Happy...

What festive day is it again? Ah, bollix, doesn't matter.

Wha'?

Dear Yoplait (Made in Ireland by: Glanbia Consumer Foods, Citywest Business Campus, Dublin 24. LoCall: 1850 20 23 66),

I know things are tough all over and ain't getting any better. Things are more expensive to produce. Consumers are poor. Everywhere you look somebody is telling you to reduce/reuse/recycle or to be green. Cigarettes cost loads and I have to mop floors. I feel the pain. But none of the above complaints give you the right to make the lids on your yoghurts so thin that it is impossible to remove them without them fucking tearing at least twice. What the fuck?

Yours sincerely,
L.

Mary Kenny is such a flange-between-two-wooden-posts. WOOF WOOF.

"Sh00-wiz! Get yer shoo-wiz! Fresh of de back offa Clark's lorry! Tree fura you-row."

Sinatra plays as people try to get through town on a regular Wednesday.

"Good morning."
"I'm sorry, I don't understand. I'm too massively geared outa me head."
"Well, this is corner of Marlborough and Abbey."
"Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't realise you're from America. What state?"
"Eh, Vermont..."
"Ooooh, delightful! I love trees."

"On a scale of one to ten, how successful do you think the Northern Ireland peace process has been?"

"Well, I don't think it's that simple. You can't just put it on a number line. It's a complex issue with many facets."

"Eh yeah right. On a scale of one to ten, how sexually active are you?"

"You're not from 'round here, are you?"

"No, I'm Hungarian. On a scale of one to ten, how Hungarian do you think I look"

Less than one millionth of a reality. It's almost a good enough excuse to go get stoned. But Jeff wasn't sure. He needed proof. Good thing his friends had an educational exercise video where hot girls ran around in tight wet t-shirts and talked about the use of recreational drugs. I mean REALLY hot girls.

So, you wanna know about drugs, huh? (Sandy, stop pouring gently-heated caramel all over my breasts, hee hee!) They're bad news, boys. But, then again, so am I! Would you say no to me, hmmmm?

From that day on Jeff was stoned off his face all the time. He was at peace within and without himself and he often masterbated. He began to see what Matthew Bellamy was getting at in "City of Delusion". But in his personal persuit of justice (as he called it), he only got as far as his small collection of butterfly wings hanging on the back of his bedroom door. His parents got worried when he disappeared for several days and was found eating the remains of a red squirrel in St. Anne's Park, Raheny, Dublin Five.

A python snake named Monty. Fair play to Monty. He kicked the ass off those pesky Italians and/or German forces over there in... err, whatchacallit?... Kilmainham?

As the bombs fall, the Eagles play a gig in the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles, California. "Oh, Johhny" they sing. "There was an aul woman that lived in the woods, Oooooh oooohhooooohhooo, baby!" They never really got the idea of music. They made their money and you can't doubt that. If you listen really closely you will realise that it's all about sex. And, why wouldn't it be? Ask Holy Healy and she'll blush.

Martha was at the gig and then got trashed on Virginia Avenoo. She subsequently died but that's hardly relevent. The post mortem found a small microphone lodged between her upper left molars. There's a pun to be made there somewhere. But until the coroner releaese the details it's considered to be in bad taste. I'm sure the microphone itself was in bad taste but that is too. Good thing this is fictitious.

RUFUS in a large swimming pool wearing a general's uniform. D. Norris watching closely. (Now I can use the Rufus label and the D Norris label. I'm not as stupid as I look. This blog is perpetually innovative.)

Climb Everest, they say. It's good craic and there's a good chance you'll die before you reach the second camp. More than likely though, you'll get mugged by a so-called tourist guide from Mongolia. Then, you're fucked. Whereas the clever bastard that nicked your wallet is off to Dubai for three weeks for fun frollics and maybe more. Emphasis on the maybe more. Whores all a-hootin'. "Ooooh, Western money" they'll shout as they show your mugger things that he has only seen in FHM.

Mah woman's a lesbo and I'm feelin' down.
Mah woman's a lesbo and I'm feelin' down, ooooooh!
Mah woman's a lesbo and I'm feelin' down.
Whisky whisky whisky whisky, drown.

So, this is like a responsive anthem. Those who find solace in it, you're obviously highly delusional and/or in search of some form of leadership or dominance in your life. You've presumably tried Communism and have now turned to the web at large. Typing "help me my life is ruined" into a search engine brought you here. Poor fuck.

Dublin Vignettes.

‘Come on.’ It was taking the dog a long time to do his business there at the little triangular park at the end of the Howth Road. His owner was getting more and more frustrated by the minute. ‘Come on Rover, just shit and be done with it.’ The dog didn’t understand, of course. How could he? The owner was pressing his arse to the ground but that didn’t mean anything to the poor animal.

—See that woman? That’s a man. I thought it was a woman but it’s got a very deep voice.

Stupid fucking old woman. What a geebag.

People on Grafton Street are so easily amused. A man with some stupid cheap dancing things on sticks, dancing them away to the Macarena on his mobile phone. Some foreigner who can jump through rings of fire.

—Hi, can you spare five minutes for Concern?
—Sorry, I don’t speak English.

—Hi, can you spare five minutes?
—Fuck off.

A man dressed as the statue of James Joyce who dances if you put fifty pence into his bucket. Another man dressed as Paddy Kavanagh who farts at will every time you put a coin into his box. A man with a guitar who sings ‘The Fields of Athenry’ every Sunday morning between 10 and 11 a.m. People are that easily amused.

A Cabra woman, entering Subway on O’Connell Street.

—Can yiz give me a rowill please?
—What bread would you like? He was foreign, god love him, and didn’t realise.
—Eh, just white bread.
—Italian?
—Yeah, whatever. Just some butther.
—Butter?
—Yeah, just a bit.
—Eh, cheese and toasted?
—No, I just want butther.
—Eh, you want any salads?
—No, just fuckin butther ye rasherheaded fuck.

What the fuck?!

Separted At Birth Part Two.

Appendix #1 (refer to Pg. eighty-four)

Come one, come all for a walkabout from LONDON - CANNON STREET to Windsor with slightly unexpected bursts of horns. With a delay effect, you may synthetically visit Paris Paris Paris ParisParis... See what Orwell saw, saw in the bath as you hack off your leg with a Superb use of strings and wireless message from An Taoiseach, Mr. Éamonn deValera speaking at the Mansion House, Dawson Street, Dublin two steaks and chips, please. Barbeque sauce, "please, please me" said the Beatles in a Norwegian Wood out the beyant Shelbourne Park can surprise. To: the editor of the IRISH PRESS- why have you not been publishing daily editions of your newspaper? What happened to the Governor-General? Has King George died? I hear news from the front "line up, children-FIRE" Drills do annoy me. No need for that do, Geoff. Signed Richard Bruton. I'm a spokesman you know? What a title for Best Film with repeated piano and guitar synch. notes. In come the Vikings but that didn't stop the ECB putting up and down interest rates. Up and down like a hoor's knickers. Fred always liked Galaxy but not quite as much as sodomy. Promptly Galaxy went out of business because God wanted him to have a rotten, miserable life MAGAZINE- special deal on now: we call to your house with brightly coloured jackets and "annoy someone else, Dorothy" was afraid of open spaces so she got fat to take up more room. £12 p.p. in room 7, Mr. Johnson. I'm glad you enjoyed your "STAY, bad dog!" Run, Run- run on as she hit the finish line on 76 street interstate of chasis, I'm telling you. Tenement housing, yummy yummy. Stay away from the drugs- but they're yummy- no use full of holes in Regent Street. Bloody Royals coming over the border into Fingal. SANTA. Four songs.

Happy Birthday Garret

Have an ice-cream to celebrate.

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.

Page(s) twelve through to seventeen.

MARCH, the army... Hih, hih... div. Enter the I.R.A. Band.

Please welcome to the stage DIV, the Long Fellow with the long neck bass.

"Three sharps, boys," they start, "Millwall, Millwall!" And other hits such as....

"During this struggle they will pull us down..." etc.

His war time cabinet will now WOW you with their budgetary melodies... it's in a minor key so beware of the glimmer man and your local volunteer force. (Includes Frank Aiken on the piano.)

"FUCK."

Have you ever seen a "blue" joow?
What about an Australian?
Not after the Anshluss in '39.
With our new State detuned radios we hear all of Hugo Boss's adverts.
STORM MILAN!
Warm guns are at stake! Popular music depends on it.

Arms raids in the Royal Borough of Chelsea and Kensington!
Can Vicky fit through the royal catflap?
Vell, vee vill haff tuh see. Danke.

Meanwhile...

"Lord Salisbury, do make the royal bosom a bit larger if you would."
"Well, Madame, I'm shovelling as fast as I can."
Gobble, gobble.

Comma, comma, fullsTOP. Instant death.

Oh, Maaawd, you are my muse. Your little nose led me to write "Easter 1916". All that shite about Pearse was the filler I used to throw those English bastards. The "terrible beauty" is my love for you. It's all-consuming and I love it. Marry me this day next week in Coole. Signed, Willie.

Poor Harold gettin' killed and the Frenchies making it into a big propaganda poster for recruiting.

The double-glazed window of FEAR/LOVE/LOATHING.

----------------AS SEIRBHÍS-----------------