arabian nights

I still remember the moment when Amal, known to scholars of my work as Miss Arabia, presented me with a copy of Educations Sentimentales by Flaubert.
My first thought was that now Al Qaeda was trying to kill me by boring me to death.
Frankly a suicide bomber would have been more humane.
I opened the cover of the book and read the inscription.
She'd written:
"A James
Qui m'aura appris tant de choses
De la petite parisienne"
I looked at her.
She read my eyes.
"Oh that's the way we write it," she said hastily. "You'd express it differently in English."
I smiled.
She hadn't expected me to be conversant enough with French grammer to get the sinister undertone.
For her inscription did not mean: "To James, who has taught me so much."
It meant: "To James, who is going to have taught me so much."
Later I would show the book to Margaux De La Tour a French friend who was not involved in espionage or in trying to kill me.
Margaux looked briefly confused as she read the inscription.
"That's strange," she said softly.

family guy

Archbishop Diarmuid Martin is sitting on the couch.
The baby from the television cartoon Family Guy scutttles in and sits beside him.
The baby says:
"Watchya doin Archie? Plannin a new coup against the Catholic Church from within? Hmmm? Planning to run another Bishop out of office by using your atheistic media allies to label him a concealer of child abuse? Planning another general apology for child abuse designed to impute guilt to the Catholic Church of yesteryear, ie the one you didn't control? Hmmm? Archie? Planning to copperfasten the presumption of guilt you and your atheistic media friends have contrived for any priest or nun accused of abuse by some scruff looking for a pay out? Planning to hang em all? Planning to continue apologising for crimes the Catholic Church never committed while ignoring the 99.99 percent of sex abuse cases which involved abusers with no connection to the Church? Those 9999 victims out of every ten thousand don't count do they Archie? Archie? Why are some victims more important than others? Why are the vast majority of victims, the ones abused in family homes or at the hands of atheistic or devil worshipping State employees, why are the 99.99 percent of victims who weren't abused by Catholics, why aren't they entitled to publicity, recompense or justice? Archie? Hmmm? Archie? Watchya doin? Watchya doin there Archie? Getting a few ideas together there for a new Catholic Church with you in charge? Hmmm? Archie? Why are Public Relations consultants paid executive salary to work for you? Why are you forcing ordinary priests to take pay cuts while you pay executive salaries to PR people and to the army of spies (Spivs surely - ed note) you've sent to every parish posing as community workers? I mean I don't want to go casting no aspoyshuns. Archie? Hmmm? Archie why are you doing all this? What's your next move Archie? Why does the bankrupt anti Catholic Irish Times and the bankrupt anti Catholic Irish Independent, and the morally bankrupt Stalinisst monopoly State broadcaster RTE who have all spent forty years seeking the end of Christianity in Ireland, laud you so? Hmmm? Archie? Archie? Hmmm? Hmmm? Hmmm? How is your brother Archie? I mean the famous pro Soviet former political editor of the Irish Times Seamus Martin who spent the Cold War openly rooting, and propagandising, for the Russians, how is he? Do you keep in touch? Archie? Hmmm? Do you keep in touch with your brother Archie? Hmmm? Archie? Hmmm?"
The baby's voice gets progessively squeakier as he poses these questions.
I am quite struck by the whole thing.
Perhaps Cartman was wrong about Family Guy after all.

what irish prime minister enda kenny's personal advisor would advise enda kenny if this same personal advisor was worth the two hundred and twenty grand of our money that enda kenny pays him every year

Don't pay your personal advisor two hundred and twenty grand a year.

the cult of talkers

Ireland's Prime Minister Enda Kenny promised to pay no one in his government entourage more than ninety thousand Euro a year.
The figure was still too high for a country that is destitute but never mind that.
Ninety grand was the ceiling he set.
Enda Kenny is paying his personal adviser 220,000 Euro per year.
We have obtained a transcript of this professional talker's most brilliant advice to Enda Kenny.
Here's what he said:
"The economic indicators are in flux and it is still difficult to discern clearly an end to the present event horizon going forward. Economically it is necessary to steer a course of action which will predetermine a positive outcome should the international variables begin to improve. The most important policy we need to initiate at present is to go to a graveyard at midnight, cover our bodies in written incantations from the Kabbalah, and throw a dead cat over our shoulders while shouting: Warts Go Away."
Two hundred and twenty grand a year folks, plus bonuses, plus expenses, plus another twenty million in pension in entitlements for that.

julius heelers

A night of strange and perturbed dreams.
The Bangles came to me while I slept.
Lead singer Susannah Hoffs was sinuously intimating that she might like to get to know me better.
Then the other Bangles grabbed her by the arms.
The other Bangles were in the form of a Battle Axe, a War Hammer and a Back Of A Bus respectively.
I mean they appeared as an actual axe, a hammer and a bus with arms and legs.
They hustled Susannah Hoffs away.
I woke in a cold sweat.
In the darkness I whimpered: "Oh Susannah. Hold me."

interlude

Driving through the heartland of South Kildare.
Warm sun on the fields.
Life good.
Me and Tom Petty singing "Running Down A Dream."
Him on the radio.
Me in the car.
All is right with the world.
Abruptly my attention is drawn to a breaking news item on the radio.
According to the announcer, a  woman called Lyndsey Chamberlain has just received yet another court hearing in Australia in which Judges with more feminist sensibility than sense, have announced yet again, that they are absolutely certain that Lyndsey Chamberlain is not a murderess and that a dingo took her baby.
For a brief moment my car is filled with shouting.
Presently I realise that the person doing the shouting is me.
I am shouting: "Ah give it a rest you bitch. You got away with it. Congratulations. A bloody dingo my arse."
Why it was like I'd instantly gone back twenty years.
It was the 1980's again.
Meryl Streep had just made a film in which she portrayed Lyndsey Chamberlain plaintively intoning: "A dingo took my baby."
A group of us were watching the film on video.
And I'd begun shouting that Meryl Streep was just as gulty of the murder of that baby as Lyndsey Chamberlain because Meryl Streep had done her level best to alibi that murdering bitch without knowing whether she was guilty or not.
And my civilised socially conscious 14 year old cousin Emma had responded in equally robust terms that Lyndsey Chamberlain was innocent, and that I was no better than Meryl Streep because I was making statements about Lyndsey Chamberlain's guilt when in fact there was no way I could know whether Lyndsey Chamberlain actually killed her baby or not, or indeed anything else about Lyndsey Chamberlain.
The whole vignette came back to me today as I drove.
I smiled ruefully.
I pretty much stand by my original assessment of Lyndsey Chamberlain.
Me and every copper who investigated the case, and every journo who met Lyndsey Chamberlain for more than five seconds, thought she did it.
I still do.
Incidentally, that was one of only three disagreements I ever had with my characterful cousin Emma.
All three came back to me today with a certain piquancy.
The second one was in the dulcet Summer of 1991 when the Bangles were soaring up the charts with their unforgettable Summer hit: "Walk Like An Egyptian."
As we watched the Bangles on television, Emma had pronounced that the dark haired backing singer was the best looking Bangle.
I had met this with near cosmic derision.
My exact words were: "Susannnah Hoffs is the only good looking Bangle. The other Bangles are respectively a battle axe, a war hammer and a back of a bus."
Emma had been fairly censorious about my analysis of the comparitive pulchritudinousness of the various Bangles.
She had not spared my feelings in her rebuttal which focussed rather more than was necessary on perceived deficiencies in my own physical and mental traits.
Ah memories.
Now decades later I pretty much stand by my original assessment of Susannah Hoffs too.
Ah Susannah Hoffs.
I have not forgotten you.
Thou art indeed more fair
Than all the tresses of Neaera's hair
Thy beauty it has brought me home
To the grandeur that was Greece and the glory that was Rome.
Well you know what I mean.
I love Susannah Hoffs with a passion that is deep dark and undimmed by the years.
It pierces to the core of my soul.
She can sit on my face any time.
Truly I am a sentimentalist at heart.
The third and final disagreement I had with my cousin Emma occurred when she was much younger, about ten years old.
She came in from school with her little friend Lavina.
Both seemed troubled.
I asked what was up.
"We've been talking about God," said Emma. "And we've just realised that if God asked us to kill someone, we'd have to do it."
"And what would you do if God asked you to become a nun?" I enquired judicially.
"Oh I could never become a nun," shot back Emma.
"Me neither," said Lavina with feeling.
They exited cheerily enough.
I never heard either of them talk about committing culpable homicide on behalf of the Deity again.
Yup.
Three arguments with Emma in a lifetime.
It's not bad really.
And I don't think I was ever wrong about any of them.

daily mayhem on dublin's luas tram system

The afternoon trip into the city was quiet.
I just had time to think: Hey no assaults today.
A gang of teenage thugs boarded the tram and began demanding tickets from the frightened passengers.
Of course there were no security men on board to put a stop to it.
Still it was fairly mild thuggery by normal Luas standard.
That night as I waited for a tram out of the city, a controller announced that due to what he called an incident at the Black Horse station, services had been suspended. We could get a tram to Heuston station and a bus from there.
Those of us waiting continued to wait.
After half an hour a tram brought us to Heuston Station.
There the useless black flack jacketed security men informed us thusly:
"Walk up that hill and turn right. Go the next stop. There will be buses waiting for you there."
About twenty of us set off up the hill through Dublin bandit country.
We reached the next Luas stop.
No buses there.
We were redirected to a bus stop at the main road.
An hour later a bus arrived and carried us out of the city.
As we passed the Black Horse Luas station we saw a tram fenced off with police tape.
Young urchins crowded up to the tape.
Cops posed idly clocking up the overtime.
I wondered briefly who'd been stabbed or raped or killed or otherwise violated.
These things happen on the Luas every day.
I travelled on the Luas for the first time three weeks ago and I immediately began warning publically that people are going to die here unless security men ride on the trams.
The bus passed Black Horse and brought us to the Luas car park on the edge of the city.
I was dying for a slash and fully intended to relieve myself in the carpark since the Luas system provides no public facilities at the site.
(Heelers means he wished to pee and was going to do so al fresco. - Ed note.)
At my car two teenage thugs were swinging from a tree.
I decided that public urination in their proximity would not be an auspicious way to finish my evening.
As I got into my car I heard the branches breaking on the tree.
The law is ceasing to exist in the Republic of Ireland.

the inglourious basturdz

Morning at the Reichstag.
Fuhrer Enda Kenny is being briefed by Gestapo Chief Alan Shatter.
"Ze Catholic Church is collapsing on all fronts Mein Fuhrer," says Shatter. "Even as we speak our einsatzgruppen are rounding up the stragglers for, er, repatriation."
"You mean Baldy Quinn has gone around again to shakedown priests and nuns on their death beds in old folks homes demanding more cash for anyone claiming to have been an abuse victim?" enquires the Fuhrer.
"Yes Mein Fuhrer," says Shatter. "Zat is exactly vot I mean."
Suddenly the music of Kenny Loggins greatest hit fills the cabinet room.
Enda Kenny and Alan Shatter freak to the beat.
The song goes:
"Shakedown shakedown
All the atheistic Marxians bringing Christianity down
Shakedown shakedown
We're busted
Ner ner ner"

children of the stones

The children were spending their Summer holidays in a picturesque English village.
It was idyllic.
The air warm and scented.
The townsfolk cheery and good hearted.
Heavenly.
Only slowly but surely the children began to suspect that the town was being quietly take over by devil worshippers.
The only sign that someone had been absorbed into the cult was that they would no longer use any traditional sort of greeting which might have a Christian connotation.
Slowly but surely the children noted that more and more of the townsfolk no longer seemed to be themselves.
The old lady in the sweet shop confided in them that she knew evil was afoot.
They were sure she would never be taken over.
Then one day as they were leaving the shop the old lady called after them in a sing song voice: "Happy Day children."
It was a most chilling moment.
I still don't think I've seen it bettered in any horror movie.
They just knew.
She was gone.
Children Of The Stones was a British series.
It was shown on Ireland's RTE in 1975.
For some months during the Autumn of that year, youngsters in the tiny Irish hamlet of Kilcullen, could talk about nothing else.
The plot unfolded over about twenty half hour episodes.
It scared the bejabers out of me and I was always curious as to who might have written and produced it.
Whoever it was seemed, to my brilliant mind, to know more about the forces of darkness than any mere amateur.
Fast forward 37 years.
Now.
Irish poet James Healy suspects his country and his faith is being undermined from within.
He has been trying to map the unfolding conspiracy.
Certainly some of those involved in the broadcasting medium and within the Judiciary are Marxists who spent the Cold War rooting for the Russians.
It seems that similar co-conspirators are lurking in the upper reaches of the Civil Service, in the Univerisity system and in the Police.
Yet the conspiracy is not just being run by Marxists and former Marxists.
There is a whiff of Free Masonry about.
And ever so faint, but clearly discernible, the tincture of satanism.
Most tellingly of all, James Healy suspects that the Marxians, anarchists, and satanistic Free Masonic cultist would be destroyers of Ireland's Christian civilisation have for the first time ever managed to plant an agent among the hierarchy of the Irish Catholic Church, to wit Archbishop Diarmuid Martin.
If the most malign aspect of the conspiracy has been the culture war against the Catholic Church, then the most shockingly vitiating factor in that culture war, the element most likely to lead to victory for the forces of darkness, has been the presence in a senior position within the Catholic Church of Archbishop Diarmuid Martin.
Get this.
Archie receives inexplicably adulatory news coverage from the bankrupt anti Catholic Irish Independent, from the bankrupt anti Catholic Irish Times, and from the bankrupt Stalinist State funded anti Catholic RTE, the most anti Catholic newspapers and television stations in Europe.
These people have spent the last forty years contriving slanders against every Catholic Bishop Ireland.
But they love Archie.
You explain it.
If he's not one of them, what the hell is he?
So I'm fairly confident I can see some of the outlines, the contours, of the conspiracy.
But the uncanny thing is the way in which it is growing.
Last month Maureen O'Dowd of the bankrupt leftist New York Times also wrote a column lauding Archbishop Diarmuid Martin.
She wrote like a young girl in the first flush of romantic love.
It was a Kodak moment for me to realise just how many friends Archie now has among international leftist newspaper contributors.
Then a few weeks later, the atheistic pro IRA Phoenix magazine wrote a similar paean praising him.
The Phoenix wrote that Archbishop Diarmuid Martin was the only Catholic leader people might listen to with respect.
Now why would an atheistic crypto IRA rag like the Phoenix write in praise of a supposedly Catholic Archbishop?
I was a tad stunned.
Normally the Phoenix apes to hate everyone Catholic and non Catholic alike.
Its only kindnesses are reserved for IRA and Muslim terrorists.
I kid you not.
But when it comes to it, why shouldn't the Phoenix throw in its lot with the other Marxians?
It was always really only a matter of time.
So Maureen O'Dowd and the Phoenix are singing Archie's praises.
Whoever next?
And then Father Thady Doyle, the bluff, decent, hard working, no nonsense editor of the Curate's Diary, a little regional self published magazine that has become world famous, wrote an article respectfully quoting Archbishop Diarmuid Martin as warning that the Church is at breaking point.
The Curate's Diary was set up by Father Thady forty years ago.
There hasn't been much of Archie in it up to today.
And now this.
At a stroke Father Thady seems to have abandoned all his reservations, if he had any, about Archie's attempts to drive a generation of Bishops from office so that he, Archie, and his atheistic liberal allies, can remake the Chruch in their own image by appointing the Bishops' successors.
Why on earth would Thady have overnight abandoned his apparent detachment from Archie's machinations?
Why would Father Thady be now quoting Archbishop Diarmuid Martin with apparent tacit approval?
Great Scott.
It's like the old lady in the sweet shop.
They've got Thady.
None of us are safe.
Not since Children of the Stones have I been so horrified.

the monica leech laugh in

Two blokes are sitting in a pub in Dublin.
"Tell me," says one, "why are Irish people compelled by law to finance a television station called RTE which operates in a monopoly situation meaning Irish people while financing RTE are prohibited by law from setting up television stations to compete with it? And why were leading members of Marxian terror groups styling themselves the IRA allowed to take charge of news and documentary coverage from RTE? Why was a communist called Charlie Bird, member of a communist party, member of an organisation styling itself the Official IRA, why I say, why was Charlie Bird allowed to hold RTE's most senior broadcast journalist position? Why is Charlie Bird still there? Why are anti Catholic Marxians who have never repudiated or apologised for their attempts to hand Ireland over to Soviet Russia, why I say, why are these scruff permitted to farm the Irish people into a bigoted knee jerk anti Catholicism that would shame Stalin? Why do we tolerate the most brain dead bigots of the ilk of talentless gits like Ray Darcy and Christie Moore being permitted to parrot bigotries about our faith while we are forced to finance them? Why the hell don't we put a stop to this?"
"I don't f--king know," says the other guy.

the gonks of navarone

Morning at the Irish parliament.
Crimson swastikas flutter outside the venerable building, so recently renamed the Reichskanzellorai.
Fuhrer Enda Kenny, a weak vacuous vacant vomitous venal invidious hair style of a man, sits in the cabinet room.
He is alone in the office except for Gestapo Chief Alan Shatter.
"Ze man you are waiting for is here Mein Fuhrer," says Herr Shatter.
"Well show him in," says the Fuhrer with some signs of impatience. "Heeler's does not write good intros. Ze sooner vee get this thing moving ze better."
"Yes Mein Fuhrer," answers Alan Shatter smartly delivering a sieg heil salute, turning on his heels and exiting briefly.
He returns with Michael Caine.
"Who ze hell are you?" intones Enda Kenny sounding a bit like Mr Burns from the Simpsons.
"I'm Michael Caine," answers Michael Caine.
And somewhere the ghosts of the 1980s girly pop group Bananarama are smiling.
Michael Caine gathers himself.
"Er no that's not it," he mutters. "Sorry Guv. Ah. I'm Colonel Hans Steiner of the Twelfth Alpen Corps."
"You eat a lot of muesli do you?" puts in Alan Shatter, obviously delighted to be getting a good line.
(Good line? - Ed note)
The Fuhrer silences him with a wave of his hair.
The brief sequence of knockabout has been a splendid homage to Michael Caine's performance in the film The Eagle Has Landed.
But time is fleeting.
"Ze war is going badly," barks Enda Kenny. "Ze Catholics have figured out that it's not turning ze other cheek if you bow to an oppressor. Vee could have won this thing by now if it wasn't for that verdammt James Healy and his continuous disrespectful descriptions of me as a vapid vacuous vomitous vorpal vile venal hairstyle of a man. Zis Heelers must be stopped. Without him ze vill of our opponents vill crumble. Zey vill be oursssssss, as Re Education Minister Ruairi Quinn always says when purchasing one of his brother Lochlainn's bankrupt banks with ten thousand million dollars of public money. But I digress. Vee are going to parachute you into ze Irish country town of Kilcullen. You and your men vill be disguised as corrupt Irish police officers so you should fit right in. You vill find James Healy and kidnap him. Zis way vee can vin ze var even at ze eleventh hour. That is your mission. Bring me the head of Heeler the Peeler."
"You're a bloody fool George," replies Michael Caine.
"My name is Enda," sulks the Fuhrer.

confucius he say

White is for mourning in China.