Weekend Randomness: Dublin on its Knees

I thought I should post this story because given the international readership of this blog it is unlikely that anyone outside of the Emerald Isle (ie Ireland) will ever hear about it. Of course being the blogger that I am and covering the type of material that I do I love anything with the faintest whiff of news or current affairs about it.

However, one major criteria for this is that it must not be Irish. Now this has nothing to do with the quality of Irish broadcasting. In fact for the money it receives i would be willing to bet the Irish state broadcaster does a fine job when compared to its international counterparts. Indeed for sports coverage Irish pundits are lauded in all major disciplines for being much much stronger than their British counterparts. The sole reason is that next to nothing ever happens in this country. That was until yesterday, Thursday the 8th of July.2010.

This is an occasion so monumental that you will be able to walk up to anyone on any street in the nation's capital and ask them, where were you when the penguin was stolen? Yes, just yesterday at 8:30 A.M (30 minutes before opening time) ,three young rapscallions (my word,not a quote) snook into our country's only zoo and stole a ten year old female penguin called Kelli.

The animal was found on a small street on the North inner city by the Gardai (Irish police) later that same day. The animal, like all animals at the zoo were micro chipped for tracking purposes. A vet examined the animal and stated it was completely unharmed. The zoo has said that the incident 'is not frivolous and is certainly not something amusing'.

While I understand how stressful this would be for zoo staff and I would be one of the first to be in uproar if the animal was harmed but for some reason I can't help but walk around with a smile on my face today. It might have something to do with how easy I thought it would have been to steal a one of the birds the last time I was at the zoo.

*Apologies. Due to a scheduling issue this post is late in  being published. It had originally been scheduled to be published on Friday.