valorous idylls chapter 27

My Bobble Hat Is Quick

Cousin John Berney arrives to jump start the car.
The car's engine is out in sympathy with Lefty The Arm.
John jump starts the car and enters the house.
I show him the new television.
"I can't abide it," I say. "In conscience I don't see how anyone can support satelite service providers who pornographically exploit the human form for profit.  Whether it's sex or violence, they're wilfully and deliberately disrupting the mental health of successive generations. They're actually culturing people to commit acts of rape and violence. The sensualisation of murder is concealed in comedy zombie films like Shawn Of The Dead and Anna And The Apocalypse. You know, they're eroticising murder. Then there's the licence fee you have to pay in this country. I can't agree to finance RTE's culture war against Christianity and that's what they use the licence fee for. Then there's Putin's Russia Today and the Murdocks Sky' News and the Nazis' Al Jazeera all trying to convince people there's no Jihad only climate change. I don't want to be complicit with any of them. There's only one thing for it. I'm going to have to get rid of the television."
"I'll take it if you want," says the Cousin helpfully.
It was too late to back down.
It had all happened very fast.
My bluff had been called rather sooner than expected.
"Oh! Would you? You'd be doing me a big favour," I manage.
And he took my TV.
When he'd gone, the ghosts of somebody called Gordon Sumner and somebody called Stewart Copeland and somebody called Andy Summers entered and set up their instruments in the corner.
They sang thusly:
"That ain't working
That's the way you do it
You start a car
And you take his TV.
Oh that ain't working.
That's the way you do it.
You jump start a car
And get your tellies for free
We gotta install microwave ovens
Custom kitchen deliverie-e-e-e-s
We gotta move these refrigerators
We gotta take James Healy's TV-e-e-e-e-e.
Wulla wulla."