whom the gods wish to destroy they first make sublimely knowledgeable about the political situation in the philippines

The noble Heelers is sitting in his attic garret.
His mood is pensive.
He is looking at a magazine advert for a forthcoming production of his play Poets In Paradise.
The play is to be produced in aid of local man Gerry O'Donoghue's African charity.
As scholars of my work will know, or at least suspect, the charitable Mr O'Donoghue was my school teacher in the third grade many moons ago.
Nowadays Mr O'Donoghue makes his crust by being Principle at another school.
Thirty five years ago I used to refer to him as Dunnywhacks, an ironic play on the fact that due to the influence of the 1960s hippy movement, and in spite of the most egregious provocations, he never hit anybody.
Boy did we test him.
Nowadays, in between educating Irish proles, he spends his Summers building houses in Africa.
Hence the new nickname I currently favour for him, O'Donoghue Of The River.
I picture him as a sort of Somerset Maugham personnage sailing up the Zambezi in a boat loaded with house building materials.
When the pastoral nomadic tribes of the plains see him coming they let out a mighty and clamorous roar.
"Oh no."
"It's him again."
"Quick."
"Everyone flee."
"Run for your lives."
"If he catches you, he'll build you a crap house and force you to live in it."
"We're nomads for crying out loud. Why can't he just leave us alone."
"Etc etc."
Particularly etc etc.
Ah me and Somerset Maugham.
What a pair of uncharitable b-st--ds.
Anyhoo.
Irish school teachers are so overpaid that they have plenty of free time and spare cash for such selfless endeavours.
I'm telling you.
They have done more to bankrupt Ireland than the gangster banks, corrupt judiciary and anit Catholic whoremaster parliamentarians put together.
I mean, I don't want to go casting no aspoyshuns.
Them and the nurses and the cops.
They're all to blame.
And the soldiers.
I kid you not.
Still O'Donoghue Of The River is well thought of in certain circles and it appears my inimitable Uncle Scutch has volunteered both my play and my acting services to raise funds for him without any prior consultation with me.
Uncle Scutch can do this because strictly speaking it's his play.
He rewrote one of my early efforts and transformed it into something that works.
Ho hum.
O'Donoghue Of The River.
We were never friends.
My mind races.
O'Donoghue Of The River is married to Julie Scrumptious.
The one who back in the dulcet Summer of 1988 famously accosted me on Kilcullen Main Street to dispute my various journalistic pronouncements in defence of the Marcos regime in the Philippines.
Again I kid you not.
As I recall she rebuked me for my unwillingness to support leftist people's democracy movements with the sublimely intellectual challenge: "I bet you're about thirty years old, and you never go anywhere, and you've got no friends."
Inspired.
It was like a gypsy curse.
I was only 22 at the time but it all came true.
For my part, I had responded to her rationo legalistic gambit with all the impassioned insight of a young Emanuel Kant.
My exact words were as follows: "You fish wiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiife."
I didn't stop there of course.
You Fishwife was merely the beginning of a long peroration.
A stunning eulogy on man's inhumanity to fishwife.
I was always a bit sensitive about never going anywhere and having no friends.
Towards the end of my rant I noticed doors opening on the Logstown housing estate, and the good burghers of Kilcullen standing with whimsical expressions on their florid features, arms folded, drinking it all in.
Too good to miss evidently.
The townsfolk were always fascinated by the Philippines.
And fishwives.
Arf arf.
After Julie Scrumptious scuttled off up the street I turned to my French cousin Marie Celeste who was standing by examining the drains.
I was hoping that my newly perfected practice of screaming vituperative invective at a respectable married woman on a public street had not amounted to an undignified display of semi psychotic ridiculousness.
Welcome to my world.
Truly it is the land of wishful thinking.
And I am its king.
Sort of like the cartoon character Homer Simpson remembering his drunken roister of the night before as a civilised evening with him in a top hat, delighting all who passed with his wit and insight.
Still hopeful that my exchange with Fishwife might have passed for a sophisticated exercise in political dialogue, I asked Celeste: "Was that bad?"
And Celeste just lowered her head into her hands and murmured: "Oh Gems. Zat was Terry Bull."
Back to the present.
The circle is now complete, as Darth Vader used to say.
What it boils down to is this.
In early December I'll be performing as WB Yeats in my own play in order to raise money for O'Donoghue Of The River and his fishwife's Summer holidays in Africa.
The midi chlorians will have a field day.
And there's more.
The play will be performed in a traditional reconsecrated church belonging to none other than Ireland's richest boor (Newspaper baron surely - Ed note)  Mr Tony O'Reilly, located in the grounds of his Gormanghast pile at Castlemartin.
You can imagine how thrilled I was some years ago to learn that some tame Bishop had allowed the anti Catholic O'Reilly to have his own personal church consecrated as Catholic amidst the rolling splendour of his purloined estates.
I kid you not again.
But can you believe it.
Me performing in Bloody Reilly's parlour.
Oh lawsy me.
Hopefully he won't have taken to heart my accusations that his newspaper group is the most virulently anti Catholic vomitous bankrupt collection of talentless conformist shite hawks in Europe.
And hopefully he'll have missed my public letters to the priests and nuns of Ireland urging them to boycott his funeral which should be coming up shortly.
Bloody Reilly and Sergeant O'Donoghue's Lonely Hearts Club Band.
I say it again.
Can you ephin believe it.
My play being performed on behalf of the Gerry and Julie O'Brolchain in Bloody Reilly's pad.
I sit in my attic garret contemplating the polynomial vicissitudes of existence.
"Focque," I murmur.
The ghost of Rudyard Kipling appears at my shoulder and casts his eye on the play advert.
Rudyard Kipling smiles and nods and intones slowly:
"As a dog returns to his vomit
As the pig returns to the mire
The fool's wavering finger
Goes wandering back to the fire."