Celtic Tiger Dads are Fat, Useless and Lazy

My kids go to the new primary school, because the old village school is full. Actually there's more to it than that, but I won't go into that here. The new school is four pre-fabs, on three-quarters of an acre, surrounded by a steel security fence. Outside of that, it's potato drills in three directions and brand-new houses to the west. The Parent's Association were give a quote of €5,000 to plough, harrow and reseed the half acre "green area" of the school. Rather than get ripped off, they put out a message to the parents, that they should show up on Saturday morning with their shovels. The following problems presented on the day: -- Most parents didn't show, they were too busy/too important/too hungover. -- More than half of those who showed were women who (am I allowed say this??) are less useful for digging than men. The woman beside me tried hard, but she was just too darn small. -- The men who showed up were a mixed bunch, too many beer bellies and bad backs. -- The shovels they brought were of the garden centre plant-potting variety. I had the only decent builder's shovel. -- When the men and women dug, their shovels were bouncing off the earth, barely scratching the ground. This wasn't helped by the fact that the builder had buried construction rubble just inches under the soil, plus the fact that the topsoil had been scraped away from other areas, leaving only sticky yellow clay. If we had ten ablebodied men, each with a builder's shovel, working from 9am until 4pm, I reckon we could have done it. But we didn't, no sirree bob. Just a bunch of sorry-ass city folk with green plastic laminated half-length garden spades. So, we called the machine hire place and hired a rotovator. They gave us a deep discount on the rotovator, because it was for the school. That was all well and good, but it just broke up the ground that had already been dug. We needed a plough to break it up in the first place. (Or ten strong men.) Which made me think, why wouldn't the local agricultural contractor do the job? If he'll plough, harrow, seed, spread fertiliser and mow for €15 - €20 per acre, why can't he plough and harrow the schoolyard on his way to another job. A tractor, a plough, wham-bang, finished in five minutes, harrow it, wham bang, finished in five minutes, then 90 minute raking and picking stones. Done. It also made me think about something else. I hear that local suburbanites are paying €750 to have their 5 metre by 5 metre gardens laid with fresh sod. If I was scratching around my little garden with a hangover and an inadequate shovel, then I might consider that to be good value for money. As it is, I regard it as one of the worst excesses of the Celtic Tiger. I guess it's all relative. Link: Rate my Solicitor, from Twenty Major