You Know You're In Ireland (Again)
When:
The moving walkway has a warning sign, at the end, which reads "Face direction of travel". It can only be read if you are already facing the direction of travel and is therefore useless. And it's dangerous; turning round to see whether there was a similar sign on the back of it, I tripped over the end of the walkway. (There isn't; any true Irishman could have told me that)
The auctioneer tells someone bidding " Give up. The other bidder is a museum !" This the man did, being persuaded, thereby depriving the vendor of any further bids and the auctioneer of more commission.
The auctioneer sells me a lot which I did not bid for, which is Irish enough, but at a time when I was not even in the building. This was discovered when I paid for my other lots. Although the auctioneer had recorded my paddle number as the bidder,he wasn't in the least surprised by this development. It may happen frequently; Ireland may be full of people who thought they had bought a lot but didn't and vice versa . Maybe I looked like another fellow in the room, who was actually bidding (the auctioneer takes pride in putting numbers to faces and doesn't ask for your number after your first bid ). If so, was he in for a surprise! Who knows?
At the end of the very long walk from the departure lounge to the gate for boarding there is another sign.It reads " You can go back to the bars if you like". And it's painted, so permanent. What they do if you read that and go back at the moment of boarding is not clear, but it may not matter. No Irishman ever moves to get on a plane. Call "Boarding now!" to a 'gatefull' of passengers and nobody stirs. In the other terminal, they've met this problem. They have a pub bar by the gates.
And they still have the airport sign, though less conspicuously, " Mortuary". I seem to recall it once read "Mortuary and Departures".My cab driver said "As if Terminal wasn't bad enough for nervous flyers!"
Ah well. There must be strange signs like those in the UK, but I don't see them.Do you?