the irish question

Coffee with Colonel Fortescue Smythe.
I am musing about the Irish question.
"Everyone is paid too much," I tell him. "They're all pointing at the banks and saying that the banks are to blame. Now you know I've made no bones about stating that all the corrupt bankers should be jailed without trial and their assets seized. The Quinn family, Sean Fitzpatrick, Gillian Bowler, Michael Fingleton, and David Drumm. But everyone else needs to start considering what they can do for each other and for Ireland."
"Why not just shoot the Quinns, the Fitzpatricks, Bowler, Fingers and Drumm?" enquired the Colonel mildly.
Now here was a restatement of the Irish question that I could really relate to.
I wasn't sure if he was joking or not.
"Yes, shooting them would be nice," I answered carefully, "but that would be throwing God away. And countries that throw God away tend to regret it at their leisure.  It's a mighty long way down from Mount Olympus."

an open letter to father thady doyle editor of the curate's diary re his recent editorial packed with fulsome quotations from soviet era infiltrator archbishop diarmuid martin

Happy Day Thady. Happy Day.

chessnutz

Our weekly chess puzzle
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Otto Von Pzzzippft versus Giuseppe Tornatore

Milan 1987

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White to play seems to have a lot going on but Black is not entirely without options. Obviously he can wait for his own turn and make a move then. But he had other options too. Can you spot them?

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Solution: Tornatore resigned and took up darts.

l'obscur objet du desir

"Don't you trust me?" enquired Eliana eyes big and round.
That old gag.
The Don't You Trust Me routine.
Every slinky sexy seductive spy in the history of slinky sexy seductive spies has used that one.
Well, so I'm told.
"I trust you absolutely as a teacher of Italian," I answered cautiously. "I trust you to honestly answer every question I have on the Italian language and its grammer. But after that, let's face it, I hardly know you."
Her beautiful eyes clouded.
"Someday soon I hope you will trust me," she said half to herself.
I had my doubts.

summer night

in the clammy stillness
of a calm monsoon
you came to me
pointed to the window
and a spanish galleon moon
sail with me
sayeth thou
the tide is turning soon

i woke to find i slept
i wept

the discreet charm of the bourgeoisie

Coffee with Eliana.
She is looking her best.
Darkly Sicilian.
I venture a compliment.
"That's a lovely scarf."
"Do you like it?"
"Yes. Is it Muslim?"
She jumps to her feet.
All fire and tempest.
"Yes." she cries. "Yes it is a Muslim scarf. And my black leather jacket is a Muslim jacket. And my handbag. Here you see it. It is a Muslim handbag."
Her exit was Shakespearianly Sicilianly spectacular.
All she did was storm out I mean.
But I gotta tell you folks.
Italians are the business.
Even Muslims pretending to be Italians seem to pick up on the passion.
"And to think I never even noticed the Black Jacket," I mused in the stillness after she'd gone.

chessnutz

Our weekly chess puzzle.
*********************** Edward The Second versus Saint Thomas A Beckett
September 1012, London.
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White to play seems to be taking his time. The black pieces are arrayed in such a fashion as to make any initiative difficult. Can you see how white broke the inertia?
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Solution: King Edward's henchmen kidnapped Saint Thomas and cut his head off. The henchmen head hacking move was outlawed by the International Chess Federation three centuries later.

illusions perdues

One of the more sobering moments of my paranoia filled life was when I first met up with Eliana, also known as the new Miss Sicily.
She'd been recommended to me by the old Miss Sicily who'd returned to Catania for consultations with Don Corleone.
The old Miss Sicily is worthy of note, aside from her feminine pulchritude, for being the first person I've trusted in the past ten years.
Alrighty then.
Eliana, aka Miss Sicily Number Two, had arrived in the Costa Cafe for our first encounter. The moment I saw her, I had a flash of recognition.
And I realised I knew her.
I mean I'd seen her once before.
Oh her hair was different but it was her.
I'd seen her chatting in the street with my favourite Al Qaeda agent, the one I refer to as Miss Arabia, about six months ago.
I'd noticed her alright.
An eye catching girl whatever way she does her hair.
One doesn't forget.
She'd scarpered pronto when I showed up.
As for Miss Arabia.
The Amal.
Remember her?
The only one of all my conspiracy theories that I'm genuinely convinced is true is that Amal is some sort of spy.
Okay.
So Ms Sicily Number Two had a connection to the Amal.
Not a good start.
"Do you have any Arab friends?" I enquired sweetly over tiffin.
And she jiggled and joggled and tried to look as if she was racking her brains.
Presently she said: "Oh yes, one."
And I said: "Is her name Amal?"
And it was all such a slight meaningless coincidence.
Which means it was no coincidence at all as we experts in tradecraft will you.
I ventured to enquire did Amal happen to know the first Miss Sicily.
The second Miss Sicily told me that she did.
Okay.
All my Miss Sicilies were compromised.
Including the one I really liked.
What to do.
Here is the news.
They look nice.
So I kept them around.
Stayed in touch with the one in Sicily, and continued meeting the second one in Dublin.
Fast forward to now.
Today the second one left Ireland and we met to say goodbye.
I gave her The Princess Bride as a parting gift.
She gave me a tape of traditional Sicilian songs.
I looked at it with bitter sweet whimsy in my eyes.
This was the perfect present for me.,
But I knew that the mere possibility that Amal might have put a devil worship curse on it or treated it with radium meant it would never be coming home with me.
"Thank you," I said tenderly, my eyes misty. "This is the sort of thing I really love."
Outside the cafe I gave Eliana ye olde goodbye hugge.
The tender embrace was a mistake.
This had given her another chance to plant on my person ye olde Polonium 90 or ricin or whatever the young assassins are using nowadays.
"You need to trust people more," she said as she bounced away up the street like a beautiful elemental part of the storm of life.
I binned the Sicilian music tape almost before she was out of sight.
Better safe than sorry.
Ah yes.
The cops, the mob, the broads (and the Archbishops and the devil worshippers and the commies and of course the Mussies), they're all out to get Heelers.

this week in the jihad

1. The Brits have arrested over a dozen Muslims in three separate police swoops. The Muslims were planning to shoot up the Olympics. None of them will be expelled from Britain. None of them will be executed. And only the very unluckiest will serve any jail time at all.

2. The French have decided that the downing of a passenger jet over the South Atlantic three years ago with the loss of hundreds of lives was an accident caused by technological and pilot error. In the initial aftermath of the crash the French had announced that there were at least two known Jihadis on the board. The French have now rowed back from this and prefer to think that the plane just crashed. This is in keeping with French strategy generally in the War On Terror. A strategy summed up by the phrase: Pretendez vous que ca n'existe pas et peut etre ca s'en va. Pretend it's not there and maybe it will go away. Bear this in mind. The French are still insisting that the Muslim Jihadi stabbing of the mayor of Paris in 2002 was a homophobic hate crime rather than an Al Qaeda attack. They similarly insist that a series of assaults and murders of Jewish people are merely normal street violence. French media has abandoned the story of the Jihadi attack on a Jewish school in Toulouse where a loan Muslim assassin shot three little girls one by one execution style.

3. The Muslim Al Qaeda father of the Muslim Al Qaeda assassin who slaughtered three little school girls, as well as a Rabbi, and three French paratroopers, is sueing the French government for not capturing his schoolgirl murdering son alive. Six French police officers allowed themselves to be wounded by the schoolgirl killing Muslim in their attempts to capture him alive. This isn't enough for his Al Qaeda loving father. So Papa Mussie is sueing the French Republic and the French are letting him do it. All the assassin's family are being allowed to retain French citizenship. And now this family of Muslim assassins are going to be permitted to put the French State and security forces on trial. The school girl executing assassin (He shot them in the face and filmed himself doing it) was given a formal Muslim burial in a French graveyard. I kid you not.

4. In Ireland, Muslim graffiti has appeared on the toilet door in the Cafe Costa on Dame Street. The graffiti reads: "In this land the priest is king." No Mussies. The priest isn't king here. The king is liberal leftist judges who've been purchased by Al Qaeda. Or you wouldn't be living here. But that can change.

our television listings

RTE1
(The Irish national fraudcaster. A television station of the liberal atheists, by the liberal atheists, for the liberal atheists. But financed by Christian people through a government imposed licence fee. Nifty, what!)
2.20 Eastenders. Amoral socialist porn shown at a time when it can infect the youngest possible viewers.
3.00 Great British Food. A contradiction in terms, surely.
3.25 Grand Designs. I've no idea what this is.
4.25 Murder She Wrote. Jessica investigates the murder of seven, yes SEVEN, Muslim women in the Kingston area of Ontario, Canada recently. That is to say she investigates the murders of two Muslim women and five Muslim girls. But the total of dead Muslim females in the space of a week is seven. She is astonished that there has been no reportage in Ireland or Britain of the murders of these women and girls by male members of their families. But of course the Irish Times and its ilk are far too busy worrying about giving Muslim males the right to force their daughters and sisters and mothers and aunties to wear silly little head scarves, too busy worrying about this tosh, to actually focus on something so trivial as seven murders. You may be sure if seven Muslim women got killed by coalition forces in Iraq or Afghanistan, it would have made the news here. But it doesn't do to become distracted by seven murders of Muslim women by their brothers and fathers and uncles and cousins. Allah u akbar, eh Irish Times? The women and their daughters were drowned by the way. Yes all of them. Four in a car in a canal, and three in a hotel swimming pool. F*** ** ****.
5.20 The Bill. They're making a sequel to this called The Fred.
5.45 Nuacht. Followed by Ziggle Bong Zoob. No, I'm just making that up. But the programme really is called Nuacht. I believe it last had a viewer some time around the Autumn of 1975.
6.00 The Angelus. Rung by Quasimodo.
6.01 News.7.00 Fresh From The Sea. Clodagh McKenna visits Galway's international oyster festival on my dime.
7.30 Eastenders. Anissa and James enter a particularly torrid phase of their relationship.
8.00 Fair City. Al Qaeda bombs Dublin. The Irish Times blames George Bush.
8.30 How Long Will You Live. Yawn fest.
9.00 News.9.30 The Rutland. I don't care what this is.
10.30 Mistresses. Two please.
11.30 Boston Legal. RTE's fetish with doctors and lawyers continues. Tonight it's lawyers. The clue is in the title.
12.20 News. They're not joking. It's another news programme.
12.25 Loose Connections. (Film, 1983.) Starring, oh who cares.
2.05 Telly Bingo. The most intellectual programme on RTE.
(Yup folks long after midnight and still no sign of a Christian programme on RTE. Truly they are coarsening the nation. Lots of sex and violence in Eastenders and The Bill shown in mid afternoon to destroy as many young minds as possible. I mean who are these people? And when are we going to put a stop to them?)

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Originally published July 2009.