Visitation

I was having dinner in a pub in Rathmines and by chance I ended up sitting beside a table of clerics all wearing scarlet shirts and collars.  I spotted the Archbishop amongst them and thought it might be an opportunity to introduce myself.  How could I do so without appearing forceful? I wondered.  I kept looking over my shoulder, appearing to do it casually but really keeping a close eye on the episcopal table. 

Just after I finished my garlicky spaghetti the Arch stood up to go to the bar.  Here was my chance.  I waited a second, and then rose from the table sharply (though doing my best to retain the appearance of coolness), dabbing the garlicky oil from the corner of my mouth with a cheap crimson serviette (the sort of thing that leaves a stain if you try to wipe your trousers with it).

I went to the bar, and seeing the grey curly back of the Arch’s head before me, I dived straight towards him, and jabbing him in the shoulder with my entire outstretched hand I almost dislocated one of my fingers.

—Ah sorry, sorry, I said, wringing my hand and looking at the floor.

He turned around.  It wasn’t the Arch at all—it was some other auldfella who wasn’t even wearing clerical garb.

—Ah sorry, I said.  Thought you were someone else.  Never mind.

The auldfella looked away without saying anything.  Prick.

I stood at the bar for a second.  There was no barman to be seen.  Fuck.  I looked over at the wall where the television (Sky News) and the dartboard were.

—Brian, I said.  The auldfella turned his head to the left and looked at me.

—Ah, sorry, I thought Brian was over there.  Never mind.

Fuck that, I said to myself, and giving the bar a little imperceptible shove with both my hands (the left one still a bit sore, as I realized a second later), I began to walk away and headed towards the jacks.

Inside the jacks there were three cubicles on the right, urinals just beyond them, and sinks on the left wall.  I decided to wash my hands, because I didn’t actually need to use the toilet and needed to find some excuse to have gone in there.  I washed my hands with shitty blue liquid soap and then dried them under one of those fucking mental handdriers that nearly take your skin off.  As I was rubbing my hands together in aimless circles I noticed the vending machine on the wall to my right.  Mini Vibrator, €5.  Fuck that.  I’m not paying five quid for that shit.  Extra Safe Condoms, €3.  That’s not bad.  Might be worth it in case I get the ride some time in the next six months, I thought. 

I took out my wallet and withdrew a €1 coin and put it into the machine.  Then I took out another €1 coin and put it also into the machine.  In preparation for the final coin I twitchily felt the knob on the machine which moments later I would turn to retrieve my purchase.  There was one more coin in my wallet but when I took it out it wasn’t a €1—it was a 20 cent.

—Fuck.  Fuck!  Fucking COCK, I shouted as I dropped the 20 cent coin into the sink and banged my fist against the machine in rage.  At that moment someone emerged from one of the cubicles and appeared in the peripheral vision of my left eye.  My eyes darted to the left and I glanced in his direction.  It was the Archbishop.

—O your grace, hello.  How are you?  Em, I’m sorry, I just got a bit carried away.  You see I was putting money into this machine.

He raised his eyebrows but said nothing.

—I wasn’t buying one of those mini vibrators! I shouted.

Silence.

—Or a cock ring.

Why did I say that?  The machine didn’t even sell cock rings.

The arch stared awkwardly at a fixed point on the tiled bathroom floor ahead of him as he walked past me to the sinks, where he began sheepishly to wash his hands, all the time staring downwards.

—It was only condoms your grace.  Better safe than sorry, eh? 

I laughed awkwardly but lightheartedly.  He didn’t say anything.  That made me very angry. 

I snatched up my wallet (which I had dropped onto the floor earlier) and shoved it half into my pocket and made for the door.  As I opened the door I turned around and shouted in the direction of the Arch who was just about to dry his hands.

—Yeah, well, fuck you anyway Ernie, you big PRICK.

I stormed out the door.  I don't know why I called him Ernie.  That’s not even his name.

Cocks, etc.

I was in the staffroom on my lunch break innocently reading 'The Ticket' (yes, it was a Friday) and eating a purple snack bar while some colleagues sitting around me chatted away. Half-listening, I would occasionally grab snippets of their conversation.

—...lunch box...seventeen...O'Meara...scratchcard...

It wasn't very interesting. I was much more interested in the theatre listings. I fancied myself as a bit of an art snob sometimes. I didn't even like the theatre, but it was worth going just to tell people you went and see their reaction.

—I was in the Abbey last night.

—OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!

Yeah. My colleagues were all insufferable. Though in fairness, they probably thought I was an ignorant git myself. But that's how the cookie crumbles.

—So Jonathan, do you like cock?

My ears pricked up. Did she ACTUALLY just ask him that?

—Well Bernie, to be honest I'm not MAD into it. But I dabble on occasion.

—Really? That's nice. I always had a feeling. You know the way.

I lowered my newspaper a little and peered over my glasses with eyebrows raised. Jonathan was a young baldy bloke with a scruffy beard and trendy glasses. And he was talking about cock.

—Well, I mean, flange is all right I suppose, if that's the sort of thing you're into. Cock's more up my street in a way. Not that I have much of a street.

Bernie and Denise laughed very highpitched and very irritating laughs. I stared slightly more incredulously.

—To be honest, said Denise, I love the cock. Nothing better than a mouthful of cock when you come home in the evening.

—Yeah, I know what you mean, Denise, said Bernie. A cock in the hand is worth two in the bush!

This time all three of them laughed. They kept laughing even after I couldn't remember what Bernie had said in the first place. Jonathan had a bellowing English laugh which was really annoying.

After another minute I'd had enough.

—I mean, REALLY. You just think you can sit here and talk about cock and LAUGH without me saying anything? Well, you thought wrong. You are a shower of insufferable BASTARDS and you need to all grow up and GET A LIFE. What the FUCK is wrong with you. Fuck sake.

I threw my copy of 'The Ticket' on the table and stormed out of the staffroom, dropping the wrapper of my snack bar on the floor along the way. I stood outside in the courtyard and lit myself a green Marlboro, blowing smokerings as I smoked. A cooing pigeon landed near to me and I kicked it.

I hate pigeons.

The 48th Eurachistic Conference.

Pope Benjidict the X vee eye called the 36th Euchratistic Conflagration in the year 200diddlysquat to be held in Dublin, Ireland for the celebration of Eric Clapton's birthday. The proceedings were renamed "Ecumenical Congress" as the word eucharistic was considered to be offensive and frankly racist to the hindus, muslimists and protestants. The actual event itself was not, however. Well done yet again catholic church.

Day 1 began with a huge procession from Bird Avenue, Clonskeagh to the Pro-Cathedral, Marlborough Street, which was hampered by a large number of pigeons and junkies, but got there eventually. Benediction was pronounced (or whatever verb is correct with benediction, given, benedicted, popeified, etc.) outside the Pro at 5pm just as all the whitecollar types were going home from work.

Now most of these types didn't give a rat's flute about the holy proceedings happening outside the Pro. As a matter of fact, some of them downright despised catholicism, the pope and the chorch. Two of these were Wes and Brian, a pair of queers who lived along Grand Canal Street, Dublin 4. Wes and Brian were two nice chaps in their 30s who had been husband and husband for a few years now and loved nothing more than an evening drinking a nice bottle of mid-range wine followed by a session of weird sex games where they shoved parsnips up each other's noses and smeared gooseberry jam over one another's arses. But of course that was fine in our Tolerant Modern Society where Anything Goes.

Sadly, Wes and Brian had to get divorced in 2004 because one of them discovered the other had raped his dog. Jeesus. However, they met weekly thereafter in the sleaziest joints in Ballsbridge for a quick parsnip and a royid.

The end of the Eorcastic thing was interesting because of a scene which occurred just there beyant O'Connell Bridge. Mary Robinson was there to review the proceedings and it just so happened that she mistook Brian Cowen's wife for the pope, which was very embarrassing, considering there was no pope there at all. Now that was a faux-pas if e'er I saw one.

Well done Mary. Well done Brian's wife. Well done Wes and Brian. Well done Clapton. Well done pope.

Well done all round!

THE LONG-AWAITED LAST GOSPEL OF MR(S). HENDERSON.

"Trevor? I don't understand..." Testaments, hoors, pickled mickeys and Green TDs. Hendy was sure that life had gone beyond surreal.

"Of all people to become an heir-bastard, it would be a homosexual freak of nature like you, Jeremy Sue, wouldn't it?" The tone of Trevor's voice was steely, almost priest-like.

"Wow, wow, wow there!" interrupted Rufus camply. "At least she's not carrying a bag of onions. I mean, what the fuck?"

"Quiet Rufus!" whispered John sharply. "He's armed."

"But Trevor...where do you fit in in this story?"

Trevor smiled harshly, almost delighting in the confusion he had caused.

"Well, Jeremy. Your father John Charles McQuaid was a disgrace to the holy church which had appointed him archbishop. My father on the other hand was the greatest Irish Catholic who ever lived."

"But wait...you're a Protestant!"

"Yes...that's what I've told people all along. Nobody would ever suspect me, upstanding Protestant Trevor Sargent, to have come from where I did. No. I lived my life in hiding. Nobody knew that I was actually Francis Duff Junior, the heir to the Catholic fortunes of the world! But though you might want to use your inheritence for evil and destruction, I will use mine to glorify God and the Pope of Rome, our great spiritual father."

"What the hell are you talking about?"

Trevor's eyes glinted as if with madness. "I have inherited the strongest Catholic faith of all. Your father may have been an exalted archbishop, but he was a waste of space, a religious airhead, a falsely zealous demagogue, a fraud and a charlatan! My father, however, was the greatest Catholic who ever lived on this island, and my mother a saintly woman of the greatest charity. My parents were General Frank Duff and Mother Teresa."

Rufus's jaw fell open, and John found himself getting an erection. However, realising how embarrassing that could possibly be, he imagined himself having sex with Mother Teresa and the feeling promptly disappeared. Rufus took two steps back to the window and lit himself a cigarette.

"But what does that make you then?" asked Hendy, becoming more worried by the minute.

"I am the heir to the command of the Legion of Mary, and from today onwards we will be the Catholic army of the world, destroying vice, fornication, feminism and homosexuality wherever we go. But first I must pay my father's debt by once and for all finishing the job that he could not finish and which left him in disgrace, a disgrace foisted upon him by your father the archbishop, and a legacy he did not deserve."

Suddenly it clicked in Hendy's mind. "You mean...?"

"Give me that mickey."

"No! I can't! I've searched my whole life for the truth, and just as I finally know it you're going to take that away from me. I know now how I've wasted these years trying in vain to be a woman, when all along I was just a man with no mickey. But now I will wait for no man. I am going to have my mickey reattached and live my life at last as a man, the life I should have had for all these years."

"Fool!" shouted Trevor, shaking his pitchfork and onions threateningly. "You don't understand at all. You have lived your life this far without that mickey. I have hidden all my life, waiting for the moment at which I could finally reveal myself. And all I need to fulfil my father's legacy is that mickey. Give it to me!"

John was trying hard to get it down as Rufus ejaculated suddenly: "Darling, why don't you listen to the lady? She just found her penis that she hasn't had in like, a million years, and she wants to get it sewn back on. How would YOU feel if you just found your penis and some guy came along wanting to take it off you? Well? Just think about that before you make any rash moves."

Trevor was visibly annoyed at Rufus's insolence. Just as it seemed like he was going to make a decisive move, Rufus flicked his cigarette out the window onto the grass below.

"NO! THE GRASS!" Ever a Green at heart, no matter what his religious aspirations, Trevor flung down his onions and his pitchfork and dived out the window after the cigarette. However, having forgotten that they were on the upstairs floor, he misunderestimated the distance he would fall, and splattered like a bucket of moist flange onto the hard ground far below in the manner of Brendan Gleeson falling from the tower In Bruges.

The three gays gazed out the window after Trevor in silent shock. He was definitely dead, as you could see his brains. It was not a pretty sight. Rufus retched a little, but felt better as soon as John put his hand down his trousers.

"So...is that it then?" asked Hendy with a hint of sadness in his/her voice. "Is this the end?"

"Of course not darling!" said Rufus. "The end is never any fun. It's still the beginning."

And with that, the Gaybus reappeared outside, and in a flash a troupe of dancers had alighted and began dancing suggestively to "Between My Legs". Rufus and John gazed into one another's eyes for a moment before they started some severe stubble-scratching. Hendy looked beyond the dancers and to the hills and the sky in the distance. Then he/she picked up his/her little shrivelled mickey and hugged it to him/herself and pondered about the future.

And it was a bright, mickeyed future.

What the Elizabethans need is a good kick up the arse.

Elizabethans with all their love love love (or was that the Beatles?) at the first sight of someone's ruffled cuffs.

"O, Mary, how the sun shines on your little ears; it doth engulf me in a dream of miniature puppies and other assorted soft things."

"O, Gerald, how ruffled your cuffs today are! The manner in which you speak to me takes my breath away and leaves the rest of me in the dazzled state of a mere puddle-like shape."

"Mary, you are the love of my life. Though we just met over there at that table by the punch dish I want to use the years of my life to fulfill your desires to an optimum proficiency. Marry me, Mary and we can live in Hampstead Heath forever!"

"Gerald, the punch bowl is blessed to have been the object that we both met at and I pray to God that it shall be canonised or whatever us C. of E. people do to make people very well respected. But, yes of course Gerald, I shall be yours in total, every hand-stitched garment on my body and that which it covers. O, hold me. Take my waist and tell me that we will visit my father at first light to demand his consent."

"Mary, your little waist is like the waist of an angel. I wish to hold it forever while we sit on the greenest grasses of England and watch the youthful lambs of Spring leap full of folly and joy. Blessed be the angels of Heaven that I have found you over there by the punch and sandwiches."

Of course then they realise that they're still drunk from New Year's Eve and that they've wandered into Spar on Liffey Street. A small crowd gathers.

This tomfoolery continued well into the Victorian age when things got really silly. As people said "let this age be known as the Edwardian Age" (it just conveniently suited the monarch's name) things started to look bright again (forgetting the world carnage around the corner) with some simplicity allowed in personal relationships and in dress. Still to this day we value the Elizabethan stupidity and their way of saying pretty things and hopelessly falling in love at the drop of a hat. And all that wooing! Christ.

Picture the scene in Belmonte Calabro-- a beautiful young heiress sits in wait for her knight in shining armour, to use a well-known phrase or saying. In reality, she was waiting for some fellow attractive enough to come along to win her heart. He didn't need to be familiar with horses, but riding knowledge was an advantage.

This stunning princess, Portia, lived in her palace in the hills with her servants and maids. Her over-protective father, Noel Edmonds, had died several years previous and had left her his fortune. During his life, he was known for throwing great house parties for his noble kinsmen of the surrounding province. They would, in time, give rise to Mr. Blobby who would become a popular television character.

Even after death, Portia's father tried to do the best he could for his his little girl. He devised a scheme in which only the best suitor would win Portia's hand (and much more besides) in marriage.

And we're live in three, two.........

"Good evening ladies and gentlemen and welcome to Deal Or No Deal. Today we have the Prince of Morocco in the hot seat. Unfortunately, he's an arrogant chap with stupid headgear who thinks a bit too much of himself. But let's see if he's got a plan for today."

"Well, I think I'll easily dismiss the boxes that don't look good enou...."

"Actually, sorry to butt in but can you clarify that you chose this box freely and that they were all sealed by our adjudicators?"

"Oh, yis. Ehh, I was saying that the lead is shit and I love the gold. Give me the key!"

(opens the gold box by tearing off the little bit of paper after three and a half minutes of Noel's brother asking if he was sure and passing vague comments about previous games)

"Oh no, fuck. Now I can never get married anyone. This game show is rotten. What do you expect me to do when I'm in the mood, huh? All this honour bullshit, I'm sick of it."

"Well, all we can do is hope for a better game tomorrow. Same time (after Brookside), same place (here on 4).

Then again, that's not quite appealing enough for your regular urban dweller in the fifteen hundreds. Bums on seats, as they say in the theatre world. Nowadays, of course, it would fill Croke Park. But then again, people buy any aul' shite these days in the name of literacy and a glass of wine. But back then, common Londoners wanted to see bears being ripped to pieces by savage dogs and all that sort of thing. So, now that I think of it, they probably hated all this thematic waffle about friendships and allegiance and courage. I guess mum had to drag all the kids down to Bankside to listen to the latest twaddle from Willie himself. Nothing much changes over some four hundred years. Well, now people look at porn.

Cheers.

Stick a mickey in your carrotcake.

I shave dado. Shave it real good. And make sure it's nice and even before I put on the wallpaper paste.

Dead visa ho. Absolute hoor, always looking for an aul' ride on the credit card. Dead, that's where it gets you.

Head as void. Speaks for itself really. Or rather doesn't. Ha ha ha ha. !

I shove a dad. As dirty as that may seem, it's true.

Hoorin' around on Montgomery Street

Back in the fine days when a youngfla could get up in the morning and go down Monto for a quick ride with a prostitute before work, people were happy. At least, Michael was happy. One July morning he was feeling more than a little randy after passing Ann Summers on O'Connell Street and fancied a bit of the old in-out. So, he nipped around to the Monto for to see what he could see.

The (w)hole area was swarming with hoors and specialists sex shops and all that sort of thing, well done. You'd find all the durty aul' fellas knocking (pun not especially intended, but take it [no pun intended] as you will) around the place aswell as a few decent skins (but not many). Bang Bang was often seen hanging around street corners behind the Pro-Cathedral. He wasn't interested in sex, he just thought he was under enemy fire and was sheltering himself from the pesky Boers that had killed some of his friends in the Royal Dublin Rifles Divisions with pineapples.

Michael was into strange things when it came to sexual relations. He was a fan of "Juliette" by the infamous Marquis de Sade. So, he was keeping an eye out for a young woman with a particular twinkle in her eye as he walked along with hands in his pockets.

"Afternoon Prince Albert," said Michael cheerfully.

"Eh, I don't know what... what you're talking about young man. I'm... I'm not ....Prince Albert!"

"Oh, sorry old chap, no harm done!" replied Micheal and he continued whistling "Good Old Desk" by Harry Nilsson. Of course, Michael knew it was the Prince, but didn't want to make a fuss. He'd see him the following week anyway.

Eventually, whatever it was that Michael was looking for in a girl was found in the eye and brasserie of a twenty-something blond wearing a long dark-blue coat. Their eyes met and the prospect of business drew her towards him.

"Hello, dear. How are we this afternoon?"

"We're surely fine and dandy. We're also very naked under this coat if you're interested."

"Well, you know, I think I am. You're just the sort of whore I'm looking for right now. How much for the afternoon, you little tart?"

"You seem like a regular, you should know the going rates. I'm no different that the other trollops that do these streets. We have a union, you know! Larkin helped us set it up. We didn't know how to thank him enough....."

"Riiiight... So, back to me ridin' ya... How would you like the payment? I've got cash on me, I don't know if I've enough though. Eh, I think I've my laser too. Yeah, here in my inside pocket. Oh, I've some travellers' cheques too in sterling and Australian dollars. --rummaging within-- Ah, and here's a scratch card with three £60s on it."

"Hmmm... is that all you have? No vouchers for Clarks shoe shops? We only take shoe-related currency or payment methods. Even if you have a couple pairs of Crocs handy, that'd do fine. Unfortunately we've had to stop taking Dr. Martin's because of all the forgeries doing the rounds at the moment. Janet down the road there accepted six pairs in payment for a good-hard-shag and it turned out they were fakes. That wouldn't even get you the most basic treatment on any market, let me tell you."

"Eh, yeah," said Michael as he stepped slowly away from the whore. Unfortunately for him he didn't stop, look or listen and was mowed down by an oncoming tram destined for Milltown. God love 'em. It wasn't his fault that the hoor's obsession with shoes had gone so barmy, so off-the-bleedin'-wall, so consuming, so idiotic and nutty that it actually inadvertently caused his death.

The Dublin coroner's court returned a verdict of death by misadventure. The hoor faced no charges. Bitch.

Mickey O'Leary's Oral Face.

A Friday Night in Dublin, Year 2022.

Somewhere in the not too distant future, 14 years from now, Dublin is a changed place. Metro North carries boisterous skangers from Finglas to Stephen's Green every five minutes. The Irish Independent has a dirty page 3. Gay Byrne is dead, God love him. TV3 is now an adult channel, showing complete and utter American dirt every night of the week. The Spire has been blown up by the UVF. Catholicism no longer exists, and the Pro-Cathedral has been converted into a gay bar with St Kevin's Oratorio as a leather fetish shop. Clery's has become a knocking shop. Stephen's Green is filled with northside junkie bastards. The canal is full of shite. Croke Park now seats 500,000 people and the entire Phoenix Park has been converted into the Phoenix Car Park, the largest in Europe. In fact, Dublin has become pretty shit.

But not everything has changed. Dublin Bus is still shit. Capel Street is still a load of hole. Cabra is still common. Ballsbridge is still full of posh bastards. And most of all, Twenty-Ones is still a mouldy, poxy kip.

—FREE HOLE.

Inside the dark, dank abyss of Twenty-Ones, Lola Sleevend is there dancing her arse off for yet another Friday evening all alone. Despite the fact that she is now 34 years old, Lola has been coming here every week since she broke up with Keerawn back in 2006. If you do the maths, that is, of course, a grand total of 16 years of weekly holegetting. What a desperate aul' hoor she became. In the first few years, she got hole on average eight times a week, but as she got older the hole opportunities decreased proportionally. By the time Lola was approaching 30, hole was almost non-existent for her, and rightly so in a club meant for 14 year-olds. By 2022, Lola was so desperate for hole she had started offering it for free.

—FREE HOLE. Lads, would yez like yer hole?
—Eh, no thanks love, yeh can keep it.

In a far corner of that same club stood an equally old Keerawn, so desperate for hole that he had taken to showing off his mickey to any girls who passed by. Despite several courses of herbal penis-enlargement tablets, his mickey was still inordinately small. To make it worse, girls always assumed he was jewish, which was terribly unsettling for poor Keerawn. By 2022, he was so desperate for hole that he exposed his mickey all night from open to close, hoping that some passing youngone would take the hint. However, just as Lola had told him, girls would rather have a Big Mac than a Happy Meal, and the fact that he was about 20 years older than most of the girls in the place didn't help either.

—Girls, would you like to see me mickey?
—Ah jaysus, you call that a mickey?

—FREE HOLE.

—Girls, would you like to see...?
—Fuck off ya paedo!

—FREE HOLE!
—Jaysus, what a desperate aul' hoor.

—Girls, would you...?
—Jaysus, didya see that durty aul'fella?

—FREE HOLE!?
—Bleedin' hell.

—Girls...?
—FUCK OFF OR I'M CALLIN' DE GARDS!

—FREE—HOLE!!!
—JAYSUS, CLOSE YOUR LEGS WILL YA?!

And such was the way of Lola and Keerawn, a pair of desperate mid-thirtysomethings who tried too hard to get hole for too long. In spite of years of attempting to get hole in Twenty-Ones, they never succeeded. Lola's greatest success was meetin' eight mingers in one night. It's quantity, not quality, so she said. But still, it didn't do her any good, and Keerawn neither.

FREE HOLE. God love them both.

Public Notice.

From henceforth, Bramblog will contain much less gee, mickey and general durt, as it's really just disgusting.

Thanks for listening.

"Keerawn's Ode to Lola's Gee", by Robert Frost.

I have been acquainted with the flaps of Lola Sleevend
And the dark abysses of her gee.
I have sat and drunk from the Kopparberg bottle of eternity
Drowning in washes of gee-cider.

O Lola, let me go—
Why do you keep me locked in your gee so?

I long to be free
Playing guitar,
Fixing my hair—
Not in your gee.

I long to return to Twenty-Ones
To expose my mickey to passing girls
And to hear them remark, as you did once, Lola,
"O, such a happy meal it would make."

But will it never be, Lola?
Will I spend eternity here trapped behind your flaps?

Let me go
And be free
Without woe
Here in gee.

O Lola, let me go
And let me be free
From the mystifying glances
Of the eyes of your gee...

Gerry Ryan's Friday Giveaway.

Friday morning at 11 o'clock with Gerry Ryan as he gives out prizes for the most disgusting stories possible.

GERRY: And now on Ryan's Friday Giveaway, we have Barbara from Killester.

BARBARA FROM KILLESTER: Howya Gerry.

GERRY: Well Barbara, I've heard from Brenda that you have a story about shite.

BARBARA FROM KILLESTER: That's right Gerry.

GERRY: Good, I love a bit of shite. Entertain us, Barbara.

BARBARA FROM KILLESTER: Well Gerry, I was in the Maldives last year with me husband Brian and one day we were at the beach and we were after eatin' ice-cream.

GERRY: Right.

BARBARA FROM KILLESTER: And so Brian says to me, Jaysus Barbara, I think I'm goin' to have the scutters. And so I says to him, well, what are ya goin' to do about it. And before I knew it he'd scuttered all over his jocks right there in front of everyone on the beach.

GERRY: What a great story. Amazing. I think that one deserves a round of applause lads. Ah, nothing like a bit of shite on a Friday morning. Barbara, hold the line there, I think you might be in with a chance to win our fabulous prize of a fifty-euro voucher for Ann Summers' in O'Connell Street to buy yourself whatever sort of vibrator you like. Now, I hear that next on the line we have Linda from Cabra who has a story about snot. Good morning Linda.

LINDA FROM CABRA: Good morning Gerry.

GERRY: So Linda, is it true that your daughter failed her Junior Cert because she was picking her nose?

LINDA FROM CABRA: Well Gerry, me daughter Jacinta was in doin' her Junior Cert home ec exam and she was making an apple tart and when she thought the examiner wasn't looking she picked her nose and flicked it into the apple, but she got caught and got zero for it.

GERRY: Well that was a bit silly wasn't it? But, I mean, why shouldn't a young girl be allowed to pick her nose in full view of another person? I think it's appalling nowadays how dictatorial schools are. In my day you weren't just allowed to pick your nose, you were encouraged to do it. Extra points if you could flick it into someone else's dinner. So I say fair play to your daughter and may she have many more days of nose-picking ahead of her. Margaret from Finglas good morning.

MARGARET FROM FINGLAS: Good morning Gerry.

GERRY: So tell us your story.

MARGARET FROM FINGLAS: Well, one time back in the 90s when I was in holiday in Courtown myself and me husband were ridin' in our caravan when next thing he shoves his mickey by accident into the bed and it goes through and gets caught in a spring and fell off.

GERRY: Amazing. So what happened to it?

MARGARET FROM FINGLAS: Well, he had to get it stitched back on by the paramedics. So we weren't able to ride ever again.

GERRY: You mean you haven't had sex since the 90s?

MARGARET FROM FINGLAS: That's right Gerry. Well, I had a vibrator I bought down in Courtown afterwards but the batteries kept running out and it broke there for good about two months ago. So I haven't had me hole since.

GERRY: Oh dear, oh dear. Well we can't have that. Buy that lady a vibrator!

Historical Inaccuracy

Tonight I'd like to right a wrong, if I may. An inaccuracy that has arrived somehow in our history books as fact. The inaccuracy that I speak of is the use of the term the "Night of the Long Knives". Most people think that it refers to the purge against Rohm and the SA, among others, in Nazi Germany. This is, however, wrong. I shall now tell you the true roots of the phrase. It will take you to Dublin in the early years of Irish independence and the Irish Free State.

The story begins with an all-night Exposition and Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament in St. Patrick's church in Ringsend. The particular occurrence in question happened in November 1929. Imagine the scene, a couple dozen holy auld ones kneeling on pews looking at a gold thing, undisturbed, for twelve hours. Even poor Geraldine, who had come all the way from Leixlip for the occasion, felt so bad as to leave after sneezing. The church was silent, the holy auld ones in prayer. The host-holding thingy (monstrance) sat on the altar in a way in which you've never seen a host-holding thingy (monstrance) sit on an altar ever before. That's because you've presumably never been to St. Patrick's in Ringsend. I haven't. Why would anyone want to go there? Well, anyway, it sat on the altar, in the words of an eyewitness, "in quite an astonishing manner". Bloody holy auld ones. Nobody really knows why this group of holy auld ones decided to hold their annual field trip in Ringsend. One legend may hold water. At the time, it was a popular belief that God loved even the worst places on earth. Christians flocked to the mouldiest kips they could think of to hold Masses and services of all kinds. This may have influenced the decision to go to Ringsend. After all, it was the '20s. God love them.

So, as you can imagine, the holy auld ones were all holied up after all that time being holy and praying and the like. The most exciting thing they could think of doing to splash out (in a respectable fashion) was to have a nice cup of cup somewhere. Unfortunately they were in Ringsend and it was nearing six o'clock in the morning. The only place where they could find to have a cup of tea was a pub that opened early in the morning to accommodate the drinking needs of certain folks. Seeing no alternative, the holy auld ones entered the pub with dismay. They really would have done anything to get a decent cup of tea.

As soon as the door started to open everyone in the pub spun around in the chairs. They expected some sailor and a dirty youngfla that was finished having his way with a whore down on the quays. Their gasps were met by twenty late middle-aged women with raincoats and rosary beads. The remaining holy auld ones had decided to wait in the church until nine o'clock for confessions. The customers in the pub stared at the women as they passed the dirty mirrors advertising alcoholic drinks such as Murphy's, Guinness and Tullamore Dew. As they approached the bar Mary asked the grey-haired man behind the counter for six pots of tea. The man looked up from the tap of Killkenny from which he was pouring a pint and quickly glanced at every one of the women before he said anything. He grinned to himself and said, "Jiz want milk 'n' sugar wi' da'?" Relieved at the barman's response, the holy auld ones crossed the floor and occupied most of the eastern corner of the pub. They sat uncomfortably as they were being stared at from all sides. They gave each other uneasy looks as they sat waiting for their tea.

The clientele of the pub were dirty, randy aul' bastards that had made the soil their bride or were too ugly to ever go with anybody let alone have relations. Unfortunately for the holy auld ones, the pub was also occupied by particularly randy, drunk auldflas that morning. Leo, a drunk, randy bastard offered to help the barman to carry over the tray of tea to the "fine ladies in the corner". In unfortunate fashion, Leo had the most unpleasant fall and skulled himself off the edge of the bar and left several minutes later after regaining consciousness.

After this first attempt at approaching the holy auld ones, the other druk, randy auldflas began to get ideas of their own. Poor auld ones. The drunk, randy aul' bastards started crossing the pub with grins and with greasy combs in hand running them across their balding heads and tidying their ear hair. They moved in slowly but with an increasing menace that made one holy auld one puke delicately into her hanky (the one that her neighbour had bought for her in Fatima when she was there with the parish).

The drunk, randy, aul' bastards numbered eight. The holy auld ones were, at this stage, very nervous. And rightly so, for in a flash (if you'll pardon the pun) the nearest aulfla whipped out his mickey and began wiggling it at the holy auld ones. In a moment of stress, Mrs. Kennedy withdrew a large knife from her raincoat and sliced the drunk, randy aul' bastard's mickey right off.

"Come on girls! These randy aul' men need to be taught a lesson."

At that, each of the holy auld ones retrieved from their pockets a long knife. For, you see, they were all members of the Legion. They were all armed with their standard issue emergency mickey knife. By the time they were finished, there wasn't an attached mickey left in the building. "Hmmm, that'll put a stop to their randy little ways," said Mrs. Kennedy as they walked back onto the streets of Ringsend. The incident instantly became known as the Night of the Long Knives. It was, of course, in the morning. But nothing interesting even happens in the morning, so they just said that it happened at night for a greater "Ooooh" factor.

One of the poor, then mickeyless, aul' bastards left his native Dublin because every one knew that he hadn't a mickey. He fought the insults, the hurt for a few years but left for Germany in 1934. He was barely off the boat when he found himself in a bar with four whiskeys in front of him (two empty) and talking to the barman. He began to cry and cry very loudly at that. SO much so that he didn't hear the window being smashed in at the front of the bar. The poor barman, a dissident, had legged it off somewhere. The poor mickeyless bastard was left with nobody to tell his story to. He yelled at in anger, "CURSE THE NIGHT OF THE LONG KNIVES!"

On hearing the shouts of the old man, an SS youngfla shot him. He was part of a team doing a regular around-the-town check on things when some little fucker threw a brick at him. It just missed the SS fella and smashed the window of the bar. The youngfla ran into the bar for safety and on hearing the auldfla's shouts in a foreign language, he spun around and pulled the trigger. So, that was the end of the poor, mickeyless aul' bastard. And that's how the phrase "Night of the Long Knives" reached Germany. Case Closed.

Lola Sleevend.

A lolworthy pukeinducing holegetter.

Abstain from Bold Things with the Legion of Mary.

She gave up the Legion of Mary for Taekwando. Just shows you where kids' priorities are nowadays. But in days of old young lads and ladies flocked to the Legion abstinence courses, designed especially so that you'd never get your hole. No hole ever, not even for the laugh, like.

Lads were given the meat-cleavers treatment, which sounds a bit nasty but was done under local anaesthetic (some holy water and incense) and so was marginally less painful than it sounds. The ladies however were given some polyfilla in order to polyfill up their gees, which prevented them from getting their hole very well.

Now, you might wonder what became of all these poor unfortunates who never got their hole. Well, they became priests and nuns of course. If you can't get your hole anyway, well why not become a priest then? ran a slogan in the 1950s. But then came the 60s and suddenly everyone was getting their hole. The youngones dug the pollyfilla out of their gees and were finally free to get their hole. The lads had a more difficult time, but a quick trip down to Capel Street got them a plastic mickey good enough to pass for a real one when the youngones were drunk enough. Of course, they didn't actually feel anything but it was the thought that counted.

Thank Jaysus those days are over. Imagine not being able to get your hole. It'd be shite.

We're not racist at all but

you're a fuckin' chinese lesbian.

Lamb, 2am.

—LADS, GETHEFUCKOUT OF THE BAR PLEASE, LADIES AND GENTS, MOVE TO THE FUCKING DOOR.

Stephanie and Brian had just met that evening for the first time, and they both really fancied each other. In fact, they fancied the hole off each other. Stephanie was from Drynam and Brian was from Kinsealy, so they were a match made in Feltrim. Or rather, in Lamb.

—BRING YOUR DRINKS AND FUCK OFF OUT THE DOOR PLEASE, THANK YOU.

Not wanting to part just yet, Brian and Stephanie looked around at each other.

"I know, Steph," said Brian, "let's go down to Margaret in the cloakroom and get our hole."

"But what do you mean Brian? Who's this Margaret woman?"

"It's deadly, actually. You give Margaret a tenner and she lets you in to the cloakroom to roide. Once you're done you just leave, and we never even have to see each other again if it's not that good."

"Oh, Brian, that's a great idea. Have you any money?"

"Actually, no, I'm broke, I gave all my change to the black in the jacks after I bought those two mojitos for us. Have you a tenner?"

"Well, I do, but I was going to use that for the taxi home."

"Ah, sure, you can walk home. Sure let's get our hole."

—FUCK OFF OUT OF THE BAR, LADIES AND GENTS, NOW.

"Well...okay."

So Stephanie and Brian got their hole, and it was grand fun until he came in her eye and she couldn't see. She washed it out, and thankfully she hadn't gone blind, but she was upset that Brian didn't really give a shite, and so she burst into tears and ran off up the general direction of Drynam. Meanwhile Brian got in a fight with some other holegetters and died, God love him.

And so the moral of the story is, never get your hole in Lamb. It'll just end in tears.

GERRY RYAN AND VIAGRA FOR THE LIPS

NEWSFLASH: Today in RTÉ, famed radio presenter and fat Gerry Ryan pioneered the newest medical treatment for men's health, Viagra for the Lips.

"Mrs. Ryan left me because she said my lips weren't sexy enough, so I decided to launch my own brand of male health products so that men can have the best rides possible. I just thought it would be great if you could have lips as hard as your cock for a bit of an aul' shag."

The Legion of Mary protested outside RTÉ holding banners which read "Jesus and Mary hate the Gerry Ryan Show", but nobody cares about them because they're nothing but a bunch of holy aul'ones.

Well done Gerry.

Mary and the Contraception Train

Mary had been up in Belfast to visit her sister Elizabeth who had just had a baby. She was a right auld one so they were overwhelmed that she had managed to squeeze the little shit out of herself without her dying in the process. Poor little mite, thought Mary, being born at this time.You see it was 1970 and the civil right movement in Northern Ireland was turning nasty. What will become of him, Lizzy's new-born baby boy? Maybe he'll be a minister or a parliamentarian. Mary stayed in Lizzy's house for a week before having to return to her job in Jacob's factory in Dublin.

The train station was unusually busy for the day with women gathering around the kiosks and shouting and laughing hysterically. It must be the Nordies' communal time of the month, thought Mary. She shrugged it off and bought her ticket back to Connolly station.

Unfortunately for Mary, all the noisy women that had been in the station appeared to be going to Dublin too. Well, damn that for the price of a cupcake. She took out her "Alive!" paper and tried to ignore the seemingly mad women.

Mary fell asleep soon after opening the cover of "Alive!". It's not the most interest of reads. But she was abruptly awoken from her dream about Bing Crosby by loud shouts, rushing feet and almighty banging. She sat up in seat and realised that she was back in Connolly station. But, there was something going on outside on the platform. Lines of Gardaí blocked the exits to the street and women were lunging at the broad-shouldered members of the Garda Síochana, emptying their bags out and flinging objects at the barricade.

Mary slowly alighted from the train cautiously. It was mayhem on the platform. She overheard an exchange between one of the female passengers that she had seen in Belfast and a Customs official.

"Miss, have you anything to declare?" asked the Garda with stern lips.

"Yeah, I bought some contraceptives," replied the woman in a firm voice.

"Well then, where are they?" His lips may have stayed firm but his cheeks were slightly crimson.

"I'm wearin' them," she said as she thrust her vaginal region forward in the direction of the Garda who had now diverted his eyes to the ground.

"Oh, right then...well yeah. Eh, well, go on then." he stammered as he moved out of her way.

"I'd like to see you confiscated these!" said another woman as she swallowed a handful of pills that she had dropped into her mouth in front of the Custom Officers.

Oh Lord save us, Mary thought. She was still walking slowly through the crowds of women as they waved flags branded with "I JUST WANNA GET ME HOLE NOT GET PREGGERS. SO, WHY CAN'T I BUY CONDOMS FOR ME FELLA?". Mary faced forward again and nearly walked straight into a big culchie of a Garda.

"Evenin', madame. Would you be havin' anything to declare? Any inappropriate devices on your person, say?" said the big culchie Garda.

"Oh, Lord, no. I was only up in my sister Elizabeth's house for the week. She had a baby, you see." answered Mary in a nervous manner, much like a child with a crayon in front of a newly painted wall with blue and red Crayola squiggles all over it. Or so it seemed to the big culchie Garda.

"Is that right? Look, we know what your kind are trying to pull. We happen to know that this is the Contraception Train. We, eh, read so in The Irish Times. So, for the last time, have you any illegal implements and/or devices that would stop impregnation during the act that is sexual intercourse?"

Mary was, at that stage, fingering her rosary bead that were perpetually in her left coat pocket.

"You must believe me, sir. I don't have any of these devices. I'm a good Catholic, I swear! Look, I've got rosary bead in my pocket."

"Yeah, you show them Catholic bastards where they can shove their bloody feudal teachings! Good woman, you!" interjected a young woman as she was being lead away by another Garda.

"I don't know that woman. I'm just a simple holy auld one trying to get by with my rosary bead and reading Alive!. I've...I've never even had sexual relations. While my husband was alive I used to use jam doughnuts to protect my purity. The Legion of Mary suggested it. It worked well until Peter got suspicious about the sugar all over his, well y'know... sheets."

Mary was hyperventilating and the Garda was standing dumbstruck in front of her.

"You used jam doughnuts?!" inquired the Garda a perplexed tone that even surpried himself.

"I did, sir," she managed to say.

In all the hub-bub and crazed activity around the station, all Srg. McCormack could do was shake his head slowly at Mary and let her pass him. The thought of shagging a jam doughnut stayed with him until he died in the Garda Retirement Home in Dublin.

Mary returned home to her house just off Gardiner Street. She said the rosary three times for the mad women that purchased the inplements of depravity. She prayed that they'd all settle down, get married, have children (obviously without the occurence of the female orgasm) and live happily without those comcoms, or whatever they were called.

THE TESTAMENT OF MRS. JOAN KELLY.

I write this testament so that one day you, Jeremy Henderson, and the world, will know the truth. I write as I am barricaded into the crypts of Christchurch Cathedral, the only place I know that I am truly safe from that damned Legion of Mary and Catholics at large ever since the Archbishop named me an outlaw in "The Irish Catholic".

I was born along the tramline somewhere between Windy Arbour and Cowper in 1867 to a respectable Protestant family. My father was a house-wife and my mother was an Admiral in the British Navy. I was an only child, and I was reared by my father and our maid. I left home at sixteen to marry my sweetheart, David Kelly. I never saw my parents again. Shortly afterwards I heard that my father had killed himself with an iron, and my mother was killed in the Battle of Trafalgar. After all this tumult, our now unemployed maid was often seen drunk talking to Bang Bang and puking on Charles Stewart Parnell as he went for his morning stroll on Parnell Street.

My husband David was from a well-to-do Protestant family from Rathmines, and so his parents paid for our foreign honeymoon. We went to Brighton where we met Kitty O'Shea-Parnell. Kitty, like me, had an overwhelming passion for lovely jam jars and until the day she died we corresponded and often swapped lovely jam jams with each other. At Christmas 1891 just after Charlie died, Kitty came over to visit to have a romp in my Olde Knockin' Shoppe, and during that week we held exhibitions of our favourite jam jars on Kingstown pier on a daintly table that I bought on Capel Street, just beside the mashed bananas.

I opened my Olde Knockin' Shoppe in Monto in 1888, after the premises was purchased for me by David's mammy Joqueena Kelly for my 21st birthday. I made sure that I found all the nicest looking girls in Dublin. I even imported some from Kinnegad and Tipperary, both of whom turned out to be my best hoors. The gentlemen of Dublin quickly flocked to my genial hooring establishment for all sorts of fun and frolicks, and soon I was the most famous Madam in all of Ireland. My best clients included Parnell, James Joyce, Brendan Behan's father, Bang Bang (before he was mad, when he like a bang bang every now and again), the Lord Lieutenant, the Chief Secretary, and all the gentleman British. We even had the honour of being visited by Queen Victoria who'd heard all about it from Albert, and who particularly liked the fireplace. Even Pope Leo XIII paid us a visit after we won Best Brothel in the 1896 Vatican Awards.

My husband David was very supportive of my profession and he regularly availed of the services of my hoors. Life and work for me were very successful until my spate of misfortunes began in 1916, after my beloved husband David was shot by the IRA up in the Hellfire Club for stealing picnic baskets. All I had left was my young son David Jr and my beloved Knockin' Shoppe. However, David went to fight in the Great War and I was left alone with nobody to defend me and the Knockin' Shoppe. The only protection we had were the tougher hoors and a few bottles of stout.

Times became more difficult during the War of Independence when my young clients became less interested in shagging and more interested in flying columns (their own columns). The greatest catastrophe happened after one of my hoors was killed when riding a Black and Tan when his rifle went off in his trousers and shot her straight up the gee. Some more of my hoors caught syphillis from the Black and Tans and eventually the HSE removed my Knockin' Shoppe's hooring licence and from then on we had to deal in secret.

Shortly after my hooring licence was removed I got a visit from a cloaked young man one night who handed me a ten-shilling note and asked me for my best hoor for the evening. I showed him to Susan "The Lips", my hoor who back in 1918 had won the under 21s category for hooring in the 24th Feis Gee, and I left them to it. As they were riding in the back room, suddenly I heard Susan scream. I ran in to the room only to find that the man's face had been revealed and it was none other than Archbishop John Charles McQuaid. I didn't know what to say to him, as Susan cowered in the corner, covering her gee with clingfilm. McQuaid told me that if I told anybody about the fact that he had visited the Knockin' Shoppe that he'd have me excommunicated, but I told him that it didn't matter anyway because I was a Protestant, at which point he puked all over his mickey. He told me then that if I didn't keep quiet he'd have the Legion of Mary come and burn down my Knockin' Shoppe and kill me and all my hoors. I told him that if he let us live in peace that he could have free romps twice weekly, and so he agreed.

This arrangement worked out rather nicely for a couple of years until McQuaid somehow discovered the truth, that Susan had given birth to you, Jeremy, his child and heir-bastard. Somewhere in history the situation arose that gave rise to the writing of a Catholic ecclesiastical law that states that the bastard son (and his descendents thereof) of an archbishop is entitled to all the property and temporal powers held by that archbishop during his tenure once he is deceased, whether or not he dies as archbishop. When McQuaid discovered that his brief romp with Susan had caused her to become pregnant and bear a son, he immediately instructed the Legion of Mary and their commander General Frank Duff to begin the Battle of Monto.

What looked like a Catholic crusade against vice was nothing more than a smokescreen for McQuaid to kill all those who knew about his bloodline and to make sure than he had no heir-bastard who could upscuttle the church in the future. The Legion attacked my Knockin' Shoppe and burned it to the ground, killing all my hoors including your poor mother Susan. They were allowed by their religious mandate to kill only sinners (the hoors) but could not kill you or I, you as you were an innocent child and I because I was not a hoor. However, they tried their best to scorch me with holy water and Marian paraphernalia (since I was a Protestant), but this did not work, and so they burned off my hair instead. They made sure to cut off your mickey and took you to the Magdalene sisters where you would be brought up as a girl who would never know the truth about your father and your entitlement to all the riches and power of the church in the archdiocese of Dublin. When they had taken you, I retrieved your little severed mickey and preserved it in one of my last surviving jam jars in some malt vinegar from Beshoff's chipper, adding some Miracle-Gro in the hope that by the time you find it some miracle of medicine would be available in order to have it reattached.

I tell you all this, Jeremy, so that you may know the truth and that you may avenge your mother's death and that of her hoor friends by claiming your rightful inheritence from the Catholic Church, which has made all our lives so miserable. I fear also that you may need to avenge my death too, as only this morning McQuaid named me an outlaw in "The Irish Catholic" and I am free game to be killed by any Catholic for the reward of a plenary indulgence. I am here in Christchurch as I know it is the only place I am safe from Catholics, but now I have heard rumours that my own kind have turned against me also, and that Douglas Hyde has ordered my assassination by the IRA for giving Protestants a bad name. I shall leave this testament in the care of my son David to bring to the Hellfire Club, where my husband and I had our first romp back in 1883 and which remained our favourite hideout until he was tragically killed there in 1916. Somehow I hope that he will be able to find you and lead you there to discover the truths that you seek.

I only hope that this testament will give you the answers for which you have no doubt long searched.

—MRS. JOAN KELLY.

Hendy read the last words aloud wistfully. S/he now knew all the answers. What was next? Claim his/her inheritence? Reattach his/her mickey? His/her mind was in a daze.

Just then, before any of them could speak, they saw a fourth figure emerge from the shadows, carrying what appeared to be a bag of organic onions and a pitchfork.

"I heard it all. Now stand against the wall."

It was Trevor Sargent.