the happiest half hours of life

Coffee with Doctor Barn in the Costa Cafe.
"Have you read the Daily Mail?" quoth he.
The noble Heelers shot him a wounded look.
"Never," I cried. "Never do I read that tripe and onions. It is an odious posturing crapulous organ, one moment posing pro Catholic, the next advocating the pornographic lifestyle of pure pagan hedonism. Never, I tell you. Never do I read it. Unless their Health Editor Petrina Vousden has an article in it. I kind of like her. And I suppose I occasionally glance at their financial section because they carry more share quotations than most of the other papers, and the Johnston Press share price is covered, and that's always good for a larf. But why do you ask?"
The brother proffered me a copy of the newspaper in question.
It was open on a page featuring an article by a certain Philip Nolan about the recession in Ireland.
I read what was there writ.
It seemed vaguely familiar.
The gist of it was that if we hang on to our decency and sense of values, the recession isn't going to matter a whole lot.
I do not rate Philip Nolan as a writer or journalist.
I associate him normally with Tony O'Reilly's sneering atheistic media group Independent Newspapers, or with the Irish national broadcaster RTE, a sort of televisual version of Independent Newspapers which the citizenry is required to finance through the licence fee even if we never watch it.
No, I don't rate Philip Nolan.
I associate him with the worst of Ireland.
But this article had a certain je ne sais quoi.
More precisely, it had a certain je sais clairement bien exactement quoi le foutre ce qui se passe ici.
In fact, the article bore a remarkable similarity to something I'd published on The Heelers Diaries a couple of weeks ago.
I wonder could Philip Nolan be a fan.
He and his friend Ian O'Doherty are rumoured to be regular visitors to this website.
The sublime O'Doherty writes a humour column for the Irish Independent.
His humour column is patchily brilliant.
The brilliant patches being the ones he's lifted from here.
But I digress.
"Do you think..." I asked the brother.
"It looks very similar," he replied.
Yes indeedy, the Philip Nolan article bore a remarkable resemblance to something I'd written, and absolutely no resemblance to anything Philip Nolan has ever written before.
Incredible really.
I grimaced as I read further.
It appeared Philip Nolan was lacing my ideas with some of his own.
A bit of pap about Christians not realising pubs are sacred spaces too because people meet there and make mystical connections while getting potted.
More pap suggesting the Irish had lorded it over foreign nationals who come to work here.
Dreadful rubbish.
Oprah Winfrey calibre.
But let me say, unlike the rest of the article, definitely not inspired by anything on this website.
"What do you think?" wondered the brother when I looked up finally.
My handsome preraphaelite features took on a look of noble forebearance.
"I think he's a boll-x," I mused noblesse obligeingly. "And I wish if he was going to rip me off, that he wouldn't keep mixing in his own shite with my gentle elevated prose."