Ahhh, all the kids out in their costumes, and for some of them it's a valuable introduction to their future career as feckless little beggars. Going to door to door 'Help the halloween party!' they cry and hold out a bag for you to fill with sweets.

I have gained a reputation for not giving out sweets. I give fruit.

"Here are some delicious apples for you all!" I say. Even behind the masks I can see the look of scorn on their faces and they slink off down the driveway muttering.

"I heard that ya little feckers!" I might shout after them every once in a while.

"That's because of your big ears ya feckin' bollix" one might shout back before they all run as fast as their little legs will carry them.

But which one of them will get the poison one? I'll have to wait for tomorrow's newspapers to find that out.

I see Bewley's Cafés on Westmoreland Street and Grafton Street are to close with the loss of more than 200 jobs in Dublin. Not much of a surprise. Let me tell you why.

If you're on the continent and you go into even the shittiest little café and order a coffee they take a scoop of fresh coffee, do the do with their machines, add the milk and it's a guaranteed winner every time. In Spain and Italy in particular the coffee is fantastic and cheap too.

You go into Bewleys and you get a giant mug which is filled up from a cauldron of coffee that they've stewed up early that morning. It's like drinking hot mud, except not as nice. It's been like that for years. I just don't understand why they haven't closed earlier.

Obviously they've got a lot of history. Bewley's cafés are long associated with Dublin's literary scene and for as long as I can remember the early opening was a winner with Debs ball attendees as they staggered around town looking for an early breakfast.

Back in the day I used to always arrange to meet friends outside Bewleys on Grafton Street, not that you'd ever really go in, but it's halfway down the street and handy for when you had to meet friends who had the misfortune of living on the Northside of town.

But now they're going to close. And it's their own fault for serving muck for years. No doubt it'll be snapped up by somebody like Starbucks who can serve giant beakers of triple-decaff-mocha-choca-latté for €4 a pop and the homogonisation (is that a word, if not it should be) of the world can continue at pace.

-----------------------

This court case about Eamon Dunphy, the bouncer and the kiss is quite revolting, isn't it? Obviously this big tough bouncer feels terribly emasculated having been given a smacker by the former Milwall player but I think I'd be more concerned about getting the appropriate shots than looking for compensation.

Imagine the scene. You're driving to work. You look ahead of you and see a pig's head on a stake. Frightening. But don't worry, it's just an advertisement for a performance of Lord of the Flies, the William Goldman novel about kids stranded on an island who go pig hunting then turn into savages who try and kill each other, like Blackrock College students coming out of Annabels.

It's certainly an interesting way to promote the play and to be honest I'm all for it. It's different. It gets people talking and we should do more stuff like this. In an age when beheadings are de riguer and we see dead bodies from crazy wars on the news every day why should anyone be offended by the head of an animal most of the people in Ireland devour on a daily basis?

I expect other theatre groups to follow suit. Romeo and Juliet could be promoted by having an open tomb with the dead bodies of two lovestruck teenagers, let's do Othello with a Nigerian immigrant and Michael McDowell as Iago, we could have an inner city family on a reality TV show thinking they're about to win the lottery in Juno and the Paycock style (and wouldn't Eamon Dunphy make a most excellent Joxer?) while valuable promotion for Dublin's new light rail system could be made by painting naked pictures of beautiful women on the side of the trams for 'A LUAS car named desire'.

Once my term as President is over (I'll give auld Mary another seven years before I make my move) I might become a marketing genius.

Desperate for something to do on a Saturday night after everyone is kicked out of the clubs and pubs at the same time it appears people are throwing themselves into the River Liffey for dares.

A senior officer at the Dublin Fire Brigade reckons they're dealing with at least ten cases every week. This also puts a strain on the ambulance services because it's fucking freezing in there and the jumpers are coming out with hypothermia. Given the state of the River Liffey I'd do some checks for Ebola and those little killer fish that swim down the eye of your mickey.

I suppose the reason there's such a drinking culture in Ireland is that there's fuck all else to do. The weather is shite so all you can do is head for a bar or restaurant and then onto a club if you're feeling up to it. Isn't it about time that the government did something about this? It's not as if they're sitting around waiting to see if the weather will improve so they can offer healthy outdoor activities. That's just not going to happen, so I've come up with a few ideas that will give people something to do rather than going out and getting pissed all the time.

1 - Demolish Trinity College and build dozens of 5-a-side football pitches with that cool new astroturf that doesn't strip the skin from you if you happen to fall over. This stuff is almost like real grass. Obviously you'd have to pay for your pitch, but what's €25 for an hour between 10 people? Nothing. Money raised could be spent on the maintenance of the pitches, the upkeep of the Book of Kells (which would be laminated, divided into separate pages and put up above the urinals so everyone could have a read) and for burning the bodies of dead tramps. This scheme also has the added bonus of ridding the city of thousands of wanky students.

2 - Put a tightrope between the that tall building - whose name escapes me but the Daniel O'Connell pub is just to right of it - on Eden Quay and the Baileys sign on the opposite side of the river. Put up an initial prize of €10,000 for anyone who can cross and charge €10 a go. Each entry adds to the prize fund. To make it more interesting invent a special cannon that shoots basketballs at the contestants as they try to make it across. I haven't yet decided about safety nets although if they were to be used some kind of fabric that conducts an electrical current would be ideal because not only would you see them fall, you'd also see them getting zapped with an almost fatal charge of electricity afterwards.

3 - Do a 'How long can you go without your mobile?' challenge. Take ten teenagers and put them in a room with only books for entertainment. Last one to take out their mobile to txt one of their friends, make an inane phone call or try to play classic arcade games on a screen smaller than their brains wins a prize. A year's supply of books from Easons. They think they're playing for a year's unlimited credit in their mobile. If they complain they get punched in the face. With an anvil.

4 - Invent a new TV show called 'Justin Thyme' where teams of contestants have to scour the country looking for people called Justin. When they get 5 Justins they have to disembowel them and stuff them with thyme. To avoid capture any Justin can use high powered weapons of their choice, including handguns, swords and the music of Enya.

5 - Instead of tying a piece of paper to leg of a racing pigeon, parents see if their child can become famous by tying their newborn infant to the legs of specially trained condors who race from town to town. Upon landing in each town the child is tattooed with a mark to prove they've landed. First condor-child team back at base wins.

6 - Beat the junkie - Heroin addicts are lured from their lairs with the promise of free drugs and clean underwear. Once they emerge from their underground caverns they're set upon by teenaged schoolgirls armed with bats. They proceed to batter the junkies to within a specified measurement of their lives. If one team succeeds in beating a junkie to within an inch of their lives they can claim the prize of a night with Brian McFadden.

And those are just off the top of my head. Any suggestions?

Why is it that John Peel had to die yet Gareth O'Callaghan still lives?

His wonderful voice, enthusiasm for music and true radio personality will be missed.

Twenty Major has discovered that George W Bush is not human but is the third generation of an artificial lifeform known as a Dimborg. These creatures were designed to become domestic help - Robo-butlers, if you will - but soon it was discovered they could be programmed to act in any way their handlers decided.

Recent footage of Bush during his debates with John Kerry showed a box sized hump on his back which many thought was a radio transmitter/receiver pack which allowed him to be guided through the discussions like some kind of sub-Cyrano de Bergerac fool. It's simply not true. That box shaped him is where his external power pack is held. Normally the President is powered by 14 walkman sized batteries but canny Democrats bought up every single battery in town before the debates meaning Bush had to wear his slightly cumbersome pack instead.

Previous Dimborgs have included Lee Harvey Oswald, Keith Harris and Orville, 80s rock chick Pat Benetar and Hollywood star Eric Roberts.

Dimborgs look and feel amazingly real although long-term problems with their brain to speech transmissions are proving tricky to overcome.

Tell your friends, don't vote for Bush unless you want a robot as President. And not a good robot like Bender.

I'm not a great fan of poetry, but being unable to think of something to write about this morning I decided I'd Durcan out a poem about Late Late Show presenter Pat Kenny. Hope you like it:

He's a cunty cunt
His jumpers are like vomit stains on our nation

He's a cunty cunt
May he die at Tara Street Dart station

He's a wanky wanker
With his simpering interview technique

He's a wanky wanker
His chin and spine are weak

He's a fucking fucker
I suspect he likes Michael Bolton

He's a fucking fucker
I'd like to shoot him with a Colt gun

Fucking cunty wanky runt
Retire, or die, you piss faced cunt

Celebrity faith. What a load of bollocks it all is.

This is what a friend of Madonna and Guy Ritchie's said about their recent conversion to the Kabbalah faith: "Rabbi Berg is the founding father of their religion and they both credit him with turning their lives around."

Turning their lives around? I've heard some utter crap in my life but that's right up there with the best.

Kabbalah has helped these two multi-millionaires become...erm...still multi-millionaires.

In reality what Kabbalah has done is made the most successful female artist of the last 20 years, who wrote great pop songs, into a crashing bore who thinks she can write children's books and makes cover versions of American Pie, possibly the cuntiest song ever written. And it's turned Ritchie, lauded as the future of English film after the tremendous Lock, Stock and two smoking barrells, into a fake Lord of the Manor, with his Pringle jumpers and flat caps and films that take less at the box office than Shanghai Surprise.

If it's turned their lives around so much they've gone from being well respected professionals to laughable stereotypes then this is quite a religion. If you can call it that.

Going around the place with a fucking rubber band on their arms like it's deep and meaningul. It's not. It's for celebrities with lives so empty and vacant they feel this fake spiritualism makes them better people. It's rubbish.

Now don't get me wrong. People can believe in what they want. People can have faith in what they want, but do it in private. Don't fucking announce it every time you step outside the fucking front door. I don't care. I don't want to read about it, hear about it, see it, smell it or anything else. It just smacks of publicity seeking for the cult religion's leader who's getting minted off the back of his celebrity converts. The Scientologists must be spewing.

If I could offer some small advice to Madoggy and Ritchie, it would be this: "Drop dead you cunts."

A woman has returned a suitcase full of notes and lyrics that was stolen from U2 in 1981. How nice.

Amazingly this suitcase contained the original lyrics to 'New Year's Day' which when it was first written was a petty snipe at a local rival of The Edge's called 'Hugh Deer'. It poked fun at his open sexuality, here's a snippet.

Tell all your friends that Hugh Deer's gay.
In Herbert Park you'll get a lay.
He wants to kiss your arse, cup your balls night and day.
He's a felcher, yes Hugh Deer's gay.
Yes, Hugh Deer's gay.

He...will drink your spunk again.
He...will drink your spunk again.


Those of you who thought Sunday Bloody Sunday was a song with a keen political message will be shocked by the original lyrics.

I can't believe that Hugh Deer's gay
I can't close my arse and make him go away
How long, how long is his fucking tongue?
How long, how lo-ooo-ooo-ooong.

Bono often thought that the suitcase being stolen was a blessing in disguise as 'New Year's Day' is the first song played in discos up and down the country after Auld Lang Syne and the snowy video was a major factor in propelling the Dublin lads to stardom.

We tried to get a comment from both parties, but Bono was off saving the world while Hugh Deer was told to never speak with his mouth full.

Sunday is a day of rest. Back on Monday.

It seems kids these days are missing out on physical exercise which has the result of turning lots of them into roly-poly, Billy Bunter-esque fatties. A reason that has been given is that schools are afraid of litigation so strenuous physical games have been banned from the playgrounds. Now the kids just slump around sending text messages to each other.

Schools have banned skipping ropes, hula-hoops (the toys not the fattening deep fried snack) and in some cases even running in the schoolyard is not allowed. Add to that the thought-free Findus chicken and oven chip dinners most kids are dished up and it's no wonder the children of Ireland are turning into little Sumo wrestlers.

When they play now they play with Playstations and computers. Back when I was a kid we used to go out all day to play. In the summer holidays the first game of football would start around 10am, and the games would continue until we couldn't see any more (either from dog-poo in our eyes blindness or nightfall, whichever came first). When Wimbledon was on we'd play tennis, when there was cricket on we'd play cricket (with our wooden tennis rackets with those bendy blue and white strings as the cricket bat), and if there were girls hanging around sometimes we'd play rounders so they could join in.

When sports got a bit tiresome we'd play games like bulldog. You start with 10 kids, for example, 9 on side of the kerb, 1 in the middle. Then all 9 kids would run at once to the other side of the road with the kid in the middle trying to stop them. If you got caught you joined the kid in the middle. After a while it would be 5-5, then 3-7 until eventually you were left with 1 against 9. Being amongst the last few your chances of injury were heightened considerably. It wasn't uncommon to see bloody noses, swollen lips and sprained ankles.

I remember one game when there were 2 of us left and about 11 in the middle. Just me and another little lad called Shane. We're standing on the kerb getting ready. The kids in the middle are telling us how badly we're going to get hurt and there's no way we're going through. Shane was a little bit mad. I once saw him try and kick the shit out of a lamp-post after he'd run into it headfirst playing football. Anyway, he took off at a rate of knots, screaming at the top of his lungs.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRR-urkkkkkkkkkk - he went. Two of guys in the middle had clotheslined him, catching him right in the throat. He lay gasping and choking on the ground so loudly they all forgot about me and went over to check. It was one of my finest victories ever and for about a week afterwards Shane's voice sounded exactly like Bonnie Tyler's singing. Everyone thought he was cool though.

We used to show off our injuries like medals. I once slipped off my bike and gashed my thigh, I still sport the scar to this day. Peter used to get nosebleeds all the time. At first he was kind of freaked out by them but in the end when it started bleeding he wouldn't even hold his head up and pinch. He'd let the blood run down his face and chase after smaller kids or girls.

Then there was Carl. We all used to play up this side road near our houses. Quite often we'd be playing football and there'd be a call of nature meaning you had to go back home to use the toilet (this is when sitting on the toilet was required, the woods beside the football pitch were perfect for taking a whizz), but Carl never wanted to stop playing. So when he badly needed to go for a poo he'd get down on one knee, almost like the way you'd kneel for royalty, and he was convinced this would push the poo back up and let him play on for longer. This worked even when he had a turtle's tail. One day he did it too often and went home complaining of stomach cramps. We didn't see him for a few days after that and it turns out he had some kind of poisoned bowel.

Anyway, the point is none of us were fat. That's because we went outside of our houses. We didn't have mobile phones for parents to check up on us. We left, we came back, we left again, to no great schedule. It's a shame that today's media has turned the world into a place that's apparently not safe for kids to do anything when in reality it's probably no more dangerous than when we were growing up.

As for the schools banning running, they should be brought to court for being stupid cunts, a new offence which, I believe if added to the justice system in Ireland, would see prison overcrowding become a massive problem but would make our towns and cities better places to live.

A man in County Cork has been given a 12 month suspended jail sentence for sending offensive text messages to various women all around Ireland.

Twenty Major has an exclusive transcript of some of them:

Perv: im gn 2 ks u

Victim: What?

Perv: I sd im gn 2 ks u & den lck ur ars

Victim: Is this some kind of code?

Perv: Bnd ovr n sk my hge rod u drty btch

Victim: If you're attempting to dispatch some kind of missive to which I am expected to respond, I suggest you make use of a dictionary for you are as erudite and intelligible as a farmyard beast or a Government minister.

The presiding Judge said the man's messages were "vulgar, obscene, and grossly offensive". And that's the just the way they were written.

Elsewhere I see Fidel Castro has broken his arm after a fall. He may have broken his kneecap too. It put me in mind of other famous political injuries.

In 1984 Margaret Thatcher dislocated her quim during an Anglo-Irish conference. Garret Fitzgerald helped her put it back in place.

In 1989, whilst preparing his Presidential campaign, Brian Lenihan woke up to discover the bolt from his neck was missing.

Nobody was shocked when Doctor Ian Paisley grew up to be an enormous cunt.

Former US President Jimmy Carter once farted and followed through during a debate on live television. The previous night's curry and peanut wine scorched the shape of Che Guevara onto the back of his thigh.

Finally Mahatma Ghandi had a rectal polyp with foot long tentacles which caught and devoured fish like a sea anenome whenever he went swimming. He was barred from the Delhi Hilton after his arse tried to consume the four year old son of the British ambassador.

I read this morning in The Independent (and at this point I'd like to point out that I never buy the filthy rag but am not averse to reading it when it's free and I don't have the back of a cereal box handy) that Gardai are adding 'tasers' to their weapons arsenal.

Now, in Ireland the normal policemen don't carry guns. Only the special squads, known as Mega-Gardai or Gardai Plus, carry guns. The police chiefs are worried about these lads having guns because they rarely get a chance to use them and the minute they see any kind of mentaller they shoot the fucker dead on his own doorstep. So the 'tasers', which shoot an electric current into an attacker, incapacitating him for a few minutes, are thought to be the answer.

They're a good idea if you ask me, and they should be issued to all Gardai. Using these would put some manners on the drunken louts that plague our city.

Imagine the scene. It's 2.45am on a Sunday morning. Hundreds of culchies are coming out of CopperFace Jacks on Harcourt Street. There's a disagreement. Perhaps Mickey-Joe has been having an affair with Seamus' sister. There are some shovel-handed punches thrown. It's all getting a bit out of hand. Along come the Gardai, they taser whoever's involved and leave them lying in a pool of their own piss and vomit on the side of the road. Don't you think the lads would think twice about fighting the next time?

Another scene to imagine, if you will. A group of crusty, unwashed 'Reclaim the Streets' (reclaim the streets from what exactly? The giant ants that terrorise us all? Fuck off.) types are marching up Dame Street. They're singing, there are fuckers chanting, the possibility of catching head lice is greater than ever before and there are baggy-panted, dreadlocked little pricks from Foxrock and Malahide (who after reclaiming the streets will go home to Mammy and Daddy's €750,000 house to watch Sky+ or play their Playstations or XBoxs while downloading the latest films on their high speed internet connections) who are playing the fucking bongos. Maybe there's a right time and place for the bongos, but I've never encountered it yet.

Along come the Gardai. "Taste my feckin' taser Tarquin. Howd'ya like this Lorcan? Eat my volts, Vincent.

The bongos stop. Without the bongos these cunts are powerless. To these new fangled hippy types the bongos are like Samson's hair. How do they know which sub-Jester dance step to do without them? More lying on the street in their piss and puke (although with some of them it'd be hard to know the difference between before and after), the traffic can move again and the streets have been reclaimed from the nasty infestation they'd suffered before.

It's so simple when you think about it. There's no long-term damage to anyone, they just get a short sharp lesson on how to behave.

Taser up the Gardai now. You know it makes sense.

This is just fantastic (via Rob's Rants)

You flick through the dials, you hear the same song on 5 different stations, the same ads, the same everything. It's homogenous, it's boring, it's dull and safe. It's everything that's wrong about Ireland.

I remember in the late 70s and early 80s listening to the radio in Dublin was cool. For years we had nothing much to listen to. RTE, the BBC on the world service and then we started getting pirate radio stations. Radio Dublin was one I remember, but where it really kicked off was when the English lads came over. For years everything we had to listen to was on medium wave. Most of the kids won't even know what medium wave is, but it's like listening to music being played in a tin can 100 yards away after bursting your eardrums.

But then along came Radio Nova, on 88FM. Man that was cool stuff. We had the hottest hits to listen to, cool DJs, groovy sounding jingles and a city was changed. Soon we had the likes of Sunshine 101 and Q102 competing for the same listeners. But the Zoo Crew with Declan Meehan and Bob Gallico was the one show you had to listen to in the morning. As a kid going to school I didn't like getting up in the morning, but I'd wake up and lie in bed listening to my alarm clock radio just to hear these guys.



Then there were the giveaways. Nova ran a competition to give away £10,000 when they played 3 particular songs in the correct order. After weeks of promotion and almost playing them came the fateful day. The three songs got played, caller 100 was going to win the prize, but such was the fascination and enthusiam of the listeners that they brought down the entire telephone network in Dublin. Heady days.

Sadly Nova ran into difficulties with the NUJ, boss Chris Cary was a spiky character and it closed down in around 1985 I think. A re-grouped station called Energy 103 emerged but things would never be the same again. For those few years if you were cool you listened to Nova.

Now we have DJs all reading the same scripts, playing the same songs, station bosses afraid to give anybody licence to say anything that might upset advertisers and sponsors. And it's boring. Tedious. It makes me want to invent a device which would enable to me to say the words 'fucking cunty bollocks' over any broadcast in the land and nobody would be able to find me.

Regulation killed Irish radio.

Don't you think they'd make more money and raise the profile of their industry if they actually did something to convince you to give them money?

What's the big difference between a busker and a beggar (apart from one generally lives in a house and the other lives under a bridge or in a shop doorway)? The busker plays his guitar and sings a song, people willingly give him money. The beggar shuffles towards you stinking of piss and Liebfraumilch and you pass him by without making eye contact.

Now, everybody in this world has a talent. It might be singing, dancing, playing the guitar, turning your eyelids inside out, shooting milk out of your eyes or anything else. But we all have them. What beggars need to do is find out what it is they can do that will entertain people enough to give them money, and who knows, it might change their life.

Take the 3 little itinerant lads who used to stand together and sing on Grafton Street. They got money from people who thought 'Aaahh, look at the little urchins, aren't they cute?' and not only that they got themselves a record deal. At the moment they're recording an album in New York with Bob Clearmountain and Sting has written some meaningful songs for them to sing. True.

Then there was the bloke who used to beg outside the Golden Gonad at the Central Bank on Dame Street. It was discovered that he could paint stunningly accurate replicas of old masters from any era, and now he has a €1,000,000 a year job in Singapore producing fakes.

And what about Parliament Street Pete who could knock old women to the ground with a single punch. He's now a major celebrity in the Arab world.

So next time you see a beggar, don't ignore it. Encourage it to find its niche in the world, to cultivate its talent and to try and do something to earn the 13cents you have in your pocket.

If they refuse they should be ground down and fed to poor people for sustenance.

People who link to Salam Paxo - the Baghad blogger and stuffing manufacturer - when the rest of their blog is full of mindless drivel about their missing cats, what the weather is like, how they spent the weekend, and their links are all fluffy tripe hoping to send traffic the way of their Live Journal 'friends'.

If you think it makes you look intelligent, it doesn't. If you think people will think you've got gravitas and a keen political and social conscience, well they won't.

It's like all the kids in my class who bought 'Brothers in Arms'. Why? For fuck's sake, why? Because they thought it would mean their musical opinions would be more grown-up. It didn't. It just made everyone painfully aware they were mindless cunts.

QED.

HALF OF YOUNG PEOPLE OFFERED HARD DRUGS screams the headline.

Leaving aside grammatical issues as to whether or not it's the top or bottom half of young people that are being offered these drugs, I have to express my disappointment at these so-called 'pushers'.

When I was in 6th class, the last year before you enter senior school here in Ireland, I remember one of the teachers giving the class a talk about how when we got to senior school we'd become targets for people offering us drugs. They'd approach us and we had to say 'NO!'

I remember wondering who these people were. How come I'd never seen them before? Our school had a junior and senior section, but maybe you needed some secret knowledge to see them. Knowledge you would only get once you got into First Year. Well, after a final innocent summer of football and throwing stuff at girls instead of trying to kiss them, the big day arrived.

I was starting senior school and I was going to be offered drugs. The first day I came out of school I looked around to see if there were people hanging around the bike sheds to offer me drugs. Nope. Maybe they'd be outside the school. Nope. What about outside the newsagents where everybody stopped on the way home to get quarters of cola bottles, fruit cocktails and bonbons. Nope.

In fact, nobody offered me any drugs at all. No hash. No heroin. No acid. No smack. No coke. Not even a small pot of glue or tippex thinner. It was terribly disappointing, I have to say. It made me question what I'd been told in school. If this drugs thing wasn't true, maybe God didn't create the earth, maybe the Shannon wasn't the longest river in the British Isles and perhaps the sum of the the areas of the squares on the legs of a right triangle is not equal to the area of the square on the hypotenuse. What was a boy supposed to believe?

As I grew up I learned some things. The only people who actually offer you drugs, apart from friends or relatives, are generally scumbags trying to shift chunks of briquette as hash or Anadin pills.

If you want drugs, go ask. That's my advice and that's what I'll teach my kids. Save them the disappointment I suffered.

As someone who worked in call centres for quite some time, both as a phone agent and a 'team leader' (which meant I got to manage a group of people who'd rather have eaten their own poo than come to work some days), I found this quite amusing.

This outsourcing of call centres to India obviously makes financial sense. Typically a call centre agent in India costs about 20% of what they do in Ireland, quite a saving. But without hands-on control over what goes on in the call centre these companies are heading for a customer service nightmare. Mark my words.

In the call centre I worked in we generally had 3 or 4 team leaders present every day, as well as a call centre manager during regular working hours. Even on the late shift there were never less than 2 team leaders. And we still had problems. Agents hanging up on customers, being rude, playing network games of Counter Strike and Delta Force and just making up stuff to get the customers off the line. To be fair we did what we had to do well enough, and given the fact it's the kind of job you can only do for a short period of time without wanting to kill yourself I was always fairly lenient.

But can you imagine the Indian call centres? Not only are there the language difficulties, and I don't mean 'name and address and operating system' type normal English, but the idiomatic expressions as so beautifully outlined in the MP3 above, but there's the problem of clients not being able to recognise who they were talking to.

Example: "Hello XXXXXXnet technical support, this is Joe speaking. How can I help you?"

Joe has a very strong Dublin accent and Joe is a name you'd remember, right?

Example 2: "Hello XXXXXXnet technical support, this is Surav. How can I help you?"

Surav sounds like an Indian bloke. You don't know the difference between the accent of an Indian guy from the north of the country, or the south. He just sounds Indian. Now don't look back. What was his name again? Erm..."Hello, I was talking to some...erm...Indian bloke...."

Problems. Then there's the quality control. If something serious happens how do you manage it? And no doubt where our lads are playing video games these guys have full-on cricket matches happening in the call centre.

The other day my Dad rang Dell to order a printer. He got through to a bloke in India who didn't have a clue what he was on about. And this wasn't even customer service, this was sales.

The companies may be getting away with this cheap shit for now, but it'll come back to haunt them in the end. Maybe another time I'll post some of my call centre stories, revealing the scandal, drugs and sex that goes on inside these places of work.

For now though it's Counter Strike. Kabooooom.

I saw a charming story this morning on the BBC about video games are helping street children in Buenos Aires with their reading and writing. It really is quite remarkable.

If you've never seen a real street urchin they grow on damp buildings, down dark alleys amongst the moss and lichen that grows wherever there's lots of dog piss. They mature faster than normal children and by the age of 4 they've got the equivalent stealing stills of an 18 year old in Western countries. They survive on a diet of shellfish shells, mouldy vegetables and their infirm elders and communicate through a series of subsonic grunts and cries, which only they, with their specially adapated ears, can hear. This unique system of communication means their victims never hear the "¡Oye! Pablo! Tourista a las Once!" before their wallet is pilfered from their back pocket.

But now it turns out that playing games such as Streetfighter II, ISS and Manic Miner has improved the language skills of these strange creatures and they're also learning how to mingle with human beings in video arcades and cyber cafés. According to the Juan Marquez-Vasquez III, leading Argentinian sociologist, soon the urchins will mate with their new found friends and create a new species of Playstation Urchins, who can clear level after level of the most complicated games while using telekenisis to gather wealth and jewels, without even leaving their seats.

It's a remarkable world we live in.

Well today came the news that Superman actor Christopher Reeve has died, nine years after an horse riding accident which left him paralysed.

Some people have spoken about 'The curse of Superman' and when you look at some of the actors involved in the various films and TV shows it makes sense. Obviously you have Christopher Reeve, but in 1959 George Reeves, who played the man of steel in various TV series and movies, was found dead with single gunshot wound to his head. It's thought he was knocked off for having an affair with a studio boss' wife.

Then there's Margot Kidder, who played Lois Lane in the most recent movies. She went totally insane and used to shave her head with a Bowie knife and eat furniture until a cocktail of drugs made her a drooling vegetable.

What of Dean Cain, who played Superman in the TV series in the 90s? Well, since the series ended Cain has become completely invisible, which is not much good if you're an working actor, while Teri Hatcher, his Lois Lane, grew a 3 foot long tail and now works in a sideshow in Mexico.

Worst of all though is my old childhood friend John. He used to have a Superman outfit which we were all pretty jealous of back in the day. He had the flowing cape, the outside the pants underpants and the muscly, or girthsome, physique to wear it well. Sadly the curse has affected him too - he's now an accountant living in Callan, Co. Kilkenny.

It just doesn't bear thinking about.

Got the following email this morning:

While I enjoyed your obvious spoof about Travellers' weddings, I'd just like to point out that we're not all weapon maniacs who marry close family members.

I'd appreciate if you could keep your stereotypical views to yourself in future, we have a hard enough time as it is.

yours

Mickey Joe Youghal Cahirciveen Ennis Portumna Ballintubber Ballyjamesduff.

Happy to oblige, MJ.

Shocking news today that the Irish Olympic showjumping hero Cian O'Connor's horse has tested positive for banned substances. While the rider and the horses vets insist nothing untoward has gone on, our exclusive picture show it doesn't look good for our four legged friend:

It's been reported that pubs in Youghal, County Cork closed their doors and were catering only for 'private parties' as the town got ready to deal with two travellers' weddings yesterday.

Now I don't have any reports at all on the casualties or carnage, but wouldn't it be a great idea to build an enormous Roman style colloseum in the middle of the country, let's say Mullingar, and all travellers' weddings can take place there? One half of the colloseum could be a covered bar and dining area for the more traditional wedding celebrations. The eating, drinking and dancing that goes on at most weddings.

But the other half could be an open area, which the general public could pay to enter, and in which the travellers could partake in their favourite wedding activities, feuding, brawling and fighting. You'd think they'd have plenty of time to work out any problems before the first cousins took to the altar, but sadly these things tend to spill over to the wedding day. There's always somebody who doesn't like the way one husband is treating his wife and sister, so there are always fights.

The government could provide a range of old-style weapons, like maces, 2x4s with nails sticking out, scythes, giant fish hooks, spades, knuckle-dusters and enormous sabres. Then, for the entertainment of the viewing public, the feuding parties fight to the death. People complain that sports these days aren't like they used to be, well this would shut them up. If a fight went on too long without any clear winner, the public could vote to let the combatants go free, or they could vote to release the specially imported starving panthers and crocodiles to finish the job.

The money raised from the tickets could go to various public services and the meat from the corpses could be used to feed to cattle to make Irish beef Larry Goodman fresh once again.

We need some forward thinking in this country. Build the colloseum now.

It's coming up to that time of year again, when the young people of Dublin converge on Henry Street and Moore Street. Not for the shops, or the market stalls, but to buy fireworks.

But there are no firework shops, they're illegal in Ireland. Instead it's necessary to find one of the large women wearing big grey overcoats and buy tfrom them. They store the fireworks everywhere, in the coat, under jumpers, between their elephantine breasts and one time I swear I got a fishy Roman candle, but I'm over it now.

Now doctors are saying that awareness campaigns are a failure because people are always coming in with bits of their hands and faces blown off. But how can you have a successful fireworks awareness campaign when they're illegal?

What they need to do is regulate the sale of fireworks, ensuring that each box sold comes with safety instructions (although you don't have to be a fucking genius to know you shouldn't hold a lit firework and once you've thrown it at a passing car or a group of school children you need to run away really fast) and I guarantee there'd be less injuries.

The fact that kids have to buy their bangers and rockets illegally means there's a mischeviousness to having them in the first place and kids being kids want more mischief than that. Sell them in shops and half the danger is gone out of them.

When I was a lad and we couldn't afford fireworks we'd make our own using caps, matches, sellotape and sometimes a piece of copper pipe. One time we got a length of copper pipe - about 8 inches long - and filled it with match heads and caps. We closed off the ends with a pliers then we lit a fire in the little woods at the back of the estate where I lived, fucked the pipe into it and ducked behind a nearby tree for cover. 10 minutes later nothing had happened. One of my mates, we'll call him Johnny Thickfucker, decided to get up and investigate. Even at the tender age of 11 we knew this was madness and told him not to do it.

"I'll be fine, don't worry!" he said.

So he got up, walked over and lo and behold there was an incredible explosion. We ducked and afterwards we all thought we'd go over and find him decapitated or something. But no, there was Jonny, right as rain saying "I told you I'd be fine".

It was only when we turned to go back and found the chunk of copper pipe embedded in the tree that we realised how lucky he'd been. It must have flown past his head pretty close. He went a bit quiet after that.

So the moral of the story is, if you can't afford fireworks make your own explosives. I think.

9 people were injured yesterday when a fire broke out on a Canadian submarine off the north-west coast of Ireland.

Dozens more were taken to hospital when they decided to open the hatch to put the fire out.

So the man who shot John Lennon to death in New York has been denied parole for the third time.

To be honest I think it's time he was given a second chance. We see killers, rapists, child molesters and worse getting pitiful jail sentences. The only reason he's been in prison so long was because he shot a celebrity.

Let him go, see if rehabilitation works and let's see if he can give something back to society. Like taking out Paul McCartney too.

Good on Elton John for having a go at Madonna for miming on stage during her 'Re-invention' tour.

He said that anyone who mimes on stage when fans are paying £75 to go and see them should be shot. Quite honestly I think he's right. And I don't think we should just be restricted to people who mime. I believe that paying £75 to go and see anyone gives you the right to shoot them if their performance displeases you. It would certainly keep the stars on their toes.

Speaking of crap miming I happened to see the video for 'Dancing in the dark' by Bruce Springsteen, who I once saw live despite not liking him very much and even with that in mind I couldn't have shot him because he put on a very good show. I think it was in Croke Park. Or Lansdowne Road, I don't remember.

Anyway, this video is famous for the appearance of that dark haired girl from Friends who doesn't eat anything (just so you can tell her apart from the two blondes who don't eat anything). However, it should be famous for the worst miming/lip-synching performance of all time. You'd swear he'd never heard the song before. He looked like a deaf-mute trying Karaoke for the first time. His great bulldog style jaw was moving up and down but it didn't look like he was miming the words to the song, and had I been a lip-reader I'd have taken the following translation:

You cunt straw barf hire uh, You cunt straw barf hire uh about le park. His cunts a spire, steven E his juice lancin indy bark

Keep your eyes peeled to VH1 and you'll see I'm right.

...and his fishy handshake.

Poor old Seamus Brennan is said to be 'bitterly angry' and feels his demotion from the Fianna Fail front bench was 'brutal and unjust'. However, only three days ago I posted this and told both my readers that Seamus possesses the sort of handshake that curdles your blood and makes your skin stand on end. I bet if he had a stronger grip and shook hands like a man he'd still be part of the government. And not an ex-minister who will forever be known as the limp-wristed, slack-gripped man who lost his job because he couldn't shake hands properly.

I see Newstalk 106's decision to bring in Eamon Dunphy to the breakfast show seems to have paid off. And given el Dunpho's fondness of late night cocktails there's not much danger of him sleeping it in, although the morning you wake to himself serenading you with 'Show me the way to go home' can't be too far off.

Finally, thanks to Scaryduck, who is neither scary, nor a duck, for providing the very first comments to this blog. The momentous occasion was marked with an 'Arf!', then he told us how he told Uri Geller to 'fuck off'.

Start as you mean to go on, I say. I'm chuffed, so I am.

I've told this story to a number of people and none of them believe me, but to the day I die I'll remember when I saw Jurgen Klinnsman, ex German footballer who had the misfortune of playing for Spurs in the mid-late 90s.

I was walking at a leisurely pace to catch the 15B, the greatest bus route in Dublin, when I happened to glance over at the traffic stopped at the traffic lights by the Blue Haven pub.

Sitting in a shabby white Subaru (not sure of the model) was a face I recognised. It was footballer Jurgen Klinnsman. This was summer and the season was finished, but I did wonder why he was travelling around in such a minging car. I'm sure it was because he was travelling incognito, maybe to try and find some of the Nazi gold that's hidden in various Dublin locations (but not many people know about it, so don't tell anyone).

Maybe it was just a lookalike and I almost had myself convinced of that, but I figured there was a sure way to find out. His window was down and the stereo in the car was playing 80s classic 'Live is life' by Opus. So I shouted 'HEY JURGEN!!', and sure enough he looked around. Why would he look around if his name wasn't Jurgen? And how many people called Jurgen happen to look exactly like Jurgen Klinnsman? Exactly.

Then the lights changed and off he sped. And that was the day I saw Jurgen Klinnsman.

Another time I'll tell you all about the time I saw Boris Becker's gonads.

Looking at the eircom.net homepage this morning I saw the following headline:

Jordan 'could get Bigley free'

Now I know there are ways and means of dealing with sensitive diplomatic issues, but do they really think sending that giant-breasted slapper to the middle-east will do anything to save that poor man's life?

Turn your blog into a source of revenue.

That's what it says in my Blogger control panel. But isn't anyone else sick of going to a website and getting those poxy Google ads? Almost every site in the world has them now, from small blogs, to big corporate sites. But why? I asked some webmasters why they use Google ads and here's what they said:

"Well, like everyone's using them and the $3.97 I earn each year makes it all worth it" - S.Ucker - www.mysiteisuglynow.com

"It's amazing. Google ads have changed my life completely. Now I don't feel utterly worthless" - A. Sheep - www.followtheherd.info

"Must obey Google. Must obey Google. Must obey Google." - Brian Washed - www.lookintomyeyes.co.uk

So there you go, a resounding endorsement for making your site look like a tacky mess and ensuring you're just like everyone else.

...seen a fox taking a shit?

Nah. me neither.

1 - Put Michael McDowell in a Wrestlemania style cage with a Nigerian, some eastern Europeans, a couple of Chinese and some middle eastern refugees and get him to air his honest views on foreigners.

2 - Money could be raised for charity if Irish people pledged donations for every minute that Brian Cowen spoke without spitting and drooling.

3 - Release that Paris Hilton style video of Dana that surely must exist somewhere.

4 - Have someone interview Bertie Ahern in the voice of Elmer Fudd.

5 - Make Seamus Brennan shake hands with everyone in Ireland then sit back and watch him get booted out of office for having the most insipid, fishy handshake of all time (it's like he can't bear to touch you).

6 - Make Eamonn Dunphy the Ceann Comhairle.

7 - Televise Dail Eireann but sell advertising space and make Jackie Healy-Rae do all the voice-overs.

8 - In the run up to general elections make it compulsary for candidates to cavass votes in fancy dress.

9 - On the ballot paper include a box for 'None of those shiftless, crooked cunts'.

10 - Once a year have a pie-eating contest with Mary Harney pitted against a 350lb hog.

I hate mobile phones. Sadly I have to have one but if it rings and I don't recognise the number I don't answer and I don't check my voice mail either. Even if you're in the phone book and you ring me I might not answer.

Then there's texting, in this day and age a fairly antiquated way of communicating with anyone. You have to push buttons more than once to get the letter you need, they're a pain in the arse to punctuate properly (anyone who sends me a 'wt u @ l8r?' message will not only recieve no reply but will feel the full force of my fist in their genitals) and by the time you've texted out the whole fucking thing you could have spent 20 seconds on the phone to the person in question and sorted out whatever needed to be sorted out.

Then there's predictive text, where the phone guesses what word you want, normally to ridiculously poor effect. I have a friend who always uses this. Here are some examples of texts he's sent me, see if you can work out what they mean.

Why foot you answer your phone?

Is there a game on later or is horse happening?

Going to trump in town this evening. Do you want to car?

Sometimes but I gentry don't

And my all time fave when he was trying to arrange to go and see a film:

Give me a call this earring about the charity

No doubt in years to come we'll have a nation, nay, a world, full of people with twisted arthritic thumbs from all their energetic texting. And it'll serve the cunts right and I will laugh as my painless, perfectly formed thumbs function as normal. Oh yes.