Blueshirt Pot Calls Kettle Black

In an uncharacteristic outburst of frankness, Kildare FG TD Bernard Durkan yesterday made the shocking revelation that there were TDs who should never have been elected to the Dáil. The man from Mayo is obviously trailing his coat for the 'Every dog on the street knows that' Award, 2007.

In a debate on the Electoral (Amendment) Bill he was heard to mutter the following:

I do not care how many people supported them, or assented to their election. I still believe it was wrong that they were elected. It is wrong to make a decision that allows people with criminal records, for example, to be elected. The election of such people does nothing for society or for local and national politics.

He stopped short of suggesting a rake of Lee Enfields and a conveniently located stone wall as a solution to this problem, which is the course of action I would naturally choose meself.

I was, however, somewhat disquieted by his advocacy of the 'purest and simplest' form of democracy. Do I detect the beginnings of a beerhall putsch in the offing? Somebody should tip off the bar staff at Doheny & Nesbitt's before there's pint pots broken .

Forgetful readers may need to be reminded that born again guardian of political virtue Mr Durkan was up before the beaks at the DIRT inquiry in 1999 regarding the write-off of IR£20,000 in loan interest by ACC Bank, knowledge of which emerged when he was, wait for it, sitting on the Public Accounts Committee and presumably ensuring that money wasn't squandered on such fripperies as hospitals, schools and public transport.

According to an Indo report at the time

One leading senior counsel said last night that Mr Durkan's dealings with the bank would be a cause of legitimate concern for fair procedures: ``He could appear to be too hard on the bank to show he is not biased in their favour, or seem to be going easy on them because of his past dealings with them. It's all a matter of perception.''

The same report noted that our Bernie was represented in his dealings with the bank at the time by a certain Charlie McCreevy. No conflict of interest there either, wha? And anyway so, the writing off of loans, interest and other stuff for politicos was common practice back in them days; an essential part of the democratic process as we understood it, blah, blah blah.

Somewhere in the deepest pits of Hades old Charlie Haughey must be laughing hard enough to split the seams of his favourite state-subsidised Charvet shirt.

Sororial Solidarity to all (or is it both?) my readers. Drape yourself in purple and green and hang out your brightest colours. Today, as I'm sure you know, is International Women's Day and I would like to make my small contribution to this global fest of feminism and femininity with some hopeful and hopefully helpful suggestions to members of the local sorority on the Emerald Isle. So here we go:

1. Do not begin sentences with 'I'm not a feminist but.....' . Either you are or you aren't and there's definitely nothing wrong with feminism that you should have to apologise for it. I'm a feminist. All men should be, if only for survival reasons. And before the purists out there start to whine that 'a man can't be a feminist' I would point you in the direction of my Uncle Mary.

2. Pay no attention to John Waters and his mates in the Amen Corner (who haven't been the same since Andy Fairweather-Low bought the farm). The man is a fool who never got over being dumped by a looper. It's the price one pays for starfucking. Anyway, anyone who thinks Sinead O'Connor is representative of women in general lost touch with reality somewhere along the boreens of pre-Celtic Tiger Ireland

3. Do not confuse feminism with lad-ism, lesbianism or me-ism. Women's rights and status are not advanced by you behaving like Weslian prop forward in Annabel's on a Saturday night.

4. Whatever you might think, drunken joyless sex with a stranger you're likely never to see again, or even want to, is not a sign of sexual emancipation. Quite the contrary. Liquor may be quicker but if the only way you can enjoy sex is bordering on the edge of alcoholic oblivion, then you may have my sympathies and the name of a good therapist.


5. Stop dancing with an agenda. My favourite feminist Emma Goldman once dismissed the bearded denizens of the Comintern by saying 'If I can't dance I don't want to be in your revolution.' Dancing is good thing in itself and not necessarily an invitation to sex , marriage and mortgage on a two bed semi above in Naas. The ballroom of romance days are long gone but if you keep resurrecting them every time you make shapes on the dancefloor it truly will be murder, of the soul if nothing else.


6. Give up the 2 men good 1 man bad approach to inter-gender social encounters. You know the one I mean. You start talking to one guy you’re interested in a bar. Once you’ve got his attention you then immediately behave as if you’re more interested in his friend or some other bloke in the vicinity, often a completely innocent bystander. It doesn’t make you more enigmatic, desirable or interesting, not when the competition is a fine pint of creamy porter or two. It’s the kind of childish coquettishness that wouldn’t be out of place in a 5th form disco. Time to move on.

7. Complaining about the elevation of the toilet seat does not enhance your claims to equal rights and treatment. Learn to work the fucking thing. You're a big girl now and you've come a long way, baby. If it's up, put it down or whatever you fancy yourself. You don't hear us complaining about you leaving it down.

And finally,

Irish womanhood might have gone from the BVM to the Spice Girls overnight (without I might add the benefit of Madonna in between) but that doesn’t mean that Sex in the City rules and values could or should be imported wholesale. Those girls just ain't happy campers. Mullingar isn’t Manhattan, and probably never will be no matter how many pairs of Jimmy Chu they knock out in Brown Thomas.



Parts of this blog were previously published in Your Destiny I am grateful to the publishers for permission to re-write them here

Red Devils

I have to confess that a moribund depressive paralysis set in after Liverpool's defeat by the forces of darkness last Saturday at Anfield. So much so that not even an invitation to the Irish Bloggers' Beano could have overcome the mortification I felt for most of the weekend (I guess my invite got lost in the post, eh lads?).

The miasma of doom and despondency which surrounded me was only lifted after the Barcelona game on Tuesday night. However while the result was helpful to our European cause, the performance in that game didn't exactly fill me with me joy in abundance. If we can do everything wrong for most of the game against Barca and go through, how is it that we can play Man U off the park for 90 minutes and still lose to a goal in injury time scored by a player who would struggle to keep his place in an Eircom League side?

Pondering this I've been developing a theory about the dark denizen of Old Trafford, the archfiend Alex Ferguson. I am convinced that the man is in league with the devil. Even without the innumerate Graham Poll, Fergie's minor demon and scourge of scousers everywhere, on hand to deny us a justified penalty or Uri Geller the rules sufficiently to give United one, they still manage to eke out a win at Fortress Anfield.

How else can you explain the fact that a team so weak in so many areas, a side which should have been struggling to keep in the hunt for a Champions League place by the first week of January, currently sits atop the Premiership like Lucifer on the throne of Hades? I'll tell you. It's because Alex Ferguson has sold the soul of another of his offspring to the dark lord Mephistopheles.

Now I don't exactly have what you might call hard evidence for this theory, but the circumstantials are there if you look hard enough into the man's biography.

1. He's from Govan, well known in Scottish legend as one of the inner circles of Hell
2. As a young man he supported and played for Rangers (Ask any Celtic supporter what that means for one's mortal soul)
3. He was sacked from St Mirren for 'unpardonable swearing at a lady on club premises' (Definite evidence of a step on the road to perdition, that)
4. Aberdeen, a club that hadn't won anything since 1955, suddenly starts to win cups and trophies galore when he takes over. Coincidence? I think not.
   
5. He left them to manage a club known apparently as the 'Red Devils' (Spooky or wha?)
6. He once gave a 'team talk' to Strathclyde Police
7. His son Jason is a football agent (Definitely a case of a soul sold to further his ambitions and sure evidence of a family trait for diabolic collusion)
8. Another son, Darren spent 8 years in the purgatory that is Wrexham and was last heard of managing Peterborough Utd (Oh the price the children pay for the sins of their father).
9. He has poor taste in names for his boy children. I suspect he has one called Damien hidden somewhere.
10. He received a knighthood on 12 June 1999 (Do the maths. 12 is two 6s, June is the 6th Month and 999 is 666 upside down. What better evidence could a reasonable person ask for satanic involvement)
11. Man U won their 6th title in the Millenium Season 1999-2000. A definite sign of impending apocalypse and the rule of the Antichrist.
    
12. Ruud Van Nistelroy was signed the following year for, wait for it £18 million. (That's three 6s again)
13. Wayne Rooney looks like a goblin and, as the evidence below shows, smears himself in the blood of sacrificial virgins (or aged prostitutes if no virgins available) before every game.
    
    
14. The injury time goal against Liverpool on Saturday was scored by a cloven footed beast (affectionately known to Republic of Ireland supporters 'that fucking donkey O'Shea')

So, a good case for diabolic activity in the boot room at Old Trafford? I think so....

From today's Irish Times Letters

Madam, - With reference to your report of February 23rd, "Coca-Cola and Pepsi Irish operations shipping to Iran", I would like to clarify a very important point for you and your readers. The sale of The Coca-Cola Company's concentrate to a local bottler in Iran is done with the approval of a licence granted to our company by the Office of Foreign Assets Control of the United States Department of Treasury, which has jurisdiction over the implementation of US sanctions laws. The authorisation granted through the licence requires that the concentrate must be intended for ultimate consumption as food in Iran. There is no question of the company skirting US trade sanctions or shipping company products to Iran by way of a loophole. - Yours, etc,


CHARLES SUTLIVE,
The Coca-Cola Company Corporate Communications,


News to me, that. Coca-Cola a food? Whatever next will they claim for it? A refreshing drink for a warm summer's day in the war zone, perhaps? Well they say it does add life.

Suggestions on a medium of you choice to whoever you like.

Reasons to be cheerful, Part 2



It's the first day of spring, the sun is shining and the daffodils are blooming around the lush meadows of my ancestral industrial estate. A tiding of young magpies struts around the garden in the jeans they just nicked off my washing line. It feels so good to be alive, I thought I'd share with you some the things that contribute to my present euphoric condition.

Eurovision Song Contest
Should be great this year. A song co-written by a culchie misogynist about a country that no longer exists, performed by a band whose front-person nicked her stage persona from a spinster primary school teacher in darkest Sligo. The Finns must be shaking in their saunas. As close as RTE could get to 'My Lovely Horse' without re-animating the stiffened cadaver of poor Dermot Morgan. Null pwonts and worth every one of them!


Life in the blogosphere
From the cheeky chappy celebrochat at Blogorrah to the curmudgeonly precision-bombing prose of Twenty Major and all points in between, it's great to see that those great, but rarely praised, aspects of the Irish national character, begrudgery and cosmic biliousness, haven't been lost in the rush to embrace the Xanax of (post-)modernity. Forget the Irish Blog Awards. Aosdána stipends and tax free status to the lot of 'em, says I.

The imminent demise of Christianity as a religion

The jig's up lads. Big Jim 'The Terminator' Cameron has got on your case and found out where the skeletons were hidden. Fair dos now, you had a good run for your money and you can't complain after all the trouble you caused.

To my many Jewish and Muslim friends across the globe, please be as gentle as you can when using the following words: I-told-you-so.



A new Lucinda Williams Album

Heroin, suicide, bleeding fingers, broken hearts, users, losers, boozers and a morbid fear of flying. All these and more can be yours for only slightly more than my current hourly rate above in DCU.

Joe Bob says 4 stars, check it out HERE





The photo at the top of this blog was blatantly ripped off from Pixeldiva. I love the work you do lads, but why do I get the distinct feeling you'd come after me mob-handed if it wasn't credited?

Another bloody mess

Yet who would have thought the old man to have had too much blood in him?
(With apologies to Shakespeare)

In a society where obtaining appropriate and timely healthcare can often require the intervention of a minor deity, a junior minister, or merely wads and wads of cash, it is less than comforting to discover that one component of our beleaguered health system is giving patients the benefit of its ministrations whether they need it or not.

According to a report published this week by the National Haemovigilance Office (yes, there is such a thing, I googled it, so I did) it would seem that Irish medics have been behaving like the sanguinary equivalents of Mrs Doyle and lashing out the claret like it was going out of fashion (Go on now, ye'll take a pint of A rhesus positive, you will, you will, you will).

In 2005 40 unnecessary transfusions were given to patients in Irish hospitals and adverse reactions to transfusions were up by almost a quarter. The transfusion of incorrect blood components accounted for 65 per cent of all the adverse incidents reported in 2005.

The errors resulted from blood test results being read wrongly or "misinterpreted". There were also "failures in communication between the transfusion centre and the hospital laboratory, between the transfusion laboratory staff and on-call laboratory staff, or between the ward and the laboratory", which led to the issuing to patients of wrong blood components.

How do these fuckers get their jobs? (Well we all know the answer to that one. It involves cousins, in-laws and/or nephews and nieces once removed)

Blood juggling on an Irish ward

One instance speaks volumes for the quality of doctor patient interaction in Irish hospitals. A patient was transfused in error after a phlebotomist took a blood sample from the wrong patient. "The correct patient identification procedure was not performed, as the patient was not asked to identify himself, nor was the ID wristband checked,". The error resulted in 300mls of red cells being given to the wrong patient, but with no adverse consequences, as both patients had the same blood type. Well that's a fucking relief, then. Another incompetent phlebotomist gets to keep his/her job.

In another incident the wrong component was given when the hospital ran out of the correct type. I can just imagine that conversation:

- Sorry but we're all out of O positive
- Not a bother, just give us a pint of B minus. Sure, they'll never know the difference once it's flowing.
- One pint of B Minus coming up!

A barman who attempted the same trick and sneakily substituted Beamish for Guinness would be run out of town on a rail.

In a summary unlikely to prevent half the nation from becoming Jehovah's Witnesses, Dr Emer Lawlor, director of the NHO, said that the increase was likely to be the result of increased reporting rather than a real increase in adverse events.

Well that comforts me no end, Emer, now excuse me while I pop my leukocytes on to defrost.



A note for prospective commenters: In writing this post I bent over backwards to avoid shameful puns based on the topic. I expect any comments to be maintained in the same vein. Thank you

And now back to reality, sadly....

The Competition Authority, that sleeping Cerberus of consumer protection on this sainted isle, has been moved by recent murmurings amongst Irish business folk about the need to raise prices in the light of the increased costs of carrying out their grubby trades here. Its mumbled roar took the form of an almost sternly worded letter to IBEC which has sent a tremor through the shopkeeping community, or would have done if they hadn't been too busy laughing their way to the nearest branch of AIB.


Business Economics, Irish style

The Authority's target was the all too common practice of 'price signalling' one more means by which businesses facilitate their traditional practice of never giving a sucker, sorry, consumer, an even break. A CA spokesman was heard to mumble something on the lines of

"Price signalling can facilitate firms who should be competing against each other to raise prices in a co-ordinated manner, thus depriving consumers of the benefits of competition [not to mention their hard earned spondulicks-LG]"

Also included in this powder-puff across the bows was that august collective of brilliantined suede shoe wearers otherwise known as the Irish Auctioneers' and Valuers' Institute (IAVI) who have been grumbling about the slow down in the housing market which means they have to get off their Louis Copelanded arses and do some work for once.

Thinks: did this shower just spring up fully formed from dragon's teeth sometime in the mid 1990s. Do they not remember when it was easier to get rid of syphyllis than a house in Cabra?

In a mood for celebration at this championing of my consumer rights and confident in the knowledge that the country was once again safe for competition, I took myself off to a city centre hostelry for a pint of the brew that refreshes and used to be good for you. More fearful of a libel suit than a Armani one in these litigious times, I won't name the place but if you think RMS Mauretania you wouldn't be far off.

As the pint which was soon to be mine settled, I painstakingly counted out the coppers I had earned from a hard day's tarmacking pensioners and dealing in scrap, old clothes and horses of doubtful lineage and pushed them across the counter in the direction of the cheerful mein host.

'It's gone up. You owe me 20 cents.'

'Surely there's some mistake. The rugby finished on Saturday and Diageo aren't due to shaft their customers with another price rise until just before Paddy's day'

'Nothing to do with that, trade's down. Blame the smoking ban/drink driving laws/off-licences/exhorbitant city centre rents/the bin tax/inflation/interest rates/whatever you're having yourself. You owe me 20 cents, sorry 30 now, it's just gone up again because of the fall in trade since you ordered.'

From his perch on my right shoulder the voice of my principles shouted something about rip-off Ireland and taking my business elsewhere. His yells were drowned out by the sound of my taste buds pre-digesting the contents of the schooner of stout sitting on the bar before me. I dug back into my sporran and came up with the necessaries. The barman accepted the cash with the beguiling charm of an Irish postal clerk and tossed it triumphantly into the till. One more victory for the gombeen classes.

Now it's a long time since I studied the dismal science of economics but somewhere in the backmost beyond of the thing I laughingly call a memory was the faintest trace of something I believe is known as the law of supply and demand.

If I can explain for non-economists without the aid of graphs, what this law says is that when demand for something is high so are prices and the converse is also true. In short when your trade falls off, you lower your prices until consumers start buying.

It's said to apply universally in the global souk of capitalism. Everywhere, it would seem, except the green small corner of the emporium that is Ireland. No, our home-grown beer brokers and potion peddlers prefer to circumvent this economic universal and make up the difference from the pockets and purses of the plain people of Erin. Sure, now that competition fella-me-lad might be fine for bowsies across in London or New York, but it'd never be after working here. Off-shore banks accounts aren't cheap to maintain, you know.



Adam Smith ignores the Irish

Having diagnosed the problem I retreated to a corner to take measured sips of the little miracle of economics in my glass and ponder matters further. Fortunately, apart from 3 Italian language students sharing a glass of Ballygowan Still and a forlorn Jack Russell scouring the inns and hostelries of the city for a master missing since the final whistle at Croke Park, there was no-one to disturb my cogitations. Meanwhile the ghost of Adam Smith looked down and chuckled.

And before you start....




The image above published in today's Daily Torygraph doubtless brought much comfort to its pre- and post-senilic readership around old people's homes of the English home counties following their humilation in the egg-chasing competition at the weekend. They might have lost to the damn Micks at the R game, the empire might have gone the way of tiffin, kedgeree and punkah wallahs, but by God logic is still on their side.

I've given it some thought and realised that an image that might otherwise be regarded as symptomatic of the illogic of unreconstructed republicanism (not to mention stereotypically "Irish" in English eyes) is in fact an expression of a much more subtle form of logic, the roots of which may be found in the work of Thomas Aquinas and Gregory Bateson.

Aquinas argued at one point that beauty was in fact a transcendent quality above and beyond the mere thinginess of the world. Football, as signified by the Celtic strip, is the beautiful game. Therefore, rather than falling into contradiction or error, the wearer is in fact making a statement (qua Bateson) about the world (i.e foreign games) at a higher level of logical typing (i.e. beauty). The use of paradox in this way as the deliberate confusion of different levels of logical typing is, according to both Bateson and the Marx Brothers, a frequently effective component of humour. So, seen in this light the joke is on the viewer rather than the wearer.

On the other hand, he might just be a thick sectarian bastard.

Either way it demonstrates the benefits of a Christian Brothers education in Ireland, wha?

For the reader who wishes to view further variations on this theme I can heartily recommend the work of Jim Chimney here and here

Newsflash!!! 800 years of oppression over. Official.

An event which began with An Taoiseach snogging An tUachtarán yesterday culminated in the final removal of the chains of English oppression, the breaking of the yoke of Saxon domination and Ireland taking its place at last amongst the nations of the world.


Bertie warms Mary up for a post-match ride
A spokesperson for the Government said it was the proudest day in our nation's history since Riverdance won the Eurovision Song Contest in 1923. The Department of MOPE (most oppressed people ever) is to be mothballed as soon as the Taoiseach has got over his hangover.

Plans for the military emancipation of Rockall and the 6 counties are in hand and 2 Spanish trawlers have been sunk by gunboats for catching sprat within the newly declared 200 mile Irish territorial waters boundary.

Robert Emmet, Wolf Tone and James Connolly were unavailable for comment but in an seance exclusive to this column Padraig Pearse said

Sport is a cleansing and sanctifying thing, and the nation that regards it as the final horror has lost its manhood... there are many things more horrible than sport, and rugby is one of them!

What Price National Sovereignty?



I don't know what the implications are of having G*d Save the Q***n sung at Croke Park today as far as Irish national identity is concerned. The Godfather of Irish bloggers,Twenty Major suggested the novel compromise of having it performed by the Saw Doctors. Me, I'd re-form the Sex Pistols and get Johnny and the boys to give it a lash. Now there was an Irish band worth its salt.

To be honest, I care not one iota about what ditty a bunch of egg-chasing, no-neck, latent homosexual homophobes choose to preface their futile activities prior to having soapy fun with wet towels in a communal bath. Whatever their national hue, they're all part of the global bourgeois class to me and the main problem with rugby union is the lack of on-pitch fatalities. No, what concerns me today is something of far greater significance than the staging of a violent touch-fest on the hallowed and heavily state subsidised turf of our national stadium.

I've been dragged unwillingly to the blogface today by something of far greater import to the always worrying question of national sovereignty on this small island. It's them damn Yanks again. They're only after breaching our firm but flexible for the right amount of inward investment neutral stance again and dragging us into the early stages of the next skirmish in their quest for global domination.

First it was giving their troops a duty-free stopover at Shannon. Then it was the suspicion that they might be running one way package holidays to Guantanamo through Irish airspace. But now something far more worrying is going on as Bush prepares to topple another domino on the road to World America.

Buried on the front page of yesterday's Irish Times’ business section, a part of the paper that usually goes unread from the letterbox to the litter tray in my house, was the disturbing news that the imperialist running dog, soda pop giants Coke and Pepsi have been using their Irish subsidiaries to rot the teeth and undermine the national morale of the people of Iran.


A pre-emptive strike? Mineral manoeuvres on the Iranian border
These unscrupulous purveyors of fizzy minerals, who have a long history of participation in the ideological arm of Yankee imperialism, are up to their old tricks again and bootlegging their tooth-rotting wares out of Ireland to circumvent US government sanctions on trade with this particular outlet of the axis of evil. My concern is that because of this ploy our plucky wee nation could end up the unwitting accomplice in some latter day equivalent of the Opium Wars.

This is no laughing matter. What happens if the imams and ayatollahs of Tehran get wind of our involvement? They have been rightly denouncing Coke and Pepsi from minarets and mosques for an age, warning the faithful against the perfidious effect of such bloating beverages on the fabric of Farsi culture, not to mention Persian peridontia. It's only a matter of time before they seek to take the war to the enemy. And it'll take more than mobilising the FCA to shield us from the fury of their fundamentalist fulminations.


Imagine the consequences if, tonight of all nights, they decide to declare a sanctions war on the Irish people. A lightning withdrawal of Kofte kebabs and Chicken Shwarmas across Dublin is enough to cause chaos on an average Saturday night. I have seen near riots start because Zaytoon decided to close before the Turk's Head and Isolde's Tower kicked out. A fatwah would be a mere bagatelle beside such retaliation.

But after a 6 Nations tie against the Brits? We are talking a potential national emergency. Why, the stress on the Health Service alone, with demands for the morning after pill reaching unprecedented levels on a Sunday before mass, is enough to bring this proud nation to its knees. What price tax incentives to multinationals when 9 months down the line the national gene pool is swelled to the bursting with neo-natal rugger-buggers because mammy couldn't slake daddy's drunken urges and send him off unconsummated to the land of nod with the remains of a Kubideh still on his shirt-front?

Action must be taken to bring a end to this vile trade in soft drinks before we pay the penalty. You have been warned.....

Burning rubber


Alright, as a hard core, wish I'd never taken up the filthy habit, give up every morning smoker, I accepted, nay welcomed, the smoking ban without a qualm. I didn't even mind becoming an impromptu cloakroom attendant to my smoking mates during the period I gave up when the ban was first introduced. But the grand panjandrums of ASH Ireland, the anti-smoking campaign, have gone one step too far even for one of my liberal leanings when it comes to the demon weed.

In a run up to National Anti-Smoking day which this year, ironically enough falls on Ash Wednesday, they have called for a ban on smoking in private cars. According to Professor Luke Clancy, the chair of this crypto-fascist health quango:

"Smokers must light up, hold the cigarette, deposit the ash and dispose of the cigarette - all whilst driving," he said. "If it is not safe to hold a mobile phone while driving, it's difficult to see how it can be safe to smoke."

Clearly our Luke should have stuck to croaking the Auld Triangle above in Donoghue's because whatever he's a professor of, it clearly isn't ergonomics. While driving along, or more accurately sitting in traffic waiting for the rare opportunity to engage in some forward motion, I, for one, rarely if ever engage my cigarette in ennervated discussion about what Orla said to Carmel at the photocopier this afternoon. I do not use it to text frantic messages about picking little Fionn up from under-8s rugby.

My in-car cigarette habit has never caused me to fail to indicate a turn before braking, cruise through a red light, or pulverise a cyclist at a major junction because I was too busy giving my secretary my current geographical location, a discourse on the state of Irish roads and ETA at the photocopier warehouse.

In fact, the capacity to partake in a smouldering tube of finest virginia makes me a safer driver. Without its calming effects, there is more than one road-user around this city who would have experienced the salutory experience of a trip to A&E to have a Toyota wheel brace removed from his or her jacksy. When confronted by road craft that suggests that the driver obtained his/her licence in a brown envelope deal with a Fianna Fail TD, the swift inhalation of an auld Sweet Afton facilitates a zen-like transcendance of mere human emotions like rage and the desire to remove body parts with an oily mole-grip.


A safe driver prepares for the road

If Clancy had bothered to learn correlation when he was studying whatever he's professor of, he might have noticed that air-rage incidents increased exponentially once smoking was banned on airlines. I am of the sincere view that if flight attendants firmly adhered nicotine patches onto passengers as part of the pre-flight safety protocols there'd be a few less Irish passengers bringing the nation into disgrace every year after being booted off a 737 at Luton Airport on the way to Ballyponza.

The price of everything and the value of nothing

In a last gasp attempt to portray themselves as a party of civic responsibility rather than one of sub-Thatcherite free marketeers, the Progressive Democrats (or the Regressive Autocrats, as they're known around my gaff) have announced plans for a scheme of social befriending in which volunteers would be paid cash money to pester the bejasus out of the old and infirm in their local communities.

Announcing the scheme, Tom Parlon said

People who might be recruited to do this work would include stay-at-home mothers or fathers who might have free time when their children are at school, or part-time carers who may be in a position to work limited hours outside the home....Changing demographics and lifestyles mean that older people, particularly, are at much greater risk of social isolation.

What a load of arse. You don't have to be a sociologist to recognise that if you allow house prices to run riot, otherwise stable working class communities, of which there are many around this city, will be broken up. The children of those communities who would have provided the social support for aging parents have to relocate further and further into the sticks if they want to find an affordable place to live. As a result there's no one to drop by on a daily basis and make sure Mammy or Daddy hasn't fallen over and broken a hip.

It is a supreme irony that it is the very party which presided over the rocketing house prices of the past decade and which did nothing to ensure that developers' commitments to affordable housing were enforced that should come up with this cack-handed scheme. I can't see the wannabe yuppies with their fucking carriage lamps and designer kitchens who have been filling up areas like Smithfield, Ringsend, Irishtown and the East Wall over the last few years popping in next door to see if old Mrs Mulligan is all right for a pot of Barry's and a slice of seed cake. No. too busy stuffing these noses with cocaine and worrying about the price of Beamers, them lads.

And what of the recruits to such a scheme? Every fucking nosey-parker, busy-body and out of work PD TD and councillor (of which there should be a good few after the next election, please God) in the 26 counties will be queuing up for the chance to spy on their hapless elderly neighbours. If it goes ahead we can look forward to an epidemic of elder abuse, contested wills and even more unsavoury goings on a few years down the line.

Meanwhile in Wexford: keep believing it, shit for brains



He whose name cannot be spoken gees up the beige shirts

And I quote...

In the next 90 days we will put before the Irish people a visionary agenda for a prosperous Ireland that cares for all its citizens, and that cares for its environment.

I believe that the Irish people respect and will elect politicians who show vision, conviction, capacity and honesty.

I believe that the Irish people see through phoney promises which are the fruit of desperation, not conviction.

Ireland needs you more than ever. Roll up your sleeves get out and work to give Ireland the government that the next generation deserves.

For us and for Ireland now is not the time to turn back. Don't throw it all away, the best has yet to come.

And he miched off the Dáil debate on Moriarty to write this shite?

Reasons to be cheerful Part 1
I was very gently taken to task by a friend of mine recently about the content of this blog. It was, we agreed, somewhat downbeat in its attitude to life on this small Ireland. Thankfully, the conversation did not extend into one of those 'if you don't like it go back to where you came from' raps that invariably accompany any utterance of complaint on my part regarding the parlous state of the nation. Quite the contrary, the criticism offered was constructive, helpful and concluded with a task to be completed before we next met: A blog consisting of items which make life here worthwhile or at least bearable. It was hard at first, but once I started, begob didn't they just pour out.

Here's a sample in no particular order:

Dublin Taxi Drivers


Anyone notice, lads?
I love these guys. Almost policeman like in their ability never to be there when you need one, they've put up with a lot of shit from the 'de-regulate everyone but our mates' government over the last few years. This has barely put a dent in their cheerful demeanour and willingness to put themselves out for a fare. I especially like the ones that suffer from geophasia between Lord Edward St and Crumlin Road. Makes getting home less of a journey and more of an expedition worthy of Rider Haggard into the lesser visited parts of West Dublin.

Being shifted on a Friday night
Not so many years ago a regular feature of my Friday nights on the tear was finding myself pulled into a doorway by some woman who had been ignoring me all night to engage in a wet and slobbery chardonnay-scented snog. This would often be accompanied by an admonition along the lines of 'It doesn't mean you're getting a ride, yeh know.' Even though it often did mean precisely that. As I've moved to the further end of the age demographic those days have gone thankfully. I have passed from the 'desirable when enough drink's been taken' category into the 'amazing you still have all your own teeth at your age' slot. In the late evening having had my fill of porter I can now concentrate my efforts on persuading a jolly taximan to chauffeur my arthritic old bones home in time for a cup of Horlicks.Mmmmmmm!

The cafeteria at IMMA
In the bad old days, I used to be able to recover from my hangovers by lounging quietly in the corner of the beautiful courtyard of this 17th Century hospital. I could realign myself with sobriety while having a coffee and a cigarette and contemplating the generosity of one of my ancestors in bestowing such an
architectural gift to the nation. Since the cafe's removal to the cellar, I now avoid both an unhealthy exposure to the elements and simultaneous consumption of those deadly drugs nicotine and caffeine. The chairs are really much better for my posture too.


Admin Staff @ DCU


I used to work at Trinity College, the last major bastion of Ascendancy elitism on this island. One of the doubtless vestigial characteristics of that heritage was the sense that non-academic staff (secretaries, porters, librarians, security staff, and so on) genuinely felt that their role was to help and support you in the institution's avowed task of educating students. After a term at DCU, I realise just how much of a dinosaur Trinity is in the Ireland of today. Not a bit of that forelock-tugging, obsequious Uncle Tim-ism for our administrators and support staff. Indeed no, it's not their job to help you educate the young effectively. Just what their job is often, it would seem, for them to know and you to find out. Learning that I should not expect to be treated like Lord Mountcharles has been of incalculable value to me over the last few months in understanding how far this country has come in shedding its post-colonial shackles.

Evening Fixtures: One more step on the road to nationhood



The Kildare Nationalist might not agree with me but they're just a bunch of culchie naysayers. The erection of floodlights at Croke Park, the home of our real national games, must rank as a feat comparable to Mussolini getting Italian trains to run on time. Unlike other Irish infrastructural projects not only did it come in on time but, as I'm given to understand, also on budget. Neither, would it appear was a single consultant given a fat sinecure during the planning stage. We should seriously consider handing over the running of the country to the GAA (Sorry, didn't we already do that?). The only drawback is the Republic of Ireland's next home game will now be visible.

Honesty in unexpected places
Best typified by the English-trained health worker at the Mater Hospital who, when interviewed by Newstalk 106, described his colleagues as 'amongst the best medical staff in the world' and the service they worked in as 'amongst the worst in the world.' Such honesty was doubtless followed by a fast taxi to Dublin Airport and the sound of doors failing to catch his arse on the way out.

LumpenDubs
I love 'em one and all. When they're not murdering each other in drug wars or smoking dope on the top deck of the 77 bus before throwing the back seat out of the emergency exit, you couldn't ask for a nicer bunch of people. They like their locals local and their parishes parochial. As a visiting friend from Liverpool once remarked after a trip to my local local ' Eh Liam, I thought you said dis town was friendly, dis place 'as the atmosphere of an open grave.'

Valentine's special: From green to blue

I recently came across the shocking news that a Scandinavian porno company is touring the length and breadth of the land offering hard cash to induce the flower of Gaelic Irish womanhood to get down and dirty on digicam.

According to my sources (i.e. The lrish Daily Mirror), pornography with an Irish theme is a booming market on t'internet. Known as 'Lepreporn' and featuring amateur artistes, this particular example of polymorphous perversity has been kicking around in cyberspace for the last year and a half. An industry insider quoted in the article said

Irish girls are very popular in the US market - it's their accents....Irish girls look more natural [I love this bit-LG] even if they are carrying a few extra pounds or their teeth ain't perfect.

Aren't we all, one way or another?
The Merriam-Webster on-line dictionary defines pornography in the following way:

1 : the depiction of erotic behavior (as in pictures or writing) intended to cause sexual excitement
2 : material (as books or a photograph) that depicts erotic behavior and is intended to cause sexual excitement

The key concept in both definitions seems to be the concept of 'sexual excitement' and I while I appreciate that folks' boats can get floated in many, many different ways when it comes to sexual behaviour, the very concept of a specifically Irish pornography stretches my over-stimulated erotic imagination. In fact it would probably stretch the combined and extensive libidinous imaginations of Freud, Kinsey, Havelock Ellis and the Marquis de Sade.

Despite extensive (and I do mean extensive) on-line research, I have been unable to locate any examples of this sub-genre (or at least any I could download for free) but rest assured I shall continue my tireless search leaving no stone unturned until I emerge stiff and possibly satisfied from my labours on your behalf.

Whatever. In the absence of physical evidence it seems to me that this is just another example of the kind of shamrockery aimed at exploiting gullible Americans of Irish descent who, God love them, no longer feel obliged to pass their tithes to Noraid since peace broke out and are looking for other outlets for their thanatic impulses.

The idea of ethno-erotica aimed at the kind of folks who provide a much needed annual boost to the Irish bawneen and gansey industry (now re-located to Bangla Desh for cost reasons) and who think tweed is the fabric de rigeur amongst natives of this isle (Have you seen that episode of Murder She Wrote?(and before you ask, yes I do work at home during the day)) frankly takes the chocolate Kimberly (but hopefully not after it's been applied to some erogenous zone or other).

Lepreporn can only be a disappointment to them. We are talking here about people whose first questions on arrival tend to be about the state of affairs in Glockamara or the paddling proclivities of a certain mountain range. Their Celtophilic fantasies probably consist of comely, if somewhat cuddly and crooked toothed, cáilíní doing the auld Riverdance down the crossroads before snuggling up for a chaste kiss under the counterpane with a cross between John Wayne and Piers Brosnan. Somehow I can't see signs appearing in Carroll's gift shops warning of 'adult oriented material beyond this point'.



Sex in modern Ireland: The early years

Now in my limited experience, sexual fantasy is always best kept just that. The moment you start turning your fantasies into reality there's only a couple of destinations to end up. Surprise(it wasn't like that in the movie); disappointment (ditto); embarrassment (double ditto) or a painful mixture of the three are probably the least consequences when you endeavour to translate erotic imaginings into sweaty reality.

Unfortunately, in Ireland, that necessary separation isn't the rule. Traditionally, at the level of fantasy, the peak of Irish ecstasy culminates in a expensive wedding followed by years of fraught conjugal relationships, a clutch of ungrateful offspring and some property to pass onto same.

If that were not bad enough, the actuality of sexual behaviour in Ireland (Temple Bar on a Saturday night, notwithstanding, or perhaps very much withstanding) is still rooted in a kind of rigourist Catholic sensibility that would not be out of place in dungeons the darkest practitioners of BDSM. When John Lydon said 'What's so good about two minutes of squelching?', he was revealing less about his anarchist ideology than his Irish Catholic up-bringing.


The Father of echte lepreporn cashes in his chips

Shame, guilt, pain, not to mention the loss of your mortal soul still figure highly in the background of contemporary Irish sexual conduct. Translating the price of an impure thought or an occasion of sin into an appropriate imagery and still remaining within the law would have the Marquis de Sade tearing someone else's hair out.

Anyway, to our American guests who flock to these shores clutching their copies of Fucked in Ireland enjoy your Valentine's day, but remember; be careful out there.....

The state of the nation

If I was depressed yesterday, then today I have even more reason to look through rose petalled spectacles at lengths of rope, car exhausts, gas stoves razors and the other miscellaneous contents of my bathroom cabinet (Thinks: I wonder how much fizzy echinchea tablets it would take to put an end to my abiding misery about life in this country. Hmmmm, at least I'd bow out with a healthy immune system).

The exponential increase in this writer's unhappiness quotient in a mere 24 hours can be explained succinctly as follows:

San Marino 1 Republic of Ireland 2

To some of you this might be just a football result. To others it might prompt a 'Feck it, we got the 3 points and we're still in with a chance of qualifying' sort of response. Such optimists deserve nothing less than being frogmarched to the Cliffs of Moher and gently nudged into the Atlantic swell. Survivors would be encouraged to join contemplative religious orders where their benign idiocy might be of some use.

Like many Irish descent people I have followed the fortunes and misfortunes of the Republic's team since the days when it was, as they say, neither popular nor profitable. My support for my country's side originates in a mythical long forgotten age before they sold prawn sandwiches at Lansdowne Road.

I put up with abuse and piss-taking from my English contemporaries and resisted the sometimes strong temptation to pin 3 lions to my chest and get with the local programme. I can honestly say I must be one of the only people on these islands who has never seen the 1966 World Cup Final (I actually spent that afternoon with a Scottish mate playing a hybrid game of Hurling and Shinty in a local playground).

I have seen the Republic play great games, good games and bad games, snatch victory from the jaws of defeat (and more often the reverse) and receive pummellings from the 'big' footballing nations. I have memories that I will carry with me to the grave. Like the afternoon a Scouser headed a ball down to a Jock who slipped it into the back of the English net and thus brought to an end 800 years of oppression (or at least made it more worthwhile). A day in New York when a London born,alcoholic black orphan kept the Italians from getting an equaliser. I could go on but you get my drift.

What I never saw (or more often heard via a crackly Radio Eireann) in those times was an Irish side play with less than conviction. If they lost you were proud, if they won, or even drew, you were ecstatic. But whatever the result, you knew that pulling on that green shirt meant the same to most of the players as it would to you, given the chance. And it meant the same to them wherever they were born, whatever their seed breed and lineage.

In later years, we're talking about guys who played for some of the top clubs in England who, without complaint, would be bundled into cattle class for away games while the gombeens from the FAI sipped champagne and negotiated dodgy property deals up front in business class. Men who would run headlong into a goal post and feck the consequences for their careers if it meant conceding or scoring a goal.

Last night, the game against San Marino washed all that away like footprints in the sand. For the first time in my life, I found myself cheering for the opposition. When San Marino scored an equaliser, the choreography of which would not be out of place in a Mack Sennett one reeler, I cheered. Worse still I began to hope that the result stayed 1-1. It might teach us a lesson. When the equaliser came (thanks only to a liberal dash of extra extra time by the Danish referee) I was plunged into schizophrenic paralysis by the emotional conflict I was feeling.

Staunton squeezes out a victory over the mighty San Marino
I haven't read a paper today and I don't intend to. I know what they'll say: sack the manager, change the tactics, give the players a good kick up the arse, blah blah blah ad infinitum.

I can't blame Stan. Anyone who bothers to think about it knows that he's just warming the seat in the dugout until that Cork guy, whose name escapes me, learns his trade as a manager up at Sunderland. That's the reward he gets for nearly dying of heat exhaustion in the we were robbed game against Mexico in Florida.

I can't even blame the players. They're just a product of an age when playing professional football changed from being a vocation or an expression of artistry into that pernicious construction of late capitalism called a 'career'. The young ones with talent are just Celtic Tiger cubs who don't know any better, the older ones, who are by and large not so talented, know their international days are numbered and have given up hope.

A particularly telling and sad moment came when an Eircom apparatchik shuffled on to award man of the match Kevin Kilbane an auld glass salad bowl. He looked like he was handing a bedpan to a particularly noisome and incontinent geriatric in-law. I don't even think he shook his hand.


Kevin Kilbane explores alternative career avenues after winning man of the match against the mighty San Marino


In my view, there are two related factors which explain last night's dismal performance: The economy and the FAI. Think about it.

In 1988 Ireland was a 3rd World nation, a banana republic without the sunshine.The economy was sinking fast and emigration was as high as it was in the 1950s. When the lads marched out to face England in Stuttgart the pride of the nation was the only thing at stake. Even in defeat we could extract a moral victory through effort, determination, and sheer bloody minded refusal to roll over and lie down (fear of Big Jack in the dressing room afterwards probably played a part it should be noted).

Not so today. Irish pride is at its apex and verging on arrogance. The problem is we still live in a banana republic and in our hearts we know it. All the wealth generated in the last few years has been translated into SUVs and inflated house prices, holiday homes in Malaga and dodgy property deals in Eastern Europe.

Things that might give us pride in ourselves and in the sacrifices and achievements of previous generations, like a decent health service or education system, care for the old and vulnerable, a less than corrupt political establishment, an efficient civil service, or an improved quality of life in general have just been pissed against the wall. All we're waiting for now is the bottom to drop out of the housing market.

We can't blame anyone else but ourselves and we know it. We're not the plucky little country we once were, fighting for our dignity and our place amongst the nations of the world. We're bloated, smug and self-satisfied. Our performance last night simply reflected that zeitgeist. All the players did was act out what Ireland has become.

Which brings me to the FAI. This cabal of gombeen men are symptomatic of the Irish ruling class a whole and appear to have wandered straight out of the pages of Frantz Fanon. They have invested next to nothing in the team or the game here and contented themselves with exporting 14 year olds to the football factories of the Premiership to be fattened up for onward sale and then abandoned them when they don't crack the big time over there.

They have extracted the maximum value from the successes of the past two decades in the form of franchises, ticket prices, licensing deals and so on. They must be rubbing their hands together at the prospect of games at Croke Park with its executive boxes and corporate facilities. It's only a shame they have to split the profits with the culchies.

If there was any justice in this country the FAI should be forced to give away the tickets for their next home game to the plain football supporters of Ireland free, gratis and for nothing. Now that's an election winner for Bertie, Enda, Pat or the other fellow whose name cannot be spoken.

But there isn't and they won't.

It's too depressing for words....

My apologies once again to regular readers for the protracted absence of entries on this blog. An annually recurring bout of winter sadness is partly to blame but a more significant cause was the bleeding state of the bleeding nation.

For months now the news content of the Irish Times might has well have been produced from a computer template permutated from the following:

Another health service crisis, Harney denies responsibility/blames nurses/doctors/managers/patients/God

McDowell introduces more controls on on immigrants and asylum seekers

Bertie is economical with the truth on health/law and order/the economy/house prices/education/whatever you're having yourself

Enda fails to get Bertie to answer the simplest question on health/law and order/the economy/house prices/education/whatever you're having yourself

Labour to form electoral pact with anyone who'll have them (The fecking St Vincent de Paul wouldn't take that shower in).

Ryanair imposes a passenger oxygen consumption surcharge on European flights. O'Leary blames anti-competition legislation for rising costs of air.

In an effort to obviate the mass suicide of their readership before they get as far as page 2, the old lady's editors have taken to putting cheery, 'aren't we a quirky little nation to be sure, to be sure' stories on the front page. These are somewhat like the 'skate boarding duck' tales that used to end local news programmes on the BBC in the 1970s.

Today's was a classic about Galtee Merci, a Holstein Bull based at the Dairygold Artificial Insemination centre who was put down after apparently fathering somewhere in the region of 100,000 daughters


Hero of Irish agriculture or a load of old bullocks?

A cursory examination of this bull's story tells us a lot about the sad state of the nation's psyche (or at the very least the state of the Times' sub-editors' psyches). The stories of skate-boarding ducks in Warrington and a Jack Russell in Blackburn that could sing Verdi which I remember, at least had the merit of being factually correct, locally (and often yokel-ly) relevant, and they were tucked away at the end of the newscast. Their ideological function was to lighten the relentless litany of 'it's grim up North' stories which made up the bulk of local news in my youth. The Galtee Merci story has none of these marginally redeeming characteristics.

This 'truly great hero of Irish agriculture', 'the father of the Irish herd' and 'the first and greatest' local bull was, in fact, an immigrant of Orangeman stock (born in Holland, don'tcha know). Estimates of his fecundity are just that. No-one knows how much of his bovine spunk actually gave rise to off-spring. And we all know what us chaps are like when it comes to giving our quantity of sexual conquests a bit of an upward spin. Why should bulls (or their handlers) be any different?

In other words this is a bullshit story which just happens to be about a bull. It's as thin as Oxo gravy and wouldn't make a one inch side-column insert on page 7 of a national newspaper during August anywhere else in the Northern hemisphere How it came to be below the fold on the front page of our nation's paper of record is beyond me.

In the words of Myles 'The public should be told...'

I was awoken Kraken-like from my slumbers this morning by the less than dulcet Cork tones of Orla Barry on Newstalk 106 discussing the problems facing English born people of Irish descent currently living on the Emerald Isle. One of her interlocutors was a former student of mine, Sean Folan, now a sports writer for the Indo and the other was some Irish descent guy from the British Council whose name escapes me. The latter appeared to have the possibly interesting (in the Chinese sense) job of marketing British culture on this auld sod.

The gist of this discussion was that the indigenous Irish are quite likely to engage in subtle and less subtle racist gibes and other such malarky when they hear an English accent. The old '800 years of oppression' argument was trotted out and the same dumb disingenuous questions about what football team you support if you're British born of Irish descent, etc. Blah blah blah, yawn, yawn, yawn.

Again as I recall, and bear in mind it was before I'd had my second cup of Kenyan peaberry so no jury in the land could convict me for any errors of recollection, one of the interviewees said that he wouldn't go to watch an international soccer game in a pub because of the responses of his fellow drinkers to an 'Englishman' supporting Ireland.

Now this stuff has serious implications and I've dealt with them elsewhere on this blog, but to be honest, after the best part of a decade's residence on this sainted isle I'm a bit fed up with hearing Irish descent people beating themselves (and on occasion, each other) up about an issue that was not of their making. In my view the ultimate responsibility for such self-flagellation lies with the bad faith of the gombeens who have effectively run this country since the foundation of the state, whenever that was.

These people, who smugly sat by and profited from the hundreds of thousands of their compatriots who were forced onto the emigrant boats to England in the two decades following the second world war, should have been forced to offer a public apology to every migrant who ever left to face the world of 'no blacks, no dogs, no Irish' that was Britain for the latter part of the 20th Century. Their descendants should go down on their knees and thank the children of emigrants for the sacrifice their parents made and remind themselves of that sacrifice every time they sip a cup of latté in their local Fergocino's.

Meanwhile, to British born children of Irish migrants I offer the following strategies to offset the negative effects of an English accent on life here:

1. Pretend to be from Liverpool. Cultivate a 'calm down, calm down' accent, have a bad curly perm and grow an Ian Rush/Graeme Souness moustache. Some people might mistake you for a Mullingar woman and you may have to face a certain amount of benignly patronising guff, but believe me it's worth it. Everyone in Ireland loves scousers because they know that we're better at being Irish than they are. Liverpool people are the Irish the indigenes wish they were; boisterous, aggressive, articulate, funny, friendly, and, above all, untainted by the material benefits of the Celtic Tiger.

2. Take to wearing a Celtic shirt in public places. This really confuses things for would be Anglophobes, particularly the armchair Republicans in the population. The contradiction of the English accent garbed in a Hoops shirts generates the kind of neurotic reaction Pavlov looked for in his dogs in some of his later, crueller experiments.

3. Maintain a critical and vocal disdain for Rugby Union and point out frequently that it's a garrison game played by English public schoolboys and latent homosexuals that any Irishman worth his salt should be ashamed to participate in. Follow this up by asking how they fancy England's chances in the Ashes. (Don't try this in Limerick though).

4. Ask people what soccer team they support and when they reply Manchester United, Arsenal, Liverpool, etc. respond by saying 'That's funny you don't have a Manc/Cockney/Scouse accent' and then show them your Shamrock Rovers season ticket.

5. Never, ever go on the defensive about your English upbringing. Take the war to the aggressor. Mention things like the National Health Service (it's free, don'tcha know?), cheap beer, the relative absence of paedophile priests and corrupt politicians, and the better weather.

Fat Chance

It has become a habit of my later years to deal with the inevitable existential hangover that comes with the passing of another year to look outside myself for some form of inspiration to assist in the process of surviving yet another year. As I've got older and wisdom has been increasingly been replaced by cynicism, finding something or someone to act as a source of inspiration has become harder and harder, but this year I think I've come up trumps in the substantial shape of Mr Steve Vaught aka The Fatman Walking who I heard interviewed on RTE today.


Mr Vaught a former US Marine, set off in 2005 from his home in California to walk to New York. When he set out Mr Vaught was morbidly obese, weighing somewhere in the region of 400lbs and suffering from chronic depression. It took him the best part of 15 months to complete the walk but he managed it without any major sponsorship, support team, and most importantly no motive other than, in his own words 'to break out of a negative rut lifestyle and find new meaning and resolution to life drama that I felt was holding me back.' Whatever that means.


Steve Vaught: The 'before' picture


Over the course of the trip Vaught had acquired a documentary team following him, a personal trainer, a book deal, a website which received upwards of 100,000 hits during his cross country stroll, and a huge media reception on his arrival in New York City. On his site he described his arrival like this:

So as I crested what turn out to be the last spectacular vista of the trip, a view of Manhattan, I really knew that I was there. There were a ton of photo ops there and I continued on. After a hill and a couple of turns I am ambushed by Inside Edition and as they were following me I was greeted by a bunch of kids that had poured out from their school onto the front lawn to cheer me on, Stopping periodically to get a “good background” or to answer a few questions, I actually missed a very important turn off. Route 46 becomes impassable up ahead and I needed to turn off and follow along side streets to get to Ft. Lee and the George Washington Bridge.

Now I can almost hear the cynics amongst you muttering 'So what, just another Oprah moment.' That would normally be my own response. Another media myth perpetrating the bogus ideology of individual redemption through a struggle against adversity leading to 15 minutes of fame and an example to us all. Hollywood couldn't have scripted this guy's story better. He kills 2 pedestrians in a car accident, gets depressed and fat, and seeks and finds existential redemption along the highways and by-ways of America. He returns home healthy, wealthy and wise to a loving wife and children. Fade to titles and wait for the Oscar nominations to roll in.


But there were 3 things struck me as I listened to Mr Vaught. The first was that I'd never heard of him, the second was that he sounded like a well-grounded, decent and honest human being and, finally, that unlike the Hollywood version, Vaught's life had not been fixed by the journey in a way that would get him on Oprah. If anything, by the standards of western materialism his life has got worse. He's still fat, around 320lbs, the book deal fell through, the media turned on him, he and his wife divorced and he's now working nights as a tow-truck driver and finding it hard to find the time and resources to sustain the collective redemptive process that began with the fatman walking.

Steve Vaught: The 'after' picture'

Prompted by the radio interview I went to his website and read his journal of 15 months walking from coast to coast. It's no picturesque travelogue, there isn't much Brysonesque wit or knowingness about it. It's a sincere, serious, sometimes humourless account of a self-obsessed struggle to come to terms with, well something, everything, and nothing. There is no Hollywood story here. He doesn't start fat and end slim; he isn't discovered as a poet through lyrical descriptions of passing Americana; he's not a model or an inspiration to anyone and, this is why I really respect the man, he doesn't really want to be. What's more, and I may be mistaken, but I suspect he knows he didn't have to do the walk at all to find out whatever it was he found out.

In my view what he accomplished on his long walk was something that can't be bartered for 5 minutes in the media or the quick fix moral economy. No-one was going to make money or ride his coat-tails to fame. No-one is going to be selling the Steve Vaught weight loss programme to hapless fatties. He did what he felt he needed to do in the hope that something good might come of it, but this was definitely not the career move that others, less honourable, might have made of it.

This is the true story of a common humanity in an seemingly uncaring self-obsessed world. It's not about eating or buying or selling yourself to a happiness that is at best transitory and usually illusory. It's not about finding or becoming a guru. It's not even about the search for a true self. As the man himself said:

You see, once you open a door, even a metaphorical emotional one, you night not be able to close it again and instead have to stand and face what is on the other side. This is exactly what occurred in my case, I found an awakening and now I need to pursue it.

Well, Steve, if you ever read this, all I can say is I wish you well.

An aside on the Brit Awards (aka The Honours List)

As an Irish citizen, and one who is not fit to polish a pair of Armani shades, I am nonetheless proud to live in a country where titles of nobility are outlawed by the constitution (Article 40.2, check it out). So it's always a disappointment when one of my compatriots takes the symbolic equivalent of the Queen's Shilling.

Some you'd expect nothing more from, such as rugby playing multinational capitalists and South County Dublin pop singers who once claimed to be punks and who'd do anything to stay in the media eye (including marrying Paula Yates). But what have we now but arise Sir Paul (and I don't mean McCartney). And despite what he says on the U2 website, there can't conceivably be any doors that an honorary knighthood will open up for the short-arsed sunglasses devotee that weren't open already. I for one intend to return my CDs in protest!

Meanwhile across the Irish Sea

Having bought into the British Honours system, Sir Bono might do well to take a look at the case of boxer 'Prince' Naseem Hameed. In an extremely rare, if not unprecedented act in recent times

The Queen has directed that the appointment of Naseem Hamed to be a Member of the Civil Division of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire, dated 31 December 1998, shall be cancelled and annulled and that his name shall be erased from the Register of the said Order.

Naseem lost his gong after serving a jail sentence for a dangerous driving incident in which another driver was seriously injured. On the off-chance, I caught a phone-in show on BBC Radio 2 yesterday and was pleasantly surprised to hear the great British public in outcry about the annulment. Accusations of racism and 'What about Jeffrey Archer, then?' abounded. At least someone somewhere knows what the score is.

According to the Cabinet Office "Forfeiture will be considered if evidence comes to light that someone has done something which shows they shouldn't have received an honour." I would guess that perjury, witness tampering, and writing execrable fiction might just meet that criterion. Former prisoner FF8282 and Baron of Weston-Super-Mare, was unavailable for comment.

And finally, if that weren't enough to convince Sir Bono about the nature of the system he's bought into, long term tax exile and wannabe Scotsman Rod 'the Mod' Stewart joins the list of past their sell-by date popsters with a CBE, presumably for services to blondes (thanks to Sandra Leckie for that joke!).