March 1, 2014

St. Patrick's Month 2014

Slainte!

That common Irish toast is an interesting word.  Mispronounced by many, it was an interesting joke at a recent concert of my now favorite Irish Musical Group, Gaelic Storm.  The leader of the band, Patrick Murphy of Cork City, would toast the crowd quite often during the night, downing those fine little "airplane" bottles of whiskey that the crowd would throw to them at the end of each song.  Each time he would raise the little bottle and say, "Cilantro!" much to the amusement of the crowd.  After doing this about 6 times, finally one woman in the first row had had enough and she attempted to correct his pronunciation by saying, loud enough for all to hear, "It's pronounced SLAN-cheh!"  Well Mr. Murphy couldn't hold in the laughter on that one and kindly thanked her, raised his little bottle and said, "Cilantro!"

And now for today's Irish Joke selection.....

An American lawyer and an Irishman are sitting next to each other on a long flight. The lawyer is thinking that he can certainly outwit this common man from the countryside and entertain himself...So the lawyer asks if the Irishman would like to play a fun game. The Irishman is tired and just wants to take a nap, so he politely declines and tries to catch a few winks. The lawyer persists, and says that the game is a lot of fun.

“I ask you a question, and if you don't know the answer, you pay me only $5.00. Then you ask me one, and if I don't know the answer, I will pay you $500.00” he says. This catches the Irishman's attention and to keep the lawyer quiet, he agrees to play the game. The lawyer asks the first question. 'What's the distance from The Earth to the Moon?' The Irishman doesn't say a word, reaches in his pocket pulls out a five euro note and hands it to the lawyer.

Now, it's the Irishman's turn. He asks the lawyer, 'What goes up a hill with three legs, and comes down with four?' The lawyer uses his laptop and searches all references he could find on the Internet. He sends e-mails to all the smart friends he knows, all to no avail. After over an hour of searching he finally gives up. He wakes up the Irishman and hands him $500.00

The Irishman pockets the $500.00 and goes right back to sleep. The lawyer is going nuts not knowing the answer. He wakes the Irishman up and asks, 'Well, so what goes up a hill with three legs and comes down with four?' The Irishman reaches in his pocket, hands the lawyer $5.00 and goes back to sleep.

"Cilantro!"