens of police, some on horseback, some with big vicious looking dogs, and paddy wagons galore and they were keeping people from entering some of the pubs. Further along I encountered an elderly lady who was doubled over trying to put her bin out so I helped her.

    It turns out the cops were there because there was a football match in the local stadium between rival teams. They apparently have English style hooligan brawls if not guarded heavily. I have honestly never seen so many cops in one place in my life before.

  47. #47
    Oliphaunt Rube E. Tewesday's avatar
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    That the Irish talk about "English style hooligan brawls" is just a lovely thing to see.

  48. #48
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    Quote Originally posted by Rube E. Tewesday View post
    That the Irish talk about "English style hooligan brawls" is just a lovely thing to see.
    I mean we rarely have to make up an excuse for a barney.

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    Member Elendil's Heir's avatar
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    Quote Originally posted by Jizzelbin View post
    That is about the most boring "Life in the city" story I have ever heard.

    Judas priest, couldn't you guys have fought with, like, knives or something?
    We did, of course, but I'd rather not go into details before the grand jury recesses. Duh.

    Quote Originally posted by The Original An Gadaí View post
    ...dozens of police, some on horseback, some with big vicious looking dogs, and paddy wagons galore....
    So Irishmen get to freely use the phrase "paddy wagon," eh? Definitely frowned upon on this side of the pond.

  50. #50
    Oliphaunt The Original An Gadaí's avatar
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    Quote Originally posted by Elendil's Heir View post
    Quote Originally posted by Jizzelbin View post
    That is about the most boring "Life in the city" story I have ever heard.

    Judas priest, couldn't you guys have fought with, like, knives or something?
    We did, of course, but I'd rather not go into details before the grand jury recesses. Duh.

    Quote Originally posted by The Original An Gadaí View post
    ...dozens of police, some on horseback, some with big vicious looking dogs, and paddy wagons galore....
    So Irishmen get to freely use the phrase "paddy wagon," eh? Definitely frowned upon on this side of the pond.
    I saw it recently in an American context, not in the least bit offensive.

    This tour company probably raises some hackles but has been operating for years.

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