St. Patrick's Day Tips

• Order a round of Black and Tans for your friends. Convince them it's traditional.
• Carry a shillelagh. Use it for its traditional purpose - cracking the skulls of anyone who wears fecking leprechauns on their clothing.
• If you run out of Irish drinking songs, remember that songs from other EU citizens are basically the same thing. May I suggest Ace of Base?
• Try the Salmon of Knowledge. It's delicious!
• Carry a sign reading "Down With This Sort Of Thing."
• Convert your name to its traditional Irish form by doubling every "n," turning every "o" into an "ui," and inserting an "haitch" before every vowel.
• Eamon De Valera quit drinking in the hopes that his countrymen would do likewise. Never speak of this.
• Celebrate St. Patrick's patronage of Nigeria with an evening of Nollywood films.
• Take up your Irish-American friends' invitations to kiss them, then spend the next two weeks at home with mononucleosis.
• Ask your German friends for money.
• Consider whether your quaint notions of the Auld Sod and its people could be mildly racist, and open your mind to the possibility that the Irish may be ordinary people like you and me. Then put these troubling thoughts aside.

Maybe a little inspired by a trip to the Sizzler

Suppose you have just entered a restaurant and you discover that all the patrons are old people. Would that make you more likely to want to eat there, or less likely to want to eat there?

Pros:
• Old people are good at spotting bargains, so presumably the restaurant would give you good value for money
• Old people expect friendly service and are unlikely to hang out at a place where the staff is rude
• No irritating children

Cons:
• Old people may just be coming back because they remember how great the food used to be twenty years ago
• Old people have developed a taste for braised pork snouts and boiled fish lips and other disgusting foods they used to have to eat during the War
• Unpleasant reminders of one's own mortality