Maybe this doesn't apply to everyone but I'm sure you've come across it. You know when you send an email to someone and you can get an automated reply, saying:

I am out of the office for the week Please forward all relevant materials to somecunt@bunchofcunts.com

Regards,
Some cunt
www.bunchofcunts.com

Well, thanks for that. It would be good if you could go into a bit more detail though. For example, if you were out of the office but actually going on holidays I'd like to know that. If you could include your flight times, your home address, the code for the alarm and the names and addresses of any key holders that would be great too.

Then this sort of information would be useful to me. Leaving it so vague as to mean you might be on holidays from work but actually staying at home to relax and read books and do a spot of gardening is not much help. I mean, it would save us both a lot of hassle if you were more precise. Honesty. The last thing either of us wants is to come face to face in your hallway when you're padding about your house in your pyjamas and I've taken a bit of a gamble and figured you've gone Ryanair to Girona or 'Paris' or somewhere.

It would pain me to have to bash you over the noggin with the sap in my pocket. Honest. And think how easily it could have been avoided if only you'd given me a few more details in your email.

Richard Sinnott from Carlow sued the Carlow Nationalist after they printed a picture of him during a GAA match which showed his 'private parts'.

Amazingly he was awarded €6,500 for 'breach of privacy, intentional infliction of emotional harm, and negligence'.

Unreal. Was there something different about Richard Sinnott? Did he have a grotesquely disfigured or incredibly tiny penis? Were his balls so different from every other man's set of balls?

Let's face it, a scrotum with balls in it is hardly a pretty sight but like small babies and Chinese people they all pretty much look the same. So if his balls were on display so were my balls and every other man in the country's balls.

Honestly, some people need to get a fucking life. The newspaper are appealing and I hope they win. If you don't want your balls to be on display in the newspaper when photos are taken of you during a GAA match then wear a pair of underpants that safely hold your balls in place rather than loose fitting ones which allow them to wobble all over the place and out of your shorts.

Richard Sinnott is the one at fault here. What a shame he didn't have the balls to see that.

A report yesterday said 5,500 people have been caught using their mobile phones while driving since the law came into effect banning their use.

What happened to them though? Were they scolded severely? Did they get points on their licence? Did they get 100 lines "I must not use my mobile phone when driving"?

I'll tell you what I'd do if I was in charge of the police. Aside from giving them a good clip around the ear I'd confiscate their phones.

"Now Sir, give me the phone. You can have it back at the end of the week."

"But I need that phone for work!"

"Two weeks"

"But-"

"The end of the month then."

Now that's a proper fucking deterrent. Seriously, if you must use your mobile phone when driving at least get one of those hands free kits. What do they cost? Less than €100, I bet. Or do what one ingenious person I know does and put the speaker function on his phone then he jams the phone into the arch of the steering wheel. Hands free and free free too. It doesn't cost a penny.

I bet if they started confiscating phones that 5,500 would drop dramatically. Let's face it, people these days can't survive without their mobile phones. They take them everywhere and feel completely detached if they don't have it with them. The thoughts of having it confiscated, with the cops able to read all their text messages, would ensure this particular crime rate fell.

A little bit of creative policing there. I should have sold this idea to Fine Gael, made a few bob from it. Oh well.

Stinking Pete has gone vegetarian. He says he can no longer cope with the senseless slaughter of animals for our consumption. I say I can no longer cope with him being a complete and utter cunt but he doesn't seem to be giving that up.

Anyway, he invited me, Jimmy the Bollix and Dirty Dave over for dinner on Saturday night. Normally I can think of an excuse to get out of going to his house to eat but this time I was caught on the hop and ended up with no choice but to go. The upside was the only way to cope with going to his house is to get really, really drunk. It's not that his house is dirty. Despite his own questionable hygiene and personal odour, his house is well kept.

It's just a really depressing place. It looks like it hasn't been redecorated since the early 70s which is quite a coincidence because it hasn't actually been redecorated since the early 70s. Terrible wallpaper, curtains that look like the stage curtains at a village concert hall, threadbare patterned carpet in what was once brown and beige but now looks like the colour of old mud and the furniture would have some kitsch value if it wasn't falling apart.

He refuses to change anything since he inherited the house from his parents after they died. It's a bit macabre, I suppose, but the sudden and frankly disgusting way his parents died had a big impact on his life. I'll tell you that story another day.

Anyway, after spending some months in Goa a long time ago Stinking Pete reckons he's the best Indian cook in Dublin. It's quite patently not true. You can go into the worst Indian takeaway in Dublin and look into what passes for a kitchen and witness whatever sad wretch reheats the food in there and he/she/it is probably a better cook than Pete but to be fair to him he can knock together a decent chicken curry.

So it was no surprise when that's exactly what he served on Saturday.

"How are you liking the chicken curry, lads?", he asked.

"Grand, Pete", I said. "Hey Jimmy, pour me another pint of Jim Beam. Cheers."

"Good, good. I'm glad you're enjoying the ...chicken...curry."

"Yeah, it's good", said Jimmy the Bollix. "Give us one of those naan breads, Dirty Dave."

"Splendid. Everyone is appreciating the taste of my ...*cough*...CHICKEN....*cough cough*...curry."

I put down my knife and fork.

"Something you need to tell us, Pete?"

"Oh, no. What gave you that idea?"

"Stinking Pete. Don't have me thrash you to within an inch of your life. What's going on?"

"Well...hehehe...you think you're eating chicken but, in fact, it's not chicken at all."

"Turkey?", asked Dirty Dave.

"No, Dave. Not turkey. It's no fowl whatsoever. It is Quorn."

A dealthy silence fell about the table.

"Quorn?", I said.

"Yes, Quorn", he replied.

"Jesus fucking Christ, Stinking Pete! Are you trying to fucking kill me? Do you know what that shit is made from?"

"I know that it's made from some kind of fungus and no innocent creature has to die to fill your belly."

"Firstly, you cunt, how dare you impose your values on me in your own home. Secondly, 'a kind of fungus' is what they want you to think, you dopey bastard. Look at the name. Quorn. Can't you see it? What is fed on corn? Chickens. And what part of a chicken begins with Qu? The quim, of course. Quorn is actually chicken minge and you sit there as smug as you like after feeding us, your friends, with the processed vulva, labia and clitorii of farmyard birds. Fucking hell."

"My God, I never knew. I'm sorry, Twenty, Jimmy, Dave...."

"There's no time for that. Lads, do what you have to do."

In unison the three of us put our fingers down our throats and sprayed vomit all over the table until there was no more puke to be puked.

"Oh, fucking hell", he said as he looked at his bile covered kitchen. "You could at least have gone out in the back garden".

"No we could not", said Jimmy. "Trying to make us eat Quorn and trying to pass it off as some kind of healthy alternative is just despicable. I've done some bad things in my time. Like that time I stole the collection money for that orphanage in Nairobi. Or the time I could have saved that woman from drowning but I decided it was too much trouble. Or like that time I was face to face with Osama Bin Laden and he told me he was going to launch a terrorist offensive on the world which would bring us to the point of nuclear war and I figured he was just another Johnny Big Bollocks giving it the big I am so I let him go without killing him. Or that time when when a man asked me for one euro to make a phone call to tell his pregnant and hysterical wife he was on his way home and not having an affair with his secretary and I told him to fuck off and get his own euro and he told me he'd just been mugged and they'd taken all his money and all he had was this watch which his father had given him on his death bed and he offered me the watch which had such sentimental value if I'd only give him a euro and I took the watch then kicked him in the side of the head and walked off and his wife killed herself by stabbing herself in the stomach over and over with a kitchen knife and then he ended up committing suicide by throwing himself under a bus which caused the bus driver to suffer post traumatic stress disorder which made him sexually abuse his children who grew up to be rapists and serial killlers. But I've never done anything like give somebody Quorn. NEVER."

Pete just stood them looking down at his shoes.

"Look, Stinking Pete", I said, "if you want to be a fanny-arsed vegetarian then that's fine. You know it makes a big poof, we know it makes you a big poof and we will rip the piss out of you for it, but if you're going to be a vegetarian just eat vegetables. Don't be one of those cunts who's a vegetarian but eats fish and chicken as if they're not real animals. And for Christ's sake don't get suckered in to eating shite like Quorn. Quorn is made by cunts from cunts for cunts."

"Yeah, fair enough. Sorry again lads."

"Now, do you want a hand cleaning up this vomit?"

"Yeah. That'd be great."

"It would be great but we're not gonna. We're off to the chipper to get some decent food."

"Mines a Quornter-pounder with cheese!", said Jimmy.

"Oh, Jimmy, you are a one", I said.

I recently bought some RAM from the US for my 'puter and it was delivered via Fedex. No problemo.

A few days later I got a letter from Fedex saying I owed them €22 because of duty. I ignored the letter. Then they sent me another letter asking me to please pay the €22. I ignored that one too.

This morning received a letter from a debt collection agency requesting that I make payment immediately or they will not hesitate to commence with 'formal proceedings'.

Now, I know a veiled threat when I see one. Can you believe a reputable company like Fedex is threatening to send large men around to my house armed with bicycle chains and knuckle dusters so they can duff me up and get me to pay the €22 I owe? I am outraged. It's scandalous.

This lot would have me beaten to a pulp for the sake of €22 just so they can use me as an example to anyone else who has fallen behind on their payments.

And what a load of shite the €22 is anyway. I bought it fair and square, paid the full price, and they want more because the government says they had to pay this 'duty'. You realise what that means, don't you?

Yes, it's the Irish government who are giving carte blanche to a courier company to batter Irish citizens who conscientiously object to these stealth taxes. Well, I'm not for moving.

I'll take my beating like a man and then I'll see you on the Joe Duffy show, you cunts. Bring it on.

I like salt and pepper. One salt shaker, one pepper shaker or pepper mill.

What I don't like is a pepper mill with a salt mill on top in one, supposedly handy, contraption. Too many restaurants are engaging in this wanky bollix nowadays.

Keep them separate. You wouldn't give someone one piece of cutlery which was a knife at one end and a fork at the other, would you? No, you would not.

So keep your salt and pepper separate and stop trying to be fucking trendy. It might work with furnishings but it's no fucking use at all with condiments.

Headaches are a pain in the arse, aren't they?

Not literally of course because literally they're a pain in the head although not for Weird Will who always claimed to have a pain somewhere then blame it on some other part of his body.

"Jesus Christ!", he'd shout. "I have a fucking terrible pain in my head. I can't sit down."

"Take a couple of painkillers then", someone would say.

"Ach, those things never do any good. I have to keep walking around you see because when I have a headache it's my arse that hurts."

"That's odd. The cheeks of your arse or your, you know, ringpiece?"

"The whole lot", he'd say.

"And you're sure it's not actually an arseache?"

"No, whenever I have a headache my arse hurts."

"What about when your knee hurts?"

"Stomach ache."

"And a pain in your stomach?"

"Lower back ache."

"Toothache?"

"That's down a problem with the joints on my big toe"

"A painful sinus?"

"That's my left ankle."

"Earache?"

"That is nearly always to do with my third vertebrae."

"Backache?"

"Happens when I have a pain behind my right eye."

"How about when you get that stabbing pain in your heart?"

"Kidneys"

"Sore throat?"

"Swollen elbow."

"And what about when you have a pain in your arse."

"Headache."

"So, if you have a headache you have a pain in your arse and if you have an arseache you have a pain in your head."

"Exactly"

"So how can you tell the difference?"

"It's easy. I don't shit out of my head."

This is from a report on Breakingnews.ie about attitudes to sex in rural Ireland being, shall we say, a bit backwards.

In one incident referred to in the research, a young woman went to her GP seeking the morning-after pill, but instead he offered to say prayers for her.

That would be funny if it wasn't so fucking scary. This is 2007 and a doctor says prayers for a young woman rather than give her the medical treatment she's entitled to.

Someone should find out who that is and then strike him off because he's a fucking lunatic. Can you imagine him in an emergency?

"Doctor, I have shooting pains down my left arm and my chest hurts"

"Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee..."

"Argh"

"...blessed art thou amongst women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb Jesus."

*slump*

"Amen"

Madness. Now that I see it written down I'd never noticed the Hail Mary outed Jesus before.

The Irish Blog Awards nomination form has been changed at last so you can vote for all your favourite blogs at once.



Tá mé ag dul to vote for my favourites (see what I did there?) and I don't want to influence you in any way at all but obviously you should nominate me if you see fit.



To nominate, simply go here and fill in the parts of the form you have an opinion on. You don't have to fill them all in.



Also, starting at this post helps you to concentrate, focus and pick your nominations. It couldn't be easier!

Labels: irish blog awards

I was listening to Karen Coleman interview Richard Dawkins on the radio on Sunday. I could have done a better job. I'd have at least asked a different question. The interview went something like this.

Coleman: So what about XYZ, Richard Dawkins?

Dawkins: Well, this is what I think about XYZ and while I'm at it here's a bit of ABC too to make my point more clear.

Coleman: All well and good, Richard Dawkins (she insisted on saying his full name like she was scolding him. Richard Dawkins, get in for your tea at once!), but what about ABC?

Dawkins: Well, if you'd been listening you'd have heard me explain ABC but look, no harm, and here's some DEF to keep you going.

Coleman: We have a text from a listener, Richard Dawkins, who asks what about XYZ?

Dawkins: Ok, I'll explain this for the 5th time...

Fairly fucking crappy, you have to say. Coleman's stance seemed to be based around ideas such as the beauty of nature couldn't have come through evolution and sure wouldn't it make more sense if God had created them.

Now, to me it makes much more sense that intricate patterns and colours and flowers and plants came about through evolution because, no matter how patient he was, God is not going to sit there and colour in the 12,400 different types of ferns that exist all over the world and waste his time making 500,000 different kinds of insects.

He'd just get a basic model and lash loads of them out then spend the rest of his time playing video games or smoking the best grass he could make. Maybe that's what he did but some of them were retarded and deformed and stuff and they interbred to create new species. God-powered evolution.

Dawkins is an interesting speaker though but his trenchant belief in atheism with a total unwillingness to accept the slight possibility that there's an omnipotent white bearded old cunt up there makes him just as bad as the rest of them. Personally I'm open to all possibilities. Look, I've seen Dirty Dave, the stinkingest fucker I know, get his end away with women so if that can happen then the idea of a God in heaven is not so ludicrous.

I did like that episode of South Park recently where in the future all religion had been wiped out and, because of Dawkins, atheism was the accepted creed. That didn't stop the United Atheist Alliance, the Atheist Federation and some other group fighting it out over which brand of atheism was the best.

Stinking Pete is the most religious of all us. He had a near death experience a few years back after he got hit with a golf ball while flying his kite on the beach out near Donabate. He was in a coma for three days and he swears he did the whole going into the light thing and he saw his dear departed Mum and so on.

We never told him that it was us in the hospital room. When the doctors weren't around we'd shine torches into his eyes and say in really deep voices 'Come into the light, Stinking Pete' and then we'd hold a photo of his mother over his eyes. We really fucking tried to get him to go into the light but he said he felt something calling him back.

It was probably Dirty Dave, the soppy cunt.

Sitting in Ron's yesterday evening having a few pints and watching the football. After the last gasp winner sent Manchester United mad Dirty Dave into tears our mate Splodge, the one with the birthmark on his face, said, "Lads, if you had to kill Barry Egan how would you do it?"

"Great question, Splodge", said Ron who was first to answer. "Nothing fancy for me. I'd just tie him to a chair, take an iron bar or some other kind of club and just beat the fucker to a pulp. The satisfying crunch of bone and his skull being crushed would be just fantastic. I would have to wear some kind of hazard suit in case any of his brain flew out and went into my mouth and I caught the stupid cunt disease he so obviously suffers from."

"Old fashioned, I like that", said Jimmy the Bollix. "Me, I'd do that thing from American History X where he made the bloke bite the curb then stamped on his head. After that I'd hire a helicopter and tie to him to the rungs underneath. Then we'd take off, hover at a nice height directly over the Wellington Monument in the Phoenix Park then cut the ropes so he would fall right on top of the spiked bit before landing on the steps below where all the children were running up and down."

"Inventive!", said Stinking Pete. "If it were up to me I would call him up pretending to be Lisa Murphy and I'd say in a sensuous but husky voice 'Hey Barry Egan. I want to give you some good loving because I know you like that pre-op look I've made my own. Come to the Conrad Hotel, room 216' and he'd be so turned on at the thought of getting the ride off yer woman that he can't stop writing about in the newspaper that he would think the deepness of the voice was because she was so turned on by the thoughts of his ginger pubis. When he arrived at the hotel I would greet him in sexy Agent Provocateur lingerie and only when I slipped off my sliky knickers and he saw my Johnson would he realise that I wasn't Lisa Murphy. It would be Crying Gametastic. Then I'd shoot the cunt in the eye."

"Very good if a little bit a fruity", said Lucky Luciano. "For me is a difficult. As a compassionate assassin is a hard to kill a someone for no money but for this Mick Hucknall alookalike I make a the exception. I a find out where he live and get postman outfit. Then I a call to the door and say "Hello Mr Egan, I am normal postman and a not a someone who want to kill you. I have package for you. Please to sign a here. When he a sign I give him package. I a leave but wait at gate. You see, in package is sabre toothed tiger that I have a made from DNA found in some old a fossil and when he open, Lionel - is name of a sabre tooth tiger - will a savage him then eat him."

"Fearsome, Lucky!", said Dirty Dave who had recovered from the beating his team got. "Me, I'd rape him. Except instead of raping him with my penis I'd rape him with the penis of a blue whale which is over six feet long and can shoot out 18 gallons of jism in one ejaculation. Of course the difficulty would be getting the blue whale into the Sunday Independent offices but nothing is impossible. If penetration didn't kill him the sheer force of whale spunk shooting into him surely would."

"Whale custard brilliance", I said. "If I were given such an opportunity I would first go out and earn millions of euros so I could afford to pay the Russian space federation to bring us into space on a space rocket. I would invite Egan as a journalist and say 'Look, this is unrivaled access to the first ever blogger in space and when you get back you can tell Lisa 'equal parts Aphrodite and Ursula Andress' Murphy that you were an astronaut and let's face it being an astronaut is far cooler than being an Irish dancer and if she'll fuck an Irish dancer you'd be in like Flynn.'

So we'd go into space and oooh and aaah about how beautiful it all was and how small the earth looked and blather about how insignificant we are in the great scheme of things. Then I'd say 'Hey, Barry Egan, take a picture of me by this airlock' and when he came over I'd shove him into the airlock then open the outer door and watch him float away into space. If the movies have taught us anything his head will swell up grotesquely and explode which would be fucking cool."

"Astromungous", said Ron. "What about you then, Splodge. How would you kill Barry Egan?'

He took a sip of his pint, his eyes never leaving the bar.

"Slowly", he said.

Labels: barry egan is a cunt

In the paper this morning comes the story that some students from UCC are posing nude as part of 'rag week' to make a calendar to raise money for charity.

Look, this has gone far enough. There are a million and one ways to raise money for charity but frankly I'm tired of this idea that people want to see ordinary people naked. As if that is some kind of motivation to buy a calendar.

"Oh, it's March. Must turn over to see some old minger's arse while she tries to smile coyly and covers up her pendulous knockers with her arm."

Get to fuck. If I want a naked calendar then I will contact Pirelli who make a fine one indeed but students, old ladies, firemen and whoever the fuck else - put your fucking clothes back on and go out with a bucket like everyone else.

You're scaring the children.

Ever read in the paper about somebody launching an 'astonishing attack' on someone else?

For example: 'Lily Allen launched an astonishing attack on Madonna saying she was using black babies as a fashion accessory and that her music was boring crap'.

Or instead of an astonishing attack someone might lash someone else, such as, 'Andrea Roche lashed gossip blog Blogorrah saying she'd caught them going through her rubbish bins and found editor Derek O'Connor upstairs sniffing her underwear and making strange mewling sounds'.

Now, who amongst us in the blogging community hasn't had a pop at someone at some time or other? Whether it's me about Damien Rice, Damien Mulley castigating anyone related to providing broadband or Tom Raftery trying to get anywhere with countless customer service departments we've all done it.

However, it's rare that a blogger's opinion on anything makes it into the papers or mainstream media. It does happen every so often but not nearly enough, in my opinion. I would like lots of people to know that I launched an astonishing attack on the Vintners Association of Ireland for their cosy cartel and price fixing or that I lashed Charles Haughey after his death instead of doing the whole 'Ahh sure he's dead, he was grand really' thing that so many others did.

What amount of celebrity status do you need to achieve this? I saw the front of the Irish Sun today when I was at the shop buying milk and that Irish guy that won Big Brother about 6 years ago was lashing and launching an astonishing attack on that Jade thing that looks like a pig for being racist to some other woman in that show that nobody should really give a fuck about. Now, as far as celebrities go he's right down there. He's not so much 'Z list' as 'z list' having gone through the alphabet in capitals first.

Why should he get to lash someone when I don't? Let's be honest about it, any blogger could be as famous as some twat who won Big Brother simply by exposure in the press.

So here's the question for you? Why is there no regular column in any daily newspaper which covers blogs or what's being said by blogs in Ireland.

I remember there was one in the Tribune for a while but that died off. There are sporadic articles about blogs and although I've been featured on a number of occasions nobody has ever asked me anything about blogs or blogging. I'm not that scary, you know. I'll quite happily meet any journalist to talk about blogs once I can launch an astonishing attack on somebody in return.

Is it that bloggers don't really matter and that's why we're not featured? Perhaps, but we matter a lot more than the chimps who win reality TV shows and we're a lot more talented. There are some tremendously entertaining writers who could spice up any newspaper with a good lashing or an astonishing attack.

Do newspapers here not want to give coverage to blogs and bloggers? Maybe that's it but wouldn't a weekly, or even daily, round-up of the Irish blog scene only promote both the blogs and the newspaper that had the balls to do it? Maybe we need a Irish blogs HQ from which we can fire off press releases.

Date: 19-01-07 - Embargoed till 14.30pm

Irish blogger Twenty Major has launched an astonishing attack on Gerry Ryan saying "Any man who says 'lurry' instead of 'lorry' should not be polluting our airwaves."

....

Look, I want to be scathing, savage, blistering, vitriolic, caustic and virulent. I can do it here, you can read it, but damn it all I don't think wanting to have to same influence as some no-mark ex-air hostess is too much to ask, do you?

I should mention that I will launch an astonishing attack and lash anyone who disagrees with me except the astonishing attack will be me running at you wearing a pantomime horse costume and I'll lash you with a length of birch that'll sting the arse off you.

A report commissioned by the National Roads Association and carried about by the HSE 'found that 21pc of fatal road crashes between 6am and noon were alcohol related.'

It's another attempt to justify the 'morning after' breath tests through which statistics are being nicely bumped up while critics complain it's a bit like shooting fish in a barrel.

What the report, or the newspaper, fails to tell us is exactly how many fatal road accidents occur between 6am and 12 noon. I'd be surprised if the figure was in any way considerable so 21% of fuck all is not much, is it?

If they can turn around and say 'There are X amount of fatal road accidents between 6am and 12 noon' then fine, I'm quite happy to accept their findings but to give us half the story makes it all a bit suspicious to me.

Labels: drink driving, road safety

So Dirty Dave came into Ron's last night with his face and arms all cut up in bits. He had bandages, stiches and swollen cuts with iodine surrounds giving them that diseased yellow look.

"What the fuck happened to you? Cut yourself shaving?", quipped Stinking Pete who was standing at the end of the bar drinking a pint of some new fancy lager Ron has got in. Starpompomen, or something. I worry this place is turning a bit poncey. He'll be hiring lounge staff and making them wear aprons next.

"No, I fell", he said as he ordered a pint and a packet of prawn cocktail crisps (another worrying development).

"What happened?", I asked him.

"Well, you know the way at the back of my house I have those sliding doors?"

"Indeed I do."

"Well, I was sitting in the sitting room, doing some sitting and reading the latest Hannibal book - "

"Any good?"

"Not really, no. In fact I'd go so far as to say it was even worse than the last one."

"Ouch."

"Yeah. Anyway, I was sitting there reading and something caught my eye in the garden. I turned slowly and there it was. A fox. You know me and foxes, Twenty. Ever since that incident in my childhood I've had this inexorable need to catch them and throw them in the river Dodder. Strange, I know, but other people like to be pissed on or like Ryan Tubridy's radio show so I won't be judged."

"That's fair enough, Dave."

"So, I put down my book and crept across the sitting room. The fox, and fuck knows how he got over the wall, he must have special fox powers like a fox, was just snuffling about looking for scraps or a family of voles in the flower beds. I was very careful not to make any sudden movements or sounds - and given my flatulence problems that is not easy - and I soon was in the sprinter on his blocks position, ready to pounce with my catlike reflexes."

"Ok..."

"I mopped a solitary bead of sweat that was rolling down my brow and rubbed my eyes so as to better guage the distance between me and the beast himself. I cracked my neck, flexed my shoulder muscles and was about to set off when all of a sudden someone behind me said "THAT'S ALL DONE THERE MISTER!". I'd forgotten there was a bloke upstairs fixing the radiators in the bathroom and with the shock of it I took off, smacked into the sliding door which I'd forgotten to open anyway, bounced off it, tripped over the chaise lounge and went face first into the glass coffee table which smashed into pieces hence the cuts you see."

"Ouch."

"Yeah, ouch. Fucking five hours in A&E at Tallaght hospital before anyone would see me. I swear I nearly bled to death. If I'd been Mary Harney's mother I'd have been seen a lot quicker, I bet".

"If you were Mary Harney's mother your gee would have split in two giving birth."

"So, what happened to the fox?", asked Stinking Pete drinking a cosmopolitan (what the fuck is going on there?).

"Shot him", said Dave. "Boom! Boom!"

...or have all our fisherman just turned crap?

What is going on?

Got a leaflet through the door yesterday promising a new way to get fit. Forget gyms, forget aerobics, calesthentics, yoga, pilates and running on the spot

Get ready for DANCERCISE. It's true, you can learn to cha-cha, samba, rumba, jive, tango, hokey-cokey, birdie dance and lots more including 'Latin line dancing' so you can do teh achy-breaky heart while dancing around the Mexican hat.

Not really my cup of tea, I have to say. I'm a bit more traditional in my keep fit methods. I believe in the power of the mind. I sit and think about getting fit and it seems to work although I do try not to exert myself. They do keep coming up with new and zanier ways of trying to keep people interested in getting fit though, don't they?

Most people hit the new year with great intentions, join gyms, promise to eat less, drink less and exercise more. By the end of January the gym membership is a €70 a month chain around their neck that they're too embarrassed to cancel (if they're not part of a gym that requires a 12 month contract and sends heavies after you to collect if you default).

So to keep people's gumption up they invent things like Dancercise. It got me to thinking. What sort of exercise would I be interested in doing? It would need to be something that was challenging, didn't get boring, had some excitement, a bit of danger and wasn't anything like all the others. I racked my brains, so I did.

Vertical cycling? Sounds good but how the fuck do you do it? Treadmill 360, where you run and play xBox? Tried it, it's hard to control things and it's hardly dangerous. How about headbutting 50 scorpions hanging from threads? Then it came to me in a flash.

"Throttling a grizzly bear-ercise"

Let's face it, the sheer size and power of a grizzly bear would ensure that you received a full cardio-vascular work out, the potential for having your stomach ripped open and for the beast to feast on your innards would bring that element of danger while the thrill of throttling a grizzly bear to death would certainly never get boring. I know I'd be Throttling a grizzly bear-escising all year long!

I suppose the main problem would be the supply of bears but I suppose you could get a few mammy bears and a few daddy bears and start breeding your own. Bear skin jackets and grizzly burgers from the grizzly corpses could help finance the thing too.

Soon strangling animals to death will be de rigeuer but you'll know when you see 'Choke a Gnuercise' or 'Garrote a panthercise' where it all began.

"Do something now or we'll lose our rural communities forever". That was the warning from TDs and community leaders as people in remote areas of the country fall foul to the laws of the land.

Much has been said in recent months about the importance of keeping these once tight-knit communities together and activists now feel that unless something is done Ireland, as a country, will sport more hermits per square kilometre than any other country in Europe. According to Seamus O'Flapperty of one particular interest group unless something changes the situation could be a disaster for those not living in cities.

"'Tis is a sad state of affairs, so it is", he told me yesterday. "Until recently like we could go out and beat a darkie to death without so much as a word from anyone. All the lads would get together, polish each others clubs and we'd set off till we found someone with skin that wasn't milky white. Then we'd cave the fucker's head in, gut the cunt then bury his body in a shallow grave before we went off to have a few pints and a sing song at the local.

It was a tradition and nobody got hurt. It was only when the newspapers started going on and on about it that they decided to crack down on it. Now we have nothing to do and it's ruining our lives."

His concerns are shared by Tim "The Spade" Connors whose links to local activities are also being cut down. Speaking on behalf of people who like to smoke crack cocaine and opium and run puppy farms he said "The government are going to be the death of rural Ireland. These so-called 'laws' are all well and good for those that live in towns and cities but why should we have to abide by them? We've been doing what we wanted for years and now they expect us to toe the line. Well, they'll regret it when there's nothing in the countryside but deserted villages andshops with no customers. I mean, look around you now. This town is getting like a ghost town."

The government are not to be moved though. Speaking anonymously a well placed source in the Department of Justice said "Look, we know this whole making people obey the law thing is having an impact but we were under huge pressure. Every time you turned on the news there was another story about a road death or a drunken driver. We had to do something. Their wild west days are over.

However, they can't turn around and say we didn't give them anything back. Sure we practically took out a full page ad in the paper to say that shooting travellers was fine by us. I mean, if they can't get to the pub in case they think they're going to be breathalysed then what's stopping them picking up a shotgun and shooting a tinker in the back? We give them a great new sport but still they're moaning."

Suggestions from local TDs have included an amnesty for those 'just a pint and a chaser or two or three over the limit and sure couldn't they drive home with their eyes closed they've been doing it for so long' and for the government to pay for customers that don't come in to local bars but it seems that those down the country will have to adapt or, like the Incas before them, simply die out and be remembered as a funny old tribe but without the wonders of civilisation (the ancient pyramids of Tubbercurry notwithstanding).

You know when you go to a restaurant and someone says "Can I take your coat for you sir?".

I fucking hate that. It makes me want to punch them in the throat. I don't want anyone to take my coat. Firstly they'll simply put in on a rack amongst all the other coats and who knows what sort of filth they'll pick up put in such close proximity to them.

Secondly it means they touch my coat and I don't want anyone to touch it. Thirdly, how do I know they won't, while I'm eating my meal (which will probably be not as good as they'd like to think it is), rifle through the pockets and touch my stuff. They might even steal something.

Fourthly, what happens if some cunt comes out from his dinner and the person says "Sorry, which coat was your coat again?" and they take the opportunity to replace their shabby garment with my obviously superior and higher quality attire? What happens is I come out after finishing the meal, which really wasn't as good as they like to think, to find some disgusting old mackintosh where my finely tailored piece of clothing once hung and I go around punching as many people in the throat as I can.

So before you ask if you can take my coat ask yourself if you want to punched in the throat repeatedly. I'm sure the answer to that is no.

I remember one place where the coat jockey said it was a 'fire risk' for me to take my coat into the dining area.

"Has my coat, without my knowledge, been doused in petrol?", I asked him.

"I doubt that", he said.

"Is my coat made of plastic explosives or that stuff that old sofas used to be covered with that went up like a fucking Space Shuttle if you so much as dropped a spark on it?"

"No, it appears to be made of suede."

"Does it appear that my coat is actually a coat of mischievous flames who are simply disguising themselves as suede but once they get into the dining area they will become flames again and run around setting light to everything?"

"No."

"Then how the fuck is my coat a 'fire risk', if you don't mind me asking?"

"Erm...our insurance is invalid if ..."

"Shut up."

"But really..."

You can understand why I had to punch him in the throat.

Don't touch my fucking coat, you poxy cunts.

So the nominations for the Irish Blog awards are now open. Just go here to register your choices.

At the moment you can only nominate for one category at a time but I believe a new form is forthcoming with which you can nominate multiple blogs. For now though your browser's back button will take a bit of a pounding.

Of course you can nominate me or any other blog you like. No pressure. It's not like I know where each and every one of you live or anything. Certainly not. And it's not like I don't have anything better to do than wait around and 'convince' you to nominate and vote me.

I have a busy, fulfilling life, you know.

There I was going into Superquinn, that particular branch because Dirty Dave's cousin is the assistant manager and I can get one of those price gun things and get loads of things for nothing, when there in the middle of the road was a little tabby cat.

I was a bit worried because there was a lot of traffic but the cat didn't seem to mind. It was just sitting there.

Then, as if from nowhere (like the shopkeeper in Mr Ben), out came Twink and told the little cat to get back into the garden.

"Ya fuckin' eejit! Ya stupid fuckin' dickhead. Get in or I'll smack the fuckin' face off ya", she said to the cat, I think. My lip reading isn't always great. She was wearing some kind of a jacket with fur on the collar. The cat did as it was bid.

And that's how I saw Twink's pussy.

Looking out my window right now I can see the trees at the end of the garden being blown all over the place by very strong winds. In Roscommon a Kangaroo has escaped and is terrorising the local community, brazenly coming up to people then going *boing boing boing* off again.

Rush hour traffic in Dublin was brought to a standstill yesterday by a young swan who decided the canal was boring before going on a rampage around Baggot Street leaving terrified motorists stranded in their cars.

What next? Panthers on the loose or a plague of bonobo apes?

As the boss man in Hill Street Blues always said "Be careful out there....you cunts". He generally muttered that under his breath before sending them out on patrol for the day.

Strange things are afoot.

Conscientious, caring, fun loving and most of all, after the recent publicity, fully aware of the folly of dangerous driving.

Take, for example, these two videos here, which show some lads down in Cork showing how much attention they've paid to the reports of the 350+ people killed on Irish roads last year and the calls from all and sundry to take care when driving.

Video 1

Video 2

Of course, all these boys need is someone to tell them they're doing wrong, isn't that right?

Update: The videos got deleted. Oh well. Just imagine some young lads driving like cunts and videoing themselves. It's easy if you try...

Labels: cork, glanza, idiot drivers, stupid cunts, type r, video

Today's paper suggests people from the Southside of Dublin are better than those from the Northside because they drop less chewing gum on the ground.

It's sort of like saying one group of killers is better than another group of killers because they don't kill as many people. Does it really matter where you drop your chewing gum? Simply eating chewing gum is in itself a disgusting act which immediately shows you to be of peasant stock.

I don't really get the whole Northside v Southside thing myself. Yeah, they've got Darndale and Finglas and Ballymun while we've got Tallaght, Clondalkin and those disgusting scumbags from Blackrock.

They had the Grove, we had Wesley. They had the Omni park, we had the Square. Really we should be joining forces to fight the common enemy. Correct, people from Cavan. Why would Dubliners fight each other when this lot are coming to our city in droves and spreading mayhem, pestilence and shit-stirring.

You see them around Westmoreland Street trying to cause problems. They'll grab a Northsider and say "See that lad there", pointing at some bloke with weird spiky hair wearing ripped jeans with a blazer and a scarf knotted around his neck in the way that only a ponce can knot it, "he says 'What does a Northsider use for protection during sex? A bus shelter! Wah wah wah wah wah!' and the Northsider will get furious and start fisticuffs.

Then the Cavan bloke will pull aside a Southsider and say "Hey, see that Northsider", pointing to a bloke in a tracksuit wearing a Celtic shirt with his tongue lolling out of his head and with a little ronny of a moustache, "he said 'What do a Southsider and a tampon have in common? They're both stuck up cunts'. Wah wah wah wah wah wah!" and the Southsider will be like, totally, pissed off and he'll kick some young lad to death outside Annabels one night.

It's time we learned that we're all the same, if a little bit different, and stopped the fighting. Perhaps we need a song by 2FM DJs. A 'rap against rape' for the new generation. Come on O'Shea, if that is your real name, sort it out. The finest vocal talent in the country. Rick O'Shea, Damien McCaul, Larry Gogan, John Clarke and Marty himself. It'd be a winner. You might even get the Nobel peace prize.

Dirty Dave is from the Northside actually. Somewhere in Stoneybatter, I think. That's not what makes him smelly and dirty and stupid though. It's the fact that his parents were first cousins.

So Apple have released the iPhone, which will be a phone that runs the Mac OS, is an iPod, can play videos, browse the web and make you a cup of tea in the morning. Then there's iTV which means you get a box or something and then you can put the box between your computer and your TV and watch all the stuff on your computer on your TV.

They really are an innovative company. I have a few suggestions for them though.

iTrim: Nose hair, the bane of all our lives, but how often have you wanted to trim your nose hair while downloading the latest releases from the iTunes music store while sending spreadsheets and project files to colleagues who can view you via your webcam? The iTrim does all that and more. Using state of the art touch sensitive technology the device trims your nose hair then sends the vibrations wireless to your computer who uses the beats per minute of the trimmer to select the perfect song to listen to.

iTwat: Are you a young Hollywood starlet? Can't get out of a car because the paparazzi are taking shots of your exposed minge? The iTwat uses holographic technology to make it look like you're actually wearing knickers rendering their photos useless but still allowing you to get fingered by complete strangers while standing at the bar.

iRon: Do you want to chat with your friends while ensuring your favourite shirt is beautifully pressed and without creases? The iRon is a steam iron with a built in chat client that connects to MSN, AOL, Yahoo, Gmail, IRC and the Home Shopping Network. iRoning has never been so much fun!

iPog: The pogs faze died out after being hugely popular in the mid 90s but watch it grow again as the iPog takes schoolyards by storm. Each one contains a 2GB memory card, enough to store 1000 songs in MP3 format, and features the face of Steve Jobs. Mmmmm, Steve Jobs.

iRocketlauncher: Designed specifically for US soldiers in Iraq who have little to do except wait for civilians insurgents to drive past their post. They can now watch episodes of their favourite TV shows such as M*A*S*H, WKRP in Cincinnati and Manimal. It has a built in motion sensor so the headphones cut out and a warning is sounded in anyone Arabic comes within 1000 yards.

iCan'tbelieveit'snotbutter: It's a low fat, healthy spread for your sandwiches but it can also play movies, songs and ... oh, fuck it. You know the rest.

Sometime before July there'll be a general election. As many of you will realise politics is my first love and I have spent hours poring over facts and figures, precedents, rhetoric and party strategy and campaign tactics to produce what I believe to be the definitive guide to the next election in Ireland.

So without further ado, here it is:

January 07: Fine Gael launch an advertising campaign highlighting the failures of government citing the poor state of the health service, increasing transport problems throughout the country, high prices and high taxes and the government's inability to tackle serious crime. Enda Kenny appears on talk shows up and down the country and although he's still a bit wooden he speaks well and makes sense.

Labour sort of shuffle around in the background looking at their feet. The PDs say nothing. The Greens declare a war on cars and promise free bicycles to everyone if they get into power.

Conor Lenihan is caught in a Sunday World sting driving a truck full of Sudanese refugees off the ferry in Rosslare. He claims they are a gospel choir hired to perform at a memorial service for Charles Haughey. Meanwhile Noel Ahern calls women 'Milk machines for the babies of Ireland' drawing condemnation from pretty much everyone except Claire Byrne.

Taoiseach Bertie Ahern rejects calls from opposition leaders for both members to resign saying 'It's none of their feckin' business what they do'.

End of month polls see Fine Gael gain 1 to 28, Fianna Fail stay steady at 40, Labour at 11, Sinn Fein at 7, the Greens at 4, PDs at 3 and Independents/Others at 8.

February 07: After 34 gangland murders in Dublin in the first 3 days of the month the opposition accuses Minister for Justice Michael McDowell as being 'as soft as Scarlett Johannson's dirty pillows' on crime. The PD leader says it's not his fault and lays the blame squarely on middle-class recreational drug users saying if it wasn't for them there'd be nobody to buy it.

Bertie Ahern agrees and threatens to plunge the country into recession unless people from Foxrock and Rathgar stop buying cocaine for their dinner parties. 'Maybe then you'll appreciate everything we've done for you feckless eejits', he says.

Fine Gael promise to cut waiting time in hospitals, an end to people being treated in corridors and better pay and shorter working hours for nurses and doctors.

Labour look like they're going to say something but in the end they don't. Sinn Fein say they would have no problem being part of a coalition government with Fianna Fail. Gerry Adams says 'Me and Bertie go way back'. Bertie says he'd have no problems sharing power with Sinn Fein who have 'been grand since they stopped all that blowing people up and stuff'.

End of month polls see Fianna Fail gain 2, Fine Gael drop 2, the PDs drop 2 to just 1% while new Independent candidate for Dublin South Central, Eamon Dunphy, makes huge inroads with his free grass for arthritis sufferers manifesto.

March 07: Transport Minister Martin Cullen rejects calls for his resignation as traffic in Dublin grinds to a standstill. It now takes an average of 4 hours to get from the airport to just beyond the M50 toll bridge, LUAS fares increase by €2 a journey at rush hour times to deter passengers while Dublin Bus says it needs another 200 buses to make any impact on people taking their cars to work. The minister says his revolutionary plan of introducing horse and carriage lanes to every major road in the country will see a huge improvement in traffic by 2087.

Pat Rabbite launches a broadside at Mary Harney for the state of the health service after it's revealed that 4 old aged pensioners died in a cupboard at Beaumont Hospital after staff forgot they were in there. An Irish Sun investigation also reveals that many nurses are being hired from the Asian sub-continent and have no training. A number of the nurses then expose their dirty pillows on page 3.

Enda Kenny appears on RTE's Six-one news and all the media training looks like it's paying off as he appears charismatic, informed and conscientious, promising to make things better if Fine Gael are elected. On the same bulletin Sean Haughey is accused of killing a small boy by repeatedly running over him with his car before taking the body up in one of his helicopters and dumping him into the Irish Sea.

Bertie Ahern defends his colleague saying "If there's no body then you can't prove anything. Anyway, it's none of your business who he kills in his private life. Next you'll be wanting to know who he killed for his communion."

The opinion polls at the end of the month show a three point gain for Fianna Fail, Fine Gael drop another two while the PDs are down to half a point.

April 07: The month starts well for Bertie Ahern as accusations that he took a £12,000 gift in 1992 from Manchester United manager Alex Ferguson are proved to be incorrect. "It was only £7,500, so shove it up your holes. I didn't even get a sandwich", he says.

In a charm offensive Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny appears on Podge and Rodge and puts the two filthy puppets in their place no matter how hard they try to wind him up. Also in a sensational interview with George Hook on Newstalk 106 he lambastes the government for their performance, the cronyism, back handers and nepotism the country has suffered. "I won't give people jobs because they're my friends", he says, "I'll give them jobs because they're the best people for the jobs". Even the Churchill dog Hook applauds at the end and says "Oohhhrrrr yyyessss!!

The Green party make some headway with their plan to build a wind farm where Coolock now stands, Labour hold a Proinsias de Rossa lookalike competition, Michael McDowell says his party are just misunderstood when he orders Gardai to arrest and crucify Nigerian refugee Kunle as a 'deterrent to other darkies', Sinn Fein support increases in areas in the country with poor educational standards but a willingness to sing rebel songs even if they don't really know what they all mean while Dunphy's campaign appears to be failing after he's challenged in Dublin South Central by former In Tua Nua singer Leslie Dowdall who is running on the 'Let's have Damien Rice made illegal' ticket.

Late in the month it's discovered that Charlie McCreevy is a crack addict and big time drug runner moving kilos of cocaine through a network of Latvian criminals all over the country. McCreevy appears on TV, cries a bit, says he knows he's let everyone down and he'll do his best, by God, to make it up to everyone.

Refusing to condemn his friend the Taoiseach says "Yiz are full of shite. It's not like he had his house painted for free or anything like that. Youse are all thick an' all an anyways. What drugs he bought with his confirmation money are none of your business."

At the end of the month Fianna Fail move up another 4 points at the expense of Fine Gael, Labour stand still to stand still, the Greens move up 2 while the PDs are down to .2 of a point.

May 07: Thousands of jobs are lost and business leaders warn that Dublin will no longer attract new investment due to the transport problems. Doctors and nurses go on strike but the government call in the army. Hospital deaths increase by 980%. Mary Harney claims it's a triumph as waiting lists are drastically cut. An Irish Daily Mail investigation shows people are staying at home to perform surgery on themselves with the help of Wikipedia and back street Sicilian surgeons.

95 gangland killings take place at Liffey Valley shopping centre alone and Sinn Fein blow up the Spire on O'Connell Street saying something about Ian Paisley and landlords and that they were basically fed up being good and nobody should begrudge them a bit of an explosion because they haven't exploded anything for ages like.

Fine Gael tour the country, Enda Kenny kisses more babies than any politician has ever kissed before and gets chicken pox for his troubles. His dogged resistance to scratching the sores makes him lots of new friends and his promise to get tough on crime is welcomed by the whole country.

The Sunday Independent runs an exclusive interview with Michael Flatley's ex, Lisa Murphy, and she reveals that her new love is Minister for Social and Family Affairs Seamus Brennan. In a no holds barred exposé with Barry Egan she tells how the two are in love and how Brennan loves to poo on her chest before making his children watch as he shoots his load all over her face. Egan cums in his pants describing her as the most beautiful woman in Ireland. Grainne Seoige throws a hissy fit.

Despite the scandal Fianna Fail gain another 3 points, Fine Gael go up one but that's only because Dublin South Central is all open after Eamon Dunphy murders Leslie Dowdall before hanging himself in an auto-erotic asphyxisation incident in the Westbury Hotel. A poster of Roy Keane from the inside of FourFourTwo magazine is found close by. The PDs are down to .1 of a point after the health service problems and Michael McDowell tells Miriam O'Callaghan he'd like to 'sup from your furry cup' when he thinks his mic is off during a Prime Time interview.

June 07: The Taoiseach announces the date of the election as July 1st. "Vote or fuck off you pack of snivelling shitbags", he says.

Final campaigning sees all parties going all out. The Labour party call a press conference in the Mont Clare hotel but don't turn up. Instead they go for the sympathy vote sending a handicapped man to issue a press release which is a blank piece of paper with the party logo on the top. The press corps say it's the party's best performance in years.

Sinn Fein say they'll bring about a united Ireland even if it means they have to kill all the protestants in the 32 counties to do it, the Greens claim to have invented a hovering space car which runs on recycled waste but say it won't be available until after they get a few seats in, Jackie Healy Rae sets up the Big Bogman Cloth Cap party which rounds up all the Independents but they tell Mildred Fox they'd rather bring Margaret Thatcher into the party when she phones up and begs to be involved.

After it's revealed 356 dangerous criminals failed to return to prison after being let out to see that cunt who won Australian Idol's sell out concert in Slane and that hospitals were using pigs' blood during complicated surgery on the orders of the Minister for Health the PDs don't even score on the charts but are confident that at least their mums will vote for them.

Fine Gael pull out all the stops. Enda Kenny is transformed into a witty, engaging character. An honest, believable politician. He promises more Gardai and a government that will be tough on crime. He reveals a foolproof blueprint to ressucitate the health service, promises free medical and dental care to everyone and 24 hour GPs while many drugs will no longer require a prescription and can be bought over the counter.

He announces metro systems for Dublin and Cork that will be built in two years for a fraction of the cost of the one currently planned and he reveals a massive expansion of the rail network throughout the country as well as a massive reduction in ticket prices. He also unveils his plan to slash income taxes, cut government duty on alcohol and cigarettes, abolishes stamp duty and all stealth taxes, buys back Aer Lingus and provides free air travel for life to every citizen and promises that the weather in Ireland will be as good as the south of Spain.

Meanwhile the Star on Sunday exposes Bertie Ahern's involvement in a paedophile ring which claims the lives of thousands of young boys each year and through which he has been paid millions of euros into a bank account he never had. Shocking photo evidence shows the Taoiseach sodomising a nine year old boy while giving him a reach around as the corpses of five other children lie on the floor having been worn out and shot through the back of the head by the crazed leader, off his face on Charlie McCreevy's coke, while Ivor Callely and Brian Cowen pleasure each other with baby oil and Mary Hanafin and Willie O'Dea thrash each other senseless to sate their S&M desires.

"Let he who hasn't snorted cocaine off the back of a small boy while pounding his arse and being rimmed by the small boy's brother cast the first stone", says a defiant Taoiseach on Morning Ireland. "I don't have to tell you which boys I fucked on their communion days."

The last poll before the election shows Fianna Fail up 20 points, Fine Gael down 19, the PDs are out of sight and out of mind, most people have copped on about the Greens, the Celtic fans are still up for Sinn Fein, the Labour party are, as always, steady as a rock, and the Big Bogman Cloth Cap party looks set win 7 seats though nobody is quite sure why.

July 07: Election day. Bertie Ahern turns up with a big wad of cash shouting "LOADSAMONEY" and a t-shirt saying "Is your son missing? I bet I know where he is."

Fianna Fail win by a landslide. Everyone says it's a disgrace and nobody admits voting for them.

Martial law is introduced in late July and Donegal is turned into an internment camp. Enda Kenny resigns and moves to the South of France where he becomes manager of Monaco, leading them to Champions League glory the following season.

Life goes on, the people get screwed, nothing changes.

Labels: election, fianna fail, fine gael, Irish election, labour party, PDs, politics, sinn fein

Yeah and then what I'll do is I'll wait for them and because I've won the lottery I'll have invented all kinds of gadgets and one of them will be a hologram version of me and they'll come in and think it's me but it won't be me at all and then I'll just come up behind them and cave their head in with lead pipe and there'll be brains and shit all over the place. That'll be cool. Then if anyone asks me if I know what happened I'll just be all like 'Me? No. No idea. What a shocker' but the best thing will be when I call up his wife afterwards and using a voice disguising thingy I'll just say 'Hey, I just killed your husband to death. Fatally' and she'll be crying and stuff and I'll be laughing and then I'll go to the games room in my big house where I'll have an xBox and a Playstation3 and a Wii and a 100" plasma screen which will have just been invented because I told the people at Samsung to invent it for me or I'd have them all killed and I'd be playing games and drinking beers and coming up with a totally evil plan to get rid of the other bloke which will probably be something cool like poisoning him and then watching him die slowly but at the last minute I'll show myself to him and he will know how dastardly I am and instead of his last thoughts being about his family or his kids he'll be thinking 'Damn, that Twenty Major is a seriously dastardly cunt' and that will please me. Of course I could just obliterate him in an orgy of violence but that'd mean I had to pay off more cops and I hate giving cops money, the filthy donkey fuckers, although lots of blood would quite cool. Then I'll go back to my games room and have two dwarves fight to the death for my entertainment while I invite some of my friends around for some clay pigeon shooting but instead of clay pigeon it'd be folk-rock artists like David Gray and Damien Rice but not Ray Lamontagne and then I'll kill the dwarf who actually killed the other dwarf in that fight to the death then, with my vast wealth, I will set up up my own political party 'Fine Twenty' with a manifesto so offensive that I'm bound to win the next general election and when I do I'll show the people of Ireland what government is all about when I introduce new legislation to...

...oh, sorry. Was I blogging out loud?

what should i do if I rip my finger off and a professional surgeon puts it back on but it turns black, asks a reader from Washington, USA.

How did people survive without Google in the past?

And I just saw this.

Department of Agriculture - hahahahahaha. For fuck's sake. I can state categorically that the only time I have had any dealings with that lot was when I tried to get an import licence for a kodiak bear and they turned me down, the cunts.

Sitting in Ron's last night and in walked Dirty Dave holding his stomach.

"What's up with you, Dave?", I asked.

He farted loudly and the stench was hideous. He just held his hands on his stomach as one solitary tear wound its way down his face like a raindrop on a window pane.

"Dave, you cunt, what the fuck is up?"

"I'm ill, Twenty. I'm very, very ill."

"Jesus. What is it? A perforated ulcer? Delhi belly from the Indian takeaway? Chrons disease? Bowel cancer? A tumour? Two tumours?"

"Celery."

"Celery?"

"Yeah, celery."

"You need to explain a bit further, Dave. How can celery do that to you? It's not like eating a gone off prawn or something. If celery was gone off it'd be just mush and you wouldn't eat it."

"Well, you know how, like many other people, I put on a few pounds over the Christmas period?"

"If by a few pounds you mean 'nearly doubled my own weight', then yes, yes I do."

"You know me, Twenty. I was a lithe, supple, sinewy example of the male form. I was sculpted, toned, buff before anyone ever used that word apart from when they talked about polishing their shoes. Now look at me. If I let my beard grow a bit people would mistake me for Mary Harney."

"You are indeed the portly rascal, Dave, but what does the celery have to do with it?"

"Well, I was reading around on the internet about diets and which foodstuffs would be good to eat and which to avoid. I read somewhere that celery actually has negative calories which means you expend more calories eating it than it actually provides you."

"Ok."

"So I figured that if I ate loads of celery I'd actually be losing weight just through the act of eating. I went to Superquinn last night and bought all the celery they had. Then I went to Tesco and bought all the celery they had. Then to Dunnes and bought all their celery. At 8.15am this morning I started eating raw celery and I'd say I've eaten 300 stalks of the stuff. When I went upstairs to weigh myself I hadn't lost a single pound. In fact, I'd put on nearly three stone. Not only that I'm pooing raw celery. It's going in one end and coming out the other within minutes."

"Dave, you are a proper moron and no mistake. How could eating a mountain of stuff make you lose weight?"

"Negative calories, Twenty. NEGATIVE CALORIES."

"Jesus wept."

"Anyway, I just came in for a drink which will settle my stomach. Ron, a pint of Southern Comfort, peach schnapps, Malibu, slice of lime and a Guinness head please."

Labels: celery, new year diet

I am thinking about writing a self-help book. I look at the successes of people like Allen Carr, who helped so many people stop smoking, or Billy Bob Atkins, or whatever his name was, who helped many people stop being enormous fat cunts.

However, I am slightly concerned that there's some kind of karma thing going on. Allen Carr died of lung cancer. Atkins died of being a big, fat cunt.

What I want to do is to help people give up otter meat. In Ireland sales of otter meat have rocketed and this is not good. It's going to turn all the men in Ireland into women. Here's why.

Women that are on the pill urinate into the water stream but the artificial estrogen they produce does not break down and goes straight back into the water supply. It also ends up in fresh water where it is consumed by fish, birds and otters. A man then goes to the supermarket and gets himself a 16oz t-bone otter steak. He eats the steak but he's not just eating delicious otter meat, he's eating the women's estrogen which builds up in his body and soon he'll start growing breasts and he'll get a slit in his taint which will be his mangina.

Obviously this is a big worry because otter meat is quite addictive and hard to give up so I want to write a book, produce audio CDs, do 'workshops' which people pay a huge amount of money to attend and go on tv and radio at every opportunity to promote my ideals.

However, given what happened to Carr and Atkins I'm worried that a gang of otters will kick me to death one night on my way home from Ron's.

What to do? What to do?

Unlilke that website, now made into a book, which is made up of entirely fabricated stories of things people supposedly overheard in Dublin I've overheard some very interesting conversations in Ron's bar.

For example:

Man 1: Just sign the cheques, there'll be no hassle from you and I have to ...erm... go buy someone a new liver with the money. Yeah, make that one out to cash..*cough*...

Man 2: If you're sh-sh-sh-sure dere boss den d-d-d-dat's what I'll d-do.

or

Woman 1: If I was you I'd quit as party leader. Some serious shit is going too hit the fan and you'd be best off if that other cunt had to deal with it. You can concentrate on your eating.

Woman 2: Are you going to eat that suckling pig?

Still though, it's rude to eavesdrop, isn't it? Although Dirty Dave did have a reasonable question in the bar last night.

"Twenty", he said, "if you overheard a conversation in which the participants were planning some kind of dastardly deed would you report it to the relevant authorities to try and prevent it."

"Well", I replied, "it would depend entirely on what kind of dastardly deed they were planning. For instance, if it was two chaps who were going to flay Damien Rice then roll him in salt and vinegar before sodomising him with a barbed spike of some kind then no. Or if they were discussing how best to blow up the M50 toll bridge with a minimum of damage to the general public then also no. However, if, for example, they were discussing how they might add some kind of poison to the Guinness supply or that they were planning on kidnapping Liam Brady then certainly I would do something about it."

"What would you do?"

"Well, firstly I would take Jimmy the Bollix to one side and tell him of my plan to stop them, then-"

"But what if someone overheard you?"

"So what if they did?"

"Well, listening to you out of context might make them think that you were the one planning a dastardly deed instead of trying, like the good humanitarian you are, to prevent it. What if they discussed how to stop you and someone overheard them and they discussed it and someone overheard them? It'd be like a snowball effect. Soon most of the Western world but be engaged in a series of missions against each other which would allow the Muslims to rise up and take over the world, which is what they're trying to do."

"It's a fairly steep slope from overhearing someone trying to nobble to the Guinness to a Muslim invasion of the civilised world but you could be onto something there, Dirty Dave."

So, my advice to all of you is that if you overhear something wicked and potentially dangerous and you wish to stop it you should communicate in a way that can't be overheard like mime or interpretive dance. You'll thank me later.

Like most of you I have been suffering this festive season. You know how it is. You go out, drink some pints, some fucker arrives so you drink a lot of rum or gin or whiskey or something. Then you go back to someone's house because it's Christmas and drink some more ane eventually you go home and go to bed but you don't want to go to bed because you know going to sleep means you have to wake up and waking up means HANGOVER.

The dry mouth, the headache, the beer shits, the fact that even your skin feels like it's got a headache. The symptoms are all too familiar.

But don't you remember when you were young? Remember when you could go out, drink like a cunt until 6am, get two hours sleep, get up, go to work that morning and all you could think about was where you were going to go that night? You felt a bit funny but normally a sandwich and a good poo sorted you out. Not a poo sandwich though.

So, what's changed? Well, you're older, obviously. As our bodies tire the recovery time increases and becomes more difficult. So you have two options. One is to not drink so you don't get a hangover, which isn't so much an option as a last resort, or you do something to make yourself younger.

Now, before you go exploring ancient lands to find the fountain or youth or giving yourself injections of Oil of Ulay, the solution has been staring us in the face for years.

Stem cells.

Some people advocate their use so that degenerative diseases can be cured and that's all very worthy but look at it this way. Your body is older, it can't cope with the alcohol because it's older. Whatever cells in your body are affected by booze are just too wrecked to allow you to function properly the next day.

But if you got some stem cells into you the night before then these would act like the cells in your body when you were a younger person enabling you to get up and go about your business without the same kind of pain and suffering that you normally would. Imagine how much more productive people would be. Workplaces would thrive, creativity would be at an all time high, absenteeism would be a thing of the past and all you'd have to do is to scoff a good handful of stem cells before you went out at night.

For the diet conscious amongst us we could have Stem Cells Lite or Prawn Cocktail flavour Stem Cells for those that can't cope with the regular taste.

It's fucking foolproof, isn't it? I can't believe nobody has thought of it before.

I would just like to state on the record now that this is my idea and I would welcome any contact with venture capitalists willing to fund the research. I already have a blue print for a stem cell harvesting machine. You just chuck in a foetus, or an adult if you're not into the whole foetel stem cell groove, and it will break it down into a big pile of hangover curing stem cells in less than a minute.

I've even thought of a way that you can slowly absorb the stem cells rather than gulping them down in one go. An adhesive substance which you afix to your shoulder like a nicotine patch. It's called Stemcellotape.

I think 2007 could be the year I strike it rich.

Labels: cure, hangover, stem cells

I would like to wish all of you, apart from all the people I hate, a very happy new year.

If I hate you then I hope your 12 months is filled with disease and weeping sores.