this year's girl

Her hand touched my arm.
I turned.
Dark eyes framed by dark hair.
A lissom form.
I'd seen her before in this very cafe.
Now I was surprised that her face up close had a quality almost... almost... I don't want to be misunderstood because she was unfathomably beautiful... but a quality almost of the ordinary.
I mean.
What do I mean.
Well.
Up close her beauty was not intimidating.
It was just her.
All the more extraordinary for that.
I stared at her fascinated.
She was so beautiful.
Yet.
So knowable.
Right that moment I was fascinated by the most strikingly exquisite, soulful, yet somehow mystically ordinary beauty I had ever seen.
Her hand was on my arm.
"Do you mind watching my computer for a moment," she said.
I smiled.
"I'll have to ask for a Judge's ruling on that one," I said.
"I'm sorry?" quoth she.
"Last week," I said, "I walked into this cafe and sat at an adjoining table to you. I couldn't help noticing your magnificent silken clad thighs. You noticed me noticing you, and you got up and moved to a table in the farthest corner of the cafe."
"Are you serious?" quoth she.
"It was very humiliating," I said.
"You won't watch my computer?" quoth she.
"My computer watching services are only open to girls whom I've never seen recoil with horror from my lewd attentions," I told her.
"You're joking," said she.
"Baby," I intoned, "I am completely unattainable for you. You'd have a better chance if you phoned Malibu and asked Tom Cruise to come watch your computer."
"Tom who?"
"Sigh."
She left with her computer under her arm.
Very much alone, perhaps permanently so (and you can see why) I began to hum softly to myself.
Did I ever tell you gentle travellers of the internet that a famous chart topper musician called Michael Landers comes from my home town of Kilcullen?
Michael Landers topped the British charts in 1971 billed as the singing five year old and only stopped topping them when some jobsworth law enforcement authorities decided that it wasn't legal for a five year old to work so hard.
Long after his days of fame, which never returned, I saw him sing live once when he was in his twenties.
He was singing a most quaint song for a male singer.
It was the very song I now sang in Starbucks of Westmoreland Street as this year's girl and her computer disappeared into another universe.
The song went:
"I'll never get married,
I'll be no man's wife,
I'll always stay single,
All the days of my life."

thoughts

The ultra leftist (at best) Archbishop Diarmuid Martin made a speech last week during Easter season religious ceremonies.
The most virulently and bigotedly anti Catholic newspaper in Europe, the Irish Independent soon gave prominent and fawning reportage of Archbishop Diarmuid Martin's speech.
I ask you.
Why is Archbishop Diarmuid Martin so popular with people who despise Christianity?
Why do media groups that have spent fifty years trying to erase Christianity from Ireland, find themselves so much in love with Archbishop Diarmuid Martin?
I'm just asking.
The Irish Independent report claimed that as Archbishop Diarmuid Martin made his speech, he was "flanked" by Bishop Michael Neary and Bishop Kevin Doran.
Flanked indeed.
They stood beside him on the altar of a church during a religious ceremony.
They're hardly his praetorian guard.
Or bosom buddies for that matter.
These two bishops unlike Archbishop Diarmuid Martin are held in high esteem by the Irish people.
The word "flanked" used by the Irish Independent was of course meant to imply that Bishop Michael Neary and Bishop Kevin Doran have acquiesced to Archbishop Martin's hostile takeover of the church in Ireland.
When I heard that Michael Neary and Kevin Doran had allowed themselves to be seen "flanking" Archie, and had stood in silence while he made his usual tendentious jeers and innuendos directed at the church and at those Christians who came before us in particular, my mind flew to another era.
I was remembering something I had read in a book by the Lutheran Pastor Richard Wurmbrand.
Pastor Wurmbrand had attended a church conference in Romania in the 1950's at a time when that country was controlled by Communist Russia.
Speaker after speaker at the conference praised the governing puppet communist party of Romania and its Russian overlord Joe Stalin.
Speaker after speaker asserted that the church had always been hypocritical, a church of the rich, and needed to be reformed and enlightened by the egalitarian working class hero Joe Stalin.
Pastor Wurmbrand's wife Sabine turned to him.
"Wipe this insult from the face of Christ," murmured Sabine.
"If I do, you lose your husband," replied Pastor Wurmbrand.
"I would rather lose you than be married to a coward," said Sabine.

its a liberal liberal liberal liberal liberal liberal liberal world

Sitting in a Starbucks on Dawson Street.
A man is teaching English to a Spanish girl at an adjoining table.
The following words are audible:
"... today in our more liberal world..."
A little vein on my forehead pulses.
Ah yes.
That old gag.
Liberal indeed.
Our world is not that liberal for unborn babies being morning-aftered in their mothers' wombs or for the elderly being euthanised or for teenagers being hounded to suicide by secret brotherhoods of evil or for children and adults bombarded with sexual imagery and then being offered mutilating sex change operations when they say they are men in womens' bodies.
It's not that liberal for parents bunged into old folks homes by ungrateful offspring.
It's not that liberal for citizens in Irish cities, towns and villages who live under the jackboot of local IRA drug dealing, people trafficking, child abusing, skang gangs.
It's not that liberal for anyone living in countries run by Jihadis.
It's not that liberal for anyone living in countries run by communists.
It's not that liberal for anyone living in countries run by liberals.
The tyranny of liberals is a tyranny no less because it permits... everything.

today they said

The Irish Times: "We are pleased to announce the appointment of a new editor..."

James Healy: "... rearranging deck hands on the Titanic."

****

The Irish Independent: "It is clear from the census that the Catholic Church has no mandate in Ireland."

James Healy: "So with 78 percent of the people of Ireland self describing themselves as Catholic, Martina Devlin of the Irish Independent thinks the church has no mandate for societal influence. Hoo baby. Seventy eight percent is no mandate. Well if that's true what sort of a mandate has the Irish Independent stemming from its zero readership? It has the mandate of a newspaper group whose proprietor made his fortune by bribing the party of government to give him mobile phone service provision contracts dirt cheap. That is to say the Irish Independent no mandate whatsoever outside of the seventh ring of hell. Of course the census statistic which contrary to what Miss Devlin asserts actually shows an overwhelming mandate for the church, also understates that real mandate considerably, since many parents who are not Catholic absolutely insist that the Catholic church runs the best schools on earth and want their children to attend them. Just as many hundreds of thousands of people have come here to live as immigrants fully aware of Ireland's ancient Christian heritage."

****

Archbishop Diarmuid Martin: "The census probably overstates the Catholic population."

James Healy: "Hi Archie. I've missed you. Infiltrated any ancient, beautiful and true religions lately on behalf of the old Soviet Union or some other secret brotherhood of evil?"

if the joke needs an explanation it is not a good joke

The poet Brendan Kennelly is standing in a field. He is watching a country road that winds by, rising to the horizon. The wind whips his hair.

Brendan Kennelly: "There's something strange about... Toyota Drivers."

A Toyota Corolla whizzes into view.
Camera cuts to the Toyota's interior.
James Healy is arguing with the car's computer.

Heelers: "I have my seat belt fastened. What the hell are you talking about?"

Toyota: "Beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beeeeeeep..."

Heelers: "Listen to me you beepstard. I'm wearing it."

Toyota: "Beep, beep, beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep,"

Heelers: "Is it the dogs? Are you telling me to put a seatbelt on the dogs?"

Toyota: "BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP."

Heelers: "You vicious swine. I can't put it on the dogs. You're a programmable onboard computer. You should know the difference between dogs and an actual person in the passenger seat."

Toyota: "BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP."

Heelers: "I'm warning you. You ----ing --------. Shut the ---- up."

Toyota: "BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP."

Heelers: "You're from Planet Claire aren't you?"

The car disappears over the hill.
Brendan Kennelly turns to the camera.

Brendan Kennelly: "If I could drive... I would drive a Toyota... because... there's something strange... about meeeeeeeeeeeeeee."



Explanation for the joke: A decade ago the poet Brendan Kennelly truly was the host of an ad in Ireland for Toyota Motors. He did indeed begin this ad with the line: "There's something strange about Toyota drivers." His pronunciation of the word strange by the way was with a Kerry intonation. ie "strenge." Brendan Kennelly rather famously in Ireland, has never driven a car himself. Hence the above bit of light heartedness is rich with layers of resonant hilarity. Far from being a rubbish joke, it is an excellent joke. And you people need to start trying harder to appreciate me.

the dead parrot sketch

Scene: A dingy pet shop. Tony O'Reilly, former proprietor of the Independent Newspapers group, is behind the counter. Enter Denis O'Brien, the new proprietor of Independent Newspapers, stage left. Denis O'Brien is holding a bird cage. The cage contains a parrot made out of old newspapers.

Tony O'Reilly: Morning Guv.

Denis O'Brien: (Holding up the cage.) Ere! That newspaper group I wrested control of from you, is dead.

Tony O'Reilly: No it isn't.

Denis O'Brien: Look at it. It's just like a dead parrot made out of old Evening Heralds and Sunday Worlds. Look. His face is a mast head from the Irish Independent. He's useless.

Tony O'Reilly: No mate. That newspaper group is in the prime of its 'ealth.

Denis O'Brien: It's as dead as the dodo.

Tony O'Reilly: Not a bit of it. It's brimming with life. Look. Coo eee. Chirpy, chirpy, cheap, cheap. (He makes bird sounds into the cage with emphasis on the cheap.)

Denis O'Brien: I tell you it's dead. There's no advertising. No income stream. No possible reason for it to continue existing.

Tony O'Reilly: You're crazy mate. That newspaper group is efferpheasant with energy. See. There's an Ian O'Doherty TV review. Who's a pretty boy then? And there's an Irish Indo classic from just this week with Martina Devlin saying the Catholic Church has no mandate because only 78 percent of the citizenry self identify in a census as Catholic. Polly want a cracker! Ah. She's luvverly.

Denis O'Brien: Listen here sir. This newspaper group which I stole from you using billion dollar assets I first obtained illegally by bribing government minister Michael Lowry, just as you stole it from whoever controlled it before you using similarly criminally obtained billion dollar assets snaffled courtesy of whoever you were bribing at the time, this newspaper group I tell you is defunct. It is an ex newspaper group. It has no life in it. It has no breath in it. It has nothing going for it. It has no wit. It has no contributors of merit. It has no principles. It has no public standing. It has no insight. It has no integrity. It has no readers. It is the newspaper group that was. It is a former newspaper group. It is a once was a newspaper group. It is the ghost of newspaper groups past. It is a newspaper group RIP.

Tony O'Reilly; You got me there Guv. But wasn't it fun while it lasted!

Denis O'Brien: Not really, no.

Tony O'Reilly: Oh right. I remember.

eve of the war

franny and pip sitting in a tree
kay eye ess ess eye en jee
the children are mocking two
who toy with mystery
in shadow and in light
the day saffrons into darkness
the darkness into night
and the night prophesies
a thousand sunsets in the desert
my last hope
caught in the downflow of starlight into sky
only this
frances and philip
and their kiss