"Twenty", said Stinking Pete, "imagine you got captured by the Taliban."

"Right, the Taliban. That's unlikely."

"Ok then, Al Qaeda or some other Northside vigilante group."

"Right."

"So you're captured and they're making you dress up like the bloke from scream crossed with a KKK bloke and they're getting a dog to bark in your face and scare the crap out of you and generally they're torturing the shite out of you."

"Grand, I'm picturing the scene, Stinking Pete. Go on."

"Ok, so after a while they offer you a deal. If you let them cut off one part of your body they'll let you go free. Now, it can't be hair or a fingernail or anything that normally stands a good cutting. Would you let them cut something off and if so what would it be?"

"I think you're a bit fucking mad, Pete, so I do, but anyway. It's an interesting question I have to say. Would a man sacrifice a part of his body to get away from the relentless suffering that a good old fashioned torturing at the hands of a bunch of nutters brings? Can we go the way of the animal caught in a trap who will gnaw, and that's pronounced 'guh-nauw' by the way, his own leg off rather than remain constrained by the mechanical teeth which make him a victim and an easy target for passing predators? The need to escape. The fight or flight insinct. It's very difficult to know how you would react, I suppose."

"Yeah, yeah, but which part of your body would you let them cut off?"

"Hmmm, let me think. Obviously I need the essentials. Mickey, bollocks, legs and arms. I quite like having all my fingers and toes too. Vincent van Gogh got away with only having one ear but I like having two. Nose, nah. Eyelids - I once read that if you cut someone's eyelids off they go insane and then they pull their own eyes out so I think I'd avoid that. Arse - well, I need my arse for sitting on and drinking pints. I mean drinking pints while I'm sitting, not that I've ever attempted to drink a pint with my arse. That would be silly. That really only leaves one option. I would let them cut off my right nipple. In fact, I might let them cut off my left nipple too. Let's face it, nipples on men are pretty useless. We do not produce milk and if we were clever enough we'd have figured out how to express 12 year old Laphroig by now so I figure they're going to remain useless for quite some time. Yep, for me that's the way out. It might be a bit sore but it's not going to be something that I'll ever miss and perhaps giving them two bits of my body to cut off they might give me a couple of elastoplast to help them heal up as I make my way home."

"I like your thinking, Twenty. You know what I'd get cut off?"

"Your enormous hunch? That freaky fucking white bubbly thing under your left eye which people who don't know you very well can't help staring at? Your sixth toe on your left foot, you Anne Boleyn looking freak? That ganglian on your inner-wrist? Your 'outy' belly button? That enormous wart on the end of your nose that makes you look like a witch?"

"Nah, don't be silly now, Twenty. I'd have them lop off my tail."

No doubt most of you have read about the riots in Dublin on Saturday.

A large group of Glasgow Rangers fans wanted to march (what is this Unionist obsession with marching anyway? Can't they just walk like everyone else?) down O'Connell Street, Dublin's main thoroughfare.

Quite why anyone thought this was a good idea is beyond me. Free speech is one thing but you wouldn't find too many Love Palestine marches going up and down main street Tel Aviv and you certainly wouldn't have a Love the Republic march down the Shankhill Road.

Anyway, as the Rangers fans got organised some Celtic fans decided that this was simply not on so they got together and started singing songs and throwing things so the march was called off. Job done, you would think, but no. The Celtic fans, whose real gripe was with the Rangers fans, then decided to engage in some full on rioting. They set things (not Rangers fans) on fire, they attacked the police (who were not Rangers fans), they looted shops (which were not owned by Rangers fans) and generally set about the place causing mayhem and millions of euros worth of damage (which won't be paid for by Rangers fans).

Naturally because of the high possibility of opposition to the Love Ulster march there were simply thousands of police around O'Connell Street on Saturday who were quickly able to stop the bad behaviour and tell everyone to go home. Or to put it another way there was a skeleton crew on duty, weekend you see, and they struggled to keep hold of the situation. As well as that O'Connell Street is currently undergoing major construction so there were all kinds of bricks and iron bars lying around for people to brandish and hurl.

So to recap - Rangers fans hate Celtic fans. Celtic fans hate Rangers fans. Rangers fans want to march, Celtic fans oppose. Police presence minimal, handiness of weapons and missiles optimal, scumbag count, high. Result - trouble. Quel surprise.

The whole thing was cretinous beyond belief. And how scary the human mob mentality is. If they had come to stop the march they succeeded early on but being the witless cunts that they were, sorry 'are', they then had to attack police and pretend they were in New Orleans and do a spot of looting. How surprising it was they looted Foot Locker.

"Here Anto, I'm after getting a deadly new pair of Nikes!"

"Nice one, Deco. I'm gonna get a pair of Pumas."

"Ye great puff. Pumas are for queers."

"Fuck off you or I'll brain ye with this brick."

"Come on then ye scabby cuntchugger."

And that's how quickly their focus changes because they are moronic scumbags. The Gardai should have just waded in and battered the living shite out of them. Of course there'd be some Amnesty International loving cunts afterwards complaining about police brutality but fuck that. Fight this fire with fire. You can't reason with people like that. You need to hurt them and hurt them badly. Oooh, lost in the sight in one eye, did you? Brain damaged, you say? Every bone in his body broken, eh? Tough shit. If you hadn't been acting like a cunt you'd be fine. Reap what you sow, fuckers.

And what about poor old Charlie Bird, intrepid RTE reporter, getting a hiding after being called an 'Orange bastard'? Well, a couple of weeks ago I was watching the news and he was interviewing a guy who survived the Stardust Fire. It was the 25th anniversary of the disaster, the guy lost 5 or 6 of his close friends, and Charlie asks him "So how do you feel when you think about your friends who died?", or something similarly trite.

For fuck's sake. What did he expect? "Well Charlie, I feel great when I think about them being burnt alive!"

Gobshite. For that alone I'm happy enough he got a couple of digs, saves me the trouble of stalking him and jumping him in the RTE car park, the sniveling shit.

Dirty Dave was unusually fidgety in Ron's last night.

"What's wrong with you?", I asked.

"Well, on my home I saw a kestrel fly into the side of a building and it knocked itself out."

"Riiiight. So you're upset about the kestrel?"

"Well, not really. You see, I hate to see animals in pain or distress. Don't you remember that time I adopted that family of otters?"

"Yes, they didn't much enjoy living in your bath with a couple of old palettes for dam building."

"Aye, the little cunts ate the door and then the floorboards before falling to their death."

"I'm not sure throwing 5 otters off Howth Head is the same as them falling to their death. Anyway, about this kestrel."

"Yeah, well it bounced off the building and landed on the grass in front. I went over and I could see that it was still alive but it was unconscious and fading fast."

"So what did you do?"

"I gave it artificial respiration."

"You gave the kiss of life to a kestrel?"

"Yes."

"And?"

"Well, after a while it sort of coughed, took a look at me, ran along the ground and took off, flying unsteadily but flying nonetheless."

"So it's all good then. You saved the kestrel. Why aren't you in good form?"

"I think I might have bird flu."

"You daft cunt, you can't get bird flu from giving the kiss of life to a kestrel."

"Are you sure,? It's just that last night I watched Desperate Housewives, I'm feeling broody and I have a massive goo on me to go shoe-shopping."

"I hate you, Dave."

"So, Twenny", said the American, "you're Irish so why don't you all speak Gaylick in this country?"

"Well, like most things that are wrong with Ireland it's all the fault of the English. They basically took over the country, changed all the signposts into their language and sure we had to learn it to find out where we were going and to know we'd arrived when we got there."

"But surely you could have gone back speaking Gaylick when you got rid of the English all those years ago."

"Yes, I suppose we could have but at that stage people's names had become English so it would have been a massive hassle. Not only that Irish became a compulsory subject in school and the quickest way to ensure young people hate something is by making them do it - apart from drinking flaggins of cider in the park, smoking or heavy petting (unless you're forced to get off with an alocholic, chain smoking priest - and that's not as unlikely as you may think). Then they made us read the book by Peig Sayers and she is single-handedly responsible for killing the Irish language."

"So nobody at all speaks Gaylick in Ireland?"

"Oh yes, there are groups of people who speak it. They all live on an island off the coast of Galway and anyone who is caught speaking English is sent to live on the 'mainland', like a leper. Even talking in your sleep in English is forbidden."

"My Gawd! They're savages."

"Not at all. When they do come to the mainland for their weekly shopping and day-trips to the Blachardstown centre they have great fun by going to a crowded cafeteria and whilst surrounded by non-Irish, sorry 'Gaylick', speakers they talk loudly about their physical imperfections and make acerbic comments about their lack of fashion sense or their purchases that day. They really have a huge advantage over us in that regard. Also, if they wish to advertise their wares or services on radio or tv stations they get a discount of up to 15%. Not only that the life expectancy of your average Gaylick speaker is far above that of anywhere else in Europe. Men can expect to live to around 145 years old whilst women hardly ever die before 160, making them the wrinkliest people on the planet apart from Sharpeis which aren't even people. "

"Wow, I did not know that. So do you speak any Gaylick, Twenny?"

"Not much. I used to be able to count to 10 but now I can only get to six. I can tell you to be quiet, to shut your mouth and to kiss my arse but I only really want to tell you the first two. I might be able to tell you I'm going to the shops but that's about it."

"What a shame that you don't speak the native language of your country. It reflects badly on you as a person and on your nation as a whole that more people don't speak it. That it's taught badly is a disgrace. That's it's not encouraged is ludicrous and that there's such a lack of pride in your past, your history, your very roots makes me sad and makes me think scornful thoughts of you."

"Oh aye? Speak any fucking Apache then, do you? Thought not. Cunt."

I remember a bar. There were people in it. There was also beer.

Some flashing lights. People jumping up and down hugging each other. Grown men were singing songs over and over and over again.

More bars. More singing. A taxi ride, perhaps. Things are a little hazy* after that.

At some point while I was asleep a bee or some kind of scarab beetle must have gone up my nose and is now burrowing its way into the centre of my brain. I think I´ll use a kitchen knife to get it out. The pain cannot be any worse.

I love booze.

*complete blank

Isn't it funny that at a time when all of Europe, if not the world, is looking at the Muslims rioting over a cartoon and declaring that free speech is a fundamental right a man is sent to jail for three years for remarks he made 16 years ago about the holacaust not taking place?

I'm not suggesting that Irving's comments were in any way correct, he himself has admitted that he was wrong, and they're quite patently ludicrous, but it does seem rather harsh to send a man to prison for something he said many years ago.

Is he not entitled to an opinion no matter how unpalatable it might be? At the same time these radical Muslim preachers in the UK can call for 'jihad' and incite murder and suicide bombings and the only thing they get is a fatter benefit cheque.

It's all well and good Europe looking down their noses and tut-tutting at the madmen, and I do think they are mad, setting things on fire and putting bounties on cartoonists' heads over a couple of lousy sketches but at the same time sending a man to prison for 16 year old opinions is just as mad if you ask me. It's oppressive. If you don't like what someone has to say ban him from your airwaves, your newspapers and magazines. Bar him from the country. Don't allow his works to be sold there but don't put him in prison because you don't like what he says.

I guarantee you that you could go to Austria and say whatever you want about whoever you want but not end up in jail. You might get sued. You might have to pay damages for libel or slander. You might raise people's ire. You might cause a demonstration or even a riot but I don't think you'd get sent down for three years.

I'm just glad Phil Collins and Damien Rice haven't run for office. I'd be properly fucked.

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

Thank you to everyone who voted for Twenty Major in the Irish Blog Awards. I have five short list placings in four categories and your votes are much appreciated as well as very expensive. At the end of the day it's a great advertisement for the Irish blogging scene and it doesn't matter who wins as long as I win.

But really, as has been pointed out in that thread there are some high profile omissions which only really serves to show there's great quality amongst the all the nominated blogs. Well done to everyone.

Also, well done to Damien who has spent so much time in organising and getting it all together. He deserves a pint or two and if he finds Ron's I'll be more than happy to shout for him.

"You're a berk, Twenty, you know that? A real fucking berk!"

"A berk? A berk?"

How odd. I can't remember the last time anyone called me that. Or I called anyone that. Or hearing anybody being called that.

A berk. One of those words which just seems to have fallen by the wayside. Maybe it's because it's more acceptable to use foul language these days. Life has moved from PG to 18s.

Nobody is a git anymore because they're a wanker. There are no jammy beggars, just lucky cunts. Where are all the pillocks? Replaced by shit-heads or cocksuckers, that's where. A smart-Alec (the original Alec must really have had a sharp tongue) is now a smart-arse.

It's funny the way some people never swear until they've had a drink or two though. I know a very respectable man who used to have a moustache but now has a very excellent beard who, when sober, will never swear (unless properly vexed by poor service or incompetent staff).

Even in adult company he will say something is a load of 'Ess, haitch, one, tea', rather than say 'shit'. However, once a couple of pints have been consumed whatever that thing in his head that makes him do that gets switched off and there are 'bollockses', 'shites' and 'fucks' a plenty.

I'm deeply suspicious of people who never swear. From time to time I get emails or comments on the site who say 'You swear too much. It's not big and it's not clever'.

However, those people can go fuck themselves as not only is it big and clever, it's sophisticated and creative. All the best people are doing it now. I hear the latest Hollywood trend is to redub old films in the same way they retouch special effects and they're going to improve some of the old lines that we all know so well. A tremendous idea, I have to say. Some improvements could include:

Frankly my dear, I don't give a goat's cunt

Mrs Robinson, you're trying to seduce me, you filthy fucking slut.

For fuck's sake, Luke, use the fucking force.

You shitbags can't fucking handle the cocksucking truth

Take your stinking, piss-stained, shite coloured, paws off me, you dirty, rimjobbing, spunk guzzling ape!

Play it again, Sam. You cunt.

Who can argue that it's not an improvement?

In Sweden with Jimmy the Bollix. Some years ago.

Suddenly a very tall and very blond policeman apprehends Jimmy.

"We're arresting you for murder, grand larceny, the kidnapping of Shergar, the Spanish inquisition, the sinking of the Zeebrugge ferry, Phil Collins and for the genocide of thousands of Kurdish muslims."

Jimmy looks shocked. Looks at me. I look at him. Look at the arresting officer.

Says I, "It's a fair cop, Jimmy."

A load of soldiers beat the crap out of some Iraqis. Make them wank each other off and give blow jobs to dogs and stuff. Nobody would really care apart from the fact that the stupid cunts made it a Kodak moment.

Two Premiership footballers are caught being gay with pop star in a wicked threesome. Allegedly one footballer puts his phone up another footballer's arse having set it on vibrate. Then he rings it. Mmmm, fantastic fun and again nobody would know, or care, apart from the fact they took pictures of it and filmed it.

Soldiers and footballers are stupid. Don't film yourself kicking the fuck out of Iraqis and don't take pictures of yourself having gay sex and you don't have any problems. Film it, photograph it and you're opening yourself up to a world of scandal.

It's like those stupid happy slapping cunts who kick the bollix out of somebody and film it then send it to their friends who then send it to their friends and eventually somebody doesn't like it and all of a sudden your video nasty turns into video evidence and you're nicked, sunshine.

I remember a piece of advice my father gave me years ago. He said "If you're going to do something bad don't let anyone see you and if you do it and nobody sees you don't tell anyone you did it."

That's proper common sense. Why do something you don't want anyone else to know about but create evidence of the act? I've certainly never filmed anything in my life. I never wanted to be associated with film students who are nature's cruellest mistake. None of my associates have ever filmed anything or taken pictures of anything then brought the camera to the local chemist to have the pictures developed.

That's why we're not in jail or exposed on the front page of a Sunday tabloid. It's pretty fucking easy really.

Last year Dirty Dave tried to film himself having a poo as he wanted to see how wide his ringpiece opened up. He ate bran heavy foods for a couple of days then bought a slimline digital camera and held it underneath as he loosened his bowels. Sadly for Dave his log knocked it out of his hand and into the toilet.

Not even he wanted to fish around for his stool covered Minolta.

As I sometimes suffer bouts of insomnia I decided to take Bastardface out for a late night stroll last night. It was quite cold and I was wrapped up well. Bastardface doesn't feel the cold though. He's double-hard.

Anyway, we'd walked for ages and ended up along the canal at Kilmainham. Not always a nice place to be and not at the late hour I was there. There's a garage with a 24 hour shop which has a Star Wars missile defence system it gets robbed so much.

I figured we'd cross the bridge and head back along the South Circular Road. Just after we crossed I was approached by two likely lads. Both of them about 21 or 22. Both of them with gold hoops in each ear, one of them with a little fluffy Ronnie of a moustache because he couldn't grow a real one, the other with all parts of his face pierced. Eyebrow, nose and the middle bit under your bottom lips.

"Nice dog", Ronnie said.

"Yeah", said Piercey as they stood in front of me.

"Yes, he is a nice dog", I said, "but I'm afraid I don't have time to discuss that with you two gentlemen. Places to go, people to see and all that."

"Giz him", said Ronnie.

"What?", I said.

"Giz yer dog, mister. We want him."

"I'm afraid that's not going to be possible. You see, firstly I don't want to give him to you. Secondly dogs, as I'm sure you know, are man's best friend and I am a man therefore he is my best friend. You two look like proper chums. I'm sure you wouldn't give Ronnie away, would you Piercey?"

"Eh? Who de bleedin' fuck is Ronnie?"

"Nevermind. Thirdly - Bastardface, as that is his name, would not go with you even if I tried to give him away. He is as loyal as a goat and would resist all attempts to be lured, persuaded or forced to go with anyone else, let alone a couple of feckless clits like you pair."

"Yer talkin' out yer hoop ye aul' bollix. It's a fuckin' dog. Ye grab his lead and dat's de fuckin' size of it. Reet?"

"Perhaps that would work with 99% of dogs but not with Bastardface. I can assure you of that."

"Yer a spoofer", said Piercey as he pulled out a knife. "De dog is ours now and you can't do shite. Hand 'im over."

"You really don't want me to do that."

"Yeah, I really do, cuntchops. Now giz 'im."

I sighed. "Well, don't say I didn't warn you", I said as I held out the lead which is a normal choke chain not one of those fancy extendable things.

"Haha. Deadly!", said Ronnie as he moved to grab the lead.

"Arrrrrrgggghhh, get him off me!!", cried Ronnie as Bastardface went on the offensive.

He truly hates being separated from me and thinks that anyone else will take him to a dirty kennels where he will have to mix with other dogs and won't get a fresh cat to eat each day. His hackles were already raised and when stupid Ronnie tried to take him he chomped his hand and wouldn't let go. Now, I've seen my dog chew through the toughest of bones that the butcher down the road always gives me so this cunt's hand was no problem to him.

His hand won't ever be a problem to anyone as most of it ended up in Bastardface's stomach. He then turned his attention to the upper thigh area and took a chunk out of that. Ronnie fell on the ground.

Piercey had a knife and turned to stab Bastardface but forgot about me in his horror and got my size 10 boot in his balls. He then got Bastardface's jaws around the top of his head, the little beanie hat he was wearing offering little protection as scalp tartare was on the menu. I let him chomp away at them for a while before giving him the whistle to stop.

"I did tell you!", I said to the two bloodied messes. "You should have listened while you had the chance. Of course listening is going to much more difficult in the future without your ears, but there you go. See you cunts later."

We set off towards home and he walked alongside me, looking up occasionally and wagging his tail. I patted his massive head.

"Good dog", I said. "Good dog."

My parents were ordinary decent folk. My mam was a housewife while my father was a burglar. Well, he was once. I know this because the house he burgled was the next-door neighbour’s and he brought me along as a look-out. I was ten years old.

What happened was Da was good mates with Mr Lynch who next door. They used to go to the local and drink pints together in the front bar which they loved because women weren’t allowed in. They’d talk over the garden wall about football and they both used to go and watch Shamrock Rovers together. I’m not 100% sure what happened to bring about the falling out but all of a sudden the two men went from being best of friends to the most brutal of enemies. My mother told me years later that they had a disagreement over the merits of Johnny Giles as a midfield ball winner, an old friend of Da’s told me it was because Mr Lynch and my Da were planning a business venture together – importing some kind of spices from Colombia he said – and my younger brother said he heard from a friend of his that Mr Lynch was getting it on with the wife of another of their friends and that Da had seen Mr Lynch performing cunnilungus on their mutual friend's wife while she inserted a lard covered digit up his hole.

“There’s that prick now!” my father would exclaim if saw Mr Lynch. It didn’t matter if he saw him over the wall of the garden, in the local shop or in the street. Till my dying day I’ll remember Da shouting ‘Siddown ya cunt!’ at Mr Lynch when got up to go to communion one Sunday.

I don’t know what life was like in the local but there were times when Da would come home after a few pints and bemoan the fact that Mr Lynch hadn’t dropped dead, been brutally murdered and buried in a shallow grave or had a terrible accident which left him a drooling vegetable and a drain on his family.

The entire Lynch family, that was Mr and Mrs, and their three sons Shane, Hugh and Arseface (his real name was Alan but we called him Arseface because of his Kirk Douglas type chin dimple), always went out on a Sunday afternoon to visit Mrs Lynch’s family who lived in Naas. So one Sunday afternoon when they’d all piled into their car he climbed in the back window and stole Mr Lynch’s prized possession, a stuffed dog which he’d had since childhood.

He once told my Da that the little West Highland White terrier was his best friend in the world when he was growing up. He didn’t have any brothers or sisters and his parents were strange and austere people who believed a child should not only not be heard it should very rarely be seen either. They bought him the dog to teach him about responsibility and also to give him a companion because there was no way they were going to have more children. Anyway, Mr Lynch and his dog, Dermot, went everywhere together. When he went for a game of football Dermot would snuffle around while the game was going on, sometimes sleeping behind the goal, sometimes joining in the game but he stopped doing that when Mark Walsh booted him in the bollocks as he was nosing the ball towards goal one day.

He’d had the dog about five years or so when the tragedy happened. He was walking home with Dermot trundling along happily behind him, stopping now and then to urinate at a tree or a gate-post (the dog, not Mr Lynch) when all of a sudden he heard a strange yelp. He turned around to see Mrs Flynn’s Burmese mountain dog – and those fellas were a rarity in Dublin back then, let me tell you – attempting to impregnate Dermot. Obviously Mrs Flynn’s dog was pretty indiscriminate about where he put his mickey. Firstly there was no way he could get Dermot pregnant because of his lack of womb and ovaries and secondly he didn’t have a dog-gina. It didn’t matter to Bentley, as the giant Burmese was known, who pounded away at poor old Dermot’s dog bottom.

The young Mr Lynch tried to separate them but there was no stopping Bentley when he got going – as Richard Clarke found out to his eternal shame one day a year or so later – and the rutting continued until the big dog had shot his load. Sadly for Dermot it was all too much and he lay as dead as dead can be on the ground. The vet said later that it was a simultaneous heart attack and stroke brought on by the vicious raping he’d received. Young Mr Lynch was traumatised though. He refused to let go of his best friend’s corpse and wouldn’t even entertain the idea of burying him. He brought him up to his room and wept. Even his normally unflinching parents were the tiniest bit shocked.

Luckily Mr Lynch senior knew a man was a keen taxidermist and when he put forward the idea of having poor old Dermot stuffed young Mr Lynch put aside his sadness and recognised the opportunity he had to have his friend with him forever.

So naturally when he arrived back from Naas that Sunday evening and discovered his house had been burgled and Dermot had been stolen he was distraught. I was under strict instructions not to say anything to anybody about what Da had done, not that I would have anyway. I understood the unwritten rule. You never tell tales, especially not on your friends but especially not on your own family (unless you hate the cunts and you have an ulterior motive).

Mr Lynch even put aside his contempt for my Da and came around asking had we seen anything suspicious at his house that afternoon.

“I know we haven’t been friends for a while, Gerry (for that was Mr Lynch’s first name), but I hate the idea of anyone breaking into your house,” said my Da, lying through his teeth. “If I’d seen anyone I’d have battered the spineless gobshites,” he spoofed.

Mr Lynch went from house to house, put up little posters for his lost and extremely dead dog, put a reward notice in the local shop (£10 for anyone with information leading to the return of Dermot) but nothing worked. He never saw him again and died less than 9 months later a broken man. Not even the love of his good wife and three sons was enough to keep him going.

All the while Dermot sat in a box under the stairs in our house. He’s still there for all I know. Maybe one day I’ll go up and leave it on Mr Lynch’s grave for a laugh.

What about those people who dressed up as Gardai and robbed an old lady in Dundalk? You know you can take your travellers, Romanians, Damien Rice fans, junkies, beggars, AIDS-lepers, child molesters, Welsh and crooked politicians but if you gave me the choice of killing one of them or some cunt who robs eldery people I’d choose the the latter every time. Apart from Romanians. And Travellers. And Damien Rice fans, junkies, beggars, AIDS-lepers, child molesters, Welsh and crooked politicians.

They truly are cowardly cunts. However it put me in mind of the time a good number of years back Jimmy the Bollix’s dear old mam, God rest her, was attacked and mugged whilst walking along a quiet residential road. The scumbag stole her wedding and engagement rings, robbed her handbag with her pension that she’d just picked up and for good measure gave her a black eye.

It took a week to find out who he was using all the contacts we could muster. Then we got a couple of authentic looking Garda ID badges from Counterfeit Conor (he used to sell £20 notes for a fiver each if you bought a grand’s worth), borrowed Ron’s dark blue Ford Sierra and called round to his house.

He answered the door.

“Good afternoon. I am Detective Major and this is Detective Inspector the Bollix. We need a word with you. May we come in?”

”Show me some ID”, he said.

“Of course”, I said flashing by authentic looking Garda ID badge. All the same it could have been something we knocked up using bog rolls and double sided sticky tape as when the bloke leant in to have a look Jimmy punched him so hard in the throat I heard his Adam’s apple shatter into a thousand pieces. We pushed inside.

”Now, here’s the word we want to have with you. The word is: PAIN”, said Jimmy as he administered a beating the likes of which I haven’t seen since. To say the man was beaten to a pulp is an understatement. Imagine if you started with pulp and beat it into more pulp. It was savage, primal, vicious.

Jimmy then ransacked the house, found the rings and found the bloke’s money hidden under a floorboard in his bedroom. As he left he pissed on his head and told him why he’d suffered the sound thrashing that had left him mewling soft.

Let me tell you something, that 78 year old man never robbed anyone again.

Voting in the first ever Irish Blog awards closes this Friday. If you haven't already voted please go here to vote now. Still no shameless campaigning from me. You do what your heart tells you....

"Did I ever tell you about the time I met Jack Nicholson?", I asked Dirty Dave in Ron the Barman's the other night.

"No, you never did, Twenty."

"That's because it's a shit story."

"Er, right..."

"What about the time I intercepted a set of instructions for the IRA leadership which led me to find a drugs cache which I sold to Dermot the Dealer and spent 4 months in the Carribean drinking rum cocktails and betting on cock fights?"

"No, you haven't told me that one."

"Bah, it's boring. Have I ever mentioned the time in 1979 when, after a long session, myself and Jimmy the Bollix ended up in Nicargua having befriended one of the founders of the Sandinista rebels and spent 6 weeks fighting against the right wing National Guard and eventually overthrew their regime? There was hand to hand combat, we witnessed horrific acts of violence, saw more blood than Paris Hilton has seen cock and once the fighting was over there a 5 week party during which a thousand goats were slaughtered as sacrifice in the most hilarious way you can possibly imagine."

"Ooooh, tell me more."

"Nah, it's rather dull. Tell me this, have I ever related to you the tale of 1998, not long after my act of sabotage on fat-arsed Brazilian Ronaldo ensured France won the World Cup and my spread betting cartel made enough money to retire three times over, when I was approached by a NASA scientist who begged me to a lead a mission into deep space as a newly discovered alien race was coming towards earth with the intention of making humans into slaves and food for their pets? Being the fearless leader I am I led this mission in a top secret craft which can travel through time, which is why nobody noticed I was missing, and we intercepted the alien fleet. I boarded their spaceship without even an oxygen mask and punched every single alien in the face until they died and that wasn't easy as they didn't have faces. On the way back to earth we got caught in a space storm and were catapulted down a wormhole to the dawn of time where I saw the creation of the universe itself and how it came into being. It allowed me to understand completely the reason for our existence and meaning of all life as we know it. With little fuel left I used the gravitational pull of the newly formed planets to steer the ship back into the wormhole and back to the earth. The the NASA people tried to wipe my memory with a Men in Black style machine but the radiation and space rays that had passed through my body made me immune to their nefarious technology and I can remember with perfect clarity everything about that adventure."

"I'm sure I'd remember you telling me that. It sounds great. Let me get a pint in and you can tell me the rest."

"Hmmm, it's rather a vapid narrative now that I come to think about it."

"Jaysus."

"What about the time I went to Lenehans Hardware shop and they gave me back the change of a twenty even though I only gave them a tenner?"

"Nope."

"Right, well it was a Saturday morning, as I recall, and I needed a new lock for the side gate ...."

* bring bring*

"Hello, US embassy."

"Hello, is that the US embassy?"

"Yes, this is the US embassy. How can I help you?"

"I'd like a double-whopper with cheese, large fries and a coca-cola."

*click*

*bring bring*

"'Allo, Fraunch ombassy"

"Hello, is that the French embassy?"

"Yes, zis eez ze Fraunch ombassy. 'Ow can I 'elp you?"

"I'd like two large portions of frogs legs, a family sized bucket of snails and some wiiiiiine."

*click*

*bring bring*

"Hello, Australian embassy"

"Hellio, is that the Australian embassy?"

"You deaf or what?"

"Erm, yeah, well I'm an Australian citizen and I'm in a bit of trouble?"

"That right, mate? How can I help you?"

"I need 4 double-roo burgers, a wombat pie and 4 litres of Merv Hughes extra-strength lager."

*click*

*bring bring*

"Hello, Meheecan embassy."

"Hello, is that the Mexican embassy?"

"Si, si, ees Meheecan embassy. What I can help you, hombre?"

"4 large chicken tortillas, 2 quesadillas and a platter of tacos y burritos."

*click*

*bring bring*

"Harro, Chinee Embassy"

"Hello, is that the Chinese embassy?"

"Yes, is Chinee embassy. How I help you?"

"I'd like a won-ton soup, two spring rolls, one chicken chow-mein, one beef in black bean sause and a portion of prawn crackers"

"Address prease..."

Today, over a beer or two, I discussed the make up of the world's population, and I don't mean eye-liner, mascara and lipstick.

I insisted to my beautiful companion that the vast majority of people were fucking stupid. Intelligence doesn't just mean education. You can have highly intelligent people who went to expensive colleges and hold down high-powered jobs who are still stupid. You also have people who didn't get any pieces of paper to prove their educational ability but who are as clever as they come.

Having thought about it for about 3 seconds I came up with an 80-20 ratio. That is 80% of the world's population is as thick as two short planks.

'Average intelligence' doesn't exist for me. You're either intelligent enough not to reply to a Nigerian promising you a share in $34,000,000 or you're not. Taking quick stock of the people I know and the people I have to deal with on a daily basis I may, perhaps, be underestimating the percentage of intelligent people but not by much.

Maybe it's because that old saying about birds of a feather flocking together has some basis in fact. Intelligent people find themselves in the company of other intelligent people while the stupids all find themselves hanging out in the same place.

Stupid people will allow the Catholic Church to abuse children for years and get away with it. Stupid people will pay the toll at the M50 every day instead of saying 'Why has it taken me two and a half hours to get from Sandyford to Santry?' (a 25 minute journey - maximum - if the toll bridge wasn't there). Stupid people will buy enough David Gray albums to make the cunt think it's perfectly acceptable to make another one.

I'm not sure what my point is anymore but there's just too many fucking stupid cunts around. We should organise a cull.

What's more stupid than regular stupid people are the stupid people who think they're intelligent.

Like the cunt who complains, for example, that you can do something which doesn't disturb, affect or impact on him at all but he complains simply because he can't do it, not taking into account the many good reasons why he can't.

This person thinks they're clever enough that it's not obvious that they've complained but when you're told that you can no longer do something because it's not fair on another group of people who can't do it, despite the many good reasons they can't and they I can, it doesn't even take genius level intelligence like mine to work it out.

That sort of cunt is the sort of cunt who could, for example, come to work and find his computer with all his important documents has been wiped clean, along with the back-ups he made on the network drive.

That's if he finds his computer at all, what with him having had his eyes gouged out and all, the blind cunt.

Today I had the misfortune of entering a toilet cubicle about a minute after somebody else had left. There were no urinals in this place, only fully enclosed cubicles.

The person who was in there before me had obviously had a similar weekend to Dirty Dave and had just given birth to a brown baby boy. Who was really, really smelly.

Then, as I tried to have my wee and ensuring I was breathing only through my mouth, I thought that maybe breathing through my mouth wasn't the best idea. Obviously some of the smell comes from gas but the plop itself is very smelly. For that smell to travel through and hang in the air doesn't it make sense that some particles, or pooticles as they're officially known, are also floating about in the air and that if I'm breathing through my mouth so I don't have to smell the smell does that mean the pooticles are going into my mouth and in a roundabout way I'm eating somebody else's poo?

Perhaps I'm wrong, and I'd be happy to be proven wrong in this case, so if any science boffins out there can put my mind at ease I would be most grateful.

If not it turns out we're all a bunch of shit eaters.

On a slightly different matter how does that Abu Hazma guy wipe his arse when he's got two hooks instead of hands?

Very fucking carefully, I'd imagine.

“Hello, Dirty Dave”, I said as my malodorous chum came into Ron’s last night.

“Yah mo be there, Twenty”, he replied.

“How was your weekend then? Didn’t see you around…”

“Ah, I was up to all sorts. Places to go, people to see, you know yourself.”

“What kind of people? Which places?” asked Jimmy the Bollix.

“God, so many I can’t begin to remember.”

“Let me have a guess”, I said.

“Go on then!” he said.

“Right, you were here Friday night and you had a rake of pints of Smithwicks, then on the way we home we stopped at the chipper. You ate a spiceburger, a portion of curry chips and onion rings. As we have been friends a long time I have heard you moan every time you combine Smithwicks with spiceburgers. You say it turns your poo to molten lava and anything with curry in it liquidises it so I’d say you got up on Saturday morning and made coffee. You took a sip, lit a smoke and then felt your bowels clench. You then spent 25 minutes on the toilet with your insides gushing out of you, screaming a little bit each time a new gush came, and whimpering softly as the burn began to kick in. Shall I go on?”

“Continue.”

“You didn’t finish your coffee but smoked about 3 cigarettes. Then you didn’t shower, left the house and went straight to the chemist and bought a packet of Imodium to stop the flow of poo. Then you went to the supermarket, bought some groceries for one, making sure you went to the checkout where that lady you fancy, but who hates you, always works. You attempted small talk, took the fact she said ‘Thanks, luv’ as a sign that she might one day have sex with you when she’d rather cut her flaps off with a pair of rusty garden shears than ever go near you, and then went home. You ate something, spent the afternoon watching sport on TV via your enormous satellite system, the early evening downloading porn from the internet, had a wank, then you went down to Xtravision and rented two, or possibly three, lame DVDs starring the likes of Tom Hanks, Hugh Grant or Jude Law. Whilst there you attempted smalltalk with the pretty young redhead who works there and the fact that she was civil to you made you fantasise about her one day inviting you to a private ‘screening’ in the back room when the fact is she would rather be raped by a bear than come within a counter’s width of you. Then you went home, ordered a pizza or possibly a Chinese, stuffed your face, farted then spent the rest of the night on the couch drinking cans of Dutch Gold lager before passing out there and waking up late Sunday with a huge hangover and a pain in your back and shoulders because you slid halfway off the couch but were too drunk to wake up and correct your posture. Am I right?”

”Go on….”

“So Sunday afternoon you walked round the corner to the local Spar where you bought the News of the World, The Sunday World, the Sunday Mirror, the People and the Sunday Star. You tried a little wink at the 65 year old woman who works there thinking she can’t possibly be that fussy and the fact that she didn’t get sick down her front led you to believe that you could tempt her into a night of bingo-wing, granny sex when, in reality, she would pray to God to slap her with a massive stroke which left her a dribbling vegetable in a nursing home where they abuse old people rather than feel the sweaty, stickiness of your hands anywhere near her. You then went home, looked at the pictures of tits in the paper, had a wank, read the sports pages and cooked a fried breakfast of bacon, eggs, sausages, black and white pudding, fried tomato, mushrooms, baked beans and fried bread all washed down by a pot of tea which you drank out of your ‘Frankie says: You’re a cunt’ mug, which we had made for your birthday a few years back, putting 6 sugars into each one. After having an enormous, and thankfully more solid than Saturday’s, crap you went back around the video store hoping to see the pretty young redhead but were disappointed to see the fat, Goth chick who even you, despite the fact you would get up on the crack of dawn, wouldn’t go near. How am I doing?”

“Erm…”

“You stopped off at your Mums for your weekly visit and she went on at you about eating properly, about being an old cunt without a wife and how you’ve never given her any grandkids unlike Mrs Hanlon next door whose two children have 7 of their own and God wouldn’t it be a blessing to even have one and would that she’d had two sons so maybe one could have given her the gift of a grandchild but sure weren’t you an only child and she had to put all her eggs in one basket so no wonder she was disappointed. You love your Mum but you left there raging because she makes you feel like a little boy. Then you went to the pub around the corner from your house because there's a barmaid there who is much easier on the eyes than Ron, in all fairness, and you wanted to sink a few pints there because you didn't much feel like coming round here and joining in the banter. You stayed for probably one too many and when the barmaid gave you your change you tried to hold her hand and because she's a nice woman and felt sorry for you she let you, for just a second. However, that meant you left there thinking that one night she might close the doors and tell you there's a lock-in for just you and her and you'll go to the snug and do those things you dream of but in actual fact she would jump into an industrial sized wood-chipper rather than even think about your smeggy chopper getting anywhere near her fragrant vag. You went home, looked at some porn, had a wank, watched some TV, had another wank, and then passed out on the couch again while watching something like CSI on living TV. Wake up Monday and here we are. How's that?"

"You think you're so smart, Twenty. But you're not."

"Fair enough then, Dave. If I'm totally wide of the mark then I'll hold my hands up. You're a better man than I give you credit for."

"Yeah, you cunt. I had an Indian on Saturday night."

A long time ago I worked in the radio business and I made some good old friends. Since then once a year Larry Gogan, Howard Stern, Rick Dees and I meet for a weekend of beer, discussion about the state of the radio industry and to reminisce about the time we tried to make a clone of Stern which went horrifically wrong and we ended up with Ryan Tubridy. I told them we should have just waited and extracted a bit more DNA rather than using some of Larry's poo but they wouldn't listen.

We used to be 5 though as part of our group was Valdimir 'the impaler' Vladovic. He was the main man of Russian radio. He started as a 16 year old on a pirate station in Saint Petersburg called KISH FM. His zany style and wicked impersonations soon saw him gain a massive audience and by the time he was 21 he was on Moscow's hottest top 40 station. Within 3 years his show was being syndicated across the whole of the country and his Russian Top 40 countdown was earning him a fortune.

He was a true Soviet celebrity, super-wealthy and he, following the lead of many others, decided to buy his own radio network. It wasn't too long before he was known as the king of Russian radio.

Naturally he fitted in well with all of us and our annual weekends became legendary in the radio world. They were debauched, they were non-stop, they were great fun. Sadly one of them ended in tragedy. We used to vary the location. One year New York with Howard Stern, one year in LA with Rick Dees, one year in Moscow with Vlad and then a year in Dublin with me and Larry.

It was the Dublin weekend of 1983 that cost Vlad his life. Having been in Dublin before he was a huge fan of fish and chips and especially those in Leo Burdock's on Werburgh Street. We were staying in the Berkley Court Hotel, Stern had insisted on a suite in which we could 'paaaaarty'. So we were there drinking and carousing and singing and certainly not snorting enormous lines of cocaine because there was no cocaine in Ireland back then. Really.

Anyway, mid-party Vlad got peckish and decided to nip over to Burdock's for a cod supper. No harm, we all just carried on. Larry Gogan was in a hotel bathrobe strumming a guitar and singing Thin Lizzy hits in that rich, baritone of his. Rick Dees was entertaining a young Finglas girl called Jacinta in the jacuzzi while Howard Stern had two blondes on a four-poster bed and I can't tell you what he was doing as it's still illegal.

After a while Stern decided he'd give us all a treat. He gotten into home cinema and had made his own 'home movies'. Although we weren't really into seeing any more of him than we'd already witnessed during the party he's just not the kind of guy you can say not to. So he stopped doing what he was doing to the blondes, which took about 10 minutes, and pulled a tape out of his suitcase and put it in the machine. However, instead of the adult entertainment he was hoping to show us we got a taped from TV version of the Omen II.

To say he lost his temper is an understatement. He went beserk, throwing things around, kicking things over and at one point he vomited and some of it came out of the corners of his eyes. Lastly he went over to the machine that had offended him so and hurled it through the window. Real rock and roll style. We were all silent after his outburst and a minute or two later Rick Dees went over to look out the window.

"Oh Jesus!", he said. "I think you've hit someone."

We all rushed downstairs as fast as our little legs would carry us and once we pushed through the crowd we were greeted with a terrible sight. Our chum Vlad, having stuffed his face with the best fish and chips in Dublin, was on his way back to the hotel to carry on the party when a Sony SL-C7UB Betamax landed on his head, killing him instantly. The king of Russian radio's brains were spread all over the pavement.

"Oh fuck!", I said.

"I'll be right back after these tears", said Rick Dees. Stern just looked shellshocked and slightly guilty.

There was a plaintive sob from behind us. Larry Gogan stood there, his bathrobe open, his eyes welling as his genitals swayed gently in the autumn breeze.

"Oh no. I can't believe it", he cried.

"Video killed the radio Tsar...."

Damien has been working like a Mary O'Rourke campaign staffer all weekend it seems and the voting is now open for the Irish Blog Awards. Naturally you are free to vote for your favourites, I wouldn't do anything like solicit votes or say "Please vote for me". People should be free to decide without any undue pressure.

To vote simply stare at the image below then, after a while, click on it to go the blog awards site.

This controversy over the cartoons published by a Danish newspaper is absurd. A French newspaper reprinted them and the editor got sacked. Meanwhile there were protests outside Danish embassies, hundreds of students demonstrated in Pakistan burning flags and effigies of the Danish Prime Minister who did nothing to offend them at all and the Egyptian president said publishing the cartoon could, and I quote, 'encourage terrorists'?

What a load of horse cock. That's like suggesting Tom and Jerry encourages mice to flatten cats with 500lb triangular shaped weights. It's hard to know what will get their goat (no pun intended). It seems that a small drawing is enough to get students - the laziest cunts in the world, no matter what your religion - out of their unmade beds and onto the streets burning and chanting but an innocent Irish woman having her head cut off after spending years helping the people of a particular country isn't worth 30 seconds of their time.

Anyway, I haven't seen the cartoons that caused all the ruckus but I can't imagine it was any more offensive than this and I don't see any Muslims protesting outside my door.

I'm not really one for political blogs, I have to say. I don't care too much about politics, North or South of the border, and I don't care if we ever get a united Ireland. Frankly the arguments between people who want a united Ireland and those who don't are like those between a Manchester United fan and Liverpool fan. Both believe that their team is the best but no matter how eloquent or well-written or well-presented their argument the other bloke is always going to think their point of view is that of a cunt. It's a no-win situation.

Anyway, for some reason I ended up on a site called A Tangled Web today (United Irelander loves that site, it seems!) and the bloke there was complaining that he'd been rejected for 21 jobs in the last year and then he went on to insinuate that if he'd been an ethnic minority he wouldn't have had as much trouble getting a job. Obviously the name of his site is inspired by his mother's gee hair.

How is it that a Chinese person can get off the boat in Dun Laoghaire and within hours find themselves gainful employment in one of Dublin's many fine bars, but this bloke, who can spend far too much time blogging, can't get anyone to hire him? I'm quite sure the Chinese person isn't hired just because they were Chinese as actually speaking English can be an advantage in today's cut-throat business world. It's probably because they were willing to, you know, work hard and stuff.

I mean really, 21 rejections in one year. That's just under two a month. I don't know what type of work he's looking for but I think he might have to set his sights a bit lower and perhaps consider more suitable employment. I'm sure there are some Indian takeaways that are looking for delivery drivers or some shelves that need to stacked in his local Tesco.

Maybe those are the types of job he's been trying for in which case there can be no doubt he's deformed or suffers from a serious body odour problem. I did a quick MORI poll and asked a group of people how much of a cunt do you have to be to get 21 job rejections inside one year. The results make for compelling reading:

A massive cunt - 11%
An utter cunt - 18%
A stinking, bigoted, wanker of a cunt - 71%

The people have spoken.

Walking down Rathmines Road today I fell in behind a rather portly man wearing overalls and a dusty boots. He had ruddy cheeks and that was just from behind.

Anyhow, as he was going along I noticed something fall out of the back pocket. He didn't notice. Nobody else noticed either as it bounced off the pavement and rolled onto the road.

He kept walking. My curiosity piqued and I bent down to pick it up not noticing a passing Audi quatro. Luckily he noticed me and although it was too close for him to avoid me altogether it was merely a glancing blow, but a painful one nonetheless.

As I sat on the side of the road holding the growing bump above my right eye the strangest thing happened. I began to feel dizzy but that's normal when a car drives into your head. I began to have a vision. It was like the universe wanted to tell me something.

It happened in two parts. The first was the fat man coming back from the bank where he'd gone to deposit the money for the wages for his team of builders working on the restoration project he had poured his life savings into. It was a make or break job. He was running around asking if anyone had seen the massive roll of notes that had somehow escaped his back pocket. I, basked in a golden light, said 'Sir, is this what you are looking for?' and handed him his money. He wept with gratitude and I saw his future and it too was bright, colourful and full of music, laughter and happiness.

His son would become an important scientist and would put an end to global warming, bird flu and cure cancer, Motor Neurone disease and Phil Collins. His daughter would give birth to a young boy who would grow up to unite the world in peace and love, solving the Israeli-Palestine conflict with but a couple of pithy phrases, bring together Muslim and Christian, Jew and Buddhist, Hindu and Hidon't in a world which would flourish and be filled with wonderful things.

As quickly as that vision appeared to me another began. The fat man came running again asking if anyone had seen the roll of money. This time I said nothing. Again I saw into his future. His business was ruined, the men he employed lost their jobs. One of them went home and killed himself and when his wife found him with his wrists slashed in the bathroom she hung herself from a tree at the end of the garden to be found by her 11 year old son when he came home from school.

The fat man's son became a troubled child being sent to borstal and young offenders institutions for petty crimes. As he grew up he developed drug and alcohol addictions and his petty crimes became more serious. He robbed and stabbed and raped and murdered and maimed and sliced and ruined hundreds of lives through his actions. Eventually he was caught and sentenced to a long time in prison. Because of his various addictions, which now included crystal meth and heroin, he would do anything for a fix and that included letting all the big queens have their way with him. He got bummed so many times he got 14 different kinds of AIDS. The virus mutated so often that soon it could be transmitted via sneezing and within 6 years 97% of the human population was infected and due to its constant mutation a cure was simply impossible despite the great advances in science.

His daughter married a man from Offaly and gave birth to a ginger child who caught the AIDS when sneezed on by the offspring of Damien Rice and Rene Zellwegger. This became a new disease called GINGAIDS and it's fatality rate was close to 99%. Between this child and the oft-bummed son of the fat man most of the human race would be wiped out by 2056. Those that remained would evolve into creatures that procreated by rubbing their arses off tree stumps and who were always just that little bit too cold to ever warm up.

The fat man himself became a hopeless alcoholic, he lost his home and his beautiful wife who would have stood by him through everything had he not threatened to kill her one night after drinking two bottles of Vat69 whiskey. For a time he lived with his brother but soon that bridge was burnt too. He spent the next 20 years scratching an existence, living in various grotty bedsits, homeless shelters and under bridges. Shortly before his death he managed to see the light and gave up the drink, became reunited with wife and they bought a small cottage in Wicklow where they would see out the rest of their days. 4 days as it turned out as a victim of his son's criminal life, out of his mind on a cocktail of cocaine and Captain Morgan rum, broke into their house and beat them both to death with a spade before eating their brains and breaking into the RTE news studio during a live broadcast wearing both heads around his neck like a cannibal's necklace.

Suddenly the vision ended and I became aware of a man shouting and looking around frantically.

"Has anyone seen a roll of money? Oh please! Anybody? Without it I'm ruined. Oh jesus. Anyone? ANYOOOOONE?"

I sighed. I put the money in my pocket. I'll send a wreath to the funeral.