The Heelers Diaries

the fantasy world of ireland's greatest living poet

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Location: Kilcullen (Phone 087 7790766), County Kildare, Ireland

Saturday, March 02, 2024

immitation is the sincerest form of misspelling

 


As this website enters its twentieth year, perhaps I may be forgiven for a modest reflection on the astonishing impact it has had on the broader culture. Part of my established schtik shtik shtick has been to accuse the great and good of ripping off my work. So today we present...


TOP TEN PLAGIARISTS OF THE HEELERS DIARIES



1. The internet department of Russia's military intelligence apparatus has this week lifted my idea of applying Bony M's Rasputin song to resovietising Russsian dictator Vladimir Putin and published the original song themselves online with a montage of adulatory photos of Mr Putin. Their intent was to head off the delicious seditious satire of my work by twisting it into something laudatory of  Mr Putin. Mr Putin is unique among my plagiarists for the sheer volume of frivolous unlawful killing he has engaged in. Russian intelligence in their wisdom did not use the verses I added to the song which ran: 

"Ro Ro Vlad Putin

Russia's greatest death machine

It was a shame how he carried on.

Ro Ro Razz Putin

Evil, vile or just obscene

He'll invade your country before very long."


2. Rupert Murdoch the billionaire nonagenarian owner of Fox News, was so taken with my series of articles entitled Vladimir Putin's Greatest Hits about Russian President Vladimir Putin's assassinations of rivals and critics that he this week used my title for a similarly themed assessment of Mr Putin's various murders on the Fox News website. Mr Murdock is unique among my pagiarists in that when you misspell his name, no one notices.


3. In 2022 Fox News Commentator Kayleigh Maceneaney used a Heelers Diaries comment on the Ukrainian defenders of Snake Island replying to a Russian warship demanding their surrender: "Russian warship f--- off." Miss Maceneaney repeated my commentary as her own to wit: "The Ukrainians really spoke for the world with that one." She is unique among my plagiarists in being quite good looking.


4. In 2012 American songstress Lana Del Rey had a hit with Born To Die, entitled after a line from one my poems. She is unique among my plagiarists in that the pagiarised title was also plagiarised for song name by the compilers of the pop singer Prince's new posthumous album. The salient part of my poem went:

"What is born to live is born to die

I've been thinking this a long time

In restless and peace

It seems true enough in a certain way

Not true at all if you decry

But in the end finally

True enough for me."


5.The State run Irish national fraudcaster styled RTE, financed through compulsory taxation on the citizenry which they spend giving 75,000 dollar backhanders under the table to already hideously over paid politically connected presenters like Ryan Tubridy, a scion of the Andrews political dynasty who started work at RTE like everyone else on the bottom rung working in the canteen and then the next day was made presenter of radio and television chat shows, I kid you not, I mean I don't want to go casting no aspoyshuns, but the Irish government's idea of holding RTE accountable for its malfeasance vis a vis Tubridy et al, particularly Al, I hate him, the Irish government's accountability notion for RTE , I tells ee, involves abolishing the compulsory taxation on the citizenry styled a licence fee and replacing it with direct government funding of RTE from the public purse, so basically RTE can't lose, it gets caught robbing money from public funds to pay Turbridy and its reward is to be given direct access to public money wihtout the necessity of collecting a pesky licence fee from the public, that's some punishment right there, bloody hell mate Mrs Keaveney, but I digress, RTE plagiarsed me directly back in 2016 when their radio presenter Aidin Gormley, a woman of infinite jest mark you, interviewed actress Angela Lansbury and used my joke about Angela's TV sleuth character Jessica Fletcher, to wit: "Sherriff Teasle arrested Jessica when he realised that wherever she's been there's been a murder each week for the last thirty years," only Aidin Gormley tried to apply my joke directly to Angela Lansbury without reference to the character she played stating: "I'm a bit afraid of you. There's been a murder wherever you are once a week for thirty years," and whatever about Angela Lansbury as Jessica Fletcher killing people, Aidin Ephin Gormley as herself definitely throttled the life out of my joke. In fact Aidin Gormley is unique among my plagiarists because she actually managed to kill the joke even while stealing it.


6.In 2009 Broadcaster Mark Steyn lifted my joke referencing the film Sunset Boulevard. On the Heelers Diaries I had proclaimed a la Gloria Swanson's Norma Desmond character: "I'm still big. It's the internet got small." Mark Steyn found this so hilarious that he stole it and attributed it to himself musing:"I'm still big. It's the Islamophobia got small." Mark Steyn is unique among my plagiarists in that he never stopped doing it.


7. The now retired Archbishop of Dublin Diarmuid Martin was so entranced by my accusations deeming him a "Soviet era infiltrator of the Catholic Church who is using sex abuse cases as a Trojan horse to remake the Catholic Church in his image," that he delivered the Trojan horse bit himself and applied it to his critics in a speech given in Italy at a conference in Rome. Archbishop Martin is unique among plagiarists of my work in that he delivered his stolen line in Italian.


8. Conor Wotsisname, a provincial jounralist at the Leinster Leader newspaper (where I'd formerly "worked" though I never met him) was wont to leave derisive comments on this website apparantly attempting to discourage my light hearted critiques of his employer, but became so entranced by one of my Nietzhean replies to his ijmpudence, to wit "When you look into the Heelers Diaries, the Heelers Diaries looks back into you," that he used the original Nietzhe quote in one of his articles about a young criminal in court, an article which became quite highly thought of and was reprinted at least once by the venerable tastless old bankrupt Leinster Leader. I would hazard that before my article Conor Whothehell wouldn't have recognised Nietzhe if Nietzhe had ome up behind him and bit him on the arse. Mr Wotsisname is unique among my plagiarists in that I can't remember his last name.


9. In 2016 when Donald Trump secured the Republican Party nomination to run for President of the United States, my comment published on this website was: "Donald Trump has completed his hostile takeover of the Republican Party." The British Broadcasting Corporation liked it so much that they stole it and passed it off as their own commentary on their flagship news programmes. The Beeb is unique among my plagiarists for having as many atheistic communists in its ranks as it does devil worshipping freemasons.


10. In 2010 I discovered a prize winning poem written by an American academic which had the same title as one of mine which had never won any prizes.The poem title was On FIrst Looking Into Groening's Homer. The American if I remember rightly was Professor Garry M Breland of the University of Mississippi. He was among other things a lecturer in Counselling and Psychology. He may have needed some of his pyschological insights when I, clearly in the grip of a deep seated neurosis, went flop bott and cracker Jim, accusing the prof of stealing my work and threatening him with lawyers. He is unique among those accused of plagiarising my work in that he is entirely innnocent.



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Footnote: Below is the poem I thought was being stolen by Number Ten above.



On First Looking Into Groening's Homer


Much have I wandered in television's realms

Round many detective serials and cowboy shows have I been

So many reruns of Star Trek have I seen

Which the networks in fealty to Desilu Productions hold

But never did I breathe the pure serence

Until Matt Groening began merchandising the Simpsons

Loud and bold

Then felt I like some watcher of Desperate Housewives

When a new salacious plot twist swims into his ken

Or like stout Eastwood when with eagle eyes

He looked at a street punk with a wild surmise

And shot him over and over again.


Tuesday, February 27, 2024

the soul of man under socialism

 


Strolling in the undulating emerald randoms of the Curragh of Kildare.

Famed to generations of Irish schoolchildren from their geography class as "machaire mor reidh," ie a flat level plain, the Curragh, in keeping with Irish traditions of paradoxical imprecision, is fairly hilly for a plain.

As I walk, I come upon an old British Army graveyard nestling amid the hills.

Above the incongruously ornate arched entrance a carved insignia proclaims a two letter paean and a date,

"VR

1869"


The letters stand for Victoria Regina or more colloquially: "Queen Victoria woz ere."

Just think.

When this was carved the British were the most powerful nation on the planet.

No known empire ever reached the extent theirs did.

But history has moved on.

All the glories of 1869 are, as Rudyard Kipling predicted, one with Nineveh and Tyre.

Nowadays of course the old graveyard hidden in the Curragh hills is managed by the Department of Defence of the Republic of Ireland.

The day is going down.

The sunset rolls old gold along the horizon.

The air is deliciously cold.

Over a low stone wall I can see a lissom enough lady photographer with a tripod angling to get some sort of a shot of the amber light of dusk through the headstones.

I smile fondly.

A few decades ago I was commissioned to film a book cover for Liam Geraghty, a contemporary poet, in this graveyard.

I had found the task quite challenging.

For all the riches of its history, it's a plain enough little graveyard with not much to photograph.

Ditto Liam Geraghty.

My solution was to photograph him from low to the ground jumping over the headstones waving a multi colloured umbrella like a parachute.

Now that's art.

This evening the impulse strikes me to go talk to the present photographer.

I call my dogs to heel.

We walk up to the entrance.

My eyes alight on a modern public information sign.

It is to the left of the entrance and slightly lower down but much more imperious in its way than Good Queen Vickie's logo.

It proclaims:

"DEPARTMENT OF DEFENCE.

NO DOGS ALLOWED.

THIS RULE WILL BE ENFORCED BY THE COUNTY COUNCIL DOG WARDEN."

Something crunches under my feet.

I look down.

Even here, even in wilderness, I am standing in a sea of lagar tins, many bearing the elegaic brand name Orchard Thieves.

I stroll along the perimetre of the low stone wall.

It rambles up a hill and down a hill on this flat, level plain.

At the rear of the cemetary I find what I expected.

Five nitrous oxide gas cannisters from last night's drug orgy.

Lying beside the drug paraphenalia is a camisole top, mint green, spattered with an indeterminate substance.

Property of a lady.

Not for the first time the thought occurs to me that the heroes at the Department of Defence, in their obsession with dog poohs, are picking the wrong enemies.

Sunday, December 24, 2023

an old carol with new verses

 

God rest ye merry gentlemen, let nothing you dismay.

Remember Christ our saviour was born on Christmas day,

To save us all from satan's power when we had gone astray.

Oh tidings of comfort and joy, comfort and joy.

Tidings of comfort and joy.


God bless ye mischievous little kids, your joy is in the morn.

This is the day when the Christ the lord, our saviour was born.

Your lives will sing in praise of him, your work, your rest, your play.

Oh tidings of valour and faith, valour and faith.

Oh tidings of valour and faith.


God grace ye village maidens, you are a joy of life.

The holy one of Israel is with us here tonight.

You are the crown of his creation on this his holy day.

Oh tidings of wonder and light, wonder and light.

Oh tidings of wonder and light.


God pat ye birds n cats n dogs, let no man pull your tails.

Christmas with the animals is joyous without fail.

The Lord God made you cudd-il-y, all creatures sing his praise

Oh tidings of chirps, woofs and meyows, woofs and meyows.

Oh tidings of chirps, woofs and meyows.

Thursday, December 21, 2023

strange visitors

 


come with me

to the darkest most beautiful night

that the world has ever seen

and ever might

we can sit on the straw

we'll get warm from it

and watch the stillness draw

a cloak of peace

through a time of war

lambs are calling in the fields

that this night is forever

and forever yields

to this night

we are there hid in the warmth

from things that are old

and things that are rare

look look my friend

gold

frankincense

and myrhh

Wednesday, December 20, 2023

seasonal fare

 



A trip to Clondalkin for a jobs fair,

 Darth Vader is hiring for the salt mines of Endor or, more precisely, the post office is holding a last minute recruitment drive to fill vacancies for Christmas relief work,

Clondalkin is a once small town, now a suburb of Dublin, with a long history dating more than a thousand years,

There's an ancient round tower in the middle of the place, rising up amid the shopping malls and housing estates.

At the jobs fair a milling throng of enthusiastic miners are crowding around a lesser number of also milling and befuddled looking post office staffers.

I work my way to the front of the throng.

A chubby looking postal executive with a good natured face and a mop of black hair gives me a form to fill out.

It is a bare enough form.

Name, address and telephone number,

Fill it out and you're in.

I fill out the form.

I hand it to the post office executive.

He glances at it and recoils.

Now bold readers.

I am a simple fellow.

But I know a recoil or, shall we say, a start of recognition mixed with horror, when I see one.

"Did you recognise my home town?" I venture cautiously.

"I think I recognise you," he answers with a rueful smile, then adds: "Did you study journalism around 1994?"

I give him a hard look.

"You definitely weren't on that course," I tell him.

"My wife was," he says.

"Don't tell me who she is," I say. "Let me guess from the look of you."

I give another hard stare.

Which of my classmates would have ended up with this guy.

"You're married to Jackie Lynam," I announced.

"Bingo," said he.

"Not a bad guess," I said, "considering we never met."

"I think we must have met," said the man but there was an evasive note in his voice.

"No we never met," I said with certainty. "Maybe your wife reminisces about me sometimes in the long winter evenings."

"No she doesn't," said he decisively.

An odd sedition seized my spirit.

"Does she call out my name at moments of passion?" I ventured.

"No she doesn't do that either," he said somewhat drily, the smile no longer quite reaching his eyes.

We both stood there.

Conversation lagged a bit.

"Okay James," he said, perhaps eager to move on. "Well I have this form. And I'll sort it out and we'll be in touch."

I was fifty yards from the office enjoying the blessing of a wintery sun on Main Street, when I halted and exclaimed aloud: "Wimminey Whinge!"

Memory flooded back.

Some years ago bold readers the aforementioned Jackie Lynam (Peace Be Upon Her) had achieved some prominence as a feature writer in a national newspaper.

Uncharacteristically envious of her achievements no doubt, I had immediately responded on the Heelers Diaries with a light hearted assessment of her writings which were pure drek and had concluded that any failings in her style could be turned into strong points if the articles were published as a satire on modern feminism and entitled Wimminey Whinge,

Last week, standing stock still on Main Street Clondalkin, mouth agape, I knew without doubt that this was the real reason her husband had flinched when he saw my name.

They'd read my thing.

The circle is now complete as Darth Vader might say.

A sobering realisation dawned.

If the husband of Wimminey Whinge is a vengeful man, it might not be a lot of fun spending Christmas with him supervising my mail sorting skills at the post office.

Tuesday, December 19, 2023

pro trumpo



With various legal machinations against him coming to the boil, former US President Donald Trump has enough on his plate without having me on his side.

Indeed I have been harsh enough in most of my assessments of him in the past.

Now.

A liberal left wing Judge has just stated that Mr Trump's valuation of 300 million dollars for his own property at Mar A Lago in Florida is a priori fraudulent.

Judge Liberal (his real name is Arthur Engoron) believes the property is worth no more than 18 million dollars and that his assertion of such a value for Mr Trump's property entitles him as a Judge to deem Mr Trump's valuation of his own property crminally malfeasant.

Some thoughts.

Twenty years ago in the dulcet unspoilt Irish hamlet of Kilcullen, various businessmen started buying up property.

Houses went for around two hundred thousand if you were lucky.

Two of my neighbours, to wit a craggy old Poker player called Rick Munsley and a widow woman called Anne Cleeves, held out for more cash.

Richard got two point two million for his little old house.

The widow woman got seven million for hers.

The moral of the story is that a property is worth whatever someone needs to pay in order to get a seller to part with it.

Here is the news.

Judge Liberal is engaging in the attempted criminalistion of Donald Trump in order to remove Donald Trump as a candidate in the next American Presidential election.

Judge Liberal is acting on behalf of the Democratic Party of America in this matter.

The soi disant Democratic Party is seeking to ram a frivolously legalistic stake through Mr Trump's black heart as that party's shadowy power brokers believe there is no other way to prevent him winning the next election.

Their actions represent the pakistanification of American politics.

I would note, gentle travellers of the internet, that it's easier by exponential magnitudes to become Pakistan than to stop being Pakistan once you get there.

Tuesday, December 12, 2023

explaining wondrousness

 


Listening to an interview with atheistic biologist Richard Dawkins.

The nearest I can ascertain is that he believes the universe was created by something untestable and undefined which he calls a quantum fluctuation.

He insists that everything exists by chance, ie that the eternally existing Quantum Fluctuation couldn't have made anything on purpose.

He believes he knows this.

He also insists that life itself began spontaneously by chance through a still unknown physical process.

"Well, well, well," I muse aloud to the beagle, the parrot, the budgie and the sheepdog. "It looks like Mr Dawkins is relying rather heavily on the biochemistry of the gaps."