field of souls

the fronded chestnut tree
rears over long grass
shadows flit and whisper
of what is and what is past
and in the field of souls
my grandfather rests at last

i will be seeing him still
some time the city crowds upon
he'll raise an ash plant to a thistle
call his dog to heels
cry glory and whistle
whistle down the years

can you feel the softness
of the mist upon your face
or sense the shadows brooding
when the twilight whispers peace
then know the final darkness
is a darkness of release

a rooskie in dublin

DISCOVERING MY INNER GARDNER!

by Irina Kuksova

****************

If you were lucky enough to live on your own during your student years you would probably remember those unavoidable holiday trips back to your parents' house. I mean, even students have to eat, right? Going to one's Ma's was the ultimate all inclusive.

In my case it was also inclusive of a strange greeting ritual which I dreaded, as it wasn't just my parents I had to greet. Having realised her lifelong dream in owning her own garden, me Ma just HAD to introduce me to every single representative of flora and fauna in her new green kingdom. Few things are so exciting for a 100 percent city girl, born and bred in an intelligentsia family, as being shown a basil. Even if it's a heck of a basil, and I have to admit, this is the most exquisite basil I have ever seen.

Now contrary to me, many Muscovites do have some interest in plants and such. In winter you can see all those high rise flats with glassed-in tiny balconies looking like miniature green houses. These five square inches are for the tomato pot and these eight for two cucumber plants. Perhaps we can squeeze in a little parsley and there would still be space for a chair, an ashtray and two clothes lines. Now you start to understand how me Ma's inner gardner suffered all those years spent in an apartment in Moscow, before her fazenda (dream garden) became available to her.

I'm not sure what strange magic exactly is at work lately. Having moved from an apartment to a lovely Irish cottage and come into possession of a patch of land myself, I started getting these weird urges. I try to throttle them. I keep reminding myself that all the plants I have ever had - gifts of course - are inevitably exiled to my Mum's house. But maybe, just maybe, next time I visit her, I will actually listen to her lecture on gardening. Get a few seeds. Start my own Irish fazenda...

from the film version

Closing Scene from the forthcoming Miramax movie The Heelers Diaries.
Tagline: Get Ready To Root For The Slob.

Establishment Shot: Morning in Dublin.
Interior: A hotel conference room.
John Fry Chief Executive Officer of the Johnston Press is with some of his senior staff sitting around a computer.
They are logging onto The Heelers Diaries.
The camera shot is taken from a point above the computer screen. The film audience is looking into the subjects' faces but we are not able to see what the Johnston Press staffers themselves are viewing on the computer screen.
We only see their reactions and have to imagine what they are seeing.
This camera angle will be repeated throughout the closing scene.

John Fry: Let's see what the little b-st-rd has got for us this morning.

(He pushes a button and leans close to the screen to read...)

John Fry: (reading aloud.) "I do not trust myself to comment on the Johnston Press today. Please click on the link to hear my feelings for John Fry summed up with a candour and restraint that I am not capable of at the moment." Alright b-st-rd, let's see.

(He clicks on the link. The baseline to Isaac Hayes song Chocolate Salty Balls fills the room.)

Isaac Hayes: (singing) Two tablespoons of cinnamon.
And two or three egg whites.
A half a stick of butter, melted.
Stick it all in a bowl baby.
Stir it up with a wooden spoon.
Mix in a cup of flour.
You'll be in heaven soon.
Hey everybody have you seen my bawls.
They're big and chocolatey and brown.
If you ever need a quick pick me up.
Just stick my bawls in your mouth.
Ooooh, suck on my chocolate salty bawls.
Take a little look and suck em.
Suck on my bawls.

(Reaction shot of the Johnners Press types as the song continues. John Fry's face is a mimesis of emotions. He is aghast. The actor should have fun with this. The other Johnners Press toadies show an interesting variety of reactions. They are afraid of their boss. But their reactions range from horror to fascination through to bemusement and then overt mirth and back again.)

(The camera now cuts from the hotel room to characters who have figured at one time or other in The Heelers Diaries. The rest of the scene is an homage to them and to the blogging community. Captions appearing on the bottom of the cinema screen tell us who they are, and give details if appropriate of their websites.)

(Cut to the British socialist Schneewittchen in Canada. She is in front of her computer. The camera viewpoint is looking at her from over the top of her screen. She is logged on to the same page of The Heelers Diaries. Isaac Hayes can be heard singing most mellifluously.)

Caption: Schneewittchen, (Britist Columbia), http://janishindman.blogspot.com/

Schnee: (musingly) Give 'em hell, James.

(Cut to Genevieve Netz in Kentucky. She is painting a room in her house. Her computer is switched on and Isaac Hayes can be heard singing.)

Caption: Genevieve, http://prairiebluestem.blogspot.com/

Gen: Oh James, you're incorribibble.

(Cut back to the Johnston Press hotel room. Isaac Hayes still singing.)

John Fry: (No words. Inchoate rage. The actor should explore his limits.)

(Cut to Adrienne Streeter in her home in splendid rural northern Idaho. She is arranging flowers. Isaac Hayes is singing.)

Caption: Adrienne in Idaho, http://adriennescatholiccorner.blogspot.com/

Adrienne: Ha, ha, ha.

(Cut to an indeterminate location. Camera looking over the top of a computer screen. The room is full of Arab gentlemen wearing black jackets and practicing looking sinister. Their expressions are emotionless but dangerous, if such a thing is possible. I mean, is being sinister an emotion? Isaac Hayes is singing his heart out.)

Isaac Hayes: "Suck on my bawwwwls.

(The song continues. Slowly, one by one, the Black Jackets start to smile.)

(Cut to Miss Jean in Chicago.)

Caption: MJ, http://jmbalconi.stblogs.com/

MJ: This much fun can't be legal.

(Cut to Petra in Hungary. She is watching with a group of intellectual friends. They have calm serene faces. But there is an aura of strength about them also. They are the vanguard of young Hungary, the ones who will reinvent and revitalise the spirit of their nation.)

Caption: Petra, Budapest, http://tengerpart.freeblog.hu/

Petra: (philosophically) I think politically he is a sort of anarchist socialist synth funk Catholic conservative.

(Cut to Divyvibha Sharma in downtown Bangalore, India. She is with some friends. Their computer is on. They are not looking at it. We see em from our usual camera angle. We only know the computer is on because we can hear Isaac Hayes singing. Divya and her friends are dancing. They perform a perfect Hindu traditional dance seamlessly melded to the western rhythms. Their dance gives new meaning and resonance to Isaac Hayes classic lyric. We get a good long extended version of the Hindus dancing. After all, we owe it to ourselves to live a little.)

Caption: Divya, Bangalore, India. http://chamkorani.blogspot.com/

Divya: James, I love you.

(Cut to Alien spacecraft. The aliens are of course freaking out to Chocolate Salty Balls.)

(Cut back to the Johnners Press hotel room.)

(John Fry still sitting in a state of futile apocalyptic rage. He becomes aware of two of his executive toadies, Snively and Sneed, beginning to laugh. He slowly turns towards them, with a stare that would strip paint off a testicle. They fall silent and adopt serious faces.)

Isaac Hayes: Suck on my bawwwwwwwwwwwls.

(Fade to black.)

loving the aliens

Driving through the heartland of South Kildare with Miss Lily.
Aka, the lady known as Lil.
Aka, the Lildebeest.
Aka, the Mammy.
I am playing my alien CD.
This is a compilation featuring songs about visitors from other planets.
It seems a suitable theme to mark the three year anniversary of The Kilcullen Incident.
The sample is varied.
Jas Mann singing that sublime Spaceman thing from the trousers ad.
It was Jas Mann's song before the trews people got their hands on it, we must stress.
Ah it's a classic.

"Spaceman, Spaceman.
I've always wanted you to go,
Into Spaceman.
Intergalactic craft."

Jas Mann insisted they release the version of the song he wrote and performed, and not just the souped up advertisement version, and the ad execs had to agree because Jas Mann owned the song.
Not many people know that.
Well, it's a work of art in any form.
But I wish they'd run with the ad version.
The video featuring Jas Mann is a work of art in itself by the way. Great linear narrative. Courageous too because it's so very odd. Needed a few more jokes maybe. And less of the man in the dress.
Lil and me drive on as Spaceman ends.
It's followed by Planet Claire by the B52's.
This also is an oddity.
The bloke from the B52's theoretically should have no place in popular music.
Because, er, he can't sing.
Don't get me wrong.
He's brilliant nonetheless.

"She came from planet Claire.
I knew she came from there.
She drove a Plymouth Satelite,
Faster than the Speed of Light."

Now this is what I call music.
Even if he can't sing.
Planet Claire ends after a while.
It's a short song by B52's standards.
Only about fifteen minutes long.
We head past the town of Athy.
Now David Bowie is singing.
His song is called Space Oddity.
Of course it's odd.
They're all odd.

"Ground Control this is Major Tom.
I'm feeling very lonely.
And I'm floating in a most peculiar way.
And the world looks very different today.
Here am I floating in my tin can.
Far across the world.
Planet earth is blue.
And there's nothing I can do..."

This is the last song on the tape.
"What do you think Ma?" I ask as we pull up to Caitriona Edgar's Gargoyles Cafe on the banks of the Grand Canal.
"I think," said my eighty year old mother, "Bowie is still the best of them."
And there our story ends.

quoth the hamster

the night visitor

you stood by my bed
i thought to plead
how can you be phantom
you are not dead
and you replied
except that i live
truly have i died
but i came her to forgive
outside in the east
the sun took dominion
never was a dawn
so like redemption

one hundred million dollars worth of free journalism with every episode of the heelers diaries

Neither French Intelligence nor the airline industry are seriously searching for the truth about the recently downed Air France jetliner and its 250 dead passengers.
From the word go, false reports were leaked to the press, ridiculously asserting the plane had been destroyed by lightning.
Then word leaked that two terrorists had been on board the plane. Investigators asserted that the "two terrorists" were not in fact "two terrorists," but merely two people who happened to have the same name as "two terrorists."
I believe the crash investigators and French Intelligence are lying about this.
Now those charged with investigating the destruction of the plane are actually suggesting that some of the bodies they have recovered bear no traces of burns and that therefore the plane could not have been the target of a terrorist strike.
My analysis is that this reasoning, as with the initial reportage and the disinformation about the "two terrorist" passengers, is simply and solely a lie.
It is a lie designed to prevent public knowledge of yet another Al Qaeda attack.
The salient piece of information which I would draw readers attention to is a small snippet article in yesterday's tabloid Daily Mirror.
Several days after the destruction of the Air France jet over the Atlantic, another Air France jet was found in Germany with the wires cut to its smoke alarm system.
My analysis is this.
Al Qaeda is saboutaging civilian aircraft through its agents in airline maintenance crews and in airport security staff.
Meanwhile fading British Prime Minister Gordon Browne has announced an enquiry into the Iraq War.
This is yet another attempt to criminalise American President Bush and former British Prime Minister Tony Blair for their heroic liberation of Iraq.
Two such enquiries have already been held in Britain.
Apparently the appeasers intend holding enquiries in perpetuity until they get the result they want.
This Britain who was wont to conquer others, hath made a shameful conquest of itself.
And you know folks we all have a stake in this.
If Britain falls, Europe is finished.
If Britain cops out of the fight against Islamist terror, then Islamist terror will rule us.
All of us.
There can be no other permutation or result.
Mr Browne's attempt to play to anti American appeasers who wish nothing more than to surrender to Islamic terror, will end up leading the world into far greater catastrophes.
Slavery actually.
Certainly Al Qaeda is taking notes.
If Great Britain is willing to puts its own leaders on trial for heroism, how on earth will anyone ever stand up to the terrorists?
Answer.
They won't.

something wicked this way comes

North Korea is not an independent country under the rulership of Kim Jong Il.
North Korea is a province of China.
That is to say, the Chinese Communist Party is maintaining North Korea as a feudal dependancy which effectively makes it a province of China.
The Chinese Communist Party bankrolls, provisions and fuels North Korea's communist dictatorship.
This dictatorship could not exist otherwise.
The Chinese Communist Party uses North Korea to distract, disrupt and destabilise peaceful democratic nations on China's borders, namely Japan, Taiwan, and South Korea.
The Chinese Communist Party uses North Korea as a means of creating ongoing disruptive vexations to the United States, and also quite possibly, and indeed somewhat pardoxically, as a means of unsettling the Russians.
North Korea has no independent political, economic or cultural life of its own.

(Copies to: CNN, the BBC, Channel Four, and all the usual half wits who are cheerily steering us into the Apocalypse.)

moonrise over the heartland

they live

Timeline for The Kilcullen Incident.
The Lights Of June.
Friday 23rd June 2006.
Sometime after 2.05am. Police in Naas receive phone calls from people claiming to have seen UFO's.
2.10am. Tom Healy sees lights from his garden while locking up his dog. The lights are motionless in the sky over the Wicklow mountains. He goes to an upstairs room in his house and begins filming them with a video camera.
2.15am. The lights are seen from the town of Newbridge, seven miles from Naas.
2.20am. Noel Herbert sees the lights as he drives home from work. They seem to him to be over Naas race course.
2.25am. Christy Byrne sees the lights from Kilberry near the town of Athy, twenty miles south of Naas.
2.30am. Naas police send a squad car to the race course to investigate. The police "saw something." They refuse to comment further.
2.35am. Dancers at a party in Carlow, forty five miles from Naas see the lights.
2.40am. Police are now receiving phone calls from a fifty mile stretch of countryside which includes the towns of Naas, Newbridge, Kilcullen, Athy and Carlow.
3.00am. There are no further sightings of the lights after this time.
3.30am. James Healy rings Fox News in New York, CNN in Atlanta, the BBC, The Times of London, The Irish Times and Independent Newspapers attempting to interest them in the video of the lights taken by his father Tom. James is quite suprised at how hurtful media professionals can be when they are deeply amused by something. James is not accustomed to being mocked by journos on two different continents in the course of one night. He is quite nonplussed.

the fireflies

the heart of the city is ablaze
with the light of a million fireflies
electronic music clarions
a million heartless melodies
for youth to get old by
they have come
from hostelry or home
to prove the exist
as more than passing ornament
to the concrete where they kiss
but they don't
carefree cocksure cool they die
pledged in troth to a quick eternal
drunk with the glory of shining eyes
that waft a spell a touch infernal
from off the shores of paradise

and now for something completely er well not entirely original

This week is John Fry Week at The Heelers Diaries.
The celebration knows no bounds.
Yes the ersatz Chief Executive of the Johnston Press is currently making a royal progress through Ireland and we're marking the occasion with due deference and respect.
No doubt he's been met with cheering crowds and scattered rose petals everywhere he goes.
For my part I must admit to growing weary of the game.
I sat down tonight in front of the television, determined to unwind.
That is to say, determined not to think about John Fry, Satan, the nether regions of hell, eternal damnation, Free Masonry, or any other Johnston Press themed topics.
I flicked to a country music station.
And lo!
Rick Baines was singing his classic hit The Devil Went Down To Georgia.
Rick sang:

"The devil went down to the Johnston Press.
He was looking for a soul to steal.
He was in a bind because he was way behind.
And he was willing to make a deal.
Fire on the mountains run boys run.
Deedle deedle deedle deedle deedle deedle.
Devil in the house of the rising sun.
Deedle deedle deedle deedle deedle deedle,
Deedle deedle deedle deedle deedle deedle.
Well my name is Heelers.
And I may be unemployed.
But the pleasure I get from satirising you
Is pure and unalloyed.
Share price down, run boys run.
Deedle deedle deedle deedle deedle deedle.
Devil in the house of the failing scum.
Deedle deedle deedle deedle deedle deedle,
Deedle deedle deedle deedle deedle deedle..."

I flicked the channel.
There's only so much pathos I can handle at a time.
The channel I landed on now was a dance music station.
A character called Moby was playing his techno soul funk hit Troubles With God.
This song is proof that there's just as much poetry hiding in the modern stuff as there ever was in the classical.
No really.
Moby sings:

"Oooh Lawdy, troubles with scum.
Oooh Lawdy, troubles with scum.
Don't nobody know my troubles with scum.
Don't nobody know my troubles with scum.
Went down to Naas, the other day.
Got offered a job in the Leinster Leader and I said okay.
Oooh Lawdy, my troubles with scum.
Oooh Lawdy, my troubles with scum.
Don't nobody know my troubles with scum.
Don't nobody know my troubles with scum.
Ten years at the Leader, what a mess.
Then the paper got bought by the Johnston Press.
Ten years at the paper with very little thanks.
Till the damn thing got sold by management skanks.
Oooh Lawdy, my troubles with scum.
Oooh Lawdy, my troubles with scum.
Don't nobody know my troubles with scum.
Don't nobody know my troubles with scum."

I switched off the television.
Truly like Macbeth, I have supped full with horrors.
I mean with worthless amoral incompetents.
It is time to learn to live again.

our television listings

RTE1
(The Irish national fraudcaster. Financed by a compulsory tax on Catholic people who then have no say over how it is run or over the anti Catholic agendas it purveys. Interestingly enough, RTE has up until recently refused to publish details of what it pays its staff. It now releases figures once every two years. These figures relate to a period two years before the figures are released. That is to say the figures we have at present relate to the year 2006. So we have RTE's word for it that journalist Charlie Bird, a former member of the Communist Party, was paid 180,000 Euro in the year 2006. You may be sure they're paying him more at the moment. Meanwhile unwatchable unlistenable RTE presenters such as Pat Kenny and Gerry Ryan were probably bringing home well in excess of a million a year. I mean including their expenses which RTE simply conceals, ie doesn't publish. The Chief Executive of RTE Cathal Goan was paying himself a few hundred grand in 2006. At least so he claims. These are RTE figures remember. The real figures will be higher. Cathal Goan's salary for 2006 is the only salary figure which RTE reveals for its executives that year. Why? What exactly are they hiding? They present us with these outdated figures, concealing the true level of RTE's atrociously and disgracefully inflated salaries, and even while doing this, they think they don't have to publish a full account. We should put a stop to this. We really should. We should set up a political party to end the RTE monopoly on broadcasting in Ireland. Let's abolish the licence fee. If there's demand for a television station, let the people in that television station actually work for a living.)
4.25 Murder She Wrote. A shy poet asks Jessica for help with something. I wonder is it writing a poem. Odds are it's solving a murder. Anyhoo. For the first time in thirty years I might actually watch an episode of Murder She Wrote.
5.20 Nuacht. Gesundheit.
5.30 The Bill. Cor blimey Guv, JT puts a woman's cor blimey life in danger when he sends her to meet a suspicious cor blimey character. Cor blimey. Who needs religious or spiritual programming when you can cor blimey all night long.
6.00 The Angelus. Dong.
6.01 News. Left wing analysis from a shower of anti Catholic Dublin Four Marxists.
7.00 Capital D. When are they going to get around to making programmes about other letters of the alphabet?
7.30 Eastenders. Cor blimey Guv, Chelsea makes a cor blimey big decision to cor blimey do something about her cor blimey future. Peggy uncovers Jack's cor blimey secret. No need for God when you've got this opium of the people.
8.00 Fair City. Dublin soap opera. Almost enough to make you miss the cor blimeys.
8.30 The Enforcers. Documentary about jobsworth types charged with protecting the public health and environment. Tonight's episode features a litter warden. Compelling viewing. Ha, ha, ha.
9.00 News. In case you missed it earlier.
9.30 Prime Time. Current affairs panel discussion programme. Marxist mediocrity John Bowman leads a panel of lefties and conformists by the noses through the usual hypocritical excoriation of Christian values. The Catholic church clearly needs to set up its own television station and to stop taking it on the chin from these poor little rich boys who spent the 1960's and 1970's marching in the streets of Dublin waving little red books and cheering for Chairman Mao in China while Mao was murdering all around him with gay abandon.
10.10 The Mentalist. Honestly, who cares?
11.05 What In The World? Peadar King visits Mali to talk to the Bozo tribe. We're the bozos paying a licence fee to finance Peadar King's holidays in Mali.
11.35 Oireachtas Report. Highlights from Ireland's parliament. Labour Party representative Ruairi Quinn has recently issued a call to have the Catholic Church excluded from the education of children. Who is Ruairi Quinn? Ruairi Quinn is a former Marxist Maoist firebrand, well known to that generation of spoilt brat Irish people who went to university in the 1960's and have since bankrupted the country through kleptocratic payrises for the State Sector. All the heroes of the revolution love dem pay rises. As an elected representative Ruairi Quinn has made a killing in terms of his income. He's been paid a salary in excess of a hundred grand, expenses in the hundreds of thousands, and an annual pension each year of over 40 grand which he gets on foot of having served in some government or other. Bloody hell. Ruairi Quinn once said that his hero was the French atheist Albert Camus. Maybe we should hand our schools over to Albert Camus. After all atheists have done such a tremendous job in China, Soviet Russia, the African dictatorships, Cambodia, Cuba, Laos, Vietnam and Burmah. I mean which non Catholic country does this clown want us to immitate exactly? Doctrinaire socialist atheist Ruairi Quinn is the brother of multi millionaire Lochlainn Quinn. Lochlainn Quinn is a Board member at Allied Irish Banks. Lochlainn Quinn some years ago paid 30 million quid for a vineyard in France. I don't know what sort of a job Lochlainn Quinn was doing for Allied Irish Banks. I doubt it was anything worth 30 million quid. I see no reason why he should have been able to accumulate this money. It's not a social vision I sign up to. Lochlainn Quinn having thirty million quid in his back pocket. And then the Irish taxpayer guarantees the future of the banks as they collapse? We pay for the losses of banks that shell out silly money to the likes of Lochlainn Quinn to keep him in vineyards? This is unsustainable. People are getting angry now. It's like somebody putting fifty billion on a horse, losing, and then coming up to the Irish people and saying: "You're going to have to pay for my gambling losses. And your children are going to have to pay. And your children's children." Let's face it. Bankers have been paying themselves money they're not earning. Fifty grand a year is more than enough for anyone working in banking. And that's presuming the people working in banking have some abilities, and aren't simply declaring huge profits using accountancy tricks which are then suddenly and catastrophically revealed as pure lies when the entire banking system of the free world collapses overnight. During Lochlainn Quinn's tenure on the Board at Allied Irish Bank, John Rusnak robbed 600 million quid from that same Allied Irish Bank. Who should we hold accountable for this if not the Board Members of the bank? In any case I don't accept that Ruairi Quinn or indeed any member of the multi millionaire Quinn family dynasty, has a right to criticise my church or to seek to marginalise my church from Irish cultural life. Catholics were giving their lives for Ireland when the likes of Ruairi Quinn were still busy yearning for the dictatorship of the proletariat and the Soviet conquest of the world.
12.05 News. Fun, isn't it? So many news programmes. So little time. So few viewers. Such high wages.12.10 The Importance Of Being Irish. Influential thinkers look into Ireland's future. By influential thinkers, RTE means people who go to pubs with RTE producers. Oiks.
1.10 Ghost Whisperer. The most intellectual thing on RTE today.

RTE2
(This is what's called choice in Ireland. Two monopoly operating State television stations, financed through compulsory taxation and waging perpetual warfare against Christian values.)
1.30 The Scooby Doo Movies. I bet RTE2's Scooby Doo hates the Catholic church too.
2.15 Kazoo Compilation. You what?
2.45 Confederations Cup. Live coverage of the USA versus Brazil in the world's most prestigious Tiddlywinks championship.
5.10 Sabrina The Teenage Witch. Pornography for children.
5.35 Neighbours. Australian cor blimeys.
6.00 The Simpsons. Leftist tripe with occasional flashes of wit.
6.30 Home And Away. Cor blimey cobberrrrrrrs.
7.00 Confederations Cup. Live coverage of Egypt versus Italy in Tiddlywinks.
9.40 Under Siege 2. (1995. Certified 18s.) Die Hard rip off starring Steven Seagal as a cook you don't want to complain to about anything.
11.30 News.
12.00 Reaper. Sam meets the devil's son who joins him in retrieving a wealthy man's soul. That's the plot. I kid you not. Strike One for RTE's midnight schedule. The irony is, you and me finance this crap.
12.50 Cane. Frank and Alex find themselves facing danger at gunpoint. Isabelle is stranded in an elevator. Striiiiikkkkee Twooooo. Yup. We finance the purchase of this drivel as well.
1.40 The Big Bang Theory. Leonard and his friends force Sheldon to face his fear of driving. Strikkkkkkkeeee Threeeee RTE. And you're out.

TV3
(Pseudiferous television station owned by the most uninspired Canadians in the history of Canadians. This is the closest Ireland has to an independent television channel.)
4.30 Judge Judy. I like Judge Judy.
5.30 News. Get used to it.
6.00 Xpose. Celebrity gossip programme.
6.30 Friends. I quite like Friends.
7.00 Emmerdale. Cor blimey meets Eee by gum.
7.30 Little People Big World. Who cares?
8.00 Huge Moves. What is the point?
9.00 I'm A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here USA. I'm going to cry.
10.00 Too Posh To Pay. Crime among the British middle class. This is a documentary we all need to watch because it's just so relevant to all our lives. Yawwwwnnnn.
11.00 Nightly News With Vincent Browne. Subtitled: Old Maoist Remembers. The usual anti Catholic nonce. Browne ran a famously intimidatory and aggressive regime while editor at a newspaper called The Sunday Tribune. I mean famously intimidatory and aggressive for those people unfortunate enough to be working for him. His pieties about harsh regimes at Catholic Church run schools thus have a peculiarly hypocritical ring. Browne was nice to me though once when I rang him as a student. The Sunday Tribune never made a profit. In fact every publication Brown has been associated with has gone bust. Yet this atheistic Marxist has never had difficulty being offered programmes to host on television and radio stations in Ireland. It's most strange. I wonder who decides these things. My sister in law guested on this programme by the way. She quite liked him.

it came from the stars

the open file

So I refuse to say that the UFO sighting, known as The Kilcullen Incident, has been conclusively explained.
There is an exceptionally high probability that it has.
But I still reserve a small part of my intellect for the possibility that it hasn't.
Why?
Perhaps The Kilcullen Incident says something about those of us who have seen UFO's.
Perhaps we fall in love with the possibility of the mystery.
Perhaps for that reason we're a little bit reluctant to give up on it.
It would be like giving up on a dream.
The Lights Of June sighting was the most exciting thing that had happened to many of us in years.
Some local men told me recently how they had piled into their car on the night it happened and raced along country roads towards the lights.
Clearly, for one brief shining moment, the whole thing was the thrill of a lifetime.
But there are other reasons why I have not entirely closed the file on the incident.
At the time I had obtained expert testimony from two of the most highly qualified senior Irish army officers who insisted the lights were simply army parachute flares.
But other army officers demurred from this conclusion because on the video the lights do not appear to move.
Army parachute flares normally drop slowly from a high point in the sky to burn out close to the ground.
The two sceptical experts refute the objections to their testimony by insisting the lights are dropping but the movement is not discernible because they are twenty miles away.
The expert testimony stands.
But not absolutely.
Because when I look at the video, I myself don't believe for a second that those lights are moving.
Also the two sceptical military experts were themselves unwilling to commit to a 100 percent certainty about their conclusions.
One told me: "I'm certain they're army parachute flares alright, but I wouldn't bet my mortgage on it."
Which means he wasn't certain.
There are additional reasons why I still reserve judgement.
A few days after the initial sighting, a framed photograph fell off the piano in my home.
It did so without any apparent help.
At the time I concluded that I was starting to jump at shadows.
But the photograph did fall.
It was a slightly surreal moment and probably means nothing.
And a month after the sighting, I showed the video to Giovanna Rampazzo and a friend of hers at their apartment in Dublin.
They were watching the film fascinatedly enough.
As we watched it, some books on a kitchen shelf fell to the floor.
So you can see a certain proliferation of mysteries.
Yes again it might just be me jumping at shadows.
But the items did fall.
And yes, even if the explanation for the falling items was something extraordinary, ie not a dingy shelf, it still need not necessarily be related to the UFO's.
For instance we might postulate that a sort of hysteric psychic reaction in me or the girls had caused first the photo, and later the books, to clatter to the floor.
The UFO's and the video of the UFO's would then merely be triggers for our own minds' capacities to move objects.
If that was the case then the UFO sighting need not be genuine, but could still have caused genuine unexplained, in this case psychical, phenomena.
Ah, we're all mad, I tells ee.


(The full contemporaneous account and more pictures of The Kilcullen Incident may be viewed in the June and July 2006 archives of this website.)

party piece

we are all dying more or less
in body in spirit
slaves to a process
not bitter or malign
but limitless
each moment each decade
unrolls in the shadow of the scythe
we laugh cry caress
doomed enough for ones so blithe
blithe enough for ones so doomed
revellers on a runaway train
exultant into the night

celebrating john fry week at the heelers diaries

Paddy English Man, Paddy Irish Man and Paddy Scotsman went into a pub.
The pub was empty except for one other person.
John Fry, Chief Executive Officer of the Johnston Press, was perched on a stool drinking at the bar.
Paddy Englishman, Paddy Irishman and Paddy Scotsman immediately did an about turn and marched out of the pub.
"I'm not drinking with that fwightful boundah," said Paddy Englishman.
"Begorrah and bejabers you're right," said Paddy Irishman.
"Och aye he's a reet c--ks-ck-ng c---t," said Paddy Scotsman.
They went instead to the Insomnia Cafe near Trinity College and ogled the beautiful Brazilian waitress there all night long.
************
Moral: Every dog has his pub.

more of the night THEY came home

*******************

Still marking the three year anniversary of The Kilcullen Incident. The most extensive and best documented UFO sighting in Irish history. (If I say so myself.) A month after the Lights Of June appeared in 2006, there was a second incident. This time I obtained no corroborating video and only one photograph. An interesting thing happened. Without the anchor of proper video footage, my own recollections and accounts of the new incident The Lights Of July seemed to become ever more spectacular. Certainly in my memory even now, the second sighting which was far shorter than the first, actually seems the more spectacular. There were fewer lights but they glowed red and seemed closer than the earlier ones which had been far away and mono lucent, ie emitting white light only. A few days after I wrote about the second sighting in the Leinster Leader, I received a phone call from Colonel Krueger, a Kraut who serves in the Irish army. He said: "You think the lights might be a message from beyond? You're right they are. They're a message from the 13th Battallion to their gunnery crews. Ha, ha, ha."

Which just goes to show that Irish army officers are no respecters of persons. Or of UFO's.

the waiting

grey light upon sleeping fields
the stillness i have come to love
time and tide cease surcease
peace sits like a glove
shadow sifts like memory

the dog stirs at his chain
and whines and lifts his eyes
for the walk he knows we'll take
though storm clouds steal the skies
and grey light curtains into rain
so waits the world tonight
in darkness and in pain
the world waits for christ

father nally drives west

It was the eve of Father Nally's departure from Kilcullen.
A local garage proprietor Tommy Trinder had quietly undertaken a campaign to raise funds to buy the Padre a new car.
The fundraising had been successful.
Donations had been exceedingly generous when it was made clear to people that Father Nally would not be coming back.
Now the garage man was ready to present Father Nally with a checque sufficient to cover the cost of a new car plus one year's tax and insurance.
There was a general and quite reasonable expectation that the tough talking Northern priest would buy his car from a locally based garage before heading into the sunset.
A locally based garage.
Our town had a grand total of one such entity.
Father Nally was invited onto the podium in the town hall.
He pocketed the checque which Tommy Trinder proffered.
They shook hands.
Father Nally took the microphone and addressed the Kilcullen audience for the last time.
There was an expectant hush.
Would he choose to go out with a bang?
"Some of you will be pleased to see me go," Father Nally mused quietly. "May God forgive you."
I heard afterwards that he bought his new car in Galway.

heelers inferno

Satan is roasting John Fry on a spit somewhere close to the seventh ring of hell.
"So what did you do with ten years of Heelers pension contributions?" asks the Prince of Darkness conversationally.
"Arghhhhhhhhhhh," replies John Fry, which given the circumstances is the most coherent thing he's said all morning.
Satan nods sagely.
"And did you bug his phone?" he asks turning the spit.
John Fry enunciates a brief: "Aiiiiieeeeaiiiiieeeeeeeeeeee."
Everywhere about them, the inferno crackles brightly with the destruction of souls.
Midst his sea of pain, John Fry realises it has become imperative that he communicate with the Regent of Hell in actual sentences, not just shrieks of agony.
"Ere Satan Guv," he grates out, "I wonder would you mind turning the spit a bit more to the left. You've got my testicles in the fire."
Satan peers at him closely.
"Nah," he says. "They're not done yet."

the lights of june

**********************

Yes folks we're approaching the third anniversary of the most widespread UFO sighting in Irish history, known to aficionados of such things as The Kilcullen Incident. On the 23rd of June 2006 at around 3am, reports began to flood in from across South Kildare of strange luminous objects hovering in the sky. Disco revellers in Athy saw them. Police officers in the town of Naas did likewise. In Kilcullen the sightings were clearest, lasted longest, and produced the best photos. Ahem. My dear old Dad made a video of the objects. I took the photos from the video images as we played them on our television screen. The incident was the source of intense speculation for a while. Eventually two separate Irish army sources told me that in their expert opinion, the objects were army parachute flares. Both sources were impeccable. One was the procurement officer for the Irish army, in charge of buying such items. The other had extensive overseas experience in various combat zones. Both testified independently of each other, independently of any army or outside influence, and presumably independently of alien control, that they were satisfied the UFO's were Irish army flares seen from a great distance. Army sources confirmed that a night exercise was underway on the Wicklow mountains at the time of the sightings. There is a probability in excess of 90 percent that the objects are what the army officers say they are. I have remained unwilling to say the probability is 100 percent. This is because both officers themselves refused to say they were 100 percent certain. One added: "I wouldn't bet my mortgage on it if that's what you mean."

momentaria

eyre square in april
wind stirred the leaves
and schoolgirls peddling
trivialities

i really like mark
i'm very fond of gary
meet me at the warwick
don't tell mary

trivial things are rare
as all the myths of yesteryear
and if i stood here ages hence
the talk would be no different

chessnutz

(Our weekly chess puzzle.)
************************* Ernst Von Dillwad versus Trevor Snurdlingham Smythe
Bilbao 1997.
*************
Black is tempted to swap a castle. But it might be a mistake. Can you think of a better move?
*************
Solution: Yes, both players should take up an outdoor sport like tennis. They look extremely unhealthy and obviously need a bit of sunshine.

high flyers

Four of the most powerful men in modern media publishing were sitting in conference together on an executive jet.
The jet was 36,000 feet up.
The conference between these titans of the news industry was taking place in utmost secrecy.
They sat around a square table in the plush office section of the plane.
The air itself seemed charged with the aura of raw power.
At one side of the table sat Sir Anthony O'Reilly, President Emeritus of Independent Newspapers.
Next to him hunched a wryly smiling Ted Turner, founder of Time Warner CNN.
In the third chair lounged Rupert Murdoch, his eyes ever watchful and alert, the Chairman and owner of News International.
Finally there was John Fry, Chief Executive of the Johnston Press.
The tycoons had been talking in discretely modulated tones for hours while the plane flew onward into the night.
Normally no one would dare to interrupt them.
Some three hours into the conference the plane dipped suddenly and started to descend.
The pilot's terrified voice came on the intercom.
"We're going down," he screamed. "Engines are failing. If we don't lose weight we're dead."
Tony O'Reilly stood up.
Without a word he strode to the emergency door and opened it.
He looked back at the other billionaires.
In that moment he no longer appeared an old man.
He carried himself now with the unmistakeable gallantry, the indupitable elan, of a knight at arms.
You could see why the Irish had once thought of him as a sort of young prince.
The shock of golden hair.
The cornflower blue eyes.
Tony O'Reilly smiled briefly at his confreres.
"Long live Independent Newspapers!" he cried.
And leapt from the plane.
The descent of the aircraft did indeed lessen slightly.
But presently the pilot was back on the intercom.
"It's not enough," he screeched. "We're still falling. We've got to lose more weight."
With a faint roguish smile Ted Turner climbed to his feet.
He followed O'Reilly's path to the door.
He too turned and looked back.
He was a man who had tasted much of triumph and disaster.
Death for him would be just another adventure.
"Long live CNN," he roared.
And stepped quickly into the abyss.
The plane bucked and rocked as the load lessened.
In a moment the pilot was on the intercom again.
"We're still going down," he shrieked. "It's not enough. We've got to lose more weight."
Rupert Murdoch was on his feet in an instant.
The old Australian cobber knew a thing or two about courage.
His ancestors had carved an empire out of the cruellest terrain on earth.
Murdoch stood at the door.
"Long live the Leinster Leader," he roared.
And he grabbed John Fry by the scruff of the neck and slung him out of the plane.

a blurry picture of something god made that i love

Hammin it up!

fantome

rose scent night takes the house
i sit in the front room
the world was made for the shroud
i am alone
but being alone know not peace
nor loneliness if such you call
for tonight is a night of ghosts
familiar phantoms fill the hall
peter hayes with an outsize pig
best of breed at the county fair
middle of summer 1896
great great grandfather
john healy pale and gaunt
staring down a charging horse
bringing the wayward animal to a halt
fifty years before my birth
granny berney of the floury hands
mixing up chicken slops
here's tuppence for being good
now run down to the shops
all night i've sat with the ghosts
while time and tide flowed soft
knowing not where i'll go
whence i came is good enough

A BIT IRISH (by Medbh Gillard)

"Never mind Mr Healy. They say balds have more fun!"

the royal visit

This week is John Fry Week at The Heelers Diaries.
Yes folks, all this week we're celebrating the arrival in Ireland of John Fry, the talented effervescent utterly wonderful Chief Executive of the Johnston Press.
At last the great man has deigned to walk among us.
Truly we are blessed.
Some days ago, the delectable Laura Noonan of the Irish Independent wrote of media speculation that John Fry is in Ireland to close down a printing facility.
But who cares what he's here for.
Let us not be churlish.
We must make him welcome.
I intend to do my level best to make him feel right at home.
Some of you will be aware that the Johnston Press took over the Leinster Leader newspaper a few years ago and shortly afterwards fired me.
Ah we were younger men then.
It is time to forgive and forget.
It should be noted that John Fry was only appointed Chief Executive of the Johnston Press last January.
It seemed to me like a sudden enough appointment.
The Johnston Press claimed the old Chief Executive's retirement was long planned and had nothing to do with a collapse in the company's trading position and the evaporation of its share price.
Apparently his predecessor just had places to go, people to see.
Other fish to fry, arf arf.
So the new Chief Executive has decided to show his face in Ireland.
No doubt John Fry is being met with admiring glances and respectful salutes as he tours the various Irish company facilities whose ownership now resides with the Johnston Press.
For everybody loves the Johnston Press.
What's not to like.
The Johnston Press has taken over 20 Irish newspapers which previously had nothing to do with it.
It runs around 300 titles in the United Kingdom.
It is in debt to idiot banks to the tune of around 500 million quid that we know about.
The fate of 20 Irish newspapers and 300 Brit ones is now inextricably bound up with the fate of the people who fired me.
I gotta say I doubt the abilities of those people.
I gotta say I don't think they could run a public toilet let alone 320 newspapers.
But perhaps I'm not an objective judge.
Ah despair where is thy sting.
I wonder will any of those 320 publications be around in five years time.
Remember, the share price of the Johnston Press fell from around £4 to a level of five pennies within a year of the decision to fire me.
I think God is punishing them.
I'm predicting that God will punish them further.
I'm predicting that their company will cease to exist.
We'll see.
But five pennies.
Geniuses.
And classy, classy people.
Five pennies 'orth of genius guvnor.
Cor blimey.
It's the price of them.
The takeover of Irish newspapers by a British company like the Johnston Press presents some interesting talking points.
Certainly the workforce at the Leinster Leader, (I mean the journalists, the sales executives, the girls on the phones, basically those people who actually did do some work as opposed to the management types who got paid through the nose for doing nothing), none of us actual members of the workforce were given a choice in the matter of the Johnston Press takeover of our company.
Not our area of expertise.
Personally I'd have advised against accepting the takeover by the way.
Up to the eve of the Johnston Press takeover, the Leinster Leader itself had traded successfully for 130 years.
Ironically enough it was originally established by nationalists to oppose British rule in Ireland.
Ironic alright.
The irony is screaming.
We didn't need the Johnston Press.
But maybe three or four members of management needed millions of pounds.
Ah yes.
A deal that benefits a handful of people who are already rich and leaves everybody else facing an old age without pay or pension.
Where can I sign up for that sublime social vision.
I'm telling you folks, this is where Stalin, Hitler, Chairman Mao, Robert Mugabe, President Ahmadinejad, Pol Pot, and all the other murdering bogeymen of history come from.
If the social order is unjust enough, people finally get sick of it.
People will finally choose hell on earth rather than be impoverished by British toe rags who know nothing about our country.
So here we are.
The Leinster Leader had weathered two world wars, the Cold War, Nine Eleven, the internet challenge, the rise of free sheet newspapers everything life and the ages could throw at us.
Tell me folks.
Do any of you seriously think the Leinster Leader will weather being bought out by the Johnston Press?
Yeah.
They fired me.
A brilliant decision.
No better indicator of their insight and abilities.
You know I really think I've come to terms with it.
So much so that I can now bid John Fry Chief Executive of the Johnston Press welcome to Ireland.
Ea re sanguinolente bastardo, as the Romans used to say.
May you go beneath the earth wretching blood.
Hmmm.
I am not commenting as succinctly as I'd like on the Johnston Press and its latest newly appointed management genius.
I would prefer to offer a more measured and balanced assessment in honour of His Highness John Fry's arrival on these shores.
But I don't trust myself.
Instead I ask you gentle readers, to google the words "Chocolate Salty Balls video by Chef." You will find a link to Mr Youtube's nifty little website.
I ask you to click on this.
Here you will find the full extent of my feelings for John Fry expressed more delicately and with greater restraint than I am capable of at the moment.
It's better than they deserve.