Election, Smelection

Okay so Bertie's named the day and in 3 and a half weeks time we'll all know which combination of knaves, charlatans and mountebanks will be leading the political shaft-fest for the coming 5 years. I'll say no more about it other than point out that, given the gathering clouds on the economic horizon, it boils down to little more than a choice between two fatal diseases; one that kills you in a week and that kills you in a fortnight.

Some of you may have already noticed that there is a far more significant election going on, the effects of which will remain with us long after the government in waiting has packed up its stall and moved on to take the shears to a new flock of sheep.

With almost clairvoyant timing, the lads from Hasbro down in Waterford have come up with one of the most bizarre marketing ideas of the present century. They want to launch an All-Ireland version of Monopoly. It says here that politicians, county councillors and Monopoly lovers are being asked 'to rally their county’s population to vote in a bid to ensure that their county features on the board'.

According to Hasbro’s National Sales Manager, Anne Dermody:

We have always been amazed at the level of interest and passion that surrounds Monopoly. Now it’s up to the people of Ireland to have their say and to ensure that their county is included on the new board. Those who don’t vote will find that their county will be left out.

You don't say, Annie, me darling.

The training ground of many an Irish property magnate, Monopoly is a game best remembered from my childhood as the cause of annual bouts of sibling rivalry and internecine warfare that lasted from St Stephen's Day until well into the new year. I still have a scar on me napper caused by a Matchbox edition Pickford's furniture removal truck (lots of sharp corners them pantechnicons) thrown by my sister as a response to the rents on my extensive developments in Mayfair and Park Lane (that's Shrewsbury and Aylesbury Roads to you indigenes).

As a good Marxist, when playing the game thereafter I set up housing co-ops and not-for-profit community businesses, nationalised transport and utilities and distributed my profits amongst the other players. I never won again but neither did I require further stitches below the hairline.

But I digress. Apart from the logical problem arising from the fact that there are 32 Counties and only 22 properties on the board which makes an 'All-Ireland' Monopoly board an impossible dream (pretty much like the real thing), Hasbro's plebiscite will leave the nation worse off than Michael Collins and Lord Birkenhead did between them in 1922. And we all know the trouble that caused.


Sociologically, the current state of the leaderboard is interesting. Poised to occupy the prime site that was once Shrewsbury Road is Co Roscommon with 3500-odd votes. Donegal and Leitrim lie in 2nd and 3rd positions respectively. As counties that benefited least from the Celtic Tiger, I guess it's a case of if you can't get in reality,you'll settle for the fantasy, eh?

Five of the six Northern Irish counties are in there, but Sinn Féin need to get their lads with the camáns out on the doorsteps of Fermanagh. They're currently at the foot of the poll with a miserly 633 votes. Bobby Sands must be turning in his grave with the shame of it.

Anyway so, the polls close on May 25th. As they say in the North, often without a wry grin, 'Vote early and vote often.'

We don't have class in Ireland

I was recently much engaged by a discussion over on Bock the Robber's blog regarding the notion of class in Ireland. It brought back a number of memories for me from around the time I began to associate with middle class Irish people for the first time.

Now as any Marxist schoolboy knows, class is not an attribute of an individual. It is a social relationship to the means of production through which we live our lives. In the most broad and abstract Marxist terms, if you operate the means of production you are working class, if you own them, you are middle class. But even old Charlie recognised that there were more than two classes in society at any given time and that the subjective experience of class varied considerably.

The problem of revolution often boiled down to how you got working class people to recognise their common relationship to the means of production under capitalism and unite as a means of changing that relationship. This is sometime referred to as the problem of 'false consciousness'.


In the industrialised societies of the 19th Century it was relatively easy for workers to recognise their common experience. They were all pretty much treated like shit, excluded from political power, education and the other trappings of citizenship we nowadays take for granted. With the top down reforms that came from the end of the 19th Century and continued during the 20th Century as a means of heading the revolution off at the pass, it became harder and harder to consider class in this clear cut kind of way. So much so that by the 1960s some deeply confused and ideologically motivated sociologists were talking about the 'end of class.'

Nonetheless, the basic principle of seeing class as a social relationship rather than a characteristic or attribute of the individual is as true now as it was in the mid-19th Century. Understanding class in this way is less a matter of what you work at, what you own, or how you label yourself in the here and now than how you experience the world and act in it in largely unconscious ways learned very early on in life. As Anthony Wilden once said 'Class is something you don't grow out of.'

When we start to think about it as an attribute of individuals, the problems and confusions around the concept really begin to escalate because, again as any Marxist schoolboy knows, we are confronted by a series of contradictions and misrecognitions about social relationships that as human beings we don't handle very well. They make us feel uncomfortable and uneasy when we experience them.

The situation becomes even more complicated and contradictory in colonised and post-colonial societies because class relationships typically get obliterated by national ones. The nationalist middle class typically horizontalizes the class structure and induces people to think of themselves as, say, Irish first and everything else second, if at all.

The Irish political structure, the practices of clientilism, stroke politics and the high degree of centralised control and localised surveillance, not to mention emigration, kept people toeing the national line and made the Irish ruling class probably the most successful in Europe at maintaining control over its people. Paradoxically, it made Irishness and the concept of identity amongst Irish people a very fragile and inward looking thing indeed.

Anyway, I digress. Until I went to work at the Institute of Irish Studies in Liverpool I had never met middle class (as defined by occupational status, access to education, and income) Irish people. My day to day experience of Irish-born people was pretty much restricted to folks from the same background as me and my parents (manual workers from Coronation St neighbourhoods) and relatives from similar backgrounds in Belfast and Dublin. The issue of class was a non-issue in such company because it was patently obvious what class we came from, raised no contradictions and therefore needed no discussion.

However, in the more socially rarified environment of the Institute I began to meet people who became increasingly agitated when I raised the issue of class politics in an Irish context. Seemingly intelligent people such as academics, journalists, diplomats, artists, and other professionals would have coniptions when Liam the Red introduced a class dimension to the discussion of phenomena relating to contemporary Irish society and culture.

They would almost inevitably and invariably resolve their unease with the same phrase: 'Ah now, Liam, you can tell you're not Irish. Everyone knows we don't have class in Ireland.' After a while I gave up trying to argue with this apparent truism in the spirit of rational debate and would simply resort to saying something like: 'Perhaps you'd be kind enough to inform my cousins in Ballyfermot and Ballymun of that next time you're passing that way, assuming you know how to find your way there.'

The illusion of the absence of class and class relationships in Ireland is precisely that, an illusion. What's more it is an illusion historically maintained by the privileged as a means of maintaining their privilege. If you speak out about it you run the risk of losing your claim to Irishness altogether, letting the side down, or otherwise being less than a credit to your race. This is a very powerful means of ideological control in a post-colonial society and when it's backed up by the sanctions of social exclusion and the threat of the emigrant boat, it doesn't take long for most folk to get on the programme.

Anyway, that's the sociology rant over. If anyone still doesn't believe me then I suggest they take this little test from the English Daily Torygraph. If the results can be relied upon, I'm expecting my invitation to the Duchess of Devonshire's next 'at home' to arrive any day now.

Sarky bastards with Telecasters or Rickenbackers or something

While preparing myself emotionally for the upcoming Jesse Malin gig at the Irish Music Centre next week I came across these guys:-





They're called Butch Walker and the Let's Go Out Tonites. I'd never heard of them before. Kind of wish I had.

A special note for Is it just me. You might find this track interesting or amusing

Back on the blogbeat

Apologies to regular readers for the relative absence of activity on Where Angels Fear of late. I know how much you miss me, darlings. Important affairs of state and matters of national security have had me back and forth between here and the motherland on the mainland for the past couple of weeks. A full report of my activities in foreign climes will appear in due course, but for now security clearance at the highest levels is still pending.

Anyway the image below appeared in my mailbox this afternoon and I couldn't resist the temptation to chance the ire of my Limerick compatriots. You know who you are, Bock. (Many congrats on the Scunnies promotion by the way, but did it have to be at Tranmere Rovers' expense?)



Still and all, as demeaning and unflattering such images may be to the fine city of Limerick and its people (who look a lot like Scousers in my opinion and are to be complimented for that), they are nothing to the kind of stereotyping and ridicule that the noble of folk of my own home city of Liverpool have to put up with.

In the interests of promoting best practice and anti-Scousism amongst stakeholders, users and providers connected with Where Angels Fear I reproduce a small sample of these images in the hope that they will promote understanding of the burden of prejudice that we Scousers carry on a day to day basis.















I also expect you to get behind us when we attempt to overturn a 1-0 deficit against CSKA London at Anfield next Tuesday. I promise not to break into your house and make off with your DVD player while you're down the pub giving rousing choruses Poor Tommy Scouser and You'll Never Walk Alone.

Down with that sort of thing...

Not content with saving the ecosystem, freeing the whales, and trying to get us all going about the city on rickshaws and bicycles, those tree-hugging puss-faces across in the Green Party have now decided to go one step further in their campaign to make our lives a little duller and more worthy.

Dublin City Councillor Bronwen 'I saved the planet yesterday, what did you do?' Maher intends to table a motion this month which will take deny us another piece of the precious sunshine that global warming and the decline of organised religion has brought to this grey little country in recent years.

Bronwen only wants to ban the use of glamour models in the promotion of Dublin Corpo events arguing that "We need to look at the message we are sending out to women and young girls and how that impacts on women's lives,"

Well what better message in this day and age could a young girl get than one which says that if you rub shoulders with the grey-suited men who stalk the corridors of power, show a lot of leg, teeth and cleavage, and act like an all round french fry head you'll probably never have to do a proper day's work in your life. Isn't that what girl power was all about? Have we forgotten the Spice Girls so soon? What will become of poor Katy French?

More importantly, however, is what will the lads and lasses over at Blogorrah do once they're denied the abundance of opportunities such photo opportunities lend for caption competitions and other Wildean displays of wit ?

For what seems like months now every time I turn on Channel 6 there's been this quirky black and white video of a young man with a guitar. Short of phoning up the station, I've never been been able to find out who he is until tonight. He's from Bray and his name is Fionn Regan apparently and I'd never heard of him. Which shows how uncool I've become in my latter years.

Anyway, this ain't the quirky black and white video, but it's still quirky. I commend him to you.

High Treason

I do not love my country.
Its abstract splendour
is beyond my grasp
But (although it sounds bad) I would give my life
for ten places in it, for certain people,
seaports, pine woods, fortresses,
a run-down city, gray, grotesque,
various figures from its history,
mountains
(and three or four rivers).

José Emilio Pacheco

This is always a difficult time of the year for me. As a devout Marxisante I'm religiously opposed to nationalism in any way, shape, or form. But as an Irishman, Easter always has significant emotional connotations for me, as it does for countless Irish people. Connotations that can't be resolved in just any old materialist dialectic.

I hate nationalism. I love my country. The sense of being Irish and proud was ingrained in me early on. When I was making myself sick on too many chocolate eggs the names of Padraig Pearse, James Connolly and the rest of the mad bastards who wandered out to take on the British Empire at Easter in 1916 would be raised as a reminder that the season was about more than a Smarties egg or some bloke in Palestine being nailed to a cross.

Nationalism represents a major dilemma because however much you try to separate your Marxist analysis from your heart, if you're an Irish Marxist there's a level at which you can't escape this historical equivalent of the club versus country debate.

So I shall do as I have done for many a year now. I shall wait until the speeches are over, the flute bands have shagged off to the pub, and the wilted Easter lilies have been put away until next year. I shall wander alone up to Kilmainham Jail and then onto Glasnevin where I shall pay my respects to a Jock, a Scouser, and a Big House toff whose legacy of struggle and inspiration was swiftly pushed aside in the rush to nationhood after 1916.

Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven...

Having recently revived the traditional concept of Hell, I have no doubt Pope Ratso I is currently readying a special place in the infernal depths for a certain Irish turf accountant.

In Ireland's headlong rush towards secularisation, not to mention the never ending quest to gull the public out of its last red cent, those little devils at Paddy Power, the nation's favourite bookies, have come up with another crafty stratagem to part the punter from his hard earned mazoola.

A story in today's Irish Times reveals that Paddy the punter's friend has opened a book on the length, the theme and the audience for a sermon to be delivered at St Muredach's Cathedral, Ballina, that will be shown on RTE this coming Easter Sunday.

Responding to criticism over the wee flutter from Martin Long of the Catholic Communications Office, Paddy Power, the company's spokesman, and henceforth to be known on these shores as the depraved jism of Beelzebub, said:

I'm a Catholic myself and I fully respect the importance of Easter in the Catholic calendar. I think it is a little bit of fun. Some people would see it as an extra incentive to watch the Mass

Of course you do, Paddy me old mate, but some of the less enlightened might think there's something a tad demonic going on down in Airton House. Especially after the Last Supper billboard campaign that nobody understood but the Advertising Standards Authority got its knickers in a twist about in 2005.

Still and all, there's a lot to be said for running the book on a bit of ecclesiastical action. Apart from the fact it might finish off the handful of religious zealots still remaining on these shores in an epidemic of apoplectic seizures, the possibilities for a fortune-tempting punt are, like some sermons, apparently endless.

So much so that I'm thinking of offering odds on the following:

• An altar-boy surviving to puberty without getting his bottom felt in the vestry;
• An outbreak of moving statues, weeping Madonnas, and bleeding Jesuses in Mayo the next time the abortion debate comes up;
• The discovery of a Christian Brother who didn't scar, fracture or otherwise concuss one of his charges in an Irish language class since the foundation of the state.

Any takers?

Come in to the parlour (and keep your wallet handy)


I had the good fortune to be one of an elite group of plastic paddies invited to attend a top secret conference on Ireland's attitudes to the Diaspora held at Dublin Castle yesterday.

The aim of the conference was to 're-invigorate the debate' and assess the indigenous attitude to those rats who deserted the sinking ship, sorry, unfortunates who were driven off the four green fields and scattered to the corners of the earth by the great calamity that was pre-Celtic Tiger Irish history. A fate which, it appears, was not entirely the fault of the Brits after all, but don't be after spreading that around now.

Organised by a grand bunch of lads and lasses from the Department of Foreign Affairs, the event marked the 5 years which have passed from the publication of a highly classified document referred to as the Task Force Report on Emigration, but you didn't hear about that from me.

The meeting was opened by Bertie's kid brother Dermot or Desmond or whatever his name is. He gives good speech, by the way. There were moments during his intro when I felt almost obliged to slip on me Bhoys replica shirt, pop my DJ mix of A Nation Once Again, Skibbereen and the Fields of Athenry onto the Ipod and have an auld jive around the room. Sadly it all went down hill from there.

The speakers included the head honcho from the bogball and stick-fighting posse, a bimbo from some business school named after an airline (the school, not the bimbo), Ian Paisley's family doctor who I think had been dipping into the Big Yin's medication, and some old journo whose book about deh diasporee is, like The Sun newspaper, still banned in Liverpool due to its defamatory attitude to Scousers.

Some of the brogues were a bit thick for my English educated ear, but I think I can pretty much can summarise the attitudes of the indigenes who spoke as follows:

1. A long time ago a lot of people had to flee Mother Ireland's shores due to poverty, starvation and a surfeit of other woes, none of which can entirely be blamed on the Saxon foe good people of England. This was a pity and a great big sad lump of a thing for all concerned.
2. On the bright side some of you did very well, especially the ones who went to Amerikay and kept the nation going with all of the postal orders you sent back.
3. Some of you didn't do very well and didn't get as far Amerikay or the post office. These wee blackgaurds and rascals went to England on the lump and spent their money on drink instead of roof tiles in Kiltimagh and we're sorry for that. Especially because these days you're always after getting on Prime Time moidering us for hand-outs for community centres, free holidays and the like.
4. Now we're a rich and prosperous modern European nation that doesn't rely the postal orders any more, we're ready to let bygones be bygones. And anyway, times have changed. Thanks to new technology like the interweb there are lots of ways other than postal orders you can give us a dig out should the need arise. And you don't even have to queue at the counter to do it.
5. You can, for example, keep buying the U2 records, even though we all know that Sir Bono is a wee sleeveen, wearing the Aran knitwear and getting the lumps of gift-packaged bogland off the eee-Bay. For the right price and in the flick of a goat's tail at Puck Fair, we can have you all jabbering away as Gaeilge, playing handball, road-bowling and the bodhran (well maybe not the last).
   
6. You can keep coming here summer after summer and letting us patronise the shite out of you and your wacky St Patrick's Day parades and Quiet Man shenanigans. And it doesn't matter a jot that you're not really Irish, because your Sterling, Euros and Dollars are as good as anyone else's.
   

A footnote in the interest of balance (and how often do you find that in satire?). The fine people at the Department of Foreign Affairs should be commended for their efforts in trying to undo the colossal bad faith of the indigenous Irish towards the diaspora for the past 85 years. Where Angels Fear says a wholehearted fair fecks to yeh lads! Especially the cute 3rd Secretary Labour.

PS Did you know that the State Apartments in Dublin Castle doesn't have toilets? It has restrooms. What does that tell you? Answers on a postcard only please.

We're on a road to nowhere

Joan Blake, Dalkey, Co Dublin, with her new all-island free travel pass, which was launched for older people North and South yesterday by Taoiseach Bertie Ahern and Minister for Social Affairs Séamus Brennan. (Irish Times)

Before they start exercising their franchise in the direction of Fianna Fáil, will somebody please tell the ould ones that it's a one way trip and only goes as far as somewhere like Lea's Cross.

At the end of the day, loike

In an exclusive interview with Where Angels Fear, controversial Sunderland manager Roy Keane yesterday lashed out at his chairman's latest efforts in what is widely seen as a campaign for early canonisation.

The remarks came after the Black Cats' Chairman had paid £12,000 to taxi stranded fans back to the North East after an away game in Cardiff when they were ejected from a flight at Bristol Airport for not being proper Geordies.

Quinn has since forgiven the airline in his prayers and hopes that the staff of Easyjet will not suffer in the afterlife for their actions against the loyal disciples of soon to be St Niall.

Keane recently courted controversy when he kicked off about some of his former senior team mates in the Republic of Ireland side, including the Blessed Shay Given, regarding their willingness to collect caps for friendlies and other such insignificant matches such as the group stage of the 2002 World Cup.

The self-styled Caliph of Cork has now turned his attention to what he clearly sees as his chairman's profligate charm offensive:

All credit to Niall, but just because you paid £12,000 and organised taxis for 20 minutes you think you are a superstar or something, loike. At the end of the day, there's a fine line between loyalty and stupidity, loike, and that money should have been spent on the club, loike. That's all Oi'm saying loike. Not on a few lads who think that just because they're supporters the club owes them something. Nobody knows better than me, loike, that the club is the team and the team is me, so that money could have been better spent. That's all Oi'm saying, loike.

When our reporter suggested to the traitor of Taipan that his remarks might be ill-judged, Keane responded with his characteristic steely glare followed swiftly by a head-butt. The poor girl was escorted to a waiting ambulance (we always keep one on hand when the Cork man is interviewed). Keane was hustled from the venue by his minders, Wolf and Little Fang, muttering the following words:

At the end of the day loike, nobody knows anything better than me, loike.

Sunday Tribune apologises for April Fool's Day Debacle

The editors of the Sunday Tribune have today apologised for an April Fool's prank which went disastrously wrong .

A hoax story in yesterday's Trib that reported the intention of Fine Gael to revise the lyrics of Amhrán Na bhFiann because of its Fianna Fáil bias, suffered severe bruising after falling flat on its face when it was realised that most of the paper's readership thought that Ireland's Call was in fact the nation's anthem.

A spokesperson for the crypto-unionist rag said the editors sincerely hoped that the article had not caused offence, confusion or apoplexy amongst readers and offered to replace any kedgeree spoiled as a result of reading it.

This year's existential exam topic




1) Love is more than pulling petals from a daisy. Discuss

A chorus of twirlies

My apologies to regular readers for my absence over the past day or two. I was temporarily distracted from my bloggerly duties by the arrival of a consignment of former showgirls ordered on approval from my friend Omar the Tentmaker at www.whiteslavesrus.com.

There are five in total, two blondes, two brunettes and a redhead, and I have to make my choice before returning them to the night spots, frolic pads and juke joints of darkest Macao this Sunday afternoon.

I have been criticised in some quarters for predilections which veer to the louche and certain instances, such the unpleasantness with the then Rose of Tralee at the Ferban sheepdog trials in 1987 (for which I might add no charges were ever brought), might seem to justify such animadversion.

Some cavilers amongst you might think that the importation of a gaggle of chorines simply reflects that rakish dedication to the pursuit of dissolute pleasure that has been the hallmark of my biography to date. What next, I hear you ask, a nomination for the Peter Stringfellow tiresome old roué trophy; the prized 'mullet and medallion' as it is known in the twilight world of cheesy piano bars and lap-dancing clubs?

I loudly reject such nitpicking censure and vitriol. On the contrary, the decision to purchase a former dancing girl as a mate represents the subtle wisdom that comes with advancing years and a decline in my use of certain chemical intoxicants, or perhaps the uptake of others. For the persistent naysayers amongst you allow me to guide you through the pros and cons of such a transaction.

Acquiring a lapsed danseuse as a life-partner is easier than you might think. One can obtain them readily through a 'reputable' agency such that run by my old amigo and associate Omar. He may contacted by way of the Bar Bazaare, Antwerp, although he only accepts hard currency these days. However, in the absence of such a source they may be found in the most seemingly unlikely places. Even in the respectable environs of the English Home Counties you might be surprised to find that one is rarely more than a glittery G-string's toss from a former ecdysiast. Look carefully at that college lecturer or primary school teacher for beneath the veneer of current respectability can often lie a picaresque past of sequined burlesque and bump and grind shenanigans.

On a day to day basis, these terpsichorean topsies are remarkably easy to look after. The ability to take direction is well ingrained after years of being manoeuvred around the footlights by limp-wristed choreographers of the lavender persuasion. They are used to arduous physical work, long unsociable hours and will put on a show at the drop of an abandoned barn or stable.

They love to please a crowd even if the crowd in question consists of only one person (they wouldn't be the greatest at sums, it seems) and, like kittens, can be kept amused for hours with small shiny things or anything involving peacock feathers. They also possess an almost miraculous facility to transform themselves from wasted and hungover party animals into visions of feminine loveliness with the merest flick of a powder puff and an eyeliner pencil.

Their physical abilities and presence are remarkable. Watching one walk from kitchen to dining room recalls the halcyon days of the Paris Lido when Mme Bluebell herself still ran the show with a rod of iron. The ability to touch ankle to nose from a standing start in a confined space, which it seems comes as standard, is a talent for which I have yet to find a use, but I'm sure in time its function will become clear.

In addition maintenance costs are low. Many will go for days on a few packets of Marlboro Light, a flask of strong black coffee and a supply of reasonably priced Sauvignon Blanc. Buck's Fizz or non-vintage Bolly at breakfast is always an option which seems to please.

There are some drawbacks, however. They do possess an endless supply of 'bishop and the chorus girl' non-sequiturs which will be drawn upon at any and every opportunity. This can be sometimes uncomfortable when one is taking tiffin with Monsignor Kelly (although the good Monsignor seemed quite happy at the time).

Their collective conversations about bodily matters would put pink on the cheeks of a Royal Marine drill sergeant and letting them loose in Dublin on a Friday night was somewhat reminiscent of an evening once spent on offshore leave in Murmansk with a crew of Soviet sailors just back from Arctic duty.

One should also avoid putting them in close proximity of upright poles of any kind. Such objects seem to provoke a frenzy of excitability amongst certain of them (sorry Piotr).

All of these talents, and more which my legal advisors will not permit me to discuss here, are vital necessities in the break-neck world of Where Angels Fear. I think it's clear that the defence can now rest (and after 3 days with these girls, he definitely needs it)

Thank you ladies. Very nice. Next!!!!

PS After a gruelling selection process I think my mind is finally made up. I'm going to go for the tall brunette who looks like a cross between Cleopatra and a young Elizabeth Taylor. A shipment of bullion plundered from the Tsars is on its way to your numbered account, Omar my old friend. Spend it wisely.

Shock horror, down the country people know your business

Our correspondent in the valley of the squinting windows has discovered shocking evidence of confidential medical information being available to any nosey-parker that cares to have a root through the odd filing cabinet . According to a Drogheda Independent exclusive, a confidentiality scandal has erupted at that monument to modern medical practice better known as Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital.

While making a routine trip to the hospital to stroke some votes out of the sick and dying, Labour councillor Gerald Nash was mortified to discover that there was open, unsupervised access to patient files in the visiting room. The clearly perturbed politico described his distress at the discovery:

I could clearly see highly confidential patient files and I could clearly make out who they belonged to. If I was so minded, I could have decided to have a trawl through these files in an unsupervised room....Worryingly for patients and medical staff alike, there is a high risk that confidential patient files could be removed or stolen thereby resulting in the loss of a lifetime’s worth of medical history

Not being so minded our Gerry refrained from having a quick perusal of his rivals' medical data (yeah, right!) and instead absconded from the building clutching a batch of appointment forms for endoscopies, blood tests, x-rays and a range of other such services.

Queues are already forming outside the crusading councillor's constituency office following his announcement that

I can also write you a sick note for a couple of weeks or send you for physiotherapy.

Cllr Nash is expected to hold his seat comfortably at the forthcoming elections and stay well within his election campaign budget.

A unnamed spokesperson for the hospital said that the board of management was deeply concerned that the important ability to lose patients' files was no longer in the control of medical and administrative staff and said this would have important implications for the massaging of waiting lists.

In a brief statement given before waddling swiftly away from reporters , Minister of Health, Mary Harney said 'Not that fucking kip of a place again. The sooner we replace it with a state of the art private healthcare centre.....'

What if The Beatles were Irish?

Came across this guy this morning on YouTube. He's a less urbane version of Tom Lehrer but funny nonetheless I thought (if that's not damning with faint praise). Check him out.



PS Roy, if you're watching, I've got news for you. 3 of them were.

Time to kill...

I hate it when the clocks change. There are a number of reasons for this. The most important is that because I never change my bedside alarm from Irish Wintertime, until last Sunday I would have been buried in my scratcher content in the knowledge that I had another hour in the pit to prepare myself emotionally, and in other ways, to face the fresh hell that is a new day in the world of Where Angels Fear.

Instead, I find myself up and about before the under-houseboy has had time to bring me my second cup of Kenyan Peaberry and pounding the keys on the old Toshiba in the vain hope of amusing a small but select group of fellow anoraks out there on t'interweb . It won't do I tell you.

But this is a mere selfish whimsy. And here comes another one. For me, the changing of the clocks is inevitably marked by a strange sense of dissociation from reality.

For a week after the change I find myself existing in the middle of a Half Man Half Biscuit song in which almost the only conversations I hear and overhear from friends, over-familiar servants, toadies, lackeys, and old ladies at bus stops consist of moans about how the change affects them:

'Oh I feel so tired all the time'
'Oh I can't get to sleep'
'Oh I can't wake up.'
'Yes but it's worth it for the lighter evenings, the kids can play out.'
'And it's better in the morning too, not going to work in the dark'
'Oh I hate that, going out when it's dark, coming home when it's dark, you don't feel like you've had a day.'
'Oh you're so right, Alice.'

Fuck off the lot of yez. I feel like I've just flown back from Tokyo via Seattle in a single hop. Do you think I could possibly care whether the kids can play out or you can take the dog for a walk without fear of being interfered with? If you don't stop this bi-annual prattle fest, I shall unleash the awesome power of the small thermonuclear device I carry about my person at all times.

Does nobody care? It's just me, me, me all the time in this life.

Who are these people, Fine Gaelers?

While both Bertie Aherne and the management of Diageo may be selling their souls to the the great earth mother by going green, it seems the message isn't getting through to some consumers on the Emerald Isle.

Distressing news about anti-eco goings around around the bottle bank in the village of Corofin, Co Galway came my way this morning. According to that august organ, the Tuam Herald

The condition of the local bottle banks at the Dr. Duggan Hall has continued to deteriorate into what parishioners have described as a "total disgrace" and a blight on our lovely village. Their condition has been highlighted on numerous occasions and appeals made to the perpetrators both from the altar and in the Tuam Herald.

The failure of elements in the locality to cop on to the ecological message being thrummed out by everyone from Bertie downwards led to tragedy last week. Canon Oliver, the parish priest, embarrassed with what was described as 'the filth in the village' , which had recently traumatised some visiting French students, stepped out on Paddy's day to clear up some of the mess.

While salvaging some old pallets from the site for use, and I quote, 'in a Santa Claus event' he dropped one on his foot resulting in some nasty bruises to his saintly plates. The good canon was forced to pull out of the best dressed priest competition and the freestyle mass giving mosh, both of which he has won unopposed for the past 75 years. A swift visit to casualty followed and the good pastor is currently smiting his parishioners with the fear of hell and damnation on the hobble.

The bottle bank has been banished from the parish and would be eco-warriors now have to drive their SUVs to the sink-pit of Hell that is Tuam to do their re-cycling. The French students were provided with counselling before being returned to their homes in, well, France.

It's so easy being green

Excellent news in this morning's Irish Times for the eco-consconscious drinker. Diageo has gone green and signed a contract with the ESB to get all its electrickery from renewable sources.

The impact on Where Angels Fear's carbon footprint is likely to be significant and the knock-on effect on the future survival of the human race has been welcomed by eco-organisations around the globe.

Diageo has been doing a fair bit of the old green-washing in recent years, using its by-products to make compost, animal feed and nutrients for willow trees to burn in the old Aga.

Now if they could only find a way of harnessing my house-mate kranky Rae's methane output the morning after a night on the stout, the nation's energy problems would be resolved at a stroke.

A carbuncle on the bunion of Irish Architecture



From the Irish Times Letters Saturday March 24th

Madam, - I disagree with recent correspondents' criticisms of the new offices next door to City Hall in Dublin - and I say this as a former planner and city architect. The new office block is a superb piece of avant-garde architecture, sensitively handled by its architects, and it fits comfortably in with its classical neighbours. - Yours, etc,

BILL DELANEY, Castleknock Park, Dublin 15.

I don't know what drugs our Billy is on (but I'd definitely like to sample some) or whether his irony runs so deep you'd need that yoke they used for the Port Tunnel and half the population of Warsaw to dig it out. But if he thinks these two buildings fit together I can understand why he's a former city architect (or perhaps not).



















As a regular in The Oak I watched this edifice rise from its footings with enthusiastic anticipation having been promised by my mate Eamo, who works for the Corpo, that it would be an 'exciting development in the remodelling of public space on Dame St'. This, it seems, was architect speak for something that looks like a branch of Top Shop uprooted from a windswept shopping precinct in Essex.

Still, it sets Eddie Rocket's off a treat and as I stagger onto Dame St it makes me think it's Christmas every night. And in my life it usually is....