the whatever you do column

In connection with the vicious slaughter in the French Alps of the family of a former agent of Saddam Hussein's old Iraqi murder government, a Muslim whom the Brits allowed to work in their nuclear power industry, I kid you not, whatever you do, don't mention Jihad, terrorism, the Iranians, Al Qaeda or the peaceloving religion of Islam.
I mentioned them once but I think I got away with it

haircut one hundred

Standing in front of the mirror.
I begin to snip.
Presently I'm snipping like crazy.
This is how we'll beat the recession.
By coming out of our comfort zones and giving ourselves dreadful haircuts.
And that night as I drove home through the bleak fastnesses of South Kildare, the engine on my car suddenly conked out.
Frantically I scambled with the key in the ignition.
A wisp of mist rolled across the road.
Then the old pop group Babylon Zoo materialised out of the shadows.
The lead singer sang:

"Spaceman
Spaceman
I've always wanted you to go
Into Spaceman
And now you have Heelers
With that haircut
Spaceman
Spaceman
Heelers you look like a Spaceman
Intergalactic craft"

I gotta say.
He sang it like he meant it.

watching the defectives

Postulations re fake celebrity fake scandals.

1. The car crash last week in Los Angeles involving British celebrity Cheryl Cole and the American pop singer who styles himself William (Just William, nothing else) was staged to gain free publicity for the duo in the idiot bankrupt newspapers of the free world.

2. British actor Hugh Grant's arrest in the company of a prostitute in Los Angeles a few years ago was similarly staged to gain free headlines all over the world.

3. American comedian Eddie Murphy's arrest with a transvestite male prostitute in Los Angeles a few years ago was staged for the same reason as Hugh Grant's arrest in an attempt to gain free publicity and revitalise Eddie Murphy's career.

4. Any argument, GBH, mass murder, or sexual pecadillo concerning impressario Simon Cowell has been staged to promote his TV talent shows.

5. Anything at all involving Mel Gibson (including his arrest in Los Angeles for drunk driving) is probably for real.

do muslims dream of jihadi sheep

A night of strange and perturb'd dreams.
I dreamed I was driving along the old road to South Kildare.
My car stopped suddenly.
A light misty vapour swirled onto the road.
Frantically I turned the key in the ignition.
The engine refused to fire.
Then Amal Al Idrissi Ouzagagh rose up in front of the car.
She was accompanied by other Muslim hotties, all wearing burqas.
She started to sing a parody of the old Babylon Zoo Spaceman song.
She sang:

"Islam
Islam
I've always wanted you to go
Into Islam
Intergalactic Craft
Islam
I've always wanted you to go
Into Islammmmmm
Intergalactic Jihad
Images of fascist folks
Leaving racist comments on your jokes
Meet me in the Ilac Centre toilet now
Islam
I've always wanted you to go
Into
Islammm
Intergalactic Jihad
Islammmmmm
Issss Lammmmmm
Morbid fascinations
Tamper with your soul
Feel my heartbeat shiver
As Osama takes control
Islam
I've always wanted you to go
Into Islammmmmm
Peace loving religion at war with the world
Islam
I've always wanted you to go
Into Islam
The Prophet Muhammed will kick your ass Beavis
Islam
Islam
Izzzzzzzzz-lammmmmmmmm
Izzzzzzzzzzzz- lammmmmmmmm"

She approached the side door of my car during an instrumental break and reached an ethereal hand towards me.
I was like a rabbit frozen before her gaze.
Her hand touched my hair.
A look of puzzlement creased her regal face.
"James, what have you done to your hair?" she wondered.
"I've been cutting it myself to save money in the recession," I explained.
"And you call us the barbarians," muttered Amal recoiling in horror as the full extent of my handywork became clear.
She and the other hotties reeled backwards from my car and began self detonating along the roadside.
Eventually I was left alone.
I reached for my mobile and dialled the Pentagon.
(Didn't dial the CIA because according to journalist Kenneth Timmerman, elements within the CIA wanted the Bushwacker to lose the War On Terrorism more than the Jihadis did.)
"Yeah," I said as my phone connected, "Heelers here. I've found their weakness. Muslims can't abide bad haircuts. It's the one thing that repels them. Notify our allies all over the world."
There followed a parody of that vacuously stylish Independence Day aliens film where the secret weakness of the aliens is telegraphed around the world using morse code.
I awoke in a cold sweat.
What can it all mean?

sexual tensions

From The Heelers Emails...


James.
That remark on your blog about you going through puberty was sad if it is true.
I know you're doing your best but it's just sad.
By the way I nearly got sick when you wrote that you had been flirting with a black girl.
It's time for you to find a nice white girl and raise some white children for the white race.
If you can.
Why not marry one of those Russians you're always talking about?
I don't mean to be hard on you but that's the way it is.
Sheila.


Ah Sheila.
I'm having an Obi Wan Kenobi moment.
You were my most promising student.
And my greatest failure.
The powers of the universe sought you out and wished to make a home in you.
But you were seduced by the cretinous side of the Force.
C'est la yoikes.
Anyhoo Darth, I mean Sheila.
I'm not prejudiced against white girls.
It's just them honkies are so bor-r-r-r-ring.
As for marrying Russians.
The problem with Russians is that when you're making love to them, they can't keep their mind on the job in hand. No matter how tender is the night, you just know they're really thinking about invading the Caucusus, or installing a puppet regime in Ukraine while using trumped up charges to imprison the legitimate elected ruler Julia Timoshenko, or assassinating the President of Poland and his entourage in a staged plane crash, or whatever.
The giveaway is that Russian girls are always calling out at moments of passion: "Take Poland. Take Poland now. Aieeee."
They can't help it.
If it's happened to me once it's happened a hundred times.

Seriously though.
I find the practice very frustrating and not a little off putting.
I should also add that my own foibles militate against any long term relationship with such people. I am incapable of making love to any Russian without shouting at the salient moment: "The Russians are coming, the Russians are coming."
Then there's the girls from my home town (Kilcullen).
Let me tell you Sheila, the girls of Kilcullen look like something that esacaped from a Breughal painting.
No, no, no.
They look like something Breughal left out of the painting because he thought no one would believe him.
No, no, no.
They look like something that made Breughal throw up and put him off painting for life.
Let's face it.
My best chance is if some beautiful black girl takes pity on me and decides she fancies a bit of Irish poet rough.
With a black girl, even if I fail to perform sexually, she probably wouldn't even notice.
I mean she'd be able to carry the show on her own.
Now excuse me Sheila while I whip this out.
James

mystic pizza

"Do all Irish families have a banshee?" wondered Miss America, eyes wide and round.
"The tradition has it that only the old families, whose names begin with O or Mac will hear the banshee," I told her.
"So the Healys don't hear it?"
"Our name in Irish is O'Healaithe."
"So you do hear it."
I shrugged awkwardly.
"James tell me."
"Alright. Whenever a Healy is going to die, I get a phone call from Ian O'Doherty of Independent Newspapers threatening to break my fingers and/or burn my house down. It's sort of a banshee but without the sex."

the lifting of the veil

Coffee with Miss America.
She is fascinated by what she perceives to be my Irishness.
"What's a banshee?" quoth she.
"It's a sort of ghost spirit," I tell her expertly. "A spirit, not a demon. Supposedly not specifically evil. The name comes from the Irish language words bean sidhe, a term which means Woman Of The Fairies. In Irish tradition the fairies were supernatural beings, spirits of the wild places. The Irish lived in fear of the fairies until Christianity ended the lordship of fear over us. But within my lifetime, some Irish people, particularly in rural areas, were still actually palpably afraid of such beings. Althought the very name fairy seemed to silly to me to be fearful. I remember chatting to some modern hip rock music loving teenagers from Mayo in the 1980's. I asked one stylish young guy, a lad called Michael who was about fifteen years old, did he believe in the fairies. He answered with a determined no. Then his sister let out a guffaw and challenged him to walk home after dark near the earth mound in one of the fields which local lore reputed to be a fairy fort. And Michael just as determinedly and this time with a shudder, announced that he would not. Anyway the tradition maintains that when someone from an old Irish family is about to die, the family will be visited by a banshee. She may come in visible form, as a gorgeous young sexor stroking her hair. She may appear as the hag of Bearna. Or you may just hear her, wailing loudly about the coming of death to the house."
"Jinkies," said Miss America thrilled, and sounding very like Daphne from the old television cartoon Scooby Doo.
I could have kissed her.
I love Daphne.
She was the best actress in Scooby Doo.
After a tick Miss America was struck by another question.
"James, do you believe in the banshee?"
"No."
"Oh come on. I saw you hesitate. You do believe."
"No. I only hesitated because I suspected that you would be more interested in me if I pretended to be a dark mysterious Celtic nutter who believes in banshees."
"Dark and mysterious?"
"Dark, mysterious with streaks of grey and a pot belly. I know that's what you're after. It's like Batman's car. Chicks love the pot belly."
She was watching me keenly.
"You're not fooling me James. Some little part of you believes in the banshee. In spite of yourself. And for all your attempts to be a rationalist or even a Christian, you can't control it. It's beyond you."
I decided to confess what every Irishman is sworn to keep secret.
"Okay, okay. If there was a family party at the Chateau De Healy, and a sexy girl with lustrous long brown hair and a short skirt, materialised out of the wall, and came walking towards me, wailing: Heelers you're going to die, die, die... Okay, okay, I admit it. First I'd make sure it wasn't Amal Al Idrissi Ouzagagh. And then I'd be relieved that it was only a banshee. And then I'd probably ask her out."

after

The unaccustomed quiet of the front room.
At 46 years of age, I am alone.
Great Scott.
What am I going to do?
I'll have to learn to light a fire.
To cook eggs.
And how on earth will I deal with puberty?

morning

Morning in the world.
I emgerge from the front door of the chateau.
On the roof there is a white dove.
The first time I've seen one here.
Ever.
We've occasional visits from buckshee grey ring necked doves whom I take as messengers from the Dad.
My rather fantasistic arrangement with heaven is that robins may be a message from the Mammy, and doves might be interpreted as from the Dad.
But a white dove gets my attention.
Since I've never seen one in the garden before.
I can't help thinking it might really be from the Dad.
What is he telling me?
We stare at each other for ten minutes.
Then the dove turns round.
The wing that has been facing away from me has distinctive markings.
Most curious.
Black splotches in the white.
I mean he has individual black feathers amid the white.
The meaning is clear.
They represent his children.
My brothers and sisters.
They were one of my father's wings.
And the other was his wife.
By the grace of God.