So, St Patrick's Day is almost upon us again.Marvellous. I haven't been looking forward to anything so much since the last time I made an appointment for a blind octogenarian Bedouin herdsman to perform a root canal on me with a sharpened wooden spoon.
Cynical, moi? Oh come on, puhlease. You and I are intelligent folk. We know Paddy's Day is little more than another excuse for gangs of feral teenagers to go wild on alcopops and their older (and supposedly wiser) countrymen and women to get floothered, hop into their cars and plough into lampposts and/or each other. Whoopee. Isn't it great to be Oirish? Drunk, violent, thuggish and sectarian. And that's just the children. What's not to be proud of?
Last year, hundreds of galoots were arrested after mayhem in Dublin, 56 people were nicked after a drunken brawl in Limerick, 60 were nabbed for various shenanigans in Cork, a man was stabbed and 18 others arrested in Belfast carnage and Galway gardaí described Patrick's Day as the "worst ever" for violence. There was even a mini-riot in Buenos Aires, ferchrissakes. The Americans, bless their little cotton socks, are nearly as bad. Tens of millions of them, will be spending the next week pretending to be Irish.
Any opportunity to display some national identity other than the generic flag-waving God-fearing USA-chanting chest-beating nonsense that has made them so hated around the world and they're off. And what better excuse than Patty's Day? The main difference is nobody walks anywhere in America. So rather than get plastered and fall around the streets like most of us, they do it in their cars.
You know that stereotype of drunks tearing around the streets of American cities on Patty's Day trolleyed on green beer and crashing their cars through shop windows? Sad to say it's true. Emissions did a bit of research: According to the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, 32 per cent of all road deaths around St Patrick's Day in 2003 were the result of drunk drivers. Death and injury rates are 64 per cent higher than any other day. According to Michigan cops, you'll need "more than lucky charms and pots of gold" (is that them saying they can't be bribed to let you off?) to stay safe on the roads. On a typical day, an average of 1.37 people die in alcohol related crashes in Michigan. On Patty's Day, the rate nearly doubles. So there you go. Ireland's great gift to America - an annual excuse to get twisted drunk and crash your car.
Just think how many Americans are killed each year as a direct result of what we've given them. Even discounting the fact we've also inflicted Riverdance, paedophile priests and Bono on them, Patty's Day in itself is enough justification in my book to launch a full-scale military onslaught. Many countries have been invaded for less. Maybe they're just waiting for us to make the first move? Who's up for it?
