A picture worth at least 1000 words

Chelsea 0 Liverpool 1
26th October 2008

Be sure your shins will find you out

The news that Bertie Ahern has broken his leg comes as no surprise to this writer. It was almost inevitable that slipping the net the way he did would have consequences of one sort or another.

We've all seen The Sopranos. If you accept unsolicited dig-outs from businessmen who go informally by names like Fat Tony, Big Patrick and Earless Joe or put yourself in hock to the nuns and then renege on the vigorish just because you've been forced into early retirement and can't make the payments on your pension, you have to expect some kind of sanctions, now don't you? After all they can't repossess a house he never owned in the first place or drag the wee bollix through the small claims court for failing to live up to expectations.

Alternatively, I wouldn't want to get on the wrong side of Brian 'biffo' Cowan either. There's a man with a motive after the mess he was left to sort out. A wee camán-assisted tib and fib re-alignment would be small beer to that lad I'm after thinking.

As for the 'fell down the stairs' story that FF sources are pushing, sure haven't we all heard that one before? It rings about as true as the old 'walked into a door' explanation for a black eye.
If we hear sometime soon of a former Taoiseach turning up at low tide on the Liffey wearing a pair of concrete wellies with a couple of house bricks in his pockets, then it probably won't be Albert Reynolds is all I'm prepared to say.


I nicked today's picture from green ink Liam-Bob says check him/her out

Homecoming

Ouch! Fuck me! What bollix put that there? Me bleeding shins. Jesus, would someone put the light on before I banjax meself altogether!

Click.

Oh for chrissakes would you ever turn it off again. The state of this fucking place. You could choke a camel on the dust in here and would someone ever open a window. The smell of this kip is enough to gag a tramp.

Where did all those empty bottles come from? I don't drink Thunderbird and that mattress wasn't there last time I looked. Please God those stains aren't what I think they are...

I don't know, you turn your back for a moment and dereliction sets in. I'm lucky this blog hasn't been squatted by a posse of new age travellers with their fecking digeridoos, dogs on a string, German army surplus dreadlocks and the entire Levellers back catalogue. Maybe it has. Which would explain the pong of patchouli oil coming from that tattered sleeping bag in the corner.

Still and all, a quick spin around with the Dyson, a dash of Pledge and a bucket of carbolic should see things right....

Anyway, I know I've promised before, but this time I mean it. This blog is going to be kept up to date, on the ball, and up to snuff if it kills me. Just watch this space (but don't hold your breath unless you particularly see puce as your colour).

So just to be going on with, I found this old hobo asleep in the far corner of the blog. His name is Seasick Steve and he's not a bad old stick for a man who plays a guitar with 3 strings. We split a quart of T-bird over a graveyard stew and he told me he's playing the National Stadium in Dublin on the 29th if he can't jump the blind on a dice train out town before then.



As me new mate Seasick would say' Y'all have a nice time and come back this way soon, now'


The photograph above was nicked and adapted from Matt's photostream on Flickr The man knows how to point a camera. Check him out.

No Platform For Racists

I hate racists. They're the reason I can never, ever, get a No1 razor cut. Thanks to Combat18, the NF and the BNP I have bumps and scars beneath my hairline that will only see the light of day when I need chemotherapy for terminal cancer. They're the result of countless Anti-Nazi League and Rock against Racism events and rallies in the 1980s when a Billy Bragg or Joe Strummer gig wasn't complete without blood running down your forehead.

But that's not the only reason I hate racists. My old man, god rest his soul, who joined the British Army to fight fascism, was involved in the liberation of Belsen concentration camp. He spent his remaining years tormented by what he saw there and what he was called upon to do in the aftermath: bulldozing the emaciated bodies of thousands of people into mass graves and marching German civilians at gunpoint from a nearby town to dig those graves. The pure hatred he felt for those civilians was the only aspect of his war experience he would ever talk to me about and the moral was clear: blind hatred isn't good. The same man would chuckle and smile when he remembered stoning Oswald Mosely's blackshirts of f the streets of Liverpool in the 1930s. His motto then was as mine is now: No platform for Fascists. Forget liberal platitudes about free speech. If the only speech you have to make consists of lies and hatred for people you don't even know, then you don't deserve the privilege for which thousands of people fought and died.

But I digress, my mate Bock (I hope he doesn't object to me calling him that) pointed me towards this site. In my view it's one of the nastiest Irish blog sites I've ever encountered. It's particularly nasty because it disguises blind, irrational, keep-em-out racism in the form of seemingly rational argument in a manner reminiscent of Josef Goebbels at his best. I'm not going to discuss it further than that other than to say VISIT THIS SITE. And when you do click on the 'Flag This Blog' icon. You know it makes sense.

Let joy be unconfined: Bertie calls it a day


Back in January I decided to limit my postings only to the shiny happy smiley things that I encountered in Irish current affairs. This is one of those moments.

The dodger of Drumcondra, the knave of the Nort'side has finally done the right thing and fallen on his sword or, knowing him, fallen on a sword borrowed from some mates in England to help him through a 'difficult period of public life'.

He's given notice that he'll stop darkening the towels of Leinster House on May 6th. This should allow him plenty of time to sweep up any loose change from down the side of the the Dail benches and melt down the silverware from Farmleigh House to make his fare on the next boat to the Cayman Islands or anywhere beyond the reach of the Mahon Tribunal, the Revenue Commissioners or the Criminal Assets Bureau.

Now if only someone could come up with evidence of Mary Harney corruptly receiving a container load of cream buns in exchange for destroying the health service.......

Tonight Matthew, I'm going to be Nigel Blackwell

I hate tribute bands, I hate the idea of tribute bands, and I despise both the purveyors of tribute muzak and the sad fools who pay money over to see such exercises in collective embarrassment. Or at least I did until I came across these lads on the Half Man Half Biscuit website.



They're called Half Arsed Half Biscuit and I expect the very idea of an HMHB tribute band keeps Nigel 'I-wouldn't-want-a-record-contract-they- expect-you-to-do-too-much-work' Blackwell's restless legs doing midnight marathons on long winter nights around West Kirby or wherever it is on the Wirral he lives these days.

The idea of a tribute to anything from Birkenhead (Town Motto: Fold your arms, toss your head back while raising your eyebrows and tutting once loudly), except perhaps Tranmere Rovers for a brief period under the management of John Aldridge, really does break down the boundary between post-modern irony and post-laundry ironing.

Anyway, they seem to be from the Limerick area which is the only place in Ireland where people look uncannily like they grew up on the Woodchurch Estate. If they ever plan to come to Dublin, I'd gladly join them on stage for a chorus of Shit Arm Bad Tattoo. If only they'd put their gig dates on their totally Birkenhead website I'd even travel beyond the pale to see these lads.

So, happy 2008 to the rest of yez. I expect to be back here a bit more regularly in the forthcoming months.

Just Far Too Much

Last Saturday night saw the launch of the 'Far too much Bertie' sticker campaign in Dublin. Enterprising anti-Fianna Fáil-er, Kevin Cotter started distributing the first of 200,000 stickers in protest at our beloved leader's recent and, I might add, well-deserved pay increase. (Shafting a country of 4 million people on a daily basis is no easy job, I'll have you know, and should be remunerated accordingly IMHO).

Nevertheless, campaigns like this should be encouraged if only to show what an enlightened politically engaged culture we inhabit. What's a thousand Euros on stickers when them barrister lads beyond in Dublin Castle spend more than that on sangwich for their dinners? The possibilities for extending the idea to other politicians are limitless and doubtless someone with more time on their hands than I is already hard at work producing worthy successors.

Still, on foot of the recent disclosures that Pavarotti's will is being contested by members of his family because he left his clothes to a certain ex-Tánaiste and Minister for (ill-)Health, I propose the following candidate


Any seconders?

Globalisation goes mental

I don't know if it's just me but there's something smug and vaguely sinister about the new Diageo advertising campaign for that porter they make above there in Dublin 8.

The idea of a bunch of Andean peasants sacrificing their old wardrobes, cadillacs and books to build a giant stout totem in the village square smacks of Werner Herzog's epic Fitzcarraldo and perhaps even more of Les Blank's Burden of Dreams, the documentary which charted the effect that Herzog's obsession with his eponymous character had on cast, crew, and the indigenous peoples he recruited to do the actual work of dragging a 320 ton boat over a mountain top.

The ad is part of a £10 million campaign to restore the pre-eminence of the beer whose sales fell by 7% in Ireland this year, pushing the nation down to 3rd place behind Nigeria in the Diageo market hit parade

While I accept my exploitation as a consumer as being an inevitable feature of life under capitalism, I'm less than comfortable watching something like this. I keep asking myself questions like 'How many peasants were killed or injured in the making of this ad?' or 'Were Government sponsored death squads employed to force the peasants to co-operate and hand over their old motors and furniture to the ad-men at gun-point?' and more seriously 'How much cocaine was consumed prior to coming up with the mental idea in the first place?'

Anyway so, someone had some serious Aztec nose candy fun up there in the North Argentinian Highlands, that's for sure. See what you think

The way we lived then




The way we live now



My thanks to the fine folks at Gizmodo for pointing me towards these gems

Signs of the times

Before anyone starts thinking that there's a theme developing here, let me assure you it's only a segue.

Them lovely folks at the Samaritans, the Irish Water Safety Board and Clare County Council have together concocted a very cunning plan to cut the number of suicides occurring at that former beauty spot turned cacky commercial interpretative centre and car park, the Cliffs of Moher.

They're going to put some signs up. With the Samaritans' telephone number on. Along the cliff top. Bound to work, that.

Concerned that the hordes of human lemmings who annually seek oblivion by a quick plunge off the 214 meter high cliffs into the foaming briny at their foot has given the site the reputation of a suicide blackspot, not to mention the effect such behaviour has on sales of Book of Kells tea-towels, Leprechaun key-rings, and that weird hippy music with noseflutes and whale noises, the plan is to advertise the Samaritans services at strategic points along the cliff-top.

In today's Irish Times Director of the Samaritans in Co Clare, Mary Lynch, said: "we have tried to make the signs visible, while being conscious that it is a very sensitive and beautiful area."

Tis a shame that the lads who built the car park, the gift shop and that nuclear bunker-cum-interpretative centre yoke didn't display the same sensitivity to the natural environment. Still maybe they'll put in a mobile phone mast just to make sure the Samaritan's service has a cat's chance of working. Nothing worse than having second thoughts and not being able to get a signal on the old dog and bone. I ask you.

I know suicide is not a laughing matter but plans like this clearly are. Anyone affected by the subject of this blog can contact the Samaritans for help and support via this website or More O'Ferrall for advice on discrete signage in areas of special natural interest.

He's back and this time he's brought his Prozac

My apologies to that small but loyal group of people who I count as regular readers. What was originally intended as a short sabbatical seems to have turned into a nigh on six month hiatus.

The gap was brought on by depression resulting from the result of the last general election, a severe bout of carpal tunnel syndrome, and the ever unfulfilled desire that we might get a decent summer for once. As the season drifted by with nary a sign of the sun, my desire to write shrank in direct proportion to the number of grey mornings and stories demonstrating our current Taoiseach's contempt for the sad crew of optimists who voted him back for another 5 years.

Anyway so, since I can't do anything about the weather and even less about the electoral choices of the Irish people, I've decided to make this blog in to a happy shiny place full of cream coloured ponies and crisp apple strudel, door bells and sleigh bells and whatever you're having yourself.

Heretofore on the new look Where Angels Fear you'll find no ironic or indignant stories about political corruption. No more righteous anger at the failings of our health system or the interesting goings on above there in Dublin Castle. No sirree, bob! I'm going to leave that depressing stuff that to those masters of melancholia, those denizens of the downside like Bock and the other old fellah with the wispy beard whose name escapes me.

On the new look WAF it's just going to be fun, fun, fun all the way, or at least until someone takes my T-bird away. Fuck the begrudgers and if I can't dance I don't want to be in your revolution.

And just to demonstrate my sincere commitment to the new WAF philosophy I'm going to share with you a little something I saw at the pictures only the other day. It's called Control, it's about Joy Division, it's set in Manchester in the late 1970s and suicide figures rather highly in the narrative. What a recipe for happiness unconfined. Joe-Bob says 3 stars, check it out but leave the washing line in the kitchen.

And to get you in the mood, here's a taste of the original.

Pure pop for now people: For want of something better to do

These guys blew the White Stripes and everyone else off on Later with Jules Smug Bastard tonight in my less than humble opinion. Thanks to the Hangar Queen for putting me on to them in the first place.




They're playing Dublin in August but it's at Marlay Park which means handing over absurd amounts of hard earned spondulicks in handling fees to those gangsters from Ticketmaster I expect. Let's hope Whelan's or somewhere sensible books 'em in while they're on the island.

Pure Pop For Now People Strikes Again



Came across these guys. They have a new album out today. They're from Wakefield. That's in Yorkshire. I think I can find it in myself to forgive them.

Electoral Alzheimer's Strikes Ahern

It's a sad fact that the tragedy that is Alzheimer's disease can strike anyone at any time. The tell-tale signs can be quite subtle at first; the odd lapse of memory, the misplaced fact, the small failure to distinguish fantasy from reality.

Not even high ranking cabinet ministers are exempt from its toll, a fact which emerged today in an interview of sorts with incumbent Minister of Foreign Affairs, Dermot Ahern on BBC Radio 4's World at One today.

The programme was covering the progress of the Sinn Fein electoral campaign in the Republic and raised the important question of electoral pacts and alliances. If push came to shove, would either of the major parties consider taking Sinn Fein on board as a possible coalition partner if it meant keeping a hand on the tiller of the ship of state after May 24th?

Speaking for Fianna Fail, the 'other' Republican party, Dermot left the BBC interviewer in no doubt about his party's position by uttering the Louth equivalent of General de Gaulle's famous keep the-Brits-out-of-Europe 'Non!'.

When pressed for an explanation of his firm rejection of a potential alliance with the Shinners, our Dermot cited Bairbre de Brun's activities as Health Minister in the North during the last short period of devolved government up above there. 'We wouldn't be going into a coalition with a party that closes down hospitals,' he said, or words to that effect. When pressed further he repeated his rejection and cited the same grounds as a reason. Forming a coalition with a party that closes hospitals would not be the kind of thing of which Fianna Fail, the other Republic Party either condones or supports.

His firm protestation can only be interpreted as symptoms of some form of degenerative mental condition for two reasons. First, as far as I can discover, de Brun never closed any hospitals down in her brief tenure as Northern Health Minister. There was a decision which she inherited from the Northern Ireland Office on taking up the post regarding the rationalisation of maternity services between the two main Belfast hospitals . Subsequently there was a further report on local health services which recommended the closure of full A&E services in some of the smaller regional hospitals west of the Bann. Again, as far as I could ascertain, any action on her part with regard to this was forestalled by the collapse of devolved government in 2002.

Secondly, I live not 200 metres from Crumlin Children's Hospital which is about to be closed down by Minister Mary Harney of the PDs. These lads, as I recall vaguely, form part of the present governing alliance and come the election may well do so again.In addition, the good people of Monaghan might be very surprised to hear that Fianna Fail would not take kindly to partnering up with a party that closes down regional hospitals given the shenanigans up there the past year.. Only a cynic might suggest that Dermot's emphasis on Sinn Fein's hospital closing proclivities could have something to do with the latter party's success in mobilizing votes around the whole hospital service health care failures of the present regime.

No I prefer the Alzheimer's explanation. It also explains what happened to the issue of Irish neutrality while Dermot's been in the Foreign Affairs chair. He just forgot about it.

Carry on Doctor, but leave the Teddy Bears out of it.


While meandering from my house to the shops yesterday I came across the election poster shown on the left. It gave me a fairly nasty turn, I can tell ye without a word of a lie. If only because thinking about poor Ted nearly had me incurring injuries of me own in a clash with a particularly poorly hung Enda Kenny street poster dangling from the next lamp-post along.

Apart from the fact the good lady doctor looks like she's recently lost a pair of ruby slippers and lives in a gingerbread cottage with its own fully fitted, child-sized spit-roast, Teddy Bears in the hands of politicians always induce a profound feeling of nausea in me. It makes me think that some kind of vaguely paedophilic grooming process is about to commence, if it hasn't already.

Be-bandaged Teddy Bears make me feel, if anything, sicker still. I spent a lot of time in hospital as a young child (I know, it shows) and, in a bizarrely Proustian way, the sight of a bandaged bear still conjures up the sounds and smells of a children's surgical ward for me: The tears, the moans and cries and the strange smells of ether, disinfectant and hospital soap (the brown kind that if it got in your eyes would give you a foretaste of purgatory), and that was just the nurses.

But I digress. Back to the politics. Despite the fact that she's standing in the Dublin South Central, the interesting thing about Nanny Og's campaign is that if she's elected, she has no plans whatsoever to save the current children's hospital. What she seems to want, if you can get past the peculiarly clipped and stilted style of her webspeak, is a wholly new edifice somewhere out beside the M50. Great. A new hospital has to be better than a re-jigged Victorian one, but out beyond the M50? Impossible to get to unless you have a car and even then you'd be faster on foot during the day. Is she going to pay for the helicopters to ferry emergencies in? I think not. And anyway, who in their right mind would put a children's hospital in a part of the county where they still eat their young, for God's sake. Think it though, Rosie, think it through!

Given her campaign, the kind witch of the South might at least be excused for throwing in the odd ursine Edward, but what's that man Callely up to in North Dublin?

Having already crossed swords with Standards Authority over sticking his ugly mug over the Operation Noflow traffic posters back in the day, the lad who put the wheels under the Department of Transport has now employed marauding gangs of men disguised as teddies to loiter around the gates of schools on deh Nortside accosting the young ones as they emerge from another stressful day in the murder machine.

One mother Damaris O'Brien, from Killester, expressing her distress at the canvassing of her four year old daughter fresh from junior infants said :

Who the hell are these people in bear suits? I mean you just don't know who people are anymore and you hear all these horror stories about kids.

Indeed you don't, Damaris, indeed you don't. Especially when they've got a big false Teddy head hiding their ugly gobs. But rest assured. Old Ivor didn't get where he is today by just letting anyone pull on a Teddy outfit and go off about the streets scaring the little ones on his behalf. He'll have thought it through like almost every other decision in his political life. Those boys'd be screened and trained to within an inch of their lives, so they would. And other canvassers better watch out too. Try to stop them sticking a Callely No1 sticker on a rising 5 and they'll have you maimed and gutted faster than a grizzly can empty a camp full of Canadian backpackers.

Anyway, I have to get back to my latest job writing election promises for the highest bidder. My latest is to offer a free SSIA with every new hospital bed. Any takers?

'I have never met a bigger one than Bertie Ahern'

Tony Blair

I assume they're still counting the silverware over beyond at the palace of Westminster after Bertie's visit yesterday. I know I would be.

Balkan Bloc-vote Buggers Boggers


I realise this is a bit late coming (I've been busy, ok?) and much as I hate to say I told you so, (but I did) the tragedy for Irish musical aspirations that was Saturday's Eurovision Song Contest went entirely as predicted. Only a handful of stray Albanian votes saved the nation from the ultimate humiliation of a dreaded 'nul pwonts' result.

In a fit of whatever is the opposite of hubris, John 'I'm the Daddy' Waters tried to offer a sociological explanation for the simultaneous Irish implosion and the success of Serbia.

The central questions gravitate around the cultural implications of the still relatively recent collapse of the Berlin Wall. The taste gap between East and West can be addressed in one of only two ways: radical introversion or a more enthusiastic opening up to the new. I prefer the latter. They can't stop the spring. We can't stop the spring. Who could possibly want to stop the spring?

Well everyone in Europe except the Albanians it would seem. I can think of rather less binary ways of addressing the East-West 'taste gap' and John you're welcome to join me to broaden your analysis down the Czech Inn any night of the week.

In the meantime, Johnny boy, I'll stay out of journalism if you leave sociology to us pros. The only possible implication of the fall of the Berlin wall is that these guys can now enter the competition. The fact that it kept out the kitsch retro-lounge bar sounds of the former Eastern bloc was one of the few good things to be said for old-style Soviet Communism, if you ask me.

Both Terry Wogan on the night (yes, I did watch the voting section of the show) and the Irish Times suggested that the result which left Ireland last and England second last was the product of dodgy bloc voting deals done by the Balkan states. But I think the vote rigging at fault, at least in the case of Ireland was part of a darker design hatched by the denizens of Donnybrook as a means of avoiding the poisoned chalice of another Irish victory. A cunning scheme known to fans of Father Ted as the 'My Lovely Horse Stratagem'

The RTE boys don't like winning the old Eurovision at at all. It costs too much and they'd much rather spend the money on suits, tanning sessions and personal trainers for Ryan and Pat. So since the spate of wins in the 80s and 90s they have adopted an approach to the competition which uses all the guile and cunning with which only a UCD education can equip one.

It starts with the short listing of the songs from which the gullible Irish public has to choose and continues right up to voting on the night. A new refinement was added this year though. When Linda with the lovely tan (although I'm not sure ochre is her colour) announced the Irish votes, the poll actually thrust us into last place by giving votes to Lithuania and the UK. This was not, as the old lady of D'Olier Street suggested, a result of enthusiastic polling by our Eastern European immigrant communities.

Quite the contrary, it was all part of Operation My Lovely Horse 2007. Phoney results submitted to ensure that Dervish would crash and burn and demoralise the nation so severely that we won't care ever again about the old boom-banga-bang fest. Next year's choices will make John Waters and the whirling Dervish's effort seem cutting edge by comparison and My Lovely Horse more than some Norwegian elevator music.

Anyway so, for those of you who've forgotten or those who never saw it in the 1st place, I give you the best Eurovision entry Ireland never had.




A serendipitous postcript : Coming back from Dublin airport late on Monday night I had the remarkable good fortune to be driven home by an Albanian taxi-man whose surname was, I kid you not, Dervish. Oh how we laughed about that one, he and I, until he chucked me out of the cab for taking the piss out of his name.

I shall say this only once....

I guess the City of Manchester must have finally run out of virgins for Alex Ferguson to sacrifice to the great Beelzebub, Lord of the Flies.

Spot the difference:

Liverpool 1 Chelsea 0

AC Milan 3 Manchester Utd 0

Meanwhile on Merseyside the police wish to interview Frank Lampard about the burglary at Jose Reina's house. Apparently no-one can vouch for his whereabouts between 7.45 and 10.15pm on Tuesday night.

Thanks to Football365 for that little gem

Black skin, brown envelope

A recent report from the the Migration and Citizenship Research Unit above there at UCD condemns the neglect of ethnic minority inclusion shown by the major parties on this island. As its authors note:

..... the integration efforts of Irish political parties are, as of yet, minimal. This is a crucial issue. Politicians are key actors in debates about immigration and integration. They are expected to provide leadership. Yet their own specific institutions, the political parties, remain amongst the least diverse, the least responsive, the least capable of leading by example when it comes to representing the diversity of twenty-first century Irish society. This is unsustainable and potentially dangerous to social cohesion in the long run.

Ever an organisation to grasp an opportunity (not to mention a brown envelope or two), I understand that the Fianna Fáil political machine has immediately swung into action and responded to the challenge of integration and equal opportunities.

Spooky Glockenspiel Music and dissolve to:

Party Headquarters,
Mount St Lower, Dublin 4
where a candidate selection interview is taking place

INTERVIEWER: Top of the morning to you Miss...er O' Benjamin. Will you take a cup o' tay or a drop of that Nigerian lager I hear is popular amongst you people.

CANDIDATE: Good morning, it's Obenjwe-Amin, actually. Tea would be fine thank you.

INTVR: Sit you down, sit you down. That's a chair over there or you can just squat on the floor if that's more comfortable for you. Sure we'll not stand on ceremony here. So now tell us a bit about yourself. What part of Nigeria are you from?

CAND: I'm not from Nigeria, I'm from Crumlin.

INTVR: Would that be anywhere near Lagos, then? I hear that's a fierce wild place for the old brown envelopes, if you follow my drift.

CAND: No, it's in Dublin, near Drimnagh.

INTVR: Ah, Der-im-in-ah, is it? They're such exotic names you're after having beyond there in Africa. Sure can't I only see the lions and the monkeys up the palm trees and the dusky maidens with the long necks doing the fertility dances. So, how long is it since you left Nigeria, then?

CAND: I told you. I'm not Nigerian.

INTVR: Of course you're not, me darling girl (WINKS THEATRICALLY). Like the last fellah before you wasn't Rumanian, either. Told us he was a Bulgarian, so he did, but we all know they like to do that before they put the grip on yeh for a copy of deh Big Issues, hah?. (MIMES A NUDGE AND WINKS AGAIN)

CAND: I'm from Crumlin, it's in Dublin, that's in Ireland. Not Nigeria, not anywhere in Africa.

INTVR: So it is, so it is, ye fine thing, yeh. Anyway so, must press on. Time's a divil and waits for no man, hah?. So what would a fine Nigerian lassie like yourself think you could bring to the Fianna Fáil party?

CAND: Well I have a degree in law and a Master's in political science. I've worked with NGOs in my local community on adult literacy and welfare rights and I was auditor of my college Cumann of Fianna Fáil. I'd say I was pretty plugged in at a grass-roots level.

INTVR: Well an education that grand must have cost a fine penny or two. I expect the family pulled some strings to get you in, did they? Would there be diplomats or former dictators in the family then? Maybe an ex-Government minister?

CAND: No. I took the Leaving Cert like everyone else.

INTVR: Nothing to be ashamed of a bit of the old nepotism, eh? Sure there's many a man not an asses roar from here who wouldn't be where they are but for having a Daddy or an Uncle in the right place at the right time (WINKS AGAIN). Anyway so, back to the interview script, them maggots at the Equalities Authority give us a divil of a time if we don't treat everyone the same.

Would you be after playing any sport now? Sure a fine thing like yourself would be a wonder to behold in a camogie kit.

CAND: Well I played a bit of soccer and tennis at college and .....

INTVR: (Nods slowly and prints, even more slowly, 'NO GAA!' on the sheet in front of him). Perhaps you like watching the lads play rugby or the old golf then?

CAND: I don't really have much time to watch sport because of the advocacy work I do with Asylum Seekers in the evenings and weekends.

INTVR: Asylum seekers, is it? No votes in them lads worth speaking of, hah? Still they'll do a good job building a conservatory for the right price should the need arise. Or would that be the Poles? I'm always after mixing them up.

CAND: I think that would be Polish people. Asylum seekers aren't allowed to work.

INTVR: No, and a good job it is too. Sure wouldn't they be after taking the bread from the mouth of the honest Irish working man who fought the Tans to free this nation from the Saxon yoke. (His eyes glaze over and he begins to hum A Nation Once Again).

CAND: Could we get back to the interview, please?

INTVR: Ah yes, the interview. Well, as you know what with the forthcoming election and all, there's going to be a major drain on the auld finances. Them street posters aren't cheap, even with them asylum seekers on nixers to put them up for us. The ideal candidate for our party would be someone who has the kind of talents that could give us a dig-out when the time comes. Would you be that sort of candidate Miss O'Benjamin?

CAND: Well I've done several fund-raising campaigns for the local hospital, fun runs, sponsored walks, that kind of thing....


INTVR: Very good, very good. But I was after thinking of something that could pull in a more substantial contribution. Would you ever have done anything with the auld emails, perhaps? You know the kind of thing, hah? Your people are past masters at it, so I'm told. (PUTS ON A BAD NIGERIAN ACCENT) 'My name is Joseph I am orphan whose parents died in famine. I need money to make sure I get good Christian Catholic education. Please sponsor me Only $200 a month.' Pulls on the auld ones' hearts-strings and their purse strings at the same time that one does. My favourite's about the 11 Million Dollars belonging to the deposed fellah in a numbered bank account. Send on your bank details and the vacuum cleaners have gone to work on it before you can say 'Mazarawe's your uncle'.

CAND: I don't think I could condone that sort of behaviour. It's unethical and almost certainly illegal.

INTVR: Don't be after getting on your high horse with me now, wee girl. This party was built on a lack of ethics and a disregard for the letter of the law. Didn't old Dev start it with the Hospital Sweepstake? Wasn't Charlie the beneficiary of many a brown envelope? And isn't deh current leader after hiding a few skellingtons in his fiscal wardrobe even as we speak? We're a party of tradition but we're not afraid to move with the times. You don't think we're interviewing Nigerians and Rumanians for the fun of it, do yeh? It wouldn't be for the votes you'd bring in that's for sure. It's the scams me dear, the scams. We could do with a few new ones, now the tribunals have copped onto us. The brown envelope has gone the way of the dinosaur. We need fresh blood and fresh ideas if we're to keep the coffers full. And there's always the fact they'd never go after a black face for the fear of being called a bunch of racists. Liberals, hah?

CAND: (Leaves with only the slamming of the door behind her)

INTVR: And what would be the problem with her I wonder? Come in, Mr Caecescu.

Election Smelection Part 2



Sorry Enda, the mean streets of this fair city were a fuck of a lot safer before some eejits started sticking up posters at just the right height to take an unwary pedestrian's eye out.

And just who came up with that slogan anyway, the wife's cousin?