A BIT IRISH (by Medbh Gillard)

"Hey kid, that's the worst haircut I've ever seen!"

in time of persecution

Ian O'Doherty wrote in Tony O'Reilly's Irish Independent newspaper yesterday that the Catholic church is a paedophile ring.
O'Doherty's remarks are a sensationalist malicious lie.
He is a cretin and one should not expect anything principled, insightful or true from his pen.
Independent Newspapers published his remarks under a headline that itself reiterated O'Doherty's main falsehood, that the Catholic church is a paedophile ring.
O'Doherty's remarks were published amid pages of similarly angled news articles, a veritable stream of manipulative and maliciously invectival anti Catholic propaganda contrived by Independent Newspapers journalists with a view to discrediting the church.
Independent Newspapers is following a Hiterite methodology in trumpeting O'Doherty's lies and the lies of others in this fashion.
If you're going to tell a lie, tell a big one.
Tell lots of em.
Or as Goebbels put it:
"The broad mass of the people will more readily believe a great lie than a small one."
British historian Michael Burleigh, no friend of the Catholic church, has noted that Hitler's favoured strategy in seeking to destroy the Catholic church was to continually recycle old allegations of abuse while inventing new ones for specific priests he was targeting.
The lynch pin of the strategy was to convey the notion before the public mind that the church is an inherently abusive institution.
This was the Nazi strategy to prevent people believing in Jesus.
I am a Catholic.
I stand with the Catholic church.
Since O'Doherty has called me a paedophile, I feel quite free to respond.
O'Doherty says we Catholics are a paedophile ring.
If the law of the land permits him to say this and prevents us from responding in kind, then there is no law.
Think of what his slander means.
Ian O'Doherty is saying the priests and nuns and Christians in Auschwitz were part of a paedophile ring.
Ian O'Doherty is saying that the priests and nuns and Christians who were martyred under communism were part of a paedophile ring.
Ian O'Doherty is saying that the priests and nuns and Christians running hospitals and schools in Africa and South America are part of a paedophile ring.
Ian O'Doherty is saying that our brothers and sisters, mothers and fathers, are part of a paedophile ring.
Most immediately Ian O'Doherty is directly maligning as paedophiles, those priests and nuns and Christians who over 1500 years of self sacrifice have ensured that Ireland would be a civilised, literate, numerate, prosperous nation with free speech and justice for all.
I mean, which non Christian nation exactly does he think we should envy?
The sexocracies of Asia maybe where child prostitution is considered an intergral part of their culture?
The thug terror regimes of the Islamic world?
The dictatorships of Africa?
What exactly is O'Doherty championing for the human race as he seeks to subvert Catholicism.
Yes.
Ireland has free speech and justice for all.
Well, for almost all.
For if a mediocre little shit like O'Doherty can calumniate priests and nuns in their old age, a new and ever more vile dictatorship is at hand.
The dictatorship of idiots.
Yesterday Ian O'Doherty called me a paedophile in print.
Independent Newspapers published Ian O'Doherty's attack upon me.
Any of the rest of you who aspire to be Catholic should understand that Ian O'Doherty and Independent Newspapers are calling you all paedophiles too.
They are willing to desist of course gentle readers.
They are willing to accept you and to cease their attacks upon you.
The only thing they ask of you is that you abandon every principle you have ever held dear and betray the faith of our fathers.
The only thing they ask of you is that you do nothing.
The only thing they ask of you is that you be...
SILENT.

irish landscape scene with ghostly presences

trundle tractor
grow grain
stir earth
fall rain
magdalen
merton
maritain

humble mountain
whiten lily
prance wind
dance filly
gerry kelly
thomas berney
uncle willie

english lessons with the master

"Do you notice anything different about me today?" I asked.
My question was intended to shed light on the use of the phrase "do you notice," as well as providing a natural impetus towards relaxed conversation.
Miss Korea peered at me.
"You look pregnant," she said brightly.
The noble Heelers allowed himself a deep sigh.
"Well now," he murmured. "That statement could be considered a little bit rude. It would be better if you just said I looked fat."

death in ireland

In the region where I live, five children have committed suicide in recent months.
Some were 13 years old.
Some 12 years old.
Yup.
Twelve and thirteen year olds.
Suicide among such young children is now a common occurrence in Ireland.
Normally the media cover it up.
They do not report it.
Or they report it obliquely and obscurely.
Or they simply report it is as an accident.
The media groups of Ireland deliberately conceal the proliferation of child suicides in our society.
You know what this means.
In the past children almost never killed themselves.
Never.
I can say this because in Irish small towns the folk memory lasts a long time.
There were murders a hundred years ago in my home town during the Civil War.
Not only do we know who did it.
We know where the bodies are buried.
If children were killing themselvs in those days, the gossip mongers of my town would never have shut up about it.
Child suicides simply didn't happen.
Nor, I might add, was the deliberate murder of children by third parties an everpresent part of everyday life as it is now.
There were no thug boyfriends killing babies while their hag girlfriends looked on smoking cannabis paid for with social welfare money.
That's a recent societal innovation.
In those days it just didn't happen.
Because people didn't tolerate it happening.
Because of their Catholic values.
The fact is, the murder of children only became a part of life in Ireland in recent years when the influence of the Catholic church was subsumed by a culture of hedonism.
A culture of fervourless promiscuous valueless onanistic pseudo pleasure, facilitated, justified and promoted by Independent Newspapers, the Irish Times and RTE.
In the past child murders were almost as rare as child suicides.
Now they're happening constantly.
We're not even surprised any more.
But let's return to the consideration of today's suicides among ever younger children.
In modern Ireland, twelve year olds are choosing to die.
Choosing to die before they've ever really lived.
In the Ireland whose values have been shaped, delineated and defined by Independent Newspapers, the Irish Times and RTE, it is clear that a growing number of children prefer death to the God given glory of life.
Why is this?
Let's be clear.
It's not difficult.
We can really know what this means.
Whatever the crimes Independent Newspapers, The Irish Times, RTE, and other liberal atheist groupings among our ruling elites, are currently seeking to lay at the door of the Catholic church, a church which for their own reasons they wish to destroy, whatever crimes I say, whatever crimes these atheistic cadres manipulatively and mendaciously lay at the door of the Catholic church, it is in the Ireland where these same liberal atheistic cadres have marginalised and trahaised Catholicism, it is in the Ireland of atheistic hedonistic liberalism I tell you, where children now prefer death to life.
So whatever crimes have been committed by supposed church members in the past, whatever crimes are being perpetually recycled by those who wish to destroy the church, whatever crimes Independent Newspapers, the Irish Times and RTE pretend to care about so much, we should be quite clear that what is being done today by these same atheistic liberals is much much worse than anything that came before.
They have destroyed much and created nothing.
Whatever the hell it is these liberals are doing to our society is immeasurably worse than anything that has ever been seen in our 1500 year history as a Christian nation.
Let me be clear about my views on this.
I do not for a moment believe that Independent Newspapers, the Irish Times or RTE, sincerely care one whit about child sex abuse victims.
If they did, they would have made sure to make clear to the general public, the true nature and extent of child abuse.
That is to say, that 99.99 percent of child abuse incidents occur within families at the hands of mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, cousins, uncles, friends and neighbours.
They would have made it clear because of their duty to the truth.
I believe Independent Newspapers, the Irish Times and RTE are perpetually recycling the infinitesimal minority of sex abuse cases which involve clerical persons, as part of an orchestrated campaign to destroy the Catholic church as a platform of influence for the people of Ireland.
I counsel you People of Ireland, I counsel you that wherever atheists have obtained power, (in Soviet Russia, in Mao's China, in Hitler's Germany, in Pol Pot's Cambodia, in post colonial Africa) wherever they have supplanted Christianity and based governance on atheistic, liberal, Darwinian or communistic principles, in every case, without exception, hell has followed with them.
We are living through a persecution of the Catholic church.
You might think it's just about a few old priests and nuns.
But it's not.
It's about you.
The people of Ireland.
You are the object of this exercise.
It is your minds that Independent Newspapers, the Irish Times and RTE wish to subjugate.
It is you they are fighting to control.
This is a persecution.
My advice to you is to oppose it at every level.
Do not surrender your faith to a shower of worthless incompetent media hacks.
Do not betray the pearl of great price that your fathers and mothers passed on to you.
Do not bend the knee to a collection of parvenu swines whose sole object of worship is Mr Tony O'Reilly esquire.
It'll be a cold day in hell before they criticise him.
But that day will come.
If I am right in what I have said, they will repent in hell fire.
The Irish never gave up their faith even when a temporarily misguided England struggling to understand her own august destiny, foolishly tried to starve us into submission.
Why on earth would we give in to this present day collection of cosmic mediocrities.
As for the staffers and legal representatives of the Irish Times, and Independent Newspapers, and RTE, who have so recently discovered the joys of The Heelers Diaries...
To you I say.
Get your hands off my church you evil bastards.

by the numbers

Tony O'Reilly's anti Catholic Independent Newspapers group currently has debts of 1.5 thousand million dollars.
That's 1.5 billion.
This is for the newspaper group that claims every household in Ireland is buying its titles.
Listen.
The limitless debts accruing to O'Reilly's unread and unreadable newspapers have mounted up while his acolytes have spent the last thirty years telling us how popular they all are.
And of course how profitable they are.
You know what.
We could all declare million dollar profits using if the idiot loss making corrupt collapsing banks, gave us one and half billion smackeroos to play with.
Hoo boy.
All that's needed is a little creative accounting.
Accountancy tricks.
Profits of millions.
But, er, we owe a thousand five hundred million.
Oh yes.
We could all own nationally and internationally published newspapers if it was understood by our corrupt bankers (Wankers surely? - Ed note) that we should be facilitated in losing one and a half billion quid along the way.
For crying out loud.
Even the half wits at the Johnston Press in taking over 300 newspapers they knew nothing about, even those scrote faced hipster doophuses, even they only ran up a debt of 500 mill.
Seriously O'Reilly.
You're doing a brilliant job.

carefreedom

Driving past the wild wind washed fields of November.
As a poet I tend not to object to the bleaker weathers.
But this is testing me.
Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness, my aunt Fanny.
To lift my spirits I begin to sing.
The song is a personal homage to the great Joan Baez.
My singing is perhaps marginally more heartfelt than hers.
It goes:

"Well my name is John McCain,
And I'm a working man.
Like President Bush before me,
I made a rebel stand.
Heelers knew that what he had to do,
Was put two grand on the one he thought was true.
The bookmaking man put the money in his big black sack,
And there's very little chance,
That he'll ever,
Give any of it back.
Oh, oh.
The night,
They drove old Heelers down,
All the bells were ringing,
The night they drove old Heelers down,
All the people were singing,
They were singing
Nye, nye, nye, nye, nye, nye, nye, nye, nye, nye, nye, nye, nye nye."

Such a song could cheer a dead man.
But there's more.
The second verse runs:

"Well my name is Ron Snurdface,
And I'm the head of the Johnston Press.
I woke up early one morning,
To find the place in a dreadful mess.
Some of my drones in Sector 7-G,
Had gone and fired Ireland's greatest living poet on me,
I asked them what the hell they thought they'd done,
They told me,
It was all,
Just for fun.
Oh, oh,
The night we drove old Heelers down,
All the bells were ringing,
The night we drove old Heelers down,
All the parvenus were singing,
They were singing,
Nie, nie, nie, nie, nie, nie, nie, nie, nie, nie, nie, nie, nie nie."

Heavens to Murgatroyd bold readers of the internet.
It's going to be a great November.

timeless moods

Driving along the open road through the heartland of South Kildare.
Rain on the wind.
The fields grey and muddy.
My mood has not been of the best.
Suddenly a Joan Baez song bursts forth from my radio.
It is called: "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down," and appears to focus on matters taking place a hundred and fifty years ago during the American Civil War.
And lo!
Everything is golden.
For this is no ordinary song.
This song is that rare breed.
A glorious gem.
A song so bad it's good.
And let's be clear.
Joan Baez has a sweet voice.
Great suffering sagotash she has a gorgeous voice.
Anything she sings is imbued with a strange high mystical resonance.
Like great poetry.
Or an article about Arab Muslim terror on The Heelers Diaries.
The present song is an amazing listening experience.
It's almost surrealistic.
Rich swelling melody.
Sweet sensual voiced Joanie.
Impossibly ridiculous lyrics.
As I'm driving, I listen intently.
Yes, it's definitely about the Civil War.
As far as I can make out the chorus goes something like this:

"The night they drove old Dixie down,
Well all the bells were ringing.
The night they drove old Dixie down,
And all the people were singing.
They were singing nye, nye, nye, nye, nye, nye, nye, nye, nye, nye, nye, nye, nye, nye..."

Yup folks.
That many nyes.
These lyrics conjured up a most remarkable image to me.
The Union army is closing in on Dixie.
They're shelling the town to the ground.
People flood the streets.
And what do they say?
They say nothing.
Instead they sing.
They sing: "Nie, nie, nie, nie, nie, nie, nie, nie, nie, nie, nie, nie, nie, nie..."
That's fourteen nyes.
What a thing to sing as your town burns down.
I'm telling you my noble friends, this is the sort of lyric that makes me feel good about life again.
As Joan Baez sings, my mind flies back through the years.
I am remembering being in Fourth Class at Kilcullen Boys National School where the venerable old school master Maurice O'Mahoney is teaching us to sing something similar.
We are singing:

"Ha, ha, ha,
Hee, hee, hee,
What a sight to see,
Me and my lolly, lolly, lolly, lolly, lolly, lolly, lolly, lolly, lolly, lollipop tree."

Well I reckon that little ditty helped get me the Leaving Cert. (Ireland's standardised examination for secondary level students.)
I'm definitely going to sing it if anyone ever shells Kilcullen to the ground.
Nine lollies by the way before you reach the one that makes any sense.

Back in the present day Joan Baez is still singing her heart out.
The song takes a break from the nyes to make a heartrending appeal to the listeners' working class sensibilities.
Here's what she's singing in verse two:

"Well my name is Vergil,
And I'm a working man.
Like my brother before me
I took a rebel stand..."

No indeed.
No one could understand this.
Or believe it even.
Joan Baez is and always was a quintessentially beautiful Hispanic woman.
At no time in her life, and by no stretch of the imagination, could anyone accept that she was ever called Vergil, or that she was ever a working man, or that she ever played a significant part on the Confederate side in the American Civil War.
Nye, nye and thrice nye, as we do say in the trade.

Okay, okay.
It's a great song.
Whatever else I've said it's always going to be great.
Joan Baez can sing anything and make it epic.
But it's also one of the most ridiculous songs in the history of songs.
And in the history of ridiculousness if it comes to that.
It most assuredly deserves a place in our pantheon of songs so bad they're good.
Right up there alongside Where Do You Go To My Lovely, McArthur Park, The Highwayman, and that Robert Plant thing where he whines on about carpenters and ladies.

our television listings

RTE1
(The Irish national broadcaster.)

1.55 Neighbours. Australian celebration of teen sexuality and cretinism.
2.20 Location Location Location. Awful, awful, awful programme.
3.00 The Afternoon Show. RTE hags discuss waxing their legs. I wish they'd put this drivel on in the middle of the night.
4.25 Murder She Wrote. Jessica discovers that RTE has been infiltrated and controlled for three decades by extreme left wing organisations with links to the old KGB in Moscow. In between times, she solves a murder.
5.20 Nuacht. Gesundheit.
5.30 The Bill. The coppers of Hill Street fail to foil yet another Al Qaeda attack.
6.00 The Angelus. RTE's bell ringing sop to believing Christians.
6.01 News And Weather. A group of communists selectively interpret reality in order to propagandise the general public against the Catholic church, and steer Ireland into atheistic dictatorship. I wouldn't believe the weather out of these idiots, never mind the Lord's prayer.
7.00 Capital D. Magazine series focussing on the people of blah, blah, blah.
7.30 Eastenders. Phil seeks revenge on Nick. British licence fee financed drivel.
8.00 Fair City. Mary walks out on Sean. Paul is shocked when he realises this programme is tripe. Irish licence fee financed drivel.
8.30 Recipe For Success. The recipe for success tonight is: Get access to a government imposed licence fee so that people are compelled to finance your liberal atheistic agendas regardless of whether they watch your television station or not. Cookery programme.
9.00 News And Weather. According to Karl Marx and Barack Obama.
9.30 Prime Time. Opprobrious leftie John Bowman and his panel of cowed conformists (Coward conformists surely? - Ed note) drawn from the worlds of journalism and politics, spend an hour sneering at the Catholic church.
10.10 The Mentalist. A severed hand leads the agents to investigate gambling rings. RTE's idea of entertainment on a Thursday night. I think I'm going to be sick.
11.10 Raw. Jojo goes on a date with one of the restaurant's suppliers. His mind is tormented by one burning question. How did this thing ever get made and/or broadcast?
12.10 News. Go to sleep. We will look after everything. Sleeeeep. George Bush bad. Sleeeeep. Barack good. Sleeeeeeep. Surrrrrenderrrr to Alllll Qaedaaaaa. Nazi Mussssslim overlords are our friends. Sleeeeeeep. Surrrreeennnnnddddeeerrrrrr.
12.15 Oireachtas Report. News from the Irish parliament. Warning: May induce nausea.
1.15 Star Trek Next Generation. Captain Picard and his crew encounter a planet peopled by Irish Times pseuds. The most boring episode of Star Trek ever made.

a child is born

the drunk and the drug dealer
from the ashes of their lives
have brought forth this jewel
shining like the centuries
their own and others ruined by what they are
but their blood will know the future
curse them
curse them as they writhe
i am sick of their riddle
a buffoon and a criminal
between them can make a miracle
what idiot tortured destiny is this
how i envy it
envy beyond saying or sensation
for as the child's face lit up with sweetness
never was a smile so like redemption
proof positive there is majesty in the universe
and i must learn to live again

bushy on the birdtable

"I came. I saw. I stole some nuts."

apologia pro sexual fantasies mea

Stuck at the traffic lights in Inchicore.
I become aware of Irish parliamentary candidate Louise Minihane staring fixedly at me from a poster.
Her eyes glisten with impossible dreams.
Mysteries.
Invitations.
I've said it before and I'll say it again.
Aiiiieee caramba.
I mean, who the hell is producing these posters?
And why are all these women chasing after me?
I've gotta tell you folks.
After my recent torrid affairs with Catherine Ardagh, Maria Parodi, Rebecca Moynihan et al, (Who's Al? - Ed note.) I'm in no rush to allow another sex crazed politician into my life.
I look back at Louise Minihane.
She makes no attempt to avoid my gaze.
In the light of evening, her allure is all the more powerful.
I shake my head.
My words when they come are spoken softly.
I say:
"Let me have parliamentarians about me who are fat.
Such pols as sleep a nights.
Yon Minihane hath a lean and hungry look.
She thinks too much.
Probably about sex.
I'm sick and tired of every woman I meet wanting to get inside my pants.
No really.
Just once I'd like to meet a girl who'd appreciate me for myself and not just for my finely honed preraphaelite Greek god's body.
Ho hum."
And I drove on.
Into the warm gathering dusk of an opalescent night.

from our comments section

This gem came in yesterday:
"...I'm forwarding your piece about Richard Branson to Richard Branson. I hope he sues you... You needn't keep talking about your ratings either. You've probably got about 500 readers... You are a purveyor of censorship. Delete this comment. You baboon. Go on. Delete it. Delete it... Signed Anonymous."

My reply runs thusly:

Well, well, well.
Yet another anonymous Johnston Press coward sticks his head above the parapet.
Back again are we?
Did diddums see something that upsetums?
You fellows at the Johnston Press must be terribly fond of Richard Branson.
Or could it be something else that has caused your great mind to go into overdrive and formulate such a sublime and witty riposte?
It seems unlikely to me that you forwarded anything to Richard Branson.
It seems unlikely that a low rent anonymous Johnston Press conformist coward like yourself would have access to Richard Branson's phone number or personal address.
Let me this way put it.
I doubt he takes your calls.
Or reads your letters.
Perhaps it would be more in your line to forward my articles to John Frey, Chief Executive Officer of the Johnston Press, in the hope that he might sue me.
Or has the Johnston Press's recent experiences with the legal systems of two countries left you reluctant to take your chances with the rule of law?
Tell me.
Do you anonymous cowards at the Johnston Press seriously think Richard Branson will do your dirty work for you?
Here is the news.
Richard Branson will not be suing me.
Because unlike you cowardly anonymous clypes at the Johnston Press, Richard Branson actually knows what he's doing.
Unlike the Johnston Press, Richard Branson's companies actually make money.
Unlike the Johnston Press, Richard Branson doesn't simply generate temporary profits by downsizing companies he's bought out with money borrowed from idiot banks so that he can pay his management skaggs huge bonuses they never earned.
Unlike the Johnston Press, Sir Richard Branson actually runs his companies successfully, through a long term commitment to the workforce and an attendant commercial acumen based on hard work, reciprocal trust, mutual respect and his own uniquely perceptive awareness of the needs and tastes of the general public.
Richard Branson won't be suing me you low life tripe hound, because everything I've said about him, like everything I've said about the Johnston Press, is absolutely, utterly and unalterably, true.
Seriously Scruff, I doubt he's got much in common with you Johnston Press clowns.
Downsizing indeed.
In the land of the downsizers the one eyed coward is king, eh Johnstons?
And let's be clear about one thing.
You didn't fire me.
I.
Fired.
You.
We need not labour the point.
James Healy
PS: As for my readership. Wouldn't it be more in your line to focus on getting a few readers of your own at the Johnston Press? I mean without going half a billion quid into debt to do it. I gotta tell ya. It's not as easy as I make it look.
PPS: Your concerns about censorship are obviously heartfelt indeed. But I reckon there's no right of reply for an anonymous coward in any publication on the planet earth and certainly not here. After all, the Johnston Press owns 350 newspapers. You don't need my humble internet publication (which you clearly hold in such contempt) to get your message across. Anyway, even the august Johnston Press (by which I mean the vomitous Johnston Press) doesn't print every letter it receives. Or indeed any of the critical ones.
PPPS: Baboon? Pish sir. Tis unworthy of you. Pish off.
PPPPS: Chin up Anonymous. At least today you have 500 readers.
PPPPPS: And someday we shall laugh again.

miscellaneous extraneous aneous

Titanic Rip Offs. At the end of James Cameron's epic film Titanic, which is a genuine work of art, the old lady remembers her lost love with the classic line: "He lives now only in my memory." Director James Cameron lifted the line word for word from the closing scene of the 1980's action exploitation flick Mad Max 2. Not many people know that. 

Ones That Got Away. Great photos I missed. Driving through Inchicore this evening. At Lady's Lane came across an interesting conjunction of sceneries. Some traditional Dublin cottages. A few trees. Apartments. Weather beaten shuttered buildings. Fine contrasts all round. And a sign in large black letters that read: "No Dumping. Offenders Will Be Prosecuted." All around the base of the sign were rubbish bags overflowing with detritus. To left and right of the sign, rubbish bags. Along the street, rubbish bags. Stashed around the corner at Lady's Lane, more rubbish bags. The entire vista, sign included, was like something out of Ozymandias. I suppose it will all have been cleaned up by tomorrow. Eur Bein Pseud. Good catchy Norwegian entry won the Eurovision Song Contest. The chap singing it was actually a Russkie. Interesting, eh? Vladimir Putin's agents are everywhere. Now apparently even in Norway. Still, it's a good song, maybe even a great song. He will go far this young Norwegian/Russian secret agent, I mean star. As long as Amy Winehouse doesn't sue. For the Eurovision winning song is oddly reminiscent of her legendary I Go Back To Black. Oddly reminiscent in the sense of being the same song, except for the fiddle playing bit. 

Idea For A Novelty Charity Record. A version of "Alfie" with the lyrics changed to fit a Star Trek theme. The video would feature me driving along the open road to South Kildare and stopping to give a lift to some girl hitch hikers. The girls are mildly nonplussed because I am dressed like a well known Star Trek captain complete with bald pate. As we drive along, someone switches on the radio. We hear Michael Caine's voice saying: "Right have we all settled in? We can begin. My name is..." Before he can finish I burst in with: "... Captain Jean Luc Picard." Then we have the song itself: 

"Once there was a time, 

When a man in a chicken suit could be a top class special effect, 

Mmm yes, 

and once there was a time, 

When I could believe polystyrene space ships were the best. 

But not now, 

Now I'm resigned, 

To the kind of life I've always reserved, 

For other starship captains, 

Less smart than I, 

You know, 

The ones who always end up married to Green Orion Slave Girls. 

Oh come on. 

Everybody knows that no means yes, 

Just like the whole Klingon thing is rid-ic-u-lous. 

And the more I live through the more I find, 

I'm becoming more like William Shatner. 

Ner, ner, nerdle, ner, ner, ner, ner, ner. 

Ner, ner, ner, noo, ner, ner, ner, ner. 

Oh everybody knows that time travel isn't possible, 

And the idea of transporter beams is highly improbable, 

Yes the more I live through, the more I find, 

I'm becoming more like Willian Shatner. 

Except for the hair." 

At this point I stroke my bald patch and the song ends. I think this can work. We'll raise millions for homeless whales. We'll release it as a double A-side with Maria Parodi's Eyes. 

Is The Daily Mail Part Of An International Plot To Really Annoy Me? Afternoon at the Chateau De Healy. Spied The Daily Mail magazine on the kitchen table. Normally I wouldn't give it a second thought. A headline caught my eye. The headline ran: "From Dublin School Girl To Global Star, The Extraordinary Rise of Ireland's Alicia Keyes." This I could not resist. I never knew Alicia Keyes was Irish. I flicked the pages to find the article. And lo! Alicia Keyes is not Irish. The article is about a girl called Laura Izibor whom The Daily Mail considers to be "Ireland's Alicia Keyes." Feeling somewhat cheated, I dump the magazine back on the table. I check the cover again to see had I read it wrong. Yes, Laura Izibor's name is there. If you spotted it, you might have had a chance of understanding the truth behind The Daily Mail's creative phraseology. Before I can escape, my eyes are drawn to another headline on the cover. It proclaims: "Glamobama, How To Work Michelle's Fashion Fabulousness." My curiosity is tweaked. I'm thinking there's no way Michelle Obama posed for The Daily Mail. If they got Michelle Obama to do a fashion shoot, they're really good. I flick the pages. There she is. Sultry, sexual and sensual, reclining on a couch like nothing so much as a beautiful cougar waiting to spring. Another photo shows her giving a come hither look from behind a writing desk. Absolutely stunning and vaguely hilarious at the same time. "Now that is a coup for The Daily Mail," I murmur. Presently I read the small print. The small print says: "Hasn't our look alike model really caught the spirit of Michelle?" I hurl the magazine down on the table. "You miserable duplicitous hounds," I roar. As I try to walk away, yet another headline catches my eye: "President Ahmadinejad Of Iran Converts To Judaism, Renounces Violence, Pledges To Work For World Peace. Exclusive Photos Page 45." I back towards the door. "Get thee behind me satan," I cry. And I'm not referring to President Ahmadinejad. 

One Hundred Billion Dollars Worth Of Journalism. Browsing in a book shop. Came across a new biography of Richard Branson. Checked it quickly. I'm always wondering will he someday tell the truth, or will some biographer bother with the truth. The truth about where he made his millions. No. It's not there. But it's here. Here is the news. All that rubbish about Richard Branson making his fortune from record companies and airlines is untrue. In fact the young Richard Branson laid the foundation for his fortune in the late 1960's after Britain legalised abortion. The young Richard Branson set up a chain of referral shops to guide women towards doctors who would willingly kill their babies. The young Richard Branson got in on the ground floor of the abortion industry when no one else wanted to touch it. That was the killer application, if you'll forgive the pun. He made his fortune from procuring. But this interesting fact is not found in any of the biographies or supinely adoring television profiles with which the Branson myth is regularly topped up. You know, I've never quite understood why people who pretend there's nothing wrong with abortion still insist on concealing their promotion of it or more correctly, their profiting from it. But that's where the young Richard Branson made his first fortune. That is the sordid truth which underlies the very existence of the Virgin Group of companies of which he is so proud. Procuring the destruction of a generation. And you know what folks... I think this explains why Richard Branson has spent the intervening forty years trying to kill himself in silly balloons and space ships and round the world adventure odyssies. Because some part of him, the true inner part of him which God made to shine for all eternity, is even now still horrified at the mayhem he helped unleash. 

Belling The Quinn. Token Catholic at Independent Newspapers, David Quinn wrote recently about attempts by Islamic activist groups in Canada to silence the writer Mark Steyn. Mr Quinn is to be commended for touching a story most newspapers and journalists in Western Europe have shied clear of. But he has a slightly skewed view of what actually happened. He suggests that the Islamic groups in Canada who launched the case against Steyn have succeeded in firing a warning shot across Steyn's bows. This is a rather rum interpretation of the events of the past twelve months. The Islamic activists might indeed have tried to fire a warning shot across Steyn's bows. What has actually happened is that Steyn and his allies have kicked Islamist butt across the entire North American continent. There is now even a growing likelihood that Canada will abandon its ridiculous faux Human Rights legislation and the attendant kangaroo tribunal systems for hearing such cases. Steyn and several other writers were taken to the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal by three Muslim students fronting for an Islamic organisation or organisations. Steyn kicked up such a storm of publicity about the iniquitousness of the process, that the case has become a cause celebre on both sides of the Atlantic, though not, as I've said, among Europe's anodyne atheistic liberal media pseud class. Politicians from across the political spectrum in Canada have sought to associate themselves with Steyn's defiance of an obvious Islamically inspired attempt to hijack and suborn the right to free speech. Perhaps the most invidious element of the Muslims attempt to silence Steyn was their accusation of racism against him for publishing quotes made by a Muslim Imam (cleric) in Sweden, to wit: "We will take over Europe. Because we breed like Mosquitos." The Muslim activists' attempt to silence Steyn in Canada was based on the argument that by reporting what this Muslim Imam said, Steyn himself became guilty of racism. But they've lost their case. And the shots across the bows seem to have been flying thick and fast in the opposite direction. Towards Mecca you might say. 

Advice To The Johnston Press On How To Run Newspapers. Don't try to run them for a quick profit. Build relationships. Let the workforce know they can trust you not to fire them or downsize them under any circumstances. Trade your way out of adverse business conditions. Enjoy the challenge. Build relationships with the general public. Let the general public know you're not the sort of scruff who fire people in order to generate a quick buck for the Management Bonus. Build relationships with advertisers. Let advertisers know you're not just a collection of downsizing low life. Build a work culture where management understands they are part of a team, not the Gauleiters of old Berlin. Allow management to be moderately rewarded. No big bonuses. No free shares. Enough money only to buy a house and rear a family over a life time. Do not pay any member of management ten lifetimes wages in a single year. Make management understand that they're running a newspaper for life, not for a quick pay off or a sell out to some larger media company. Apologise to James Healy and every one else you've mistreated. Do this and ye shall live. Do it not, and ye shall be satirised unmercifully. 

 

Sexual Fantasies And Irish Parliamentarians. Driving home through late evening traffic. I catch Labour Party candidate Rebecca Moynihan making eyes at me from one of her election posters. I am loathe to get involved with another politician after my break up with Catherine Ardagh and Maria Parodi. But my willpower is too weak to reject these fresh advances. Ah, they all want me. From my car, I serenade the poster thusly: "And tones that are tender and tones that are gruff, Are calling from over the sea, Come home Rebecca Moynihan to Ballyjamesduff, Come home Rebecca Moynihan to me." I mean it too.

chessnutz

(our weekly chess puzzle)
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Vladimir Borzov versus Bettina Luescher

Milan 1951.

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White has a two pawn lead but is looking a bit static. Can you see what black did to shake up the action?

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Solution: Miss Luescher absent mindedly unbuttoned the top two buttons on her blouse. Borzov became strangely restless and was unable to concentrate properly. Miss Luescher unbuttoned a third button. Borzov began to sweat profusely. Miss Luescher eventually won the game by playing some chess moves that no one was really interested in.

an open letter to the irish times

Dear Sir or Madam or whatever.
Reports have surfaced recently of yet another Taliban/Al Qaeda attack against school girls in Afghanistan.
Not against the school, mind.
Against the little girls themselves.
As per usual.
At the Ura Jalili girls Primary School in Charikar, the Islamists fed poison gas into the classrooms.
Fifty little girls are in hospital.
Tell me.
Do you not think that it might have been appropriate for your journalist Mary Fitzgerald when she was hobnobbing with Taliban/Al Qaeda agents last week, terrorists to whom she had presumably paid cash for an interview, do you not think I say, that in view of your own self appointed role as Women's Rights Commissars in Ireland, do you not think I charge you, that maybe your journalist could have asked a few questions about the Taliban/Al Qaeda practice of murdering little girls to prevent them getting an education?
Tell me.
Tell me you vermin.
Fond regards always.
James Healy

An open letter to Judge Barry White

Dear Judge Liberal.
You were reported in the Irish Independent as having apologised in open court on behalf of the Irish people to the parents of Manuela Riedo for the murder of their daughter.
How dare you.
How dare you presume or imply in any way that the Irish people had something to apologise for.
How dare you presume to apologise on our behalf.
Swiss national Manuela Riedo at the age of just 17, was murdered in Galway by Gerald Barry.
Gerald Barry is the only one responsible for her murder.
Gerald Barry and of course the Judge Liberals in the Judicial system who had let Gerald Barry out of jail.
I mean, the Judge Liberals who have hijacked our judicial system and had failed to give Gerald Barry a life sentence for his previous egregiously foul and violent crimes against many many people.
I mean you Judge Liberal and your 500 grand a year pals waxing fat on the bench, accepting kickbacks from various mafias, while plunging the nation into an unprecedented chaos of mayhem, murder, rape and enslavement to the rulership of drug dealing rackateers.
Before the murder of Manuela Riedo, Gerald Barry had already committed two other murders and had blinded an old age pensioner.
For none of these crimes was he given the life sentence or death sentence he deserved and which the Irish people would have wanted to see him given.
None of his previous murders were deemed by our courtroom liberals to actually be murder.
He was not sentenced as he should have been sentenced, expressly because you Judge Liberals in the Justice system are out of control and accept no accountability to the Irish people.
By the way, I consider the blinding of the old age pensioner to be a third murder, Liberal.
And Manuela Riedo was the fourth.
The fourth that we know about.
Let us be clear.
After his very first killing, the murderer was not given the sentence he deserved because of the failures of the liberal justice system presided over by the likes of you, Liberal.
And so he was free to kill, kill, kill and kill again.
How dare you pretend the Irish people accept or uphold your own crass lack of judgement and the lack of judgement of your colleagues.
How dare you pretend that the Irish people are in any way responsible for what you and your ilk have done to our country with your frivolous dilettante prosecutions of justice and your clownish inability to treat murder as a crime for which no murderer will ever walk free from jail.
How dare you pretend that the Irish people have in any way consented to the destruction of law represented by this particularly malign brand of liberal revolving door justice.
How dare you Liberal.
How dare you.
Can you hear me Liberal?
Can you hear meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee?