miscellaneous extraneous aneous

A Little Light Relief.
Evening at the Chateau De Healy. MC Hamster is doing her Phantom Of The Opera routine. That is to say, she's standing at the bars of her cage, up on two legs, staring at me fixedly. Her body is half turned away, a swirl in her fur for all the world like a cloak billowing about her. She is the picture of poignancy.
"Give it a rest Hammy," I tell her.
"I'm really sad," she replies.
"Go play on your wheel," I murmur.
"My wheel is broken," she sighs.
"So why did you chew the bolt off the axle?" I ask without sympathy.
"It seemed like a good idea at the time," replies the golden mouse.
"Well I can't play now, I'm disapproving of Southpark," I insist firmly.
"I want to get out of my cage," she says.
"You've got the biggest cage in Ireland," I remind her.
"If you hadn't taken my freedom I wouldn't even be in Ireland," proffers Hamilton.
"What do you mean?" quoth I.
"By rights I should be roaming the Syrian desert playing with other hamsters," she proclaims triumphantly.
I'm not letting her away with this.
"Hammy have you been reading those Amnesty International pamphlets again?" I ask severely.
"Free the whales from Guantanamo Bay," roars Hammy with radical left wing aplomb.
There is a moment's awkward silence.
"Anyway," I continue, "you know full well that hamsters are solitary. If hamsters meet in the wild for any purpose other than mating, they eat each other."
"We do not," sez Ham.
"You do too," sez me.
"It's an urban myth," sez Ham.
"It's a fact," sez me.
"It's libel," sez she.
"Science," sez me.
"Superstition," sez she.
"My Korean friend had two pet hamsters and one ate the other," sez me.
"Never happened," sez she.
Presently I can take no more of this sparkling badinage. I walk to the cage and remove her from it. She busies herself for the next hour making interesting new hamster doorways in the front, back, and sides of my jumper.

Great Nicknames Of Our Time.
A British Prime Minister from a few centuries ago was known as Pitt The Elder. A more youthful member of the same family who also became Prime Minister was referred to as Pitt The Younger. Rowan Atkinson in the Blackadder television series referred to Pitt The Younger as Pitt The Embryo. I think of this whenever I see teenage British Foreign Secretary David Milliband on the news. Millipede cannot trahaise the Free World fast enough or often enough. Every broadcast rises to new heights. First he was telling us (and Al Qaeda) that the War On Terror was "a mistake." Then he was informing us (and the Chinese communist party dictatorship) that China was the world's most significant superpower. I would suggest that a suitable name for this most neglible of political talents might be "Milliband The Spermatozoan." Let's see if it catches on.

How Stands The Empire.
My cousin Frances dropped in for a coffee this evening. She's the teacher. The one who can stop a charging hoodlum at fifty paces with one blow of her tongue. During a lull in the conversation she remarks: "You are generally very critical of the media. How do you stand on The Sunday Times?" The noble Heelers considers carefully before replying. "I normally stand on The Sunday Times sort of like this," I say, dropping my left foot heavily on the ground by way of demonstration and grinding the heel against the carpet. "But then again sometimes I stand on it like this, repeatedly, you know, a good stomp, good and hard, stomp, stomp, stomp, because they're just another bunch of fervourless useless atheistic courageless faux intellectual anti Catholic pornographic conformist Al Qaeda sympathising galoots." When I had finished there was a momentary hush. "You misunderstood my question," pronounced Frances drily.

Elect Me A Babe Tonight
Sinn Fein, once the political wing of Ireland's main terrorist organisation the IRA, has clearly taken to the electoral process like a duck to water. The party has been to the fore in promoting attractive women candidates for the upcoming elections. It might truly be said that the one time extremists have moved seamlessly from using semtex bombs to sex bombs. Sinn Fein candidate Toiresa Ferris has even been nominated in some laddish survey as The Sixth Sexiest Parliamentarian On Earth. The takers of that survey were clearly blind, deaf, dumb and drunk. For Sinn Fein candidate Louise Minihane is much sexier, much much sexier, sexier, sexier far, than Toireasa O'Brien. I mean in her posters. I've never actually met her. I've never actually met either of them outside of my dreams. But I feel I know them. They've been coming on to me in their posters for months now. Louise Minihane could smoulder for Ireland. She can introduce Marxian dictatorship into my Republic any day. Hubba hubba. Sorry. I lost it there for a moment. Anyhoo. The other political parties are not being left behind in this new and ever more sensuous electoral strategy. An unprecedented herd of politicised lissom lovelies are currently vying for pole position on lamp posts across Dublin. Again I am referring to their campaign posters. The female politicians are clearly not climbing the poles themselves. Except for one particular Fine Gael candidate in the town of Newbridge near where I live. She might be up for a bit of pole dancing alright. Let me explain. She's published a rather controversial photo of herself on the internet. The photo shows another girl cupping the Fine Gael candidate's breasts (which are not bared) and leaning forward as though to lick them. A third girl stands at the shoulder of Miss Fine Gael leering suggestively. I kid you not. A journalist writing for the Leinster Leader described Miss Fine Gael's photo this week as being not too out of the ordinary by internet standards. Clearly this comment says more about the Leinster Leader and its journalist than it does about the debased and debasing photograph. Standards have certainly fallen since they fired me. Let me this way put it. I've been surfing the net for years, and I've never even inadvertently come upon a picture quite like Miss Fine Gael and her breast cupping buddy and their enthusiastic companion. Lovely lovely classy people. I wonder do the Johnston Press, who bought the Leinster Leader two years ago and fired me, I wonder do they know about the conservative demographic which makes up the core of the Leinster Leader's remaining readership. I'm sure they'll find out eventually. But I digress. Where were we? Ah yes. The women on poles. Aside from Miss Fine Gael, it is solely their posters which are vying for position on the lamp posts. Driving home in evening traffic has become all the more hazardous with these political supermodels leering down seductively . It's all getting a little bit overwhelming. I can't concentrate. Ladies please. Be gentle. I thought politics was meant to be boring.

Every Cloud Has A Doctor Barn.
Wandering through the house this evening, my eye fell upon a rather nifty looking jumper lying on a chair in the kitchen. Unlike most of mine, it had no hamster holes. I picked it up and examined it. The label proclaimed that the maker was a Mr Gap. I liked his style. "Whose is this?" I enquired of a passing Mammy. "It's your brother's," she replied. I donned the jumper. "The Lord giveth and the Lord giveth some more," I pronounced happily. I gotta tell you gentle travellers of the internet. Warm weather, sexy crazed politicians, free jumpers. Things are finally looking up.