Look Into Your Heart

And then it dawned on me. Just like that. The secret to successful television in 2010. The common thread, the magic formula, the grand design, the recurring theme? Grovelling. Yep, grovelling.

I, like a lot of folk have been scratching my head fairly vigorously for a number of years now. Then came the Eureka moment. In the toilet, appropriately enough.

“I’m a grafter Bill, I’ll sweat blood for ya Bill, if you hire me Bill you won’t regret it, I’ll go the extra mile for ya Bill, I’m a warrior Bill, this is my dream Bill, I’ll rub your knob for ya Bill. Please Bill, please don’t fire me.”

“Please Cheryl this is my dream, I’ve worked so hard for this, without it I’ve nothing, I’ll do whatever you want, I’ll work even harder, this is all I’ve ever wanted, please don’t kill my dream, I’ll rub your knob for ya Cheryl. Please Cheryl, please don’t send me home.”

So they stay and we all look forward to the same encounter again next week.

And the stupid bastard who has more self respect than to prostrate himself before The International Court of Human Shites goes home. Loser.

Time For Heroes

Here's another one. I couldn't resist. The best two minutes and forty two seconds you'll have today. Or tomorrow. Or the next day for that matter.

Up The Bracket

Never Mind The Bollocks Here's The Libertines

Below The Radar

No word from Amy Winehouse or Jack O’Connor recently. Are they still alive?

Hold The Front Page

In an unprecedented development a football manager deduced after a recent game that his team was merely tired mentally. The same week an athlete stated that he was tired physically after exertions on the international circuit whereas back at home it was business as usual when the captain of a hurling team proclaimed that he and his team were indeed tired physically AND mentally following the recent campaign.

Elsewhere and in an unexpected break with tradition an over the hill light entertainment celebrity has vowed to let cancer beat him.

Keep It Country

Mind how you go. Stop, look, listen. Take a minute to reflect. We are living, not in a country or a society but an economy, a fragile little slip of a thing. We need to tread very carefully.

I urge you to add another layer of thought to the layers of deliberation you already carry out before you set about each component of your daily business. Want to pick up the kids early? Want to do a lasagne for dinner? Want to go for a few drinks on Saturday night? Want to give your five a side a miss this week?

Well go ahead, but think very carefully about the impact your recklessness is having. On the markets. I implore you to spare a thought for the markets. Look into your heart and in the name of all that’s holy bow your head in a moment of solitary contemplation and think, just stop and think about how the markets will react.

Dictionary Corner

Shitocracy: A strand of democracy popularised in the Republic of Ireland in the early years of the twenty first century wherein only proven gobshites can be elected to a nation's parliament. Despite initial concerns as to its viability, Shitocracy has subsequently become the preferred form of governance of the western world in the process conferring global notoriety on its pioneer and principal proponent Brian Cowen.

Flour Power

Dismaycation

Of course nobody of importance goes on holidays anymore. They take annual leave instead.

If you were dealing with a professional on, say for example, a legal matter and you rang for an update you would be thoroughly dismayed to hear the voicemail declare that they had gone on holidays. Such frivolity you might think would be an indication that you were dealing with a flippant, flaky individual and you might consider taking your business elsewhere. On the other hand to hear the message announce that the person was enjoying annual leave would give ample reassurance that you were in fact dealing with a serious minded individual and that your fate is in good hands.

Going on holidays is not behaviour appropriate to the calibre of individual you would want looking out for your interests conjuring up, as it does, squalid images of shallow pursuits such as sunbathing, feeding slot machines and eating candy floss. Taking annual leave with its connotations of guided tours of vineyards and modern art museums is a more palatable proposition entirely.

Your stature, character, morality, background, education and socio economic standing can now be succinctly articulated in how you describe your time off. Handy.

The Body Politic

Absolutely Barking Stars

Maria McKee from the mid nineties.

Primates of All Ireland

It is impossible not to get despondent living in this wretched country run by arseholes. There seems to be no choice but to despair for the future and your place in it, to surrender your fate to a bunch of pricks some of whom will spend the next six months on a committee trying to concoct a way to let one of their clique off the hook for a level of fraud that would see you or I sacked and prosecuted without a minute’s hesitation.

The gloom thickens.

And as a way to escape it you might pick up a copy of Hot Press magazine. And in there you would see that there is an Irish band called Fight Like Apes who have just released an album called The Body of Christ The Legs of Tina Turner.

And the gloom lifts. Because you remind yourself that for every Ivor Callely or Noel Dempsey or Mary Coughlan there is a Fight Like Apes. And they are out there doing real work, important work, enhancing peoples’ lives recording albums with titles like The Body of Christ The Legs of Tina Turner.

And the really good news is that they are amongst us, you might bump into them if you go into town tonight for a pint. They are accessible and you can speak to them and tell them of your admiration for what they are doing. You can tell them that right minded people all over the land believe in their work as the antidote to being becalmed in the Sea of Callely and you can urge them to take their project one step further. You can tell them that they need to spearhead a co operative political collective which will also be called Fight Like Apes and which will have as its slogan The Body of Christ The Legs of Tina Turner.

Because you are out there every day, and you see the groundswell of support such an initiative would create amongst people who still believe there is real potential to be realized. Not The Apprentice type porcelain tile and twin wash hand basin type potential but the kind which relates to the galvanising of people to interrupt the rape and pillaging of our futures by the fat fuckclumps of Kildare Street.

We are going to throw ourselves onto the cogs of the machine and we want Fight Like Apes to lead the way. Because we have heard their arsenal of trippy keys and banshee hooks and have come to realize that these can be used to form the basis of a new political dialogue, a new dialect in which Dermot Aherne will not be able to participate. We will rebuild the vernacular, the parlance of politics will henceforth only be available to those with something wholesome to say.

For every report of the Oireachtas Sub Committee on Members Interests we can counter with a “Pull Off Your Arms and Lets Play In Your Blood” or “Waking Up With Robocop”. We want to put things right, Fight Like Apes is who we should be talking to. Mary O’Rourke had her chance.

It’s the Lord’s work. Just do it.

Stairway

Mine's A Chicken Salad Sand Wedge Please

What about a separate golf tour for fat lads? We already have the PGA Tour, Seniors Tour, Amateur Tour, Ladies Tour.

All of these it seems to me categorise individuals primarily on the basis of physical characteristics. Well there’s a few fellas I’ve noticed waddling around the semi rough recently that could benefit from a redeployment on that same basis.

It must be disconcerting for your Shane Lowrys and your Darren Clarkes to be paired with the likes of svelte Swede Robert Karlsson in a ranking event. The poor chaps have enough to contend with; fighting erratic form, the course, the weather, the urge to call Dominos around the tenth tee without throwing an unwinnable battle with their self esteem into the mix.

Is it not time to level the playing field and devise a system similar to boxing wherein Shane, Darren and Lee could be assured that they would only be competing amongst those with a similar disregard for the concept of recommended daily allowances?

The Pudgy PGA Tour. Coming soon.

Tick Tock

Today I came across a book I read when I was in college. I was rummaging through an old wooden box in a shed and happened upon it. I opened it to find the pages had acquired the sepia tinge of old books. Like books I would take off the shelf and thumb through in my grandparents’ house as a child. Only this is my book. I remember where I bought it, I remember reading it and today I found it and its pages are brown. Nothing that has happened to me up to this point has wielded such power in describing the tranche of time that has already passed. Not children getting taller and cheekier, not the discovery of rusted discarded toys or grey hairs. Crisp white pages have turned brown. How do the insides of my lungs look, my pulmonary artery or vena cava? How old am I? Nineteen eighty four is twenty six years ago. Treasured books have taken on the look of Jane Austens or Robert Louis Stevensons perused on dusty old folks’ shelves on murky school summer holidays. Where will it end?

Famous Fodder

Do they really need to refer to themselves as celebrity chefs? Is that combination of brands really necessary? I mean if a chef appears on TV who is famous for being a chef, well then he is just a chef. I don’t need to be instructed that he is indeed a celebrity. I figured that bit out for myself when I recognized him, thus qualifying him as a celebrity.

I mean Robbie Williams would not be introduced on a chat show as a “celebrity musician” or Ashley Cole as a “celebrity footballer”. We know he’s a footballer, we recognized him therefore he’s a celebrity footballer. But we’re all comfortable leaving the celebrity bit out, so he’s a footballer.

Not so with chefs. The rules state that we must always refer to Gordon Ramsay and Marco Pierre White as celebrity chefs. Never as just a chef or just a celebrity. Always a celebrity chef.

You can view them as celebrities who happen to chefs or chefs who happen to be celebrities, but always celebrity chefs. Because to attain the status of a celebrity is one laudable thing indeed and to become a chef is in itself quite a feat but to fuse the two into one omnipotent entity is surely the pinnacle of human achievement. As good as it gets.

It’s one thing to be able to chop an onion very quickly, it’s quite another to be globally recognized as one who can chop an onion very quickly.

Futureshock - They Haven't A Clue

The ESRI are today predicting a return to meaningful growth in 2012 “barring any unforeseen circumstances”. In 2012 when we are still mired in this unprecedented slump I wonder what type of events will qualify as unforeseen circumstances. Bohemians losing at home to Dundalk in the Cup? A cold sore epidemic at the Blarney Stone? The Urlingford by pass? Oh to be an economic forecaster, how do I go about landing a gig like that? This might happen, that might happen, then again the other might happen. Oh look lunchtime already.

Tariffirmation

I woke up today to find that the word “tariff” has replaced terms such as “bill” or “price” or “cost” or “charges”.

These words were crass and vulgar and conjured disagreeable associations with hardship and anxiety in peoples’ minds. Tariff is more gentile, polite and carries no such baggage. Some people I’m sure don’t even know what it means yet.

But they will soon, maybe when they drop into a mobile phone shop to change their monthly plan and are informed that they no longer pay a monthly charge but a monthly tariff. Or when they find themselves at the pay station of a hospital car park after visiting a sick relative and find that they are not required to pay parking charges but a parking tariff.

It won’t seem like any imposition at all to pay a tariff. In fact it will be your pleasure. Until you get used to it, at which point the guys down in marketing will oversee the evolution of a new and uncompromised word for such unavoidable unpleasantness.

Impost maybe, or outlay or how about appraisal? Appraisal is good, sounds vaguely positive. Bad news dressed up as good news. Bingo.

The Difference Is, We're Demented

What has infiltrated the hierarchies of our major supermarket chains? Supervalu' presumably paid good money to an advertising agency to come up with “Real Food, Real People”. Real people as opposed to what? Those foreigners they have in the other shops. It’s a bit of stretch to claim that because someone had to get on board an aeroplane to come here that their claim to being a capable, authentic human being is thereby invalidated. Real food? So let’s be clear on this, it is Supervalu’s contention that its competitors are using fake people to stock shelves with fake food which they are then attempting to sell to an oblivious public.

A serious allegation indeed and one which the folks at Dunnes Stores clearly were not prepared to take lying down. Thus the swift counter attack “The difference is, we’re Irish”. To claim supremacy in such a fashion, a fashion which seeks to end all discussion, to announce dominion over all else can only mean one thing; Aryanism.

And where is the National Consumer Agency, An Bord Bia, the Ombudsman or the Equality Authority while all this subterfuge and deranged diplomacy is taking place? Asleep at the wheel that’s where. Typical.

Pretend food. Cyborgs on checkouts. The Aryan Irish. WTF. We need an Oireachtas Sub Committee at the very minimum.

Goodbye England (Covered In Snow)

Laura Marling on Later with Jools Holland last week.

I'll Take you Home Again Gunther

My eldest brought home the school photos recently and inside the package was a form outlining the procedure for selecting the type and quantity of prints, the cost involved and instructions for collection. The form was signed off “Thank You, The Photographer”. Where does he think he is, in a Krzysztof Kieslowski movie? His wife is The Bookkeeper and his best friend is a performance artist called The Pheasant. He lies awake every night wistfully recalling the day he was smuggled to the American side with a dozen other dissidents strapped to the chassis of an armored personnel carrier. Life in the rural midlands has been nothing but a constant source of disappointment to him since. These parents, the same dull, predictable pose they want to order every year. Nobody ever wants their kids dressed in a Stasi uniform holding replica AK47s against the backdrop of a crumbling East Berlin. Fucking Irish, cultural derelicts. Top spuds mind.

It Says Here. 7 Chinese Brothers. New Slang.

Billy Bragg live 1985. When you wake up to the fact that your paper is Tory just remember there are two sides to every story.

REM 1984. Nothing to do with a general election across the Irish Sea.

The Shins. Life is dangerously fast. Thank God I'm listening to the right music.

So Not The Point

It has been pointed out by an acquaintance of mine that my previous post contains factual errors, errors which have led him to believe that I am guilty of conducting inadequate research. The error in question is the current title of Mary Hanafin. Apparently the description of her job should read Minister for Culture and Sport and not Minister for Arts, Culture and Tourism.

What we have here is a classic case of the internationally recognized phenomenon known as I say potAto and you say potaahto. For the wording of her job title is insignificant. She knows as little about sport as she does about the arts, or culture as it concerns people outside Leinster House. She knows nothing of the body of work of Gram Parsons or Andy Irvine in the same way that she knows nothing of who trained Dawn Run or who scored the goal that got us to the 1994 World Cup Finals or what club Henry Sheflin represents.

She might as well be called Minister for High Pressure Hydraulic Piston Pumps, a department which I gather was a hair's breadth away from being created in the recent reshuffle until someone reminded Cowen that you should never act the bollix with hydraulics.

Ah well. Luckily we're still going forward.

Hanafin de Histoire

Mary Hanafin is the new Minister for Arts, Culture and Tourism. We are being encouraged by some quarters to welcome this, quarters which cite the determination with which she halved social welfare payments for young people a year ago as being perfect credentials and a glowing testament to the “can do” attitude she will bring to her new post. When mired in economic imperatives traits such as immoral callousness are seemingly the only ones that count. The lack of any actual credentials which a right minded person might consider essential for a role as Minister for Arts, Culture and Tourism has thus far not been raised as a concern.

I would like to conduct a test on Mary Hanafin to ascertain her suitability for the job. To establish her bona fides if you like.

I would like to ask her to name a great event which took place in a given year, say for argument’s sake 1975. I am sure Mary would make no mention of the release of Blood on the Tracks by Bob Dylan and refer instead to a landslide victory by Fianna Fail in a by election in Dublin South East.

I would also like to ask her to name a tragic event which took place in a given year, say for argument’s sake 1980. I am sure Mary would make no mention of the assassination of John Lennon and refer instead to a narrow defeat for Fianna Fail in a by election in Dublin South West.

If I pressed Mary for her opinion on the significance of the year 1977 would she cite the release of Never Mind the Bollocks by the Sex Pistols or the narrow margin by which a Fianna Fail government survived a no confidence motion in the Dail? How often would Celine Dion or Robbie Williams be mentioned if Mary were ever asked to appear on Desert Island Discs? I wonder if Mary could tell us the flagship production of the Sugan Theatre Company last year, or what play enjoyed an acclaimed two month run in the Dunamaise Arts Centre in Portlaoise over the winter?

Maybe I’m being a little too harsh on Hanafin, our Finance Minister for example knows very little about fiscal policy, or economics in general. Our Minister for Health looks as though she has hours to live. Our Minister for Education…well you get the point. Three Hail Marys there. That can’t be an accident from a Taoiseach who hasn’t a prayer of being re elected.

Qualities touted around the biosphere of Kildare Street keep that colony of conceit, spoof, stylised bullshite and unvouched expenses in its orbit and rarely have any meaning or import for the real people.

Mary knows this, she knows fuck all about the Arts, Culture or Tourism. Or anything else for that matter.

Going forward.

Just Walk Away

Were you or were you not disappointed, furious, disillusioned or frustrated by the recent cabinet reshuffle by Brian Cowen? There are those who pay attention to these things and those who don’t anymore. The latter group used to keep themselves well apprised but came to a decision that it would probably be better for everyone to turn their back on it all. And implicit in their act was the realization that there is no future in making yourself angry over people who clearly have no ability to do anything not being able to do anything.

They got up one day and thought that they wouldn’t lose the plot with a six year old who couldn’t grasp quadratic equations or they wouldn’t whip themselves into a frenzy chastising their pet terrier for not being able to put on a DVD. And this epiphany was arrived at by analyzing trends, not in any formal or premeditated way but more by just noticing things. The terrier has never displayed any proficiency in electronics, this is something they just noticed. The six year old can only handle 2+ tables, this is just something they noticed. The people who occupy the positions we know as cabinet positions are people who have no discernible talent, proficiency, flair or ability in any field. So to pin too much hope on the outcome of a rearrangement of these people, an event which involved nothing more than having a few of them swap offices or adding or omitting a word in the description of their “role” is stupid. To expect the fabled reshuffle to buck well established trends and render people with a long and illustrious history of uselessness useful is just stupid.

And the people who don't pay attention anymore are not stupid, they are righteous folk who just grew tired of being made to feel stupid by people who really are stupid. So they threw in the towel. They hung up their gloves. And they’re happy now.

Going forward.

Catching On

Son Volt on Austin City Limits from a few years ago

Creep of Faith

It was interesting to hear Patsy McGarry on the radio the other morning urging people not to get too excited about the imminent release of the papal pastoral letter. He was sure that the letter would help “repentance, healing and renewal” but remained convinced that the letter would not be an instant panacea for all the damage that has been done. Restraint and cautious optimism was what Patsy was advocating.

So remember what you were like in the preamble to the last pastoral letter? How you couldn’t sleep for weeks, how you couldn’t keep your mind on your work such was your giddiness, how you spent days scouring the internet looking for an excerpt or a sneak preview, how you were constantly calling your friends to see if they’d heard anything.

Don’t do that this time. Patsy reckons you’ll only be disappointed.

The Tullamore School of Crisis Management

The big news this morning is that the CPSU, that’s the Civil, Public and Services Union for the uninitiated, have altered the parameters of the industrial action currently being taken by staff of the passport office, its members. They have decided to extend the criteria which would qualify a citizen for an emergency passport to include those with immediate travel plans.

The CPSU and its principal mouthpiece Eoin Ronayne have made this decision. Not any member of our government which convenes two hundred yards away. Eoin Ronayne has decided who qualifies for a passport and who doesn’t.

Those of you who thought that such decisions might fall under the remit of the Department of Foreign Affairs or the Department of the Environment or the Department of Social and Family Affairs are wrong. Such decisions have been outsourced by Brian Cowen and now fall under the remit of the Civil, Public and Services Union and its principal mouthpiece Eoin Ronayne.

Going forward.

Let The Good Times Roll

SIPTU are now “rolling out” work stoppages. How can you roll out a stoppage? Surely a work stoppage is something that, if you were inclined to roll it in any direction at all, you would roll in. The “in” suggesting a tightening, a contraction, a diminution as opposed to a loosening, an increase or an expansion which might be suggested by “out”.

Rolling out is a term you would normally associate with something good, an innovation, a development or change in procedure that people would broadly welcome.

I think maybe SIPTU are trying to be funny here in using language with positive associations to describe their actions. They are being ironic. It is a little known fact that trade unionists are capable of great feats of irony.

They have probably looked around and seen terminology with connotations of vague optimism such as “going forward” being used very successfully in a broader context and decided that they wanted a bit of the action.

And who could blame them. We are, after all, where we are.

If I Should Fall From Grace in Naas

There was a time in the not too distant past when there was no ceiling on how well things were going for us. This was something we liked to proclaim in company at every opportunity; “The observatory on the roof terrace will be finished next week, I’m delighted with my new boobs, we close on the Adriatic beach house on Friday, Oisin has been accepted into Harvard and Pat’s off to Florida tomorrow to become Killashee's first space tourist. Oh things couldn’t be better at the moment” This was called one-upmanship.

A few short years however have seen us emerge from this cycle into one of one-downmanship. Now there is no floor on how badly things are going for us. And in keeping with old habits this is something we like to proclaim in company at every opportunity; “A few heavies from Halifax came to the house the other day and filled the Carrera with wet concrete through the sunroof, Louis Copeland issued a repossession order for Pat’s favourite suit, the dentist ambushed Sorcha on the Main Street with an angle grinder looking for her braces back and only yesterday Oisin was caught in the crossfire of a gypsy argument and got turned into a badger. Oh things couldn’t be worse at the moment.”

Pro Choice Coughlan

In response to Leo Varadkar’s suggestion in the Dail yesterday that she may not be cut out for the role that she has somehow miraculously acquired, Mary “Context” Coughlan cobbled together a typically hopeless, meandering, verbose and unconvincing retort which contained the following line “my personality is something for others to decide”.

Are we to interpret this as a recognition that the personality she currently possesses is not resonating with the voters and she is open to suggestions as to how it might be modified? If this is the case it represents a watershed moment in the history of politics. Maybe her spin doctors have been inspired by the plethora of TV talent shows where the eventual result is determined by a public vote. They have seen the success of this format and thought there must be some way to apply it to the political realm.

Assuming that by “others” she means the general public, we have been presented with an unmissable opportunity to configure the character of the second most powerful political figure in the country in a way which we find more agreeable.

It is unclear at this point exactly how it will work but presumably we will be given a number to which we will text our suggestions, the personality garnering the most votes being the one she will adopt henceforth.

It is certainly groundbreaking and carries with it the potential to eradicate politics as we know it. For if every so often our elected representatives place their personalities before the general public for re setting what is the point of opposition, what is the point of debate, what is the point of elections? If we can re boot our leaders periodically to keep them more in touch with the public mood I think we will have established a template that the rest of the world will be keen to replicate.

Think of all the time that will be freed up on the airwaves and television when we dispense with the annoying need for political dialogue. Think of never having to see the wig of David Davin-Power again. Think of all the column inches that can be devoted to Glenda Gilson instead and think of all the benevolence and contentment that will naturally flow from such developments.

Unwittingly I think Context Coughlan has unearthed the key to the survival and sustained happiness of the human race.

And you thought she was just a pretty face.

Well You Asked For Ideas

I have concluded from reading the newspapers and listening to talk radio for the past two decades that counselling holds the key to everything. There is nobody whose life could not have been turned around if only they had access to basic counselling services. The potential benefits span the whole panorama of society from the most passive law abider to despicable career criminals.

All of our current woes, it seems, can be put down to a lack of appropriate counselling services down through the years. If Sean Fitzpatrick had access to a counsellor when his pet poodle Gekko died in 1968, the Anglo debacle would not have taken place. If Mary Coughlan had been offered suitable psychiatric support when she got a belt of a camogie stick in Bundoran in 1978 Michael O’ Leary would have five hundred lads up and running changing the oil on Boeing 737s in Hangar 6 as we speak.

There is no level of omission, neglect, ineptitude, irresponsibility, immaturity or malicious intent that can not be explained away by citing a lack of basic counselling facilities.

It transpires that we all need counselling on a constant basis. And therein lies the cause of and the solution to our current impasse. Forget the so called Smart Economy, this was merely a white elephant dreamt up by people with inadequate levels of counselling under their belt. Ladies and gentlemen I give you the Counselling Economy.

I call on the government to pour money into purpose built facilities to train everyone on the dole as a counsellor. I can’t see a flaw. We create much needed construction employment during the capital investment stage whilst bolstering our infrastructure. We create employment for existing counsellors who would act as administrators and lecturers in the new institutions. We enroll those on the live register and set them on a new, rewarding career path. If everyone was a counsellor all of our troubles – economic, political, spiritual, social and psychological would be over.

We can counsel each other back to health, wealth and happiness. I also call on the government to retrofit Hangar 6 and deploy it as the first facility. The ensuing ironic hilarity would give the country a much needed kick start straight off the bat.

We’ve all heard of the Council of State well allow me to introduce the State of Counsel. You’re living in it, silly. Tommy Fleming could write us a brand new up to date National Anthem more appropriate to current conditions; a jaunty Country n’ Irish ditty entitled Counsel State of Mind. I can’t see a flaw.

I think we have finally hit upon something in which we could be genuine world leaders; whinging to a captive audience.

At last; a cast iron, bona fide, water tight no brainer.

Gobshites for Goalposts

So Aaron Ramsey, a young Arsenal soccer player broke his leg in a match last weekend. This weekend all of his teammates wore t shirts over their jerseys with the message “Get well soon Aaron” written boldly. There were several car park sized banners in the crowd with a likeness of Ramsey on them alongside messages such as “Do it for Aaron”. Is a bit of perspective not required here? I mean there are few occupational hazards in being a pampered, cosseted modern day professional footballer but breaking the odd bone is one of them.

Perhaps he has been whisked away to some top secret medical facility in the Arctic for treatment and the only way his teammates could communicate with him was via a message on their t shirts in the preamble to a televised game. But I doubt it. I’d say they will still see him every week during his rehabilitation. But that was no reason not to turn a trivial leg break into a monumental vainglorious melodrama to be played out on TV.

When the actual tackle took place we had players all over the pitch drop to their knees with head in hands, traumatized. Men, remember. Not under 12s. Your comrades supposedly, your brothers in battle, in the trenches. Having a little cry for themselves while their teammate writhes around on the ground. Then they have the temerity to wear slogans proclaiming their unconditional solidarity and brotherhood. I’m sure Ramsey could have used some of that solidarity and brotherhood last week when his shin was hanging on by the muscle. Vacuous, narcissistic gestures that showcase their depth of feeling and benevolence while the cameras happen to be rolling, that’s what these lads are more interested in.

Vilifying the opposition player when it was obviously accidental is another important weapon in the armory of the affronted. It is not part of some grand conspiracy to destabilize your club; it was a robust tackle that went slightly awry. Man up and deal with it. And take off your poxy pink tribute t shirts; I’m sure the chap will live to play again. At any rate if he is any kind of a competitor he was probably mortified by the display in the first place. It’s not like he’s lost his limbs to a roadside bomb or a drunk driver. Save your carefully contrived cocktail of outrage and compassion for a situation that merits it.

The infantilisation of sport proceeds full throttle.

Discover Ireland

Credit flow… restore liquidity… don’t bury your head in the sand… keep in contact with your mortgage provider… share the burden… 100% pay cut… living in the real world… zombie bank… we are where we are… the only show in town… reputational damage… in a wider context… toxic assets... the blame game… preempt the findings of the report… a matter for the parliamentary party… hangar 6 … catch 22… restore competitiveness… basket case… corporate governance… corporate enforcement... too big to fail... dig out... golden circles...complex issues... accountability… root and branch investigation… grassroots level… on the ground... rumblings… untenable… on my watch… the real economy… negative equity... subordinated bond holders... on the right road... turn the corner... grade inflation… deflation… emigration… immigration… in real terms… in terms of… with regard to… in relation to … in the context of… hangar 6… roll out... weeks not months... senior counsel… finish its work… metro north… capital projects… cold winters... flood plains... infrastructure… potholes… manslaughter… on the ground… man of the people… reshuffle… deckchairs… simply not sustainable... joined up thinking… commercial court... light entertainment… horse’s head… Cheltenham… War of Attrition… hangar 6… waste of space… hemorrhage… work to rule… in a broader context… at the end of the day... if it keeps on raining the Levy’s gonna break… cost of living… erosion… vis a vis… eurozone… living in the real world… the blogosphere… twitter… choose sides… the thing is is that… world class… centres of excellence… primary care… mandate… constituency work… go to the country… Malta… grit... the reality is... lower back pain… tough decisions… fiscal discipline… hangar 6… Section 23… National Institute for Regional & Spatial Analysis... occupancy rates… ghost estates… distressed loans... impaired loans... walking around money… vouched expenses… puts things in perspective… gender balance… hangar 6… on the ground... up in the air... going forward... cervical cancer screening... school prefabs... hospital trolleys...three year waiting lists... your country your call

Crapello

It will be interesting to see if we get similar fanfare in future to that which surrounded the John Terry/ Wayne Bridge saga every time the ex girlfriend of a premier league footballer consummates a new relationship. Will teammates point them out during goal celebrations for special homage from the fans on each occasion a relationship comes to an end? Maybe we could have a special mention in the programme notes if the goalkeeper has just had a row with his missus. What about a minute’s silence before kick off if the striker’s squeeze has refused him oral at any point in the preceeding month? Black armbands could be worn if she has placed an all out carnal embargo on the poor fella.

By buying into this and stuff like it the general public are proving that they are incapable of resisting having their priorities dictated to them by the editors of tabloid newspapers. It is becoming ever easier for these people to configure the public agenda in a fashion which is conducive to shifting millions of newspapers.
I see well written outraged e mails being sent in to football websites on this issue so it seems even rational, thoughtful people can be duped and not just tabloid reading fuckclumps as we would like to think.

Why can’t we resist? Do we subliminally want something like this to come along every so often? Do we feel the intrigue enhances the drama of the football or is the football so dull that we need the intrigue to make it palatable? It was inevitable that a saga such as this would present itself to provide the only real test that the current England manager will face, that of his patience and ability to see, hear and be surrounded by bullshit.

And how did the fabled Capello do on this test? Well by stripping John Terry of the captaincy he, I’m afraid to say, has failed miserably. He could have broken the cycle and clearly stated that the agenda of Fleet Street has nothing to do with the agenda of his football team. But he didn’t. By doing what he did he reinforced the notion, the myth that the two are inextricably linked thereby providing infinite scope for future episodes of a similar nature. He fed the beast, validating the editors and buttressing their ideas about their own omnipotence. He could have emasculated them by doing nothing, by simply leaving John Terry where he was. But he didn’t.

And this was the one true test we would like to have seen him pass because those who can tell a player where to stand on a football pitch are ten a penny, those who can tell a culture where to go are very rare indeed. I’m sure he thought he was making a stand for high standards when in fact all he has done is perpetuate low ones.

And it’s all the more disappointing because we all thought he was the one. The no nonsense Italian who could part this sea of slurry with a wave of his hand. How wrong we were. The best man to lead England in South Africa won’t be leading England in South Africa. Rio Ferdinand will. The best man will be cowering and compromised under the laser beam of a bloodthirsty media. A media emboldened and empowered by his own manager. He has not been undermined by the convoluted plotting of an arch enemy but by his own manager.

Capello could have done his bit to cut off the oxygen of outrage that this sickening cycle depends upon. Instead he has cranked open the valve full whack. He just might go on to win the World Cup which would be fine had he not in the process blown the chance to do something really worthwhile. He is the one who should have been stripped. If only because we expected so much more.

Sub Prime Time

Who in God’s name decided Miriam O’Callaghan was capable of conducting an interview outside the rarified realm of politics? I’d like, if I may, to share a couple of tips gleaned from recent interviews particularly the one last Saturday morning with the Boormans.

Don’t go “Wow that was a great story” when your guest has just finished delivering a mildly interesting anecdote. Don’t go “Oh that’s really sweet actually” when your guest has just told you how much he loves his wife. It’s the actually here that’s the killer. You might just have gotten away with “Oh that’s really sweet”. Just. But the “actually” tagged onto the end makes it unforgiveable.

Don’t even get me started on the snooze fest of a few weeks ago when she managed to fit jumbo ego to the power of two, Lee agus Bird into the same studio to deliver the most turgid, self congratulatory hour of broadcasting in living memory.

And when are the powers that be going to give young Christopher McKevitt a proper forum on which to showcase his obvious talents? The slick, merciless way he tackles some of these blowhard corporate types on the morning business slots bodes well for the future. When he will be properly unleashed unfortunately is down to the vagaries of RTE management, the same management which decided that anyone with a shred of mental competence would be entertained listening to Miriam cheerlead George and Charlie performing their renowned mutual jerk off routine a few weeks ago.

If I bothered buying a license I’d be even more upset.

What Goes Round..........

Last weekend in the Sunday Independent Niamh Horan wrote a piece detailing the financial troubles of one Adele King, aka national treasure and beloved entertainer Twink.

In the article Horan carried a quote from a member of what she described as Twink’s “inner circle” to bear out the story. Essentially Twink has a fairly decent house in Knocklyon and she is having trouble meeting the mortgage payments. I know a plumber who has a fairly decent house in Rathgar and he is having trouble meeting the mortgage payments. I know a supermarket manager who has a fairly decent house in Ballinteer and he is having trouble meeting the mortgage payments. This must mean that I am a member of these people’s “inner circle”. Seemingly not knowing that one even exists should be no impediment to entering an individual's "inner circle". I did not know this.

When you are having trouble paying your household bills, you must forsake your right to have an “inner circle”. This is one of the rules that you must accept when you acquire your “inner circle” in the first place. The “inner circle” disappears when the car is towed from the driveway by the finance company.

Michael O’Leary, Michael Smurfit, Tony O’Reilly, John Magnier, Dermot Desmond, Denis O’Brien and Sean Quinn have “inner circles”.

Twink, like a van driver or a quantity surveyor, has friends.

Spinning Kenny

Enda Kenny has gone on record to rule out any idea of a coalition involving his party and Sinn Fein. So repulsed is Enda by Grizzly and the lads that he would not contemplate making a deal with them to form a government. Even if it jeopardized his ultimate goal of becoming Taoiseach of a government in which Fine Gael would be the majority party.

So it was a measure of the moral fabric of the man to see him last week coming to the aid of Sinn Fein who had been so viciously and maliciously slighted by Willie O’ Dea. What selflessness he showed in putting aside his obvious revulsion to come to their aid and make a stand for better standards in public office. What mental turmoil he must have endured in wrestling with his conscience, what steel and fortitude he displayed in being able to park the ideological chasm which exists between the parties in order to make the case for Ministerial accountability.

Oh Enda what a beacon of hope you are for our Parliamentary system. For Democracy itself. For if not Enda, who will fight the good fight, who will drag us out of this unethical quagmire? You see Enda is guided by a moral compass us mere mortals do not possess, a compass that led him through the dark night of the soul and into bed with Sinn Fein.

In the public interest, don’t you know.

For everyone's sake let’s hope he used a condom. Who put the bag over whose head is not clear at this point.

Sinn a Willie

Willie O’ Dea has defended the allegations that he accused a Sinn Fein election candidate of owning a brothel by saying that the candidate in question accused him of using incorrectly headed notepaper in his constituency office and that he was simply ”responding in kind”.

Followers of Willie’s junior hurling career will be familiar with this tendency and recall an incident in a championship match in the late sixties when Willie was on the receiving end of a robust shoulder from a Bruff player. He “responded in kind” by having a load of seasoned turkey manure tipped in the player’s driveway and poisoning his pet pony, Bullseye.

The scale of Willie’s achievement here surely needs to be acknowledged in that he is the first person in history to participate in a stationery disagreement during which the moral high ground was ceded to Sinn Fein. No stationery related skirmish on record has resulted in a surge in credibility for Grizzly and the lads. Until now. Willie's pivotal contribution to this milestone, this watershed moment in Irish politics is duly noted.

Quite an accomplishment. Possibly the only one of any note. Apart from the 'tache obviously. The 'tache transcends party politics. No one of sound mind would question the 'tache. And rightly so.

Christmas Card From a Hooker in Minneapolis

A Tom Waits love song for Valentines Day. With Silent Night intro & ending.

hey Charley I'm pregnant
and living on 9th street
right above a dirty bookstore
off Euclid Avenue
and I stopped taking dope
and I quit drinking whiskey
and my old man plays the trombone
and works out at the track.

and he says that he loves me
even though it's not his baby
and he says that he'll raise him up
like he would his own son
and he gave me a ring
that was worn by his mother
and he takes me out dancin'
every Saturday nite.

and hey Charley I think about you
everytime I pass a fillin' station
on account of all the grease
you used to wear in your hair
and I still have that record
of little anthony & the imperials
but someone stole my record player
how do you like that?

hey Charley I almost went crazy
after Mario got busted
so I went back to Omaha to
live with my folks
but everyone I used to know
was either dead or in prison
so I came back to Minneapolis
this time I think I'm gonna stay.

hey Charley I think I'm happy
for the first time since my accident
and I wish I had all the money
that we used to spend on dope
I'd buy me a used car lot
and I wouldn't sell any of 'em
I'd just drive a different car
every day dependin' on how I feel.

hey Charley for chrissakes
do you want to know the truth of it?
I don't have a husband
he don't play the trombone
and I need to borrow money
to pay this lawyer and Charley, hey
I'll be eligible for parole
come Valentines Day.

I'll Get Back To Ya

Hard to know what to make of the resignation of the former RTE Economics Correspondent from the Fine Gael parliamentary party.

Has he done the honourable thing or made, as they'd say in Foxrock, a Leorge Gee of himself?

Tip of The Week

I have it on good authority that if you go into Burdocks in Christchurch and order a battered sausage they will throw in a bag of chips for free.

It sounds like commercial suicide but if it's true it has to be the greatest customer inducement in retail history, easily trumping any miserable scrappage scheme or seven year unlimited warranty you care to mention.

I don't live in Dublin so can someone drop in there and let me know if it's true. bburke1971@gmail.com

I will construct a family day out around it.

Light, Air, Satisfaction

It’s interesting that we now have to be able to speak to people in other rooms while we chop vegetables. Prep, by the way is what it’s called.

There was a dark period in our recent history during which in order to speak to someone who happened to be in your house you were required to relocate to whatever room that person was in. This was inevitably a conversation which needed to take place while you were chopping vegetables (or prep) and they were having a nice glass of wine. Thankfully we have discarded this grim ritual and consigned it to the polished stainless steel trash can of spatial dynamics history.

I, as head vegetable chopper, need to be involved, capable of seeing and speaking to people who happen to be in my house albeit another location in my house, a location which is remote from where the pivotal task of vegetable chopping is being carried out.

Not only does the space have to capable of accommodating such interfacing but it must also be light and airy. We must all commune in light, airy spaces. This is the most fundamental prerequisite of modern living. This and a shared hatred of china figurines and woodchip wallpaper. You must insist upon lightness and airiness as a minimum, a threshold level of sensibility.

It is up to yourself at this point if you want to go on to develop an appreciation for feature walls, textured wall coverings, exposed beams or polished concrete floors. These are optional extras for the particularly discerning.

Not being versed in these areas will not preclude you from getting into the party in the first place but be warned that your ignorance of them will certainly lead to a few awkward silences while you’re there. No, the host will only seek to validate your light and airy credentials on the way in but do yourself a favour and avoid a minefield of potential faux pas by at least learning a few salient points about radiant heating beforehand.

It is also important to understand the concept of flow and how one space relates to another space. You may be likely to overhear something like “there is a very pure, organic relationship between these two spaces which is important in preserving the flow and allowing you to sit and have a nice glass of wine and read a book while having a conversation with whoever is in the kitchen and enjoy uninterrupted views to the garden. In fact the glazing along this wall has the effect of bringing the outside in. Don’t you think?”

There can be no doubt upon hearing something like this that you are in the presence of people whose virtues are beyond reproach. They want to involve whoever is doing the donkey work in the kitchen and not make them feel isolated. This means they are caring, considerate and compassionate. They are quaffing fine wine while reading a book. This means they are educated, urbane, sophisticated and intelligent. They want to gaze upon the garden, they love nature and appreciate the great outdoors. This means they are gentle, conscientious and contemplative.

And you look around and acknowledge the ease with which the space is accommodating the sixty people who have been invited for the grand unveiling. Sixty people who will never again find themselves in the same parish, never mind the same room.

And as you fondle the velvet curtains or snort a scented candle you begin to tabulate in your head all the ways your life sucks. How these paragons of virtue and incontrovertible taste have brought your inadequacies into focus. Your naked bayonet light bulbs, oil fired radiators, formica worktop, laminate flooring, carpet, eight foot ceilings, under counter fridge, super ser. A super ser for fuck’s sake.

You quietly put down your glass on the soapstone mantle piece, retrieve your coat, slip unnoticed out the front door and stumble sobbing towards the bus stop.

Boy From School

Grizzly Bear cover Hot Chip

Dying For a Bit of News

I’m pretty sure I’m not the only one who was doing a rough mental calculation in my head every time I was faced with the sight of some carefully unkempt TV reporter standing at the edge of a scene of desolation in Haiti.

That calculation went something like this – there are probably fifty crews there from the US alone, about twenty from South America, four from Canada, five from Britain, one from Ireland, twenty from the rest of Europe and let’s say conservatively another twenty from the remainder of the world. That’s a total of one hundred and twenty camera crews. I imagine each crew would consist of a cameraman, driver, sound man and of course the individual on the other side of the lens. That’s four hundred and eighty people with all the associated vehicles and equipment. There was no problem getting all that stuff onto the island though, was there? The logistics of distributing food, water and humanitarian supplies seemed to be insurmountable while there was a fairly obvious open door policy on morons in khaki pants with cameras.

And I was not alone in thinking as I looked at the tragic events unfold that four hundred and eighty pairs of hands could move a lot of rubble, could search a lot of collapsed houses, could carry a lot of water, could change a lot of bandages. If those pairs of hands were so inclined.

I’d like to think that I speak for the majority when I say that I would have happily foregone the grave, quasi profound commentary of any of these Pulitzer chasing fools, I would happily have forsaken hearing one of your sickeningly contrived “ Perhaps the sun will never rise over Haiti again. This is Simon Jones BBC News at the collapsed UN headquarters in Port au Prince, Haiti” type sign offs if I thought you were doing something to help. I would have been glad to have the anchor in London tell me that Simon Jones will not be filing a report today as he is busy digging graves to bury some of the dead.

I mean you’re right there for Christ’s sake, you’ve done the hard part, now drop the bloody mike and do something useful.

Everything That's Wrong With TV News Reportage In Two Minutes

The mighty Charlie Brooker hits yet another walk off home run.

Too Legit' To Omit

I read with interest today that the civil service is on a go slow, working to rule. What I did not read was how this development has brought about a marked improvement in services. Disappointingly, it wasn't mentioned in any of the papers.

It's Official - The Straw That Broke the Camel's Back

Rody, Rody, Rody. We were just over the revelations of wholesale waste and squandering of resources that you presided over in FAS. We had all but come to terms with the obscenely inflated pay off you got to go quietly after making an abject balls of your job for a number of years.

We have to draw the line somewhere though and the news of taxpayer money being used to buy tickets for Bonjovi, Westlife and Billy Joel concerts is the proverbial bridge too far in this squalid litany of mismanagement. I don’t believe the citizenry of any country could put up with such a collection of affronts to good taste and decency. Bonjovi and Westlife and, god help us, Billy Joel. Any one of these musical aberrations taken in isolation could be put down to a mistake, an error of judgement. But the three together indicates a lack of morality far more serious than any penchant for the odd first class airline seat for yourself and the missus.

There surely exists now ample ammunition and evidence to go above and beyond the root and branch investigation which has been called for and demand the immediate dismantling of FAS altogether.

Bonjovi, Westlife and Billy fuckin’ Joel. You need to get a bit of religion back into your life Rody because that’s an Unholy Trinity if ever I saw one.

Two

Ryan Adams, Dingle June 6th 2007

Retail Therapy

Supermarkets are strange places. They seem to be continually able to buck the trends that are detectable elsewhere. We are living in a time of fiscal rectitude and economic despondency and the evidence is all around us. Half completed housing estates, shabby unkempt public spaces, boarded up main streets, disfigured potholed roads – these have recently become, and will remain, features of our landscape. But the supermarket seems to be miraculously immune to any downward spiral. The supermarket just gets shinier and happier. They get bigger and brighter and more replete when everything else is getting smaller, dirtier and sparser.

And aren’t they a reassuring presence? Essential supplies and essential positive reinforcement. The cosy glow of a million sparkling apples and symmetrically arranged bovine body parts.


"I understand the music, I understand the movies, I even see how comic books can tell us things. But there are full professors in this place who read nothing but cereal boxes. It's the only avant-garde we've got."
Don Delillo, White Noise 1984

Your Not Too Bad Self

You can’t be anything but cynical when it comes to RTE and home grown comedy. Recent efforts in this area have been successful in the same way that, say, Paddy Neary was successful in identifying, rooting out and eradicating irregularities and corruption in the financial services sector. But, as the same Paddy is well aware, we as a nation are more than willing to forgive, forget and forge on.

We are not so churlish as to resurrect past embarrassments when it comes to evaluating new output. We can look with fresh, unjaundiced eyes. Which is just as well because if you were to analyse “Your Bad Self” in a job lot with all of the station’s comedy offerings of the last two years, it would only make a barely discernible scrawl on the credit side of the ledger but taken in isolation it is in fact, wait for it , quite flippin’ good.

It passes the crucial comedic test of being able to creep up on you a couple of days afterwards to illicit a bout of involuntary chortling. This has been my experience at any rate with sketches such as the unfortunate paper cut guy, the chap trying in vain to find his self defence class, the x men shop assistant and the piece de resistance so far, the horse trader trying to buy a pair of glasses.

RTE has produced something very funny, all on its lonesome. Something is very wrong in the universe.

Our Mother The Mountain

Townes Van Zandt 1969, audio and stationary video

Horses For Courses

In the wake of the recent wintry weather there has been a lot of comment and apparent surprise at the inadequacy of the government’s reaction. All of it misplaced as far as I am concerned.

I mean was there genuine shock or outrage in the west of the country last year when Sligo Rovers failed to win the Champions League? No there wasn’t. Instead there was an implicit understanding on the part of the supporters that their team was several million light years away from being capable of winning the Champions League. Did we witness scenes of civil unrest in Ballinasloe last Spring when the local club professional Gearoid Mac Giolla Padraig failed to win The Masters in Augusta? No. Because a quick assessment of the achievements, capabilities and limitations of the individual in question could not possibly yield any other conclusion.

We seem to be incapable of applying the same type of measured judgements to members of the cabinet. We harbour some sort of irrational expectation that people with a consistent track record of malpractice, negligence and incompetence are miraculously going to defy logic, precedent and history and actually do something useful.

Noel Dempsey was in Malta for most of it, well thank Christ for that. Imagine the mess we’d have on our hands if the clown was actually around to make a few decisions.

You might get away with entering a Shetland pony in the Gold Cup, but don’t get too despondent when he can’t get over the first fence.

To Ohio

The Low Anthem, Later with Jools Holland November 20th 2009

Five & Dime

I imagine you will be as surprised as I was to learn that there were only three records released throughout the entire nineteen eighties. They are “99 Red Balloons”, “Money for Nothing” and “Don’t You Want Me”. You may have thought that musicians such as REM, New Order, The Blue Nile, Prefab Sprout, Husker Du, Sonic Youth or The Stone Roses were around during the nineteen eighties but you would be mistaken. History will definitively record that there was only Nina, The Human League and Dire Straits.

One would expect our public representatives to be well turned out. They appear in the Dail on a daily basis in the presence of TV cameras and are always liable to be doorstepped by a crew anxious to glean their views on the issues of the day. So they should be well groomed and presentable, at a minimum. Joan Burton however does not seem to be a lady who is content to do things to the minimum standard required. Joan has taken the personal grooming ball and done a Forrest Gump with it. I don’t think I have seen her show up on any occasion with a head of hair that bears even the slightest resemblance to the previous day. And I’m not just talking about style here – I’m talking length, colour, shape, texture, footprint. It seems to me that Vidal Sassoon is doing a bit of moonlighting in Joan’s constituency office. We are all familiar with the tendency of women of a certain age to indulge in the daily wash and blow dry but this goes way beyond that. What is apparent here is a virtual quotidienne reinvention of the wheel. Auburn and long for an Oireachtas sub committee gives way to black and bobbed for a crucial Dail vote which in turn gives way to sandy and cropped for a bit of weekend slumming and low key constituency work. There’s regular multi tasking and then there’s Joan Burton style multi personality multi tasking. A different concept altogether, and the next big thing.

I recently went to a hardware store in the local town to buy a new hammer. The cashier told me it was €15 but I insisted upon giving him €25 for it on the basis that this is what it might be worth in ten years time. He seemed very happy with this arrangement. I was glad to help him out and be his friend.

It doesn’t take our friends in the Irish Farmers Association too long to apportion a monetary value to the odd meteorological anomaly. An IFA head by the name of Eddie Donnelly was on The Last Word last week in the early stages of the big freeze confidently predicting that this instalment of disagreeable weather would cost farmers €50 million. Eddie made no attempt to devise a figure which might imply that a shred of science had gone into its calculation. €50 million. Nice round number, easy enough for everyone to get their head around. At that stage about two inches of snow had fallen so presumably Eddie was basing his figures on the internationally accepted rule of thumb for when it’s a bit tricky to get silage to your livestock of a million per millimeter. A mill a mill. Lovely jubbly.

I recently opened a supplement to a daily newspaper and came across a feature on how the recession is affecting all of our kids. It was so enlightening and instructive that I found myself lamenting the fact that the editor hadn’t capitalised on the idea and turned it into a series chronicling the impact of the downturn on those we tend to overlook – “Badgers and the Bust”, “Cheyenne Dry”, “Rathkeale Rectitude”, “Insolvent Incas”, “Eskimonics”, “The Bankrupt Bedouin”. It could run and run.