People I would want as Taoiseach even less than Enda Kenny:
Idi Amin
Yahoo Serious
Bertie Ahern
Pol Pot
Tony Blair
And that is all.
I want to tell you all about my fuckin' deadly trip to New York that I'm not long back from, but it seems easier to get over this psychosis-inducing jetlag (which, this time round, featured me growling at carrots for quite a while in Fresh, before suffering an unprecedented level of fear of the teenage skangers in the chipper) and move past this headfuck of an election first. If you're still a little unsure as to which of the horrible parties to go for, this yoke is vaguely helpful. Turns out I'm almost a raging Shinner, 'cept that site omits to ask useful questions like "Are you mad into blowing shit up?" and "Do you hate yourself for being a Proddy?"
Showing posts with label complete and utter bastards. Show all posts
Showing posts with label complete and utter bastards. Show all posts
Thursday, February 24, 2011
Monday, January 31, 2011
3
I swat 'em like flies, but like flies the buggers keep coming back
I visited Egypt for a couple of weeks a few years back. I wish I had a greater understanding of what was going on there right now, but a fortnight of eating, sunbathing and visiting tourist traps doesn't tend to enlighten you on the niceties of political infrastructure and social turbulence. Nevertheless, I do recall talking to a tourguide after visiting some temple* or other. He was telling me about a village near the temple that the government want to be razed in order to build carparks and hotels and shit like that. The villagers, who look markedly different to any other Egyptians I encountered, claim to be the last descendants of the pharaohs. It's pretty much impossible to prove or disprove that claim, but it is without doubt that the people there have occupied that land for hundreds, maybe thousands, of years. When they first refused to leave their homes so that their village could be knocked down, their government shut off their electricity. When they still didn't move they cut off their water, too.
I don't know what developments have taken place since then, it's a hard thing to google when you don't remember which temple it was. But yeah, that's what I know of the Egyptian government. So if you're Egyptian, Andrew says go nuts right now. And if you're Irish, vote Fianna Fáil. They'd never do anything like that.
*Here's why I make a very poor tourist: My brain simply can't deal with visiting heaps of places of massive historical importance within a very condensed period of time. Nor do I keep a diary or take many photographs. Holidays for me need to be "Right, Andrew, here's a fascinating old place. Take about seven hours to look around it at your own leisure and then we'll take you home. Go to a waterpark tomorrow and then spend the day after that sleeping off the excitement and then we'll see you on Thursday for lots more time at another, single, fascinating old place."
I don't know what developments have taken place since then, it's a hard thing to google when you don't remember which temple it was. But yeah, that's what I know of the Egyptian government. So if you're Egyptian, Andrew says go nuts right now. And if you're Irish, vote Fianna Fáil. They'd never do anything like that.
*Here's why I make a very poor tourist: My brain simply can't deal with visiting heaps of places of massive historical importance within a very condensed period of time. Nor do I keep a diary or take many photographs. Holidays for me need to be "Right, Andrew, here's a fascinating old place. Take about seven hours to look around it at your own leisure and then we'll take you home. Go to a waterpark tomorrow and then spend the day after that sleeping off the excitement and then we'll see you on Thursday for lots more time at another, single, fascinating old place."
Monday, November 29, 2010
6
Frozen Assets
"I don't want to sound paranoid, but this is a fucking government conspiracy" I opined to Rosie as we slipped n' slid down the snowy streets to collect Annie on our way to the protest march on Saturday. I was temporarily convinced that local roads were deliberately being left ungritted in order to immobilise the population, thus denying many of them the opportunity to attend the protest. In hindsight, I may have been crediting the leaders of this country with a greater level of intelligence and creativity than they possess. They don't really need to put any thought or intent into being inadequate, they just are.
As we neared the starting point of the march Annie and Rosie started to discuss whether or not it would be a good idea to withdraw all our cash from bank accounts, in case the banks collapse and they freeze everyone's assets. "It won't come to that," I started out grandly, in that way I have of pretending to be knowledgeable on subjects I haven't a fucking notion about. Even I know it's annoying, at this stage. "The bank bail-out guarantees that won't happen." "But, umm, aren't we on our way to protest against the bank bail-out?" asked Annie.
"I dunno, isn't NAMA separate to this...IMF...interest rates...burble burble..." I trailed off, realising that I was definitely not sure of my facts, and that crossing the road towards Christchurch was going to be something more of an ordeal than I thought. Truth is, it's very hard to know what affects what any more, and what the repercussions of anything are. I never thought for a second that marching on Saturday was going to stop the government from signing us up to the IMF bailout, and I don't think many people really did. No, for me it was about standing on the street and saying Fuck you, Brian Cowen, fuck you for being a fat, boozy, embarrassment of a leader. Fuck you for never looking like you care what anyone else thinks, fuck you and your party for always putting yourselves first, for being such pathological liars. For being such snivelling cowards. For never once telling it like it is. Fuck you for never saying sorry.
It felt good, for a while, being on that march. We skidded and slushed along the streets and enjoyed the pageantry of it all. I wanted to eyeball the gardaí and say You are an evil tool of The Man, and if you come swinging for me with your batons I won't be responsible for my actions. But they were smiling and convivial and, perhaps through their sheer weight of numbers, never looked unnerved by the event. Placards were, as ever, delightful in their schadenfreude. An early favourite, spotted at Wood Quay, read "YOU USELESS BASTARDS!!" on one side, with "Not you, the government (obviously)" on the other. This was only equalled by the sight of an eight year-old on O'Connell Street,trudging along with a sign bearing the legend "My mam told me Justin Bieber would be here." And then there was this little beauty.
Later, back in the comfort of home, the alarmingly superficial RTE news coverage will tell us that official estimates put the attendance of the march at around 50,000 and not the 100 odd thousand the organisers were claiming at the time. I'd probably throw my tinfoil hat back on and scream PROPAGANDA BULLSHIT! at that one, were it not for the fact that I feel it necessary to limit myself to one conspiracy theory a day. But I've been to enough football matches and music festivals to know what a crowd of 50,000 looks like, and Saturday's was far, far more than that. Later still, as we mosey home after an evening of alcohol consumption and snowball-dodging a man on the far side of the road is chanting, a full twelve hours after the end of the march, "Brian Cowen take a hike, we demand a national strike." Wish in one hand and shit in the other and see which fills up first, I think to myself. But still. Still.
As we neared the starting point of the march Annie and Rosie started to discuss whether or not it would be a good idea to withdraw all our cash from bank accounts, in case the banks collapse and they freeze everyone's assets. "It won't come to that," I started out grandly, in that way I have of pretending to be knowledgeable on subjects I haven't a fucking notion about. Even I know it's annoying, at this stage. "The bank bail-out guarantees that won't happen." "But, umm, aren't we on our way to protest against the bank bail-out?" asked Annie.
"I dunno, isn't NAMA separate to this...IMF...interest rates...burble burble..." I trailed off, realising that I was definitely not sure of my facts, and that crossing the road towards Christchurch was going to be something more of an ordeal than I thought. Truth is, it's very hard to know what affects what any more, and what the repercussions of anything are. I never thought for a second that marching on Saturday was going to stop the government from signing us up to the IMF bailout, and I don't think many people really did. No, for me it was about standing on the street and saying Fuck you, Brian Cowen, fuck you for being a fat, boozy, embarrassment of a leader. Fuck you for never looking like you care what anyone else thinks, fuck you and your party for always putting yourselves first, for being such pathological liars. For being such snivelling cowards. For never once telling it like it is. Fuck you for never saying sorry.
It felt good, for a while, being on that march. We skidded and slushed along the streets and enjoyed the pageantry of it all. I wanted to eyeball the gardaí and say You are an evil tool of The Man, and if you come swinging for me with your batons I won't be responsible for my actions. But they were smiling and convivial and, perhaps through their sheer weight of numbers, never looked unnerved by the event. Placards were, as ever, delightful in their schadenfreude. An early favourite, spotted at Wood Quay, read "YOU USELESS BASTARDS!!" on one side, with "Not you, the government (obviously)" on the other. This was only equalled by the sight of an eight year-old on O'Connell Street,trudging along with a sign bearing the legend "My mam told me Justin Bieber would be here." And then there was this little beauty.
Later, back in the comfort of home, the alarmingly superficial RTE news coverage will tell us that official estimates put the attendance of the march at around 50,000 and not the 100 odd thousand the organisers were claiming at the time. I'd probably throw my tinfoil hat back on and scream PROPAGANDA BULLSHIT! at that one, were it not for the fact that I feel it necessary to limit myself to one conspiracy theory a day. But I've been to enough football matches and music festivals to know what a crowd of 50,000 looks like, and Saturday's was far, far more than that. Later still, as we mosey home after an evening of alcohol consumption and snowball-dodging a man on the far side of the road is chanting, a full twelve hours after the end of the march, "Brian Cowen take a hike, we demand a national strike." Wish in one hand and shit in the other and see which fills up first, I think to myself. But still. Still.
Saturday, November 27, 2010
3
It's weeks like this when you feel like you really have to write something on your blog about Irish current affairs. I never quite know what to say. We know that we have been let down by our government, we know that life is about to get financially harder for just about everyone, we know that the next generation are likely to still be stifled by things the current administration has done.
We also know that there will be a general election before too long.
This should represent a simple opportunity to kick Fianna Fáil and the Greens out of government and, with any luck, reduce their political influence to that of a sparrow farting in the breeze. But you wouldn't know, not in Ireland. Or perhaps, with 17% of the polled electorate still saying that they would, even at what must surely be their lowest ever point, vote for Fianna fucking Fáil. Sure, throw in a bit of spin, some canny canvassing and some snazzy posters and they could probably have that figure up to 30% or higher within a month. And that, with the vagaries of the proportional representation system, could amount to them getting back into government. Just imagine it. A vote of confidence for their lies and their conniving and their startling incompetence. A slap on the back for their slavering alcoholism. And a mandate (a real one this time) for their four year plans and whatever other havoc they might like to wreak on the country.
A sentence you may hear a lot in the forthcoming weeks is "Ah, those politicians are all as bad as each other." People who say this fall into two categories:
1. Those whose unspoken follow-up sentence is "So I won't bother my hole voting or attempting to influence things in any way."
2. Those whose unspoken follow-up sentence is "So I'll carry on voting Fianna Fáil just like I've always done. Just like my parents and grandparents do."
The election, and the decisive change that this country needs, will be decided by how many of each category there are. And, sad to say, it won't much be influenced by what we read or write on blogs. There have been some excellent examples of articulate rage floating around the internet this week, in the usual places as well as interesting new blogs like Rise Like Lions! , but it is not going to be the blogosphere (or whatever other disgusting term you might have for it) where the decisive battles are fought for this election. It would be easy to gaze around and see like-minded souls everwhere; a critical mass of people who want this government to become one of those anomalies that history students will ponder in the future and think "How the fuck could people ever have put up with them?" I've been reading a wide range of blogs for three years now and I've never seen so much as one comment indicating any level of support for Fianna Fáil. Not one. But the average punter doesn't read blogs. Most of my friends don't, my family don't. Tonnes of twenty and thirty-somethings are still far more concerned with reality TV than reality. Without wishing to talk in very broad strokes, I don't think the elderly (the most committed of voting demographics) are checking in on Twenty Major's polemics with any great regulaity, either. Which means not many people are seeing stuff like this. Which means not enough people are seeing the important work that the likes of The Story are doing.
We can contnue to entertain ourselves in a kind of "No, I hate Fianna Fáil even more than you do!" kind of a way, but we might as well carry on being frivolous because it is surely only preaching to the choir. Standing outside your local polling centre hectoring every young apathete (I may have invented a word there) to get in and vote, and chiding "Don't do anything stupid, now, dear" to every OAP going in might prove to be a more effective tactic. Blogs will continue to provide a useful point of catharsis in these enraging times, but it might be foolhardy to expect much more.
I trust I can rely on your vote?
 |
| From the excellent Wheel Spinning Hamster Dead |
We also know that there will be a general election before too long.
This should represent a simple opportunity to kick Fianna Fáil and the Greens out of government and, with any luck, reduce their political influence to that of a sparrow farting in the breeze. But you wouldn't know, not in Ireland. Or perhaps, with 17% of the polled electorate still saying that they would, even at what must surely be their lowest ever point, vote for Fianna fucking Fáil. Sure, throw in a bit of spin, some canny canvassing and some snazzy posters and they could probably have that figure up to 30% or higher within a month. And that, with the vagaries of the proportional representation system, could amount to them getting back into government. Just imagine it. A vote of confidence for their lies and their conniving and their startling incompetence. A slap on the back for their slavering alcoholism. And a mandate (a real one this time) for their four year plans and whatever other havoc they might like to wreak on the country.
A sentence you may hear a lot in the forthcoming weeks is "Ah, those politicians are all as bad as each other." People who say this fall into two categories:
1. Those whose unspoken follow-up sentence is "So I won't bother my hole voting or attempting to influence things in any way."
2. Those whose unspoken follow-up sentence is "So I'll carry on voting Fianna Fáil just like I've always done. Just like my parents and grandparents do."
The election, and the decisive change that this country needs, will be decided by how many of each category there are. And, sad to say, it won't much be influenced by what we read or write on blogs. There have been some excellent examples of articulate rage floating around the internet this week, in the usual places as well as interesting new blogs like Rise Like Lions! , but it is not going to be the blogosphere (or whatever other disgusting term you might have for it) where the decisive battles are fought for this election. It would be easy to gaze around and see like-minded souls everwhere; a critical mass of people who want this government to become one of those anomalies that history students will ponder in the future and think "How the fuck could people ever have put up with them?" I've been reading a wide range of blogs for three years now and I've never seen so much as one comment indicating any level of support for Fianna Fáil. Not one. But the average punter doesn't read blogs. Most of my friends don't, my family don't. Tonnes of twenty and thirty-somethings are still far more concerned with reality TV than reality. Without wishing to talk in very broad strokes, I don't think the elderly (the most committed of voting demographics) are checking in on Twenty Major's polemics with any great regulaity, either. Which means not many people are seeing stuff like this. Which means not enough people are seeing the important work that the likes of The Story are doing.
We can contnue to entertain ourselves in a kind of "No, I hate Fianna Fáil even more than you do!" kind of a way, but we might as well carry on being frivolous because it is surely only preaching to the choir. Standing outside your local polling centre hectoring every young apathete (I may have invented a word there) to get in and vote, and chiding "Don't do anything stupid, now, dear" to every OAP going in might prove to be a more effective tactic. Blogs will continue to provide a useful point of catharsis in these enraging times, but it might be foolhardy to expect much more.
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
9
Notice anything wrong with these posters for films released in Ireland in the last year?
Stop being thick.
'All Right' and Traveler'. A superfluous L and gap and a missing L. Without wishing to go overboard, this blogger is firmly of the opinion that once we start welcoming weird American spellings into our world we might as well, oh, I don't know, salute the stars and stripes and snort Sunny Delight and suchlike. It's a slide that began when we accepted 'cool' as meaning anything other than 'pleasantly cold', took 'awesome' to mean 'quite agreeable' and used 'totally' to mean 'I fully agree'. It will soon reach its nadir when we begin using 'sick' as a positive adjective.
We can, it's fair to say, blame the youth on such tendencies? But now they're smearing it all over our film posters like H-Block protesters. Mark my words, good people, this may very well be the beginning of the end, if the end didn't already begin on the day my mother deemed it appropriate to use the word 'guesstimate' in my presence.
Of course, one might suggest that I am indulging in such pedantry and curmudgeonliness out of an anxiety caused by my impending unemployment leading me to be slightly more on edge than usual. Well, you can all fuck off back to Texas too. It's ignoring the likes of this that led to the rise of Genghis Khan and Idi Amin and those lads, and I'm registering my displeasure at this growing tendency before Uncle Sam has wiped his "butt" with us entirely.
Normalcy
Notice anything wrong with these posters for films released in Ireland in the last year?
Stop being thick.
'All Right' and Traveler'. A superfluous L and gap and a missing L. Without wishing to go overboard, this blogger is firmly of the opinion that once we start welcoming weird American spellings into our world we might as well, oh, I don't know, salute the stars and stripes and snort Sunny Delight and suchlike. It's a slide that began when we accepted 'cool' as meaning anything other than 'pleasantly cold', took 'awesome' to mean 'quite agreeable' and used 'totally' to mean 'I fully agree'. It will soon reach its nadir when we begin using 'sick' as a positive adjective.
We can, it's fair to say, blame the youth on such tendencies? But now they're smearing it all over our film posters like H-Block protesters. Mark my words, good people, this may very well be the beginning of the end, if the end didn't already begin on the day my mother deemed it appropriate to use the word 'guesstimate' in my presence.
Of course, one might suggest that I am indulging in such pedantry and curmudgeonliness out of an anxiety caused by my impending unemployment leading me to be slightly more on edge than usual. Well, you can all fuck off back to Texas too. It's ignoring the likes of this that led to the rise of Genghis Khan and Idi Amin and those lads, and I'm registering my displeasure at this growing tendency before Uncle Sam has wiped his "butt" with us entirely.
Friday, June 25, 2010
8
Icerain Icerain, baby
I did not get that job, as I thought. I suspect that the postion was sewn up long before they even advertised it, and that my interview last week was the kind of sham that educational institutions are obliged to conduct, for reasons I'll never understand. This surly fucker does not appreciate having to take an unpaid day-off from his temporary job to get suited and booted at crack of dawn o'clock for a joke of a ten minute interview. There will be other jobs, but it's hard to imagine one that I would be better qualified and experienced for. Fuck 'em.
It only started to really get to me when my mother called as I was on my way to work this morning and sounded genuinely heartbroken for me.
Further to this, some bollix decided to invade our home in the middle of the night the other day (I'm leaving Rosie to write all the descriptive stuff about our shared experiences these days, as she's so much better at it), leaving us both sleep-deprived and a little shaken. My system has yet to sort itself out and the primal rage that had me barking threats and obscenities at him like a rottweiler at a postman has yet to fully subside. A fat American nearly got me run over by a bus earlier and I didn't know whether to bellow at him or burst into tears.
Time for a holiday.
Fortunately, our renowned skills in assisting people with house and dog-sitting have brought us a free stay in this place, starting tomorrow. Not bad, I suppose. Still, the downside of it is that if i want to use the local municipal swimming pool I have to follow French law and abstain from sporting a nice comfortable pair of swimming shorts. Apparently I'd be refused entry in loose trunks but the bienvenues would be a-flowing were I to rock up in these bad boys. You gotta love them.
However, to fully achieve rehabilitation fully I reckon I may have to treat les femmes francaises to the sight of the semi-legendary Andrew gooch in these:
Mais oui.
Disclosure: Oddly bulbous crotchal region not blogger's own.
It only started to really get to me when my mother called as I was on my way to work this morning and sounded genuinely heartbroken for me.
Further to this, some bollix decided to invade our home in the middle of the night the other day (I'm leaving Rosie to write all the descriptive stuff about our shared experiences these days, as she's so much better at it), leaving us both sleep-deprived and a little shaken. My system has yet to sort itself out and the primal rage that had me barking threats and obscenities at him like a rottweiler at a postman has yet to fully subside. A fat American nearly got me run over by a bus earlier and I didn't know whether to bellow at him or burst into tears.
Time for a holiday.
Fortunately, our renowned skills in assisting people with house and dog-sitting have brought us a free stay in this place, starting tomorrow. Not bad, I suppose. Still, the downside of it is that if i want to use the local municipal swimming pool I have to follow French law and abstain from sporting a nice comfortable pair of swimming shorts. Apparently I'd be refused entry in loose trunks but the bienvenues would be a-flowing were I to rock up in these bad boys. You gotta love them.
However, to fully achieve rehabilitation fully I reckon I may have to treat les femmes francaises to the sight of the semi-legendary Andrew gooch in these:
Mais oui.
Disclosure: Oddly bulbous crotchal region not blogger's own.
Thursday, June 3, 2010
8
Beware of Small States
A few years ago I spent about a month working in an orphanage in Tanzania and staying in a youth hostel there. Among the volunteers there were two brothers from L.A. in their early twenties. Let's call them Dumbo and Follo. Volunteer work is, much as I am loath to admit it, an egotistical pursuit in many ways. The volunteer gets a kick out of knowing that they're helping someone and gets a kick out of people saying "Oh, aren't you great to be doing that!" Nevertheless, these two clowns took the vanity of the exercise to magnificent levels. One brother could not encounter a Tanzanian child without the other brother making sure it was caught on video. Whereupon the child's ears would be assaulted with something along the lines of "You're WELCOME!! WE'RE JUST DOING WHAT WE CAN, LITTLE FRIEND." On one magnificent occasion Dumbo was calling home to his mother when the emotions of working in the orphanage overcame him and he started to cry. As he did so he quietly beckoned Follo closer and indicated that he was to start recording him. They didn't see anything comical in recounting this story to the other volunteers. Another time, the two were painting a classroom when Dumbo's wrist suddenly went limp and his brush began dribbling paint onto his pristine new boots.
"Dude, what are you doing?!" cried Follo.
"Bro, when we're back home I can wear these shoes to bars and when girls ask why there's paint on them I can tell them I got it painting an orphanage in Africa."
A grin flashed over Follo's face. "You're a fucking genius, dude," he said as he tastefully daubed his own footwear.
But I digress. Wildly. All you need to know about these guys is that they were chumps. They took chumpishness to transcendent levels. They were also Italian-American, as Italian-American as Paulie Walnuts or the gang from Jersey Shore. Guidos, as I believe they call them in the States. Only for some reason they fancied themselves as Jewish, despite the fact that they had no lineage whatsoever to that effect. They liked to prance around the hostel louding chanting and dancing at sunset on Friday evenings because that's when The Sabbath began. At other points one brother would wander into a group of entirely disinterested fellow guests and tell them not to look for the other one for the next half hour or so, as he was busy praying. Such spiritual fellows they were. It took only a little prodding after a couple of drinks to get Follo to admit one day that Madonna and her high profile Kabbalah guff had more than a little influence on them, and that that shit was hot in L.A. right now. They chose to wear their Judaism on their sleeves with obnoxious Israeli Airforce t-shirts, rather than red strings on their wrists. You could not have made these guys up.
And then there was Dani. Dani had just finished her two year stint of mandatory military service in the Israeli army and was now travelling for a bit before starting university in Tel Aviv. Dani went about her day quietly, and did not care one jot for the posturing of Dumbo and Follo, or the sorry advances they made at her. She laughed off jokes we made about Israeli military training consisting solely of throwing stones at Palestinians, and expressed exasperation at the whole situation. Two years of army bullshit still didn't seem to have put a warmongering thought in her head. She didn't think being Jewish made her better than anyone else. She wished it was all very different.
Ack.
This all seemed to make a lot more sense when I began it a couple of night ago, feeling more shocked and saddened by a news story than I almost thought possible of my jaded head. I don't know exactly how I feel about it all. But I know that the actions of the Israeli army the other day weren't done in the name of people like Dani, but that they are enabled by people like Dumbo and Follo, stuffed to the gills with the romantic, dangerous bollocks that they attach to the idea of the rightful home of God's Chosen People.
As for the boys themselves? They couldn't be reached for comment as they are currently on a Buddhist retreat with the Jonas Brothers and three of the backing dancers from Glee.
"Dude, what are you doing?!" cried Follo.
"Bro, when we're back home I can wear these shoes to bars and when girls ask why there's paint on them I can tell them I got it painting an orphanage in Africa."
A grin flashed over Follo's face. "You're a fucking genius, dude," he said as he tastefully daubed his own footwear.
But I digress. Wildly. All you need to know about these guys is that they were chumps. They took chumpishness to transcendent levels. They were also Italian-American, as Italian-American as Paulie Walnuts or the gang from Jersey Shore. Guidos, as I believe they call them in the States. Only for some reason they fancied themselves as Jewish, despite the fact that they had no lineage whatsoever to that effect. They liked to prance around the hostel louding chanting and dancing at sunset on Friday evenings because that's when The Sabbath began. At other points one brother would wander into a group of entirely disinterested fellow guests and tell them not to look for the other one for the next half hour or so, as he was busy praying. Such spiritual fellows they were. It took only a little prodding after a couple of drinks to get Follo to admit one day that Madonna and her high profile Kabbalah guff had more than a little influence on them, and that that shit was hot in L.A. right now. They chose to wear their Judaism on their sleeves with obnoxious Israeli Airforce t-shirts, rather than red strings on their wrists. You could not have made these guys up.
And then there was Dani. Dani had just finished her two year stint of mandatory military service in the Israeli army and was now travelling for a bit before starting university in Tel Aviv. Dani went about her day quietly, and did not care one jot for the posturing of Dumbo and Follo, or the sorry advances they made at her. She laughed off jokes we made about Israeli military training consisting solely of throwing stones at Palestinians, and expressed exasperation at the whole situation. Two years of army bullshit still didn't seem to have put a warmongering thought in her head. She didn't think being Jewish made her better than anyone else. She wished it was all very different.
Ack.
This all seemed to make a lot more sense when I began it a couple of night ago, feeling more shocked and saddened by a news story than I almost thought possible of my jaded head. I don't know exactly how I feel about it all. But I know that the actions of the Israeli army the other day weren't done in the name of people like Dani, but that they are enabled by people like Dumbo and Follo, stuffed to the gills with the romantic, dangerous bollocks that they attach to the idea of the rightful home of God's Chosen People.
As for the boys themselves? They couldn't be reached for comment as they are currently on a Buddhist retreat with the Jonas Brothers and three of the backing dancers from Glee.
Thursday, December 3, 2009
11
Chancing my arm, biting my lip
Things people say to staff in the Irish Cancer Society shop:
"I'm buying three of these shirts, I should get a discount."
"€1.50 for that? I'll give you €1.20 for it."
(Proceeds to pay with a €50 note.)
"Could you not throw that one in for free? Sure yiz get all your stuff for free anyway."
"30 cent for The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold, brilliant."
"I think we have another of her books out in the back, will I get it for you?"
"Please."
(upon returning) "That's 40 cent for that one, please."
"Oh, it's dearer?"
(To the manager)
"I'm not waiting till Saturday to buy that figurine in the window display, I want it now. I'm calling the head office to make a complaint."
"There's a tiny stone missing from this brooch, can you give it to me for a fiver instead of 7.50?"
"It's 7.50 because there's a stone missing, it's worth at least 40 otherwise."
"I'll give you six for it if you'll wrap it up for me."
What this member of staff thinks about saying to these people every day:
"One in four of you will contract some kind of cancer one day, cuntos, one in four of you."
"I'm buying three of these shirts, I should get a discount."
"€1.50 for that? I'll give you €1.20 for it."
(Proceeds to pay with a €50 note.)
"Could you not throw that one in for free? Sure yiz get all your stuff for free anyway."
"30 cent for The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold, brilliant."
"I think we have another of her books out in the back, will I get it for you?"
"Please."
(upon returning) "That's 40 cent for that one, please."
"Oh, it's dearer?"
(To the manager)
"I'm not waiting till Saturday to buy that figurine in the window display, I want it now. I'm calling the head office to make a complaint."
"There's a tiny stone missing from this brooch, can you give it to me for a fiver instead of 7.50?"
"It's 7.50 because there's a stone missing, it's worth at least 40 otherwise."
"I'll give you six for it if you'll wrap it up for me."
What this member of staff thinks about saying to these people every day:
"One in four of you will contract some kind of cancer one day, cuntos, one in four of you."
Tuesday, December 1, 2009
7
After yet another foul, fetid week in the history of this country a diary entry from exactly 140 years ago has summed things up better than I can. As have Radge and Gimme.
What others were feeling like today #14
1869
Old Irish airs on violin. I love Ireland: were she only not Catholic! But would she be Ireland otherwise?
After yet another foul, fetid week in the history of this country a diary entry from exactly 140 years ago has summed things up better than I can. As have Radge and Gimme.
Thursday, October 15, 2009
7
Tell them I hate them
I wandered along Thomas Street thinking "If I can't see it then I don't have to go, if I can't see it then it's not really there." But it was there. It was the big dirty building with SOCIAL WELFARE OFFICE above it in bright blue letters. It was my first time, and I expected it to hurt."28 years without anyone's help," I thought grandly. "Well, 28 years without anyone's help but that of my parents. Whose help was, at times, one must admit to oneself, of the sizeable variety. But still."
The nice lady at reception directed me to the Fresh Claims counter, whilst the obese man behind me tutted about Nigerians in between his sweaty gasps for breath. "I'm not like you people", I thought, "I washed today and I don't want to be here. I worked last week, I worked!" Two tracksuit warriors, no more than 19, wandered in, dragging mountain bikes across the beige carpet. "It's not my day for signin' on, I signed on yesterday," said the chap in the blue cap airily, to no-one in particular. They appeared to be there just for the craic, leaning their bikes near the counter I was headed to, then kneeling on the chairs like it was their living room at home, as they nattered to some comrades in the queue.
I took ticket 53 and waited in a chair. The queue for payments grew 30 or so long and showed little sign of movement. A bloke nodded to me from the queue. He looked about my age and like the type of person I might know, but his face rang no bells. Lots of people there looked like people I might know, looked not unlike me. If he really did know me then I resented him for showing it. A raised voice coming from behind a closed door in one of the interview rooms started to dominate the place, rising to a crescendo "...no, you're bullying me,WHERE'S. MY. MONEY?! "
"Where's mine?" responded some wag in the line, raising a few titters. I was feeling titterless.
A short, curly-headed woman comes out. "Sorry folks, there's a dispute going on in the office next to mine. You'll have to just ignore it, let it go in one ear and out the other, please." She seemed to rank this oafish grab for lucre alongside the Secrets of Fatima. Her face falls "It's difficult for everyone, it's in the office next to mine." A sigh. "Can whoever owns these bikes please take them outside, please?" The warrior in the grey cap arose sulkily "A'right, I'm movin' them, I'm movin' them. Jaysis." She let them leave them just inside the door, just as Wheresmymoney exited Interview Room D fatly, slamming the door fatly behind him and fuming fatly outside. Like a big fat man, the kind of big fat man that makes me feel better about my own fluctuating levels of chub.
My number finally came up, and I approached the counter.
"Do you live in Dublin 8?"
"Yes, in Portobello," I said too loudly, making it clear that I am better than these folks from The Coombe, and that, were it not for the peccadillos of the postal code people and a narrow streak of grimy canal, I'd have been allowed make the five minute mosey to the Rathmines Social Welfare office instead, where small, neat lines of fecund and attractive briefly-down-on-their-luck artists would welcome me, where no-one wears tracksuits or gets angry, where seldom is heard a discouraging word and the skies are not cloudy all day.
The lady was calm and patient, telling me what forms to fill in and arranging me an appointment for next week. Her constantly changing expressions of surprise as she surveyed her screen left me wondering exactly what kind of information a PPS number leaves one privy to. I left with a fistful of paperwork for both me and my sometime employers to fill in, with the bemused impression that I might somehow have been better off not working at all since June.
The nice lady at reception directed me to the Fresh Claims counter, whilst the obese man behind me tutted about Nigerians in between his sweaty gasps for breath. "I'm not like you people", I thought, "I washed today and I don't want to be here. I worked last week, I worked!" Two tracksuit warriors, no more than 19, wandered in, dragging mountain bikes across the beige carpet. "It's not my day for signin' on, I signed on yesterday," said the chap in the blue cap airily, to no-one in particular. They appeared to be there just for the craic, leaning their bikes near the counter I was headed to, then kneeling on the chairs like it was their living room at home, as they nattered to some comrades in the queue.
I took ticket 53 and waited in a chair. The queue for payments grew 30 or so long and showed little sign of movement. A bloke nodded to me from the queue. He looked about my age and like the type of person I might know, but his face rang no bells. Lots of people there looked like people I might know, looked not unlike me. If he really did know me then I resented him for showing it. A raised voice coming from behind a closed door in one of the interview rooms started to dominate the place, rising to a crescendo "...no, you're bullying me,WHERE'S. MY. MONEY?! "
"Where's mine?" responded some wag in the line, raising a few titters. I was feeling titterless.
A short, curly-headed woman comes out. "Sorry folks, there's a dispute going on in the office next to mine. You'll have to just ignore it, let it go in one ear and out the other, please." She seemed to rank this oafish grab for lucre alongside the Secrets of Fatima. Her face falls "It's difficult for everyone, it's in the office next to mine." A sigh. "Can whoever owns these bikes please take them outside, please?" The warrior in the grey cap arose sulkily "A'right, I'm movin' them, I'm movin' them. Jaysis." She let them leave them just inside the door, just as Wheresmymoney exited Interview Room D fatly, slamming the door fatly behind him and fuming fatly outside. Like a big fat man, the kind of big fat man that makes me feel better about my own fluctuating levels of chub.
My number finally came up, and I approached the counter.
"Do you live in Dublin 8?"
"Yes, in Portobello," I said too loudly, making it clear that I am better than these folks from The Coombe, and that, were it not for the peccadillos of the postal code people and a narrow streak of grimy canal, I'd have been allowed make the five minute mosey to the Rathmines Social Welfare office instead, where small, neat lines of fecund and attractive briefly-down-on-their-luck artists would welcome me, where no-one wears tracksuits or gets angry, where seldom is heard a discouraging word and the skies are not cloudy all day.
The lady was calm and patient, telling me what forms to fill in and arranging me an appointment for next week. Her constantly changing expressions of surprise as she surveyed her screen left me wondering exactly what kind of information a PPS number leaves one privy to. I left with a fistful of paperwork for both me and my sometime employers to fill in, with the bemused impression that I might somehow have been better off not working at all since June.
Monday, September 7, 2009
14
The Second Sole
"Is it ready yet?" you bark at the chap behind the counter, "I've been waiting twenty fucking minutes."
This is a lie. I think you had placed your order just before me, and I was only gone two minutes, fetching milk in the Late Nite shop across the road.
"Nearly," says the chipper man, as he stares intently at the pan, willing the fish to cook faster. I sense you were chatty while I wasn't there, too.
You wear a navy suit, not shabby but not half as suave as you might have hoped. It looks massively incongruous in such surroundings on a Sunday night. You are upper middle-aged and middle middle-class. You are old enough and educated enough to know better than to be an asshole to nice fellows working in chip-shops. Your belligerent demeanour makes me assume drink was playing its part, though you were odourless from where I stood.
And, for a moment, I want to smash your fucking face in. To decorate the pristine white tiles on the wall with a smattering of your blood. If only to put manners on you.
It passes.
Your order arrrives: two fresh sole and two chips, and you pay with a twenty. "I want all my fucking change, now," you growl, your prey fumbling at the till. You get your fucking change, and an astonishingly genuine sounding thank-you.
You turn to leave, and see me for the first time. I must look strange, freshly returned from a festival, spattered with mud and smelling faintly of rum. But your face speaks of only of contempt, not of bemusement. I resist the instinct to move out of your path and I make you walk around me instead. You meet my eyes in a way that makes my blood run cold. And you leave.
My food is ready instantly. As I suspected, it was ready before yours but they dared not give it to me first. I leave a twenty cent tip by way of a sympathy gesture and leave. Looking up the road I see you clunking your way along the pavement towards Camden Street.
And I can't help but wonder as to who's at home, awaiting you and the second sole.
This is a lie. I think you had placed your order just before me, and I was only gone two minutes, fetching milk in the Late Nite shop across the road.
"Nearly," says the chipper man, as he stares intently at the pan, willing the fish to cook faster. I sense you were chatty while I wasn't there, too.
You wear a navy suit, not shabby but not half as suave as you might have hoped. It looks massively incongruous in such surroundings on a Sunday night. You are upper middle-aged and middle middle-class. You are old enough and educated enough to know better than to be an asshole to nice fellows working in chip-shops. Your belligerent demeanour makes me assume drink was playing its part, though you were odourless from where I stood.
And, for a moment, I want to smash your fucking face in. To decorate the pristine white tiles on the wall with a smattering of your blood. If only to put manners on you.
It passes.
Your order arrrives: two fresh sole and two chips, and you pay with a twenty. "I want all my fucking change, now," you growl, your prey fumbling at the till. You get your fucking change, and an astonishingly genuine sounding thank-you.
You turn to leave, and see me for the first time. I must look strange, freshly returned from a festival, spattered with mud and smelling faintly of rum. But your face speaks of only of contempt, not of bemusement. I resist the instinct to move out of your path and I make you walk around me instead. You meet my eyes in a way that makes my blood run cold. And you leave.
My food is ready instantly. As I suspected, it was ready before yours but they dared not give it to me first. I leave a twenty cent tip by way of a sympathy gesture and leave. Looking up the road I see you clunking your way along the pavement towards Camden Street.
And I can't help but wonder as to who's at home, awaiting you and the second sole.
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